Bhishma Panchaka – Austerity enables us to transcend ourselves

Hare Krishna On the occasion of Bhishma Panchaka Let us contemplate on this sacred day this sacred fasting period about the glory of Bhishma Pitamah and its relevance to our life Bhishma Pitamah is one of the great mahajanas 12 mahajanas mentioned in Srimad Bhagavatam and his life is a life of extraordinary austerity So, he performed the herculean austerity of living amidst opulence and still living a life of renunciation So, there is the karma marga and there is the pravrtti marga and there is the nivrtti marga Pravrtti marga is generally a grahastha ashram Nivrtti marga is the sannyasa ashram So, these are two different margas, two different paths both of which take one to the supreme lord but to live amidst the pravrtti marga and to practice the nivrtti marga is extremely difficult and Bhishma Pitamah personifies that So, on the occasion of Bhishma Panchaka the idea is that we imbibe that spirit of austerity and sacrifice by fasting So, the purpose of fasting is not to torture ourselves but to transcend ourselves By fasting what we do is if we stay at the body level of consciousness then we will be miserable because we will be constantly thinking how should I, I am hungry I am hungry, I am hungry but when we take this austerity of fasting as an impetus for rising towards the spiritual level of consciousness then that elevated consciousness enables us to transcend our lower self to transcend our material attachments and our material infatuations and in this way we experience the higher spiritual reality through its practical realization and Bhishma Pitamah embodies this transcendence to the bodily concept of life both in his living as well as in his leaving and his living throughout his life, he lived amidst enjoyment but did not partake of enjoyment, that indicates his transcendence of the bodily conception and that was because, that transcendence was because of his exalted devotion and then after that when he was to depart from the body, he was in excruciating pain, he was lying on an arrow bed with hundreds of arrows piercing his body, the arrows were so close that even two fingers space could not go between two arrows, so so many arrows were piercing his body, it is an excruciating pain but by meditating on the Lord, by speaking about the glories of the Lord, Bhishma Pitamah transcended the bodily conception, the bodily pain and experienced spiritual ecstasy, not only did he himself experience spiritual ecstasy but along with that he also enabled others, he instructed Yudhishthira Maharaj about Rajadharma, about duties of a king and those elaborate exhaustive instructions which come in the 12th and the 12th and the 13th Parvas of the Mahabharata, the Shanti Parva and Anushasan Parva, they comprise the largest conversation within the Mahabharata and they are a legacy for all time to come, they are a legacy wherein the Mahabharata offers us the opportunity, Bhishma Pitamah accuses his legacy, his legacy lives on through the wealth of instructions that he has given, so we can also imbibe the spirit of austerity by fasting with the blessings of Bhishma Pitamah on the sacred occasion of Bhishma Panchak, thank you.