My cousin, who is currently residing with us (she has come down to India from the U.S. for a short business cum leisure trip), had a very critical and urgent meeting scheduled, this morning. However, due to some unforeseen eventuality in his family and who is otherwise distinctly punctual, my chauffeur arrived very late (behind the reporting time by almost an hour). Now since my cousin has no experience of commuting via public transport, especially in a city like Mumbai, I was trying my best to convince her to wait till our driver arrived. During this lead time, I observed something peculiar on my cousin’s face - especially on her forehead - oh what do I see there… They are ‘Frown Lines’! It suddenly dawned upon me that we all have this little crease between our eyebrows that wrinkles and furrows, we get disturbed, perturbed and restless as soon as something doesn’t happen in our favour or things don’t materialize as planned by us. Looking at her helplessness, I started feeling anxious and a bunch of emotions captivated my heart and mind. Ok, so our interminable wait eventually ends when our four-wheeled charioteer finally arrives.
However, what we heard next was like the ultimate moment of truth – it was as if a huge gargantuan rock fell off a high cliff and had landed straight on our mind and challenged our deep-rooted desire to control things. We learnt that the same route that my cousin was to take for her journey to her pre-scheduled destination was struck down by a tragic mishap of a chain of fatal car crashes that claimed lives of seven people and gravely injured four.
The Lord has created everything in the material and spiritual world for a divine purpose which, we are unable to envision owing to our myopic vision.
According to the Bhagavad-gita, the source of suffering is in the fact that the body is temporary, that life is temporary, and therefore everything is subjected to birth, old age, disease, and death. The Vedas explain that there are three types of miseries or sufferings: ‘Adhyatmika’- sufferings of one’s own body and mind; ‘Adi-bhautika’- sufferings due to other living beings and ‘Adi-daivika’- sufferings due to natural catastrophies, beyond our control. These sufferings are always there, potentially posing threat to the physical body at any moment.
The soul is never born and never dies. It is the source of life within the body, the source of consciousness. It is transcendental. In Sanskrit: ‘sat’, ‘cit’, ‘ananda’ – the soul is eternal, full of knowledge, and full of bliss. That is who we are.The soul is like the driver of the car, and the body is like the car. We are seeing through our eyes, hearing through our ears, smelling through our nose, tasting through our tongue, touching through our skin, thinking through our brain. But who are we? Are we a brain or a heart or an eye or an ear? We are the witness – the soul. That soul is by nature full of love and always fulfilled. But when that soul identifies itself with the body and becomes immersed in that state, then the soul has to identify with all of the vulnerabilities and frailties of this body. That is the source of all suffering!
The key to understanding the purpose of the material world is that God, has given us limited amount of independence. Although He sanctions all our actions, we are responsible for our own activities. This material world is created to give us, the conditioned living entities, who want to be happy independently from God, a place to dwell. Here in the material world our intelligence is covered by “maya,” illusion, and we are trying to become the lord and master of the world. Due to the influence of material nature our consciousness is contaminated. Thus, instead of surrendering to the Supreme Lord and serving Him we aspire to get others to surrender to us and serve us. We want to be God. We want to be the master. But actually we cannot be God, we are constitutionally very insignificant ‘jivatmas’, minute parts and parcels of the Lord. God is not forcing us to think in a particular way. We have independence to think and act and if we choose to try and be happy separate from God there has to be somewhere for us to go.
An Analogy: When the Government plans to build and develop a new city, they always have an area reserved for constructing jails/ prison houses. Without such facilities we cannot expect Law and Order to be maintained in society. Similarly, the Lord has created this material world for entities who believe they are the C.E.O. (Controller, Enjoyer, Owner). They forget that they are servants of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. There is no question of being separate from God in the Kingdom of God, the Spiritual World, so God has created this material kingdom so that we can become Kings here.
But we cannot be happy by being separated from God. Our constitutional, natural position is to serve God. So even though there seem to be so many pleasurable things in the material world, none of them are truly satisfying. This is because we are spiritual by nature therefore no material pleasure can actually satisfy us. Transcendental pleasure is in the spiritual world.
Lord Krishna confirms in the Bhagavad Gita 8.16 that this world is a place of misery where repeated birth and death encompass:
abrahma-bhuvanal lokah punar avartino ‘rjuna
mam upetya tu kaunteya punar janma na vidyate
“From the highest planet in the material world down to the lowest, all are places of misery wherein repeated birth and death take place. But one who attains to My abode, O son of Kunti, never takes birth again”.
The suffering and pain of this world should serve as a reminder to us that this material world is a place full of miseries, it is not our home. Our home is in the spiritual world, the Kingdom of God. So a thoughtful person will see the sufferings of this world and ask the question: “Is there a way to end the suffering?” and such questions are the beginning of spiritual life and the beginning of actual human life. The Vedanta Sutra begins with ‘athato brahma jijnasa’ or enquiring about the Absolute Truth.
To ensure we do not stay entangled in this repeated cycle of birth and death, we must always remember the following:-
Complete Surrender: The pure devotees of the Lord completely surrender to the Lord’s plan. They never question Him. They are distinguished from others due to their following the six intrinsic principles of exclusive surrender to the Supreme Lord described by Bhaktivinoda Thakura and which are also found in the Vaishnava-Tantra as follows:
anukulyasya-sankalpah,- - pratikulyasya-varjjanam
raksisy- - atiti visvaso, goptrtve varanam tatha
atma-niksepa-karpanye, sad-vidha saranagatih
The above Sanskrit verse means acceptance of the favorable, rejection of the unfavorable, the faith that 'He will surely protect me,' embracing the Lord's guardianship, complete dependence on Him, and the perception of one's utter helplessness without Him, these six are the essential limbs of exclusive surrender unto the Lord.
Purpose of this Human Birth: The Lord has bestowed us with this very rare human form of life and it is a highly valuable instrument for making spiritual advancement. We should see this material world for what it is, a place of suffering where we cannot be happy, and utilise our time and energy here to re-establish our forgotten, dormant relationship with God. That is the real purpose of life.
We are all destined to suffer a certain amount and enjoy a certain amount, because of our karma (reactions to the actions we have performed in this and previous lives). That karma is fixed and cannot be changed by any type of technological advancement. So the doctors and the scientists may eliminate one type of suffering but because we are destined to suffer due to our karma that suffering will manifest in a different way.
Never Over-Endeavour: So the Vedic way of life is “plain living and high thinking.” We should live simply, so we can provide our body with the necessary food to maintain it and use our time and energy to develop pure love for God, so that at the time of death we are able to think of the Supreme and go back home, back to Godhead, the Kingdom of God, the spiritual world. That is where we will experience eternal bliss.It is stated in Bhagavad-Gita As It Is 8.6:
yam yam vapi smaran bhavam tyajaty ante kalevaram
tam tam evaiti kaunteya sada tad-bhava-bhavitah
This means - whatever state of being one remembers, when he quits his body, that state he will attain without fail.
Firm Faith and Trust: We must have firm faith and trust in the plan of the Supreme Being. Therefore, never ask God for sense gratification, and never bargain with Him for something less than love of God. While we acknowledge that He is far away from us, we also feel His closeness and our ability to address Him, just as a child will go to the father to have his desires fulfilled. On the higher stages of spirituality, devotees may very well express their own desires, but their desires are always for the Lord’s pleasure. We can’t imitate those types of expressions, and if we try, we may end up asking for something not in our ultimate interest. God, as the kind father, will provide the “toy.” In the end we may find ourselves telling Him we didn’t want what we received, and Lord saying, “Well, you asked for it, so now you play with it until it breaks.”
One who is not disturbed in spite of the threefold miseries, who is not elated when there is happiness, and who is free from attachment, fear and anger, is called a sage of steady mind. Having confidence in the ultimate plan of the Divine, we should not get disturbed by the onslaughts of the threefold miseries. We must accept all miseries as the mercy of the Lord, thinking ourselves only worthy of more trouble due to our past misdeeds. Similarly, when we are happy we should give credit to the Lord, thinking ourselves unworthy of the happiness. We should realize that it is only due to the Lord’s grace that we are in such a comfortable condition and able to render better service to the Lord without attachment. Attachment means accepting things for one’s own sense gratification, and detachment is the absence of such sensual attachment. But one fixed in spirituality has neither attachment nor detachment because his life is dedicated in the service of the Lord. Consequently he is not at all angry even when his attempts are unsuccessful. An equipoised person is always steady in his determination. For one who is so situated in the Divine consciousness, the threefold miseries of material existence exist no longer. In such a happy state, one’s intelligence soon becomes steady.
If we have the desire to cross the ocean of material existence, an aspiration to taste the ecstasy of the nectarean congregational chanting of the holy names, and a longing to sport in the ocean of Divine love - then we must completely surrender unto the lotus feet of the Supreme Lord. Thus, by completely surrendering to the Will of Providence, having faith in His higher plan for us, we would be able to iron out the ‘Frown Lines’ not just from our foreheads but also from our lives and thereby attain eternal, transcendental bliss.
Article by:
Meghna Choudhury
(H.G. Mathura Vasi Devi Dasi)
***** Content Copyright: Meghna Choudhury (H.G. Mathura Vasi Devi Dasi) *****
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