Slokam 8

When everyone was drinking from the Yamuna, the Crane swallowed the Paramathma!!! However, the crane could not hold the Paramathma within Him and spat Him out.  The crane is said to be the form taken by the demon Bakasura.  The crane is not able to hold the Paramathma inside him due to the Paramathma stimulating a furnace inside him. The discomfort makes the crane to expel the Paramathma from within him. 

When we imbibe the Paramatham, He expels all the demons from within us.

The crane then rushes at the Paramathma to try and shred Him to pieces with his beak. This action of the crane is symbolic of the demonic force within us, which is driven by our ego or ignorance, that does not respect or have regard for anyone except itself.  The ego has insecurity for its companion. That combination within us,  is highly destructive for everyone around us. 

The crane does not know who it is dealing with.  The asura within us also is not aware of the world that it is taking on. It thinks it can manage to conquer everyone and everything all by itself.  It is to defeat this asura of ignorance within us, that the Paramathma takes the Swaroopa of His various Avatars.

In this instance,  the physical manifestation of the demon in the form of a crane is easily recognized.  There is no getting away from it.  But the demon within is not easy to recognize. It is entwined within our identity itself.  So we confuse our desires and attractions to pleasures of this world as our needs (without which we think we cannot live). This ignorance is used by the demon as its disguise.  For a deer, a buffalo, or any other vegetarian creature,  a predator such as a tiger is a demon.  So the animals have no option except to be able to recognize, anticipate and live in constant fear of being physically devoured.  Animals live only on basic necessities. They don’t seek luxuries or try to live beyond their needs.  The moment their physical needs are satisfied, they do not seek to consume any further, even if there is a threat that food may be scarce in the future.  The only animals that consume in advance are those that hibernate.

Man on the other hand has a need that is limitless and far far beyond necessities.  So the demon has taken the form of greed.  The demon of greed is so well disguised that we do not even recognize that we are being attacked and consumed by this demonic force.

As the Crane attempts to poke through the Paramathma, He catches the gigantic bird by the beak and destroys him. 

The Gopas do not know that the Paramathma is there with them to protect them.  They look upon Krishna Paramathma as their playmate.  Although the Paramathma performs superhuman events, it does not occur to the Gopas that God Himself is among them physically.

Likewise, although we have been given huge endowments such as our consciousness, our physical senses, the immense universe etc., which are not only beyond our understanding and our capabilities, we still believe that all these happened by “themselves” (which is fed by “scientific” explanation). Worse, our ego takes on the stand that maybe we are the “owners” of all our endowments, whether we created them or not !!!!!!

The Gopas have no problem recognizing the demonic crane as a threat.  So they do not have any doubt that they have to defeat the monster.   Their physical disposition tells them that they are physically powerless against the gigantic monster.  So they have to take evasive measures to protect themselves. They will use any help to protect themselves.  On the other hand,  we think worldly pleasures are our treasure and that the Paramathma is actually trying to deny us this wonderful experience of life.  So the demonic forces have induced conflict within us.  This conflict splits us into two halves (very much like the crane that the Patamathma splits into two halves).

The more we advance, the more sophisticated these demonic attacks seem to become. We have no respite from these demons.  The demons will be there within us as long as we are not focusing on the Paramathma.  The ability to concentrate on the Paramathama should be unwavering.  Once our consciousness is set unwaveringly on the Paramathma, there is no danger that will come to us. The key purpose of this existence is to surrender our consciousness to the Paramathma. The approach path to that is to attain complete detachment.

The endowment of consciousness is not our making.  That endowment does not happen in its  pure form.  Consciousness comes into existence along with perception of the senses.  Perception develops dependencies and attachments.  Perception comes with needs and necessities for its sustenance.  Maintaining perception becomes the only initial purpose of consciousness.  Intelligence is the bridge between consciousness and perception.  Intelligence has the important function of delinking consciousness and perception and learning and recognizing that perception will perish, and consciousness alone will live in perpetuity in a self sufficient manner.  Intelligence further acts as the fort that isolates and protects consciousness from the impact of everyday existence.

The protected and sheltered consciousness then embarks on the journey of releasing itself from the physical realm and merging with the Paramthma.

Intelligence alone is very limited compared to the capability of the demons such as Bakasura. The Paramathma’s help is an absolute requirement for transcending the physical realm.

All of us who have been through this existence, know the magnitude of the problems which are unrelenting and unending.  These problems cannot be tackled with our limited capabilities.  When we live in a mode of surrender,  the Parmathma destroys these Bakasuras without us even knowing that we have been threatened by these demons.  We can conclude that the entire sequence of events in our lives are meant to guide us to the eternal Paramathma.