Topics covered
The demigods appeal to the Lord for protection
- The Lords qualities are impossible to count
- Durvasa Muni curses the demigods
- Shvetadvipa, the Lords abode in the ocean of milk
- The mental wheel of birth and death
- Krishnas illusory energy
- Why the moon is not desert
- The greatest scholars reject the temporary world
- Krishna consciousness satisfies everyone
The demigods and demons declare truce
- The crystal – clear personal beauty of the Lord
- Bhakti – yoga: Direct access to the Supreme
- The diplomatic logic of the snake and mouse
- The demigods and demons uproot Mandara mountain
Lord Shiva saves the universe by drinking poison
- Demons must always disagree with demigods
- The appearance of Kurma, the tortoise incarnation
- The Supreme Lord, Ajita churns the milk ocean
- The demigods offer prayers to Lord Shiva
- Inimitable Lord Shiva reduce ad drinks the poison
The churning of the milk ocean
- The appearance of Lakshmidevi, the goddess of fortune
- Lakshmidevi chooses a husband
- Dhavantari appears, with a jug of nectar
- The first concern of a nondevotee
- The Mohini incarnation
The Lord incarnates as Mohini – murti
- Mohinis transcendental beauty entices the deomns
- The Supreme Lord, Mohini, explain female exploitation
- Materialistic hopes and activities are always baffled
The battle between the demigods and demons
- Description of opposing armies
- The impossibility of a four-day moon excursion
- The demons resort to mystical warfare
- Vishnu thwarts the demons illusory tactics
King Indra annihilates the demons
- The futility of mechanical space travel
- The mysterious Demon Namuci
- Indra kills Namuci with foam
Lessons to be learned:
- Srimad-Bhagavatam and Vaikuntha planets eternally exist
- Everything is possible for the Lord
- Demons are simply interested in their own sense gratification
- Devotees are concerned with the welfare of all living beings
- Lord is non-different from his energies
- We should stop the struggle for existence taking shelter in God
- We have to hear about God, Krsna
- Our prayers must be approved by Vedic literature
- We cannot approach God with our minds and words
- Intelligent worship God by performing sankirtana-yajna, singing of the holy names of Krishna
- We are dependent – Supreme Lord is completely independent
- Everything is actually happening under the direction of the Supreme Personality of Godhead
- The body is a small universe
- devotees are always eager to see the Supreme Personality of Godhead
- By worshiping Lord Visnu one can satisfy everyone
- No limit to the Lord’s appearance
- Lord’s form is eternal and immeasurable
- Value of drinking milk and go rakshya
- Hare Krishna mantra is suitable for delivering the conditioned souls
- With patience and peace everything can be done
- We should not be greedy
- Everything happening in the cosmic manifestation takes place by Supreme desire of the Lord
- For the Supreme Personality of Godhead everything is possible
- We must endeavor in life to get nectar.
- We must be very careful of demoniac, godless persons
- Dont be disappointed in life
- For every obstacle, there is solution
- Ask should ask ourselves how i can serve?
- Lord cannot come at impure place. We need to clean our hearth from so God can come.
- Lord Siva is always benevolent toward all living entities
- When one performs benevolent activities for others, Lord Hari is very pleased with him
- Dont try to imitate Lord Siva
- Voluntary suffering – the highest method of worshiping
- Material enjoyment can all be achieved by the mercy of the goddess of fortune
- Nobody can escape from the cruel hands of death
- Mukunda, is self-sufficient
- Laksmmi is naturally inclined to bless the devotee with all opulences
- Demons regularly compete, fight, disagree and war among themselves
- One should consider another’s wife to be one’s mother
- Every woman should be protected
- The materialists are eternally Karma-cakra
- The fighting between the demons and demigods is perpetual
- What poison our life?
- The battlefield of the struggle for existence
- Everything happens under the influence of time
- Krsna advises that one shoul be tolerant
- God is the cause of your attaining fame and victory
- Appreciating service done by others
- Find another solution for your problems
Samudra Manthan (Samudra Mathana) – Esotering meaning of the lila
How are the Samudra Manthan events and symbolism relevant to our life?
Samudra Manthan teaches us how to maintain harmony between our material and spiritual lives, by placing complete faith in our Lord and accepting, within and without, both the good and the bad things that are happening in our lives.
Samudra means Ocean. Both calm and rough waves are part of the ocean. The Ocean of Milk actually represents life of Jiva in this material world.
- There is mental and physical preparation necessary in this spiritual pursuit.
- There has to be a plan.
- There has to be discipline to achieve the goal.
- There will be surprises and disappointments on our spiritual path.
- We have to fight to overcome obstacles in life.
Churning of the Ocean is the journey of our life on this planet earth.
It represents all the moments of happiness and pain, physical, psychological, emotional and spiritual struggles that we have to face in our life.
The mind is like an ocean, where our thoughts and emotions play on it like the waves of the ocean. Waves can be provoked with even a slight wind. Winds are like many external allurements affecting our sense-perception. A person has to hold steady in moving around this world. There will always be external hindrances, just as waves hinder smooth sailing of a boat. The Mandara mountain represents the virtues of steadiness and concentration who are so important. Concentration in any spiritual path will be useless effort if we are unable to concrete.
The Mandara mountain was held steady by the Vishnu in his Kurma or Tortoise avatara. Tortoise physically withdraws its head into its shell. It therefore symbolizes the spiritual withdrawal of a person from external senses into his own internal consciousness. Just as a tortoises withdraws into their shells bhakta has to withdrawing from external senses to internal concentration upon the Lord.
In life, the most certain thingis the uncertainty surrounding it. Pain and sorrow comes uninvited to anyone . They are guest at the most unexpected times. Kalakuta poison is symbolic of unsuspecting pain and suffering that one expirience during one’s spiritual life. This is temporary. But to get free from sufferinsg we need help from divine personalitie it is out Guru. Just as demigods took help form Guru of Universe Lord Shiva, who took all posion and drink it.We should find help from our Guru. If we try to drink even drop of poison we will die, lets allow him to do his service and reliev us from sufferings of this world and take us to spiritual world. Lord Shiva also teaches us how to hold the poisonat a surface level.Dont let posion enter inside us and contaminate our all being.
There is no challenge that a sadhaka cannot face and handle. First, he or she is to recognize what hinders his pursuits. As he delves deeper into spiritual sadhana to achieve the state of intense concentration he experiences tremendous inner turmoil. It is called dark night of the soul. This has to be addressed first before proceeding far into spiritual endeavor.
Demigods surrendered to Vishnu at the instance of Brahmaji to obtain Amrita.
They then surrendered to Lord Shiva when venom emanated from Vasuki. Similarly, in order to succsess in our spiritual journey we has to surrender ourself to the Supreme Being Krishna. We have to fully depend on His mercy and only then, embark on his voyage. The support of the Lord Tortoise – is always there for us.
Vasuki acted as the rope in this lila. It is major part in the churning of the ocean. This signifies the need for cooperation in life. At any spiritual journey and the sacrifices to be done there should be planning. There would be various obligations to be met and which cannot be abandoned. One is to take into account a good balance of both spiritual and worldly life in order to attain liberation. Our worldly life dictates that we continue to live a spiritual life while being involved in this material activitis. Material world cannot be avoided, but we can use things of material world for spiritual purpose.
The Devas actually represent the ‘good’ within us. The Daityas are bad and sinful representing the ‘asat’ within us. Good and evil are two sides of the same coin. Samudra Manthan events urge us to be conscious that both, the bad and the good, are coming from the same Supreme Creator.
The Devas could not churn the Milk Ocean alone. They were in need oof help. Vishnu advised the Devas to work along with the Daityas to churn the ocean. Similarly, we have to learn to balance and harmonizing both these energies, the positives and negatives of our personalities,in this way we will attain a higher state of spirituality in our lives.
Concentration is a necessary part in our spiritual life. Asuras concentrated to snatch right about every jewel that arose from the ocean during Samudra Manthan. Vishnu advised the Devas to ignore the various precious gems and jewels but focus on acquiring the nectar. It was this focus led to the fulfillment of their goal as well.
There is also a message that those given to Siddhi powers should remain unaffected by these transient temptations and continue forward with his onward journey into spirituality. Likewise, man’s spiritual journey gives him several seemingly impressive psychic powers from time to time. A true seeker should ignore this and pursue further to reach the ultimate goal. Delving deeper into any temporary powers would actually slow down spiritual powers. This should be used for common welfare.
The emergence of Dhanvantari from ocean during Samudra Manthan is an indication that one need to remain bodily and mentally healthy. This is essential for spiritual advancement in bhakti. Absence of health can impede man’s journey towards discovering his own higher spiritual self.
Mohini symbolizes the illusion of the mind, arising out of pride and ego. Demons had pride because of their great strength and achievement. They were so blinded by their egos that they completely lost sight of their actual goal – acquiring immortality. Similarly, a feeling of pride and complacency oft times gets in the way of a man’s higher endeavor. If he were to fall prey to these petty feelings, he would immediately proceed towards nothing but total self-destruction.
No matter how much man tries to control the bad in the world, the fight between good and evil will continue for all time. That fight is external but also internal in our hearth. In our hearth there is fight like between 2 dogs. Who will win? The dog we feed. So if we feed spiritual dimension ofour life she will gain victory.
Life is like waxing and waning of the moon.A true devotee remains unaffected and undesterbed by changes in life. He is determined to achieve his supreme goal. Supreme abode of the Lord.
