Srimad Bhagavatham

Srimad Bhagavatham - A Spiritual Insight - Story 28 - Story of Dhruva – Analysis of Vasudeva Mantra

Explanation

We will try to analyze the Vasudeva mantra AUM NAMO VASUDEVAYA as well as try to look into what a mantra is and its use for a seeker. Mantra is derived as Mananaat traayathe ithi mantrah – That which uplifts when contemplated or repeated is called a mantra.

Any mantra is meant as a means of contemplation on the ultimate reality of Brahman or Consciousness or Lord. We have to remember that any spiritual sadhana is only a means to remembering the ultimate reality that there is only ONE Consciousness here and whatever is diversely seen is only an illusion of names and forms superimposed on the ONE reality. Any sadhana thus is a means to the final goal of realization of one’s own very nature of Lord when the seeker realizes that there is nothing here but the Lord alone. If this truth about sadhanaas is forgotten, then the seeker is deluded into the various means and he thinks the means to be the ends. It is as if a person is considering the path of travel to Delhi as Delhi!!! There is nothing more foolish than this. There are many people in the world who stick on to the means rather than the goal – those are people who stick to the travel path of FLIGHT forgetting that the means are not as important as the goal.

It can be asked as to why the means are not important as the goal. The reason is that the means itself are only an illusion in the illusory world even as a dream lion helps a person to wake up from the dream world. The Self or the ultimate reality is ever-present and our own very nature is the Self or Lord only. This reality seems to be forgotten and thereby the seeker is deluded into thinking that he is limited and he has a body-mind etc. In order to remove this delusion of the seeker, the spiritual paths are mentioned. These paths never create a new Lord or create new realization of the Lord but they only remove the ignorance about the ultimate reality that “I am the Lord”. This ever-present experience of each person as “I-exist, I-exist” is Consciousness or the Lord. Because of ignorance of this reality, the seeker is deluded into thinking that “I am the body, mind etc”. When the seeker contemplates on the ultimate reality of Lord and that the Lord alone is present in the heart of all beings, then this ignorance veil is removed (the ignorance veil which has no real existence but just seems to exist like any illusion). When the ignorance veil is removed, the seeker realizes his own very nature of ever-present Lord of the nature of Existence, Consciousness and Bliss absolute.

Thus any means are nothing but that which helps to remove the ignorance veil. Once ignorance veil is removed, it is realized that there never was any ignorance at all – because at all points of time, we are the Lord only (not different from him). Thus the illusory ignorance which seemed to exist is removed through the spiritual sadhana or pursuits. This is something like a person seeing water in desert. He goes near the desert and then water vanishes. In fact, he thinks that water has vanished but realizes that there never was any water at all – the water which seemed to exist vanished. This is what is called Realization in Vedanta. Thus the means become invalid once the reality is realized because the means are also only illusions which help to remove the bigger illusion of ignorance and samsaara.

Thus he who clings on to the means is like a person who clings on to the dream world and not wanting to wake up from the dream world. Thus we have to constantly remember while traversing the spiritual path that any means or any sadhana whether it be Bhakthi towards the Lord or the scriptural study under a Guru are all illusions and not the end of the path. The end is non-dual ultimate reality of Brahman or Lord which is one’s own very nature.

It can be doubted as to whether Sri Krishna mentions the above things or whether it is the words from the limited intellect of HARIRAM -- J This doubt can very well be solved by Sri Krishna’s own words from Gita.

Na me partha asthi kartavyam trishu lokeshu kinchana

O Arjuna! I don’t have any duty whatsoever in the three worlds.

What is “I”? Is it just the Ishwara and not the limited jeeva which we all are? No, it isn’t because Sri Krishna himself says
Avajaananthi maam moodaah manusheem tanum aasritam

Those who consider me as embodied are really fools only – they don’t realize my eternal nature which is all-pervasive Lord.

Kshetrajnam cha api maam viddhi sarva kshetreshu bhaaratha

The Self or indweller of all the temples in the world (temple here refers to the body and the entire spectra of perishable entities) is nothing but ME alone.

Thus Krishna mentions “I” as the ultimate reality of Lord or Brahman which is our own very nature itself. And Krishna mentions that there is no duty for the Self or Atman. This means that there are no spiritual disciplines as such required for the Self – there is no particular sadhana mentioned.

Thus Sri Krishna very clearly mentions that all means are really of no use. This sentence should be understood properly else it will lead to confusions and more problems only. For a realized saint, the means are of no use. For the seeker, the means are useful for contemplation of the reality. It really doesn’t matter what means the seeker is following but it matters the attitude with which the means are being followed by the seeker – the degree of dedication, devotion and attention.

Remembering that all means are finally of no use but are only helpful to still the mind or focus the mind on the reality, let us see what is the effect of mantras. Any mantra has several letters – some of the letters in Sanskrit are called Bheeja aksharas which represent a god or goddess. Mere utterance of such a letter has the effect of purifying the mind, stilling the mind and the making the environment conducive for contemplation of the reality. Mantras have several such letters which are formed together to represent the ultimate reality of Brahman in the form of various gods and goddesses. The core of all mantras or the king of all mantras is the PRANAVA MANTRA. All mantras have pranava mantra associated with them. Thus without AUM, there is no mantra at all. Whether it be the panchakshara mantra of aum namah shivaya or the shodashaakshari mantra, all have AUM in them. A mantra has the effect of focusing the mind to the object of concentration. Also as an intermediate effect, the mantras purify the atmosphere and mind so that they are filled with huge amounts of energy which can be used to contemplate on the reality and progress further in the path of spiritual realization. Thus the mantras have mainly two-fold purpose – one being enabling contemplation on the ultimate reality indirectly through a form and a name – second being purification of the mind and cleaning the environment by charging with spiritual power that helps to contemplate on the reality much easier than normally what it would have been. Thus it is not required to mention here to all the seekers that it is easier to contemplate when there is chanting of rudra going on whereas it is tough to contemplate in a liquor shop.

Having analyzed the importance of mantras, let us try to see in brief what is the meaning of the mantra AUM NAMO VAASUDEVAAYA. The pranava mantra has many meanings and since it is a very vast topic, we will not deal it here. It can just be remembered that AUM represents the ultimate reality of Brahman or Lord and is one of the two words that were uttered from the mouth of Lord Brahma at the time of creation.

NAMAH means prostration
VASUDEVAAYA means “to vaasudeva”.

The total meaning is “My prostration to VAASUDEVA who is none other than the ultimate reality of Brahman”.

We all know in general that VAASUDEVA is used for Lord Krishna. But if we clearly analyze the meaning of the word, we will come to know that the word doesn’t mean the form of Krishna but the ultimate reality of Brahman which is all-pervading.

Vishnu purana describes Vaasudeva as:
Sarvatra asau sarvam cha vasathi atra vai yathah
Tatah sah vaasudevam ithi vidvadbhih paripatyathe

That which is present everywhere & in which everything is present is called Vasudeva by knowers of the ultimate reality.

That which is present everywhere – the Lord is present everywhere – there is only one entity which is conscious and present everywhere which is the ultimate reality of Brahman or Lord or Consciousness. All the beings, the entire world filled with insentient and sentient entities are present in the ultimate reality of Brahman as its substratum. If the reality of Lord is not there, then there is nothing. Everything has thus come from the Lord, resides in the Lord and merges into the Lord at the time of destruction. This is because the Lord is the reality pervading or underlying the illusory world. The Lord is the substratum of the illusory world. Therefore everything is present in the Lord who is the substratum of the illusory things termed as “everything” collectively here.

Thus the mantra means my prostrations to the ultimate reality of Lord who alone is present. Since Lord is present everywhere and everything is only an illusion in him – therefore we all are the Lord only, we are not different from the Lord. Our very nature is the ultimate reality of Lord of the nature of Consciousness and Bliss absolute.

This is in short the essence of the mantra of AUM NAMO VAASUDEVAAYA. There can be many interpretations of the mantra as well as the description can extend on and on without any end. But since we have to deal with the ultimate reality of Lord who is indicated through the mantra and not the mantra as such, therefore we will just be content with the meaning that the mantra is offering the prostrations to the ultimate reality of Brahman or Lord which is our own very nature itself.

We will see as to what happened to Dhruva after contemplation on the ultimate reality of Lord in the coming posts.

Srimad Bhagavatham - A Spiritual Insight - Story 28 - Story of Dhruva – Tapas - an analysis

Explanation

Dhruva went and told his mother whatever happened and his mother Suniti told him to do Tapas and seek the ultimate reality of Lord. Thus we will try to analyze on what Tapas is.

The word TAPAH means heat. TAPAS in its spiritual sense mean heating or burning up of various vasanas or latent tendencies and samskaaraas in the mind. The mind of a seeker is fully tainted with latent tendencies. The moment a desire comes in the mind of a seeker, he indulges in various activities. These activities leave a taint of either attachment or aversion based on the result of the action as per the expectation of the seeker. It never happens that a seeker does an action but still is unaffected by it – this is the real state of a realized saint which is the real state of the Self. But a seeker is one who has forgotten the Self and seems to be limited. Therefore he gets affected or seemingly affected by the various actions in the world. Thus when a person praises a seeker, the seeker’s mind is left with the taint of attraction towards that person. When a person instead of praising abuses the seeker, the seeker’s mind is tainted with aversion towards that person. Thus any action when not performed with the right attitude (which is offering the action to the Lord by complete and total surrender to the Lord – such an action has no expectation and hence the result of such an action is purification of the mind alone & there are no taints in the mind left by impressions in the mind by those actions).

When an action leaves its impressions, these impressions are called vaasanaas or samskaaraas. We can understand this very clearly through the example of ripples created in water. A stone is thrown into the water – this stone causes a ripple in the water. Similarly any action leaves an impression in the mind as to a particular person or to the action itself. Thus when a person eats LADDOOS, he feels happy as it is sweet. This action of eating a laddoo leaves an impression and thereby he is always attracted to eating laddoos. The moment he sees a laddoo, he has the desire to eat it. On the contrary this is not the case of some bad tasting object. Thus impressions of the mind are nothing but various strong thoughts about that object or action in the mind. As long as these tendencies are there, a seeker cannot really get purification of mind because they are obstacles or impurities of the mind. Even as a mirror which is impure cannot reflect one’s face – similarly a mind which is impure cannot reflect the Self which is the source of the mind. Thus it is very essential for a seeker to control these vasanaas until there are none left.

These latent tendencies are what we normally call in modern language as “addiction”. It creates strong bondage to a person or an object – thereby making the seeker not able to live without the object/person. Thus we find strong attachments towards parents and other people in the world. These are also vasanaas or latent tendencies because those become a hindrance to the spiritual path. Vedanta never tells a person to leave the world and not look after parents. But it only says that a person should be detached to all the things in the world as everything is only an illusion and cannot give eternal bliss. Attachment is not a problem when it is associated with detachment. Thus the seeker should be able to renounce everything in a single moment for the sake of the ultimate reality of Lord – unless this is there, there is attachment and these attachments are also bondage for the Self obscuring the Self. Thus every attachment is also a vasana.

In order to remove these vasanas, a seeker needs to do intense tapas or austerity. Thus TAPAS is burning all these vasanas so that the seeker is able to contemplate on the ultimate reality of Lord without any distractions. Thus the real TAPAS is that in which vasanas are eliminated or reduced.

There are many people who consider various ritualistic actions like sandhya, japa, dhyaanas as tapas. These are tapas only if they eliminate vasanas from the seeker’s mind. If these themselves become strong vasanas that a person gets attached to them too much and cannot even live a day without them, then these are not tapas but these are also sources of vasaanas and bondage. Thus these activities are meant to make the seeker constantly remember the ultimate reality of Lord and are only means to the goal of Lord. Means are also to be renounced even as a person catches the office bus in the morning and after reaching office, leaves the bus.

Thus any action which helps to remember the Lord is TAPAS. Thus mere chanting of the Lord’s name as well as speaking about the Lord are all TAPAS which completely destroys vasanas.

If this is the case, why did people go to forest to do TAPAS?
TAPAS or removal of obstacles requires a conducive environment wherein no new attachments are nourished. Therefore austerity used to be performed in a secluded area. Any area where the thought of Lord alone is there is a real secluded area even though it might be in a liquor shop. Thus we need not really bother about the environment – environment is not the problem but what is the problem is the attitude or mind with which the environment is perceived. The same idol is seen as the Lord himself by a devotee whereas an atheist sees it as an insentient stone. Thus wherever there is constant remembrance of the Lord, there is tapas being performed there.

Thus we can put down innumerous tapas in spiritual path. WE need not really worry about the action that we are doing but we have to be careful about the attitude with which the action is being performed. When the action is offered to the Lord, it is real TAPAS and burns vasanas completely – thereby making the seeker realize the ultimate reality of Lord.