A Discussion on Bhajagovindam : ( 19/01/2013. )

1. This is last mantram of BhajaGovindam. 2. This mantram tells us :about "Antaranga Sadhana" ( inner exercise). 3. They are : a). Control of all life's activities in the body ( Pranayama), b). Sense of withdrawl ( Pratyahara), c). Discrimination ( Nitya-Anitya-Viveka-Vicara), d). Japam ( Chanting of Mantrams ), e). And Samadhi : (Majority mean this word as death, this notion is wrong.) It is a cumulative effect of all these (a+b+c+d) reaching a state of utter silence within, which is spring board to the "HIGHEST". 4. "please perform with care....... with great care." ENDS.

Mantram-29. 1. Strange: Wealth estranges us all. When you have not any, you will pant to get some! When you get some, you grow jealous of others who have more, and feel conceited among those who have less! 2. Grabbing-game: When you become little successful, your jealousy and conceit  are not  thereby  going to recede proportionately, but, strange, in the arithmetics of the money-mad world  your jealousy becomes powerful, and your conceit limitless. 3. Wealth is not welfare : Even one's son becomes a source of fear for the unholy man's riches. 4. When you possess money, wealth is blessing. Allow money to possess you: wealth is a curse and it will not give you any comfort. 5. This is the Truth of the  wealth. This is the way of the wealth.

Mantram-28. 1.Today we indulge in carnal pleasures, we live only to enjoy these, to achieve we go to any extent. Many people think that they are born to enjoy, nothing else; 2. Later on, alas, end in diseases of the body.  3. Even though our ultimate end is death, 4. Even then, man leaves not his sinful behaviour. 5. Now a days people live the animal instincts, it is not difficult for men because it is going down or backwards. 6. This is Maya: "push and pull of vasanas", they push us into sin, and pull us away from good and divine values of spiritual living   

Mantram-27. "The four unavoidable 'musts'in the daily programme:- 1.The study of Bhagavad Geeta, and follow the text in the life. Geeta is your guide to life. 2. Chanting of Vishnu Sahsranamam daily, as japam, concentrate on in the japam, during meditation. 3. You should live in the company of Good people and good things. 4. Serving the needy, Live for others, Practice Charity throughout life.

Mntram- 26. 1.Discard desire, anger, greed, and delusion. 2.The seeker sees in the Self, 'He am I.' 3.They are fools who have no Self-knowledge. 4.And they consequently become captives in hell and tortured. 5. There fore, to sum up, renounce desire, anger and greed and come to experience that "He am I"; this alone is the fulfillment of a man's mission in life. In fact, God alone  is: the concept  "I" is a stupid dream. Surrender and realize. 6. Through right knowledge reject what you are not, and assert your Real nature, and come to realize the Oneness of the Life in You and the Life Everywhere Present.

1. The whole universe has emerged out from the One Womb of Reality, so who is the other one whom I can afford to hate! Nor is there one whom I can afford to court particularly and love specially! All are His (Lord) manifestations alone, including you and me. 2. Do not waste your time and energy to quarrel against or to make friends with anyone; be it enemy, friend, son, or relative. 3. It may be asked then, what exactly is life meant for? What exactly is the direction in which one's emotional energy should flow out?  4. Answer: If you are a seeker of the Fuller Life, if you are thirsty to hear the Melody in the Harmonious Existence, If you are hungry to taste and enjoy the Essence of Life, seek to realize the One Reality  which holds together the whole Universe into one garland of beauty. 5. So seeking the Self everywhere, lift the sense-of-difference (plurality), born out of 'ignorance'. 

1. This is a declaration to a second/third  person that the Lord as Jeevatma  present within us ( in you, in me, in all). 2.No one need to quarrel upon this. 3.Be always balance ( equal) minded, thereafter you attain vishnu. This means one who over come emotional mind and become balanced mind already united with the Lord(Vishnu).

Mantram-23. 1. Who are you? 2. Who am I? 3. From where did I come? 4. Who is your mother? 5. Who is your father? 6. Thus enquire,  7. Leave aside the entire world-of-experience ( visvam). 8. Which are essence less and mere dreamland, born of imagination( svapna-vicaram). 9. Dismiss all. 10. And clear your mind.

Today:-  The best Ono's among us strive under a philosophy of "minimum effort and maximum gain," while the forefathers of our culture lived in our land with the healthy philosophy of "maximum effort and minimum gains" to themselves.  The difference between these two philosophies is like night and day; and the joyous life in a cultured society should necessarily be poles far removed from the sorrows of a barbarous, uncultured, immoral society. 

"The three divine exercises for spiritual unfoldment are being indicated in this 20th slokam:- 1. the study of the Bhagavad Gita, 2. the Ganga baptism, and 3. the worship of Murari( Lord). --------------------------------------------------------/ 1. Bhagavad Gita:- Srimad Bhagavad Gita, being the essence of all the Upanisads, a study of its eighteen chapters is an intellectual discipline by which we can come to understand what exactly is the goal of life, and what are the methods by which this Goal can be gained. 2. Akasa Ganga (the heavenly Ganges) :- Flowing so high above the human intellectual approach, was brought down to man's level of experience by the continuous efforts of King Bhagiratha, and today it is emerging out from the pure intellect of Lord Siva. Ganges stands for the "spiritual knowledge"for all Bharath nivasi. 3.Murari(Destroyer of Ego):-Worship Him- Mura means ego, until it is destroyed no hope of reaching the Truth (Lor...

"To one who has awakened to this Great Truth, it is immaterial thereafter whether he is in a crowd, or living all alone, in Bhoga ( materialism) or in Yoga ( spiritualism). In whatever condition he may live, his is the real joy." -------------------------------------------------------------/ "Having realised the Atma (Self), he has become Atma in all. He alone enjoys."      

"Renunciation alone is the seat of fearlessness":- ------------------------------------------------------/ If the previous slokam deals with a hypocrite, this one is a real renounced, who has truly relinquished all his inner thirst for enjoying the world out side. True dispassion brings real happiness to all. In the world outside, we find even emperors sorrowing, the rich worrying, the powerful man anxious, the man of accomplishment jealous...............................all are unhappy. Everyone points out the other man who, according to him, is happier. But the only one who has the courage to declare and truly feel that he is happy, is he who has relinquished all his passions and hungers from within. "Such an individual may have no shelter of his own than the shade of a tree in the courtyard of a temple. He may sleep there under it on the naked ground. He may wear nothing but a dear skin! or ( a piece of  cloth around his waist ).  Renouncing thus the entire...

Tat - Tvam - Asi (Tatvamasi):- ................................................../ This means "That thou art" ( Athu nee thanne  Agunnu)'that is you only. This slokam recalls the above Mahavakyam to us. Pilgrimage:- ................../ The pilgrimages to Kasi and Rameswaram will bring a lot of vivid experiences for a person who is doing it with faith, dedication, devotion, and sincerity, specially when it is undertaken on foot, as they used to do in the past. Observe vows (Vratham) or danam ( charity):- ......................................................................../ Educating the intellect to hold higher ideals, training the mind to obey will, sharpening one's will itself, are the achievement  gained by the practice of vows(vratham). Sharing intelligently what you have with others around you who are in need of it , is charity.  Pilgrimages, vows, and charity are all exercises to prepare the seeker's mind for the great pa...

The picture of a true ascetic is brought out here:- One may be having none of the elaborate comforts of life, and having renounced everything, including minimum necessities of life, one may come to live with no shelter, and with scarcely any food. Even such an individual may, to fight the inclemency's of weather, resort to warming up, on cloudy wintry days, near the fire. And in the clear and bright daytime he may back himself in the warmth of the sun. When at night the fire goes out, he may bend himself upon himself and, with his chin held tight to his own knees, spend rest of  the time of the cold night. He may not keep himself any possession--not even a begging bowl. He may accept what is given unto him in his own palm. For shelter he may choose to be under any wayside tree. Thus, an individual may come to leave even the utter necessities of life and, for all practical purposes, may look a real man of renunciation, and yet , says Swami Sankaracharya  in the 16th...

Man cannot get rid  of his heavy load of desires! They (desires) multiply as the body moves to the grave!! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------/ The 15th stanza shows the picture of a young man growing old is beautifully screened. The  sequence of the lines in the stanza is the very sequence in which age appears in man. First, the body becomes old; then grey hairs appear; then the teeth start falling off and, at last, the backbone has no more the strength to hold the body erect, and he takes the help of a walking stick to keep himself erect.  Leaning on his staff, painfully he drags himself on tottering legs---a sad and pitiable sight indeed. Desires grow in the mind as the body grows old:- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------/ And the dissipated body becomes more decrepit. The capacity for enjoyment leaves the body, but the mind, which has developed habits of immortality, cru...

Cheats and self-deceivers:- In this fourteenth verse Swami Sankaracharya looks around and sees to his own amazement that cheats and self-deceivers are often wearing the very uniform of the highest vocation in life, SANNYASA. Some of these samples of these cheats are being just hinted in this Slokam: "one with matted locks ( Jadadhari), one with shaven head, another one had laboriously plucked his hairs one by one, yet another in spectacularly coloured ochre cloths ( kashaya vastram/ coloured cloths)." Disguises:- These are fools who, though seeing, do not see( they are not conscious of the goal, to reach which they have taken the robe, nor are they striving in the right direction. These different disguises serve them, not for their philosophical seeking of Truth, but only for filling their belly. If this was true at the time of Swamiji, today, when more bellies are more often empty, it is the logic of life that more people should take to different types of disgu...

Slokam:-13.   The entire slokam is addressed to sensuous men, and the Acharya Sankara Swamikal here calls them, the best among fools who constantly waste themselves in lascivious thoughts( O Distracted  one! )     'Why worry about wife or wealth?'     Why dissipate mentally over the lips of your lady? To worry over anything will not pay in life. To worry means to waste your mental energies,  men fail, not because the world is strong enough to break them down, but it is always only because men become weaker and thus relatively the world-of-happenings is rendered more powerful. The weak must perish is the law of nature.   To consider wife  as only a chattel for your pleasure and sense-gratification is to pull down the institution of home and sanctity of the motherhood in her   Association with the good people:-     Satsangam is the remedy, this contact will develop in us a healthy atti...

Slokam-12. 1. Day and night, dawn and dusk, winter and spring, again and again come and depart.  2.Kala chakram ( the Time Wheel) is rolling fast forward passing, never stops for anybody or anything. 3.There is nothing permanent : "things born must die and perish away only to be born again." 4.Majority men and women are greedy, amass wealth by hook or crook, do all sorts of evils for their sense gratifications, make other's life miserable, as if they are permanently living for ever. 5.Finally death snatches away everything from them, they are compelled to leave everything back here and depart, sad and tragic! 6.Life steadily ebb away, but desire grows higher and higher, body decays and become infirm, no more strength to enjoy, but hunger for sense gratification persists.  7. Death crawls behind, disease and decay accompany them, leading to the grave. 8. Be Wise. Give up Desires. Seek the Lord....Bhaja Govindam, Bhaja Govindam.    ...

'My people', 'my things', my joys', 'my ideas' etc..:- -------------------------------------------------------------------/  These false vanities throw the man out of himself to suffer the storms of finitude and the floods of change. All these are the unavoidable contents of the objective world. Take no pride in your possession, in the people at your command, in the youthfulness that you have.  'Time loots away all these in a moment:- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wealth, social connections and family status, youth and vigour - these form the tottering pillars upon which is built the platform of sense-enjoyment. This drama of passion and lust can end only in utter dissipation and personality exhaustion. These have been already discussed and clearly shown in the early verses of Bhajagovindam.  Le aving aside all these, (after knowing their illusory nature) realise the state of Brahmam...

Slokam:-10. Swami Sankara : When age and its youthfulness have passed away, where is Lust and its play?  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------/ Th e maddening lust of blinding passion can remain with one only so long as the skin is tight, the muscles are hard, the blood is stormy, and the individual is young and hearty. Lust springs only from the youthfulness. When the cause is removed, the effects cannot remain all by themselves. When the water has evaporated, where is the Lake? ----------------------------------------------------------------------/   When the waters are dried up, the lake can no longer continue to exist. The dried up lake or tank can only express as the bed; only waters are there, can they express themselves as the lake or tank, and serve the world as such. So long as the waters of desire are playing in the mind, the passionate youth vigorously strives to fulfill them. But when once these desires h...

1.Who is your wife? 2. Who is your son? 3.Of whom are you? 4.From where have you come? There is no denying the fact that the institution of home, the bonds of family relations, etc., have all a beneficial influence on individuals, and they can certainly liberate man from his egocentric selfishness. And yet, they are themselves, even at their best, very limited. They can never be an end in themselves. Man and woman living together in mutual love and respect as a couple, and growing to the dignified status of av father and a mother, have much to learn from each other.  Both get well trained by their mutual association if they live in a true spirit of togetherness. Bot, ordinarily, in their folly, they grow into such an unhealthy state  of attachment to each other that the very balm becomes a poison. According to Hindu sastras, man and woman in wedlock must live, no doubt, in a spirit of togetherness, but Acharya insists: "Let there be a space between the two"-- let th...

Life is short, long is the pilgrimage:- The rational intellect is so powerful a mechanism that it can rocket a man of pure heart into the highest levels of incomparable divinity in a very short time, if only he is available for it. Alas! he is not. He gets himself tied down to the passing sorcerers of the flesh in the world. Deluded by his passions, he discovers an enchantment in the gold, a value in the baser things, a sweetness in the very bitter agonies of life. Lust and passions:- Hoodwinked with lust, drunk with passions, the tottering fool wanders away from the main road into the thorny bushes, and there, lacerated and bleeding, soon fatigued,  he tumbles down into the bottomless pits of death. As the teacher realizes this universal folly of man, he feels a painful desperation, and the resultant song is the 7th verse in Bhajagovindam. under discussion. Chronologically following human:- Swami Sankaracharya says, that the childhood days of man are wasted in hi...

The body is everything:- In short, to spend one's entire lifetime in sheer body worship, in earning more so that this  futile worship may be made more elaborate, is one of the abominable intellectual stupidities into which humanity readily sinks.  For, if the body be the altar  of worship, it may not remain permanently there as the days of decay and old age are not far away even for today's young bodies. To sweat and toil, to fight and procure, to feed and breed, to clothe and shelter the body--are all in themselves necessary, but to spend whole life time in these alone is a criminal waste  of human abilities. For, era long it is to grow old, tottering, infirm and, in the end die away. At least the animal body has some value when it is dead; a human body, when once dead, has only a nuisance value. It is to maintain and to fatten such a bundle of despicable filth that wealth is earned, hoarded, many throats cut, low dissipation practiced and cruel wars waged...

Nothing for Nothing:- As an animal, man is selfish. He will not generally give without hopes of getting. 'Nothing for nothing', seems to be the law that governs nature. This being a universal law, ordinarily, even intimate relations and dear and near ones are deferential  towards the earning-saving member of the family. This has been observed at all levels of relationships---man and wife, father and son, brother and sister. In short, in all human relationships, one who is capable of earning-and-saving alone is, with due reverence, respected and adored by others around who have some hope of being benefitted  by a share of his saving! Keeping this fundamental point in mind, Swami Sankaracharya says that one can be popular and beloved of the people around one only so long as one is capable of 'earning-and-saving'. Then alone others can make use of , or making a prey of, the 'rich'one. When his capacities decay and he comes to live in his own old infirm...

Life ever unstable:- " The water-drop rolling on a lotus petal has an extremely uncertain existence; so also is life ever unstable. Understand, the very world is consumed by disease and conceit, and is riddled with pangs."     Death, wealth, women, in the last three stanzas, now Acharya sees human life to be as uncertain as a minute drop of water trembling/unbalanced at the tip of Lotus petal. Life is uncertain in itself, and even during its uncertain existence it is consumed by disease and conceits, persecuted by a hundred different voiceless pangs!   In the first half of the slokam, Swamiji is pointing the mortality of individual existence. In the second half of the stanza, Acharya  points the pain-ridden nature of the world itself.  This is a typical example of pratipaksha  bhavana upon the individual and the total life.     Since life is so uncertain, and the world is in a sense nothing but sorrow, th...

Kamini:- In the previous slokam(2) a true seeker is advised to give up all covetousness for wealth of the world, and here he is advised to give up lusty passions for women. From the days of the Upanisad to our own times, we find in all masters this constant warning against wealth(kancana) and woman (kamini). But no insult is meant to either; this is a statement of a scientific truth. All intelligent living  creatures have these two irresistible urges, 'to possess more' (wealth) and to 'enjoy' (woman). The Reality:- Here Sankaracharya gives us a line of thinking, which can be  an efficient antidote to the fanciful price, that the body gives to the object of senses. The soft inviting bosom of your beloved , if sentimentally analysed and mentally seen in its realty, will reveal itself to be composed of only abhorrent flesh and fat , packed  in a scaly skin! If these component parts are brought  before  your mental vision, spiritually the mind sh...

Wealth:- Last slokam deals with uncertainty of life  and  unexpected death. Here in the second slokam Acharya stress on wealth. O fool! give up the thirst to possess wealth. Create in your mind, devoid of passions, thoughts of the Reality. With whatever you get (as reward of the past), entertain  your mind (be content).   Acharya  Sankara   here indicates how we must live in the world. His advice to us is to live joyously in contentment and satisfaction with what we would get 'as a result of our karma (action).' There is no limit to human imaginations. An individual who has given reins to it can never stop at any conceivable point. Desires multiply, the more we satisfy them. The more the desires are satisfied, the more seems to be the hunger, and the deeper gnaws into our peace a sense of tragic dissatisfaction.   Desire for wealth degrades man. Attachment brings endless worries. There is strain in acquiring. There...

INTRODUCTION:- MOHA MUDGARA- Bhaja Govindam is one of the seemingly smaller but, in fact, extremely important works of Adi Sankara. Here the fundamentals of Vedanta are taught in simple, musical verses so that, even from early childhood, the children of the Rishies can grow up amidst the melody of Advaita.  The musical rhythm in these slokams (stanzas) makes it easy even for children to remember and repeat these pregnant (with deep tattvams) verses. For an intelligent young man, a sincere study of this poem can remove all his delusions (Moha), and so the poem is also called Moha  Mudgara (Hammer). SLOKAM-1. "Grammar rules will  never help anyone at the time of death. While living, strive to realise the deathless state of purity and perfection".  The grammar-rule that has been indicated here stands for "all secular knowledge and possessions". The import of this condemnation, that all grammar and such other secular sciences cannot save the soul, when...