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The divine glory

CHENNAI: The Supreme Being is the cause of the entire creation and He exists as the indwelling Self in all beings. He is all-pervasive in His creation and hence everything reflects His glory in infinite ways. It is for this reason that the Vedas declare that it is not possible to fathom the divine glory. In His incarnation as Krishna, the Lord described His glory to Arjuna while imparting spiritual knowledge to him. As a prelude to it Krishna said, “I am the universal Self seated in the heart of all beings; so I alone am the beginning and the middle, and also the end of all beings.”

In his discourse, Sri Srinivasa Chaitanya said the Mahabharata described Arjuna’s visit to the celestial world but it was only after hearing Krishna’s teaching that he obtained the insight that all that he had seen were manifestations of the divine glory. For instance, the Lord declared He was the Meru among the mountains. This should not be taken literally for it has several connotations. All the worlds in the universe have a Meru and in this Earth it is identified as a particular mountain which is a hallowed abode. At the individual level the backbone of the human body is called Meru and this is the support of the spinal cord along which the Sushumna nadi rises to the head through the centres of consciousness. The culmination of the ascent of spiritual power (Kundalini) through Yoga is the state of union (Samadhi). This is the reason that the Meru is worshipped in Srividya worship, which is esoteric.

Among the priests, the Lord said He was their chief Brihaspati, and He was Skanda, the general of the gods among warrior-chiefs. Skanda again has subtle meanings. His name Skanda itself denotes the manner in which He was born out of six sparks of Agni in a sacrifice. At the spiritual level, Skanda is the controller of the human faculties and hence the Guru because He enables the mind to become one-pointed by control of the senses and then teaches the spiritual seeker the highest wisdom. Of the waters, the Lord said He was the ocean because even when all the rivers flow into the ocean, it remains the same. A man of wisdom is often compared to the ocean because tranquillity is common to both of them.

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