Om apavargapradya namaha, Salutations to the Sun who gives the final achievement and fulfilment of actions rendered.
etymology searches
apavarga — of liberation
apavarga — in liberation
apavarga — cessation of bodily existence
apavarga — the path of liberation
apavarga — of transcendental loving service
apavarga — ending
apavarga — on the path of liberation
apavarga m. (-rgaḥ)
1 Final beatitude, the delivery of the soul from the body, and exemption from farther transmigration.
2 Abandoning, quitting.
3 The fruit or consequences of any completed act.
4 The completion of any act.
5 Any act brought to a conclusion.
6 End, completion.
Apavarga –the final beatitude from suksma, the latter to be realised by Jnana; cf. Sankhya k. 44. Jnanena capavargah. From this results vyapaka; from this comes Purusa and from it the highest bliss.
To take birth on Earth is to engage in karman, action. One cannot avoid undertaking karma, even to breathe is a karmic act. When one is born, God Brahma places an invisible garland around the neck, that garland denoting the number of breaths one is to take in the body. Many say that birth and the journey through life are miserable matters. One can turn miserable matters into satisfaction by engaging in selfless action, free from the fruit or consequences of that action, as taught be Lord Krishna. You may undertake action and offer the outcome unto God, who will take all consequences. However, you may not undertake an evil act and expect God to take the consequences: all life has to follow dharma, that is, to engage in right conduct.
Human life is essential the pursuit of the four great goals, called purusarthas. These are dharma – right conduct, artha – wealth according to one’s station in life, kama – the needs one has to subsist and pursue one’s swadharma – their proper duties, and moksha – final liberation from the cycle of birth-death-birth-again. So we know the final goal is this apavarga, the fullness of life and love, the completion of a life well-lived in service of the Divine.
Truth and righteousness are the two most important spiritual pursuits for liberating oneself from this mundane world.
Vishaya karma includes all activity in relation to exterior objects. It is usually resorted to with a desire for the result. This craving for the consequences leads one to the morass of ‘I’ and ‘Mine’ and the demon of lust and greed. If one follows this path, there will be sudden flares as when ghee is poured in the sacrificial fire! Assigning priority to sense objects is the same as assigning importance to poison! But while engaged in those activities and in those sense objects, if one has no interest in the result or consequence, then not only can one be victorious over the feelings of ‘I’ and ‘Mine’ and greed and lust, he can also be far away from all such traits. He will never be troubled by them. Sreyo Karma or liberating karma is so pure, faultless, unselfish and unswerving. Its characteristic is the importance given to the idea of nishkama karma, action without any thought of the fruits thereof, elaborated in the Gita. The practice of that discipline involves the development of Sathya, Dharma, Santhi and Prema: Truth, Righteousness, Peace, and Love. While on this path, if one also takes up the discipline of the name of the Lord, where else can he acquire more joy and bliss? It will give the fullest satisfaction.
The patron deities of Knowledge (Saraswathi), of Wealth (Lakshmi) and of Wisdom (Parvathi) are all women! Therefore, it is unbelievable that women have no right to spiritual discipline, leading to merger with Brahmam and to the final emancipation from bondage. A lion asleep is unaware of its nature. So too, man asleep in the coils of Maya is not aware of his being the Atma. In this stage of ignorance, he elaborates more on his prejudices and he gives his likes, the stamp of scripture! The final end, the emancipation, is the acknowledgement of the Divine feminine within, and the proper obeisance to the feminine principle therein.
You should not seek to discover the source of a river or the ancestry of a Rishi. They may be quite unimpressive. You should be satisfied with their services. Their experience is what is most valuable; be inspired by them, be led by them to similar efforts. If you go in search of the beginnings, you lose the vital core. Vyasa was born of the fisherman caste, Sounaka was of the Sunaka clan; Agasthya was born in a pot; Viswamithra was a Kshathriya (warrior caste), Sootha was born in the fourth caste. In addition, we have among those who were virtuous and good, who had their eyes always on the moral standards of their aste and dress, who renounced all and stuck to the ideal of liberating themselves from the bondage of birth and death and the illusion of physical values: Sanjaya, Sathyakama and many more. Self-effort, discrimination, penance – these qualify man to attain the highest status. Without purity of the inner instruments, no man, however high his caste, can reach the Highest. If inferior copper is added to gold, the alloy loses in value. Just as pure gold becomes an alloy through contact with copper, the Universal Self becomes stained; it gets the inferior ego added to it in this ocean of life. The Universal Form becomes transformed into the Individual Self. Now, what has to be done to get back the real gold? Through polishing and cleansing the intellect, the buddhi, the original stage has to be regained. You wash the feet after walking through the mire; the mind too has to be washed of the mire of attachment to objects. Wisdom alone can burn the seeds of attachment so that they may not sprout again. So, if a person has the treasure of Wisdom, he gets liberated easily.
Calendar makers calculate the years and declare that this or that day is New Year Day, and that it is so many years after the Kali Era began! But, the lapse of time is to be calculated in proportion to the work accomplished, rather than the revolution of our earth around the sun. For each individual, there is a New Year Day, a Day which marks the completion of his revolution round the Sun, that is to say, the awakened effulgent Intelligence, capable of conferring on him discrimination and detachment. Ardent seekers have sought the key to all knowledge, the one thing that, if known, all else is known, namely, the Divine, that is latent in every atom of the Universe; they have described it as something that is beyond words, beyond the ken of human imagination and understanding. It is best, they have themselves admitted, that the Divine is pictured in the human form, so that man can easily comprehend it and approach it and derive Bliss out of that contemplation. Man can conceive only human qualities and human attainments, though he can multiply them to the maximum and allow the resultant quantum to fill and overflow his heart.
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