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.
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