By Hansadutta das
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Text 23
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Who are you? Who am I? Where have
I come from? Who is my mother? Who is my father? One should contemplate
in this way, having renounced the entire world as being as
insubstantial as the
deliberations of a dream.
Herein Shripad Shankaracharya is posing very elementary
questions which everyone should ask himself: "Who am I? Where have I
come from? Who is my mother? Who is my father?" Instead of wasting our
time
pursuing temporary sense enjoyment in relation to the temporary
material
body, we should go beyond the immediate demands of this body and try to
understand our real identity. The material world is considered to be an
illusion. It is certainly real and exists, but it is only temporarily
real,
just as a drama on a stage is a kind of illusory presentation just for
the
time being. The drama is not a permanent reality; it is just adapted
from
reality. The player's real identity is not the one which is being
exhibited on stage. The players have another identity, which they
exhibit when the
play is over. Only temporarily they assume some role. Similarly, the
living
entity is just assuming a role on the stage of material life, but his
real
identity is something else completely.
Our real identity is that we are all eternal servants of
Krishna, but on the temporary stage of life we are all acting as
masters and enjoyers of material nature. This is false. This is not
true. It is just a temporary position, which is compared to when a man
is sleeping
and assumes an identity in his dream. But when he wakes up, then he
assumes
his real position. The whole material atmosphere is just a passing
phase.
It has no permanent existence. Therefore in Vedanta-sutra,
the first aphorism is athato brahma-jijñasa: "Now
that we have come to the human platform of human life, we should
inquire about Brahman, the Absolute Truth."
This material world is related to the Absolute, but the
material world itself is not the Absolute Truth. It is just a
reflection, or a projection of the original world, which is beyond this
phenomenal
world. Just as in a cinema what we see on the screen is just a
projection
of something substantial. Because it is a reflection of the real thing,
it attracts our attention, but it doesn't satisfy our heart, because it
is not the real thing. In a dream we may forget that we are sleeping
and
think that we are actually awake, and in that way, the dream captivates
us because it is so true to reality. Similarly, the material world is
so
true to reality that we forget our real identity as eternal spirit
soul,
part and parcel of Krishna, the Supreme Spirit Whole, and we become
involved
in, as Srimad-Bhagavatam describes it, the false world of
names.
The material world is nothing but an interaction of the
three modes of material nature, or the interaction of chemicals or
atoms. It has no real substance. We give various names to different
objects, according to their use. But in fact the objects are all a
product of the same atomic combinations. Therefore it is called the
world of names. We have to get
out of the bewildering maze of this world of names and come to the
spiritual life and knowledge.
In the past, we have met different doctors in the field
of mental health who are sometimes trying to bring extremely bewildered
patients back to sanity. But what is the standard of sanity? What is
the perfection of mental health? That is Krishna consciousness. The
mind and the body are just coverings on the soul. Mental disturbances
or physical disturbances are the result of being removed from that
spiritual identity. The more we identify with matter, whether gross or
subtle, the more we
experience disturbance in the form of frustration and disappointment.
The
further we are removed, the more intense or acute the frustration
becomes;
thus the more painful is our condition. So we have to bring the person
back
to his real spiritual identity and his eternal relationship with God.
Then
he becomes satisfied. He becomes sane. He becomes happy and joyful. We
have to enlighten the patient, because only through knowledge can he
enjoy.
The more he knows, the more he can deal with the world.
Ultimately, one must know himself. When we know
ourselves, then we are actually happy. In fact, we are endeavoring to
know ourselves at every moment. Through relationships with friends,
relatives and countrymen we establish our identity. But as long as we
relate to things on the bodily or mental platform, we cannot establish
our real identity. We must relate to Krishna. We must establish our
eternal relationship with God. Then our identity is revealed, and we
actually become happy and peaceful. Krishna consciousness is the
science of how to re-establish our eternal relationship with God and
ultimately get out of the bewildering situation of material existence
and go home, back to Godhead. We cannot really become sane within the
material atmosphere. We have to get out of it altogether. Then we can
be healthy in spiritual life. As long as we are in contact with the
material energy, we will always experience bewilderment. We have to get
out of it altogether. That is the real solution--not to simply adjust
to the ever-changing, bewildering, material atmosphere. We must come to
the spiritual platform where everything is eternal, full of knowledge
and bliss, then everything will be solved. Hare Krishna.
