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Introduction
Summary
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First of all there is the matter of the human predicament of being caught in time. The person is what continues from the past into the future. Fixed inside, the person loses his grip and fixed on the outside, he is beset with fear because of the dynamics of time that change everything and undermine all material certainties until one's death. Thus we realize the need of the idealist perspective of a stable person inside who is still in touch and effective in the outside world. This person, we are not just like that, we then call the Ideal Person, or the Supreme Person we cannot do without. Thus the need to meditate on this Original Person is realized as also the need to find and respect that ideal of stability and completenenss in the outside world. For that pupose one needs to be devoted, that thus becomes a necessity. We must be complete with Him, comprehensive. |
Welcome to this book about the person. This book, as for now consisting of two books, is the result of meditating a classical book of sacred stories that is found on the internet at bhagavata.org and is written by Kṛṣṇa Dvaipāyana Vyāsadeva, the greatest of all Indian philosophers and possibly of all philosophers who ever lived. I, the author, received in India the spiritual name Swami Anand Aadhar, ‘Teacher of the Foundation of Happiness’. I started my adult life as a clinical psychologist but was in the course of time in my spiritual explorations gradually caught by a sincere devotion for the philosophy of Badarāyana, another name of Vyāsa. The book of Vyāsa, who also wrote the Bhagavad Gītā spiritual instruction and the Mahābhārata epic of the great Indian war, is a frame story about the fall of a Vedic emperor about 5000 years ago, who because of being cursed by a brahmin sage, sits down at the Ganges to fast until death. The seven days remaining for his life he then spends talking to Śukadeva Gosvāmi, a young man of 16 years old, a saint and sage, who is the son of Vyāsa. In the company of many sages of the time, Śuka tells him everything about the Vedic culture of holy and less divine kings that once ruled the entire earth but has collapsed since the disappearance of Śrī Kṛṣṇa, a prince of that culture, who is a divine personality. The book of Vyāsadeva, the Bhāgavata Purāna, also called the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam, translated with 'The Story of the Fortunate One', consists of 12 parts, called Cantos, and the greatest part of this collection of stories centers around the person of Kṛṣṇa. Vyāsa presents Kṛṣṇa as the Supreme Personality, the Lord, we actually all should remember for enlightenment and liberation, peace and prosperity.
This book before you contains the inspirations on the chapters of the first and second Canto. In book one, there are inspirations on the spiritual themes introduced by a sage called Sūta Gosvāmi before an audience of sages gathered for a lengthy sacrifice in a forest. Next in book 2 the inspirations on the words of Śukadeva Gosvāmi follow in the form of a dialogue between a seeker and a teacher. The inspirations follow each of the chapters of the first and second Canto. In these inspirations I hope to provide clarity on the essence of Vyāsadeva's philosophy about the person in a manner which, to my opinion, for us modern people is understandable and acceptable. In the first book I am in particular philosophizing about the antecedents and consequences of Vyāsadeva's conceptual framework, in the second book I follow the text of Śukadeva more closely in a paraphrasing style, with a use of words and an adaptation of the content I think he would have used nowadays.
To introduce you to this account, I would like to begin with a question. The question is:
