This is a true story that happened in Japan.
In order to renovate the house, someone in Japan tears open the wall.
Japanese houses normally have a hollow space between the wooden walls. When tearing down the walls, he found that there was a lizard stuck there because a nail from outside hammered into one of its feet. He sees this, feels pity, and at the same time curious, as when he checked the nail, it was nailed 10 years ago when the house was first built.
What happened?
The lizard has survived in such position for 10 years! In a dark wall partition for 10 years without moving, it is impossible and mind boggling. Then he wondered how this lizard survived for 10 years without moving a single step-since its foot was nailed! So he stopped his work and observed the lizard, what it has been doing, and what and how it has been eating. Later, not knowing from where it came, appears another lizard, with food in its mouth.
He was stunned. For the lizard that was stuck by nail, another lizard has been feeding it for the past 10 years...
Such love happened even with this tiny creature ... Imagine? it has been doing that untiringly for 10 long years, without giving up hope on its partner.
What can we understand from the story above?
I. Love is there even amongst animals.
This feeling of care or protection towards once partner or children is even present in animals. Even we can see in every species of animals, the mother feeding food to its children, or the love between the partners.
So how different is a human being from an animal? If we analyse closely we can observe:
a) Animals also eat, humans also eat.
b) Animals also sleep, humans also sleep.
c) Animals mate and so do humans.
d) Animals defend themselves and so do humans.
e) Animals show the feelings of love, care and protection and so do humans.
So what is it that differentiates humans from animals? It is ‘athato brahm jignasa”, i.e to enquire about the self and Supreme. To enquire about ones real position. Who am I? Why I have to undergo birth and death? Why so many miseries are there in life? What is the cycle of birth and death? What is karma and karmic reactions? This is the real enquiry. A dog cannot enquire these things. It can only bark and search where is food, where is sleep etc… but it cannot enquire why it is a dog. It will by default accept its real position as a dog. If a human being also engages his rare human birth in eating, sleeping, mating and defending business (ahaar, nidra, bhaya, maithun), then he is as good as an animal.
Therefore everyone must make this important enquiry and try to understand the real aim of life. The real aim of life is to surrender one to the Supreme Lord, and get rid of the cycle of repeated birth and death. And this can be achieved only in human form of life. No other form has that developed consciousness except the human form. But the human birth is very rare. Hence one must make best use of this rare opportunity.
II. Everyone has to suffer for his karmic reactions.
In this case, the lizard got stuck for 10 years at the same place, bearing the pain caused by the nail. But this question keeps coming as to why this happened to the lizard? For example, when people die in bomb blasts or other such incidents, then the usual feeling is , ‘oh, he was such a nice person. He never harmed anyone. Why he had to meet this terrible end’ ..etc.
Well, if a person is well behaved in this life does not mean he was well behaved in his earlier lives as well. We keep committing lot of sins forgetting that we will have to bear the reactions of our own activities. A human being, based on his karma, may be promoted to a higher life or demoted to animal life in his next birth. In both the lives, he bears the reactions of his activities. In higher life, he enjoys the fruits of his good deeds and in lower\animal life he suffers the reactions of his bad deeds. If a person dies prematuredly, one should understand that he was the cause of someone’s premature death in his past birth. The cycle of birth and death cannot be denied.
Just like the soul traverses from the body of a small child to yourth to old age, similarly the soul passes on to another body at the time of death. The soul keeps changing the bodies just like we change clothes. When our clothes become old we reject them and accept new ones. Sometimes our new clothes get torn apart and we reject them and accept new clothes again. Similarly when a body no more remains suitable for a soul to stay, it leaves this body and enters another body. This transition is death and re-birth.
So whatever karmic activities one performs in this birth, he must suffer the reactions either in this birth, or the next birth or next-to-next birth and so on.
In Mahabharata, when Bhishma was pierced with arrows, he enquired from Lord Krishna as to why he had to suffer so much of pain of these pierced arrows. At that time Lord informed Bhishma that in his 71st birth, Bhishma had thrown a snake on a cactus and the snake died a painful death after being pierced with the thorns of the cactus. Hence Bhishma was bound to suffer the reactions of this activity and hence he was also pierced with arrows in the same way.
Hence, we should be very careful in our dealings. Those who are killing the innocent animals for their sense gratification, i.e for satisfying the taste buds of their tongue, are sure to suffer in the same manner in their coming births, the way these animals are suffering whom they are eating. In Manu Samhita, it is described, "...He who gives permission, he who kills the animal, he who sells the slaughtered animal, he who cooks the animal, he who administers the distribution of the flesh, and at last he who eats the flesh are all murderers and all of them are punishable under the law of karma." Hence one should be merciful to all his fellow living entities, and try to remain always engaged in the service of the Supreme Lord, by whose mercy one can easily cross beyond this cycle of repeated birth and death.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Who am I ?
In the last blog, we discussed the basic generic problems of life which cannot be escaped. But we left the question unanswered as to why and how the solution of thsese generic problems, and the need to understand God are interrelated.
Well, first of all I ask you a question. Who are you? To this question, I may get several answers, like I am a software engineer, I am an Indian, I am an American, I am a Hindu, I am a Muslim, I am Mr. XYZ, I am a politician, I am boy, I am a girl, I am a human being etc... Hence, to this single question, I may get n number of different replies. But none of the above descriptions depict our true nature.
The real intelligence of a human being is, when he starts enquiring 'Who am I'? This is called 'athata brahmna jignyasa', i.e. to enquire about self. If one does not enquire 'who am i', 'why am i here', 'why i have to undergo birth and death', 'what is there after death', 'what is karma and karmic activities and reactions', 'what is my relationship with God', 'am I this body' etc... then he is as good as an animal.
An animal also eats, sleeps and mates and the humans also do the same. But an animal cannot enquire about self. So if a human being is also wasting his life in simply maintaining his body through the means of eating, sleeping, mating and defending, then he is as good as an animal
pretending to be a human being.
Our Vedic scriptures propound the supreme gem on knowledge, i.e the science of soul. In Bhagvad Gita, Lord Krishna explains the real identity of all the living entities.
dehino asmin yatha dehe, kaumaram yauvanam jara
tatha dehantaram praptih dhirastatra na muhyati (BG 2.13)
As the embodied soul continuously passes, in this body, from boyhood to youth to old age, the soul similarly passes to another body at death.
Hence, the soul is eternal and never dies. It is only the body that dies and the soul takes up another body at the time of death. We are not this body but our real identity is that we are part and parcels of the Supreme Lord. We are souls and He is the Supersoul. As the sloka above describes 'embodied soul'. This means that the true nature of the soul is pure, but in material condition it is embodied in some form of body.
There are innumerable souls acquiring different kinds of bodies. It is not sure for us also, that we may get a human birth in our next life. There are 84,00,000 differnt species of life and based on one's karma in this birth, he gets a body in his next birth. For example, if someone is too much inclined towards eating meat, he gets a body of a carnivorous animal, based on his desire to eat meat so much. Hence, we may become a beast, an insect, a plant, a mammal, a reptile or a human in our next life. This is decided by our karmic activities in this life. Hence, based on our karma and its reactions, we keep undergoing the cycle of birth and death. This is an endless journey.
We have already seen in our previous blog (Need to Understand God -II), how miserable this journey is. Hence we must find out as to how to put an end to this journey of continuous birth and death and migration to 84,00,000 different species of life. We must enquire, if I am eternal
then why I have to undergo death?
Yes, eternity is our right, for we are the part and parcel of the Supreme personification of all knowledge-eternity-bliss. We are the part and parcel of the Supreme Lord. Lord says in Bhagvad Gita "sarva yonishu kaunteya... aham bija pradah pita" i.e .. I am the seed giving father of
all the living entities. This Supreme Lord is sac-cid-ananda, i.e He is adi purush, eternal, full of knowledge and full of bliss. Since we are His part and parcels, we are also eternal and blissful. Just like the Sun and the sunrays are qualitatively same, similarly we are the small sunrays of that Supreme Sun. Because of falling into this material world, we have forgotten our eternal relationship with our Supreme Lord and hence we are suffering in the hands of birth and death.
Hence, our endeavour should be to re-establish the lost relationship between us and the Supreme Lord, and go back to Him, by transcending this birth and death cycle. Actually, the relationship is eternal, hence it is already there. But it has become dormant and forgotten under the influence of this material world. Hence we have to revive that dormant relationship. This is the real aim of human life. Because in none other form of life, can this be achived. Only human birth has the developed consciousness to understand God and our relationship with Him.
The coming blog (Lizard Tale) depicts the true nature of human birth and karmic activities.
Well, first of all I ask you a question. Who are you? To this question, I may get several answers, like I am a software engineer, I am an Indian, I am an American, I am a Hindu, I am a Muslim, I am Mr. XYZ, I am a politician, I am boy, I am a girl, I am a human being etc... Hence, to this single question, I may get n number of different replies. But none of the above descriptions depict our true nature.
The real intelligence of a human being is, when he starts enquiring 'Who am I'? This is called 'athata brahmna jignyasa', i.e. to enquire about self. If one does not enquire 'who am i', 'why am i here', 'why i have to undergo birth and death', 'what is there after death', 'what is karma and karmic activities and reactions', 'what is my relationship with God', 'am I this body' etc... then he is as good as an animal.
An animal also eats, sleeps and mates and the humans also do the same. But an animal cannot enquire about self. So if a human being is also wasting his life in simply maintaining his body through the means of eating, sleeping, mating and defending, then he is as good as an animal
pretending to be a human being.
Our Vedic scriptures propound the supreme gem on knowledge, i.e the science of soul. In Bhagvad Gita, Lord Krishna explains the real identity of all the living entities.
dehino asmin yatha dehe, kaumaram yauvanam jara
tatha dehantaram praptih dhirastatra na muhyati (BG 2.13)
As the embodied soul continuously passes, in this body, from boyhood to youth to old age, the soul similarly passes to another body at death.
Hence, the soul is eternal and never dies. It is only the body that dies and the soul takes up another body at the time of death. We are not this body but our real identity is that we are part and parcels of the Supreme Lord. We are souls and He is the Supersoul. As the sloka above describes 'embodied soul'. This means that the true nature of the soul is pure, but in material condition it is embodied in some form of body.
There are innumerable souls acquiring different kinds of bodies. It is not sure for us also, that we may get a human birth in our next life. There are 84,00,000 differnt species of life and based on one's karma in this birth, he gets a body in his next birth. For example, if someone is too much inclined towards eating meat, he gets a body of a carnivorous animal, based on his desire to eat meat so much. Hence, we may become a beast, an insect, a plant, a mammal, a reptile or a human in our next life. This is decided by our karmic activities in this life. Hence, based on our karma and its reactions, we keep undergoing the cycle of birth and death. This is an endless journey.
We have already seen in our previous blog (Need to Understand God -II), how miserable this journey is. Hence we must find out as to how to put an end to this journey of continuous birth and death and migration to 84,00,000 different species of life. We must enquire, if I am eternal
then why I have to undergo death?
Yes, eternity is our right, for we are the part and parcel of the Supreme personification of all knowledge-eternity-bliss. We are the part and parcel of the Supreme Lord. Lord says in Bhagvad Gita "sarva yonishu kaunteya... aham bija pradah pita" i.e .. I am the seed giving father of
all the living entities. This Supreme Lord is sac-cid-ananda, i.e He is adi purush, eternal, full of knowledge and full of bliss. Since we are His part and parcels, we are also eternal and blissful. Just like the Sun and the sunrays are qualitatively same, similarly we are the small sunrays of that Supreme Sun. Because of falling into this material world, we have forgotten our eternal relationship with our Supreme Lord and hence we are suffering in the hands of birth and death.
Hence, our endeavour should be to re-establish the lost relationship between us and the Supreme Lord, and go back to Him, by transcending this birth and death cycle. Actually, the relationship is eternal, hence it is already there. But it has become dormant and forgotten under the influence of this material world. Hence we have to revive that dormant relationship. This is the real aim of human life. Because in none other form of life, can this be achived. Only human birth has the developed consciousness to understand God and our relationship with Him.
The coming blog (Lizard Tale) depicts the true nature of human birth and karmic activities.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)