Cosmic Meditation

Cosmic Meditation

Śukadeva Goswāmī  is recommending a kind of “pantheism” here in the second canto of the Bhagavat. Pantheism is a basic form of meditation, useful for beginners. He is at the beginning of a long conversation and will give full attention to all aspects of the Godhead. But he starts his conversation with a very general idea; after all, he is doing his best to give comfort to a dying man. Remember that Mahārāja Parīkṣita is on the verge of death and has asked the young Śukadeva to explain how he can better control the mind.

Śukadeva Goswāmī will give full attention to his question in depth, but he begins here with a general suggestion: “Try to see God everywhere. See God in his creation.”

Pantheism identifies God with the universe. This meditation sees the comos as a manifestation of God, reality as a function of divinity. Through this kind of meditation, one may see God in his blueprint for the universe.

Bhaktivedānta Swāmī titles this chapter, “The first step in God realization,” since pantheistic meditation, while useful in a general sense, is ultimately superficial.

Bhaktivedānta Swāmī comments, “Materialistic philosophers and scientists are too much engrossed with atomic energy and the gigantic situation of the universal form, and they offer respect more seriously to the external phenomenal feature of material manifestations than to the noumenal principle of spiritual existence.

Ludwig Wittgenstein

The transcendental form of the Lord is beyond the jurisdiction of such materialistic activities, and it is very difficult to conceive that the Lord can be simultaneously localized and all-pervasive, because the materialistic philosophers and scientists think of everything in terms of their own experience.”

Since it is difficult to realize the Personal aspect of the Godhead, one may think of divinity by contemplating the virāṭ-rūpa. or “God as Universe” model. This form of pantheism has been explained here by Śukadeva Gosvāmī. 

Ordinary materialistic philosophy can barely penetrate beyond this conception. Śukadeva encourages us to begin by considering the universe as the outward manifestation of divinity, and to use our intelligence to meditate on God in the diverse manifestations of the material world: as a great forest, or mountain; as the oceans, as well as in the birds, the beasts, man and god. Every aspect of cosmic manifestation may be seen as a part of the divine “body” of God. This will be a useful meditation for understanding our place in the universe.

Of course, there is nothing eternal or transcendent about mountains of earth or vast bodies of water. They are all temporary. A deeper meditation must come to the eternal plane, the world of divine reality beyond this temporal plane. That is why this explanation is only the beginning. Śukadeva Goswāmī will take the conversation much further towards the realm of infinite spiritual ecstasy, sat, cit, ānanda. But the process of concentrating the mind on the greatness of God, on His plan and design for the universe, will gradually diminish the demands of the mind. This is a basic meditation, that in the end may lead to a higher development in consciousness and ultimately bhakti.