Rishis - Nara And Narayana

Our great Sages observed tapas.
Not only Sages, anyone who wants to rise up spiritually observes tapas.
What is tapas?
Is it prayer, is it chanting mantras?
तपति तापयति वा इति तपः
Tapas produces heat, tapas heats up.
Tapas produces a lot of energy, heat energy.
This heat not produces by a chemical process, a machine, or burning something.
When you observe tapas, heat is generated.
Tapas is certain spiritual practices.
A simple and basic way of observing tapas is fasting.
You may have seen, your parents or grandparents or some elders not taking food on certain days like Ekadashi or Chaturthi.
Some of them, they take only one meal on that day.
Some of them, they avoid certain types of food.
This is very simple form of tapas.

But Rishis, they would do this continuously for months and years.
Some of them, they would drink only water.
Some of them, they would eat only one leaf or one grain per day.
Do you think it is easy?
When you are hungry, you know how difficult it is to stay without food.
Doing that for days or months or years at a stretch?
Controlling hunger, overcoming hunger?
Is it possible to stay without food for that long?

There is a monk called Prahlad Jani in Gujarat.
He lives in the Gir forest.
You can google and see.
He hasn't taken food in 70 years.
He gets energy from sunlight.
In 2010, scientists from Defence Institute of Physiology and Allied Sciences observed him continuously for 15 days, day and night.
He didn't take any food and there was no sign of any weakness in him.
Scientist say that his metabolism has changed.
This is tapas of another kind.

Tapas is very hard to do, very painful.
Some Rishis stand on one leg for years.
Some don't close their eyes for years.
Some sit under blazing Sun and light fires all around them and stay like that.
It is called Panchagni sadhana.
Some stay in water which is freezing cold for months or years.


So we saw that tapas produces a lot of energy.
What is the purpose of this energy?
It can be used for almost anything.
We know that Sages can bless and even curse.
It is with this energy that they become capable of doing it.

You can do anything with the power of tapas.
It burns away sins someone may have committed.
You can go to the world of Gods, the Swargaloka and move around with them.
Gods respect tapaswis.

Who created the universe?
You know, it is God Brahma.
How did he create the universe?
Through tapas.
He observed tapas and produced a lot of energy.
With that he produced everything that is there in the universe.
Both matter and energy.
You know that, you can produce matter from energy and energy from matter.
So all the energy that was needed to create the universe came out of Brahma's tapas.

Now, all a lot of energy is required to maintain the universe.
Trillions of living beings moving, all the activities inside their bodies, sunlight, lightning, planets moving in the sky, even so many vehicles on the road, in water, aircrafts in the sky.
Where does this continuous supply of energy come from.
You will say, if a car is moving it is from burning petrol.
But where does petrol get energy from.
Both water and petrol are liquids.
Water won't burn and release energy.
So who puts energy in petrol and not in water?

All these are planned and executed by Bhagawan Vishnu.
He is responsible for the running, upkeep, management, and protection of the universe.
He has everything neatly planned.
He has put systems in place everywhere.

So for the purpose of protruding all the energy required to run the universe he took avatara as two Rishis, not one, two Rishis.
This happened at the time of creation of the universe itself.
They are Nara and Narayana.
They were born as the sons of Dharma and Murthy.
Their task is to observe tapas continuously till the lifespan of the universe gets over and produce all the energy required for the running of it.
They are the primary sources of energy.
From them only even the Sun gets his supply of energy.

Lifespan of the universe is 4.32 billion years.
They will keep observing tapas and producing energy till such time.

Do you know where they sit?
In Badrinath.
They may not be visible to the ordinary eyes.
But many spiritually evolved persons have either got glimpses of them or experienced their presence.
Let us offer our Namaskaras to Rishis, Nara and Narayana who are our primary and perpetual sources of energy.