Bhagavatam-daily 181 – 11.10.23 – Heaven is a station – seeing it as a destination is illusion

Thank you Bhagavatam 11.23 Ishtveha Devata Yajnai Swarlokam Yati Yajnikahan Bhunjita Deva Vattatra Bhogan Divyan Nijarjitaan The Bhagavatam continues the analysis of the futility of the materialistic conceptions of religion even if they extend beyond this life to the next Ishtveha Devata Yajnai so it describes the process Ishtva Ishtva Ishtva is to worship or having worshipped in this world Devata Yajnai having worshipped a God through a Yajna Swarlokam Yati Yajnikai Yajnikahan Swarlokam Yati the Yajnikahan the performer of Yajna attains Swargloka Bhunjita Deva Vattatra and Bhunjita enjoys over the Deva Vatt like the Gods over the Tatra Bhogan Divyan Nijarjitaan and Bhogan Divyan the celestial enjoyable objects that are there Nijarjitaan one enjoys according to the pious creeds that one has accumulated the conception of heaven in the Abrahamic religions is different from the conception of heaven in the in the Vedic wisdom tradition especially in the Puranas in the Abrahamic tradition heaven itself is considered to be the kingdom of God and that is the destination where believers will go that’s what is talked about now in Karmakand in the Vedic tradition also in Karmakand heaven is considered to be like the top most destination in the Karmakand literature the idea that there might be something beyond heaven is not given much weightage because the focus is to attract people according to their mentality and the people who have the mentality for gaining more and more material pleasures will not be attracted to a conception of heaven where there are only there are only transcendental pleasures so to gradually bring people who are materialistic into the fold of the scriptures into the to the level of having some faith in scripture coming to some level of obedience to scripture it is stated that for them that if one performs sacrifice and attains heaven then there is so much pleasure waiting for oneself and that conception Krishna confirms over here but he will also clarify and stress in fact that although there is a lot of pleasure waiting that pleasure is not eternal in heaven because heaven itself is not eternal why is heaven not eternal because in the Bhagavad Cosmology heaven is still a part of the material world it is an upperly planetary system means that it is above the earth and above is not just in a spatial geospatial sense but above in a karmic sense where souls who have done very good karma get elevated to the heavens and nija jita is according to the kind of pious credits one has accumulated one can rise to heaven and delight in heaven bhogaan divyaan bhogaan divyaan the word that is used here same word is used in the Bhagavad Gita also ashnanti divyaan divi deva bhogaan trai vidyamam somapapuddha papal yajnairishtva svargatim prarthayante te punyam asadya surendra lokam ashnanti divyaan divi deva bhogaan so trai vidya krishna says that those who perform sacrifice according to the description given in the three vedas it can refer to three vedas or it can refer to the three purusha artha jayas dharma artha kama so accordingly trai vidyamam somapapuddha papal yajnairishtva svargatim prarthayante the desire to attain heaven svargatim and punyam asadya te punyam asadya when they acquire an equal quantity of punya surendra lokam they attain the abode of surendra indra ashnanti divyaan and they enjoy over there divi deva bhogaan that is enjoyed by the devatas so here also gunjita devavatra divi deva bhogaan de gunjita devavatra bhogaan divyaan so the words are similar and the concepts are essentially the same later on we will see in the uddhava krishna says to uddhava that i have spoken these subjects earlier and there he refers to what he has spoken to arjuna earlier now heaven is subjugating misconception that may take people away from bhakti and here he counters the misconception that instead of practicing devotional service for coming to spiritual consciousness why not do material dharma for wanting to have a no don’t do that because that will not be fulfilling that will end up leaving you empty handed whereas if we become devoted to krishna then we will no longer be empty handed but rather we will become full hearted full hearted means not only will we be able to offer our full emotions of our heart to krishna but he will grant us lasting fulfillment and by his presence in our heart we will become completely