Thousands of years ago, there apparently existed a mysterious substance called the nectar of
immortality.
It was highly praised and dearly treasured, in both Western and Hindu cultures.
The poet Homer extolled it in his great epics, Iliad and Odyssey.
According to Greek mythology, gods like Zeus and Apollo dined on ambrosia and drank this
divine nectar to ward off weakness and to maintain their immortality.
Far away, on the Indian subcontinent, the great rishi, Vyasa, praised the very same
nectar in the Bhagavata Purana.
In that Sanskrit scripture, he narrated a
famous story about gods and demons who surprisingly
teamed up to churn an ocean of milk to produce amrita, which is the Sanskrit word for the
nectar of immortality.
Both Homer and Vyasa called it the elixir of the gods and the drink of eternal life.
They believed it to be endowed with a divine power to transform mere mortals into mighty
gods.
It's not surprising that the words nectar and amrita are actually related.
Nectar comes from the Greek nek, death and tar, to cross over.
Amrita simply means not dead.
Based on their etymology, nectar and amrita both denote immortality.
Yet, over time, both of these words also came to refer to some kind of sweet drink or to
the juice produced by flowers that's sought by honey bees.
This double meaning allows the word amrita to be used, not to indicate a divine potion,
but in a metaphoric sense.
In the teachings of Advaita Vedanta, there's a wonderful metaphor that's based on the nectar
of flowers and the bees that seek it.
In Sanskrit, a common word for bee is bhramara, which literally means one who roams or wanders.
Like bees wander from flower to flower seeking nectar, so too, spiritual seekers wander from
guru to guru seeking liberation, seeking to free themselves from the cycle of birth and
death, seeking immortality.
But, it's actually impossible for any guru to bestow physical immortality.
A mortal body can become immortal only in mythological stories.
In reality, that which is born is always subject to death, as we all know.
Yet, the ancient rishis discovered that your
true, inner nature is unborn, uncreated, unchanging,
eternal.
That means, your true nature is already divine, already immortal.
Unfortunately, that inner divinity remains unrecognized for most people.
It's hidden or obscured by a so-called veil of ignorance.
When that ignorance is removed, you immediately recognize your true nature as being unborn,
uncreated, unchanging, and eternal.
That veil of ignorance can be removed by the spiritual wisdom received from an enlightened
guru, one who has discovered what the ancient rishis discovered, and who can lead you to
discover it as well.
Metaphorically, that guru is represented by a flower.
Like a flower provides sweet nectar to industrious bees, a guru bestows spiritual wisdom on dedicated
disciples, wisdom that removes ignorance and reveals the already-present divinity within
you.
This wonderful metaphor can be used to illustrate many aspects of spiritual life.
I could explain all that right now, but let's consider a different approach.
Metaphors are somewhat like pictures or paintings.
They're really meant to be appreciated, not explained.
A detailed explanation could never convey the beauty of an exquisite painting.
In this way, a scholarly explanation isn't really needed to convey the powerful insights
of a simple metaphor.
It's true that some metaphors used in Advaita Vedanta are quite complicated and need to
be thoroughly explained.
But this metaphor is very simple, just flowers and bees.
So, instead of explaining the metaphor further, I'll illustrate it for you with beautiful
images and poetic aphorisms.
Some of the aphorisms are translations of traditional Sanskrit proverbs called subhashitas.
I've tried to keep this section fairly short.
If you'd like to more deeply absorb the important insights these aphorisms offer, you might
enjoy watching this part again.