A Study of the Bhâgavata Purâna; or, Esoteric Hinduism
Religion
A Study of the Bhâgavata Purâna; or, Esoteric Hinduism
Puranas. Bhagavatapurana. English
The ocean of Milk does not appertain to Jambu Dwipa, but it is the ocean
of Saka Dwipa. The seven oceans are transformations of Prakriti,
differing in the admixture of Satva, Rajas and Tamas and determining the
character of the globe they surround. Vishnu, as the Third Purusha, is
the divine source of evolution in every Jiva. The seat of that Vishnu is
the ocean of Milk, the ocean where Satva prevails.
It is Vishnu who from His seat in the Ocean of Milk sends down Prânic
Energy and the mineral becomes a vegetable. He sends down the power of
perception and then the power of conception and the vegetable becomes an
animal and at last a man. Throughout this course of evolution, there is
a development of the self element in us. There is no idea of self in the
mineral or in the vegetable. It faintly asserts itself or rather makes
an effort to assert itself in the animal kingdom. The early history of
humanity is the development of the selfish element in him. The Jiva has
two sides in himself and non-self. The self side is caused by limitation
due to his own senses They put him in contact with the outside world,
and make him a centre of sense perceptions. He becomes lost entirely in
the sense products, which form a world by themselves. The non-self side
of a Jiva, is his spiritual nature. He begins with this spiritual
nature. But the development of selfishness eclipses this nature, the
true, the real nature of Jiva, and he identifies himself entirely with
the acquired and false nature.
Then comes a crisis in the evolution of Jivas. Were men to be lost for
ever to their spiritual, their real nature? Were they to be tempted away
by the senses, which had done their work of training, past all chance of
return?
Vishnu, the God of human evolution, willed otherwise. He caused a
re-adjustment of the Daivic and Âsuric forces, and the Devas by His help
got the better of the Asuras. This is the churning of the Ocean of Milk.
It averted a crisis and is therefore a great event in the history of the
Universe.
The Asura element could not be altogether wiped away. For the Deva or
spiritual nature evolves out of Asura or selfish and material nature.
Unselfishness grows out of selfishness, spirituality rises out of
materiality.
In the act of churning, the Devas could not do without the Asuras.
Churning itself, implies the action and reaction of two contending
forces. "Make peace with them, as long as you are not strong
yourselves." The compromise of the Devas with the Asuras is the
development of spiritual faculties out of the personal element in man.
It is the grafting of higher Manas on lower Manas. The element of mind
is in the Asuras as well as in the Devas. But the Asuric or lower mind
thinks of self as separate from other selves. The Daivic or higher mind
breaks through the trammels of personality and finds oneness all round.
To use a better expression, we shall say higher self and lower self,
rather than self and non-self.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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