Articles for Saadhana

Śrīmad Bhāgavatam is a supreme authority on devotion and God. Śrīmad Bhāgavatam is actually a śāstra, a scientific treatise. What does it mean? Anything becomes scientific if it is presented in terms of reason and logic. Whatever is said should be understandable and acceptable to the readers. The manner of presentation is such that whatever subject a śāstra deals with, it has to bring forth and clearly reveal the good and the bad side of it - any subject. You can make a śāstra of walking, a śāstra of speaking, a śāstra of sleeping. Writing a śāstra means to go into the merits and demerits of everything connected with the subject. Śrīmad Bhāgavatam is such a śāstra. Unfortunately or fortunately, it is considered to be a puranic narration because it discusses and deals with the subjects which are the concern of mahapurana. But in reality, it is a pāramahaṁsya saṁhitā.

Saṁhitā means a compendium. In the saṁhitā, you will find a collection of thoughts, but there will be one fundamental line of thinking. All the other thought processes current at the time of writing and prevailing even earlier, all of them will be given a place. But all of them will ultimately be supportive to the fundamental line of thinking. Thus a saṁhitā will have to be very elaborate, comprehensive and it must cater to a number of tastes and tendencies. Śrīmad Bhāgavatam being a poetic composition, you will find nature frequently dealt with. You will find rivers are referred to, mountains are referred to, lakes are referred to. There are occasions when they describe the Trikutachala mountain. There the author goes on enumerating a number of trees. I think it runs into dozens and dozens of names. In writing my book series, I have included all the names so that people will know what a śāstra is. It is to deal with human life in all its aspects and faces, the society and its admixtured character, then administration which should look after the society and ensure that the individuals and groups are given the freedom to conduct their life and pursue a national or a global goal. Invariably all these writings will contain a number of stories of kings and their rule; sometimes despotic rule, sometimes benign rule.

While recording the history, the saṁhitā has also the supreme purpose of enlightening the people who read. Their idea is to present a past and through that they want to mould and shape the thinking of the present. So, there is a specific purpose. Dharma, artha, kama, and moksha, all are dealt with. Dharma means the righteous way of living, by adopting which you should earn money and have the resources to meet the requirements of your life, artha. After having money you must gratify your desires – kama. And all these should be in such a manner that your mind attains maturity, ripeness and it reaches a stage where it says, ‘I have outlived everything, I don’t want.’ And before you depart from this world, you must have a sense of release, freedom and fulfillment - moksha. So all the narration will be around this dharma, artha, kama and moksha. This is said to be the four-fold puruṣārtha. The word puruṣārtha means an object or an objective for which the human will have to persistently and diligently strive. Suppose you live in this world carelessly and inattentively, then this cannot be attained. This is actually a development of the human personality, taking into consideration his desultory mind and investigating intelligence, also an asserting ego. Taking all these things into account the whole narration is made.

In Śrīmad Bhāgavatam, there are 12 sections, skandas. I always say you take the raw material called the human mind, let it be good, bad or otherwise, start feeding it, giving it the treatment. There are altogether 12 workshops there – 12 skandas. Start feeding it, handling it in the first workshop. Then it goes to the second, third, fourth, fifth, etc. Finally when it comes out of the 12th section – workshop, skanda, you will find it is a beautiful, golden, exhilarating, ecstatic, super-brilliant product. All the impurity will have been lost. All the desultoriness will have been cured and you will get a beautiful, scintillating, and devotional mind. This is what Śrīmad Bhāgavatam means. The 10^th skanda of Śrīmad Bhāgavatam deals with the birth, growth, exploits and excellences of Krishna. The Bhāgavata author found that for the human mind to hold on to a prop and to be attracted and allured, there must be a beautiful and alluring character.

Krishna appears in Mahabhaaratam but the Mahabharata Krishna is only a human Krishna. That mere humanness is not sufficient for the people to be allured. So, Vedavyasa, Śrīmad Bhāgavatam decided to give him a beautiful coating. It takes up the subject of Krishna and starts speaking about how divine, glorious and unparallelled it was. By presenting Krishna they also had a feeling, an intention that the world is always ridden by good and bad but ultimately bad will have to subside and good will have to prevail. This is an intrinsic law and process which is preserved and pursued by nature. So, it starts giving a divine background to Krishna’s birth. That is why an impersonal voice was heard “I shall be born as the 8th son of Devaki to kill Kamsa.” So Kamsa was given enough warning whereby he could do whatever he wanted as a political powerlord. Whatever he wanted to do to prevent the birth he could have done. He did one after the other. He went to the worst and stunning cruelty by imprisoning his own pregnant sister and her husband … chained them. All these things were done but even then at the dead of midnight the security guards simply went into sleep. That was the time Krishna was born. A brief conversation took place between the child and the parents, and the child said, “Transport me to Brindavanam right now and bring back the girl child from there and put it in my place.” This is the 10th skanda consisting of 90 chapters.

You will find how Krishna grew up in adverse circumstances. He was supposed to be a prince but he was growing as a cowherd boy. Many of you have the tendency to blame circumstances. “My parents did not bring me up well.” “My circumstances were not all right.” “I did not have this opportunity and that opportunity.” What nonsense are you saying? Are you supposed to be simply a product of the circumstances? Don’t you have a mind, intelligence and ego? Can you not outlive whatever is to be outlived? After all you were born, and you were reared for maximum 16 to 18 years. You are going to live for 72 years minimum. Only one third of the life was over. That was a time you were not an adult.

Now that you have become an adult, choose the environment, choose your path, assert your mind, assert your intelligence, assert your ego, and in a benign and helpful manner, grow to any extent. Sky is the limit. This is what Krishna did. In the most conflicting and opposing environments, he did not lose his inner splendor, glory, potential and greatness. The last encounter was when Kamsa, his own uncle, called him. Krishna was very young … 8 to 9 years, 10 years old. He arranged a dhanur yaaga and he said the nephew should be invited, so issued an invitation. Krishna did not say “I will not come.” He knew very well Kamsa had made enough traps in order to dispose him off.

There was a big elephant – Kuvalayapeetam, it is called … a tusker made ready to crush Krishna. That was the first encounter. He started playing with the elephant, going behind and going to the side, etc., making the elephant whirl around which is very difficult for an animal like that, and ultimately he pulled both the tusks and put them on his shoulder and he walked into the wrestling arena. He met both of them, finished them and then scaled, jumped over to where Kamsa was sitting and seeing all that, and he disposed of Kamsa, straightaway went to Kamsa’s father Ugrasena, who was imprisoned, released him and said “Sit on the thrown and rule the kingdom.” The misrule of Kamsa was so much that many had already fled. This is all the story of Krishna. There is enough of heroism, valour, adventure, ring leadership, everything is there. His childhood pranks even now people recite them. Speak, laugh and smile about them, etc. Then he comes to discharge his life’s mission of unloading the earth caused by the wicked people. All that is over.