Story 22 - Vidura questions Sage Maitreya Srimad Bhagavatham - A Spiritual Insight - Story 22 - Vidura questions Sage Maitreya Uddhava after speaking about the glories of the Lord requested Vidura to meet the sage Maitreya. Vidura thus went to meet Maitreya and asked him the questions as to how should a person behave or act in all circumstances and asked him to explain about the creation of the Lord who is formless and changeless & yet is seen as the manifested world. Maitreya started answering to the questions of Vidura by explanation of creation process and what actually is creation of the world. Maitreya thus said: You are Yama, the punisher of all. Due to a curse by Sage Mandavya, you were born on Earth in the present body and form. Lord alone was present before creation – there was nothing but Lord alone. There were no dualities in the form of many jeevas or individual beings. The Lord then started looking here and there for people but could not see anyone. Lord then used his power of Maya which is neither Sat nor Asat (which is termed as anirvachaneeya or illusory) for creation. From the Maya power was created the Mahat Tattva or cosmic mind or Brahma. And from Brahma started the entire creation of the five elements and the individual beings for enjoying the external sense objects. Explanation Most of the scriptures repeat what is important again and again. The ultimate reality is Lord alone – one without a second. But still we forget this reality and run behind other sensual pleasures. Hence the one and only way to ensure this reality to be apprehended by a seeker is repetition. Hence the scriptures repeat the reality again and again. Technically in Vedanta, there are six lingas or imports or ways of finding out the main import of a scripture or a scriptural text. One of those is Abhyaasa or repetition. Hence we find in the Chandogya Upanishad, the father-guru Uddalaka instructs the disciple Svetakethu 9 times with the mahavakya TAT TVAM ASI or THAT THOU ART. Here also Bhagavatham repeats the process of creation again (after having explained it in two places specifically when Parikshit questioned Shuka and in the Chatushloki Bhagavatham). Creation as explained by Vedanta is not real but is only an illusion in the reality of Lord. Before creation, there was Lord alone without any body or any thing other than Lord. This is what Upanishads or the Vedas themselves proclaim. This Lord then created the various objects and beings from his power of Maya. This Maya is neither existent or non-existent. A thing is said to be existent if it exists beyond time – if it exists today, it existed yesterday and will exist tomorrow. A thing is said to be non-existent if it doesn’t exist for the three times of past, present and future (it never has any existence – an example is the son of a barren woman and horns of a hare). But the world that we perceive is not existent as it was not present before creation and will not be present tomorrow (the objects that we see vanish after some time and hence it is not present in the future). The world is also not non-existent as it is currently perceived. Hence it is neither existent nor non-existent. Such objects are termed as indescribable in Vedanta. Anything indescribable is only an illusion in the substratum of the illusion. The water is seen in desert (in mirage). The water is not non-existent as it is currently perceived. But once a person goes near to the desert, the water vanishes & hence it ceases to exist. Therefore it is not existent also (it exists only now and in the future it ceases to exist). And hence we all know that it is only an illusion. An illusion is indescribable as either real or unreal from the empirical view when the illusion is being perceived. But the moment a person goes beyond the illusion and knows its substratum, the illusion ceases to exist & the reality that there never was an illusion present is realized. Similarly when the substratum of the world which is Brahman or Lord or Consciousness is known as one’s own very nature of Self, then the world ceases to exist & the reality that there never was a world is realized. The world is thus like the dream world that is seen during dream. It seems to exist during the state of dream but once a person wakes up the dream ceases to exist. This is the reality of the world that we are perceiving currently. When this reality is known, then other things like creation of the world etc. become easy to understand. The various theories of creation like Mahat Tattva etc. are meant only to give an explanation to the initial seeker. Once the seeker progresses he is told the ultimate reality that there is nothing here but only Lord. Previously also, the Lord alone existed – now also Lord alone exists – tomorrow also Lord alone will exist. There is no duality here but only the Lord, one without a second exists. This Lord is not different from oneself but one’s own very nature. The very basic goal of human life is to avoid sorrows and sufferings & be happy. Everybody ranging from a poor person to a rich person has the same goal of being happy at all times. The sorrows and sufferings are not natural to the individual who is nothing but Lord alone. But these are creations of the mind and is born out of considering the illusory world as real. Only when a person thinks his relatives and profession to be real, he will have the desire to maintain them & once a relative dies he will be sad. But when the person realizes that everything that he is currently perceiving is only an illusion in the ultimate reality of Brahman or Lord or Self, then there remains no sorrow but only eternal bliss inherent in the Self. Thus, it is important for a seeker to realize that the creation is only an illusion and whatever is present is the Lord alone & he himself is the Lord alone, not different from it. This is the final goal which has to be realized and realization of this ultimate reality alone can confer a person eternal bliss which is what everybody is seeking each and every moment. There might be doubt here that “daily the same Self, the same Consciousness, the same Lord, the same illusion of world – isn’t it boring? Why can’t other things be explained” J There is only two entities in the world. One is called Consciousness or Lord or Self or Brahman which is the real entity. The other is the insentient objects which are unreal and mere illusions in the reality of Consciousness. When Self is known, then there is bliss alone. When the insentient objects are concentrated, then there is nothing but sorrow alone. It is upto the individual as to whether he wants to live again in sorrow and be born innumerable times in the circle of birth-death or he wants to realize his own very nature of Lord and immerse in the eternal bliss. The one and only way to realize the reality is being immersed in the reality and always establishing oneself in the reality. This can be achieved only through constant contemplation on the reality – each moment the reality has to be remembered. A simple means of doing this is to talk about the reality alone. This limited intellect which is called Hariram doesn’t want to enter into the description and explanation of illusory insentient objects thereby leading himself and others into the ocean of sorrow. This is also not what the scriptures proclaim or the great Sankara propounds. Also this is not what is propounded by his guru of Sadguru Mata Amritanandamayi. Each moment should be spent remembering the ultimate reality of Lord – this alone is what is to be done in life to rejoice in the eternal bliss inherent in the Self. We have always been doing the same things again and again. Daily we get and brush our teeth – have coffee, read paper – is there any particular use of these activities which we have been doing again and again??? Yes, there is use of brushing the teeth if one considers himself as the body. But it is utter ignorance to call oneself the body because the body is insentient and the dead body doesn’t speak or brush its teeth. Therefore there is no use of the various activities that we have been and are doing daily in life. We come to office daily and work, is there any use of working? Yes, we get money – but does money give us the sufficient happiness that we are searching. No, it doesn’t. On the contrary it leads to more craving and fighting for money, fame etc. Thus, all the activities that we do are regular and repetitive activities. These are all illusory activities which are of no real use unless it is done as an offering to the Lord and with remembrance of the ultimate reality that everything is the Lord alone. Since we do all actions as repetitive ones, hence it is not a problem repeating that which will surely give us eternal bliss. This is what is intended through the study of scriptures and through the postings on Srimad Bhagavatham. Any word or any posting is of no use if it doesn’t reveal the ultimate reality of Lord or Brahman because in that case the discussion will be on unreal and illusory things. That would be like discussing about the dream that one saw which is neither of any use to the person who saw the dream nor to the other people who are hearing about it. As explained earlier, the easiest and simplest way to explain the ultimate reality is repetition of the reality that everything is Brahman or Lord alone so that each moment the seeker contemplates on the Lord and thereby merges into the Lord. This is what Srimad Bhagavatham also explains. As Sankara says in Laghu Vaakya Vritti Tat chintanam tat kathanam tat paraspara bhodanam Etat ekaatma paratvam brahmaabhyaasam vidhurbudhaah The way to realization of Brahman or Lord is constant contemplation on the Lord which is achieved through speaking about the reality, thinking about the reality and discussing with each other about the reality. Let us all thus try to spend atleast some part of our daily time in contemplation of the ultimate reality of Lord who is present everywhere and whose thought alone is enough to remove the sorrows and sufferings in life.
Posted on: Thu, 12 Sep 2013 08:45:18 +0000
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