Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Bi-Monthly Death Obsession and Other Ramblings


With the recent tragedy of three devotees losing their lives in a car accident, it got me thinking about destiny and fate. I’ve heard many times in Srila Prabhupada’s lectures that our happiness and suffering are “fixed up” according to our karma and that they are both simply manifesting of their own accord. He has said that we shouldn’t bother looking for happiness, because it will come to us automatically according to our karma. Similarly we shouldn’t bother trying to stop suffering, because it will also come to us and run its destined course.
I had met Nitai dasa in New Vrindavan when I was my Guru Maharaja’s personal servant. We didn’t have a deep connection or friendship. It was just an informal interaction, like the usual “Haribol, prabhu”. I look back at that moment and think how strange it is that so many years later he would end up in a fatal car accident. There he was at that moment in time with me, both of us oblivious to his fate.
It got me thinking about my own fate. It’s most certainly already destined, already written according to my karma. The scary thing is that I have no way of knowing how or when that time will come. A devotee should live fearlessly. Usually we live fearlessly out of ignorance and not because of transcendental realization. I live my day-to-day existence unafraid of death simply because I’m not thinking about it. It’s not that I’m genuinely unafraid to die.
I imagine a sort of deep-seated paranoia and fear would set in if one were to always be obsessing about their demise. One would become afraid to go outside for fear that they could meet death through an accident or similar calamity. The fact is no matter how much we obsess over it there is no stopping it. So most of us live our lives not thinking about it, not giving it any serious consideration.
Death puts so many things into perspective. It renders so many things meaningless and futile. The spiritualists would have us believe that the only thing not rendered meaningless by death is devotional service. When you think about it, it makes sense…that is if you believe in an afterlife and a Supreme Being.
In what ways are we using our time here? Do we spend it in temporary, transient pursuits? Or do we spend it in trying to cultivate our eternal identity and nature? Are we only concerned with the trials and tribulations of this current existence? Or are we planning for the future beyond the dissolution of our physical bodies?
Most of us spend so much time swimming around in the material, external energy that the internal, spiritual energy seems imaginary. But that is our disease! Accepting illusion as reality and reality as illusion. We have no idea who or what we really are. We are not humans. We are not any type of material body. What we truly are is beyond our limited reasoning and comprehension, because in truth we are non-different from the Supreme Being (in quality, not quantity of course).
It’s a fact that at any moment we may die. The question is: will we be ready for it? Are we living our lives like a person who is staying the night at a hotel and knows in the morning they must pack and leave? Or are we living like we’ll be in the hotel forever?
I’ve died a million times and yet under illusion I’m thinking I’ll be here forever.
So what is the nature of that internal side? There is no pasts or future. Only an eternal now. There is no self-centered considerations. Consciousness is perfectly entwined with the Divine. The only thought and meditation is on the center, on God, on Krishna. Selfish desires and ideals are non-existent having fallen away once the illusory covering has been lifted. There is no physical body that gets hungry or tired. It is a supremely blissful place that is ever-increasing in its blissful and wondrous nature. There is harmony and ecstasy. It is true freedom.
That quarter of consciousness is deep within every living being. It remains inaccessible to most because of a misdirection of energy. That place is none other than the spiritual kingdom and within that kingdom there are different quarters. The highest quarter being Goloka Vrindavan. The spiritual authorities have been to that place and experienced all of its nuances. It is a completely different world where selfless love and devotion reign. Everything in this material world is insignificant and unimportant when compared to it. But this place cannot be conceptualized; only experienced first hand. It cannot be understood philosophically or intellectually. It has be given through divine revelation, divine mercy.
Krishna is eternally present with us, but under illusion we ignore Him and are unaware of his presence. When the veil of illusion is lifted there is no way not to see Him everywhere and in everything.
We all have to meet with death. That is a fact we cannot ignore. We have to develop some sense of urgency about our predicament here in the temporary, material world. We have to push on towards that internal, spiritual, transcendental world. We have to pursue it with earnestness and serious. It has to become real to us. It has to become the only thing worth living for. Otherwise we have simply wasted our time here…yet again.

No comments: