The Spiritual Import of the Mahabharata and the Bhagavadgita : 15-3.

Chapter 15: The Rarest of Devotees-3.


The planes of existence that are above this mortal earth may be the regions of higher satisfaction and enjoyment by the denizens of that region, but all planes of existence are relative to one another.

The seven planes above the earth plane mentioned in the Epics and the Puranas, reaching up even to the seventh plane known as satya-loka—all these are comprehended within the fold of creation.

Even if we reach the highest plane, we may have to revert to the place from which we rose to it, because of the exhaustion of the momentum of the meritorious deeds that were performed for the sake of reaching those celestial delights.



Every finite cause produces a finite result. An infinite result cannot follow from a finite aspiration or action. Everything that we do in this world is infected with finitude and limitation of various types, and hence nothing that we do can produce an infinite result.

Thus, infinite realisation or the experience of the Absolute is impossible through any performance of a relative character. Trai-vidya mam soma-pah puta-papa: Those people who worship the deities mentioned in the Vedas, for instance, go to heaven and drink nectar, the ambrosia of the immortals.

But—ksine punye martya-lokam visanti—as a person who has exhausted his bank balance becomes a pauper, and he cannot be a rich man forever, so one cannot remain in the regions of heaven perpetually.

When the results are exhausted, there is a reversal of values. Therefore religion, in the true sense of the term, is defined in a different manner altogether. In the verse that follows—ananyss cintayanto msm ye janah paryupasate, tesam nityabhiyuktanam yoga-ksemam vahamy aham—God, in His infinitude, protects the devotee when devotion becomes an undivided awareness of the glorious Being of God.

To regard God as an object of the senses, to consider Him as an extra-cosmic Creator, to imagine any kind of distance, spatial or even temporal, between ourselves and Him would not be undivided devotion.

Swami Krishnananda
To be continued  ....