Skip to main content

LOSING ONESELF TO GAIN ONESELF

The theory of oneness with God is something that is not very appealing to Vaishnavas, in fact it is the one thing that they vehemently oppose. But the oneness I am talking is not about loosing our soul - it's about gaining it.

Losing oneself in any activity means to fully absorb ourselves into it or as they say, "to get into it fully". In the pages of the Srimad Bhagvatam there is mention of an Avadhoot Brahman who had 24 gurus. One of his guru was an arrow maker. This arrow maker was so absorbed in sharpening his arrow that he didn't even recognize the entourage of the King passing by. The Brahman learnt the quality of absorption from this arrow maker.


If there is one word that is of utmost importance in spiritual life - it is ABSORPTION. In order to truly experience happiness in spiritual life, we need to fully absorb ourselves into the practice - kind of forget our present identity. We identify with so many things that we are not - our various aspects and roles in this life. We identify so much with our present body and mind that we forget that our true identity is spiritual. At least while we do our daily sadhana especially our chanting of the holynames, we need to put aside all our so called designations in order to get maximum benefit from the process. Just like when we enter a temple we keep our footwear outside and enter, similarly when we enter into our spiritual practices we need to keep all the temporary ego designations aside and enter it with our true ego - as servants of God.

We all know that the Charam-sloka or the ultimate verse of the Bhagavad-Gita is - sarva dharman parityajya, mam ekam saranam vraja.....BG 18.66, wherein Lord Krishna pleads all of us to surrender all varieties religion and duty and surrender unto Him. Surrendering to Lord Krishna on a practical level actually means that while we chant His holynames, we keep all other duties aside to be fully available in body, mind and heart to recieve Him in His most merciful incarnation as the Holyname.

It is explained that when Lord Shiva closes his eyes to enter into his meditation on The Supreme Lord, he gets so absorbed in it that he opens his eyes only after 60000 years. He basically losses track of time, the world around and himself. We can't imitate great souls, that is clear but the minimum we can do is in deference to our chanting of our prescribed rounds we can put off both our external and internal worlds. Let everything wait and it has to wait because it's time to gain our immortal soul - our very self.

In summary, losing oneself to gain oneself means completely surrendering oneself to the process of Krishna consciousness and to give up the false self to gain our real self.

- Achyut Gopal Das

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

GIVING UP PETTINESS to EXPERIENCE PRETTINESS

"The process of Krishna consciousness will empower us when we empower it." The other day as I was taking a bath, the plastic bucket I was using, slipped and cracked. A piece from the rim of the bucket broke off and cut my finger. As I was waiting for the bucket to refill with water, I noticed that even after a long time the bucket wasn't filling up. It's at that time, I noticed a "not so apparent" crack at the bottom of the bucket which was causing all the water to leak out. I drew a lesson from this incident which is applicable to my spiritual life. SEALING THE LEAKS The process of spiritual life or Krishna consciousness which includes the nine fold limbs beginning with Shravanam (hearing) and Kirtanam (chanting) is like filling the container - the vessel of our hearts. For the vessel of our hearts to fill up, it should be leak free. If the container is faulty and contains many holes, the best of content, in the best of quantity will not help it fill. Ana...
Post a Comment
Read more

A DEVOTEE OF SUBSTANCE

By changing our externals our internals is not going to change. By wearing dhoti - kurta, our desires are not going to change. By wearing a Vaishnava tilak, our desires are not going to change. Yes, the external appearance of a devotee is an important aspect of Bhakti and it does have some effect on our consciousness but it is not the all in all of being a devotee. The real challenge is to bring changes from within. Donning the dress of a devotee externally is difficult but not that difficult - the real difficultly is in donning the attire of a devotee internally because who we are is not a product of our externals but our internals. God doesn't see our externals, He is more interested in our internals. The world may be impressed with the externals but God is impressed only by the internals. A devotee is not a person of form but a person of substance. Our internals change not by changing our externals but by working on changing our internals. - Achyut Gopal Das
Post a Comment
Read more

HOME BEYOND ALL OTHER HOMES

  I recently had the opportunity to visit the temple of Lord Gadagidu Veer Narayana in Gadag, Karnataka. After having darshan of the Lord, we sat under a shady tree to have our morning Srimad-bhagvatam class. While, we were having our class, I observed that few teenage, college going girls also sat nearby to have their breakfast together. I also observed that few elderly men were practising yoga asanas in one corner of the temple. There was one little puppy sleeping at the entrance of the temple without any fear. As I was giving the class, I heard so many birds who were chirping and flying around in the temple courtyard.  I was reflecting how so many different types of people and living entities were happily taking shelter of the temple of the Lord. And why not? After all, the Supreme Lord is the father of all and we are all His children. Our Supreme Father provides and gives shelter to us all and yes, the temple of the Lord is the home of our Father, t...
Post a Comment
Read more