Class Notes by Bhargavi
We are all living in Kali yuga (started 5100 years ago), Kala (in Kali yuga) refers to ‘machines’. With machines come more technology where people are living in virtual way. In kali yuga, people stop feeling. In this age of darkness in Kali yuga, Bhagavan Kalki is going to be born in Odisha and is going to travel through the world disguised as leaders when in fact they are thieves. In Shrimad Bhagavatam, it is described in detail, that as Bhagavan Kalki is traveling through the world, the wind will be blowing at his back making his horse move faster. The same wind that has touched Bhagavan will then go and touch other people. This wind will then purify all.
Our course is to cultivate faith. Word ‘bhakti’ has many meanings. The ultimate meaning is ‘surrender’. One practices bhakti founded on knowledge that Bhagavan is looking at you, after you! Hari- iccha! (God’s wish). Rishi Narada was made to be born in this world many times just like us. His mother was always serving others. In one birth, his mother was serving a family that was having a satsanga in their home. Rishi Narada, as a child, would play and eat with the attendees. Through that association, he became more and more understanding and aligned with Bhagavan. When his mother passed away, he no longer had the pseudo condition of being with his mother and he just started to travel. As he traveled, he was thinking, acting and singing “Narayana”.
Narayana is elaborated into “sutras”, in this context sutras are signs. We have to follow these signs to follow what he does.
In sutra 3, Rishi Narada shares that our ego, equipment and experiences are all changing. All that we are experiencing is change, and with this change comes tiredness. Bhakti is not related to change and is therefore not tiring. In this sutra, we also learned about Vairagya, to let go, of this pursuit that which makes us tired.
In sutra 4, Rishi Narada shares that the sign of one who surrenders, is that he becomes siddha or balanced. The greatest grounding is to be at Bhagavan’s feet.
In sutra 5, Rishi Narada shares a series of verbs we tend to engage in no longer bind us when we immerse ourselves in Bhakti.
Swami Chinmayananda says “Grief is the feeling that comes in the human mind when the already acquired objects of one’s attachments perish or decay in his possession. Since to a true devotee there is no attachment for anything in the world around, his entire attachment for the imperishable truth in the midst of the ever perishing world of beings and objects, the lover’s heart no grief”…. We know we are surrendering when we feel less grief!
Guruji shares “we are all dying for that which is dying”.
Sutra 6: yajjnātvā matto bhavati, stabdho bhavati,
ātmarāmo bhavati
This sutra shares understanding that the nature of bhakti is independence. When one absorbs this knowledge, they feel intoxicated, become silent and revels in themselves.
We can tell one intoxicated but as we go internal, one cannot tell the siddha’s feeling of internal silence and reveling/bliss. They are feeling the divinity and feeling solid like Bhagavan. In the commentary on Shankara’s moha mudgara, Swami Chinmayanada shares that one who is enlightened, is bālavat (child like), unmat vat (mad person) and pisācha vat (ghost like). In the Geeta too, Bhagavan shares that the enlightened one is sleeping when others are awake and is awake when others are sleeping. Person who has followed the path of Bhakti live in a different world. Great icons of this are our Gopis.
Sutra 7: sā na kāmayamānā nirodha-rūpatvāt
When one is following and experiencing Bhakti, one is fulfilled. Most people who love Bhagavan do so because of their expectations from Him. We should instead love Bhagavan for who He is. Higher purpose of Prarthana is to be grateful. When it comes to praying, our prayer should be silence! “Thy will will be done”. For us to cultivate this, we have to first appreciate what we have and then we have to appreciate who we are.
Bhakti or the highest love is for the truth. Like Swami Tejomayananda shares, we should do the right thing for its own reason, not for the result. Similarly, we should love Bhagavan for Bhagavan, not for a result. We will know we are practicing this ultimate form of Bhakti when we don’t know what we are sacrificing. First we give what we have, then we give who we are without any calculations.
Sutra 8: nirodhastu loka-veda-vyāparā-nyāsah
Rishin Narada is accentuating what he shared in sutra 7. This disillusion/letting go is of our secular lives. In our secular lives we are always doing/transacting. He says that even the Vedas (ritualistic Karma kanda) has to be renounced.
If one is holding on to Bhagavan, one has to let go of all (vyapara, veda). Here letting go means depending on give and take. We have to let go of anything that is not directly making you feel Bhagavan. The purpose of this bhakti is ‘Vishnu’ (all pervading) where we do feel Bhagavan in every experience. Our worldly lives (vyapara) and ritualistic lives (veda) can be let go when the means has served its purpose. These are the means to reach the ends (Vishnu) but we should first be clear about the ends, only then will we know that we have to let go of the means to reach it.
In a comprehensive approach, we don’t have to let go of the means if we are feeling the ends while being engaged in the means. If we go to our corporate jobs thinking this is Hari-iccha, with seva bhava, then the means and ends are together. We have to try to feel Vishnu in the vyapara and in veda.
Swami Chinmayananda writes “every moment of his existence, in every thought of his heart, he is constantly at his feet. To an individual who is thus living in an unbroken memory of the Lord of his heart, even without any situation his very existence is constant oblation of love at the altar of Lord”. It is such personalities that don’t live for moksha, they live for Bhakti.