In the previous episode, we had witnessed an important narrative of Bhagawan Krishna wherein He cautions us against seeking help from someone whom we shouldn’t approach. We’ve in fact been witnessing this discussion for the past couple of episodes and we’ve seen the nuances of approaching a wrong person for help. We’ve eventually seen that by doing so, we’re going to invite more trouble to ourselves, than the existing one. This is where we’ve to be extremely careful and the best strategy is to always keep a “back-up plan” for whatever we do in life. The ideal situation should be that, given such people around, it is better to remain self-sufficient and independent as much as possible – atleast for our basic living such as food, clothing, shelter and basic financial resources. We should always learn to live with whatever we have and within whatever is our personal financial framework. If we’re going beyond this boundary, this is where we’re going to get into problems and we ourselves create a situation wherein we’ve to seek someone’s help for our day-to-day survival. Of course, problems might surface in life, that might be totally out of our hands, but even then, we’ve to learn to remain self-sufficient as much as possible.
Moving on thus, Bhagawan Krishna now explains to Uddhava that He had devised two different paths to reach His divine abode, Vaikunta or “Moksha”. If an “Atman” traverses through the first way, it never comes back to this world again. Whereas, if the “Atman” has to traverse through the second way that I’ve devised, it is going to repeatedly take birth in this world, wash away all it’s “Karma” slowly, birth after birth and then finally would come and attain “Moksha” when the entire sack of “Karma” gets neutralized. The first way that Bhagawan Krishna is talking about is nothing but the “Archiraadi-Maarga”. This is the best possible path to reach “Vaikunta”. Bhagawan Krishna explains that if an “Atman” traverses this path, it never comes back to this world yet again. The second way is called as “Dhoomadhi Maarga”. In this way, one can reach the “Chandra-Lokha”, “Soorya-Lokha” and also Indra’s “Svarga Lokha” too. One can experience immense amount of joy and pleasures in all these “Lokhas”, but when that time is over, he / she would again be pushed back to this world, only to take a re-birth.
We might ask a question here – How’re we going to traverse to those “Lokhas” ever without a “Shareera” or a physical body? We’re fit and fine here with the present physical body that we’re having with us. We’re able to experience all sorts of pleasures, joy, etc. only with the help of our physical body. Whereas, if we’re going to the other “Lokhas” and even to the “Vaikunta”, how would we be able to experience all the pleasures, joy, etc. there, without a physical body? Aren’t we leaving our physical body here itself when we finish off this birth? The answer to this is very important – Just like how we’re having a physical body in this present birth in this “Manushya Lokha”, we would be obtaining a new physical body when we reach the other respective “Lokhas” after this birth gets over. Once we pass away from this world, our Atman takes the form of another physical body, enters into the “Svarga Lokha” if our “Punya Karma” is outweighing our “Paapa Karma”. Whereas, if our “Paapa Karma” is outweighing our “Punya Karma”, we’re again going to take another physical body and enter into the “Naraka Lokha”. The physical body that we take to enter the “Svarga Lokha”, “Chandra Lokha”, etc. are all tailor-made to enjoy the experiences and pleasures there. At the same time, the physical body that we would take to enter the “Naraka Lokha” will also be tailor-made for that experience – because, we should have the strength to withstand all the beatings, kicks, frying on the pan, etc., isn’t it? 🙂 Hence, we would be getting an even better physical body that is completely fit and fine to withstand all of it. Else, if we’ve to go with this same physical body to “Naraka Lokha”, how on earth are we going to withstand all the drubbings that we’re going to receive? Here itself, if someone slaps us hard on our cheeks, we immediately fall on the ground with just that one slap, isn’t it? J How are we going to withstand the continuous flow of drubbings that we would get there? 🙂
Hence, the point here is that, in order to traverse to each “Lokha”, we would be obtaining a new physical body, which is totally tailor-made to enjoy all the experiences – both good and bad that are pertaining to that “Lokha”. Even for “Vakunta”, this is the same procedure. Once the “Atman” crosses over the “Viraja” river, it assumes a new physical form and with that only we go into the “Vaikunta”. Once we reach there, it is only going to be Bhagawan everywhere around us, and also the souls that have already attained “Moksha”. It is a divine place and those who enter into that world, are never going to come back again to this world to take a birth!
So for today, let us understand this point clearly and we shall wait for the next episode to witness more accords of Bhagawan Krishna with regards to “Taamasa Bhakti”. He’s going to explain a very interesting narrative on this important point. Stay tuned for a detailed description! 🙂
The Indian Dharma 