ViBha Class Notes: April 10, 2022

In our culture, we have a flow to follow samskaras. There are various systems of samskaras. The most popular now contain sixteen samskaras, and the sixteenth samskara is called Antyeshti – antya means final like anta, ishti means yajna or sacrifice. So the final sacrifice. In a sacrifice, there is an element of giving. In a fire sacrifice, materials are given to a fire. With Antyeshti what is given is the ego. The ego gives itself up. We have now made Antyeshti about the body when factually, it is about the ego. 

The only way this will be possible is if we follow the vision of our samskaras which is – Right Actions, which should nurture Right Attitudes, which will nurture the Right Atma. Atma means that which is closest. We are born feeling that which is closest is the ego. That is why we are defensive. Before this body dies, we should feel that which is closest is not the ego, but the Spirit. So, Right actions → Right Attitudes → Right Atma. This can be shared in a different way. It is changing the Anatma vasana to be Atma vasana. Vasana means print. How is a print formed? By strength. How is strength developed? Through sincerity. How is sincerity developed? Through steadiness. 

What we are doing in this course is – we are being steady. We are approaching hour one hundred and twenty. That steadiness, Vivekji prays has evolved to sincerity and that sincerity, Vivekji prays, will evolve to strength, which will create an impact, print on who we are. That we are Bhaktas. What do Bhaktas do? They associate with Bhaktas, and when Bhaktas are with Bhaktas, their only purpose or focus is Bhagavan. 

In the Bhagavad Gita, the teachings begin in Chapter 2 – Verse 11, and the foremost teaching is to know Brahma. In Meaningful Mornings, Vivekji shared this as Vastness. Know Brahma is the same as Know Vastness. In Srimad Bhagavata, the teaching is exactly the same, the only change being that it is not knowing Brahma, it is knowing Bhagavan. Not to know Vastness, but rather to know Divinity. This is most clear as Bhagavan Krshna’s leela is shifting to become unmanifest. As soon as this is happening, a profound dialogue begins between Raja Nimi and the Navayogis or Navarshis. This whole dialogue is about – Where will Bhagavan Krshna go? How does one feel Bhagavan Krshna when He becomes unmanifest? We should be oriented to why this dialogue is happening right here, right now. 

The first Rshi to answer Raja Nimi is Rshi Kavi. Raja Nimi’s question is – What is Kshema? Kshema means the greatest goodness, and Rshi Kavi responds – Bhagavata Dharma. In a simplistic sense – All that we do, for Bhagavan, All that we are, is Bhagavan. A very beautiful sentiment that is shared before this answer is given – If we close our eyes and run, we will not fall. Factually, this is only possible if there is no samsara. For those who are practising Bhagavata Dharma, there is no samsara. There is nothing to fall into, so how can one fall? All that one does, all that one is, there is only Mayapati, not Maya. 

The second Rshi to answer is Rshi Hari. Raja Nimi’s question is – What are the Lingas or indicators of the one who is following Bhagavata Dharma? 

So the two questions asked until now are – 

1. What is the ends?
2. How does one know when one has reached the ends?

And the answer given to the second question is – Bhagavata Bhava, the feeling or sense that there is only Bhagavan. If we recollect  – the Uttama Bhakta feels Oneness in All and All in Oneness, the Madhyama Bhakta feels more separation, and the Prakrita Bhakta feels a great deal of separation. So practically, how can we build up this sense of Bhagavata Bhava? By checking these vices – 

1. We should practise not reacting
2. Practise not being confused
3. Practise not mis-identifying
4. Practise not arrogating – sense of doership
5. Practise not possessing – sense of deservership
6. Practise not being distracted
7. Practise not feeling being burned – sense of burning or feeling uncomfortable, agitated

Recent RAD that Vivekji shared was – A is for adults, and adults are Agitated. C is for children, and children are Comfortable.

The last teaching that Rshi Hari shares is to tie up Bhagavan in our heart, a lovely way to make sure these vices are checked. Use the ropes of devotion. The word Guna means rope, but here we have to let Bhakti be that Rope and we tie up Bhagavan with this rope. Think of how efficient this is – if Bhagavan is living inside us, can there be any sense of being reactive, misidentifying and so on? If that is too poetic, think about when we were looking in the mirror while brushing our teeth this morning. Were we jealous looking at ourselves? Were we feeling lusty looking at the person in the mirror? Because there is Oneness there. There can only be vices in separation. There can be no vices in Oneness. 

Continuing with this Navayogi upadesha, here is a very special dialogue on how we can feel Bhagavan Krshna, when Bhagavan Krshna is, as if hard to feel – He is not playing His flute anymore, He has chosen not to marry anyone else. So how can we still feel Bhagavan Krshna?  

Skanda 11:3:1 – Raja Nimi is now asking Rshi Antariksha – The Supreme Vishnu is the Lord of All, on account of Whom even the masterful are deluded. Therefore, I desire to know what Maya is. Please elaborate to us on this. 

What is Kshema? What is Linga? And now the third question is – What is Maya? 

These dialogues show us how Bhakti is presented in a Jnana way, in an organized framework way. We went through such a dialogue in Shri Rama Gita in the Ramayana where Shri Lakshmana asks Bhagavan Rama five questions, and in that dialogue one of the questions is – What is Maya? And the answer is – Maya is separation. Another nice dialogue we got to experience was between Garuda, the shishya, and Kakabushundi, the Guru, after Bhagavan Rama’s leela was completed in the Uttarakanda. In this dialog, seven questions were asked, and the first question was – What is the greatest form? The answer is – A human form as a human can be Bhagavan. 

The answer to Raja Nimi’s third question is given from Verses 3-16, a very elaborate answer. An entire answer is given and the last portion of each answer ends with – This is the Lord’s Maya. The question is asked in Verses 1-2 and all of the answers are given from Verses 3-16.  Here is the answer from Verse 3, and then follows a summary of all the other verses – 

Skanda 11:3:3 – Rshi Antariksha shares – These (elements – space, air, fire, water, earth), all of these beings are really a combination and permutation of elements. Inside of all this is the Bhutatma, the Supreme, Lord Vishnu. These elements that make up the beings have come from the great elements, O strong-armed one (so these micro elements that make up our body come from the macro elements). These beings are created as higher and lower, but are all made up of Bhagavan Narayana. And all of these beings have different purposes (some beings have a purpose for pleasure, some have a purpose for Atma or Peace). 

What is Maya? – From Bhagavan have come the macro elements, which make up the micro elements, and the micro elements make up the body. Beings have bodies and they go about living with different purposes. What happens from here? Here is the elaboration in summary. We must reflect on this –  

• Verse 3: Our Parent creates the elements that create our bodies. 
• Verse 4: Our Parent becomes our mind and our sense organs and sense objects. So Bhagavan is the body; Bhagavan is what’s inside of the body; Bhagavan is also what’s outside of the body

• Verse 5: Though we have to be the Master or Prabhu of this body and all it does, what has happened is that we have started to feel that we are this body, not the master of the body. And then we experience samsara. The word body in Sanskrit means that which is ever changing. Samsara also means that which is ever changing.
• Verse 6: We start to feel incomplete, so we start to act for completion and we end up creating more prints or vasanas. And the more vasanas we have, the more times we have to be born. 
• Verse 7: Emphasized more here, details of repetition are given – I live, try to create joy, that becomes my blue-print, I die and am born again. By the time we are enlightened, we would have gone through 840,000 different wombs. We would have been a worm, a bee, born in different countries, and all these births would have happened over a period of approximately a billion years. This repetition should be extremely intimidating to us.
• Verse 8: As this is happening to us, time withdraws its support of creation, so creation that is manifest becomes unmanifest. 
• Verse 9: What is the exact detail of this manifest creation to unmanifest creation? It starts with a drought. There is no rain and the sun is intense. 
• Verse 10: Then Patala, the lowest dimension in our creation, opens up and Sesha, the one who supports this creation, opens its mouth and what comes out of its mouth is fire – sankarshana mukha analaha. So creation is burning from the top and the bottom. 
• Verse 11: Then rain happens, with raindrops described as being the size of an elephant’s trunk. 
• Verse 12: Bhagavan Brahma dis-identifies from all that is happening, all of the drought, all of the rain, so creation no longer has any power. It becomes listless. 
• Verse 13: Then the earth merges with water; water merges with fire.
• Verse 14: Fire merges with Air; Air merges with Space, and then Time pulls aways from Space. So space merges with Tamas.
• Verse 15: Tamas merges with Rajas; Rajas merges with Sattva; Sattva merges with Prakriti, which means Maya.
• Verse 16: Prakriti merges with Purusha. The same Bhagavan Narayana from whom the macro elements came, that all merges with Bhagavan Narayana. 

Ramayana is simpler. What is Maya? – Separation. In the Bhagavata, it is certainly more detailed, but the practice is given here – We should keep on dis-identifying with that which is shallow and keep identifying with that which is deep. 

Final thought – Bhagavata Dharma is – All that you do, for Him, All that you Are, is Him. This was the answer in the first paragraph. From Bhagavan Narayana came the elements, and from the elements came the body. So is this our shoulder, our lung, our mind? We are supposed to be Prabhu, but we have become the servant. We are supposed to be Mayapati, but we have become Maya. 

RAW: Think of what Rishi Prabuddha’s answer is going to be to the next question – How do we deal with Maya? Engage in manana over what your perspective is.