The Hindu : Miscellaneous / Religion : Detachment essential

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Monday, Apr 25, 2005

Miscellaneous

Miscellaneous - Religion

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CHENNAI: A bonded soul evolves spiritually over several births. Though there are innumerable living beings it is only man who can consciously strive for liberation from rebirths as he is endowed with free will. Other beings can only work out the Karma that resulted in that birth. It becomes apparent then that human birth is rare to attain and hence must not be frittered away in worldly pursuits. When an individual pursues the spiritual path he should guard against the pitfalls, which drag him back to the world of sensory pleasures because it is difficult to overcome the latent tendencies (Vasanas) acquired in previous births.

In his discourse on the Vishnu Purana, Sri P.R.Vaidyanatha Sastrigal said Bharata's life highlighted how even a very evolved individual could suffer setbacks in his spiritual progress due to the pull of Vasanas. Bharata was a king of repute and he was equally adept in spiritual attainments, so much so, that the Puranas refer to him as a sage. He retired to Salagrama to engage in intense penance and spent all his time in devotion to the Lord. He, who had renounced his kingdom and family with the objective of attaining liberation, developed attachment to the young one of a deer, which he rescued when its mother died giving birth to it. It was pity, which motivated him to care for the helpless just-born deer in his hermitage, as he did not want it to fall prey to the wild animals. But in course of time his concern turned into deep attachment for the animal as its well-being became his paramount preoccupation and he neglected his spiritual practices. He took immense delight in its frolics and became despondent when it went missing from the hermitage imagining that it had come to harm. From the spiritual point of view it is obvious that the deer was an impediment to his liberation as he had evolved very well spiritually.

The Lord assures in the Bhagavad Gita that no effort made for the sake of spiritual evolution goes in vain. The merit of the spiritual practices ensures that the individual is able to progress in the ensuing births. As Bharata breathed his last thinking about his protégé he was reborn as a deer and by virtue of his merit remembered his previous birth. After working out his Karma as a deer, in his next life he was born as the great sage Jadabharata.

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