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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HAH 34 250612 - Bhajagovindham - An
Analysis - 6
Renunciation does not
lie in external appearance, but in inward thought, feeling and attitude. One
has to renounce everything; surrender does not mean barter system, and it has
to be total. As the head and body bows before the deity, the mind and the words
should also portray the same attitude and this attitude should continue to grow
deeper and deeper, till one completely forgets what the negative feeling is.
Swami Vivekananda
beautifully expresses this while describing his Guru, Sri Ramakrishna
Paramahansa. He says that, "In the presence of my master, I found out that
man could be perfect, even in this body. Those lips never cursed anyone, never
even criticised anyone. Those eyes were beyond the possibility of seeing evil,
that mind had lost the power of thinking evil. He saw nothing but good. That
tremendous purity, that tremendous renunciation is the secret of spirituality".
That is the pinnacle of surrender or complete surrender to God and with such a
one-pointed spiritual practice, nothing becomes impossible. When the desires
for materialistic pleasures burning in the heart are not weeded out, these
external forms mean nothing.
In another sloka,
Sankara elaborates, whatever activity one may be engaged in, that should be
governed by the spirit of renunciation in the heart. The mind should always be
kept pure; whatever may be the external form, to give up truly is to abandon the
desires that work up the mind. It is possible by only one method, i.e., by
keeping the heart and mind pure. the only possible way out is that one should
become pure in heart and mind by meditating on the all-pervasive almighty in
whatever form one likes or closer to ones heart with love and devotion. One
should cry for god as incessantly as a small child cries for her mother.
As one progresses, one
will get enlightenment and acquires power in some measure to ward off desires.
The state of renunciation cannot be attained and one will not get enlightenment
by mere book learning without having devotion and complete surrender to god.
The power of desire to enjoy through sense objects is irresistible. As we
learnt in before, we spent our energies in games and play when we are children,
in youth, we waste our energies on sense-passions and when we grow old, we keep
thinking about the children and their welfare and the life in the old age. In
spite of dilapidated physical form with tottered age, hair grown grey, toothless
mouth, leaning on a stick for support, we still cling on to desires. The mind
does not get controlled, as it never learnt, when the body was young, the
intellect plans for future still, but unfortunately the body does not support
these. Thus, suffering from the ravages of time, one leads an agonising life.
The essence is that
when one is young, one should learn and put into practice the art of
renunciation of desires, which is the basic reason for all sufferings, so that
by the time one gets old, it becomes a habit to adjust oneself to the situation
at that time and one retires with peace of mind and ultimately leaves the body
in tranquillity and inner joy. Once, an aged gentleman approached Swami
Vivekananda for his guidance in Vedanta and renunciation. Swamiji asked that
person to go and play foot-ball and come back to receive the lessons. The aged
person expressed his inability to do so, because of his old age. Swamiji explained
to him that one should learn Vedanta, etc., when one is young enough to control
the mind, body, senses, etc., as it is of no use even if Swamiji teaches him at
that old age. The old habits will overtake the mind and it is difficult to
control the mind at that age.
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