Srimad Bhagavatam III

Overview of the Bhagavat:

The 10 Subjects of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam

by Michael Dolan/B.V. Mahāyogi

The Bhagavat is a vast and arcane literature. It will not yield up its secrets to a casual reader. The casual readers of the Bhagavat fall into different categories. Most of them will skip the first 9 Cantos of the work altogether and jump immediately to the 10th Canto which describes in detail the pastimes and qualities of the Lord.

Since these descriptions have a charming and intimate quality, the reader will often mistake the pastimes of Śrī Kṛṣṇa for entertaining fairy stories, useful for lulling children to sleep at bedtime. Ladies in India recognize the virtue of giving their children an early education and so expose their children to the delightful stories of Kṛṣṇa.

Unfortunately, this approach has the negative effect of convincing the public that Krishna stories are just that: charming tales for children. Adults must outgrow the fairy-tales of childhood. And so, the impersonal theories of Buddha and Shankar are taken more seriously than the wild fantasies promoted in the Bhagavat. Since these superficial readers have skipped over all the ontology and philosophical reflection contained in the previous nine Cantos of the work, they are bewildered by the 10th Canto and are unable to penetrate its mysteries.

Others sincerely attempt to go through the first 9 Cantos and are baffled by its esoteric nature. The uninitiated will be confused and lost in the forest of arcane mythological references to previous Puranas. Still others become obsessed with the minutia of the Bhagavat and its descriptions of time from the atom and the cosmology of the universe.

For this reason it is indispensable to follow the guidance of an expert in the matter of the Bhagavat. Such a person is also called Bhagavat since he embodies the teachings of that great and transcendental book.

One who attempts to approach the pastimes of divinity in the 10th Canto without reflecting on the ontology of consciousness and the avatars of God outlined in the other Cantos is doomed to failure.

According to analysis, Bhagavat unwinds its argument in 18,000 Sanskrit verses, but focuses on 10 important subjects:

1. sarga or the primary subjective evolution of consciousness as the foundation of existence,

2. visarga or secondary aspects of this evolution, as for example the origins of matter and energy, the time-space continuum, and the structure of the phenomenological universe,

3. sthanam or the cosmology of physical and metaphysical reality,

4. poshanam (the relationship between individual consciousness and the supreme consciousness and how the individual souls are ultimately under the protection of Divinity),

5. utayah (the karmic impetus of ego and its consequences, both in cause and effect),

6. manvantara (different eras of human civilization and the ancient dynasties of kings),

7. isha-anukatha (the ontology of divinity),

8. nirodha (the temporal, cyclical nature of universal reality as seen in its ultimate dissolution),

9. mukti (liberation from the temporal cyclical world of matter, time, and space),

10. ashraya (The Personality of Godhead, Bhagava, as the supreme shelter of all living entities).

While throughout the duration of its 18,000 verses the Bhagavat concentrates on these 10 important subjects and enters into a great number of ancillary matters, one must keep in mind that the purpose of the Bhagavat is Krishna-bhakti. In this context such considerations as the nature of the material universe and its origin takes secondary importance. These subjects are touched upon in their context. Spiritual practice without philosophical backing is often no more than fanaticism. A well-considered philosophical system provides a proper framework for spiritual practice. The Bhagavat concentrates on these matters to demonstrate its dominion over all the various realms of philosophy including cosmology, epistemology, ontology, ethics, and metaphysics. The Bhagavat is, therefore, not a mere compendium of fantastic mythological tales. It is a well-considered theological thesis about the nature of divinity. The Bhagavat claims that divinity is personal. It promotes dedication to a monotheistic divinity who is recognized in its pages as Bhagavan Śrī Kṛṣṇa. If there are other avatars or personalities who derive from Godhead, Kṛṣṇa is the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

The Bhagavat’s views on creation are subtle. The Bhagavat does not describe creation as the singular creative act of an all-powerful Deity who creates the universe out of nothing ex nihilo and then allows the laws of physics to govern everything. The creation does not proceed from the finger of God, but as an evolutionary process involving His Universal Mind. The sleeping Mahavishnu dreams the world, casting his vision through half-closed eyes towards the potential of material reality. It evolves as a gestalt of nested cocoons with different layers of conscious and sub-conscious energy developing their own layers of dark matter, dark energy, subtle ego and mind from the most subtle undifferentiated energy of pure consciousness. How the ethereal energy of undifferentiated Brahman binds to the grosser aspects of subtle ego and mind is reflected upon in the pages of the Bhagavat as it informs us of the soul’s sojourn in the material world.

In a backwards-evolution of subtle to gross, consciousness spins the world out of ego, intellect and mind, creating objective phenomenology out of subjective existence. The teaching of the Bhagavat reflects on how all material existence as the phenomenal universe is concretized as mass hypnosis. The vision of divinity as Mahavishnu reinforces the quantum experience of the collective unconsciousness of infinite jiva souls, overseen by the perception of the Paramatma or Supersoul. Whether you agree entirely with the thesis of the Bhagavat or find its explanation inadequate to face the challenge of modern science, you must first enter into the subtlety of its argument. And, if you are capable of doing so, you will find a supple and flexible means to, as Milton put it, “justify the ways of God to Man.”

The Bhagavat, therefore, responds to the arguments of Vedanta--that all is one--by giving us insight into the nature of the personal divinity. Modern Christianity has borrowed these ideas through the theology of German thinker Rudolf Otto. Otto was a Lutheran theologian and scholar of comparative religion. He felt that despite the fact that one may speak of the functions or levels of consciousness, consciousness itself is beyond classification, irrational, “plainly strange,” “wholly other,” non-deducible, irreductable, and unclassifiable. Otto was intrigued by the mysticism he found in India as a student of Sanskrit and the Vishnu-bhakti of the Śrī-Vaiṣṇava school. He studied the system of qualified dualism promoted by Ramanuja, a great student of the Bhagavat. Otto even went so far as to translate certain excerpts from the Bhagavat and Vishnu Purana into German.

Otto's book The Idea of the Holy, is an important theological work, read by Catholics and Protestants alike. Since its publication in 1917 it has remained popular as a powerfully felt answer to Kant’s Critique.

Idea of the Holy promotes the idea of the “holy” as what he calls, “numinous.” In his attempt at explaining a self-evident mystical experience, he employs a special philosophical vocabulary. Otto’s numinous is a "non-rational, non-sensory experience or feeling whose primary and immediate object is outside the self".

His term derives from the Latin numen which means “divine power”. Oddly, he picks a term with echoes of Kant's noumenon, a Greek term referring to unknowable reality. For Otto, the numinous or “intuitive divine mystic experience” is characterized by awe and reverence. Based on his insight into South Indian bhakti, this strange German philosophy teacher finds that an experience of God is characterized by a sense of mystery which he calls mysterium, awe and reverence or tremendumand fascination fascinans all at once.

Otto points out that the conscious state of awe and reverence achieved through mystic communion with the divine is beyond classification and cannot be understand rationally. The numinous, therefore, as he calls it cannot be cognized.

Many 20th Century theologians such as Otto did their best to revive Christianity by referring to the esoterica arguments found in the traditions of Krishna-bhakti, since the bhakti tradition offers the strongest arguments for personal monotheistic devotion. Of course, even while getting help from the Indian scriptures many thinkers are careful to hide their tracks and obscure the origins of their thought. It simply would not do to justify Christianity with the arguments taken from the Bhagavat.

Christians often demonize the beliefs and traditions of India by calling them “pagan.” The fantastic mythology of thousands of gods is evidence of a backwards society, they explain. How curious that the wisdom traditions of India have not only withstood the onslaught of hundreds of years of missionary activity, but are secretly absorbed into Christianity as the basis of their doctrine by Theologians like Rudolph Otto.

The Bhagavat is not a motley collection of weird mythologies; it offers a metaphysical framework for understanding the subtleties of the material cosmos.

Writing half a century before the birth of Christ, the great Roman orator Cicero remarked, “Why do you insist the universe is not a conscious intelligence when it gives birth to conscious intelligence?”

We may fault the writer or writers of the Bhagavat for not using the most modern of science in their calculations about the universe. But the big questions about consciousness and reality remain unchanged even since the time of Cicero. Modern physicists such as Stephen Hawking may tell us much about the space-time continuum, but still lack the tools to explain how space and time is nested within the cocoon of consciousness. Lately we have discovered that something like 90 percent of the universe may be composed of “dark matter.” “Dark energy” may become a factor in our understanding of the universe. And yet we know so little about concsiousness and its relationship to reality. But an understanding of life and consciousness are fundamental to understanding the universe and our place within the cosmos. Just as it is impossible to use Euclidean geometry to analyse the quantum universe, it is impossible to use the tools of modern physics to investigate the metaphysical realm. The Bhagavat, however, offers us insight into these important issues. Why not read it?

Srimad Bhagavartam 1 Version en Español

Reflexiones acerca del Bhāgavata

por Michael Dolan/ B.V. Mahayogi

traducida por Teresa Loret de Mola, Tapanandini DD

El Bhāgavat Purana o Śrīmad Bhāgavatam subsume toda otra literatura védica: absorbe e incluye su significado.

De nuevo, el 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

“El significado del Vedānta-sūtra está presente en el Śrīmad Bhāgavatam. Todo el significado del Mahābhārata también se halla ahí. El comentario del Brahma gāyatrī está también ahí y se explica con pleno conocimiento Védico. El Śrīmad Bhāgavatam es el Purāna supremo y fue compilado por la Suprema Personalidad de Dios en Su encarnación como Vyāsadeva. Hay doce cantos, 335 capítulos y dieciocho mil versos. El Bhāgavata está compuesto de 18.000 ślokas. Contiene las mejores partes de los Vedas y el Vedānta. Quien ha probado su dulce néctar, nunca gustará de leer ningún otro libro religioso ". [Garuḍa Purana, traducción de Bhaktivinod Ṭhākura de su The Bhāgavat Lecture]

H.H. Wilson, creador del 1er Diccionario Sánscrito-Inglés (1819), confirma lo siguiente: "El Bhāgavata es una obra de gran celebridad en la India y ejerce una influencia más directa y poderosa sobre las opiniones y los sentimientos del pueblo que quizás cualquier otro de los Purānas, el Padma Purana lo clasifica como la sustancia extraída de todo el resto de los Purānas".

El Bhāgavat recapitula y asume toda la otra literatura védica. Como consecuencia, no hay necesidad de ningún otro libro. El mensaje de los Vedas tiene que ver con el sacrificio; el anhelo y el reconocimiento de una Deidad. Los Upaniṣads dan la base ontológica para nuestra comprensión de la naturaleza de Brahman, divinidad, atma-alma, Paramātmā o Súper-alma, y Bhāgavān o la Personalidad de Dios. En el Bhāgavata, Sūta resume esta posición en su explicación a Śaunaka, el líder de los sabios:

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

“Los eruditos trascendentalistas quienes conocen la Verdad Absoluta se refieren a la naturaleza no dual de la substancia divina como  Brahman, Paramātmā o Bhagavān”. (SB 1.2.1)

Si las oraciones Védicas invocan a la Deidad y los Upaniṣads explican la naturaleza ontológica de la deidad como Brahman, Paramātmā  y Bhāgavān o la Suprema Personalidad de Dios, quien se conoce a través de sus doce Cantos y 18 mil versos como Śrī Kṛṣṇa, la Hermosa Realidad. Ninguna otra literatura espiritual ha elaborado tan completamente la naturaleza de la divinidad como la Deidad o Bhāgavān.

Mientras que los Upaniṣads esbozan los contornos de la divinidad, la concepción que dan es nebulosa y definida incompletamente. Los Upaniṣads han sido explicados en los Brahma-Sutras o Vedānta-Sutras. Pero los términos filosóficos dados en los sutras son breves. Los Sutras son aforismos. Su significado está concentrado.

Por ejemplo: अथातो ब्रह्म जिज्ञास athāto brahma jijñāsa significa "Ahora pregunta por Brahman". Pero, ¿qué significa ese ahora? A menudo se interpreta como “Ahora que has tomado una forma de vida humana.” Brahmán, por supuesto, significa Divinidad. Pero ¿qué es exactamente Divinidad? Bueno, este es el punto de este sutra. “Ahora que has tomado una forma de vida humana, es el momento de que inquieras acerca de qué es exactamente la Divinidad”.

Los Sutras son concisos. Y sin embargo llenos de connotaciones e interpretaciones. Y entonces, estas breves palabras de los Vedānta-sutras han engendrado miles de páginas de comentarios. En ausencia de connotación, la denotación se incrementa. Pero aunque han emergido miles de páginas de comentarios, analizando cada una de las palabras de los sutras, el comentario es arcano y difícil de seguir.

Algunas veces el mejor comentario o aforismo es una historia, como Esopo con sus fábulas. El Bhāgavat no sólo ilumina los Sutras con el recurso histórico: va por encima de la mera moral de la fábula para darnos una visión íntima hacia la naturaleza de la divinidad, siguiendo el significado interno de los Sutras.

Los Sutras nos piden mirar hacia la naturaleza de la Divinidad. El Bhāgavat apunta hacia la Divinidad que puede ser vista desde tres ángulos distintos de visión: Dios como la fuerza infinita, tanto del universo material como el espiritual (Brahman), Dios como la guía interna o Súper-alma (Paramātmā) y Dios como la Persona Suprema (Bhagavān). Estas tres divisiones de Divinidad son en última instancia una verdad (advaya-jñāna), pero la Personalidad de Dios abarca los otros aspectos de la divinidad y es Suprema.

Esto significa que la tesis de Bhāgavat es el teísmo. Dios existe. Él es una Persona. La Perfección para las almas individuales consiste en re-establecer una relación apropiada con el aspecto personal de la divinidad. Esto puede alcanzarse a través de la rendición. La reintegración de las almas espirituales al Reino de Dios que toma lugar a través del proceso de rendición es llamado bhakti, o amor divino. Entre todas las formas de yoga: karma, jñāna, aṣṭāṇga, entre todas las formas de religión, bhakti es la mejor debido a que lo conduce a uno hacia la Divinidad personal, la Hermosa Realidad, Kṛṣṇa.

Esto, en esencia, es la tesis del Bhāgavat. Si el Bhāgavat fuera una sinfonía, bhakti sería su motivo definitorio. En la recapitulación de historias halladas en el Mahābhārata o la cosmogonía hallada en otros Puranas y Itihasas, el Bhāgavat puede parecer que se desvía de este tema momentáneamente. Pero el motivo reaparece una y otra vez a través de los Nueve Cantos preliminares, recordándonos que todas las distintas encarnaciones de Dios que han aparecido a través de la historia Védica son meros avatares de Kṛṣṇa. Y si el motivo puede parecer disminuido en partes de los primeros nueve Cantos, se eleva en un sostenido crescendo a lo largo del Décimo Canto. El súmmum bonum de la obra, donde Kṛṣṇa es el único tema.

La tesis del Bhāgavata, que la Búsqueda de Sri Kṛṣṇa es el objetivo verdaderos de todos esos intereses en la investigación espiritual, fue identificado y defendido por Śrī Caitanya y sus seguidores, los Seis Goswāmīs de Vrindāvan. El Tattva-Sandarbha y el Bhāgavat Sandarbha de Jīva Goswāmī pueden ser suficientemente elocuentes en la defensa del Bhāgavat. Pero estos se han unidos por el análisis del Rūpa Goswāmī en su Bhakti-Rasāmṛta Sindu y de Kṛṣṇa Das Kaviraj Goswāmī en su obra maestra, el  Śrī Caitanya Caritāmṛta. Mientras que estos eruditos se han basado en los comentarios de Śrīdhar Swāmi, comentarios posteriores tales como Visvanatha Cakravartī Ṭhākura, Bhaktivinod Ṭhākura y Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Prabhupāda han conducido sus verdades reveladas hacia el siglo XX y más allá.

El monoteísmo ideal del Kṛṣṇa-bhakti se esboza al principio del Bhāgavat y se confirma en cada uno de sus 18 mil versos.

Nadie puede decir cuántos siglos atrás fue escrito el Bhāgavata. A través de siglos, los registros históricos se han perdido. Pero aunque nadie sabe la fecha exacta de la composición del Bhagavat, el conocimiento y sabiduría registrados ahí son eternos.

De acuerdo a la evidencia del Bhagavata estas grandes series de conversaciones y diálogos entre yogis y sabios tuvieron lugar en el sitio antiguo de peregrinación llamado Naimiṣaranya. Ahí e el bosque sagrado estos visionarios avanzados de la verdad se reunieron con el propósito de sacrificio. Como su portavoz, habían elegido a Śaunaka, quien era el más viejo y sabio, para representarlos. Tras escuchar toda la narración del Mahābhārata, tenían algunas preguntas específicas para Sūta.

Mientras que el Mahābhārata trata con las reglas y regulaciones de una sociedad humana apropiada, no penetra en la profundidad de la realidad trascendental. Estos santos estaban ansiosos de escuchar los verdaderos secretos del alma, especialmente con respecto al amor divino, el estado de conciencia más elevado. Estaban deseosos de saber acerca del Dios Supremo, la persona conocida como Kṛṣṇa. ¿Cuál era la razón de los avatares? ¿Por qué aparece Dios y cuál es la enseñanza más elevada?

Vyāsa and Nārada

[The despondency of Vyāsa is key to understanding the inner meaning of the Bhagavata. I'm including here a fragment of a previous post in order to maintain the continuity of the ideas I'm working on.]

The Dissatisfaction of Vyāsa

When the sages of Naimisharanya heard the Mahābharata they were left with questions.  And when queried on their dissatisfaction with Mahābhārata as the ultimate commentary on the Vedas, Suta, also known as Ugrashrava or Sauti, the narrator of the Mahābhārata reflected for a moment. After a time, he began to explain that the author of Mahābhārata, Vyāsa himself had felt the same.

Suta was a great student of Vyāsa. He had been empowered by Vyāsa to explain the Mahābhārata. But he had confided in his student that he himself had felt a sense of incompleteness after finishing that great work.

He had heard the following story from Shukadeva, the son of Vyāsa, whose version of the Bhāgavata he would later reveal to the multitude.
Suta said, “I can understand how some of you may be unsatisfied even after hearing the narration of Mahābhārata. In fact, even the author of Mahābhārata felt this way. After finalizing the composition of Mahābharata, in this very forest of Naimisharanya,” Suta explained, “Vyāsa was despondent.

Suta said, “Vyāsa had performed a great service to humanity. Knowing that the lives of men are often short, brutish, and violent, that great author had done his best to mitigate their suffering by expanding the meaning of the original Veda into four: the Rig, Yajuh, Sama, and Atharva.

He had put forth the Upanishads as an esoteric literature with the inner meaning of the Vedas. He entrusted these writings to great scholars and learned rishis like Paila, Jaimini, Angira, and his own student Vaishampayana who published them among their own disciples.

And finally to preserve their meaning and popularize the truths found in the Vedas, he explained them in the form of the histories found in Mahābharata, the Puranas and Ithihasas. Since the general public may not have access to the esoteric meaning of these scriptures, he used stories and explained everything very simply in Mahābhārata which may be read and understood even by children.

In that great work he not only explained the meaning of karma, but demonstrated how the law of action and reaction unfolded itself through countless lives in different families such as the Kauravas and the Pandavas. Dharma, or the proper way to live through duty, had also been described in great detail, exposing the reactions of improper duty and demonstrating the glories of proper duty and right living through the example of heroes and villains of the Kurukshetra war. Suta continued, That great author, Veda Vyāsa thought to himself, ‘I have gathered the important truths of the Vedas and included them in Mahābhārata along with all great religious principles, and the histories of the ancients. There one kind find a full description of the creation of the universe and the laws of man. I have respected the Vedas, the great teachers, and the sacred fire. All the important ideas governing health, wealth, and happiness are contained in that great work. Still, there is something lacking.’

“And so it was,” said Suta, “That Vyāsa came to this very forest and sat down at the bank of the river Sarswati in meditation. His heart was heavy. He felt that although he had undertaken such a great project, he had failed.  “It dawned on him that his failure was precisely in giving so much emphasis to “social dharma” over a transcendental understanding of the nature of the Personal Godhead, Śrī Kṛṣṇa. While he had placed great emphasis on a proper moral life, on right living, he had not encouraged his readers in the search for Śrī Kṛṣṇa. Even despite explaining the instructions of Śrī Kṛṣṇa in the Bhagavad-Gīta and having ennumerated the Thousand Names of Viṣṇu, he had not sufficiently given directions about Divine Love.

Narada and Vyasa

Vyāsa lamented, ‘While I have explained everything about consciousness and both subjective and objective universes, even though I have been complete in explaining Bhagavat dharma, dedication and devotion to the Personal Godhead, Bhagavan Śrī Kṛṣṇa.’”
“And so it was that Kṛṣṇa Dwaipayana Vyāsa, author of this Mahābhārata which I have just narrated to you, sat despondent on the banks of the Saraswati, absorbed in prayer and meditation.”

Suta continued, “At that time the saint among the gods, Nārada himself arrived at the ashrama

“Now Nārada was a great rishi who could see past, present and future. He knew the heart and mind of Veda Vyāsa. He found a sitting place close to Vyāsa and sat himself down with his transcendental lute called a vina.”

Vyāsa broke his meditation and looked up at the sage, his visage clouded with doubt. With this, Nārada smiled. Nārada could sense Vyāsa’s discontent. He said, ‘O wise one, you seem despondent. Are you upset by having written so many mundane things? By recommending the pursuit of mortal happiness, you have identified the body with the soul so often that your readers confuse materialism with their own self-interest. How could a great seer of truth such as yourself be satisfied by identifying the body with the soul? Are you satisfied by promoting material happiness as the goal of life? How can you be happy with recommending social duties, wealth, and the satisfaction of material desires as the way to salvation?”

“Nārada smiled, ‘O great one, you are well-versed in the truth, you have asked and answered so many questions, and yet your Mahābhārata fails to satisfy the soul completely for you have avoided the subject of surrender to Godhead and the search for Śrī Kṛṣṇa. All that is known and knowable is included in your brilliant book. And yet, you are unhappy. How could this be possible if you have clearly explained the highest truths?’

“And Vyāsa replied, ‘You are right. I cannot lift this cloud that shadows me. My heart is heavy. I have written so many things. I tried to get to the truth. But still, I feel unsatisfied. What have I left out? You were born from Brahmā himself. Your knowledge is unlimited. You are known as the saint among gods and are a true rishi who can see past, present and future. I did my best to write something valuable for the human society. Why do I feel so unsatisfied? How can I overcome this darkness in my soul? What is it that I have left out of my work?’

“And Nārada explained,

श्री-नारद उवाच

भवतानुदित-प्रायं यशो भगवतो ऽमलम् येनैवासौ न तुष्येत मन्ये तद् दर्शनं खिलम्

śrī-nārada uvāca

bhavatānudita-prāyaṁ

yaśo bhagavato 'malam yenaivāsau na tuṣyeta

manye tad darśanaṁ khilam

‘You have spoken of consciousness in a vague way, of the Absolute and the Supreme. But you have not actually broadcast the sublime and spotless glories of the Personality of Godhead. That philosophy which does not satisfy the transcendental senses of the Lord is considered worthless. Although, great sage, you have very broadly described the four principles beginning with religious performances, you have not described the glories of the Supreme Personality, Vāsudeva.”

SB 1.5.8,9

As Śrīla Prabhupāda points out,

“The prompt diagnosis of Śrī Nārada is at once declared. The root cause of the despondency of Vyāsadeva was his deliberate avoidance of glorifying the Lord in his various editions of the Purāṇas. He has certainly, as a matter of course, given descriptions of the glories of the Lord (Śrī Kṛṣṇa) but not as many as given to religiosity, economic development, sense gratification and salvation.”

“These four items are by far inferior to engagement in the devotional service of the Lord. Śrī Vyāsadeva, as the authorized scholar, knew very well this difference. And still instead of giving more importance to the better type of engagement, namely, devotional service to the Lord, he had more or less improperly used his valuable time, and thus he was despondent. From this it is clearly indicated that no one can be pleased substantially without being engaged in the devotional service of the Lord.”

The most philosophical portion of Mahābhārata is Bhāgavad-Gīta. Bhāgavad-Gita explains the nature of consciousness, absolute consciousness, and the material cosmos or time-space continuum, and the three modes of material nature. How the living entities are trapped by the illusion of the material world and how they rise and fall on the wheel of repeated birth and death within the seven planes of consciousness known as bhur, bhuvah, svah, mahar, jana, tapas and satya lokas. How the three worlds or physical, mental, and intellectual planes of consciousness recur through constant creation and destruction throughout the nights of Brahmā and how one might attain to higher planes of consciousness is all explained in Bhagavad-Gita. And yet, the external meaning of the Vedas as propounded by Vyāsa laid great stress on communion with heavenly realities through the performance of sacrifice. The temporary rewards gained through sacrifice, however, also partake of the rise and fall of the wheel of fortune, or repeated birth and death. The Bhagavad-Gita points out that when one’s karmic merits are exhausted, even those who have properly performed their Vedic dharma are once again subject to the laws of karma in the temporal plane of misconception. Birth and rebirth is inevitable in the repeated cycle of reincarnation.

Dharma, Artha, and Kāma are the most popular aspects of Vedic literature. But dharma, or proper living, while contributing to good karma, only perpetuates one’s existence in the world of birth and death. And artha, or material gain, is desirable in the temporary plane, but all wealth must be returned to the earth at the time of death. So, while the Vedas and Mahābharata promote wealth and prosperity through sacrifice, these gains are ultimately temporary. The same can be said for kāma which refers to desire, especially sexual and romantic satisfaction. All such material rewards disappear at the time of death, except where they leave a karmic reaction.

This leaves us with mukti, or salvation. Many of the followers of the Upanishads proposed that real liberation lay with transcending the wheel of karma. Salvation for them involves going beyond the triple plane of consciousness: sense, mind, and intellect--and merging with the infinite. Such an individual never returns to the plane of birth and death. And yet this concept of salvation is also superficial, according to Nārada’s examination of Vyāsa’s despondency.

While impersonal salvation frees one from the chains of repeated birth and death it is a form of spiritual suicide, since through “merging into oneness” one loses all individuality. The living entity becomes undifferentiated cosmical consciousness. But since the conditioned jivas fall out of the cosmic undifferentiated oneness to experience the world of misconception, there is always the chance of returning to the world of birth and death, even from this cosmic plane.

The Gita mentions a higher reality, beyond the cosmic undifferentiated plane. In the 8th Chapter Text 21 it is said, अव्यक्तो ’क्षर इत्य् उक्तस् तम् आहुः परमां गतिम् यमं प्राप्य न निवर्तन्ते तद् धाम परमं मम

avyakto ’kṣara ity uktas tam āhuḥ paramāṁ gatim

yaṁ prāpya na nivartante tad dhāma paramaṁ mama

That supreme abode is called unmanifested and infallible, and it is the supreme destination. When one goes there, he never comes back. That is My supreme abode.

Srimad Bhagavatam 2

Reflections on the Bhagavat II

by Michael Dolan/Bhakti Vidhān Mahāyogī

The Bhagavat is a transformational literature. 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.”

Śrī Kṛṣṇa

Even those who operate at the highest levels of awareness will make advancement by going through the Bhagavat. This is because even self-realized souls want divine love. To live in balance as did Buddha and to understand that the world and all its suffering is temporary is certainly a great achievement; but it lacks divine love. To reach the ultimate nothingness of nirvana is to find peace and the end of suffering, but such an achievement is empty since it lacks the dynamic of divine love.

The Author in St. Petersburg, Russia, 2015

To realize as did Shankar that the soul is eternal and that this world is a delusion is to soar to the heights of undifferentiated oneness. To discover oneness with the universe is, arguably, a greater achievement than Buddhistic nirvana, but where is the bliss? Ananda or bliss is only possible where there is love. And Divine Love implies another, greater being than your self. Alone in the one-ness of infinity one may reach the peace of eternal being and understanding, sat, and chit. But the soul is composed not merely of sat, being and chit consciousness, but of ecstasy, ananda. Nirvana is an attempt at denial and nothingness, a negation of sat. Yoga takes us to sat and beyond, to awareness. But only divine love can take us to ananda, and divine love or bhakti is the purpose of the Bhagavat.

Even Buddha might have profited from a reading of the Bhagavat. He might have gone higher, instead of stranding his followers in the nada of nirvana. Even Shankar might have gone farther with a deep reading of the Bhagavat.

Buddha’s philosophy mirrors the ideas of modern science when he claims that the combination of different material elements has created your mental system. He teaches that with the dissolution of your mental system, nothing remains. This is his goal: nirvana. According to his 8-fold path, then, we must somehow dissolve the mental system. He recommends a number of practices, for example ahiṁsā, nonviolence, satya, truthfulness, and so on. He has made a cogent analysis of the material world and its illusions. But while he outlines the path to nothingness, he offers nothing for the eternal hunger of the soul. He may talk about “faith” and “obedience” as virtues, but he offers no understanding of divine love. The understanding of what is divine love distinguishes the Bhagavat from all other literatures.

Shankar goes deeper. He knows that the individual soul exists. He understands that atma is eternal and indivisible. Unlike Buddha, who rejects the Vedic tradition, Shankar accepts the evidence of the Vedānta, and embraces the whole ancient wisdom tradition of India’s scriptures.

Scriptures in Sanskrit are called grantha. There is an interesting verse in the Bhagavatam that explains the above point. It says that self-realized souls everywhere: those who are “of the book” and those who are not “of the book” will be inspired by the Bhagavat. Such self-realized souls whether they be ruled by scriptures (grantha) or whether they avoid books altogether (nirgrantha) will be impressed by the qualities and pastimes of Śrī Kṛṣṇa, Reality the Beautiful.

And what of Jesus? Was he not self-realized? Jesus Christ gives us a glimpse into the higher realm, however, that is not full-fledged theism, but only the basis. Christianity is an unclear, vague conception of Godhead. There is an idea of theism, of surrender, but in what shape, in what attitude? Is divinity really personal? How? What is he like? If he has personality what is it? Does he have a form or figure? And what about the soul? What is the soul? How is the soul related to divinity? If there is divine love what form does it take? All these things are unexplained and unclear in Christianity.

In the teachings of Jesus Christ everything is hazy, told through parables, sketched in vague metaphoric language. The kingdom of heaven is alluded to be it is as if seen from far off. It does not take any proper shape. The veil is never lifted. Jesus Christ has certainly achieved a high stage of realization; his followers have a powerfully felt religious experience. But the Bhagavat allows one to go higher, to see beyond the haze. The Bhagavat allows one a clear vision of the Supreme Absolute.

Christianity offers some idea of divinity and theism. It hints at the idea of immortality. But the Christian view of immortality is a reaction against the mortality of this world. If there is death in this world, the next world will be death-free, deathless. There, the soul is non-mortal or immortal. The word “immortal” is curious because it is simply a negation of la muerte, le mort, the mortal. But there is no positive conception of immortality given in the Christian tradition. There is no clear idea of what lies on the other side. Eternal life is given short shrift. We are told that “In my father’s house are many mansions.” But most of the ideas about immortality that were later incorporated into Christian doctrine by Saint Augustine and Thomas Aquinas derive from Greek philosophers like Socrates, Plato and Plotinus. Saint Augustine in particular was a great proponent of the teachings of Plotinus. The Bible itself gives scant attention to a philosophical ontology of the soul. And Jesus himself, while he warns about the dangers of sin is quite vague in terms of describing a positive aspect of immortality.

Jesus Christ leaves out a clear view of the goal. He speaks in parables. What exactly is our positive attainment in eternal life? This is unknown. Immortality as a hazy, negative attribute means “no death.” But if the soul is truly immortal, what dynamic activity awaits us in the higher realm?

What is our positive engagement in the Lord’s service? The ideal of sacrifice is outlined by Jesus. He is, in a sense, the embodiment of sacrfice, of the teaching of “Die to Live.” We understand the sacrifice of his death. But what is the positive achievement of immortal life?

Submission is only a partial aspect of surrender in divine love. We must not only submit in gratefulness to the highest authority, but we must have a direct connection with Him, and complete engagement in His service. What would such engagement look like? The description is given in the Bhagavat.

So it may seem revolutionary to claim that even Jesus Christ might have benefitted by imbibing the teachings of the Bhagavat. But the claim of the Bhagavat is that even self-realized souls like Buddha and Shankar may profit from reading the Bhagavat. If Buddha and Shankar could attain a higher realization by contemplating divinity as “Reality the Beautiful” than why not Jesus Christ himself.

Indeed there are those who suggest that in the lost years of Jesus, when he wandered for years before taking up the cross, he had gone to India to study the devotional science. There he was known by the name Isha or Ishas. Many books have been published on the subject. Perhaps Jesus Himself knew of the inner teachings of bhakti, but felt them too confidential to be revealed to the fisherman and shepherds who followed him in the Galilean desert millenia ago. Perhaps the “vagueness” in his teachings reflects the need he felt to avoid casting pearls before swine and revealing the inner secrets of divine love to those who were unqualified.

We may never know. But we can assert with authority that all kinds of mystics, seers, and realized souls, even perhaps the Buddha, even perhaps Jesus himself take pleasure in the glories of the Lord.

There is a verse in the Bhagavat that best illustrates the kind of point I am trying to make here. It is called the atmarama shloka. This verse was especially loved By Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu.

Śrī Caitanya

The story is told that when Śrī Caitanya was a young renunciate or sannyāsī, a wise old teacher named Sarvabhauma thought that it would be best if he knew the scriptures. Sarvabhauma did his best to train Śrī Caitanya in the meaning of the Vedānta as he understood it. Sarvabhauma, of course, followed the version of Shankar and advocated “one-ness” as the highest truth.

Śrī Caitanya listened respectfully to the old teacher, but in the end expressed his own view, and began by explaining that even those who have attained one-ness in self-realization want to go higher. The Bhagavat gives us the key to this higher realization: Divine love. Sarvabhauma was so impressed that he converted to the cause of Śrī Caitanya and wrote many treatises defending Vaishnavism.

Here’s the atmarama verse.

sūta uvāca ātmārāmāś ca munayo nirgranthā apy urukrame

kurvanty ahaitukīṁ bhaktim ittham-bhūta-guṇo hariḥ

“All different varieties of ātmārāmas [those who take pleasure in ātmā, or spirit self], especially those established on the path of self-realization, though freed from all kinds of material bondage, desire to render unalloyed devotional service unto the Personality of Godhead. This means that the Lord possesses transcendental qualities and therefore can attract everyone, including liberated souls.”

Self-realized souls are called ātmārama. If atma means “soul” and rāma means pleasure, “atmaram” means “One who takes pleasure in the self.” Suta explains that self-realized souls may be considered munis.

A muni is one who is thoughtful, one who is grave or silent, an ascetic, a truth-seeker, a visionary, one who keeps great vows, one in the renounced order or a saint.

So, according to Suta, all saints, sages and truth-seekers--even those who have already achieved samādhi or enlightenment--want to go higher and enter the realm of divine love as explained in the Bhagavat.

Divine love itself is ahaitukīṁ: it is causeless, it is unconditional and has no limits. Divine love is unrestricted. It is not constricte by the rule of law or the rituals of the scripture. Divine love cannot be achieved or produced through any mundane process. It comes from above, or as Shakespeare said about mercy, “It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven.” Like the strange and wondrous chataka bird who only drinks rain-water, we may only extend ourselves to the infinite and pray for the mercy of divine love to descend. We cannot force love. It comes from above.

And yet, even given the difficulty attendant on the realization of divine love, even saints and scholars well-established on the path to truth and self-realization are inspired when they hear of the qualities nature and activities of Bhagavan, that is to say Śrī Kṛṣṇa, Reality the Beautiful.

Suta then points out that this principle--the idea that bhakti appeals to everyone--is true not only for the learned, but also for the unlettered. He uses the word nirgrantha.

Both those who are strictly adhering to all the rigid rules and regulations of pure monastic life as well as those who are avadhutas and babas, who apparently live outside the rules are enchanted by the qualities and pastimes of Śrī Kṛṣṇa as given in the Bhagavatam.

This then is the purpose of the book.

While the Bhagavatam may recapitulate all the other Vedic scriptures, its inner purpose is to describe and exhalt the qualities and pastimes of Śrī Kṛṣṇa and promote bhakti, divine love.

The Bhagavatam explorers any number of ancillary matters: there are descriptions of the end of the Mahābharata war at the beginning of the book, with special attention given to the prayers of devotees like Kunti.

For example, Kunti, the mother of the Pandavas, prays for distress, because she says that in times of difficulty she is closer to Kṛṣṇa. He appears in her darkest hour, and so she prays for even more danger. She understands that every wave is favorable. Every movement, no matter how apparently dark, brings light.

In the first and second Cantos of the Bhagavata, we find that Vyāsa is despondent; he is not satisfied with his version of Mahābharata. It stops short. Nārada appears before him to point out that he must give a deeper reading. Nārada goes on to teach how he himself became enlightened by serving higher realized souls, devotees of Kṛṣṇa. He was born again and later became a disciple of Lord Brahma, the creator.

As a prelude to the topics that will later be described in depth, the second Canto explains how God may be seen everywhere in the universe and how yogis attain liberation at the time of death by practicing fixed meditation on the Paramātma. A deeper reading of the Bhagavata will lead us to understand that even such yoga practice is superficial compared with the realization of divine love, bhakti.

After the seminal discussion between Nārada and Brahma is explored in depth, the Bhagavat goes on to outline the various incarnations of Godhead. The creation is described as the subjective evolution of the universe from consciousness. From undifferentiated spiritual energy to subtle material energy like mind the progressive stages are described. Unmanifest material energy is invested with subtle powers and gradually unwinds into the manifest material energy of the space-time continuum invested with mind and ego.

In this way, the Bhagavat recapitulates in its preamble the various matters previously discussed in other Vedic scriptures. By reading the Bhagavat there is no need to go over the previous versions of scripture. It is something like a software update. The update includes the previous version and is backwards-compatible. It retro-actively casts the former system in a new light and moves us forward to a more progressive system. The update includes what went before without disturbing the foundation; but develops the themes in a higher context.

The ancient teachings of the sage Maitreya on the nature of the creation and annihilation of the universe are included and expanded upon in conversation with other sages like Vidura and Uddhava and there is a profound discussion of the nature of the universal egg.

Subtle and gross movements of time and divine and demonic elements are discussed along with the creation of gods, demons, animals, and various species. In this way, all the ancient mythological systems of the Puranas are thoroughly rehearsed and recapitulated.

The first generations of humans are described along with the various progenitors or fathers of humanity such as Svayambhuva Manu and their consorts such as Satarūpa along with the offspring of the pious wives of Prajāpati Kardama and others.

All these discussions serve as the great preamble to an understanding of the importance of Bhagavan Śrī Kṛṣṇa. It is important to read the entire preamble of the book to establish the greatness of the Lord; otherwise the pastimes of Kṛṣṇa Himself may take on the aspect of children’s stories to be read as fairy tales to babes-in-arms by their aging grandmothers. But the pastimes of Almighty God are not bedtime stories. This is the importance of the preamble: to establish the glories and opulence of God before we arrive at the qualities and pastimes of the Personal Godhead.

The Bhagavata takes on a great number of subjects before arriving at its goal. It touches on the annihilation and creation of the material universe. Time and space, epistemology and divine knowledge, ontology or the nature of being, physics and metaphysics, ethics and morality, are all expounded on in the Bhagavat. But its central subject matter is divine love, as it is clearly explained in the conclusion to that great treatise in the 12th Canto of the work:

śrīmad-bhāgavataṁ purāṇam amalaṁ yad vaiṣṇavānāṁ priyaṁ
yasmin pāramahaṁsyam ekam amalaṁ jñānaṁ paraṁ gīyate
tatra jñāna-virāga-bhakti-sahitaṁ naiṣkarmyam āviskṛtaṁ
tac chṛṇvan su-paṭhan vicāraṇa-paro bhaktyā vimucyen naraḥ

Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is the spotless Purāṇa.

It is most dear to the Vaiṣṇavas because it describes the pure and supreme knowledge of the paramahaṁsas. It reveals the highest truth, above karma, and jñāna. There is nothing in this book about karma and jñāna. Above exploitation and renunciation is divine love, devotion to Śrī Kṛṣṇa, Reality the Beautiful. Anyone who seriously tries to understand Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, who listens carefully to its message or and recites it with devotion, reaches that higher realm of positive immortality where one realizes divine love and bliss in constant dedication.

His Divine Grace Bhakti Sundar Govinda Mahārāja commented on this verse. He points out that Vyāsa was thinking:

“There was something wrong with what I presented previously, but here in Śrīmad Bhāgavatam there is nothing wrong; everything is clean and clear. Śrīmad Bhāgavatam is purāṇam amalam, the spotless Purāṇa, and, yad Vaiṣṇavānāṁ priyam, all the Vaiṣṇavas have accepted it very dearly within their hearts.”

In the Purāṇas we read so many things, but here in Śrīmad Bhāgavatam here is nothing external, nothing extra to throw out. Therefore it is very dear to those who are wholeheartedly serving Lord Kṛṣṇa.Ecstatic knowledge with service to the Lord which develops up to bhāva and mahābhāva is given by Vedavyās. In Śrīmad Bhāgavatam we find only the service of Lord Kṛṣṇa, and that is the ultimate knowledge; it is not mixed with anything material.”