Latest revision as of 18:47, 25 July 2017

[edit] The desire to live eternally

BV Vaman Maharaj, Why Everyone Hopes To Live Forever, June 9, 2017: The Times of India

Hope keeps the child in us alive. Hope keeps the flame of life burning in every living being. So much is the faith of every living being in `hope' that they forget the inevitable, that is, death. Such is the power of hope.A dying man hopes for a longer life, a sick man hopes for a healthy life, a poor man hopes for a rich life, an unsuccessful man hopes for success, a student hopes to crack the exam, and a parent hopes for obedient children. Whatever may happen, hope always remains alive.

Hope is a feeling of expectation and desire for a particular thing to happen.Others say , hope is a feeling of trust. Such is the potency of this feeling, that we ignore the inevitable and keep on living in the hope that this will not happen to us.King Yudhishthira told Yaksha that the biggest wonder on earth is that we observe others dying now and then, yet think that this will not happen with us.

This feeling does not occur with just a few; it is the case with every living being. Where does hope come from?

What is the source of such a feeling?

Although we observe our body growing from being young to becoming old, and we observe people dying, still, we always hope against the inevitable.

Scriptures explain this hope in Sanskrit with the word ­ `Sat'. `Sat' means the desire to live eternally . All living beings, if asked, will say that they do not wish to die.

`Sat' drives the basic instinct to live happily . What is the source of `Sat'? The desire to live eternally can only come from something eternal. Our body is not eternal, our family is not eternal, and our worldly belongings are not eternal; so these cannot be the source of the desire for eternal life.

As per scriptures, only Soul and Supersoul are eternal. Supersoul is only one. Souls are many . Therefore, scrip tures confirm that we all are souls. Apart from the desire for eternal life, we also have desire for knowledge and happiness.

Scriptures call these `chit' (desire for knowledge) and `anand' (desire for happiness).

Sat-chit-anand.

Soul is satchitanand, that is why no one wants to die; no one wants to be known as a fool (wants respect as being learned and knowledgeable); no one wants sorrow. These three desires are common in all living beings. Hence all are souls.

Chaitanya, referring to Srimad Bhagavatam, Bhagwad Gita and Sri Narada Pancharatra, explains that we, the souls, are servants of Krishna, eternally . In the seventh chapter of the Gita, Krishna explains that soul is part of his potency . This means soul is the servitor of Supersoul.

All scriptures and pure devotees of the Lord certify and declare openly , this truth. One must understand that by staying in this material world and forgetting the Supersoul, the servitor of the Lord suffers from threefold misery .When the soul (servitor of the Lord) serves the Supreme, it remains in transcendental ecstasy and is not bothered by any of the threefold miseries. One who attains this exalted state of devotion is instantly liberated from the cycle of birth and death.