A Demon's Advice to Humanity
We have all known of instances in the scriptures when God and highly evolved souls, and enlightened personalities and liberated souls like Bheesma and Ashtavakra giving advice, providing counsel and guidance to humanity. Rare indeed it is to find a demon, who is an apotheosis of wickedness, immorality, and of dishonourable and demonic conduct giving advice to humanity for its well-being, and for its spiritual journey that culminates in liberation, freeing it from the vicious cycle of births and deaths.
We hear of such extraordinary counsel from Hiranyakasipu, the Asura (=demon) and king of the daityas, who ruled the worlds for 107,280,000 years. He was so malevolent and nefarious that it took God himself to come to the earthly plane to kill him. Such a malicious and foul asura, however, had some valuable advice to give humanity regarding the temporality of life on earth, and the ephemerality of our experiences during our short journey here. He says that there is no point in being attached to anything and anyone, including our family, loved ones, friends and children, who would all have to leave us, however much we treasure them. He says that we should adopt a healthy and sensible attitude towards death, which spares no one, not even the best of mahatmas that the world has seen.
In Srimad Bhagavatam 7:2:21-22, Hiranyakasipu, reminds us, "...living entities join together in a family, and later, as a result of their own actions, they are led apart to their destinations. The spirit soul, the living entity, has no death, for he is eternal and inexhaustible.... He is fully aware and completely different from the material body, but because of being misled by misuse of his slight independence, he is obliged to accept subtle and gross bodies created by the material energy and thus be subjected to so-called material happiness and distress. Therefore, no one should lament for the passing of the spirit soul from the body."
Expatiating on the nature of the mind that is largely informed by the three gunas, the asura says, in verses 24-26 that "when the mind is agitated by the movements of the modes of material nature, the living entity, although freed from all the different phases of the subtle and gross bodies, thinks that he has changed from one condition to another. In his bewildered state, the living entity, accepting the body and mind to be the self, considers some people to be his kinsmen and others to be outsiders. Because of this misconception, he suffers. Indeed, the accumulation of such concocted material ideas is the cause of suffering and so-called happiness in the material world. The conditioned soul thus situated must take birth in different species and work in various types of consciousness, thus creating new bodies. This continued material life is called samsara. Birth, death, lamentation, foolishness and anxiety are due to such material considerations. Thus we sometimes come to a proper understanding and sometimes fall again to a wrong conception of life."
In verse 60, Hiranyakasipu, the asura, whom Lord Narashimha disemboweled and tore asunder for his unadulterated evil deeds, warns us, "Therefore none of you should be aggrieved for the loss of the body — whether your own or those of others. Only in ignorance does one make bodily distinctions, thinking “Who am I? Who are the others? What is mine? What is for others?”
When we hear some counsel from God, his angels, enlightened masters, rishies and spiritual personalities, we sometimes become dismissive of it as it is meant to wean us off the temptations of the world, depriving us of the little pleasures of the flesh. We can, perhaps, be forgiven for our nescience. However, to make light of such pabulum from a being who wallows in sin and sinful activities is the most dangerous thing that any responsible human being, who fears pain, tribulations and sorrow, would venture to do.
"You have been warned even by the evil personified; yet, you would want to continue in your old ways!" That is the voice of the Antaryamin that watches everything that we do .
Expatiating on the nature of the mind that is largely informed by the three gunas, the asura says, in verses 24-26 that "when the mind is agitated by the movements of the modes of material nature, the living entity, although freed from all the different phases of the subtle and gross bodies, thinks that he has changed from one condition to another. In his bewildered state, the living entity, accepting the body and mind to be the self, considers some people to be his kinsmen and others to be outsiders. Because of this misconception, he suffers. Indeed, the accumulation of such concocted material ideas is the cause of suffering and so-called happiness in the material world. The conditioned soul thus situated must take birth in different species and work in various types of consciousness, thus creating new bodies. This continued material life is called samsara. Birth, death, lamentation, foolishness and anxiety are due to such material considerations. Thus we sometimes come to a proper understanding and sometimes fall again to a wrong conception of life."
When we hear some counsel from God, his angels, enlightened masters, rishies and spiritual personalities, we sometimes become dismissive of it as it is meant to wean us off the temptations of the world, depriving us of the little pleasures of the flesh. We can, perhaps, be forgiven for our nescience. However, to make light of such pabulum from a being who wallows in sin and sinful activities is the most dangerous thing that any responsible human being, who fears pain, tribulations and sorrow, would venture to do.
"You have been warned even by the evil personified; yet, you would want to continue in your old ways!" That is the voice of the Antaryamin that watches everything that we do .
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