Earlier in Srimad Bhagavata, we studied about Mahabali, a character who is strong mentally and physically. Yet, Bhagavan Vamana is bigger, He is the biggest. When Bhagavan Vamana takes three steps, covering Mahabali’s earth, heaven and finally his ego, how this relates to us is that these three steps are to be steps into our three states. We all live in one of these states — the waking, dream and sleep states.
When we invite Bhagavan Vamana, the One who is Brahman, into these states, that is the fulfillment of our lives. This great Mahabali became even greater, by giving these three states to Bhagavan Vamana.
In a simpler way, if we give a little bit to Bhagavan, Bhagavan will give us lots. Mahabali agreed to three small steps of Bhagavan Vamana, and Bhagavan gave him lots more. So if we give Him lots, then Bhagavan will give us Infinity. Let us give our body, give our mind, give our intellect to Bhagavan, and by doing so, we will finally give our ego as well, as we know that the only happiness we will experience is when we give ourselves to Bhagavan. Our course is using Jnana to develop Bhakti, Vedanta in Bhagavata.
Last week we came to know why Bhagavan Krshna is called Damodara, how His mother Yashoda surrendered dvaita or separation and this is shown by her laughing at herself, and how Bhagavan Krshna allowed Himself to be tied around His waist.
Everyone felt Gokula was cursed and decided to move to Vrindavana. And as this shift happened, we were introduced to another Asura called Vatsa asura, who is a symbol for attachment and this is a vice that all of us struggle with. Here are three I’s to be free from attachment.
- InJoy — the more we are injoying our own evolution, the less we project completion outside of ourselves. Those who are extroverts are the most attached and the ones who are inward looking are the least attached.
2. Vibha Class Notes — Nov 15, 2020
Earlier in Srimad Bhagavata, we studied about Mahabali, a character who is strong mentally and physically. Yet, Bhagavan Vamana is bigger, He is the biggest. When Bhagavan Vamana takes three steps, covering Mahabali’s earth, heaven and finally his ego, how this relates to us is that these three steps are to be steps into our three states. We all live in one of these states — the waking, dream and sleep states.
When we invite Bhagavan Vamana, the One who is Brahman, into these states, that is the fulfillment of our lives. This great Mahabali became even greater, by giving these three states to Bhagavan Vamana.
In a simpler way, if we give a little bit to Bhagavan, Bhagavan will give us lots. Mahabali agreed to three small steps of Bhagavan Vamana, and Bhagavan gave him lots more. So if we give Him lots, then Bhagavan will give us Infinity. Let us give our body, give our mind, give our intellect to Bhagavan, and by doing so, we will finally give our ego as well, as we know that the only happiness we will experience is when we give ourselves to Bhagavan. Our course is using Jnana to develop Bhakti, Vedanta in Bhagavata.
Last week we came to know why Bhagavan Krshna is called Damodara, how His mother Yashoda surrendered dvaita or separation and this is shown by her laughing at herself, and how Bhagavan Krshna allowed Himself to be tied around His waist.
Everyone felt Gokula was cursed and decided to move to Vrindavana. And as this shift happened, we were introduced to another Asura called Vatsa asura, who is a symbol for attachment and this is a vice that all of us struggle with. Here are three I’s to be free from attachment.
- InJoy — the more we are injoying our own evolution, the less we project completion outside of ourselves. Those who are extroverts are the most attached and the ones who are inward looking are the least attached.
2. Integrate — when we live our life integrated to the higher, we naturally disintegrate to the lower, but always remember that the lower is included in the higher. When we love some, that is called attachment and when we love all that is called detachment.
3. Insight — when we are attached, we don’t think, speak or act objectively, in other words, we make the wrong decisions, we express the wrong emotions.
When we know this, we will help more and care more as we are practicing being detached. The symbolism of these Asuras is indeed very useful.
10:11:58 — Rishi Shuka continues to share with Raja Parikshita the leela of Bhagavan Krshna. As Shri Nanda and his family and friends remembered and shared the katha or the happenings of Shri Krshna and Balarama and all of the struggles they were going through as their kids were in danger, they didn’t feel stressed, but just “injoyed”. They were discussing how so many asuras came to kill baby Krshna, but how the asuras themselves died. What a wonder! They were discussing how when Rishi Garga had named Bhagavan Krshna, he had said ‘No one will touch Him, He will touch all’. And how those words were coming true.
They were all in Vrindavana and the boys were getting older. One day all these Gopas, Bhagavan Krshna and Balarama took their lunch with them to eat it in the forest while tending to the cows. They got thirsty after lunch and went to this water close by. And as the cows were drinking and as they were drinking, there was this immense crane or stork called Baka asura who swept down fast and swallowed Bhagavan Krshna. When Balarama and all the boys saw that Bhagavan Krshna was no longer there, they felt like they died. They felt dizzy and they fainted. Then they noticed that this crane looked as if it was burping, but as the crane opened its mouth, smoke started coming out. More and more smoke came out as Bhagavan Krshna had turned Himself into fire inside the bird. Baka then coughed Him out and started pecking at Bhagavan Krshna who then caught the two beaks of the bird and split the beaks apart like a blade of grass and all the boys were in wonder of Bhagavan Krshna!
Vedanta: What do we feel Baka symbolizes? It symbolizes hypocrisy. How many of us feel that we are more than one-third hypocritical? These are the gauges of hypocrisy.
- When we are hypocritical at the action level, then we feel tired. If we generally feel tired, that is because our actions are not integrated.
- At a speech level or mental level, we associate hypocrisy with words. We feel when we tell the untruth, then we feel sick.
- And at an intellectual level, we feel confused as we don’t know what reality is anymore.
So how do we overcome hypocrisy? Here are two strategies given by Vivekji, one high strategy and one relative strategy –
- The higher strategy is transparency. When we live in a transparent way, that is the antidote to hypocrisy. We tend to lead quite secretive lives in our regular affairs. When we are hypocritical, we are then denying that Bhagavan is omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent. We think that God lives in Heaven and He never heard us. We only believe that Bhagavan is omnipresent, yet that faith is lacking. Living transparently makes life simpler. This is an advantage of living a public life as we cannot do wrong things.
- A relative way to destroy this asura is internal validation. As long as we seek validation externally, we will be untrue to ourselves. We will be unnatural. If we are not looking for external validation, it helps us to be true to ourselves, and be natural. However, let us not forget that no one will ever be able to externally validate us…ever! So why even use that as a measure?
All of these boys were most happy when Bhagavan Krshna defeated Baka asura. The chapter ends with one of the favorite pastimes of these kids which was to behave like monkeys. They used to climb trees and swing from branch to branch.
10:12:43 — This time Raja Parikshita is sharing with Rishi Shuka, saying that he is the luckiest person in the whole world even though he is an ordinary kshatriya. We should try and relate to this as we are also ordinary seekers. Still referring to Rishi Shuka, he says ‘You are my friend, you are my Guru and again and again, I get tattva, I get to drink this truth’. And what is this drinking of truth like? It is made up of the katha of Bhagavan Krshna. This is us. For years we have been drinking the katha of Bhagavan Krshna. Now let us see some more of His leela.
One morning, Bhagavan Krshna decided to eat lunch in the woods. They have ordinary pastures, but this time, He wanted to eat in the woods. So He woke up early and started to move in that direction. And like a magnet, all of the other Gopas woke up as well and there was a huge commotion as they started banging drums and throwing things. Their parents were happy and also woke up early and helped their children dress up, and put tilak on them. And as they went into the woods, they stole each other’s ornaments and played monkey in the middle with each other.
Often Bhagavan Krshna would walk faster than the rest of them. And all these other boys would make it a competition to see who could catch up with Him first to touch. Everyone loved to be close and touching Bhagavan Krshna. They liked to act like monkeys and actually liked to act like all animals. They would jump in the water and act like frogs to scare the frogs. So lovely to hear such details to know that they were just kids. All the things that we describe philosophically, forgiving and living in the present, they lived like that naturally.
Our next Asura is Agha asura, which is a python. It is bigger and slower than other snakes. So as these boys were being kids and goofing around, this Agha asura was very jealous of them. He came near them and opened his mouth like a huge cave-like area. He was so big that no one realised that this was a creature and all of those boys and around a thousand cows meandered into this cave. This is what kids do, go everywhere they are not supposed to. And as soon as they came into this python’s mouth, there was so much poison and heat, that just the air destroyed all of these cows and those kids, except Bhagavan Krshna. Bhagavan Krshna knew that this was Agha Asura and that Kamsa had sent him. Looking around the cave, Bhagavan wanted to play the same game so He started growing Himself, bigger than Agha itself, similar to Hanumanji and Surasa. And He became so big, that He burst through that python. And finally, when that fresh air flowed over the other boys and the cows, they came back to life.
Now what does Agha Asura symbolize? It symbolizes Sin. Agha also means sin. In Chapter fifteen of the Bhagavad Gita, Bhagavan Krshna calls Prince Arjuna, Anagha, the one who is sinless. Just like a python destroys its food by choking it, so too does sin choke our happiness. In particular, sin is an expression of selfishness and makes us more selfish. The greatest weight on our lives is selfishness. We can all understand this, so how do we come out of it?
- Start to act for those who are not you, as selfishness is when you act for yourself. So start to act for family, community, etc. Initially this will be forced, but once we feel the lightness of nishkama karma, selfless responsibilities, then this will become natural. Just start. It is similar to forcing ourselves to volunteer, and then it becomes our lifestyle. This is one way to destroy Agha.
- Be honest with yourself, through a cost benefit analysis. What are the costs and what are the benefits when we are living in a selfish way and when we are not living in a selfish way? Living in a selfish way there are only costs, but living in a selfless way there are only benefits. So don’t be swallowed. This is another approach to destroy Agha.
Putana, Shakata, Trinaavarta, Vatsa, Baka and Agha are the Asuras that we have studied. If it is too hard to remember what all this means or all of these strategies that have been suggested, what Guruji Swami Tejomayananda shared was to — Nurture and establish Bhagavan Krshna in our heart. He will kill all of these Asuras for us. We can attack them one at a time, or we can bring in Bhagavan Vamana who is Bigger than anything that is big.