Bhagavatam-daily 171 – 11.10.13 – The flame of purificatory knowledge incinerates all illusions

11.10.13 Krishna is continuing to instruct Buddha over here Vaisharadhi is Vaisharadha is one who is expert so Vaisharadhi is that which is got from the expert Vaisharadhi so that that spiritual knowledge that is got from Vaisharadha that is got from the expert it is extremely pure it makes the intelligence pure it grants this pure intelligence it cleanses the consciousness of maya completely the consciousness gets cleansed of maya and when our consciousness so of the three more that completely burned with the atma the atma actually here atma refers to that which is constituted of that which is made of so when in this way the flame burns burns itself swayam jasham yati asamid yatha agni swayam jasham yati it automatically stops yatha agni asamid yatha agni this is a flame without fuel stops there is a fire when the fuel lands it gets extinguished swayam yati so what is being said over here that the knowledge acquired in the spiritual master in the expert spiritual master it burns away the illusions created by the three mores and when all the illusions are removed then that flame gets extinguished just as a fire without fuel gets extinguished so here the process by which the soul becomes liberated from material existence is being talked about lighting a fire may seem deceptively simple in our times where we just use some electric lighter and we press a button and the flame comes up but if we have to actually kindle a flame and especially make it blaze and if there is wind or something like that then often making the flame kindle in such a way in a proper way so that it becomes a proper blaze it requires some level of expertise otherwise the flame may become very the fire may become very smoky or the fire may spread and instead of burning the desired object instead of just becoming a manageable flame which we use for say cooking it may become an unmanageable flame which burns around various objects in the house so fire is useful fire is essential for cooking and for various activities and fire can also be dangerous so expertise is required in managing of fire similarly Vaisharathi the spiritual knowledge that we get which awakens the spiritual hunger the spiritual flame within us that is properly directed by the guidance of the spiritual masters Vaisharathi what this means is that we when we live in the material world we will be surrounded by material objects even if we say that we live in a renounced order in some jungle or some rural community even there also we need to we will still have our senses and we will have our memories or sense objects which are etched deeply in our subconscious and they will direct us away from the material from transcendental consciousness towards sensual consciousness so the point is that we cannot just get away from everything material even when awareness of our spiritual identity and of our spiritual destiny has been awakened within us by the flame of spiritual knowledge so while we live in the material world we have to use the body the mind and whatever other material resources we have we have to use them for the service of the Lord we have to engage them in such a way that we become purified of them gradually so how does this work out it’s a step-by-step process in which we focus on the absolute truth step-by-step progressively as was mentioned earlier so gradually as we spiritualize our tendencies say we have a tendency to write to say to do various kinds of activities we use those activities in Krishna’s service direct the knowledge as possible towards Krishna and we find that when we you when we connect our present object of attachment with our ultimate object of attachment so our present or immediate object of attachment may be say money and our ultimate object of attachment the object to whom we want to become attached to that is Krishna so when we connect the immediate object of attachment with the ultimate object of attachment that means we use our money in Krishna’s service then first of all our immediate object of attachment no longer keeps us riveted at material level but it also becomes a tool for our consciousness to become connected to the spiritual level secondly when both of these are well connected we can start experiencing that much more fulfillment we get from the ultimate object of attachment than from the immediate object of attachment that means I may be a great singer but when I start singing for Krishna over a period of time I start realizing that actually just the activity of singing will not give me so much pleasure I need to sing about Krishna and when I sing about Krishna when I think about Krishna when I read on Krishna then I get so much satisfaction which I don’t get even if I sing very well about other subjects so that we start realizing that the immediate object of attachment is not going to give me so much satisfaction and gradually we move with this realization our attachment organically shifts from the immediate object to the ultimate object and thus we move onwards in our spiritual journey so eventually when we have transited material existence eventually when we have attained liberation from material existence at that time we don’t need the immediate object of attachment at all at that time we don’t need the worldly objects for pleasure so that time so we go beyond material existence that is videha mukti liberation beyond the body similarly here it is stated that this flame of knowledge that is awakened by the guidance of the by the words of the expert spiritual master this progressively burns away our illusions about what will give me pleasure so first the sinful sources of pleasure we clearly start saying these are not going to give me happiness no matter how attractive they look they are not sources of pleasure and once they go away then there are there are even pious sources of pleasure and those we connect with Krishna and gradually start saying that in Krishna there is greater pleasure than even in those pious objects and in this way we move onwards steadily towards Krishna and then swayam jasham yati so once our consciousness goes beyond matter completely once our souls become liberated beyond material existence then the engagement of the consciousness with the matter ends completely so this swayam jasham yati that the flame automatically gets extinguished by itself does not refer to consciousness itself getting exhausted rather it refers to the conscious the spiritual knowledge dissipating our illusions that process gets ended because all our illusions are dissipated and just as a fire which has no more fuel it will not burn similarly when we have no more illusions then the fire of knowledge no longer has any reason to burn for the sake of eradicating illusions because there are no longer illusions that does not mean that there is no more consciousness then the spiritual knowledge is there just for us to how to purely serve the lord at the transcendental level and to live eternally with him swayam jasham yati so in this way by cultivating spiritual knowledge we can go beyond we can incinerate burn all impurities and go beyond material existence