Aniruddhaya namah

Maharishi Nārada continued, “To the best of his abilities a Brahmachari (celibate-student) should master the 3 Vedas and Upanishads together with all their limbs and try to understand the meaning contained in the Vedic statements. Thereafter, after giving remuneration or gift as sought by his Guru, he can enter married life (grihasta ashrama) only with the explicit permission of his Guru. Or he can go to forests for meditation or he can renounce the world to become a sanyasi. Or he can continue to live in the Gurukulam (school) itself.

The Brahmachari should see the Supreme Lord Srihari, who is beyond all proofs, as existing within the holy fire, within his Guru, within himself and within all living entities. ‘Lord Srihari pervades everything in this universe. There is no such object into which he needs to newly enter. Nevertheless, has the Supreme Lord has now entered into all living beings, who are his partial incarnations?’- with such belief the Brahmachari should look upon living entities.

We should, in all situations and circumstances, have the feeling that the Lord is existing in every human being, bird, animal or other living entities.

Self-knowledge dawns upon the Brahmachari, house-holder (grihasta), vānaprastha and renunciate (sanyasi) who lead a life totally bound by these disciplines and they achieve the Supreme Lord in the form of their inner Self.

Now I shall explain the dharmas which pertain to Vanaprastha stage of life (retiring from normal household life and moving into the forests) which is agreeable to Maharishis. The human being, who with an exemplary character, strictly adheres to these Vanaprastha disciplines reaches Mahar-loka, the higher planetary system which is the abode of Maharishis.

The person who abides by the Vānaprastha stage of life should not consume food that is obtained by tilling the earth, food which is cooked in fire nor should he eat raw vegetables. He should not consume those fruits, which although growing naturally, grow during off-season. He is entitled to eat only those fruits which ripen naturally with the help of sunshine”. Such was the intense penance undertaken by people during earlier eons!

“He should then offer the grains available naturally in the forests, in the homa fire, and duly complete all the stipulated daily rituals specified for that season. When newer food grains are available he should discard the earlier stock of grains. In other words, he should either distribute the earlier stock to others or should use them to feed animals and birds. He is permitted to reside in a thatched hut or a mountain cave solely for the purposes of protecting the holy fire. He should withstand winds, cold, rains, heat and fire. He should wear matted locks. He should not focus upon the impurities within hair, nails, moustache and beard. He should keep a water-pot, staff, deer skin and wear clothes made of bark. He should wear wet clothing and hold the sacrificial ladle (sruk) and other items essential for homa.

The person who has accepted the Vānaprastha stage of life should follow these disciplines for 12, 8, 4, 2 or 1 year. He should take utmost care to ensure that his intellect (buddhi) does not get disturbed in any way due to these tough disciplines.

He should mentally invoke the 3 sacrificial fires within him. Giving up attachments and feelings of I-ness (ahamkara), he should merge the combination of his body, mind and senses proportionately into their respective causative elements. With absolute mastery over his senses the aspirant should mentally merge the body, mind and senses into the basic principles of creation.

He should mentally believe that he is merging them into the basic elements. The senses should be merged into space; life-forces such as prāṇa-apāna into the wind element; the heat of the body into the fire element; blood, mucus, urine and other liquids into water element, and the remaining portions of the body into the earth element.

He should mentally offer speech along with the organ of speech (vagindriya) to the Fire-god; the actions together with the hands to Lord Indra; the ability to walk together with the legs to Lord Vishnu, and sensual pleasures together with the organ of reproduction to Prajāpati. The aspirant should mentally believe that these organs together with their respective tasks have been merged into their presiding deities. With such belief, he should continue his spiritual pursuits. Only that person who continues his spiritual pursuits after such offering achieves liberation while living (jeevan mukti).

He should mentally offer the action of excretion together with the organ of excretion to the Lord of death; sound along with the organ of hearing to all directions; skin along with organ of touch to the Wind-god.

O Dharmaraja! Visible forms (roopa) together with the organ of sight should be mentally offered to the Sun-god. The tongue along with its presiding deity Varuna should be merged into water. Nose together with the power of smell should be merged into earth. Mind together with all desires should be mentally offered to Moon-god. Intellect together with the intelligence should be offered to Lord Brahma.

All actions along with the feelings of I-ness (ahamkara) should be merged into Lord Rudra. Chitta along with illumination which is replete with sattva (purity) should be offered to the inner Self (kshetrajna). The Self, who due to the trigunas, appears as if it is undergoing transformations should be merged into the Supreme Lord.

Earth-element should be merged into water; water should be merged into fire; fire should be merged into wind; wind into space; space into the jeeva (Self) who inherently is devoid of transformations. Jeeva should be merged into Mahat (cosmic intelligence). Mahat should be merged into the primordial nature (moola prakriti), which in turn should be merged into the Supreme Lord who is beyond time.

In this way when he rejects all the non-Self objects within his form, only Pure Consciousness or the pure Self remains which has a non-dual existence with the Supreme Lord who is indestructible. With this realization, he should absolve himself from all actions in entirety.

With this the twelfth chapter of the Seventh Canto comes to an end.