ViBha Class Notes – October 22, 2023

Let us try to visualize that creation is like a television. So there is an American Channel, a Sports Channel, a War channel, a Peace channel, a boy channel, a girl channel… the whole multiverse is a television. Now when we watch TV through cable or streaming, it is our choice what channel to watch on television. Similarly, it is our choice on what we want to contact or invoke in creation. Please try to make that connection. 

Raja Parikshita was one who instead of fearing death, he flowed with death. That is why when he was told that he was going to die (we have all been told that many thousand times overtly, covertly as well), he chose Satsanga. He left pleasure, possession and position and he chose Satsanga. He made this choice and then Rshi Shuka, who is the icon of Happiness, watched Raja Parikshita’s dedication to Happiness as he was going to die. (Shuka means parrot literally, but a parrot is a bird that only eats the sweetest fruit. The parrot knows that and Rshi Shuka also has felt this Happiness.) In watching him, Rshi Shuka became Raja Parikshita, and with that level of empathy, taught him how to be Happy. He became Raja Parikshita and everyone else he was teaching about, whether it was Bhakta Prahlada or Bhagavati Sita. Literally, Rshi Shuka became these personalities to help Raja Parikshita to feel the same. 

Rshi Shuka has also become us and is sharing with us what we need in this space and time. If we didn’t need this, we wouldn’t be here. And even if we need it, we may be here, but may not be listening. Being here, we feel that this is Rshi Shuka, who is Happiness personified, leading us to Happiness. This is especially relevant as today we complete our 162nd class in Bhagavata and we will complete this course in 168 hours. Our final 6 classes, a journey we started 5 years ago, will be coming to a completion.

In the twelfth section, there is a teaching on Pralaya or finality. One of the Pralayas highlighted was Prakrta Pralaya or relative finality. It is when there is no creation, nor Creator, and there is only Bhagavan Narayana. There is a personality coming in the next few classes who is Rshi Markandeya and there is a beautiful happening where he is trying to understand Maya and all of a sudden, the Creator, creation is all underwater. He himself is drowning in this water and then he sees a single leaf floating on this water and on it is Bhagavan Krshna as a baby or infant. Bhagavan Krshna has this huge smile on His face. Rshi Markandeya is stunned by this and Bhagavan, to tease him more, puts His toe into His mouth. What this is teaching is that – Creation will go away, the Creator will also go away, and Bhagavan Narayana never came and will never go. That is what we are trying to learn in Bhagavata, especially the reality of finality.

We are getting older and the finality is that we are going to die. We can do this fearfully or flowingly. The flowing part is the fourth type of finality called Atyantika Pralaya. It is Anta, the end, or Ati Anta, the most or extreme end when we are enlightened, when we go past being born and dying, that is when we become one with Bhagavan Narayana. So we have Rshi Markandeya and Bhagavan Krshna who are separate, but the final end is when Rshi Markandeya becomes Bhagavan Narayana. 

We have all heard of Rshika Mira before. One of the persons who hated her the most was Rana. Once he opened the door to where she stayed and allowed a lion inside, not a symbolic lion, but a real lion. And what did Rshika Mira do? She folded her hands and felt, “Bhagavan Narasimha has come today”. And that lion went over to her and started licking her feet. That is the power of Ati Anta which is the end of our ego and she is then not separate from that lion. She is a factual being, a historical personality in our culture and not a mythological being. 

At the end of the 5th Chapter, Shri Krshna, through Rshi Shuka, shares the reason why we feel we are dying. If we have a fear of death, why is that fear there? Why do we think like that? Some answers were grief, attachments, fear of uncertainty, identity, but what Rshi Shuka says is that it is the mind. The mind causes us to feel like we are dying. There is great proof of this when we are asleep. Do we have a fear of death then? What the mind does is it takes the Infinite and makes that finite. Can the Infinite become the finite? It is not possible. If the Infinite becomes finite, then it cannot be Infinite. We at our Center level cannot die as we are Existence-Awareness, and that cannot die. 

Another description of the mind is Vikalpa or doubt. For a lot of us, what holds us back in life is when we doubt ourselves – I doubt I can get into this college. I doubt I can take on this project. I doubt we can build a retreat center. So one of the ways to overcome this fear of dying is through clarity, but a more lifestyle choice is Sattva or quietness – to watch that helps us to be quiet, to listen to that which helps us to be quiet, to be around those who help us to be quiet. 

At the end of Chapter 5, Rshi Shuka asks Raja Parikshita if he had any more questions, but he actually asks him if he had any more doubts. Rshi Shuka feels Raja Parikshita, that he does not have any more doubts, nor fears as he is tuned into that Oneness. Raja Parikshita explains to Rshi Shuka how this happened – by Shravita – by listening to Rshi Shuka, and Darshita – by following his vision or directions. Rshi Shuka’s directions did not teach him to be an extrovert, but rather inward looking, and so now Brahma Bhuta – that he has now become Brahma or become Infinite. So the final words of Rshi Shuka were – Do you have any more questions or doubts? The final words of Raja Parikshita were – I have become Brahma. Or in other words, He has become Rshi Shuka, just like Rshika Mira became Bhagavan Krshna.

Now in Chapter 6, Rshi Vyasa himself, the writer of Shrimad Bhagavata, is summarizing Shrimad Bhagavata. 

Skanda 12:6:33 – This is Rshi Ugrashava speaking to Raja Shaunaka. This is the second dialogue. The primary dialogue is where Rshi Shuka is the teacher and Raja Parikshita is the student. More local than that is Rshi Ugrashava is the teacher and Raja Shaunaka is the student.The most local or closest is our Guru Shishya parampara is the teacher and we are the students. 

ta etad adhigacchanti

viṣṇor yat paramaṁ padam

ahaṁ mameti daurjanyaṁ

na yeṣāṁ deha-geha-jam

Such devotees come to understand the Supreme transcendental situation of the personality of God-head – Lord Vishnu, because they are no longer polluted by the concepts of I and My which are based on feeling your home is the body. 

Reflective point: What is the name of the snake that has already bitten Raja Parikshita? Takshaka. What does Takshaka look like? Green scales with fangs that go inwards and outwards? A neurotoxin? Takshaka symbolizes Samsara. Samsara feels like change. So, Takshaka means Samsara, Takshaka means change. We are always being bitten by change. For our high-school students – Change is always happening inside, like puberty. Change is happening outside, like applying to colleges, change in social media, friends liking or not liking us, and so on. There is so much fear that comes with that. So Vivekji would like us to personalize this by thinking of Takshaka not as a physical entity only, but also a metaphysical entity. 

Raja Parikshita had a son named Janmajaya who was enraged when he saw his father’s body burn. When his father’s body was bitten, he was not in that body. He was Brahma-bhuta or Infinite, but his son didn’t know that and was enraged. So, he started this satra or ritual by which all the snakes of the world were attracted to this fire and were being burned up. Now Takshaka, who is also a physical entity, sought protection from Indra, the semi-God. Janmajaya, who was a powerful person, being Raja Parikshita’s son, asked the Pujaris the whereabouts of Takshaka and they could see that he was hiding in Indra’s palace. So Janmajaya asked them to bring Indra too. So now Takshaka in Indra’s palace, including Indra, are now being attracted to this fire. Let us try to visualize this power, like Magneto in X-men, and how he could move cruise ships, trains and so on. 

While this is all happening, another great person who is in this Sanga is Rshi Brihaspati. He looks at Janmajaya and says – Your father was the most accepting personality. He accepted death. He accepted being poisoned. Then why are you so angry at all these snakes who were destined to do this. They were instructed to do this. It was not their choice to go find his father and go poison him. So then Rshi Brihaspati teaches Janmajaya how to become quiet. So here are some insights into what Rshi Brihaspati shared with Janmajaya: 

• Death will be caused by Prarabdha. 

What this means to us is that we will die when we are supposed to. Outwardly, it may seem that this person was in an accident or this person was poisoned or this person died too young. But it is specifically shared that one dies due to Prarabdda. Rshi Brihaspati is trying to teach Janmajaya that his father died in this space and time because he was supposed to and that the snake never caused it. So we need to Be Quiet or quieten the mind.

• Our Happiness and unhappiness is not due to an external reason. 

Those who are young and feel that their parents cause them fear, or cause them to feel pressure towards this or that, here Rsi Brhaspati is saying very clearly that no one can cause one happiness, nor unhappiness. What did Vivekji compare our mind to? A magnifying glass. If we use it the right way, super focused, and if we use it in the wrong way, super distracted, like it hurts our eyes. It is our choice to be happy or unhappy. 

One more insight – The way to not be angry is to not be possessive. The first possession that we feel we have is the body, and then we go on to say – This is mine, and that is mine. Vivekji shared that we should start by being less possessive with articles, then circumstances, then beings. For those who are studying contemplation, Vivekji has described this as our lifestyle. What is deeper than our lifestyle is our equipments, and our first equipment is our body. 

Chapter 5 is now completed. 

Vivekji shared that when he was growing up his sisters, he went to a Catholic school. This means that they studied the Bible every day, every week they went to church and most of the people were proud of their understanding of the Bible. They didn’t understand why Vivekji was not baptized or took communion or eat the Turkey and so on.They were proud of this, but a typical person who identifies as a Hindu or with Sanatana Dharma is less proud of their scriptures like the Ramayana and the Bhagavad Gita. Most of their relationship with Mahabharata is only through TV. 

Now if we go back to the last question by which Bhagavata is flowing – Where does Dharma live? This question is being asked by someone who already knows that Bhagavan Krshna’s body has, as if, died. So that is retrospective. Raja Shaunaka already knows that when Bhagavan Krshna was alive, that was where Dharma lived. So the question was – Who does Dharma live in? As he also knows that Bhagavan Krshna is not alive right now, the question now is not – Who does Dharma live in?, but Where does Dharma live? So now Rshi Vyasa is summarizing the answer to this question:

Raja Shaunaka asks about – What is the origin of the Veda? – that which Rshi Vyasa has taught my father and then my father has taught to me and that which I am now teaching to you. Where does Dharma live? In the Veda. What happened to the Veda because of Rshi Vyasa? What did he do to it? 

The genesis of the Veda starts with Nada which is more of a feeling, that is like a sound. First, the feeling comes and then the sound comes. When we are hungry, when we are angry, and then the sound comes from that. So Nada gets expressed as Aum. So before the Veda, there is Aum, and Aum gets expressed as The Veda. The here is referring to one, singular. When Bhagavan Krshna’s body died, people lost Dharma. So at that time, Rshi Vyasa took the one Veda and volumized it into four Vedas. No Veda is superior or inferior; they are simply different. Imagine, that Rshi Vyasa had four kids. They are simply different, but are not distant, as in better or worse. 

So the genesis of the Veda started with Nada. This Nada is felt by Bhagavan Brahma who we refer to as the Creator. Bhagavan Brahma’s genesis is, he is born out of a lotus. So it is Bhagavan Narayana, then comes Bhagavan Brahma, and in him is expressed Nada. Nada then gets expressed as Aum and Aum gets expressed as The Veda. Rshi Vyasa, understanding that people are getting more disintegrated, he volumized the Veda into four Vedas. Then, Rshi Vyasa taught each Veda to a single shishya and from these shishyas we have our parampara. Therefore, Guru Purnima is actually Vyasa Purnima. From his disciples, here we are. The most beautiful part of this as we are trying to understand the Veda – What is the Essence or end of the Veda, or the Nirodha or finality of the Veda? It is the Gayatri Mantra. The essence of everything, from Bhagavan Narayana as the beginning, is the Gayatri Mantra. 

This is how Chapter 6 ends. 

In Chapter 7, Raja Shaunaka and we learn about the Puranas. We learn about the orientation of Shrimad Bhagavata.

Discussion: Through Rshi Brihaspati, 3 pointers were given to go from angry to quiet. We should come up with 3 more pointers to go from “I am Angry” to “Being Non-violent”.

Vivekji’s observation is that we get angry at people because of their lack of excellence, but if we are tuned into their effort instead of excellence, then that will make us quieter. Focusing on excellence over effort will always make our mind louder as no one will ever meet our excellence or expectations. 

RAW: From last week’s RAW, we had to visualize these last few verses where Raja Parikshita, who is Us, becomes free. Visualizations are a great teaching methodology as it is an easy way to engage in reflection, and finally personalization. Better than practice is personalization. This week, Vivekji would like us to reflect on this equation: 

Dharma + Bhakti = Bhagavan. All of us are oriented towards Dharma, Vedanta in Bhagavata is adding the Bhakti part.