El Libro de Libros

 El Bhāgavat:

 Reflecciónes

by Michael Dolan/B.V. Mahayogi

Traducido por Teresa Loret de Mola, Tapanandini D.D.

¿Qué clase de libro es el Bhāgavat?

निगम-कल्प-तरोर् गलितं फलं शुक-मुखाद् अमृत-द्रव-संयुतम्

पिबत भागवतं रसम् आलयम् मुहुर् अहो रसिका भुवि भावुकाः

nigama-kalpa-taror galitaṁ phalaṁ śuka-mukhād amṛta-drava-saṁyutam

pibata bhāgavataṁ rasam ālayam muhur aho rasikā bhuvi bhāvukāḥ.

“El Bhāgavat, Oh santos, es la fruta del árbol del pensamiento mezclado con el néctar del discurso de Śukadeva. ¡Es el templo del amor espiritual! Beban profundo este néctar hasta que sean arrebatados de este marco mortal”.

El Bhāgavat Purana otorga un comentario complementario mayor del Vedānta que ningún libro. Este gran tratado identifica la realización de ānanda, la dicha eterna, como el verdadero derecho de nacimiento del alma humana. El Bhāgavat demuestra a través de sus 18 mil versos la senda apropiada y completa de la auto-realización en la dicha trascendental a través de la inmortalidad activa. La inmortalidad pasiva ofrecida por los acólitos de la escuela Śaṅkara palidece ante este entendimiento. La inmersión en la unidad es apenas un suicidio espiritual comparado con el ānanda harmónico accesible por aquellos que se ofrecen en rendición ante la Suprema Personalidad de Dios, Sri Kṛṣṇa, quien es celebrado en cada verso del Bhāgavat.

Y los ācāryas y maestros de la escuela Bhāgavat nos han mostrado tanto por precepto como por ejemplo la senda apropiada hacia esas alturas de la verdadera forma de iluminación. El Bhagavat anuncia en su primer verso que su único propósito es una discusión profunda de la verdad espiritual. La moralidad ordinaria y las éticas mundanas no son la materia del Bhagavata, Las verdades halladas en el Bhāgavat fluyen entre la discusión de un consejo de santos. Estos adeptos espirituales avanzados mantienen  las facetas ordinarias de moralidad y éticas como verdades axiomáticas.

Mientras que la Biblia y otros libros de este tipo hacen todo lo posible por prohibir matar o robar, el Bhāgavat no tiene esas consideraciones, ya que para un alma civilizada eso ha de ser obvio que el matar y el robar son ilegales, inmorales y actos pecaminosos.

Hay una disposición en la ley Sharia que prohíbe que uno se case con la viuda del propio padre. Las mujeres de acuerdo a ese libro, son inmuebles, es decir propiedades. Tras la muerte del padre uno hereda sus bienes de acuerdo a la ley Sharia. Como el hijo hereda la propiedad de su padre y es heredero de sus riquezas y ganado, así que por derecho significa que ha de heredar también a sus esposas. Debido a que la madre de un hijo puede hallarse entre las esposas de su padre, la ley Sharia prohíbe la práctica de heredar las esposas del propio padre. Esto podría parecer obvio, pero las cosas que están escritas en la ley pueden causar malentendidos. El hecho de que esté escrito en la ley s]haría significa que se ha practicado y surge la necesidad de escribir una ley en su contra. El Bhagavata no tiene ese tipo de consideraciones. No se trata de si uno puede practicar el incesto con la propia madre, ya los sabios de Naimisharanya no sentían ninguna necesidad de cuestionarse eso.

El Bhāgavat está interesado en el Paramahamsa-dharma, esto son los principios que han de ser tomados por las almas que son como cisnes que no tienen interés en la religión materialista.

Cada día escucho que gente habla acerca de cómo la “religión” es la raíz de todos los males. “Miren todas las guerras que se han peleado a causa de la religión” dicen. “La Inquisición Española, la Conquista de México, y tantas guerras genocidas”. Por supuesto se sienten incómodos cuando señalo que esas guerras fueron peleadas por y para la Iglesia Católica, la cual sigue la Biblia, no el Bhāgavat.

El Bhāgavat no está interesado en forzar la moralidad sino en promover el amor divino por aquellos que han hallado su centro moral. El Libro de Krsna no se vuelve hacia asuntos de ley, sino hacia el amor divino y el paramahamsa-dharma.

Recuerdo una discusión que tuve en una ocasión con un rabino. El verdaderamente sentía que Dios daba Logos o Leyes para dar sentido al mundo. Al entender el Logos o la Ley, podríamos entender la mente de Dios. Para mostrarme exactamente cómo puede interpretarse la ley de la Torá, él me dio como ejemplo la proscripción contra matar una cabra. Le señalé que aquí la Torah prohibía comer carne claramente. Aprovechó la oportunidad para explicar que los rabinos expertos son capaces de gran sutileza en su interpretación de la ley. La palabra hebrea en cuestión aparentemente tiene un sentido de una “cabra roja”. Entonces, uno concluye, él explicó, que la proscripción contra el sacrificio tiene que ver con el asesinato de una cabra roja. Entonces de nuevo otros podrán restringir su interpretación a la matanza de cualquier cabra que tenga alguna mancha roja en su pelaje. Aunque otros podrían decir que aplica a las cabras blancos con pelo rojo. Mi amigo rabino sentía que la belleza de la Torah yacía en la capacidad de los rabinos como él para interpretarla.

El Bhagavata no tiene nada que ver con tales “selecciones de pelo” acerca de practicas como la matanza de cabras. Los santos de Naimisharanya no tienen nada que ver con matanzas de cabra, ni con incesto, ni abuso sexual, ni con ninguna cantidad de otras prácticas sucias e inmorales. Ellos estaban libres de pecado como pueden ser los yogis habitantes de los bosques, pero estaban en busca de una senda superior. Recuerden, ellos ya habían escuchado el Mahābharata de Sūta Goswāmī. 

Pero ellos, al igual que Vyāsa quien estaba ante ellos, no estaban totalmente satisfechos con el mensaje del Mahābharata. Les gustaba lo que habían escuchado en el Bhagavad-Gita que da el esquema para el paramahamsa-dharma. Pero estaban sedientos de más. Querían saber lo que Śukadeva le había dicho al descendiente de Arjuna, Parīkṣita Maharaja  a la hora de su muerte. El Mahābharata llega desde el árbol del pensamiento cuyas raíces están en los Vedas, y cuyos brazos son los Upaniṣads. Pero ¿dónde estaba el fruto? 

Un mango es más dulce, según la tradición. Cuando  ha sido picoteado por el pico de un loro, un pájaro Śuka. Tal vez esto sea porque el Śuka selección únicamente los mejores, los frutos perfectamente maduros. Si el árbol del pensamiento da futo, ¿a qué sabrán los frutos maduros? ¿Y qué forma tomarían en las palabras de Śuka, el hijo de Vyāsa? Si el propio Vyāsa compusiera el Bhāgavat, ¿cómo sería interpretado y editado por su hijo Śuka? Esta era la pregunta de los santos quienes se reunieron a escuchar al gran Śuka, el narrador erudito del Mahābharata, explica la edición de Śuka. 

El Mahābharata es el poema épico más grande en la historia de India. ¿Cómo podía la versión del Bhāgavat de Śukadeva superar la creación literaria poderosa de Vyāsa? El Bhagavat inicia descartando el “dharma social” como asunto práctico útil pero limitado a intereses mundanos y por ello un tema indigno de discutirse. El Bhāgavat no es un libro de reglas, a diferencia de la ley de Sharia que prohíbe el incesto, o la Torah con sus reglas de revisión de pelo acerca de la matanza de cabras. Hay muchos otros libros llenos de qué sí y qué no comer, leyes maritales, y mandamientos sobre robos y asesinatos. 

Mientras que el Bhāgavat puede recapitular la necesidad de una moralidad apropiada, mientras que el Bhāgavat puede tocar principios éticos o asuntos de pecado, meramente para evitar la necesidad de consultar tantos libros, en su núcleo es un tratado acerca de naturaleza misma de la verdad espiritual y la práctica de las almas auto-realizadas: paramahamsa-dharma. Tal como el Garuḍa Purana, otro antiguo texto dice con referencia al Bhagavad Purana:

भाष्य-रूपो ऽसौ वेदार्थ-परिबृंहितः पुराणानां साम-रूपः साक्षाद्-भगवतोदितः द्वादश-स्कन्ध-युक्तो ऽयं शत-विच्छेद-संयुतः ग्रन्थो ऽष्टादश-साहस्रः श्रीमद्-भागवताभिधः

artho 'yaṁ brahma-sūtrāṇāṁ bhāratārtha-vinirṇayaḥ gāyatrī-bhāṣya-rūpo 'sau vedārtha-paribṛṁhitaḥ purāṇānāṁ sāma-rūpaḥ sākṣād-bhagavatoditaḥ dvādaśa-skandha-yukto 'yaṁ śata-viccheda-saṁyutaḥ grantho 'ṣṭādaśa-sāhasraḥ śrīmad-bhāgavatābhidhaḥ

¨El significado del Vedānta-sūtra se presenta en el Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. Todo el significado del Mahābharata también está allí. El comentario del Brahma-gāyatrī está ahí también y ampliado con todo el conocimiento védico. El Śrīmad Bhāgavatam es el supremo Purāṇa, y fue compilado por la Suprema Personalidad de Dios en Su encarnación como Vyāsadeva. Hay doce cantos, 335 capítulos y dieciocho mil versos. El Bhågavata está compuesto de 18.000 ślokas. Contiene las mejores partes de los Vedas y del Vedānta. Quien haya probado su dulce néctar, nunca gustará de leer ningún otro libro religioso. (Garuḍa Purana) Bhaktivinod Ṭhākura dice: "El Bhāgavat es preeminentemente El Libro en India. Una vez que entras en él, y te trasplantan, por así decirlo, al mundo espiritual donde la materia burda no tiene existencia”. 

El verdadero seguidor del Bhāgavat es un hombre espiritual que ya ha cortado su conexión temporal con la naturaleza fenoménica, y se ha convertido en el habitante de esa región donde Dios existe y ama eternamente.

Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 1

Reflections on the Bhāgavata

by Michael Dolan/B.V. Mahayogi

The Bhagavat Purana or Śrīmad Bhāgavatam subsumes all other Vedic literature: It absorbs and includes their meaning.

Again, the Garuḍa-purāṇa:

अर्थो ऽयं ब्रह्म-सूत्राणां भारतार्थ-विनिर्णयः गायत्री-भाष्य-रूपो ऽसौ वेदार्थ-परिबृंहितः पुराणानां साम-रूपः साक्षाद्-भगवतोदितः द्वादश-स्कन्ध-युक्तो ऽयं शत-विच्छेद-संयुतः ग्रन्थो ऽष्टादश-साहस्रः श्रीमद्-भागवताभिधः

artho 'yaṁ brahma-sūtrāṇāṁ bhāratārtha-vinirṇayaḥ gāyatrī-bhāṣya-rūpo 'sau vedārtha-paribṛṁhitaḥ purāṇānāṁ sāma-rūpaḥ sākṣād-bhagavatoditaḥ dvādaśa-skandha-yukto 'yaṁ śata-viccheda-saṁyutaḥ grantho 'ṣṭādaśa-sāhasraḥ śrīmad-bhāgavatābhidhaḥ

“The meaning of the Vedānta-sūtra is present in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. The full purport of the Mahābhārata is also found there. The commentary of the Brahma-gāyatrī is also there and fully expanded with all Vedic knowledge. Śrīmad Bhāgavatam is the supreme Purāṇa, and it was compiled by the Supreme Personality of Godhead in His incarnation as Vyāsadeva. There are twelve cantos, 335 chapters and eighteen thousand verses. The Bhāgavata is composed of 18,000 ślokas. It contains the best parts of the Vedas and the Vedānta. Whoever has tasted its sweet nectar, will never like to read any other religious book.” [Garuda Purana, Bhaktivinod Ṭhākura's translation from his The Bhāgavat Lecture]

H.H. Wilson, creator of the 1st Sanskrit-English Dictionary (1819) confirms this: "The Bhāgavata is a work of great celebrity in India and exercises a more direct and powerful influence upon the opinions and feelings of the people than perhaps any other of the Purānas. The Padma Purana ranks it as the extracted substance of all the rest of the Purānas."

The Bhagavat recapitulates and subsumes all other Vedic literature. As a consequence there is no need for any other book. The message of the Vedas has to do with sacrifice; the yearning for and recognition of a Deity. The Upanishads give the ontological basis for our understanding of the nature of Brahman, divinity, atma-soul, paramatma or Supersoul, and Bhagavan or the Personality of Godhead. In the Bhagavata, Suta summarizes this position in his explanation to Śaunaka, the leader of the sages:

वदन्ति तत् तत्त्व-विदस् तत्त्वम् यज् ज्ञानम् अद्वयम् ब्रह्मेति परमात्मेति भगवान् इति शब्द्यते

vadanti tat tattva-vidas tattvam yaj jñānam advayam

brahmeti paramātmeti bhagavān iti śabdyate

“Learned transcendentalists who know the Absolute Truth refer to the nondual nature of divine substance as Brahman, Paramātma or Bhagavān.” (SB 1.2.1)

If the Vedic prayers invoke the Deity and the Upanishads explain the ontological nature of deity as Brahman, Paramātma, and Bhagavān, the Bhagavat Purāna focuses its laserlike vision on the nature of Bhagavān or the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who becomes known over its 12 Cantos and 18,000 verses as Śrī Kṛṣṇa, Reality the Beautiful. No other spiritual literature has elaborated so fully on the nature of divinity as Deity or Bhagavān.

While the Upanishads sketch the outlines of divinity, the conception given there is hazy and incompletely defined. The Upanishads have been explained in the Brahma-Sutras or Vedanta-Sutras. But the philosophical terms given in the Sutras are terse. Sutras are aphorisms. Their meaning is concentrated.

For example अथातो ब्रह्म जिज्ञास athāto brahma jijñāsa means “Now ask about Brahman.” But what does “now” mean? It’s often taken to mean “Now that you have come upon the human form of life.” Brahman, of course, means Divinity. But what exactly is Divinity? Well, that’s the point of the sutra: “Now that you have come upon the human form of life it is time to inquire into the what exactly is Divinity.”

The sutras are concise. And yet they are full of connotations and interpretations. And so, the terse words of the Vedānta-sutras have spawned thousands of pages of commentary. In the absence of connotation, denotation increases. But while thousands of pages of commentary have emerged, parsing every word of the sutras, commentary is arcane and hard to follow.

Sometimes the best commentary on an aphorism is a story, as Aesop showed with his fables. The Bhagavat not only illuminates the Sutras with the device of story; it goes beyond mere moral fables to give us an intimate glimpse into the nature of divinity, following the inner meaning of the Sutras.

The Sutras ask us to look into the nature of Divinity. The Bhagavat points out that Divinity may be seen from three different angles of vision; God as the infinite force of both material and spiritual universes (Brahman); God as the inner guide or Supersoul (Paramātma); and God as Supreme Person (Bhagavān). These threefold divisions of Divinity are ultimately one truth (advaya-jñāna), but the Personality of Godhead subsumes the other aspects of divinity and is Supreme.

This means that the thesis of the Bhagavat is theism. God exists. He is a Person. Perfection for individual souls consists in re-establishing a proper relationship with the personal aspect of divinity. This may be achieved through surrender. The re-integration of spiritual souls into the Kingdom of God that takes place through the process of surrender is called bhakti, or divine love. Among all forms of yoga: karma, jñāna, aṣṭāṇga, among all forms of religion bhakti is the best since it brings one closest to the personal Divinity, Reality the Beautiful, Kṛṣṇa.

This, in essence, is the thesis of the Bhāgavat. If the Bhagavat were a symphony, bhakti is its defining motif. In recapitulating the histories found in Mahābhārata or the cosmogony found in the other Pūranas and Itihāsas, the Bhāgavat may appear to deviate from this theme momentarily. But the motif reappears again and again throughout the preliminary Nine Cantos, reminding us that all the different incarnations of God who have appeared throughout Vedic history are mere avatars of Kṛṣṇa. And if the motif may appear diminished in parts of the first nine Cantos, it rises to a sustained crescendo throughout the Tenth Canto, the summum bonum of the work, where the only subject matter is Kṛṣṇa.

The thesis of the Bhagavata, that the Search for Śrī Kṛṣṇa is the true goal of all those interested in spiritual inquiry, was identified and defended by Śrī Caitanya and his followers, the Six Goswāmīs of Vrindāvan. Jīva Goswāmī’s Tattva-Sandarbha and Bhagavat-Sandarbha would be eloquent enough defenses of the Bhagavat. But these have been joined by the analysis of Rupa Goswāmi in his Bhakti-Rasāmṛta Sindhu and by Kṛṣṇa Dās Kavirāja Goswāmi in his masterpiece, Śrī Caitanya Caritāmṛta. While these scholars have relied on the commentaries of Śrīdhar Swāmi, subsequent commentaries such as those of Viśvanātha Cakravarti Ṭhākura, Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura and Bhaktisiddhānta Saraswati Prabhupāda have carried their revealed truths into the 20th Century and beyond.

The monotheistic ideal of Krishna-bhakti is outlined at the beginning of the Bhagavat and confirmed in every one of its 18,000 verses.

No one can tell how many centuries ago the Bhāgavata was written. Over the centuries, such historical records have been lost. But while no one knows the exact dates of composition of the Bhagavata, the knowledge and wisdom recorded there is eternal.

According to the evidence of the Bhāgavata this greatest series of conversations and dialogues between yogis and sages took place in the ancient place of pilgrimage called Naimisharanya. There in the sacred forest these advanced seers of the truth had gathered with the purpose of sacrifice. As their spokesman, they had elected Śaunaka, who was the oldest and wisest, to represent them. Having heard the entire narration of Mahābharata, they had some specific questions for Suta. 

While the Mahābhārata dealt with the rules and regulations of a proper human society, it had not penetrated profoundly into the nature of transcendental reality. These saints were anxious to hear the true secrets of the soul, especially with regard to divine love, the highest state of consciousness. They were desirous to know about the Supreme Godhead, the Person known as Krishna. What were the reasons for the avataras? Why does God appear and what is the highest teaching?

Take me to higher love

The Bhagavat Conception

by Michael Dolan/ B.V. Mahayogi

What sort of a book is the Bhagavata?

निगम-कल्प-तरोर् गलितं फलं शुक-मुखाद् अमृत-द्रव-संयुतम्

पिबत भागवतं रसम् आलयम् मुहुर् अहो रसिका भुवि भावुकाः

nigama-kalpa-taror galitaṁ phalaṁ śuka-mukhād amṛta-drava-saṁyutam

pibata bhāgavataṁ rasam ālayam muhur aho rasikā bhuvi bhāvukāḥ..

“The Bhagavat, O saints, is the fruit of the tree of thought mixed with the nectar of the speech of Śukadeva. It is the temple of spiritual love! Drink deep this nectar until you are taken from this mortal frame.”

The Bhagavat Purana gives a more complete commentary on Vedānta than any other book. This great treatise identifies the realization of ananda, eternal bliss, as the true birth-right of the human soul. The Bhagavat demonstrates throughout its 18,000 verses the path of complete and proper self-realization in transcendental bliss through active immortality. The passive immortality offered by the acolytes of the Shankar school pales before this understanding. Immersion in nondifferential one-ness is mere spiritual suicide compared to the harmonic ananda accessible to those who offer themselves in surrender to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Śrī Kṛṣṇa who is celebrated in every verse of the Bhagavat.

And the acharyas and teachers of the Bhagavata school have shown us both by precept and by example the proper path towards that higher and truer form of enlightenment. The Bhāgavata announces in its first verse that its only purpose is a deeper discussion of spiritual truth. Ordinary morality and mundane ethics are not a subject matter for the Bhagavata. The truths found in the Bhagavat flow from a discussion among a council of saints. These advanced spiritual adepts held the ordinary facets of morality and ethics as axiomatic truths.

While the Bible and other such books go to great lengths to prohibit killing and stealing, the Bhagavat has no such consideration, since it should be obvious to any civilized soul that killing and stealing are illegal, immoral, and sinful acts.

There is a provision in Sharia law that prohibits one from marrying the widows of one’s father. Women, according to that holy book, are chattel, that is to say property. Upon the death of one’s father one inherits his property according to Sharia law. As the son inherits his father’s property and is the heir to his riches and cattle, so by rights and means he would also inherit his wives. Since a son’s mother would be among the wives of his father, Sharia law forbids the practice of inheriting one’s father’s wives. This would seem to be self-evident, but things are written into law when there are misunderstandings. The fact that this is written into Sharia law means that it had been practiced and the need arose to write a law against it. The Bhagavata has no such considerations. It does not take up the question of whether one may practice incest with one’s own mother, since the sages at Naimisharanya felt no need to settle this question.

The Bhagavata is interested in Paramahamsa-dharma; that is what religious principles should be taken up by swanlike souls who have no interest in materialistic religion.

Every day I hear people talk about how “religion” is the root of all evils. “Look at all the wars that have been fought over religion,” they say. “The Spanish Inquisition, the Conquest of Mexico, and so many wars of genocide.” Of course they become uncomfortable when I point out that these wars were fought by and for the Catholic Church, which follows the Bible, not the Bhagavat.

The Bhagavat is not interested in enforcing morality but in promoting divine love for those who have already found their moral center. The Book of Krishna does not turn on issues of law, but of divine love and paramahamsa-dharma.

I remember a discussion I once had with a Rabbi. He truly felt that God gave Logos or Law to give meaning to the world. By understanding the Logos or the Law, we could understand the mind of God. To show me how exactly the law of the Torah may be interpreted, he gave me as an example the proscription against killing a goat.

I pointed out that here the Torah clearly prohibits meat-eating. He took the opportunity to explain that the expert Rabbis are capable of great subtlety in their interpretation of the law. The Hebrew word in question apparently had the sense of a “Red goat.” Therefore, one might conclude, he explained, that the proscription against sacrifice has to do with the killing of a red goat. Then again others would restrict their interpretation to the killing of any white goat with a red spot on their coat. Still others would say this applies to a white goat with one red hair. My Rabbi friend felt that the beauty of the Torah lay in the capacity of Rabbis like himself to interpret.

The Bhagavat has nothing to do with such “hair-splitting” over a practice like goat slaughter. The sages of Naimisharanya had nothing to do with goat slaughter, with incest and sexual abuse, or any number of other foul and immoral practices. They were as free of sin as forest-dwelling yogis could be, but they were in search of a higher path. Remember, they had already heard the Mahābharata from Suta Goswami. But they, as was Vyāsa before them, were not entirely satisfied with the message of the Mahābharata. They liked what they had heard in the Bhagavad-Gita which gives the outline of paramahamsa-dharma. But they were thirsty for more. They wanted to know what Śukadeva had said to the descendant of Arjuna, Parikṣita Mahārāja at the hour of his death. The Mahābharata comes from the tree of thought whose roots are the Vedas and whose branches are the Upanishads. But where is the fruit?

A mango is sweeter, tradition holds, when pecked by the beak of a parrot, a Śuka-bird. Perhaps this is because the Śuka selects only the finest, the perfectly ripened fruit. If the tree of thought bears fruit, what would the ripened fruit taste like? And how would it take shape in the words of Śuka, the son of Vyāsa? If Vyāsa himself composed the Bhagavat, how would it be interpreted and edited by his son Śuka? This was the question of the sages who gathered to hear the great Suta, the erudite narrator of the Mahābharata explain Śuka’s edition. The Mahābharata is the greatest epic poem in the history of India. How would Śukadeva’s version of the Bhagavat surpass Vyāsa’s powerful literary creation?

The Bhagavat begings by discarding “social dharma” as a useful practical matter but limited to mundane concerns and therefore a subject unworthy of discussion. The Bhāgavata is not a rule-book, unlike Sharia law which proscribes incest, or the Torah with its hair-splitting rules about goat-slaughter. There are plenty of other books filled with dietary do’s and don’ts, marital laws, and commandments about stealing and murder. While the Bhagavat may recapitulate the need for a proper morality, while the Bhagavat may touch on ethical principles or matters of sin, merely to avoid the need for consulting so many books, at its core is a treatise on the very nature of spiritual truth and practice for self-realized souls: paramahamsa-dharma

As the the Garuḍa-purāṇa, another ancient text says in reference to the Bhagavat Purana:

अर्थो ऽयं ब्रह्म-सूत्राणां भारतार्थ-विनिर्णयः गायत्री-भाष्य-रूपो ऽसौ वेदार्थ-परिबृंहितः पुराणानां साम-रूपः साक्षाद्-भगवतोदितः द्वादश-स्कन्ध-युक्तो ऽयं शत-विच्छेद-संयुतः ग्रन्थो ऽष्टादश-साहस्रः श्रीमद्-भागवताभिधः

artho 'yaṁ brahma-sūtrāṇāṁ bhāratārtha-vinirṇayaḥ gāyatrī-bhāṣya-rūpo 'sau vedārtha-paribṛṁhitaḥ purāṇānāṁ sāma-rūpaḥ sākṣād-bhagavatoditaḥ dvādaśa-skandha-yukto 'yaṁ śata-viccheda-saṁyutaḥ grantho 'ṣṭādaśa-sāhasraḥ śrīmad-bhāgavatābhidhaḥ

'The meaning of the Vedānta-sūtra is present in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. The full purport of the Mahābhārata is also found there. The commentary of the Brahma-gāyatrī is also there and fully expanded with all Vedic knowledge. Śrīmad Bhāgavatam is the supreme Purāṇa, and it was compiled by the Supreme Personality of Godhead in His incarnation as Vyāsadeva. There are twelve cantos, 335 chapters and eighteen thousand verses. The Bhågavata is composed of 18,000 ślokas. It contains the best parts of the Vedas and the Vedānta. Whoever has tasted its sweet nectar, will never like to read any other religious book. (Garuda Purana)

Bhaktivinoda Ṭhakura says:

“The Bhāgavata is preeminently The Book in India. Once enter into it, and you are transplanted, as it were, into the spiritual world where gross matter has no existence. The true follower of the Bhāgavata is a spiritual man who has already cut his temporary connection with phenomenal nature, and has made himself the inhabitant of that region where God eternally exists and loves.”

Serenity Now

Mindfulness and Stoicism
vs. Transcendental Bliss: Ananda

by Michael Dolan/B.V. Mahayogi

The Buddha offers relief from suffering. Having distilled suffering as the quintessential problem of human existence, his eight-fold path offers a way out. But, noble as his truths may be, there are other nobler truths above and beyond what the Buddha has given.

Happiness is not considered in Buddha’s eight-fold path. Happiness and sadness are two sides of the same coin. Both are part of the mundane experience of this temporary world. As Krishna says in the Bhagavad-Gita:

मात्रा-स्पर्शास् तु कौन्तेय शीतोष्ण-सुख-दुःख-दाः आगमापायिनो ऽनित्यास् तांस् तितिक्षस्व भारत

mātrā-sparśās tu kaunteya śītoṣṇa-sukha-duḥkha-dāḥ

āgamāpāyino 'nityās tāṁs titikṣasva bhārata

O son of Kuntī, the nonpermanent appearance of happiness and distress, and their disappearance in due course, are like the appearance and disappearance of winter and summer seasons. They arise from sense perception, O scion of Bharata, and one must learn to tolerate them without being disturbed.”

(Bhagavad-Gita 2.14)

Prabhupāda points out in his purport that, “In the proper discharge of duty, one has to learn to tolerate nonpermanent appearances and disappearances of happiness and distress.”

According to Buddha’s system the desire for happiness is a function of ego. Happiness may occur as the absence of suffering when we give up such desires. But Buddha is not interested in “happiness” as such, but in the problem of ending suffering by expunging desire and ego. As Krishna points out above, mundane happiness is cut from the same cloth as mundane suffering. One who is attached to mundane happiness must suffer mundane distress. So as far as “nonpermanent appearance of happiness and distress,” the Buddha’s policy of nonattachment makes good sense. Dissolving the ego and quieting desire eliminates the tendency to try to enjoy mundane happiness and so helps us to become detached from mundane distress.

In early Western civilization, this position resembles something like the stoicism of Marcus Aurelius. While Stoicism as a life philosophy may have been founded by the Greek scholar Zeno, it is perhaps best remembered for the Meditations written by Marcus Aurelius, emperor of Rome from 161 to 180 BC. Stoicism can be summarized as follows:

“Keep calm and practice serenity in both happiness and distress.”

In his Introduction to the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius translated by Robin Hard, Christopher Gill puts this in perspective:

“THE Meditations of Marcus Aurelius is a work without parallel among writings surviving from Classical antiquity—and an exceptional work in any age and culture. It is the philosophical diary of a Roman emperor, probably written while he was campaigning in Germany near the end of his life. In short, intense, and often powerful reflections, Marcus tries to articulate his core beliefs and values. Drawing mainly on Stoic philosophy, but formulated in his own way, Marcus finds the resources to help him meet challenges that he is acutely conscious of but which are also universal: facing one’s own approaching death, making sense of one’s social role and projects, looking for moral significance in the natural world.”

Here’s an excerpt from the Mediations of Marcus Aurelius

“Again, one who pursues pleasures as being good and tries to avoid pains as being bad is acting irreverently; for it is inevitable that such a person must often find fault with universal nature for assigning something to good people or bad that is contrary to their deserts, because it is so often the case that the bad devote themselves to pleasure and secure the things that give rise to it while the good encounter pain and what gives rise to that.

And furthermore, one who is afraid of pain is sure to be afraid at times of things which come about in the universe, and that is already an impiety; and one who pursues pleasure will not abstain from injustice, and that is a manifest impiety. But towards those things with regard to which universal nature is neutral (for she would not have created both opposites unless she was neutral with regard to both), it is necessary that those who wish to follow nature and be of one mind with her should also adopt a neutral attitude. Accordingly, anyone who is not himself neutral towards pleasure and pain, or life and death, or reputation and disrepute, to which “universal nature adopts a neutral attitude, commits a manifest impiety.

And when I say that universal nature employs these things in a neutral manner, I mean that, through the natural sequence of cause and effect, they happen indifferently to all that comes into being and whose existence is consequent upon a primeval impulse of providence, by which it set out from a first beginning to create the present order of things, having conceived certain principles of all that was to be, and assigned powers to generate the necessary substances and transformations and successions.”

Marcus Aurelius here makes a noble attempt to promote the idea of a neutral attitude towards pleasure and pain, one that would be welcomed by the enlightened Buddha himself.

The neutral attitude of stoicism is, however, difficult to achieve. It is as far from human nature as the alien composure of Spock, the Vulcan logician of Star Trek. Spock is completely devoid of human emotion. He has neither whimsy nor a sense of humor, and responds only to logic. Krishna suggests a degree of stoicism in the second chapter of the Bhagavad-Gita when dealing with Arjuna’s emotional response to the challenge of battle that confronts him. And yet Arjuna defies this stoicism and questions Krishna further. He wants Krishna to go deeper.

Vaishnavas are not stoics. They understand that the human condition does not revolve merely around the question of suffering, as the Buddha would have it. Krishna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead as the origin of al bliss or pleasure--ananda.

His very name, “Krishna,” means “the highest pleasure,” and it is confirmed in the Vedanta Sutra that the Supreme Lord is the reservoir or storehouse of all pleasure.

Buddha’s determination that suffering is the first and most important principle of human existence is as superficial as the stoicism of Marcus Aurelius.

While suffering may be a part of the problem, pleasure is really the central issue of the human condition. We are all hankering after pleasure. The Vedānta-Sutra defines the nature of the Supreme Reality as Ānanda-mayo 'bhyāsāt (Vedānta-sūtra 1.1.12). Beyond the material reality of space and time, beyond the spiritual reality of consciousness, the ultimate reality is full of ecstasy, bliss, divine pleasure. And the ultimate reality is By Himself and For Himself. He exists only for his own pleasure.

The living entities who emanate from the Supreme reality as rays of sunlight emanate from the sun are not only full of consciousness, they are after happiness. But the happiness of this mundane world is unsatisfactory, being temporal. Only spiritual happiness, which is eternal, conscious, and derived from a relationship with the supreme emporium of ecstasy, Shri Krishna, Reality the Beautiful, can give satisfaction to the individual jiva souls. This eternal satisfaction comes through recognition of one’s eternal nature and through surrender to Śrī Krishna, or śaranāgati.

God, or Reality the Beautiful, is perpetually happy. If the eternally conscious jivas surrender to that reality, associate with the Lord, cooperate with Him and take part in His association, then they also realize themselves as eternal conscious beings endowed with ultimate happiness, or sat-chit-ānanda.

This, then is the thesis of the Bhagavat. The central problem of humanity is not the temporary happiness of this world. The materialists would have us believe that this world is all in all and so we must enjoy the senses before we die. Buddha has correctly identified sensual pleasure and desire as the source of suffering in this world. But his analysis is incomplete, for it omits the idea of ananda. Even the followers of Adi Shankar, who promote a covered form of Buddhism under the banner of liberation from this temporary world, fail to penetrate the inner meaning of the Vedānta.

The Bhagavat, gives a more complete commentary on Vedānta, identifying the realization of ananda, eternal bliss, as the true birth-right of the human soul and demonstrating its complete and proper realization. And the acharyas and teachers of the Bhagavat school have shown us the proper path towards that higher and truer form of enlightenment.

Physical Pain and Spiritual Joy

Reflections on the Compassionate Buddha

by Michael Dolan, B.V. Mahāyogi

The teachings of the compassionate Buddha are remarkably apt for the modern world. Scientists and intellectuals are “discovering” his ancient teaching and claiming it for their own. Much oriental wisdom had been discounted since the time of Hegel as primitive and “fatalistic.” But with the new atheism of Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris people are struggling to balance faith with the agnosticism inherent in science.

Buddha does not require any faith. The Compassionate Buddha merely states the facts: you’re suffering. What are you going to do about it?

If God doesn’t exist, if there is no afterlife and no soul, then enlightenment means accepting the inevitable dissolution of the ego as a natural conclusion. Grief is unnatural.

Given that the soul doesn’t exist, perhaps Buddhism is the best and most humanistic of all wisdom, a perfect fit for a society that believes in nothing. Science tells us that the universe came from nothing and that nothing is sacred. Nothing has meaning. It is only natural to accept as a religious philosophy the idea that everything ends in nothing and that perfect knowledge goes nowhere, that is: it leads us into nirvana.

A celebrated member of the “Lost Generation” Ernest Hemingway, wrote a story of emotional darkness and existential angst in A Clean Well-lighted Place. It is almost closing time in a restaurant. A man comes in to drink. He likes the place because it is clean and well-lit. He can indulge his taste for alcohol and self-destruction in a place that will not promote his tendency for suicide. One of the waiters wants to close up and go home. The other waiter, a bit more experienced has compassion for the old man. He shares the old man’s understanding of the meaninglessness of the world which he sums up in the nada prayer. Nada of course means “nothing.” Hemingway’s nada prayer sums up not only the emptiness felt by his generation after the futility of the first great war; it is as good an explanation of the Buddha’s teaching as you may find anywhere in the annals of the Dalai Lama. Here is the nada prayer by Ernest Hemingway. Keep in mind that nada means nothing.

"Hail nothing, full of nothing, nothing is with thee..."

“Our nada who art in nada, nada be thy name; thy kingdom nada thy will be nada; in nada as it is in nada. Give us this nada our daily nada and nada us our nada as we nada our nadas and nada us not into nada but deliver us from nada; pues nada. Hail nothing full of nothing, nothing is with thee.”

If the soul doesn’t exist; If God doesn’t exist, then nothing has meaning. The followers of Buddha are adept at exploring the meaning of nothing, of elevating nothing to perfection. The greatest teachers of the path have realized a perfect view of nothing, the resolve to commit to nothing, ethical living that ends in nothing, meditation on nothing that leads to being equipoised in the void. “Our nada who art in nada...”

In a meaningless world where nothing is all we have, it makes sense to believe in nothing, to exalt nothing to the level of religion.

Buddhism offers solace from suffering by helping us to embrace nothing. Buddha’s analysis is incredibly powerful. He anoints suffering as the greatest of all truths.

But his analysis is flawed. Life is filled with suffering, it is true. But becoming free from suffering is not the only motivation found in human life. We live not to avoid pain, but to have joy.

And the greatest joy comes from sacrifice. Parents sacrifice everything for their children. This morning I read how in the recent hurricane in Houston, a young mother sacrificed her life to save her daughter. They found her floating facedown, her baby strapped to her back, still alive. During the siege of Leningrad, while millions starved to death, 12 heroes guarded the largest collection of seeds and grains in the world at the Pavlovsk seed bank. The seeds in their bank would preserve different strains of wheat and rice and prevent future world famine.

Alexander Stchukin was a specialist in peanuts. He died protecting tons of peanuts, wheat grains, and rice that could easily have saved his and his fellow workers lives.

The scientists at the Pavlovsk seed bank, charged with maintaining biodiverstiy chose to starve, ensuring that future generations of Russians could eat, free from the threat of plagues and blight. Sacrifice is painful, but renders a greater satisfaction than anaesthesia or the avoidance of pain.

Suffering is part of life; no pain, no gain. Where there is no struggle there can be no advancement. Avoidance of suffering as a philosophy seeks to solve the problem of pain. This is mere anaesthesia. Heroin and opioid addiction has become a pressing problem. Opium is probably the most addictive drug in existence. Why? It is the best anaesthesia. Opium is the best painkiller. Marx once defined Religion as “The Opium of the masses.” In 2017, Opium is the Opium of the masses. As a painkiller, it is superior even to the teachings of the Buddha, who defined pain as the main problem of existence.

But pain is not the highest truth, according to the Vaishnava teachers. Above pain is joy, ecstasy, bliss. And bliss is the birthright of all who have teh human form of life. Bliss is an essential component of the human soul, beyond mere existence. Those who deny the existence of the soul can never realize complete joy. Having negated even the prospect of joy, their only prospect is painkilling, escaping suffering. But anaesthesia is a limited response to the problem of pain and suffering. The pro-active response is to discover joy through sacrifice and dedication.

The greatest historical example of sacrifice is found in the life of Jesus Christ. If suffering in this life is terrible, the suffering promised in the afterlife for those who are sinful is even greater. From bad karma to the fires of hell, many conceptions of the afterlife are negative. Christ’s sacrifice was such that he took the sins of the world upon his head that we would not need to face the flames of hell. Christ’s example is not that of negation of pain. If, in the Garden of Gethsemane, he had a moment of doubt and begged his father in Heaven, “Take this cup from my lips,” his faith was such that he accepted the sacrifice. So it is that the true purport of Buddha’s philosophy of compassion is found in sacrifice.

Two thousand years after Christ, the great sacrifice of the iron age of suffering is seen in the vibration of the holy name. The vibration of the holy name can truly free the soul, delivering us from the pain of human suffering and transport us to the realm of divine love and ecstasy.

As Śrīla Prabhupāda explains this in Elevation to Krishna Consciousness.
“Caitanya Mahaprabhu introduced the chanting of Hare Krsna, Hare Krsna, Krsna Krsna, Hare Hare/ Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare as a great means of propaganda for spreading love of God. It is not that it is recommended only for Kali-yuga. Actually, it is recommended for every age. There have always been many devotees who have chanted and reached perfection in all ages. That is the beauty of this Krsna consciousness movement. It is not simply for one age, or for one country, or for one class of people. Hare Krsna can be chanted by any man in any social position, in any country and in any age, for Krsna is the Supreme Lord of all people in all social positions, in all countries, in all ages.”