By Hansadutta das
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When youth has passed, where is
lust and its excitement? When the water has dried up, where is the
lake? When wealth is finished, where is the retinue? When the Truth is
realized, where is
the possibility of repeated birth and death?
In Bhagavad-gita (4.9) Krishna says, "One
who knows the transcendental nature of My appearance and activities in
this world does not, upon leaving this body, take birth again but
attains My
eternal abode, O Arjuna." As long as the living entity is in darkness
about
this spiritual nature and his eternal relationship with God, he
continues
to rotate in the cycle of repeated birth and death. Generally, everyone
is born in darkness, or ignorance. In ignorance, we desire so many
things.
We desire to enjoy the material nature in different ways through the
different
senses--through the eyes we want to see beautiful forms, through the
ears
we want to hear attractive sounds, through the tongue we want to taste
delicious food, and we want to touch pleasing objects. In this way the
five
senses are always agitated, always hankering for sense gratification,
helping
us to accumulate money, comfort, and position. We want these three
items
in order to enjoy material life.
There are four stages of development in human life:
religiosity, economic development, sense gratification and ultimately
salvation. For
religiosity there must be some execution of pious activities, but after
a person has gone up this ladder he comes to understand that he is
still
not happy, that there is no satisfaction in all his endeavor, so then
he
wants freedom from material life altogether. Being frustrated in
material
activities, the conditioned soul concludes that happiness must be
inaction.
So he attempts to annihilate his individual existence and merge into
the
existence of Brahman, into the existence of the Supreme. That is the
beginning
of his search for emancipation from material activity. Of course, this
idea
is also imperfect and material, because ultimately the motivation for
such
emancipation and merging into an impersonal existence is sense
gratification. The basic platform is to satisfy one's senses again.
It is not until the living entity actually gets
knowledge of devotional service to Krishna that he can actually get
real freedom and real happiness in spiritual life, because the living
entity's constitutional position is to satisfy Vishnu, Krishna. Every
one of us is part and parcel of Krishna, and therefore we can only be
happy inasmuch as we satisfy Krishna, just as this hand can be
satisfied only by satisfying the stomach with
food. The hand cannot satisfy itself with food. Therefore devotional
service
is the only true platform of liberation and the only true platform of
spiritual life. It is the natural life of the living entity. "When this
truth is realized," Krishna says, "you will know that all living beings
are in Me and are Mine. When this is understood there is no more
possibility of repeated birth
and death." (Bhagavad-gita 4.35) As long as we are in
darkness
about this truth we shall have to accept repeated birth and death. Even
if one comes to the platform of impersonal Brahman realization, if one
does
not actually take up devotional service to the Lord, then the living
entity, for want of activity, for want of engagement, will again
gravitate towards material activities.
Because we are eternal living spirit soul, there must be
activity, because life means action, and action means desire. There
must be some desire which precedes an act. We cannot act unless there
is
some desire. Therefore we cannot be desireless. Because we are living
force,
there must be desire, there must be action, there must be thinking, and
there must be feeling. These are all the symptoms of life. In our
natural state, because we are subordinate energy of Krishna, we desire
to act for Krishna. But if we do not know about Krishna, then we cannot
help but act for personal sense gratification. Therefore, even if we go
up to the platform of Brahman realization and understand that we are
not matter but spirit,
as long as we do not understand that we are servants of the Supreme
Spirit,
then naturally we will again begin to act for our personal sense
gratification and thus again become entangled in the cycle of birth and
death.
To know Krishna is the ultimate knowledge. That is the
conclusion of Bhagavad-gita. "One who knows Me is to be
understood as the knower of everything, and his endeavors will know
perfection." ( Bhagavad-gita 15.20) This is the most
confidential part of the Vedic knowledge. In another place Krishna
says, "I am the compiler of Vedanta, I am the knower of Vedanta,
and by all the Vedas I am to be known." (Bhagavad-gita
15.15) Unless we come to understand that our knowledge is incomplete,
it is just so much dry burden. The purpose of knowing anything is to
understand Krishna, and when Krishna is understood, then automatically
we understand everything. "When your knowledge has passed out of the
dense forestof delusion you will become indifferent to all that has
been heard and all that is to be heard. That knowledge lights up
everything as the sun lights up everything in the daytime." (Bhagavad-gita
2.52, 5.16)
Knowledge of Krishna is the cause of freedom, and
ignorance of Krishna is the cause of bondage. Bondage means suffering.
Modern society is in ignorance regarding these basic spiritual truths.
We are suffering, but we do not know that the real cause of our
suffering is that we have
lost our eternal relationship with Vishnu, or Krishna. We think we are
suffering because of unemployment, inflation, the energy crisis and so
many other
apparent causes of suffering, but the real cause is that we have given
up
the service of Krishna and are trying instead to satisfy our senses.
Therefore
we have been trapped in this material body, which is itself the
breeding
ground for all kinds of miseries--adhyatmika, adhi-bautika,
adhi-daivika, birth, death, old age, disease, the struggle to eat,
sleep, defend and
have sex. In this way, our life is nothing but a series of miseries in
our attempt to struggle for existence, always ending in failure at the
time of death.
Everything depends on knowledge. We get knowledge from
the shastras, sadhus and guru. Even Napoleon said, "Men
are controlled by words." That is also explained in the shastras:
"As animals are controlled with a stick, men are controlled by the
words of
the Vedas. Or just as a bull is controlled by
a ring in the nose, human beings are controlled by the words of the shastras.
What are those words? They are the words of God. We must hear the words
of the shastras, sadhus and guru. Then we shall be
guided out of darkness into the light and get free from suffering. That
is the whole purpose of human civilization; to get out of darkness, to
get out of miserable existence and come to joyful life, eternal life,
and a life of knowledge. Hare Krishna.
