Bhagavatam-daily 52 – 11.07.42 – We stay disentangled by staying devoted

Thank you Srimad Bhagavatam 11.7.42 here the brahmana is explaining what he has learnt from his various gurus to Maharaj Yadu and therein he is explaining that actually just as what he has learnt from the sky that he is teaching here that just as the sky does not mix with anything similarly the soul and super soul do not mix with anything material so although present in various bodies often in the scriptural taxonomy the Vedic taxonomy the bodies are classified at a fundamental level based on whether they have the capability for mobility or not one level the trees can appear so significantly different from the moving living beings that for a long time many traditions thought that trees had no life at all the Vedic culture however recognizes that even trees are bodies for souls like us and in that sense trees also have consciousness although that consciousness is very reduced in its expression but the point here is that just as one understands that once one understands that actually I am the soul and I am different from whatever body I may be in so although I am present in the body but I am transcendental and similarly the super soul is present in the body and between is transcendental Munir the wise person understanding just as just as the sky which spreads all over but is not entangled now what exactly is the sky from the modern reductionistic scientific world view the whole concept of a sky is considered to be an apparition that we see a blue covering but actually the blue covering seems to be the roof of the world but there is no such thing like that that is understood but the word Akash or Nabha which in our common parlance is used to refer to the conceptual container for space is in the Vedic parlance considered to be an ontological element which acts as the container for everything else modern science and the world view associated with it is very physical and although certain non-physical elements are perceived sometimes but they are immediately reduced down to physical force physical factors of their interactions so now ether is the subtlest among all physical elements and that’s why with our physical senses or our physically constructed sensory apparatuses scientific apparatuses for extending our sensory perception by both of them ether remains a loser so for us here ontologically what ether is is not as important as functionally how it acts and interacts so ether actually acts as at one level it acts as a container for all of everything else that is there but it does not get entangled in anything it remains distinct so similarly the soul is present in various bodies the soul is tiny and the soul is unaffected in terms of its pure spiritual potential in terms of its potential for spiritual purity the soul remains unaffected although temporary conditionings may impel the soul to behave in particular ways for the soul to reclaim the spiritual nature help is provided by the constant indwelling companion the super soul the super soul is always transcendent to the body and its influences so one of the greatest philosophical questions in the concept of descent or incarnation is how can the absolute truth who is supposed to be non-material how can he descend to the material realm and become visible to other materialistic things even non-devotee kings even demoniac kings were out to kill him if qualification is required to see him what qualification did these people have actually we may say Hanuman served Lord Rama that’s wonderful but was Lord Rama aware of that service at that time so the important point here is to recognize that as long as we have spiritually sterile materially robotic atmosphere till that time our consciousness cannot rise properly and we need to begin by rejecting our body identification in principle but in practice there is a big difference between tasting the holy name tasting the sweetness of Krishna while we are trying to practice bhakti by the sadhakas and tasting Krishna on the avanti brahmin the avadhut brahmin has learned from the skies the sky is present everywhere, the sky doesn’t refuse to give shelter to people but it doesn’t at the same time reveals various lessons by explaining the very nature of its existence so sky when used to refer to the what we in our terminology would roughly call as space and the sky offers an example of how one can stay in this world without becoming absorbed, obsessed, entangled by this world by so doing we can become like the super soul in quality and eventually we will become like the super soul in purity and then eventually like the supreme lord the manifested super soul we will reunite in eternity eternal life and love