The Glory of God: A Summary of the Srimad Bhagavata Mahapurana: ( 04/04/2013. )

14/02/2019 Discourse 1: King Parikshit’s Question to Suka Maharishi -1. In ancient times, Raja Parikshit raised a detailed question that amounted to asking whether we are living in this world alone, or if it is possible that we may be citizens of some other worlds also. This question of King Parikshit was connected with the background of his own life, which has the antecedence of the great story of the Mahabharata. When Asvatthama, the son of Acharya Drona, discharged the invincible missile known as Narayana Astra with the hope of ending the Pandavas in a single instant, he felt that his aim of life was complete. As this was an astra which could not be faced by all the forces of the Earth put together, he was under the impression that the Pandavas had been reduced to ashes. As the Pandavas were at a distance, Asvatthama climbed to the top of a tree in order to see the heap of ashes that were their remains, but to his surprise he found the Pandava forces were as jubilant as eve...

19/11/2018 8. Everybody is busy when there is a great performance coming on. For days together, sleeplessly, we find people running about doing this and that, all for seeing that things are set in order for the attainment or the achievement to come: the great function. This great function is yet to take place. It is the celebration of the unity of the world with God. For that great marriage ceremony, we may say, of earth and heaven, man and God, this preparation is going on in the form of the activities of creation in all the business of life. We are adorning ourselves every day, keeping ourselves spick and span in our performances. Everything must be tidy and perfect, we say. This so-called perfectness that we are keeping before our minds is nothing but the requirement we are conscious of for placing ourselves in a proper position before that great incoming occasion—the ceremony of communion. In reply to this great call, the universe gets characterised by restlessness. The ...

28/10/2018 7. An imperishable attitude is maintained even when we perform a so-called perishable action. This is the friendship of Bhagavan Sri Krishna with Arjuna. Sri Krishna represents an immeasurable spirituality, and Arjuna represents the pinnacle of measurable performance. Phenomenon reaching its zenith is Arjuna, and what is above phenomena is that inscrutable Bhagavan Sri Krishna, whose thoughts and actions no one could understand. How God acts, man is not supposed to know, because the circumference of human conduct is just the circumference of the psychophysical individuality. And considering the fact that even so-called voluntary actions performed by the individual with utmost intelligence can ultimately lead to success only by an unseen participation of super-human forces, we can well imagine what yoga it is that the Gita refers to when Bhagavan Sri Krishna is regarded as Mahayogeshwara. It is necessary for every one of us to accept from the bottom of our hearts t...

07/10/2018 6. This superhuman-associated factor is designated here as the yoga-shakti of the superman Bhagavan Sri Krishna; and as the Gita is a yoga shastra, a scripture of the daily performance of spiritual sadhana, it amounts to saying that not only the so-called spiritual outlook of seekers of Truth, but even what we wrongly call the secular side of work—both these have to be actively cognizant of the operation of forces beyond themselves. There is the tendency in everything to transcend itself. The dissatisfaction which everyone and everything feels in himself, herself or itself is the urge for a self-transcendence ingrained in all individuality throughout nature. We cannot stagnate in a given condition of our existence. There is growth and change and transmutation seen everywhere, within as well as without. This impulse to self-transcend is the secret working of a power which is not visible to ordinary eyes but which incessantly works everywhere. Winkless is the act ...

03/09/2018 5. A good management expert—a director of a company—may be an expert in his line, but that would not suffice in the end when one faces what they call the brass tacks of nature. The world contains many more secrets, unknown and inaccessible to the human mind, so that no one can be so entirely confident that nature has been mastered, or another person’s mind has been understood. Neither of these is possible, finally, if yoga is absent or is not blended with this honesty and enthusiasm behind perfect work. Arjuna, the great perfected individual, cannot stand for a moment if Krishna is not there. The word ‘yoga’ is difficult to explain, especially here when we speak of yoga as the power of God or the strength of the superman Bhagavan Sri Krishna. We all have some idea of what yoga is. What is the yoga of which Bhagavan Sri Krishna was a master? We do yoga every day—exercises of different kinds. Exercises are definitely yoga; but exercises, only, need not be yoga...

09/08/2018 4. When we deal with things, we are not supposed to merely fumble and create a mess. Every action is supposed to be a decent artistic performance. Our behaviour has a beauty in itself. It is as beautiful as anything in the world that can be beautiful. The beauty of our performance, our work, our deeds and duties enhances in proportion to the intensity of, or the extent of, the harmony that is ingrained in our relationship with human society and nature. Such a person is a beautiful gentleman, a beautiful individual. The beauty of the human personality is automatically implied in the beauty that is inherent in the harmony existing between the human individual and the phenomena mentioned. Thus, Arjuna becomes a specimen of perfect individuality: a mould of humanity into which everyone may have to be cast. But we are cautioned at the same time that all effort that one may put forth in the direction of this execution of perfection in the art of maintaining harmony with soc...

26/07/2018 3. The necessity to do anything at all in one’s life arises on account of the very law that operates behind the existence of human individuality. The physical body, the individual person, cannot even survive without an action that is incumbent upon its very existence. The necessity for the individual to act perpetually in some way or the other arises on account of the finitude of every type of individuality and the need felt by this finitude to compensate its imperfection, consequent upon its finitude by association with the outer atmosphere of similar finitudes. The external finitude is represented by human society and the physical universe, with which each person has to deal. Our function in life is the handling of these two phenomena before us every day—human society and the vast physical nature, prakriti. The rules of prakriti, or nature, bind the individual to such subjection that any violation of its dictates would be detrimental not only to the peaceful exist...