Health and Happiness - Dr Dwarakanath
The pleasures of worldly life, such as
wealth, friends and youth, are deceptive appearances, do not boast of them.
Understand that each one of these is destroyed within a minute by the
unchangeable factor called ‘time’. Be detached and dispassionate from the
illusion of the world of maya and cultivate renunciation and realise the state
of Brahman. If fortune begins to frown on one, one should not, therefore, be
proud of one's wealth, youth, health, etc. all the arrogance born out of these
false attachments will change in a moment into shame, because of their
instability. One invites problems when one maintains relationship with the
world of objects, feelings and thoughts through one's body, mind and intellect.
Indulgence in sense enjoyment will
lead to miseries, the desire to possess and enjoy will one day end in
dissipation, as these sense objects will wither away with the time, wealth is
neither constant nor stable. Many human beings are slaves to this aspect of
maya, as the materialistic world is completely dependent on this. In the same
way the other faces of maya are youth and friends. The youth of today will be
an elderly person of tomorrow, one cannot escape from the kala-chakra, i.e.,
jaws of the wheel of time. With the passage of time, the body decays and
perishes. Sankara, therefore, warns that one should not dissipate one's
energies in these false vanities. instead, realising the illusory nature of
these world of objects, one should concentrate and realise the state and true
nature of Brahman, only that will give relief from the vicious cycle of
birth-death-birth.
Both pleasure and pain
must be borne with equanimity. A person leading a dharmic life must also submit
to sorrows as willingly as one accepts pleasures. Following the words of Sankara
sincerely, one shall acquire the courage to bear the sorrows of life
unperturbed. In the silent march of the wheel of time, days and nights and with
it the age slips unnoticed and unrealised. One may escape any or all other
hardships, but death and the parting of ways are inevitable. Time will never
stop for any person and under any circumstances. Present will become past and
the future will become present. While the past disturbs the present, the future
worries it. It is true with almost all human beings that when the luck is not
in favour, any amount of manoeuvre will not yield desired results and all plans
get defeated and routed. One must acquire the true knowledge to bear these
vicissitudes of time and life with fortitude.
Sankara is teaching and
preaching, Nachiketa's exchange of words with Yamaraja (lord death), rejecting
all gifts that he offers to him for learning the same true knowledge, which Sri
Adi Sankaracharya is preaching, will bear the true testimony. Time cuts off the
days of life and the death snatches away the life. The jiva will ultimately
depart with painful bundles of vasanaas acquired in one's desire-ridden selfish
life. The mind makes one to believe that all objects of glitter with an illusory
beauty will give happiness, but time proves it otherwise. Life steadily ebbs
away, but the desires only grow due to sense gratifications. Although with the
age, human being becomes infirm from disease ridden body, desires and
sense-enjoyments, worries and anxieties still haunt one. It is not too late to
realise the truth and follow the path shown by Shankara to reap the benefits in
this birth and in the forthcoming ones.
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