Another pleasant day in the life of the young man. He was watching a show on Hindu epic ksheera sagara mathanam (churning of milk ocean). The show ends with Vishnu (as Mohini) distributing amritha deceivingly to only devas and depriving danavas of their hard earned treasure.

While the young man enjoyed the show, it brought smile on his face while contemplating on the story and how Vishnu(the omnipresent aspect of the all pervading formless Brahman) can ever be partial. The story starts with step-brothers devas and daityas thinking if there is a way to overcome death. After millions of years of our cosmic existence, even today our scientists are toiling days and nights on the same topic. It was same then as well.

Curious, they enquired with their super creator Brahma. He replied exactly same as our gurus today. It is only possible to get Amritha(the magic potion) only by working(sadhana) towards it. The two groups agreed to do the sadhana (work) together. Like with every good work, there is always the support of God in many indirect forms like the solid base provided by Vishnu.

The vast milk ocean is nothing but the all pervading universe(multiverse?) which is also in microcosm form within each. Amritha is ever present in a subtle form like butter in the milk but not immediately visible. As we need to churn milk to get butter, it is same with Amritha that is present within.

Every churning brings several subtle items to the top, some good and some bad like Iravatha, Kalpatharu, Kamadhenu, Chandra, Lakshmi (the wealth of this universe) and the Haalahala(poison) among others. Eswara,the omnipotent aspect of formless Brahman, partook the poison so that the process of churning/hard work can continue since the prize catch, Amritha is still eluding.

Amritha was in deed present at the end of this process. What was this Amritha? It is the subtlest form of knowledge which we call self realization. Some of them in the group realized this and were in a state of bliss. They realized that the self is beyond the cycle of death and birth and this knowledge is the Amritha (defy death).

Those in the group who had this self-realization were in total bliss. Others who were unable to realize started feeling cheated and missed out on some external object or potion called Amritha.

With the wrong impression that Vishnu was partial and tricked them as Mohini made them jealous. This resulted in the next few million years of cosmic history.

Amritha was never a physical potion to be distributed; but rather a spiritual state each one achieves. True Amritha is the self-realization which befits(as a prize) a sadhaka at the end of a long churning(sadhana) of the vast milky ocean(the self) with unrelenting focus.

This process has lots of distractions, both alluring like Kamadhenu etc, as well as challenges like Haalahala poison. One has to continue the sadhana irrespective as a karma yogi. It leads to experiencing ultimate Amritha(knowledge which removes the feeling of birth and death cycles).

Both daityas and devas had equal chance to experience this bliss. Daityas stopped short because of their jealousy feelings, which prevented them this ultimate knowledge and blissful state of amritha at the last minute.

Amritha that devas(suras) consumed was nothing but the experience of true knowledge and bliss. Asuras who could not fully reach this blissful state were under the illusion that they were indeed cheated by some one from outside which in essence had to be the knowledge within. God (whose two aspects are Omnipresent Vishnu and Omnipotent Shiva) would never have partiality since all are within and the same God.

As the thoughts become clearer, the young man got up with smile on his face in a blissful state and was ready for another blissful day in the journey to wisdom.