Bhagavatam-daily 34 – 11.07.24 – Learning from the past is a shortcut to learning

Bhagavatam 11.7.24 Atrapi udharanti mam itihasam puratam avadhutasya samvadam yador amitatejasaham Atrapi in this connection udharanti mam udharan is example so in this connection what is the connection that was mentioned in the previous verse the connection of how in the human form one can use one’s intelligence to perceive and pursue perceive means to come to the understanding that there exists and pursue means to move towards attaining perceive and pursue the supreme lord so udharanti mam this is the example I will give for this connection now what is that example itihasam puratam and ancient history I will tell you avadhutasya samvadam there was avadhut with whom a samvadam took place conversation took place and yador amitatejasaham that avadhut has a conversation with a yadu king what was the nature of that yadu king amitatejasaham his prowess was unlimited amit so itihas means does it happen puratam purana is that which is ancient that ancient happened long ago purana so itihasam puratam so in general the vedic scriptures which is the puranas and the itihasas recognize that precepts are best taught when they are caught being lived through the examples of serious practitioners especially realized seers who are living in the light of truth so that’s why often the whole idea is to help people to raise their consciousness and for that purpose whatever is required is to be done so if it required raising one’s consciousness it requires actually recognizing that the stories are needed for people to understand stories will also be told the upanishads are very philosophical and they don’t consider exactly stories but even they contain conversations quite a bit so in the upanishads the conversations are far more central and critical than the actions because the idea is that the actions are meant to lead up to the conversations and it is in the conversations that the purvapaksha ideas are dismantled and the siddhanta is established so the bhagavatam has many stories and even in those stories also often there are conversations so this prahlada pastime where there is so much drama in terms of the many attempts to torture and assassinate prahlada but none of those attempts succeed and then after that there is Narasimhadev’s sensational entry with such sound effects that even Hiranyakashyapu closes his eyes in fear after Hiranyakashyapu is delivered and even before actually after he is delivered Narasimhadev receives prayers from prahlada and those prayers are themselves an education in philosophy and education not just in philosophy but education in devotional emotions so in this way actually the whole idea is to help the conditioned souls evolve towards Krishna by the steady use of their intelligence to come closer and closer to spiritual reality and ultimately to the highest spiritual reality that is Krishna for this purpose it is important that the souls recognize the sources of wisdom that are available to them sometimes some event that happens in nature may trigger introspection, may trigger some contemplation but generally knowledge progresses from the familiar to the unfamiliar so unless I can contextualize and connect some unfamiliar bit of information, some tidbit with something familiar, unless I do that then it is difficult for me to remember or integrate or utilize that form of knowledge and this actually more or less applies to all of us so if I just hear that in since 1980 the population of polar bears in Alaska has been going down of course, of bears in Alaska or Siberia or wherever, it’s going down or in Antarctica it’s going down you see, then how can this isolated fact, what does it mean? but then if we also know oh actually this is the time duration since climate change has started since the human footprint on the ecology has become evident, then we will see oh one proof of that is otherwise those people would have already destroyed us also, so the thing is that actually all of us have an opportunity to learn by drawing on the lessons from the past, there is a tendency in modern society to look for new discovery and invention are glamorized in today’s culture, both involves finding something new but along with the spirit of finding something new there is also the important point of learning valuable lessons which have already been learned in the past by the people of the past and more importantly learning if some time independent principles of living have been demonstrated by the people in the past exemplars of living from the past so that means that history and philosophy these are two different subjects so philosophy is what Krishna has been talking to Arjuna till now to Uddhava till now, now history is what he is going to talk about, now there may be people who say that neither of the subjects interest me, now I don’t care either for philosophy or for history that’s possible but then we all care for at one level ourselves, we all care for our well-being, our happiness and of course we care for our loved ones also but let’s keep this list solid, short in this time, so we all care now but unless we can see the relevance of philosophy to ourselves or we can see the relevance of history to ourselves, we will not be able to use whatever we learn in philosophy or history effectively so as I said knowledge progresses from the familiar to the unfamiliar so how can one progress this way from the unfamiliar to the unfamiliar with respect to learning the truths of living, yes some of us may be culturally aware of some stories, ok Krishna went there Krishna did this, Krishna spoke the Bhagavad Gita, so for some of us the itihasa may become the way to the tattva, to the truth that is taught by philosophy or for some of us, some other, the tattva may become the way to the itihasa so by hearing certain past times we may wonder, ok what does this mean, what is there to learn from this, what is this teaching actually and there from the past times we go to the tattva, the other way is what the Bhagavad Gita recommends that we understand Krishna’s past times tattvataha, 4.9 and tattvataha, so either way the point is to help us understand those principles of living so Krishna wants to attract our hearts some way or the other, so till now he has given the philosophy and now he is going to give an itihasa and either way his purpose remains the same, to help us move closer to him so some of us may find past times more attractive, some of us may find the philosophy more attractive, either way the point is we should be able to connect it with us, when we hear the philosophy oh this will help me to develop a philosophical vision of things and when I hear past times we think oh this is my beloved lord who is speaking let me love him, either way we can actually make sure that the harmonious interaction of philosophy and history inspires us, impels us, guides us towards time independent principles of living, which will help us to become happy in this life and then attain eternal happiness in the hereafter