: Description of Bhabatabi (Ocean of Samsara)

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Continue from srimad BHAGABATAM, STORY OF BHARATA:

Sage Suka continued:

Sometimes the worldly man undertakes scripturally-ordained rituals, which is

like lifting a huge mountain!

Sometimes suffering dishonour and calumny, he is robbed even of suffering , he

lays his hands on wealth and women belonging to others: instead of gaining

pleasure, he is subjected to greater pain by does not happen and he does get

the wealth or the womab, this gain does not stay with him for long: someone

else robs him of the wealth, which changes hands frequently and never stays

with one person in this world. Even when he engages in lawful business he

incurs the displeasure of his rivals, who become his enemies.

Such are the innumerable obstacles that one encounters along the path of

worldly life. Yet , the foolish man who has no self-control at all falls an

easy prey to the temptations of a woman, who is the Lord's own creative energy

or maya. He slaves for her and is deluded by the attention of his children and

their wives and so on.

Living in this fool"s paradise the man does not notice the passage of time.

He clings to heretic beliefs.When these heretic beliefs ane unmasked and their

falsity exposed, he turns to the right beliefs. Still he does not keep the

company of wise and holy men, but loves to befriend other worldly men. He is

still interested only in sex and wealth.

Fortunes alternate in his life. Now he is wealthy. Now he is povery-stricken

and does not even have a bed to sleep on. To counteract this poverty he

sometimes enters into matrimonial alliances but later he dissolves them. In

this worldly life if someone dies, people no doubt cry and express grief, but

they bury the dead good and carry on the same old pattern of life with the

living. Only a strives to attain the exalted state which sages, who are

tranquil in their innermost being and who have turned away from worldly life,

reach easily. Even kings prefer to die fighting others in the hope of

conquest. Clinging to the creeper called karma they revolve of this wheel of

transmigration.

What a sublime life king Bharata led! Even when he was a deer he was devoted

to lord Hari. Whoever listens to or narrates this story of the royal sage

Bharata will attain health, long life, wealth, happiness and final liberation.