All About Art of living

Art of living

 Just as the stage of celibacy is meant for studies, the human body out of eighty-four lakh forms of lives is meant for knowledge – divine. This opportunity or ability or knowledge is not found in other bodies. The gods have power of understanding, but they are engrossed in immense worldly pleasures and enjoyments. A person engrossed in worldly pleasures can’t even decide to attain God—realization. It is generally observed that rich people don’t attend good company (Satsanga). Extremely poor people also don’t attend good company because they were worried about their livelihood. Creatures of hells lead a very miserable life, so they have no opportunity for God realization. 

The body of a God is extremely pure as compared to a human body which is very dirty. If a swine besmeared with fifth comes near us, we don’t like its presence because it sinks badly. Similarly the Gods feel a kind of bad odour coming out of our bodies because their body is celestial. The human body have predominantly the earth-element while the bodies of predominantly the earth-element while the bodies of the Gods have predominated in fine elements. But there is greater significance of the human body because the human body has got to right to attain God which is not available even to the Gods.

This body is like a railway junction from where you can travel in any direction you like. This is the importance of human life. But it has been mentioned earlier that in this life we may go to hell. Is it significance or reproach? It is reproached. But its significance is that the highest goal viz., salvation or the lowest goal viz,. Hell can be attained in it.

• All About Art of living

Beatitude lies in self abnegation

Beatitude lies in self abnegation

The consumption of human life lies in God-Realization, not in securing enjoyment. Man seeks endless, unlimited joy unmixed with sorrow; he naturally hankers after supreme liberty and craves for lasting immortality of life. All these three are lacking in luxuries.

Not only there is no joy in luxuries, they are on the other hand a source of suffering; the joy that appears to abide in luxuries is only a creation of infatuation and is a precursor of sorrow. Enjoyments are ever dependent on others and make us dependent. They are not only transient and perishable themselves, but they also bring transience and death in their wake. God on the other hand, knows no end or supremely free and, ridding the Atma(Soul) of all bondage, manifests its eternal free nature. He is not immortal Himself but also spontaneously bestows immortality on others.

A man engaged in procuring, accumulating and enjoying luxuries ever remains engrossed in worries, restless, stricken with fear and engaged in sinful pursuits. His leading a frustrated life full of agony here, he dies a painful death a repeatedly goes through the lowest states if existence like tortures in hell and demoniac wombs. Therefore, withdrawing attachment from enjoyments, fix your mind on God.

Enjoyments are not as bad as attachment to them. Such attachment alone gives rise to a hankering for enjoyment, which in its turn leads to all sorts of sin and suffering. Therefore, if you are blessed with luxuries, continue to devote them to the service of the Lord. Their utility lies only in devoting them to the service of God and then only they will have served their purpose. Therefore, whatever objects of enjoyment and continue to employ them unstintingly and unceasingly in the service of the Lord with a cheerful mind free from pride where and when necessary according to the exigencies of the moment, and thereby account yourself as well as those luxuries blesses.

Happiness lies in peace of mind. A man with a restless mind can never be happy, while luxuries not offered to the Lord give rise to ever new forms of restlessness. You hanker after peace but seek it from luxuries which are most restless, exceedingly fleeting, perishable and imperfect in so many respects. This desire of yours is as preposterous as the desire of a man to get coolness from fire. Fire cannot but burn. Even so enjoyments must bring restlessness and agony in their wake.

The supreme rarity and utility of human life lies in this fact alone that it is the only instrument of God-Realization. The priceless moments of this human life are slipping away in vain—not only in vain but in suicidal pursuits. The fact that under pressure of attachment to enjoyment you are engaged in the anfractuous attempt to accumulate luxuries alone for yourself as well as for all and, restoring to passion, lust, hatred , anger, bickering, warfare, animosity and violence, are accounting your life successful and blessed constitutes perversity—an act of madness on your part. Through these endeavors you are not rendering any service to your own self, much less to the public, country, the world at large, the human race or to the living creation. Perversity drives a man to wrong action and the fruit of wrong actions is also adverse.

Far from bringing happiness, the aspirations and actions through which you seek to make the world happy will on the other tend to aggravate misery; instead of ushering an era of peace they will only intensify disquietude; far from propagating love, they will promote hatred; and in place of development only destruction will follow.

In the name of service you are erroneously heading towards destruction and in the name of development you are erroneously heading towards ruination; nay, regarding in the mission of your life you are zealously striving  towards this end: this is all the more deplorable on your part. The mischief wrought by him who mistakes evil for will continue to be aggravated. Therefore wake up and bestow deep thought on the real character of self and God and realize the truth that beatitude lies in self abnegation – not in wealth, position, authority or luxury in the shape of any living being, object or circumstance: that the goal of life is God and not enjoyment; and that your duty is to offer in a spirit of denial your entire body, mind and resources, nay, every living being, object and circumstance at your disposal in the service of God and not to devote them to enjoyment.

• Beatitude lies in self abnegation

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Happiness pleasure of sense

So long as lurks in your mind the false conception of happiness inhering in the objects of worldly enjoyments, the consequently so long as you cherish a felling of mine and attachment towards the living beings and inanimate objects of this world, neither true devotion nor spiritual enlightenment can be had nor can be success be attained in the discipline of Yoga. The practice of disinterested action is out of the question without aversion to the pleasure of sense.

Attachment resides in the mind and it is by the mind alone that it can be renounced. Therefore, attachment to the pleasure of sense can neither be shaken off by putting on the label of a vairagi (One who has turned his mind away from his pleasure of sense) or Vairagya (One who is entirely free from passion) nor by external renunciation. To assume such a title, but to have no real inclination for aversion to the pleasures of sense is nothing short of hypocrisy. So long as there is an attraction in your mind for the pleasures of sense, so long as you imagine happiness to inhere in them and so long as there is a craving for such pleasures, “ Vairagya” or dispassion is out of the question.

So long as you falsely conceive happiness to lie in the objects of enjoyments and so long as a craving for them lurks in your mind, you will be seized with a longing to possess them the moment you come face to face with them or even recall them, even though you may have externally renounced them. Such a longing would impel even him who has outwardly renounced them to indulge in luxuries and thereby bring about his downfall.

There is no joy in the delights of senses; on the other hand, they are full of sorrow and sorrow alone. Food and drink, clothing and apparel, house and dwelling in this world are meant only for maintaining one’s existence; while this human life is intended for striving towards God-realization after developing aversion for the pleasure of sense. These things are to be accepted only for maintaining one’s life; life is not to be lived for them. Hence the voluptuous man who eats for the gratification of his palate and clothes himself for the sake of smartness is totally devoid and dispassion and must remained tied to the world.

Even as the objects of enjoyment are measure only for the sustenance of the body, this body too is intended only to serve as a fit abode for the soul. It is not our own self. The soul which cognizes the states of childhood, youth and old age through which the body has to pass, ever remains the same. You say “ I was a child in former days, when I used to play such a way. In many youthful days my body was full of great of vigour and now in my old age I have become a decrepit. “ this proves that you, who make such observations, are the soul distinct from the body. Realizing this give up attachment and the feeling of mineness with regard to the body; and, undergoing the pleasurable and painful experience that come to you, with an equipoised mind, so long as the body continues to exist use it as an instrument helpful in your march along the path of God-Realization.

When love for God appears in you or you get established in the self, you will automatically give up the pleasures of sense like a poison or a dream. But try to give up the attachment for them even beforehand by repeatedly finding fault with them and visualizing them as attended with sorrow and regarding them as the supreme factor conductive to bondage.

True renunciation lies in giving up attachment of the mind for luxuries; and that alone is real dispassion. But indulge in luxuries as sparingly as possible; accept them and ceasing to look upon them as delightful. Possession and accumulation of objects of enjoyment also fosters  attachment for them. Do not cast your gaze on men attached to or surrounded by the pleasure of sense, nut on exalted souls who have turned their mind away from luxuries. Commune with the lives and teachings of those exalted souls who have lost all charm for the objects of enjoyment so that, losing all faith in and charm for the pleasures for sense, but on exalted souls who have lost all charm for the objects of enjoyment so that, losing all faith in and charm for the pleasures of sense, which are no better than sweet poison, your mind may develop real aversion for them.

A person given to the gratification of his senses will ever remain entangled in the same of fear and despondency—fear of the loss of enjoyments already available and great dejection and grief over their loss or on his failure to obtain them. But he who has no attachment for the objects of enjoyment will ever remain free from fear and grief and steeped in supreme bliss. No circumstances can make a man of dispassion unhappy.

• Happiness pleasure of sense