Bhagavatam study 80 1.15.31-37 Life is a relay race – know when to hand over the torch

And now we will see in the future verses how he moves forwards towards winning that war.
This is one of the more enigmatic verses of the Bhagavatam. Vishoka Brahma Sampatya, Vishoka is lamentation, Vishoko is free from lamentation. Brahma Sampatya, he, Sampatya is property, Brahma is spirit.
So we all have spiritual property. What is the spiritual property? It is our spiritual consciousness, our awareness that we are souls and the capacity of our consciousness to focus on Krishna. This is Brahma Sampatya.
This is actually our greatest treasure. This Brahma Sampatya is what we will take from one life to another. The Maya Sampatya of this world we will not take when we go from this world life to another life.
The Brahma Sampatya we will take. Vishoko Brahma Sampatya. So when we regain our spiritual assets then the material lamentation is overcome.
Every time when we chant the holy names, every time when we hear the Bhagavatam, every time when we do even a small act of devotional service, we are gaining Brahma Sampatya. We are gaining spiritual riches and these are the riches that are always going to stay with us. Temporarily they may seem to be covered sometimes but they won’t stay covered for long.
As he got his Brahma Sampatya, his spiritual assets back, what happened? He cut off Dwaita refers to duality. Oh this is good, this is bad. That is the world of duality.
Now yes, at one level you could say everything in this world is bad. But at another level you could say that everything in this world is for good because ultimately it is the plan of Krishna and it is a part of the ultimate plan of Krishna for our spiritual evolution. So Leena Prakriti, he became absorbed.
He was Prakriti Nair Gunyad. He became transcendental to material nature, being absorbed in transcendence. His absorption was of such a level that it was almost as if he had no material body and he had already attained freedom from birth and death.
So liberation is not just a matter of location, it is a matter of disposition. When there is total absorption in Krishna, that is the state of liberation. And especially when there is great absorption in Krishna and when there is no distraction from Krishna and nothing in this world left to distract us from Krishna, then that absorption in Krishna becomes irrevocable.
When an object is to be sent into space, at that time it has to acquire a critical velocity. It is often called escape velocity by which it can go out of the Earth’s gravity pull. And for that object to generate the critical velocity for going out, that is often a challenge.
A lot of power is required when a spacecraft is launched. Much more power is required to get the object out of the Earth’s gravity pull than is required to keep the spacecraft in space. Because the real challenge is to get it out of the Earth’s gravity pull.
Similarly for us, we are trying to get out of the material world’s gravity pull, the gravity of our own material desires. And sometimes we get pulled towards Krishna, sometimes we get absorbed in Krishna. But then again our lingering material attachments come back and they drag us towards this world.
However, if we could just stay absorbed in Krishna, somehow or the other, then we would go beyond this material world. Nothing in this material world will captivate us. And especially when there is a time of total affliction, when we have lost everything, when we have nothing in this world left to be attached to, as has happened to Arjuna now, then there is no chance of his coming back.
He has got the escape velocity, and there is practically no gravity pulling him back. And now he is going to march out of this world. Text 32 Nishamya Bhagavan Margam When Yudhishthira, the king, heard what Arjuna had told him, Bhagavan Margam, meaning the ways of the Lord, Ramayan, the word refers to the Ramayan, the journey of Ram.
So Bhagavan Margam refers to the path of the Lord. The path means the way by which the Lord appears, the way by which the Lord disappears. These are all mysterious.
Samstham yadukulasecha And he also heard about the end of the yadukula, samstham. Swapathaya matil chakre He felt that now the time has come, that Swapathaya, that it is time for him to also now end his stay in the world and go back to the spiritual world. Nibhrataatma yudhishthira Nibhrataatma He understood that we all are born into this world alone and we live this world alone.
And now it is the time to make that final journey. It is the time to get out of this world. Swapathaya matil chakre Nibhrataatma yudhishthira There is a time in this world when we can fight to maintain our life, to maintain our… even if we are doing it for the service of Krishna, there is a time when we can fight and there is a time when we need to just put an end to the fight and move on.
This is it now. Enough fighting. Now it is at least no longer external fights, external fighting situations.
Now it is the time to simply focus on Krishna and move towards Krishna, to ultimately attain Krishna. So Nibhrataatma yudhishthira Maharaj in hearing about a terrible calamity that had befallen the Kauravas, that had befallen the Yadus, he decided to move on. It’s all over now.
Now there is no point in trying to struggle to keep moving onwards. Just let’s end it now. It’s a grave decision, but it’s a vital decision which is required at times.
prathāpya anushritya dhananjayoditam nāśaṁ yadunāṁ bhagavad-gatiṁ citāṁ ekāntya bhaktā bhagavaty adhokṣaje niveshitātmopararāmasaṁsthṛte So now prathāpya. Prathā is Kunti. Anushritya.
She heard dhananjayoditam, what Dhananjay had spoken. nāśaṁ yadunāṁ bhagavad-gatiṁ citāṁ Heard about the destruction of the Yadus and the departure of the Lord, disappearance of the Bhagavad-gatiṁ citāṁ. ekāntya bhagavaty adhokṣaje With one-pointed devotion, she became absorbed in the transcendental Lord.
niveshitātmopararāmasaṁsthṛte She gained relief from material existence. When we are absorbed in the Supreme Lord, then we get relief from material existence. So in the different versions of the Mahabharata, different renditions of this tale, how Kunti departed is described differently.
The Bhagavad-gatiṁ describes that Kunti departed by, on hearing about Krishna’s departure, she simply became absorbed. And in that absorption, she left. saṁsmá¹›te ekāntya bhaktiḥ Actually, again, the absorption in the Lord is the key to freedom from entanglement.
Absorption in the Lord is the key for us if we are to ever get out of this material existence. And that absorption is what Kunti has achieved in a totally wholehearted way. When she saw that the Lord is no longer there, there is no point to live in this world.
Let us simply get out of this world. Let us simply move forward towards the Lord. Text 34 So, here now, Shruti Goswami, you can see that the sages of Namisharanya are also disturbed on hearing this.
Why would something like this happen? Krishna is the Supreme Lord. He is the benefactor of everyone. And why would it happen that his own followers, his own associates, his own family members in fact, they are of course his followers, but they are associates.
How could something like this happen to them? How could they depart in such a deadly way? Shruti Goswami feels a responsibility to give them some philosophical context to make sense of things. Thus he says, याहरद् भूभारम् भूभारम् that the burden that was there on the earth, ताम्तनुं विजःहावजः that when he saw that the Yudus were burdening the earth, then he decided to free them from the burden. And thus he caused them to fight among each other.
The example is, कन्तकं कन्तके नेव दोयं चापिशित हुसमं Sometimes to remove one thorn, one uses another thorn. It can seem to be, if you don’t know the actual reality, it can seem to be like a very strange thing to do that actually we have got a thorn, thorn is pricking us already and why putting another thorn is going to hurt us even more. There is no need to do that.
Just simply focus on getting this thorn out. कन्तकं कन्तके नेव दोयं चापिशित हुसमं But that’s how it works. Similarly, the Lord felt that His family members, they would become proud, they would become arrogant.
Of course it was a Leela. But they had become that way and therefore they needed to be removed from the world and that’s what He did. So they had become a thorn for the world and fighting among them was like another thorn by which they were removed from the world.
यथामच्यादिरुपानि धत्तेज़या यथानटः भुभारक्षपितो येन जहु तच्चकलेवरम् So, He is like a magician. भुभारक्षपितो येन that He came to this world, He released the burden of the world, that means He killed the various demons. यथामच्यादिरुपानि Just as He has come in many many forms, He has come as the fish incarnation.
Now, that’s quite extraordinary. The aquatics are considered the lowest among the 8.4 million species. The Lord appears among the aquatics.
धत्तेज़या यथानटः When He comes, it is like a magician, He is like an actor, like a dramatic player in a drama. He is telling that don’t get so carried away. Sometimes in a drama, some catastrophe may happen.
But just because the catastrophe has happened in the drama, doesn’t mean that everything is lost. Beyond the drama, what is happening in the drama, the actor, the original person who is playing that role, that actor is still good. So, He is saying that the Lord’s appearance and disappearance is like a drama.
It is performed for a particular purpose and when that purpose gets over, He departs. So, don’t get overwhelmed, don’t get confused, don’t lose heart. This metaphor of a drama is something which you have to carefully understand.
Drama here doesn’t mean unreal. Drama means temporal. It means that it happens on the screen of this world, the stage of this world for some time and then it gets over.
इदामुकुण्दो भगवानिमंमहिम् यहूस्वतन्वाः शिर्वणी सत्कतः तदाहर एवापतिभुदचेतसाम् अभध्रहेतु कलिर अन्यवर्तत अन्ववर्तत Now, what happens in this world when the Lord disappears, Kali appears. Kali is already there but Kali takes control. Kali gains more power as soon as the Lord disappears.
इदामुकुण्दो भगवानिमंमहिम् what happens over here Krishna came and established order, but that order was disrupted after He disappeared. And what happened then. yudhiṣṭhiraḥ tat pariṣarpaṇaṁ buddhā pūre ca rāṣṭre ca gṛhe tathātmani vibhāvya lobhānrut jihṁ ahiṁ sanādhya adharma-cakraṁ gamanāya parya dhāt yudhiṣṭhiraḥ tat pariṣparaṇaṁ pariṣarpaṇaṁ buddhā pariṣarpaṇaṁ he could see that the power of Kali was expanding pariṣarpaṇaṁ with his intelligence, his well experience he understood that this is happening and then he saw that what was happening pūre ca rāṣṭre ca gṛhe tathātmani that in the city, in the country, in the home and even in the self itself vibhāvya lobhānrut jihṁ ahiṁ sanādhya vibhāvya he observed, yudhiṣṭhiraḥ observed that greed, lobha, anrut, lying, jihṁ politic, himsa, violence, adi, envy etc.
adharma-cakraṁ vicious cycle of all this. One of the biggest problems in the Ayurveda is that it is viciously cyclic when a person drinks alcohol and after that the desire for drinking alcohol increases and then that makes them drink more and then that increases the desire further and then it makes them want more money and then they sometimes lie to get the money they may squander money which is hard-earned and carefully saved for some higher purpose and then that makes them feel even worse oh what a stupid person i am why did i waste my money like this and that makes them again further entangled and just goes on and on adharma-cakraṁ gamanāya paryadhāt so seeing this adharma-cakra that people are viciously trapped yudhiṣṭhiraḥ decided now that my lord has departed it is time for me also to depart. My lord had a particular role for me to play i have played my part and now i will depart here we may get a question that isn’t it important for yudhiṣṭhiraḥ to stay and maintain law and order how can he just depart like this isn’t it that the kingdom needs him all the more now that there is so much disorder it said that he will he hands over the kingdom to yudhiṣṭhiraḥ to parÄ«ká¹£it and he departs does he leave it as a mess for parÄ«ká¹£it to deal with no that’s not the point here now everyone has their role to play and say of course this is a very grave situation the whole kingdom and its management but in today’s world most most of us can understand things in terms of sports because sports dominates the news quite a bit especially with tough sporting encounters so let’s consider an example from sports that suppose a particular person is caught in a particular person is has been leading a team and that person is team sports like say cricket or tennis cricket or football and they led the team to glory but then the team starts losing and then the player may have to decide that you know i have done enough and now now is not the time for me to do this now is the time for me to retire and let others take forward this game let others take the responsibility of fighting let others take the responsibility of leading the team to victory i had done my part now that is not irresponsible there is a legacy we can say like life is like a relay race this is a fundamental difference in vision we our service in the world we see like a relay race not a sprint race in a sprint race we just want to get first and win the race and after every sprint there’s another sprint but in a relay race means we carry the torch to a particular distance and then we hand over the torch to others so Yudhishthir sees his service in this world as a relay race that relay race means that that race is over and because that race is over now what has to be done one has to move on one has to hand over the torch to someone else you say i can keep running more yes maybe you can maybe you can’t that’s not the point we all have a role to play and after we have played our role we have to move on so this metaphor of life as a relay race is somewhat difficult for us to digest in today’s times because we live in a materialistic world where where even if we nominally acknowledge that there is another world and there another life still we feel this life is what is important one of the defining differences between the pre-modern world view and the modern world view is that in the pre-modern world view the other world was quite important that this world was just a journey jesus said that this is the world is like a bridge don’t build a house there cross over the bridge similarly this world is like a bridge we have to move on and other world is what is important but with the modern times this world is what became important other world if you want to believe in it that’s up to you but we want to create paradise in this world and that’s why we see with this idea that sometimes the politicians they want to hold on to power year after year after year long after they are prime they’re sick and struggling but still they hold on to power and still they hope to stick to their chair so the idea that if you understand that life is like a relay race and we play our part in the relay and then we move on we don’t have to run the whole race ourselves yudhishthira understands that he had an important role to play and he played that role now that the lord has departed he is an exalted devotee he has a connection with the lord and by that connection with the lord he understands that his role in the relay race is now over and therefore he has to move on he has to hand over the torch to someone else so he hands over the torch to Parikshit and he moves on his way this is a theme which we will continue on to discuss in our future sessions especially here in this chapter the focus will be on not on what happened after he handed over the torch to Parikshit that will be discussed in the next chapter this chapter in the next part we’ll discuss about how what did our yudhishthira do after finishing the relay race thank you