Bharatheeyam : ( 08/11/2012. )

"Very important - A Nation is built from the tradition of family! Read carefully, understand, keep in mind and apply the lesson day to day life." Chapter -12. Yajna – Quintessence of the Culture of India-13. Deepavali message given on the 25th of October, 1973. Whatever it is, when knowledge gets adulterated through intense sensory activity, weakness of will and lack of moral force, the understanding of Dharma also falls. So we must have a whip to goad us to the path of Dharma, spirituality and God-consciousness. The tradition of India, Bharatavarsha, is full of such goading whips. While the Vedas, the Puranas and the epics may be said to be direct teachers in an institution or an academy, the culture of India has also instituted many occasions for bringing home to our minds the facts of our eternal glory and our duties to God, the world and mankind. We owe three kinds of duties which are mentioned in the eighteenth chapter of the Bhagavadgita: - "Yajno d...

"Very important - A Nation is built from the tradition of family! Read carefully, understand, keep in mind and apply the lesson day to day life." Chapter -12. Yajna – Quintessence of the Culture of India-12. Deepavali message given on the 25th of October, 1973. In villages, some ladies have a peculiar habit. Suppose a lady wants a sari. She cannot tell her husband directly, "I want a sari." So, she will say, "The neighbour's wife has purchased a new sari today. It is very good, very nice. I saw it myself." Her husband understands her intentions. He will say, "Why do you describe all these things? All right, I will purchase one for you." And the poor man purchases a sari. The epics and Puranas follow a similar indirect way of instructing the truths. But the Vedas directly tell the truth, openly: "You must do this; it is like this." This is scientific. Science always plainly tells the truth as it is, without any camouflag...

"Very important - A Nation is built from the tradition of family! Read carefully, understand, keep in mind and apply the lesson day to day life." Chapter -12. Yajna – Quintessence of the Culture of India-11. Deepavali message given on the 25th of October, 1973.  Many think that the Vedas are only some foolish chants of the cowherds of Punjab, as British historians tell us. The Bharatiya were regarded as cowherds grazing their cows in Punjab and blabbering something and that became the Vedas. This is the British interpretation of our culture, which has gone into our heads! The Vedas are not any kind of blabbering. They are intuitional revelations of ecstatic souls who had the vision of the Absolute. And, therefore, this vision-integral contains every type of knowledge – physics, chemistry, biology, sociology, mathematics, astronomy, alchemy, Ayurveda, military science and what not. How can we contain all these things? We, therefore, bid good-bye to ...

"Very important - A Nation is built from the tradition of family! Read carefully, understand, keep in mind and apply the lesson day to day life." Chapter -12. Yajna – Quintessence of the Culture of India-10. Deepavali message given on the 25th of October, 1973. When I say the Vedas are scientific, I am not making a joke. Masters like Swami Dayananda Sarasvati, who founded the Arya Samaj; Sayana, the great commentator of the Vedas; Aurobindo, of our own times; the Puri Sankaracharya; the late Bharati Krishna Tirtha – they all have struggled to point out that every science is contained in the Vedas. Even subjects such as aeronautics, shipbuilding, mathematics of the highest type in differential calculus, infinite calculus – everything is in the Vedas. Sri Bharati Krishna Tirtha has written a book called Vedic Mathematics, and it has been published by the Benares Hindu University. The Veda Samhitas contain the highest reaches of mathematics. Swami Krishnananda   To be contin...

"Very important - A Nation is built from the tradition of family! Read carefully, understand, keep in mind and apply the lesson day to day life." Chapter -12. Yajna – Quintessence of the Culture of India-9. Deepavali message given on the 25th of October, 1973. Knowledge is too vast. Our life is not long enough to have all the knowledge necessary. The ancient masters, the Seers saw with their premonition, intuition or foresight that people cannot contain the Vedic knowledge in their heads. "Ananta vai vedah" : - Vedas are endless or infinite, which means to say, knowledge has no limit. People in this Kali Yuga, especially, are so feeble physically, morally and intellectually that this truth has to be instilled into their minds through some other manner. This is why Vyasa wrote the great epic Mahabharata. He found out that the Vedas are of no use to poor human beings in this Kali Yuga. Whatever the Vedas say would not enter our heads, because they ...

"Very important - A Nation is built from the tradition of family! Read carefully, understand, keep in mind and apply the lesson day to day life." Chapter -12. Yajna – Quintessence of the Culture of India-8. Deepavali message given on the 25th of October, 1973. In the Anugita of the Mahabharata, which is a sequel to the Bhagavadgita, this Yajna is described in a very beautiful form. It states what Yajna actually is. This Yajna is going on daily in this body and it is going on everywhere in the world, outside and inside. It is sacrifice into the fire of the knowledge of the Absolute of all those factors which tend to tether the soul to the bodily tabernacle. This is called Jnana Yajna, which means the offering of knowledge into the fire of Knowledge. Which knowledge is offered into which knowledge? The knowledge of our individual existence in all its aspects is offered in the knowledge of the Supreme Being. The concept of this mysterious Dharma before us cannot be co...

"Very important - A Nation is built from the tradition of family! Read carefully, understand, keep in mind and apply the lesson day to day life." Chapter -12. Yajna – Quintessence of the Culture of India-7. Deepavali message given on the 25th of October, 1973. This mysterious law, the law of Yajna, operates in the world. "Yajno vai Vishnuh" : - Supreme Narayana Himself is called Yajna. The term 'Yajna' signifies the whole of the culture of Bharatavarsha.  If we want one word which can give us the quintessence of the whole of the culture of India, 'Yajna' is that word.  How meaningful it is, we can imagine.  Every cultural pattern and every presupposition of human existence is contained in this pregnant term 'Yajna', which means the universal sacrifice that the soul performs. The performer of the sacrifice is the soul.  It is not an Acharya or a Pandit. Swami Krishnananda   To be continued ... Note ** This what The super...

"Very important - A Nation is built from the tradition of family! Read carefully, understand, keep in mind and apply the lesson day to day life." Chapter -12. Yajna – Quintessence of the Culture of India-6. Deepavali message given on the 25th of October, 1973. What are the conditions of our existence? Parents are a conditioning factor. They have given birth to us; they feed us, take care of us and educate us. Society is another conditioning factor. We know how much we owe to society. Though it may not be visible outwardly, invisibly society protects us, takes care of us and helps us in many ways. The nation and the international system help us. The stellar systems also help us. In short, the whole cosmos helps us. Therefore, we owe a universal obligation to all things in the universe. When we go for a walk in the jungle, sometimes a part of our cloth gets caught in a thorny bush and when we try to remove the thorn and move forward, we will find that another thorn ...

"Very important - A Nation is built from the tradition of family! Read carefully, understand, keep in mind and apply the lesson day to day life." Chapter -12. Yajna – Quintessence of the Culture of India-5. Deepavali message given on the 25th of October, 1973. Because we are not able to fulfil all these obligations in a short span of life, we are reborn. Otherwise we need not be reborn. If we have fulfilled or discharged all our duties in this very life itself, why should we take a next birth? But, life is short, and also we have not got the least concept of what obligations we bear or owe to the universe outside. Even when we are ninety years old, this knowledge will not come to us. So, naturally we die with ignorance. And because of this ignorance we are not able to discharge our duties properly. Because of the non-discharge of our duties and obligations properly, we are hurled into transmigration. And so long as we do not understand the meaning of the ...

"Very important - A Nation is built from the tradition of family! Read carefully, understand, keep in mind and apply the lesson day to day life." Chapter -12. Yajna – Quintessence of the Culture of India-4. Dipavali message given on the 25th of October, 1973. What does it mean? It seems as confusing as that Vedic Mantra. But let us remember that this is what 'sacrifice' precisely means. It is a universal involvement of factors wherein and whereby we become the property of the whole creation.  *Can we imagine this situation where we become the property of everyone in the world?  **Anyone can demand anything from us, and we must give it!  ***We have an obligation to everything in this world.  ****That obligation is the sacrifice that we are called upon to do.  *****That is the Yajna.   Our obligation is not merely to our parents, brothers and sisters, not merely to the government of our country that protects us, not merely to the ...

"Very important - A Nation is built from the tradition of family! Read carefully, understand, keep in mind and apply the lesson day to day life." Chapter -12. Yajna – Quintessence of the Culture of India-3. Dipavali message given on the 25th of October, 1973. What was the sacrifice that the Absolute did and who was the performer of that sacrifice? Where was the Vedi or the Yajna-kunda for that sacrifice and what was the material that was offered in that sacrifice? "Yajnena yajnamayajanta devah," says the Purusha-Sukta. Yajna was the sacrifice, Yajna was offered in Yajna by Yajna for the sake of Yajna. Sacrifice was offered in the sacrifice, through the sacrifice, for the sake of sacrifice. What do we understand from this? We understand nothing except a jumble of words. Similar to this enigmatic statement of the Veda, we have another statement in the Bhagavadgita also : "Brahmarpanam brahmahavir-brahmagnou brahmana hutam, brahmaiva t...

"Very important - A Nation is built from the tradition of family! Read carefully, understand, keep in mind and apply the lesson day to day life." Chapter -12. Yajna – Quintessence of the Culture of India-2. Dipavali message given on the 25th of October, 1973. When we are born, we are born with certain obligations. What are these obligations? They are the allegiance that we perforce owe to those factors that are responsible for our birth and maintenance. That is the sacrifice which we are called upon to do. In the Vedas, which are antecedent even to the Mahabharata and the Bhagavadgita, we are given the first primeval concept of sacrifice. Supreme sacrifice is extolled in the Veda, according to which the Absolute itself is the first performer of the Yajna, and not a Pandit. The Absolute did the first Yajna and then the others followed. They are only imitating what the Absolute did, originally. Swami Krishnananda   To be continued ...

"Very important - A Nation is built from the tradition of family! Read carefully, understand, keep in mind and apply the lesson day to day life." Chapter -12. Yajna – Quintessence of the Culture of India-1. Dipavali message given on the 25th of October, 1973. (Gita III-9) "Yajnarthat-karmano-nyatra lokoyam karmabandhanah; tadartham karma kaunteya muktasangah samachara." "The world is bound by actions other than those performed for the sake of sacrifice; do thou, therefore, O son of Kunti (Arjuna), perform action for that sake (for sacrifice alone), free from attachment." When we are born into a particular setup of circumstances which we call a family, all the conditioning factors of the family are also born together with us. The tradition of the family grows when we grow. The pattern of our character and conduct is entirely determined by the ideological background that is at the very basis of the structure of that particular family. ...

Chapter-11.The Sport of the Infinite-18.   ( Rasa-Lila message given on the 22nd of October, 1972.) All this weeping and crying of the soul is called Samsara. That is what we are experiencing. Restless is our life, and pitiable is the existence of man as long as he has not understood the meaning of his asking and what he asks for. Our life has become wretched merely because of the fact that we have not understood even the meaning of our own asking. We ask for something, but we have understood it to be something else! To rectify this error of man's distorted perception, Bhagavan Veda Vyasa gave us this scripture in the form of the immortal biography of the Immortal Man, the Super-Man of the East, whose eternal Sport we observe and celebrate on the most auspicious Rasa Purnima. Blessed be this day! Blessed be the devotees, seekers of Truth and aspirants who search for God and rest not until He is attained. May the infinite grace of the Almighty be upon us all! Chapter-11. The Spor...

                             Swami Vivekananda's historic speech on 11 September, 1893. Chapter-11.The Sport of the Infinite-17.   ( Rasa-Lila message given on the 22nd of October, 1972.) Such was the occasion, the Rasa Purnima, when God entered into the lower frequency of human consciousness and became visible, though He has infinitude in His bosom in higher frequencies of supernormal existence and is incapable of perception. The conclusion is that God is All and nothing but God can be. The human soul has only one desire – unity with God. It has not got many desires. All our economic longings and necessities, physical needs, intellectual aspirations, social necessity and what not – all these are distorted forms of the desire of the soul for They are erroneous movements of the soul's aspiration for Divinity. Samsara is nothing but the writhing of the soul, the struggling of the soul and t...

Chapter-11.The Sport of the Infinite-16.   ( Rasa-Lila message given on the 22nd of October, 1972.) This implication was brought home to the minds of people, the devotees, through the description of this enrapturing, maddening and intoxicating Love of God which the Gopis of Vrindavana exhibited in a historical period of time, in a most superhuman fashion. The eternal import hidden behind this Sport is the immortalising of all attempts at devotion. Of all the incidents in the life of Sri Krishna, this is the one which man cannot understand, and man is not supposed to understand. Because, here, in the five chapters of the Srimad Bhagavata describing the Rasa-Lila, the great author has pressed into service infinitude of wisdom and fullness of feeling and understanding. The style of Sanskrit used there is of a superior kind. Suddenly there is a shift of emphasis and rhetoric in the Srimad Bhagavata when the Rasa chapter begins. And we begin to feel a pulsation within our nerv...

Chapter-11.The Sport of the Infinite-15.   ( Rasa-Lila message given on the 22nd of October, 1972.) The soul has gone crazy, as it were. It has gone mad in its pursuit of God who cannot be seen through the senses. To carry fire with a piece of straw is impossible. But the soul tries to contain Infinity in its finite mind. The impossible attempt of the soul to limit the universality of God into the finitude of the mind is Samsaric activity and the pleasures of sense, the titillation of the nerves and the itching of consciousness. But these cannot satisfy us, because we will not be satisfied until we get what we are asking for. And the 'we', the real 'I', is the soul within which asks for the Soul without. The soul in the human being asks for the Over-soul, the Infinite. We are asking for the Over-soul. The finite is asking for the Infinite, because the finite cannot be satisfied with any number of finite objects. The riches of the whole earth cannot satis...

Chapter-11.The Sport of the Infinite-14.   ( Rasa-Lila message given on the 22nd of October, 1972.) Again to reiterate, impossible it is to describe it. Yet it gives us an idea as to what God is and how God works and what the goal of our life is. The goal of the soul is unity with God, and restless is the soul until it has a vision of God. Though it is true that it is incapable of being understood, it is not impossible of attainment, because that is the only attainment which the soul is craving for.  The insatiable longings and the endless desires of the human mind are demonstration enough of the fact that God cannot be contained in the human mind. What the soul asks for is God and not the tinsels of the earth. We are not asking for food, clothing, shelter, warmth or protection. The soul is asking for nothing short of God. But this longing of the soul for the Eternal manifests itself as distorted asking and demands for temporal objects, which are the cravings of th...

Chapter-11.The Sport of the Infinite-13.   ( Rasa-Lila message given on the 22nd of October, 1972.) This was Bhagavan Sri Krishna's cosmic reply to the individual encounter of Arjuna with the Visvarupa. If the Visvarupa could not be beheld by a mortal eye, the Rasa Lila cannot be understood by a mortal intellect. It is not a temporal activity that took place but, as the Bhagavata tells us, it is a spiritual drama that was enacted by the Master of all powers. Time ceased to be and the stellar system could not move, says the scripture. It was not a night's dance. It was a long, long-drawn play which hushed the movement of time itself. The stars began to gaze at it, as it were, and the celestials were looking at it with wonderment, not conscious of time, space and personality. All particularity-consciousness was completely obliterated. The consciousness of the personality itself was not there. It was not mortality, not humanity, not individuality, but Spirit dancing to th...

Chapter-11.The Sport of the Infinite-12.   ( Rasa-Lila message given on the 22nd of October, 1972.) When God calls the human soul, what happens to it? This, the soul itself cannot understand, let alone the human tongue which is feeble in its expression. The great Veda Vyasa, in his majestic language, and his son, Sage Suka, in his brilliant exposition, try to give us a sort of intimation as to what it could have been. But poor is human understanding to understand its import, and poorer still is the human tongue. Who can understand the Spirit but the Spirit itself! This was the pithy and the short answer given by Sage Suka to King Parikshit when he put a human question in respect of this transcendental matter. "Oh what is this!" exclaimed Parikshit. "How can I grasp this? How can I stomach this? What do you mean by this description which is not capable of being easily appreciated by the human mind?" To this, Suka gave a divine answer in a divine manner, say...

Chapter-11.The Sport of the Infinite-11.   ( Rasa-Lila message given on the 22nd of October, 1972.) Such is the magnitude of the meaning contained in the Rasa-Sport of Bhagavan Sri Krishna, the irresistible surge of the soul for its Maker, that it is not comparable even with the running of the iron filings to the magnet or the movement of rivers towards the ocean. These comparisons are inadequate in this respect. It is the irresistible surge and urge of the soul. 'Irresistible' is, of course, a poor word that we use for want of a better term. It is humanly impossible of description, because it was not the human power that was working. God's call is not like man calling. It is not like a boss calling a subordinate or the mother calling the child. It is not even the lover calling the beloved. Much more than all the illustrations we can think of, is the meaning, significance, import and the stringency of the call of God to the soul of man. Swami Krishnananda   To be ...

Chapter-11.The Sport of the Infinite-10.   ( Rasa-Lila message given on the 22nd of October, 1972.) Pain is not the truth of existence. So it is the Ananda, the Supernal Beatitude, Beauty, magnificence and the lustre of God that has revealed itself in this historical epic movement of the Supreme into the temporal realms as Bhagavan Sri Krishna. Impossible it is for the human mind to understand what the Rasa means, because it is not meant for man to understand. It was God dancing to His own tune. This is the eternal Tandava or cosmic dance which is connotative of all the manifestations – personal, social, political and spiritual. It is the remedy that is administered to the soul of man to cure him of the illness of Samsara. As Sage Suka puts it towards the end of the description of the Rasa Panchadhyayi, "This is the remedy prescribed for the 'illnesses of the heart'." 'Hridroga' is the word used, which means illness of the heart, which has only one re...

Chapter-11.The Sport of the Infinite-9.   ( Rasa-Lila message given on the 22nd of October, 1972.) So, in this wondrous phenomenon called the Rasa dance, the Spirit is dancing with its own manifestations. The Srimad Bhagavata beautifully and significantly puts it, "Reme rameso vrajasundaribhih yatharbhakah svapratibimba-vibhramah": As a child plays with its own reflection seen in a mirror, so did the Lord play with the eternal devotees of Vrindavana. He did not play with personalities, even as a child does not play with anybody when it looks at its own self through the mirror. This is the interpretation given in the Srimad Bhagavata itself in the Dasama Skandha. So it is God playing with God, like a child playing with itself or the Original dancing with its own reflections, connoting the spiritual dance of the cosmos, the attraction of the part towards the Whole, man's inseparability from God, and the soul's agony on account of its bereavement from the Suprem...

Chapter-11.The Sport of the Infinite-8.  ( Rasa-Lila message given on the 22nd of October, 1972.) So, in this wondrous phenomenon called the Rasa dance, the Spirit is dancing with its own manifestations. The Srimad Bhagavata beautifully and significantly puts it, "Reme rameso vrajasundaribhih yatharbhakah svapratibimba-vibhramah": As a child plays with its own reflection seen in a mirror, so did the Lord play with the eternal devotees of Vrindavana. He did not play with personalities, even as a child does not play with anybody when it looks at its own self through the mirror. This is the interpretation given in the Srimad Bhagavata itself in the Dasama Skandha. So it is God playing with God, like a child playing with itself or the Original dancing with its own reflections, connoting the spiritual dance of the cosmos, the attraction of the part towards the Whole, man's inseparability from God, and the soul's agony on account of its bereavement from the S...

Chapter-11.The Sport of the Infinite-7.  ( Rasa-Lila message given on the 22nd of October, 1972.) We have, today, a very auspicious occasion which we call the Rasa Purnima, the full moon day in the month of Asvini, which is associated with the Lilas of Bhagavan Sri Krishna, who is Shodasa Kala Murti, Purna-Avatara, Divinity condescending to come down to the level of our physical perception. Here the glory of the Infinite is condensed or pressed into and focussed through the finitude of human perception. That was Bhagavan Sri Krishna's Avatara in which we have a very fantastic and inscrutable phenomenon of what they call the Rasa-Lila, a sport which He is supposed to have played on the banks of the Yamuna, in Madhuvana, in the sylvan retreat of the holy Vrindavana, on the night of this particular full-moon day. This is not merely a historical or an epic event that we are narrating, contemplating and reciting, but a spiritual phenomenon, because God cannot but be spiritual. If at ...