A Summary of the Srimad Bhagavatham : Ch-8. Part-4.

Concluding Message: The Stages of Ascent to Moksham


8: The Stages of Ascent to Moksham:


Part-4.



This fact is not known to us. Ignorance is sometimes bliss, as it is well said.

Total ignorance looks like total bliss.

That we are caught up in a whirlpool of evolutionary process and we are helplessly driven in a direction of which we have no knowledge at all, that we cannot even lift a finger of our own accord unless forces outside us cooperate with us—we cannot breathe, we cannot think, and we cannot sleep, the heart cannot beat, the lungs cannot perform their functions unless forces transcendent to our personality operate—is not known to us.



The consciousness of the nature of one’s bondage is the beginning of sadhana.

This is what is told to us in the Yoga Vasishtha, in its description of the stages of awakening.

“Something is very wrong with me right from the beginning. I do not know my past, I do not know my future, and even today, just at this moment, I cannot understand what circumstances I am passing through.”

This is the beginning of wisdom, and is called subheccha in the language of the Yoga Vasishtha—wanting to know what is good. Though the nature of the good is not actually known, there is at least a desire to know it.

Subheccha is the first stage of sadhana.

We do not want to be bad; we want to be good.

Swami Krishnananda

To be continued  ....