Thursday, July 23, 2020

Bhagavata Purana

"O King, renounce the thought that you are going to die; this is a delusion and fit only for animals.  For you are not this body, but the Atman (The Self) that has always existed and always shall.

Your true self was never born as a son is from a father, or a tree from a seed. You were never generated by another being, who in turn ever had birth. Rather, your real self is like fire: seen to be burning wood, but itself beyond the fuel it consumes, not the product of the wood but another, transcendent thing.

In a dream you might see yourself being beheaded. In the state of waking, the death of the body is comparable to this. The Atman is not the body, but a witness to the body. Death does not affect the Atman; He has no birth or death.

When a pot is broken the akasa (space) contained in it escapes into the universal akasa. When the body perishes, with gyana (knowledge) the jiva (individual) that dwelt in it unites with the Brahman (Infinite Existence Consciousness) .

The mind creates the illusions that appear to limit the Atman: bodies, gunas, and karma. Maya (Illusion) creates the mind and entangles the jiva in samsara.

A lamp gives off light as long as its wick, oil and a flame combine. The transmigrations of a jiva are similar: they, too, depend upon the combination of countless, complex factors. Samsara is constant flux, since it involves the ceaseless combination of sattva, tamas and rajas.

The self-illumined Atman is never born and does not die, but only the body. The Atman is transcendent, immutable, incomparable, beyond all that is manifest and unmanifest, like akasa, eternal: the foundation of all things.

Fix your mind in dhyana (meditation) upon the Lord Vasudeva (Krishna) , use your intellect with discernment, and discover the truth of the Atman amidst the creations and illusions of the Atman.

If you grasp the truth of the Atman, the serpent Takshaka, sent by the Rishi’s son, cannot harm you. For death cannot touch one who is united with God who is the Death of death."

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