Articles for Saadhana

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru.

I would like to tell you some kind of a thought and an evaluation that took place yesterday in my mind about the Srimad Bhagavata Tattva Sameeksha Satram.

Right from the beginning I had clearly said and also envisaged that if at all we take up this mega event Srimad Bhagavata Tattva Sameeksha Satram, it could only be on the basis of two important factors. One is the supreme intelligence, the supreme Lord, Reality. In Srimad Bhagavatam, that is called Lord Hari, Mahavishnu. So the Supreme Lord on one hand, on the other hand the devotion towards Him. The devotion completely rests upon us who organize the event, who also participate in this event, either as speakers or as listeners, viewers. There should not be a third element brought here. One!

Secondly, it should not become just like a temple devotion. Already many temples are there. And the sole focus in the temple is the deity. And people are coming here, they make a number of offers. They don’t mind also doing it. Now, the offering is so much that we don’t have people to handle what the people give. And in handling, the same element of corruption, irregularity, irresponsibility and all that is coming.

We should not have that kind of a devotional focus here. But we should have a focus of enlightenment. And what are we going to do for it? We will take Srimad Bhagavatam as the tradition says,

The pratyaksha Krishna that we have is Srimad Bhagavatam itself. So every word of Srimad Bhagavatam, every verse of Srimad Bhagavatam, every chapter, all of this we will submit to a proper analysis and enlightenment. So the sole focus should be to get such speakers who will be able to throw light on the content of devotion, practice of devotion, perfection of devotion, and fulfillment of it. For devotion to become fulfilled there must be enough of knowledge and experience, jnana, and vijnana, and also dispassion towards the perishable things of the world. So Srimad Bhagavatam is actually presenting a combination of bhakti, jnana, and virakti, or bhakti, virakti, and jnana. When you have an ample measure of devotion, which is an affair of your heart, it is coupled with an adequate measure of dispassion to the world. Automatically the knowledge and realization of God will dawn. This is the message of Srimad Bhagavatam.

To generate the devotion what are we doing? We are engaging the people constantly in listening to the exposition of Srimad Bhagavata. How well the ideas are exposed will determine how well the listeners are progressing. It is for the speaker to lead the listeners to whereever Srimad Bhagavatam wants. Listening is actually a tapasya. It is a process of assimilation, the process of which is listening to and absorbing the ideas conveyed. When such absorption takes place, it can only be into the mind, by the mind, to remain part of the mind. So yesterday there was a feeling, somebody expressed that Guruvayurappan is not given a proper place. You know I have my own ideas of Guruvayurappan.

We have trinity in Hinduism. One is Brahma, the Creator, another is Mahavishnu, the Preserver, the third is Shiva, the Destroyer. Unless we have a combination of all these three, there cannot be either the existence of the world, or its prevalence. All the three are independent. But somehow Srimad Bhagavatam and such other texts, when they start describing Mahavishnu, they will say Mahavishnu is superior, Shiva is inferior, Brahma is inferior. When they discuss Shiva, they will say Vishnu is inferior, Brahma is inferior. And we don’t have much literature on Brahma. That will also say Vishnu and Shiva are inferior.

The point is that all the three are conceptions, imaginations of the human mind. People call Guruvayurappan. Actually the deity installed there is Mahavishnu. Srimad Bhagavatam elaborately discusses how the concept of Mahavishnu has given rise to a Chaturbhuja-dhaari idol and how the colour of the idol, the dress of the idol, the associations and insignia of the idol, all of them have undergone a change from kṛta yuga, tretā yuga, dvāpara yuga, and kali yuga. In kṛta yuga, Mahavishnu was considered as an ascetic deity. All the people believed in austerity, and Mahavishnu was given Jata, Danda, Kamandalu, etc. When it came to tretā yuga, the colour of the deity changed. I think it changed into red. And various insignia started coming. In tretā yuga, I think people started worshiping Him with Vedas, to some extent with tantra also. In dvāpara yuga, it was still more. The tantra got precedence over mantra. Then when it came to kali yuga, the emphasis is on sankeerthana. People are not prepared to do so much of worship in a vedic or a ritualistic manner. So this itself is mentioned in Srimad Bhagavata.

So in Guruvayur, the idol is not Krishna. The idol is Mahavishnu. This idol was legendarily worshiped by Vasudeva and Devaki, Krishna’s parents. Even before the birth of Krishna, they were worshiping the idol. How can such a temple and the deity be Krishna Kshetram? So people can make mistakes and inappropriateness in any walk of life. Now Mahavishnu disappears, Sri Krishna also disappears, and Guruvayurappan alone is there. Is God to be associated specifically with a place or with a form? Srimad Bhagavatam clearly describes how Mahavishnu has to be meditated upon. You meditate upon the whole of His form. Then take away the lower parts and focus on the smiling face. When your attention is focused on the smiling face, Bhagavatam says, take away your mind and then engage it in the sky, which is all pervasive space. And when the mind goes to the sky level, stop thinking at all. Everything should be forgotten.

na kinchidapi chintayet - are the words used by Srimad Bhagavatam as well as Bhagavadgeeta.

This is the way the devotee has to progress. Now we want to enlighten the people about all this. It is true that lakhs of people are devoted to God in various places. But Hinduism as a great Dharma is declining. So many people, without being told what is our dharma, are even getting converted into other systems of thought. It is all due to our inadequacy and inappropriateness. I would like our Naimiṣāraṇyam to be a platform from where all these things will be properly discussed and disclosed to the people. I insist upon it, I also speak about it. Unfortunately we don’t have many speakers about it. It is necessary that we have a focus like a picture or an idol or a saligrama or a Shiva Linga. It is ok. It is a kindergarten - primary class. At no point of time these classes can be closed. But will you always remain in a class or will you study only one year and wait for going to the next class? In the devotional ladder, we seem to be held up in the primary step, we don’t climb at all.

I want the Naimisaranyam platform to be an occasion where all these things in a shastrically, in a scriptural manner, explained to the people. I am told that 80% of the speakers are able to do it to a large extent. They are trying, they are trying. That is why people have started calling it the “Satra of Satras”. This is the name they have attributed to Naimisaranyam. So I was mentioning yesterday that we have placed Mahavishnu’s picture there and there is regular Puja going on. But our main focus is on the content and the message of Srimad Bhagavatam.

We began in the first year saying -

It is actually from Srimad Bhagavata where Bhagavan Himself is explained as the nondual knowledge, that itself is spoken of as Paramatma, Parabrahma, and Bhagavan, Suta says. Later on we wanted to condense it further, so we have put satyaṁ paraṁ dhīmahi. I think this is the best representation of even Guruvayurappan. So yesterday I spoke about it without referring to but in an enlightening manner. I wanted you to understand it. I am always afraid that our Satram also will decline in due course of time. When it becomes a little more popular and people start coming, they will start displaying all kinds of pictures, photos, this, that, and all. And then there will be so many people saying, ‘place this photo, I will you give X amount of money’. And like that it will happen. But as long as I am associated with it, we are associated with it, we would like it to be run in the lines of enlightenment and exposition, exposure rather than getting adulterated by the usual temple thought, temple devotion and the like.

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru.