Continued from above.......

SB 7.3.14: O King, being thus informed by the demigods, the most powerful Lord Brahmā, accompanied by Bhṛgu, Dakṣa and other great sages, immediately started for the place where Hiraṇyakaśipu was performing his penances and austerities.

SB 7.3.15-16: Lord Brahmā, who is carried by a swan airplane, at first could not see where Hiraṇyakaśipu was, for Hiraṇyakaśipu's body was covered by an anthill and by grass and bamboo sticks. Because Hiraṇyakaśipu had been there for a long time, the ants had devoured his skin, fat, flesh and blood. Then Lord Brahmā and the demigods spotted him, resembling a cloud-covered sun, heating all the world by his austerity. Struck with wonder, Lord Brahmā began to smile and then addressed him as follows.

SB 7.3.17: Lord Brahmā said: O son of Kaśyapa Muni, please get up, please get up. All good fortune unto you. You are now perfect in the performance of your austerities, and therefore I may give you a benediction. You may now ask from me whatever you desire, and I shall try to fulfill your wish.

SB 7.3.18: I have been very much astonished to see your endurance. In spite of being eaten and bitten by all kinds of worms and ants, you are keeping your life air circulating within your bones. Certainly this is wonderful.

SB 7.3.19: Even saintly persons like Bhṛgu, born previously, could not perform such severe austerities, nor will anyone in the future be able to do so. Who within these three worlds can sustain his life without even drinking water for one hundred celestial years?

SB 7.3.20: My dear son of Diti, with your great determination and austerity you have done what was impossible even for great saintly persons, and thus I have certainly been conquered by you.

SB 7.3.21: O best of the asuras, for this reason I am now prepared to give you all benedictions, according to your desire. I belong to the celestial world of demigods, who do not die like human beings. Therefore, although you are subject to death, your audience with me will not go in vain.

SB 7.3.22: Śrī Nārada Muni continued: After speaking these words to Hiraṇyakaśipu, Lord Brahmā, the original being of this universe, who is extremely powerful, sprinkled transcendental, infallible, spiritual water from his kamaṇḍalu upon Hiraṇyakaśipu's body, which had been eaten away by ants and moths. Thus he enlivened Hiraṇyakaśipu.

SB 7.3.23: As soon as he was sprinkled with the water from Lord Brahmā's waterpot, Hiraṇyakaśipu arose, endowed with a full body with limbs so strong that they could bear the striking of a thunderbolt. With physical strength and a bodily luster resembling molten gold, he emerged from the anthill a completely young man, just as fire springs from fuel wood.

SB 7.3.24: Seeing Lord Brahmā present before him in the sky, carried by his swan airplane, Hiraṇyakaśipu was extremely pleased. He immediately fell flat with his head on the ground and began to express his obligation to the lord.

SB 7.3.25: Then, getting up from the ground and seeing Lord Brahmā before him, the head of the Daityas was overwhelmed by jubilation. With tears in his eyes, his whole body shivering, he began praying in a humble mood, with folded hands and a faltering voice, to satisfy Lord Brahmā.

SB 7.3.26-27: Let me offer my respectful obeisances unto the supreme lord within this universe. At the end of each day of his life, the universe is fully covered with dense darkness by the influence of time, and then again, during his next day, that self-effulgent lord, by his own effulgence, manifests, maintains and destroys the entire cosmic manifestation through the material energy, which is invested with the three modes of material nature. He, Lord Brahmā, is the shelter of those modes of nature — sattva-guṇa, rajo-guṇa and tamo-guṇa.

SB 7.3.28: I offer my obeisances to the original personality within this universe, Lord Brahmā, who is cognizant and who can apply his mind and realized intelligence in creating this cosmic manifestation. It is because of his activities that everything within the universe is visible. He is therefore the cause of all manifestations.

SB 7.3.29: Your Lordship, being the origin of the life of this material world, is the master and controller of the living entities, both moving and stationary, and you inspire their consciousness. You maintain the mind and the acting and knowledge-acquiring senses, and therefore you are the great controller of all the material elements and their qualities, and you are the controller of all desires.

SB 7.3.30: My dear lord, by your form as the Vedas personified and through knowledge relating to the activities of all the yajñic brāhmaṇas, you spread the Vedic ritualistic ceremonies of the seven kinds of sacrifices, headed by agniṣṭoma. Indeed, you inspire the yajñic brāhmaṇas to perform the rituals mentioned in the three Vedas. Being the Supreme Soul, the Supersoul of all living entities, you are beginningless, endless and omniscient, beyond the limits of time and space.

SB 7.3.31: O my lord, Your Lordship is eternally awake, seeing everything that happens. As eternal time, you reduce the duration of life for all living entities through your different parts, such as moments, seconds, minutes and hours. Nonetheless, you are unchanged, resting in one place as the Supersoul, witness and Supreme Lord, the birthless, all-pervading controller who is the cause of life for all living entities.

SB 7.3.32: There is nothing separate from you, whether it be better or lower, stationary or moving. The knowledge derived from the Vedic literatures like the Upaniṣads, and from all the sub-limbs of the original Vedic knowledge, form your external body. You are Hiraṇyagarbha, the reservoir of the universe, but nonetheless, being situated as the supreme controller, you are transcendental to the material world, which consists of the three modes of material nature.

SB 7.3.33: O my lord, being changelessly situated in your own abode, you expand your universal form within this cosmic manifestation, thus appearing to taste the material world. You are Brahman, the Supersoul, the oldest, the Personality of Godhead.

SB 7.3.34: Let me offer my respectful obeisances unto the Supreme, who in his unlimited, unmanifested form has expanded the cosmic manifestation, the form of the totality of the universe. He possesses external and internal energies and the mixed energy called the marginal potency, which consists of all the living entities.

SB 7.3.35: O my lord, O best of the givers of benediction, if you will kindly grant me the benediction I desire, please let me not meet death from any of the living entities created by you.

SB 7.3.36: Grant me that I not die within any residence or outside any residence, during the daytime or at night, nor on the ground or in the sky. Grant me that my death not be brought by any being other than those created by you, nor by any weapon, nor by any human being or animal.

SB 7.3.37-38: Grant me that I not meet death from any entity, living or nonliving. Grant me, further, that I not be killed by any demigod or demon or by any great snake from the lower planets. Since no one can kill you in the battlefield, you have no competitor. Therefore, grant me the benediction that I too may have no rival. Give me sole lordship over all the living entities and presiding deities, and give me all the glories obtained by that position. Furthermore, give me all the mystic powers attained by long austerities and the practice of yoga, for these cannot be lost at any time.

SB 7.4.1: Nārada Muni continued: Lord Brahmā was very much satisfied by Hiraṇyakaśipu's austerities, which were difficult to perform. Therefore, when solicited for benedictions, he indeed granted them, although they were rarely to be achieved.

SB 7.4.2: Lord Brahmā said: O Hiraṇyakaśipu, these benedictions for which you have asked are difficult to obtain for most men. Nonetheless, O my son, I shall grant you them although they are generally not available.

SB 7.4.3: Then Lord Brahmā, who awards infallible benedictions, departed, being worshiped by the best of the demons, Hiraṇyakaśipu, and being praised by great sages and saintly persons.

SB 7.4.4: The demon Hiraṇyakaśipu, having thus been blessed by Lord Brahmā and having acquired a lustrous golden body, continued to remember the death of his brother and therefore be envious of Lord Viṣṇu.

SB 7.4.5-7: Hiraṇyakaśipu became the conqueror of the entire universe. Indeed, that great demon conquered all the planets in the three worlds — upper, middle and lower — including the planets of the human beings, the Gandharvas, the Garuḍas, the great serpents, the Siddhas, Cāraṇas and Vidyādharas, the great saints, Yamarāja, the Manus, the Yakṣas, the Rākṣasas, the Piśācas and their masters, and the masters of the ghosts and Bhūtas. He defeated the rulers of all the other planets where there are living entities and brought them under his control. Conquering the abodes of all, he seized their power and influence.

SB 7.4.8: Hiraṇyakaśipu, who possessed all opulence, began residing in heaven, with its famous Nandana garden, which is enjoyed by the demigods. In fact, he resided in the most opulent palace of Indra, the King of heaven. The palace had been directly constructed by the demigod architect Viśvakarmā and was as beautifully made as if the goddess of fortune of the entire universe resided there.

SB 7.4.9-12: The steps of King Indra's residence were made of coral, the floor was bedecked with invaluable emeralds, the walls were of crystal, and the columns of vaidūrya stone. The wonderful canopies were beautifully decorated, the seats were bedecked with rubies, and the silk bedding, as white as foam, was decorated with pearls. The ladies of the palace, who were blessed with beautiful teeth and the most wonderfully beautiful faces, walked here and there in the palace, their ankle bells tinkling melodiously, and saw their own beautiful reflections in the gems. The demigods, however, being very much oppressed, had to bow down and offer obeisances at the feet of Hiraṇyakaśipu, who chastised the demigods very severely and for no reason. Thus Hiraṇyakaśipu lived in the palace and severely ruled everyone.

SB 7.4.13: O my dear King, Hiraṇyakaśipu was always drunk on strong-smelling wines and liquors, and therefore his coppery eyes were always rolling. Nonetheless, because he had powerfully executed great austerities in mystic yoga, although he was abominable, all but the three principal demigods — Lord Brahmā, Lord Śiva and Lord Viṣṇu — personally worshiped him to please him by bringing him various presentations with their own hands.

Neo_Yogi 3 years ago

Hello MiBeloved,

Excuse me for not having replied earlier but sometimes one gets busier in this worldly life.

You said:

You are thinking after reading this that you can do this get this understanding integrated into your nature without the gruesome austerities but I am saying that you are kidding yourself. The mere idea that you did not see the value of the austerities which Buddha later rejected, means that you are not mature in this and therefore you cannot get to the understanding by any other means but austerities.

(…) Do you think that the engineer at the aircraft factory who designed the passenger jet can give his understanding and skill to a passenger who rides on the plane, so that the passenger can manufacture and then fly that plane?

Neo_Yogi's Reply:

But I did NOT give my opinion on austerities, MiBeloved; I never said that the austerities were useless. In fact, talking about the Buddha, I wrote:

So after realizing that hard austerities took him nowhere,

I didn't state that the Buddha rejected every single austerity method either. You said that people was wrong thinking that the Buddha got enlightened because of the Middle Way when in fact, he designed it for his followers and I just answered that that's is not what we can read in the early Buddhist texts... and posted an example.

Let me insist: if one reads the Buddhist texts one will see that the Buddha talks about the Middle Way as a path between the extremes of hard austerities and sensual indulgence. Healways compared the spiritual work to playing a stringed instrument. If the strings are too loose or too tight you can't get them to make any sound.

He also added that he re-discovered (not designed) what was lost, that Dhamma which was already taught by other Buddhas in the past.

I know that the Buddha never taught about not doing austerities. As you well said somewhere else in this group, the Buddha never went back to his household life after his enlightenment. He kept on meditating, living in the forest, eating just once a day, doing alms rounds, sleeping on the floor, etc and so he advised to his followers.

Yes, I have read and enjoyed Ajahn Mun Bhuridatta's biography and I know about the dhutanga practices, that's why I believe that austerities are valuable in the way to one's realization.

MiBeloved 3 years ago

So after realizing that hard austerities took him nowhere.

MiBeloved's Response:

This statement is totally false unless it is qualified by explaining that nowhere means nowhere in terms of the objective of getting the pleasure that has nothing to do with sensuality, nothing to do with unskillful mental qualities. To make that statement like that is totally misleading and many persons were misled by that very statement in the past already.

The first thing one has to do to catalog the benefits he got from the austerities. Once those are listed, then one can begin to list what he did not get, but to say that he got nothing is totally wrong. Either the person who made that statement is ignorant and does not understand the path or the person is trying to mislead others into thinking that their enlightenment can occur without the austerities, which in most cases if totally incorrect, otherwise persons like Acharya Mun would not have done the austerities.

I am going to state it again for your information and for the record, that the Buddha did not become enlightened by following the Middle way. He got there by doing the austerities and then by readjusting himself to attain the objective of getting the pleasure that has nothing to do with sensuality, nothing to do with unskillful mental qualities.

If you feel that someone else can do this without the austerities it means that you are not in touch with Buddha and you do not understand his personality. First of all no one from this end of existence can do this without the personal assistance of a person like Buddha or the personal guidance of a person like Acharya Mun. It is not going to happen.

Furthermore this means that Buddha or the Acharya-like person must agree to personally supervise that person to guide that person to the exact amount of penance and deprivation of sensuality which is required. If Buddha could not become enlightened without first doing the austerities, nobody else will become enlightening without his personal assistance and micro-managed guidance.

Then the question is:

Will Buddha do this for you or for me?

Let us answer this question before we run off with some Middle way that leads nowhere.

==============

Let me clear this up again:

The Middle way was designed for people who could not initially take up the austerities, who would be afraid of it, and then that person once he begins, he will see for himself that he must do the austerities to be successful and he must do specific austerities, even ones that are different to what Buddha did, because it has to be tailored to his individual sensuality and individual extrovert habits.

So I am making these statements for the record.

==============

There was no need for Buddha to return to civilization. He did that under the influence of the Brahma deity. If you cannot find that in the Pali texts, that is okay. You can say I said that for the record. His mind was already seized by the Brahma deity for him to fulfill the mission for which he took the body which was to design a path that was not as frightening to the average human being.

Furthermore, the whole enlightenment thing about Buddha is a fraud because the guy is a divine being from day one, and his enlightenment is done to set an example not because he needs to be enlightened. He is an avatar. With avatars one has to separate out what they do as example and what they do for themselves.

People who think that everybody is one and that everybody is equal cannot understand anything about avatar and cannot figure what the divine person does which is for example and which he did not need to do but did in an acting role as if he was not an avatar.

Alfredo 3 years ago

Neo:

Please check the book about Acariya Mun. It is here in pdf in the file section.

This is a book that brings tears to my eyes every single time I read it.

A further question: What have the Buddhists following that "middle path", obtained (compared to the Buddha), besides talking about it? Please let me know what that is.