bhagavatam ESSENCE OF BHAGAVATAM

[dattaswami]

ESSENCE OF BHAGAVATAM

 

If the goal is highest, there will be highest complication in the path. If the goal is at certain achievable height, the path to it will not have so much complication. Therefore, the intensity of complication increases as the height of the goal increases. Pravrutti is at normal height (social justice) and is selected by majority of humanity. Here, you have to vote for justice against injustice in this path of pravrutti. You are protected by God in this path as long as you follow justice avoiding injustice. God also encourages this path of pravrutti in many ways by granting several rewards. If you do not want highest complication, avoid the goal of nivrutti (complete surrender and love to God) and confine yourself with the path of pravrutti, which is followed by majority. In pravrutti employer-employee relationship exists between God and devotee. As long as the employee works well following the rules and conduct, God is pleased and grants several boons to encourage such right behavior of the employee. In this pravrutti path, the soul should be alert and careful always like an employee in the office so that slip from justice and bending towards injustice are totally avoided, which lead to punishments.

You work in the office of God like any other employee. As long as you follow justice and avoid injustice, you will be always in heaven here and there and you will not even see the hell here and there. The ultimate goal of God to come in human form to this world is pravrutti only, which is applicable to every human being so that the world-drama continues peacefully without any disturbance.

Nivrutti is totally different. An employee in God's office creates good impression in the mind of the Boss (God) as usual similar to any other good employee. But, one mental employee with over extracurricular activity gets attracted with the boss and likes the boss terribly to such extent by which the employee tries to enter the family of God as a family member. Ofcourse, the advantage here is that God takes total responsibility of the employee succeeding in nivrutti. Actually the employee is called as the close family member of God and is no more employee. This employee enters the board of administration of the office and attains the status of employer by becoming part and parcel of the Boss. This path of nivrutti is beyond normal procedures involving lot of complication. The Boss gives employment in the office very easily to any candidate interested to do the job. But, if the employee desires to become the personal family member of the Boss, the scope of selection is very tedious and highly discouraging involving severe tests and very high complications. The selection in pravrutti is very easy, though discharging the duties of pravrutti after appointment is some what difficult, but one can do it. The selection in nivrutti is very very rare involving lot of confusion in the path and hardly one may succeed after severe efforts put in millions of births (bahuunaam janmanaam..., kaschitmaam... Gita).

Therefore, selection of nivrutti-path is done by you and God is not at all responsible and the total responsibility lies with you. If one is really interested in nivrutti, he/she should not be worried about the path except about the ultimate goal. If one is determined to achieve the goal, the complication of the path to any extent is immaterial. A soul suitable for pravrutti also enquirers about nivrutti to see whether it is possible to proceed in it. Such person, sometimes, points out at high difficulties and criticizes that the path is not in the welfare of all. A candidate, incapable of preparation of I.A.S. examination, criticizes the standards of the syllabuses and even appeals to dilute the standards so that all can become I.A.S. officers! There is no need of criticism of nivrutti from a pravrutti-follower. A nivrutti determined soul will never criticize the path of nivrutti. Who is asking you to come to the path of nivrutti and succeed in it, especially when God Himself is discouraging it!

Ofcourse God is compelling every soul to follow the path of pravrutti using the attraction to rewards and fear for punishments. The complication in nivrutti is beyond the scope of the follower of pravrutti. Same complication in nivrutti is not threatening the follower of nivrutti. In such case where is the scope of complaint from any corner regarding the complication of nivrutti? However, once again, I am presenting the entire subject of nivrutti through reshuffling of analysis in the context of presenting a few songs from Gopi Gita into English language. Language is not a barrier for communicating the subject and its inspiration. Dress cannot affect the natural personality of a human being.

Nivrutti should also be known to every human being because one can achieve high result or at least normal result if the goal is highest. Another point is that if you understand nivrutti well, now itself, the subject is present with the individual soul as memory (samskara), which may be carried on to the next birth provided the soul gets human birth as immediate follow-up. However, if the next birth is the life of animal, this memory is lost. After attaining this memory in theory, if you make trials to practice it, you may get next birth as human being. However, the soul seriously interested in nivrutti does not take risk of all these factors of next birth and tries to succeed in this human birth itself. However, if the goal is nivrutti, the soul will certainly succeed in pravrutti.

The Bhagavatam is the most confusing part of spiritual knowledge especially in the context of stealing butter or dancing with married Gopikas in the midnight, which is the most complicated side of Lord Krishna. No other religion contains such shocking complication. Suppose we say that we can neglect this complicated side of Lord Krishna and proceed with the rest part of life of Krishna and also the total life of Rama, one can proceed easily in pravrutti provided there is no interest in nivrutti. I am shouting again and again regarding one point that a specific soul only is interested in nivrutti, which is also discouraged by God always. You can keep nivrutti as theoretical goal to achieve practical success in pravrutti.

Nivrutti, being the highest, naturally, attracts every soul. Every soul is very anxious to have the unique personal relationship with God. In nivrutti, there is no danger of slip since God takes the personal responsibility of the close family member. Pravrutti is totally different, which depends upon your grip to justice and power of resistance to injustice. Pravrutti is like the child catching the womb of the mother as in the case of the monkey (markata kishora nyaya). In nivrutti, the soul is in the grip of God like the child caught by the mouth of mother in journey as in the case of cat (marjala kishora nyaya). Apart from this aspect of fruit oriented attraction, which is not recommended in nivrutti, the attraction to the divine personality without any reason and without aspiration for any fruit is the main essence of nivrutti. Pravrutti involves the aspiration for fruit, which is not minded by God. Boss will not mind to give you salary and even rewards as long as you work well in the office. But, in nivrutti, the aspiration for fruit is totally absent as in the case of the wife of the Boss working in the office like supervision without any aspiration for the salary or rewards.

Nivrutti comes to the front place in view of these unique advantages even though fruit oriented aspect is totally forbidden. Due to the above mentioned confusion and complication, why not we set aside this earlier part of the life of Krishna or for that matter, even to close the Bhagavatam to avoid this since a part of the book cannot be neglected. The Bharatam also involves the life of Krishna, which is similar to the life of Rama. Except those incidents in Brindavanam, there is no difference between the lives of Rama and Krishna. But, the Bharatam and the Ramayanam mainly stand for pravrutti. Hence, the Bhagavatam cannot be closed in nivrutti. Once the Bhagavatam is opened, we cannot neglect the earlier life of Lord Krishna in it, which is a part of it.

The problem becomes more serious when we hear that the Bhagavatam alone was recommended to give salvation to king Pariskshit in 7 days! This brings the blowing of air on fir e. Added to this, another point is that the spiritual knowledge of a preacher shall be tested from his capability in understanding the Bhagavatam, which is called as real knowledge or Vidya (Vidyavatam bhagavate pariksha). This is like pouring petrol in the fire which is already blown by air!!

None Will Have Jealousy & None Will Doubt Partiality After Tests

The Bhagavatam is said to give salvation in the case of Parikshit. In the above mentioned verse, the Bhagavatam is said to be vidya. Vidya means knowledge for salvation as stated by scripture “yaa vidya saa vimuktaye”. Both these points show that the Bhagavatam explains the salvation, which is liberation of soul from worldly bonds. Liberation from world is an indirect measure of the intensity of association with God. The cause of liberation must be association with God. Other than this reason of God, any other reason is useless. A student is not seeing cinemas and this is indirectly based on the reason that he is studying well. There may be other reasons like sleeping, drinking, playing etc. Hence, the understood and expected reason is studying class books. Hence, the conclusion is that salvation means liberation from worldly bonds due to the unidirectional bond with God.

The strongest bonds (Eshanas) are said to be bond with life partner, bond with issues and bond with money. If you analyze this complicated path, God Krishna tested the sages born as Gopikas in the liberation of these three strongest bonds. Dance with married Gopikas shows the test of the strength of the bond with life partner. Stealing butter from house saved to feed the issues indicates the test of the intensity of the bond with issues. Asking the butter in the path, which is taken by Gopikas to Madhura city to convert into money needed for provisions is the test of strength of bond with the money. All these activities understood in the light of breaking these three strongest bonds gives the purity of the background. Especially, when Krishna has lot of butter in His house this stealing shows the real color of test. Test is inevitable before giving the result. Then only none will have jealousy and none will doubt about the partiality of giving result to undeserving. Even if the teacher says that a student is good in the subject, the university conducts the open examination to all and then only the result is declared. The word of the teacher can't be taken into confidence to avoid the doubt of partiality.

Rama is born only for pravrutti and behaved like normal human being without showing any miracle. Krishna is mainly for nivrutti to give salvation to the sages born as Gopikas. They tried to embrace Rama by becoming females since they realized that God alone is male. Shri Paramahamsa also belongs to the level of those sages and stayed in Brindavanam for one month in the dress of female. Creation or prakruti is female. Creator or purusha is masculine. The individual soul is para prakruti and the body is apara-prakruti. Therefore, a human being, being the combination of the individual soul and body is totally prakruti or female. The Veda also says that the male souls also are females and wives of God (Striyah satih pumsah). Meera questioned her preacher Tulasidas “Is there a male in souls also?” In another type of classification based on superficial names, in the Gita, the body (Apara) is said to be prakruti, individual soul (para) is said to be purusha and God is said to be purushottama. Both these classifications mean the same. Creator is purusha or purushottama. The body is apara-prakruti or simply prakruti. The individual soul is said to be para prakruti or purusha. Though the individual soul is also prakruti (since para and apara constitute prakruti), the individual soul is also called as purusha due to little freedom exhibited by the individual soul on the body. Hence, the human being stands for creation and God in human form stands for creator.

First, miracles were exhibited by Lord Krishna to establish Himself as God and this is first filtration, which filters Him from majority of humanity. The second filtration is filtering Krishna from demons, who are also capable of miracles. The demons attempted to kill Krishna through miraculous powers and killing of demons by Krishna in reverse, filters Krishna from demons. Apart from knowledge and love, miracle is also a characteristic of God (satya kamah— Veda). Demons have that one characteristic only, which was also obtained from God only. Krishna lifted hill and Ravana also lifted hill. But, Krishna preached the Gita where as Ravana can never do it. The reason for the exhibition of several miracles in the childhood by Krishna is to distinguish Himself as God from other human beings. The reason is that Krishna is going to test the sages by stealing and dancing. Both these may be imitated by the other human beings since He has to exhibit pravrutti and nivrutti in the same place, the earth. If nivrutti is done in upper world (Goloka) and pravrutti is done here (Bhuloka), this problem will not be there. To avoid this false imitation by extension of nivrutti into pravrutti due to the common place (earth), He separated the two subjects of pravrutti and nivrutti. By miracles, He isolated Himself from other human beings as God to say that nivrutti belongs to God only and not to ordinary souls. He finished Nivrutti in the very first stroke of His life and then proceeded to pravrutti. Even though separation of these two subjects was done by Lord in this way, God has taken some extra precautions also to distinguish Himself from ordinary souls of Pravrutti in order to arrest the extension of nivrutti into pravrutti.

These precautions are: 1) He did not have any selfish intention of eating butter since He gave the butter to the children of those houses only by rotation. A soul in Pravrutti steals only with selfishness. 2) Krishna did not run to the houses of Gopikas for secret affair as we see the case of ordinary souls. He stayed only in Brindavanam and Gopikas only ran to Him from village. 3) He asked Gopikas to return threatening them that the consequence will be hell for that sin. Gopikas refused and threatened Him to commit suicide in the absence of dance. 4) He selected the midnight as the time so that the families are not hurt being in deep sleep. 5) Full moon season was selected so that Gopikas can easily reach Brindavanam. 6) Stealing the butter was preferred so that Gopikas are not scolded by their elders. 7) Krishna was after Gopikas for butter and romance in their paths so that their family members are not hurt. 😎 All this secrecy was maintained in the time of Krishna to save the social prestige of Gopikas and not to hurt their families. After the generation of Krishna only, Vyasa revealed this secrecy to show its importance in the Bhagavatam.

Love Between Krishna & Gopikas Not Based on Thirst for Sex

Once the program of nivrutti was finished at Brindavanam, Krishna left it to proceed for the establishment of pravrutti. Krishna never repeated this elsewhere throughout His life and was just like Rama in establishing the justice. Non-repetition of the sin is a proof of absence of wrong selfish intention like illegal sex and accumulating personal wealth by stealing. Vyasa met with the widow-wives of His brothers to generate issues on the order of His mother. Shankara also entered the body of King Amaruka and enjoyed with the wives of the King to learn sex education for a debate with Ubhaya Bharati. Both Vyasa and Shankara did not repeat this sin again in their lives like Krishna and hence non-repetition of sin proves that they were not sinners due to their some other pure intention. In these three cases non-repetition of sin is the common factor, but there is a difference. There was love in the hearts of both Krishna and Gopikas. In the case of Vyasa and Shankara, there is no such love on either side. But, the point here is that the love between Krishna and Gopikas was not based on the thirst for physical sex. The reason is that Gopikas were married and there is no such need for them. Krishna is God and does not have thirst for anything being the boundless ocean of bliss. There is nothing to be attained or not attained by God and hence there is no need of any desire in the case of God (aapthkamasya… Veda, naanavaaptam… Gita).

This love is very pure, which is between God and soul purely based on the attraction to divine personality of God existing in the minds of sages for past millions of births. In these past births also, never there was any possibility of sex since all the sages are males only. In the previous birth before taking birth of Gopikas, sages developed the desire to become females not because of thirst for sex, but because they realized that all souls are females and wives of God. Husband means the maintaining person. Wife means the maintained person. All souls are maintained by God only. It is because of this pure love based on pure spiritual knowledge, such idea came to their minds. This love can't be compared to the love between two souls differing in gender. Such love between souls is purely based on the thirst for sex only. You cannot bring such pure love of sages to God existing for millions of births to the case of two souls. The reason is that no two souls have such constant association for several births since the souls change their associations like the actors in roles from one cinema to other cinema. But, in this case the same love of sages to God continued for millions of births and thus the present love of Krishna and Gopikas has very long pure background. Such long background is impossible between any two souls. Hence, the case of Krishna and Gopikas becomes totally different from the case of any pair of souls differing in gender meeting as a couple.

When the love between Krishna and Gopikas was not based on physical sex as in the case of ordinary souls, how the illegal sex between Krishna and Gopikas was referred in the Bhagavatam by Vyasa? Does this mean that there was external sex like kissing, embracing etc., only and not the internal sex (copulation)? The scholar, Shridhara, a great commentator on the Bhagavatam, wrote that there is no leakage of sperm (retah skhalanam). Does this mean that the entire internal sex was avoided or does this mean that though internal sex was done, the leakage of sperm by Krishna did not take place due to His miraculous power? The second option is ruled out because the internal sex without leakage of sperm is like the same using a condom. Then, this means that if condom is used, it is not a sin! Hence, this should mean that the very act of internal sex is not done. In such case, how the word 'internal sex' (surata) was used by Vyasa in the Bhagavatam? Did the Lord avoid leakage of sperm to avoid pregnancy? If the Lord has miraculous powers, He can avoid pregnancy even if the leakage of sperm took place.

In the three cases of Vyasa, Shankara and Krishna all the points become common: 1) Non-repetition of sin elsewhere at any time after this incident. 2) No love in the cases of Vyasa and Shankara and love exists in the case of Krishna as reciprocating love towards the love of Gopikas to Krishna. But, this love is not the ordinary physical thirst (as there was no such need on both sides) and it is pure love of male sages to God accumulated continuously from several births. Therefore, all these three cases are one and the same in all aspects.

Sacrifice Becomes Total If Same Specific Total Bond Expressed in God

Now the question comes that why the internal sex in physical sense has taken place between Krishna and Gopikas? The reason is that such internal sex was the desire from the side of Gopikas only since God never develops such thirst for external or internal sex. Gopikas also do not have such need because they were married leading a good family life. If there is no need on the side of Gopikas, what is the reason for their desire for internal or external sex? The reason is that the complete breakage of bond with the life partner is not proved if there is such deficiency. It cannot be a total sacrifice of a specific bond unless the same specific total bond is expressed in the case of God. You need not bother about the internal sex separately because even external sex is a sin equal to internal sex. If you try to eliminate the internal sex, the problem is not solved because even the external sex is a sin. At every stage of this discussion, a warning bell should be frequently given that no point of nivrutti should be extended to pravrutti because 1) nivrutti is the subject of God and soul. Pravrutti is the subject between souls. 2) Non-repetition of sin elsewhere proves lack of bad selfish intention. 3) God is filtered from majority of souls due to possession of unimaginable powers and this is the first filtration of God from majority of humanity. Demons performing miracles can be filtered by second filtration of unimaginable knowledge and unimaginable love to souls. Ravana also may lift hill but cannot deliver the Gita. Dealing of Krishna with Gopikas is also based on absence of cheating or force and in fact based in even discouraging Gopikas from sin and hell. Ravana forced other ladies and cheated Sita in stealing Her. Though Lord stole butter, it was given to their children coming as His friends only on rotation. Ravana stole others wealth for self only.

If you make all ordinary souls also as God through propagation of philosophy of monism (Advaita), the fantastic danger that attacks pravrutti immediately is that why not an ordinary soul also behave like Krishna since both are the same God? Now, the first filtration is to be applied to say that no human soul is God and the second filtration is to be applied to say that no demon/angel performing miracles is also God. This clearly establishes the dualism between God and soul. Ofcourse, the monism is also true if you see the case of a human being, son of Vasudeva, is God. Similarly the energetic form like sage Narayana is God.

There are three fundamental qualities called as Sattvam, Rajas and Tamas. No single quality like 100% sattvam can ever exist. Pure sattvam means only 99% sattvam. The residual 1% is rajas and tamas. Vishnu is predominating sattvam and hence Rama is also the same. When the three qualities exist in equal ratio, such energetic incarnation is called as Datta. Rama is incarnation of Vishnu and Krishna is incarnation of Datta. Hence, you can find the activities of rajas and tamas also in Krishna, which were essential for His program.

The total sacrifice of Gopikas explains the dance in Brindavanam with Lord Krishna. If you omit even a little (1%) from the total sacrifice (100%) and say that the 99% sacrifice is also a total sacrifice, souls unable to do that 1% sacrifice will exploit and take the advantage of total sacrifice!

All Gopikas could not pass in all subjects. Some Gopikas complained to Yashoda regarding stealing and dance and such Gopikas are the candidates not appearing for the examination. Some Gopikas gave butter to Krishna but did not go to dance due to fear to sin and hell. Some Gopikas attended the dance but objected Krishna in stealing butter and complained to Yashoda due to greediness. On hearing the flute from Brindavanam, some awoke but did not move from beds. Some arose and just sat on beds. Some got down from cots and stood only. Some went up to the doors only, but could not come out. Some opened the doors but due to lack of talent in opening doors, family members awoke and stopped them. Some Gopikas pushed away the family members and ran to the Lord. Only some Gopikas opened the doors with high talent and ran to Lord while their family members are in deep sleep. This last set of Gopikas, who also gave butter to Lord with full willingness were declared as successful candidates for Goloka.

The Gita says that the devotion, which does not exist for any inert item or for any non-inert item alone, will make you achieve God. The Gita says that with such devotion only God is attained (Bhaktyaa tvananyayaa…). For such unique and unidirectional devotion only, God takes the responsibility of protecting the soul here (Kshema) and there (Yoga).

Conquering Different Types of Ego

Gopikas were salvated in their last birth. Last birth means the birth in which examination by Lord was conducted. The sages conquered all types of ego through several births. In the last but previous birth, the sages conquered all the ego including gender and hence liked to become females and embrace the Lord. In the last birth as Gopikas, they were examined about their victories over various types of ego. They conquered ego of caste by taking birth in low caste, conquered ego of gender by becoming females, conquered ego of knowledge by becoming uneducated, conquered ego of beauty by becoming normal looking, conquered ego of colour by becoming black, conquered ego of wealth by becoming poor, conquered ego of age of youth being elder than Krishna, conquered bond with life-partner by dance with God, conquered bond with issues by giving saved butter to the Lord, conquered bond with money by giving butter to the Lord in the way to Madhura city. Very few Gopikas conquered all the bonds and attained the highest stage of devotion in which nothing and nobody was leftover which or who was not sacrificed for the sake of God. This is the final stage in which firm decision of sacrifice was taken without any further analysis. This final stage is full tamas quality representing the final state of Lord Shiva, the destroyer of everything and everybody without discrimination. Lord Shiva destroys both good and bad people in the final dissolution without any difference. Similarly, in this final stage, both injustice and justice were sacrificed for the sake of God without any discrimination. Before this final stage, the sages existed in the state of Lord Vishnu, embodiment of sattvam quality or full analysis of right and wrong. For several births, these sages debated and debated to come to this final stage through very long period. Before such births of analysis, these sages existed in some births with rajas in the state of Lord Brahma in which scriptures were deeply studied. The three stages are studying the scripture through hard work, analyzing the scriptures to find out the true concept and finally implementation of true concept without any trace of analysis having very firm decision.

Truth is harsh. If the analysis giving full clarity joins with the truth, it is like the blown air joining the fire resulting in intolerable state of fire. Therefore, in view of the tolerable state of the world, truth is always associated with least clarity. There may be one receiver, who needs the explanation of truth with full clarity and such rarest soul should be also provided with truth explained with full clarity. Alternatively, false can be associated with full clarity like air without fire. Some hide the truth directly. Some give misinterpretation of the truth so that the truth is hidden indirectly. Both these are not correct ways. The correct way is to reveal the truth with full clarity by giving proper explanation so that there will be no chance of misinterpreting and misunderstanding the truth. Some say that Krishna stole butter and danced with Gopikas simply as a play (Leela). Some say that Krishna was only aged 5 years, who was very ignorant and thus stealing of butter can be neglected. Even the dance with Gopikas cannot have a different colour in that age. All these are misrepresentations of truth. Let us accept the crime and present the circumstances in which the crime was done. In certain specific circumstances, the crime is not treated as a crime at all. We believe in this way. You do not accept the crime or give a misrepresentation of the crime. If the total background of the Bhagavatam in the context of these incidents is understood well, it becomes the greatest spiritual knowledge of highest level. Without doing the total analysis, some religions point out at Hinduism based on misunderstood and misrepresented truth.

God of any religion is one and the same and criticism of God of other religion is only criticism of God of your religion since in all religions the same God exists in different forms and His behavior is different in different contexts. Different contexts exist in different religions.

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-By Shri Datta Swami

www.universal-spirituality[.]org

Universal Spirituality for World Peace

 

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