SRIMAD BHAGAVATAM: CANTO 2

(1) S'rî S'uka said: 'Soon, the soul from its birth, meditating the Universal Form regains its lost memories in thus finding peace with the Lord, whereafter, with a cleared vision, it can rebuild its life the way it was before. (2) For certain the adherence to the spiritual makes the intelligence, because of its many names, ponder over meaningless ideas in which one wanders around in realities of illusion and its different desires without ever enjoying, as if one is dreaming. (3) Therefore the enlightened person in the world of names should restrict himself to the bare necessities without being mad of desire, intelligently being fixed [on the Universal Form] in order to be successful. He should arrive at the practical insight that otherwise he would endeavor for the sake of hard work only. (4) What is the need of a bed, when one can lie on the ground; what is the need of a pillow when one has his arms; why should one use utensils if one can eat with one's hands and with the cover of trees, what is the use of clothing? (5) Aren't there rags lying on the road, isn't there giving in charity; don't the trees offer their alms maintaining others; have the rivers dried up; are the caves closed; did the Almighty Lord give up His protecting the surrendered soul? Then why should a learned man flatter the ones intoxicated by wealth? (6) Thus will for certain with the worship of the in one's heart so dearly cherished goal of the Supersoul perfect in itself, in detachment from the world for the sake of Him, the Eternal and Unlimited Supreme Lord, give the highest and lasting gain in which the cause of material bondage no doubt will find its end. (7) Who else but the materialists would by neglecting the transcendental thoughts take to the non-permanent of names and see themselves, the general mass of the people, fallen into the river of suffering being overtaken by the misery that is the consequence of their own work?

(8) Others see in the meditation on Him within their own body in the region of the heart the Personality of God residing there measuring eight inches in the notion of Him as having four arms, carrying the lotus, the wheel of the chariot, the conchshell and the club. (9) With His mouth expressing happiness, His eyes wide spread like a lotus, His clothes yellowish like a Kadamba flower bedecked with jewels and with golden ornaments studded with precious stones, He wears a glowing headdress with earrings. (10) His feet are on the whorl of the lotus hearts of the great mystics. On His chest He wears the beautifully engraved Kaustubha jewel and around His neck He has a fresh flower garland spreading its beauty. (11) With a decorative wrap around His waist, valuable finger rings, ringing leglets, bangles, oiled spotless bluish, curling hair and His beautiful, smiling face He looks very pleasing. (12) His magnanimous pastimes and the glowing glances of His expression are indicative for the extensive benedictions of this particular transcendental form of the Lord one should focus on as long as the mind can be fixed on it for one's meditation. (13) One by one, one should meditate the limbs, from the feet up, until one sees the smiling of His face, and thus gradually taking control over the mind one leaves in meditation for higher and higher spheres and purifies that way the intelligence. (14) As long as the materialist does not develop devotional service to this form of the Lord, the seer of the mundane and transcendental worlds, he should, at the end of his prescribed duties, remember the Universal Form of the Original Person with proper attention.

(15) Whenever one desires to give up one's body, o King, one should as a sage without being disturbed, comfortably seated with one's thinking unperturbed by matters of time and place, control the senses by the mind in conquering the breath of life. (16) The mind, by its own pure intelligence, should, by regulating itself to the living being with all of it, merge with the self, while that self should be locked to the fully satisfied Supersoul so that it thus, ending all other activities, may attain the full bliss. (17) Therein one will not find the supremacy of time that for sure controls the godly who direct the worldly creatures with their demigods, nor will one find there mundane goodness, passion or ignorance, nor any material change or causality of intelligence or nature.. (18) Knowing what and what not relates to the divine of the supreme situation, those desiring to avoid the godless give up the perplexities [of arguing to time and place] completely in the absolute of the good will taking the worshipable lotus feet in their heart at every moment. (19) Through insight the philosopher thus should retire, familiar with the science of properly regulating the energy for the purpose of life, by blocking the arse ['air-hole'] with one's heel and directing the life air upward through the six primary places [navel, plexus, heart, throat, eyebrows and top of the skull] and thus put an end to the material desire. (20) The soaring force should gradually be directed from the navel to the plexus [the 'heart'] onwards to the chest from where the meditator intelligently should search out the meditative by bringing it slowly into the throat. (21) From between the eyebrows the seer should, blocking the outlet of the seven centers and maintaining to the fearless, independent of sense enjoyment, for a while ('half an hour'), enter the domain of the head and give up for the sake of the Supreme.

(22) If however one maintains a desire, o King, to lord over, what one calls, the place of enjoyment of the gods in the sky, or with the eight mystic powers, [the eight siddhis] in the world of the gunas [the modes of nature] one will surely have to take it up with the mind and the senses that come along with it also. (23) One says of the destination of the great transcendentalists who reside within and without of the three worlds, that they exist from within the air of the subtle body, while those who do their work materially motivated never attain to the progress to which those in the absorption of yoga achieve in the austerity of devotional service.

(24) In the control of the divinity of fire one reaches, following the movements in the sky, through the gracious passage of breath [the sushumnâ], the pure spirit [Brahmaloka, place of the Creator] that is illuminating and washing off the contaminations, after which one reaching upward attains to the circle [the cakra, the wheel], o King, called S'is'umâra [meaning: dolphin, to the form of the Milky Way, galactic time]. (25) Passing beyond that navel of the universe, the pivot of the Maintainer [Vishnu], is by the single living entity purified by the realization of his smallness, the place reached worshipable to those transcedentally situated, where the self-realized souls enjoy for the time of a kalpa [a day of Brahmâ]. (26) Thereupon, will he, who sees from the bed of Vishnu [Ananta] the universe burning to ashes by the fire of His mouth, be gone from that place to the supreme abode [of Brahmâ] that, home to the purified souls of elevation, lasts for two parârdhas [the two halves of the life of Brahmâ]. (27) There one will never find bereavement or old age, death, pain or anxieties, save that one sometimes has feelings of compassion, seeing how the ignorant are subjected to the hard to vercome misery of the repetition of birth and death.

(28) Without doubt from that pure self one attains, surpassing the forms of water and fire, to the effulgent atmospherewhere, in due course of time, the self by its air attains to the ethereal, the real greatness of the soul. (29) By smelling scents, by the taste of the palate, by the seeing of forms and being in touch through physical contact, and, as it were, through aural reception attaining to the identification with the ethereal, the yogi by the senses also attains to material actions. (30) In the mode of goodness he surpasses the change to the material form by neutralizing the gross and subtle senses, seeing by that progress the wisdom of true reality [self-realization] coming along in that complete suspension of the [operating] material modes. (31) The person by that purification to the self of the Supersoul attains to the rest, satisfaction and natural delight of being freed from all contaminations. He who attains to this destination of devotion for sure will never become attracted to this material world again, my dearest [Parîkchit].

(32) All that I described to you, o protector of man, is according to the Vedas as your Majesty properly requested for, and it is also verily in accord with the eternal truth as it definitely was heard in the pure of the spirit to the satisfaction of the worshiped Supreme Lord Vâsudeva. (33) For those wandering in this life in the material universe, is there for sure nothing more auspicious as a means of attaining than that at which is aimed in the devotional service [bhakti-yoga] towards the Supreme Personality Lord Vâsudeva. (34) The great personality [Vyâsadeva] studied the Vedas three times, and scrutinizingly examining with scholarly attention, he ascertained that one's mind is properly fixed in being attracted to the soul. (35) The Supreme Personality can be perceived in all living beings as the actual nature of that soul; as the Lord who is discerned by the intelligence of the seer in different signs and suppositions. (36) Therefore must every human soul, o King, wherever and whenever hear about, glorify and remember the Lord, the Supreme Personality. (37) Those who drink the nectar filling their ears with the narrations about the Supreme Lord, the dearest to the devotees, will purify their material enjoyment, the polluted aim of life, and go back to the feet that reside near the lotus.'

S'rî S'uka said: 'Soon, the soul from its birth, meditating the Universal Form regains its lost memories in thus finding peace with the Lord, whereafter, with a cleared vision, it can rebuild its life the way it was before.

S'rî S'ukadeva Gosvâmî said: Formerly, prior to the manifestation of the cosmos, Lord Brahmâ, by meditating on the virâth-rûpa, regained his lost consciousness by appeasing the Lord. Thus he was able to rebuild the creation as it was before. (Vedabase)

Text 2

For certain the adherence to the spiritual makes the intelligence, because of its many names, ponder over meaningless ideas in which one wanders around in realities of illusion and its different desires without ever enjoying, as if one is dreaming.

The way of presentation of the Vedic sounds is so bewildering that it directs the intelligence of the people to meaningless things like the heavenly kingdoms. The conditioned souls hover in dreams of such heavenly illusory pleasures, but actually they do not relish any tangible happiness in such places. (Vedabase)

Text 3

Therefore the enlightened person in the world of names should restrict himself to the bare necessities without being mad of desire, intelligently being fixed [on the Universal Form] in order to be successful. He should arrive at the practical insight that otherwise he would endeavor for the sake of hard work only.

For this reason the enlightened person should endeavor only for the minimum necessities of life while in the world of names. He should be intelligently fixed and never endeavor for unwanted things, being competent to perceive practically that all such endeavors are merely hard labor for nothing. (Vedabase)

Text 4

What is the need of a bed, when one can lie on the ground; what is the need of a pillow when one has his arms; why should one use utensils if one can eat with one's hands and with the cover of trees, what is the use of clothing?

When there are ample earthly flats to lie on, what is the necessity of cots and beds? When one can use his own arms, what is the necessity of a pillow? When one can use the palms of his hands, what is the necessity of varieties of utensils? When there is ample covering, or the skins of trees, what is the necessity of clothing? (Vedabase)

Text 5

Aren't there rags lying on the road, isn't there giving in charity; don't the trees offer their alms maintaining others; have the rivers dried up; are the caves closed; did the Almighty Lord give up His protecting the surrendered soul? Then why should a learned man flatter the ones intoxicated by wealth?

Are there no torn clothes lying on the common road? Do the trees, which exist for maintaining others, no longer give alms in charity? Do the rivers, being dried up, no longer supply water to the thirsty? Are the caves of the mountains now closed, or, above all, does the Almighty Lord not protect the fully surrendered souls? Why then do the learned sages go to flatter those who are intoxicated by hard-earned wealth? (Vedabase)

Text 6

Thus will for certain with the worship of the in one's heart so dearly cherished goal of the Supersoul perfect in itself, in detachment from the world for the sake of Him, the Eternal and Unlimited Supreme Lord, give the highest and lasting gain in which the cause of material bondage no doubt will find its end.

Thus being fixed, one must render service unto the Supersoul situated in one's own heart by His omnipotency. Because He is the Almighty Personality of Godhead, eternal and unlimited, He is the ultimate goal of life, and by worshiping Him one can end the cause of the conditioned state of existence. (Vedabase)

Text 7

Who else but the materialists would by neglecting the transcendental thoughts take to the non-permanent of names and see themselves, the general mass of the people, fallen into the river of suffering being overtaken by the misery that is the consequence of their own work?

Who else but the gross materialists will neglect such transcendental thought and take to the nonpermanent names only, seeing the mass of people fallen in the river of suffering as the consequence of accruing the result of their own work? (Vedabase)

Text 8

Others see in the meditation on Him within their own body in the region of the heart the Personality of God residing there measuring eight inches in the notion of of Him as having four arms, carrying the lotus, the wheel of the chariot, the conchshell and the club.

Others conceive of the Personality of Godhead residing within the body in the region of the heart and measuring only eight inches, with four hands carrying a lotus, a wheel of a chariot, a conchshell and a club respectively. (Vedabase)

Text 9

With His mouth expressing happiness, His eyes wide spread like a lotus, His clothes yellowish like a Kadamba flower bedecked with jewels and with golden ornaments studded with precious stones, He wears a glowing headdress with earrings.

His mouth expresses His happiness. His eyes spread like the petals of a lotus, and His garments, yellowish like the saffron of a kadamba flower, are bedecked with valuable jewels. His ornaments are all made of gold, set with jewels, and He wears a glowing head dress and earrings. (Vedabase)

Text 10

His feet are on the whorl of the lotus hearts of the great mystics. On His chest He wears the beautifully engraved Kaustubha jewel and around His neck He has a fresh flower garland spreading its beauty.

His lotus feet are placed over the whorls of the lotuslike hearts of great mystics. On His chest is the Kaustubha jewel, engraved with a beautiful calf, and there are other jewels on His shoulders. His complete torso is garlanded with fresh flowers. (Vedabase)

Text 11

With a decorative wrap around His waist, valuable finger rings, ringing leglets, bangles, oiled spotless bluish, curling hair and His beautiful, smiling face He looks very pleasing.

He is well decorated with an ornamental wreath about His waist and rings studded with valuable jewels on His fingers. His leglets, His bangles, His oiled hair, curling with a bluish tint, and His beautiful smiling face are all very pleasing. (Vedabase)

Text 12

His magnanimous pastimes and the glowing glances of His expression are indicative for the extensive benedictions of this particular transcendental form of the Lord one should focus on as long as the mind can be fixed on it for one's meditation.

The Lord's magnanimous pastimes and the glowing glancing of His smiling face are all indications of His extensive benedictions. One must therefore concentrate on this transcendental form of the Lord, as long as the mind can be fixed on Him by meditation. (Vedabase)

Text 13

One by one, one should meditate the limbs, from the feet up, until one sees the smiling of His face, and thus gradually taking control over the mind one leaves in meditation for higher and higher spheres and purifies that way the intelligence.

The process of meditation should begin from the lotus feet of the Lord and progress to His smiling face. The meditation should be concentrated upon the lotus feet, then the calves, then the thighs, and in this way higher and higher. The more the mind becomes fixed upon the different parts of the limbs, one after another, the more the intelligence becomes purified. (Vedabase)

Text 14

As long as the materialist does not develop devotional service to this form of the Lord, the seer of the mundane and transcendental worlds, he should, at the end of his prescribed duties, remember the Universal Form of the Original Person with proper attention.

Unless the gross materialist develops a sense of loving service unto the Supreme Lord, the seer of both the transcendental and material worlds, he should remember or meditate upon the universal form of the Lord at the end of his prescribed duties. (Vedabase)

Text 15

Whenever one desires to give up one's body, o King, one should as a sage without being disturbed, comfortably seated with one's thinking unperturbed by matters of time and place, control the senses by the mind in conquering the breath of life.

O king, whenever the yogi desires to leave this planet of human beings, he should not be perplexed about the proper time or place, but should comfortably sit without being disturbed and, regulating the life air, should control the senses by the mind. (Vedabase)

Text 16

The mind, by its own pure intelligence, should, by regulating itself to the living being with all of it, merge with the self, while that self should be locked to the fully satisfied Supersoul and thus, ending all other activities, will attain to the full bliss.

Thereafter, the yogi should merge his mind, by his unalloyed intelligence, into the living entity, and then merge the living entity into the Superself. And by doing this, the fully satisfied living entity becomes situated in the supreme stage of satisfaction, so that he ceases from all other activities. (Vedabase)

Text 17

Therein one will not find the supremacy of time that for sure controls the godly who direct the worldly creatures with their demigods, nor will one find there mundane goodness, passion or ignorance, nor any material change or causality of intelligence or nature..

In that transcendental state of labdhopas'ânti, there is no supremacy of devastating time, which controls even the celestial demigods who are empowered to rule over mundane creatures.. (And what to speak of the demigods themselves?) Nor is there the mode of material goodness, nor passion, nor ignorance, nor even the false ego, nor the material Causal Ocean, nor the material nature. (Vedabase)

Text 18:

Knowing what and what not relates to the divine of the supreme situation, those desiring to avoid the godless give up the perplexities [of arguing to time and place] completely in the absolute of the good will taking the worshipable lotus feet in their heart at every moment.

The transcendentalists desire to avoid everything godless, for they know that supreme situation in which everything is related with the Supreme Lord Vishnu. Therefore a pure devotee who is in absolute harmony with the Lord does not create perplexities, but worships the lotus feet of the Lord at every moment, taking them into his heart. (Vedabase)

Text 19:

Through insight the philosopher thus should retire, familiar with the science of properly regulating the energy for the purpose of life, by blocking the arse ['air-hole'] with one's heel and directing the life air upward through the six primary places [navel, plexus, heart, throat, eyebrows and top of the skull] and thus put an end to the material desire.

By the strength of scientific knowledge, one should be well situated in absolute realization and thus be able to extinguish all material desires. One should then give up the material body by blocking the air hole [through which stool is evacuated] with the heel of one's foot and by lifting the life air from one place to another in the six primary places. (Vedabase)

Text 20:

The soaring force should gradually be directed from the navel to the plexus [the 'heart'] onwards to the chest from where the meditator intelligently should search out the meditative by bringing it slowly into the throat.

The meditative devotee should slowly push up the life air from the navel to the heart, from there to the chest and from there to the root of the palate. He should search out the proper places with intelligence. (Vedabase)

Text 21:

From between the eyebrows the seer should, blocking the outlet of the seven centers and maintaining to the fearless, independent of sense enjoyment, for a while. ('half an hour'), enter the domain of the head and give up for the sake of the Supreme.

Thereafter the bhakti-yogi should push the life air up between the eyebrows, and then, blocking the seven outlets of the life air, he should maintain his aim for going back home, back to Godhead. If he is completely free from all desires for material enjoyment, he should then reach the cerebral hole and give up his material connections, having gone to the Supreme. (Vedab a se)

Text 22:

If however one maintains a desire, o King, to lord over, what one calls, the place of enjoyment of the gods in the sky, or with the eight mystic powers, [the eight siddhis] to manage the world of the gunas [the modes of nature], one will undoubtedly have to take it also up with the mind and the senses coming along.

However, o King, if a yogi maintains a desire for improved material enjoyments, like transference to the topmost planet, Brahmaloka, or the achievement of the eightfold perfections, travel in outer space with the Vaihâyasas, or a situation in one of the millions of planets, then he has to take away with him the materially molded mind and senses. (Vedabase)

Text 23:

One says of the destination of the great transcendentalists who reside within and without of the three worlds, that they exist from within the air of the subtle body, while those who do their work materially motivated never attain to the progress to which those in the absorption of yoga achieve in the austerity of devotional service.

The transcendentalists are concerned with the spiritual body. As such, by the strength of their devotional service, austerities, mystic power and transcendental knowledge, their movements are unrestricted, within and beyond the material worlds. The fruitive workers, or the gross materialists, can never move in such an unrestricted manner. (Vedabase)

Text 24:

In the control of the divinity of fire one reaches, following the movements in the sky, through the gracious passage of breath [the sushumnâ], the pure spirit [Brahmaloka, place of the Creator] that is illuminating and washing off the contaminations, after which one reaching upward attains to the circle [the cakra, the wheel], o King, called S'is'umâra [meaning: dolphin, to the form of the Milky Way, galactic time].

O King, when such a mystic passes over the Milky Way by the illuminating Sushumnâ to reach the highest planet, Brahmaloka, he goes first to Vais'vânara, the planet of the deity of fire, wherein he becomes completely cleansed of all contaminations, and thereafter he still goes higher, to the circle of S'is'umâra, to relate with Lord Hari, the Personality of Godhead. (Vedabase)

Text 25:

Passing beyond that navel of the universe, the pivot of the Maintainer [Vishnu], is by the single living entity purified by the realization of his smallness, the place reached worshipable to those transcedentally situated, where the self-realized souls enjoy for the time of a kalpa [a day of Brahmâ].

This S'is'umâra is the pivot for the turning of the complete universe, and it is called the navel of Vishnu [Garbhodakas'âyî Vishnu]. The yogi alone goes beyond this circle of S'is'umâra and attains the planet [Maharloka] where purified saints like Bhrigu enjoy a duration of life of 4.3000.000.000 solar years. This planet is worshipable even for the saints who are transcendentally situated. (Vedabase)

Text 26:

Thereupon, will he, who sees from the bed of Vishnu [Ananta] the universe burning to ashes by the fire of His mouth, be gone from that place to the supreme abode [of Brahmâ] that, home to the purified souls of elevation, lasts for two parârdhas [the two halves of the life of Brahmâ].

At the time of the final devastation of the complete universe [the end of the duration of Brahmâ's life], a flame of fire emanates from the mouth of Ananta [from the bottom of the universe]. The yogi sees all the planets of the universe burning to ashes, and thus he leaves for Satyaloka by airplanes used by the great purified souls. The duration of life in Satyaloka is calculated to be 15.480.000.000.000 years. (Vedabase)

Text 27:

There one will never find bereavement or old age, death, pain or anxieties, save that one sometimes has feelings of compassion, seeing how the ignorant are subjected to the hard to vercome misery of the repetition of birth and death.

In that planet of Satyaloka, there is neither bereavement, nor old age nor death. There is no pain of any kind, and therefore there are no anxieties, save that sometimes, due to consciousness, there is a feeling of compassion for those unaware of the process of devotional service, who are subjected to unsurpassable miseries in the material world. (Vedabase)

Text 28:

Without doubt from that pure self one attains, surpassing the forms of water and fire, to the effulgent atmospherewhere, in due course of time, the self by its air attains to the ethereal, the real greatness of the soul.

After reaching Satyaloka, the devotee is specifically able to be incorporated fearlessly by the subtle body in an identity similar to that of the gross body, and one after another he gradually attains stages of existence from earthly to watery, fiery, glowing and airy, until he reaches the ethereal stage. (Vedabase)

Text 29:

By smelling scents, by the taste of the palate, by the seeing of forms and being in touch through physical contact, and, as it were, through aural reception attaining to the identification with the ethereal, the yogi by the senses also attains to material actions.

The devotee thus surpasses the subtle objects of different senses like aroma by smelling, the palate by tasting, vision by seeing forms, touch by contacting, the vibrations of the ear by ethereal identification, and the sense organs by material activities. (Vedabase)