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Source: thThe Hindu

(http://www.hinduonnet.com/2002/06/14/stories/2002061400890800.htm)

 

Miscellaneous

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Religion

 

 

Impediments in spiritual life

 

 

 

 

CHENNAI

JUNE 14

 

.. The Vishnu Purana, Bhagavata Purana and the Narayaneeyam, which is based on

the Bhagavata, have the same objective. They delineate how to cultivate devotion

to God, which will enable a spiritual seeker to develop detachment towards the

world and this will ultimately lead to Self-realisation. The Puranas are in the

form of narratives in which the lives of devotees of God are included to

illustrate the philosophical teachings so that it becomes easy to avoid the

obstacles. The Bhagavata is in the form of a conversation between Sage Suka and

King Pareekshit. The message of this Purana is that it is man's ego, which is

responsible for his lot in life and distances him from knowing the truth. It was

because of ego that the king behaved in a despicable manner towards a sage who

was engrossed in meditation and was cursed by the sage's son to die of the bite

of the snake, Takshaka, in seven days' time.

 

Pareekshit repented immediately, renounced his kingdom and sought the company of

sages in the forest to spend the remaining days of his life as expiation for his

misdeed. It was his good fortune that he listened to the Bhagavata from a man of

wisdom like Suka. The sage told the king that the snake would not bite him as

the curse had become ineffective after listening to the Purana but the king who

had realised the truth was not scared of death anymore.

 

In his lecture, Sri N.Veezhinathan said the Vishnu Purana also elaborated the

same topics as the Bhagavata and the discussion in this text was between Sage

Parasara and his disciple Maitreya. One of the episodes discussed elaborately in

both these Puranas is the life of Jadabharata. He was born as a great man of

wisdom and earned this name, as he was totally oblivious to the world. This was

possible because he was a great devotee of the Lord in his earlier life as King

Bharata. Though he was a ruler he renounced his family and throne, and lived in

the holy place, Saligrama, all the time chanting the Divine names. Even the mind

of such a man of sterling devotion developed attachment to the young one of a

deer, which he rescued when its mother died due to exhaustion of giving birth to

it prematurely. The newborn's helplessness moved him and by caring for its

creature comforts he became attached to it. Even in his last moments Bharata did

not let his mind dwell on God but remem!

bered only his pet and hence was reborn as a deer in his next birth. In his last

birth he was born as Jadabharata.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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