ViBha Class Notes: April 24, 2022

In our Chinmaya assemblies, we chant “devotion to the people is devotion to the Supreme Self”. Our course, Vedanta in Bhagavata, is dedicated for us to be Bhaktas. If we only identify as Bhaktas, then there is such surrender to Bhagavan. That is the only relationship of importance. Bhagavata is dedicated to us being Bhaktas and a Bhakta is dedicated to Bhakti, to living this life devoted to humans, animals, plants and stones. If we are identifying more as a Bhakta and expressing more Bhakti, then the Chinmaya pledge is much closer to us.

We are exploring the Navayogi Upadesha which is a very vedantic portion of Shrimad Bhagavata. It is about these nine Yogis sharing advice. This advice is based on  questions that they have given answers to: 

• Q1: What is Kshema? 

Advice 1: Dharma, Bhagavata Dharma – the greatest goodness is to do and be Bhagavan.

• Q2: What is Linga? 

Advice 2: Bhava, Bhagavata Bhava – What are the indicators of one who is doing all for Bhagavan, feels they are Bhagava? They feel Divinity outside of them and inside of them. There is no conditioning to this feeling.

• Q3: What is Maya? 

Advice 3: Sarja. Maya is a creative power, Sarja is then naturally creation. Maya is creation of forms and names and getting lost in Maya is samsara. One keeps spinning and spinning. It is living a life of busyness.

• Q4: What is taranti? 

Advice 4: Prapadyeta or prostrate, surrender. How to cross Maya? How to deal with Maya? To be at the fisher person’s feet so the net does not catch us. 

If we are struggling with samsara because of Maya, then we should prostrate to one’s Guru and from there inquire, pursue, follow what the best is so that we become the best. This is all code for Bhakti. We should learn from our Guru what Bhakti is, because if we are a Bhakta, then there will be no bandha as those are antonyms. 

Skanda 11:3:34: Raja Nimi is asking questions and these yogis are taking turns answering these questions. So Raja Nimi is now asking Raja Pippalayana – The One known as Narayana, relatedly known as Brahman, that which is farthest and the One who is closest, Atman. What is the nature of Narayana? Please tell us because all of you, the Navayogis, know best. Among all knowers, you are the greatest. 

Put simply, the question is – Who is Narayana? 

Some orientation first – Question 3 is – What is Maya? Maya is a creative power. The answer for Question 4 is a Guide. There is this creative power that is confusing, so we deal with this with a Guide. Where will this Guide guide us to? That is Question 5 – Who is Narayana? Another way to look at this question is – Who is the Creator? The Guide helps us to shift from the creative power to the One who holds this power, from Maya to Bhagavan – Narayana Parayana. Parayana means to cross or to transcend. So what a Guide does is to help us cross the creative power to the Creator that is Narayana. The answer is given from Verses 35-40.

Verse 36: Just as sparks coming from a fire do not illumine or burn that fire, the entities born of Him, like the mind, words, eyes, buddhi, prana and senses cannot reveal that Being. Even the Vedic sentences, the basic source of Atma knowledge reveal Him not directly, but only by implication through their negative stance, for without an indirect implication of a positive background, an ultimate negation is impossible. 

We cannot know Narayana; we can only Be Narayana – that is the essence. 

Nara means individual. Naara is the collection of individuals, of naras. So we are a naara, a community. Ayana has two meanings. The lower meaning is path, like in the name Ramayana, it is Rama’s path. He went from Ayodhya to Lanka to back to Ayodhya. So Narayana is the path for the individual, for the community. The higher meaning of ayana is Spirit, Self, Atma. So Narayana is the Spirit of the individual. Narayana is the Self of all individuals. It is such a beautiful word that we can just contemplate on the word Narayana. 

The summary of all of the answers given is: 

• In Verse 35, Rshi Pippalayana shares – Narayana is the causeless cause. The lower narrative to this is – What is the cause of all? Narayana, that is why we call him the Creator or the Original Parent. The higher narrative is – What is the implication of causeless? Never caused, so there is no creative power called Maya. There is no creation called samsara. There is only Narayana. Narayana is Existence, Awareness, Joy – Sat-Chit-Ananda. Existence never became anything. Awareness and Joy never became anything. So we should stop becoming and just Be.
• In Verse 36, it is shared – We cannot know Narayana and that we can only Be Narayana. Here is a comparison. A camera can take a photograph, but that photograph can never know that camera. Whether it is physical or digital, that photograph cannot go back into that camera. All that photograph can do is not feel separate from that camera, but feel one with the camera. The implication for us is to accept that our equipments will never know the Spirit. So we should stop trying as we cannot intellectualize Narayana or the Spirit. We keep trying to prove it, or have a scientific approach to it. It is not possible. The only acceptance is – I am Narayana. We need to stop trying to know this like we know wifi or our profession. 

Aparoksha means no medium, no knowing. It is only Being. A quote of Swami Vidyaranya that was shared by Swami Tejomayananda in his commentary was – A human who doesn’t feel the Spirit is really a lump of clay that looks like a human. If we don’t understand and appreciate that there has to be a Spirit – the fact that we can think and we can see, how is this happening? It is the Spirit – then we are just an ordinary looking lump of clay. 

• In Verse 37, the answer that is shared is – Narayana is that which is expressed as the gunas. Narayana is the foundation and it functions as the gunas, specifically the sense organs and the sense objects. How do we live this? The sense organs are Narayana. The sense objects are also Narayana. So what are we desiring? We invest so much in beautifying the sense organs, and pursuing the sense objects, but if we have the insight that this is Narayana and this is Narayana, then instead of becoming, we start to Be Narayana. 

• In Verse 38, the answer shared is – Narayana is that which connects all jivas like prana connects all jivas. In a practical sense, all of us are breathing in air. Our clothes and minds may be different, but we are all connected in that we depend on oxygen. Narayana is the same way. So the implication of this is that we should change our focus from that which separates us to that which unites us. What unites all of us is oxygen. What unites us even more deeply is Narayana. 

• In Verse 39, Narayana expresses as gunas and as beings that are born from andeshu – eggs (like birds), peshishu – womb (like us), tarushu – seeds (like a tree) and avinishchiteshu – moisture (like fungus). This shows how specific our Rshis were, including all beings, born in different ways. The implication of this is – If Narayana expresses as those born from eggs, like a bird, when a bird defecates on our windshield, do we feel that Narayana?  

At the end of the Ramayana, a lovely teaching is shared  – Parama Dharma Shruti Bidita Ahimsa – that the highest responsibility is to live in harmony with all. And here we have been specifically taught by this Rshi to live in harmony with all that come from eggs, wombs, seeds and moisture. This is so in tune with Earth life.

• In Verse 40, the Rshi shares that Naras like us should live for life. We should follow the ayana (path) to the Ayana (Presence). So in this single word Narayana, the entire purpose of our living is stated – Live for Life. Life is Existence-Awareness-Joy. When we do this, we will feel more pure and the more pure we feel, the more we will feel the Spirit.

Summarizing further – The question is – What is Narayana? The answer is – Ahetu – hetu means cause and ahetu is causeless. The implication of this is that there is no samsara, there is no Maya, there is only Bhagavan. 

Skanda 11:3:41 – Here Raja Nimi is asking the sixth question to Rshi Avirhotra – Tell us about Karma yoga. In the last verse, it was stated that the more pure we become, the more we feel Narayana. So now the question is – How do we become pure? So how do humans like us become refined, pure? How can we become free of karma fast? We are tired of depending on karma trying to feel joy. What we want is to enjoy doershiplessness, which is Being. 

Rshi Pippalayana shares earlier in a verse that we should be Uru Bhaktya, being intensely devotional. So Raja Nimi is asking how we should become this Uru. If we are already a Bhakta and expressing Bhakti, how do we become more immersed or intense – Uru Bhaktya? The answer is given in verses 43-55. Here is an indication to this answer. 

In Verse 46, Rshi Avirhotra responds by saying – The Veda encourages karma only so that one grows out of karma, like a parent encourages a child to take medicine because it is sweet. Just like a parent will disguise what a medicine tastes like to get the child to take that medicine, so too the Veda says – If we follow the Veda, we will get this Siddhi, we will go to heaven. But once we start to follow the Veda, we will grow out of that, just like a child grows out of needing medicine to be sweet. They just know they need to take that medicine. So the simplistic answer to – How does one become intensely devotional? – Follow the Veda. The Atma of Ishwara is the Veda. The essence of Bhagavan is the Veda. If we love Bhagavan, we have to love Bhagavan’s Guidance and Guide. If we love Bhagavan Krshna, don’t we have to love Bhagavad Gita? That is the essence of Bhagavan Krshna.

Discussion: How do we believe less in our equipments and have more faith in Existence?

Vivekji’s thoughts: Based on today’s class, it is Bhagavata. If Bhagavata shared it, he follows it. If a Rshi said it, he doesn’t need evidence, he doesn’t need proof, nor science. One just follows it. What greater pramana do we need than Bhagavata, Bhagavad Gita or Ramayana? Since our equipments depend on Existence, how can we depend on them?

RAW: Come up with our sutra for every answer or how we will practice the answers so far shared by the Navayogis. The sutras have to be in 3 English words.