Skip to main content

THE PLEASURE RIDE OF LIFE

A few days back, I had to come from our Vasco center to our Panjim center. I took, three different vehicles to reach the destination. From the Vasco center, my friend dropped me to the Verna bus stop in a brand new, high end, air conditioned car. From there I took a crowded, government Kadamba bus to Panjim. The contrast of the previous ride in the comfortable car to this one was distance apart. At the Panjim bus stand, I was picked up by another colleague of mine in our old rundown car. Again, a huge contrast to the previous two vehicles. But, I thoroughly enjoyed all the three rides in the three different vehicles. Just in a short journey, three completely different situations.

Isn't life also something like this, where situations change completely and quickly! I reflected that our experience of life is not in the situation per se but in our interpretation of the situation. No situation, is entirely good or bad in and of itself - it is depends on our perception of the situation. As they say - our minds can make hell out of heaven or heaven out of hell. This is 200% true.

There is a super excellent verse of realisation spoken by a brahmana from Avanti after he was put in a humanly intolerable situation. This verse should be permanently etched in all our hearts. This verse appears in Srimad Bhagvatam 11.23.42 in which he tells us how our mind is the key to our experience of life -

nāyaḿ jano me sukha-duḥkha-hetur
na devatātmā graha-karma-kālāḥ
manaḥ paraḿ kāraṇam āmananti
saḿsāra-cakraḿ parivartayed yat

The brahmana said: "These people are not the cause of my happiness and distress. Neither are the demigods, my own body, the planets, my past work, or time. Rather, it is the mind alone that causes happiness and distress and perpetuates the rotation of material life."

There is another beautiful verse, in which Lord Shiva glorifies the equipoised nature of the devotee of Lord Krishna in seeing every situation of life. This verse appears in Srimad-Bhagvatam 6.17.28. Lord Shiva says -

nārāyaṇa-parāḥ sarve
na kutaścana bibhyati
svargāpavarga-narakeṣu
api tulyārtha-darśinaḥ

"Devotees solely engaged in the devotional service of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Nārāyaṇa, never fear any condition of life. For them the heavenly planets, liberation and the hellish planets are all the same, for such devotees are interested only in the service of the Lord."

For a devotee of Lord Krishna, any and every situation is a blissful one for in every situation he remembers the Holynames of Krishna. Krishna consciousness transforms an ordinary day into a festival, an ordinary excursion into an adventure, an ordinary ride into a pleasure ride and thus transforms this ordinary material world to the extraordinary spiritual world. That is the advantage of adding Krishna in the equation of our life. With Krishna by our side, fear and misery is left at the side and without Krishna by our side, fear and misery is right by our side - this is the verdict of even Lord Shiva.

You see, we don't have control of the circumstances just like I didn't have control of the vehicles I was riding in but, we do have full control of the consciousness we bring into a circumstance - that is fully in our hands. Lamenting and crying about our circumstances is not going to help us, working on raising our consciousness will definitely help us.

So, let us try to be happy and Krishna conscious in every situation and enjoy the different vehicles that are sent by God in our life and reach the Supreme destination of pure happiness and Krishna consciousness. In conclusion, let us remember that with the Lord of pleasure by our side, every ride of life becomes a pleasure ride which ultimately culminates in the Supreme destination of pleasure.

- Achyut Gopal Das

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

THE VICTORY FLAG - Offering to H.H. Jayapataka Maharaj

  Today is the Vyas Puja (Appearance Day) of one of the greatest heroes the world has ever seen and definitely one of the biggest heroes in my life. Today is the Appearance Day of His Holiness Jayapataka Maharaj. "Jayapataka" means "Victory Flag" . As his name suggests, Maharaj has achieved victory over insurmountable and seemingly impossible obstacles. His life is an emblem of one-pointed dedication to Guru, selfless service to the Vaishnavas and unparalleled compassion to the common people. Even after going through a life-threatening brain hemorrhage, a liver and a kidney transplant, he still continues to preach the message of His Dear Lord Chaitanya with great vigour and zeal. For him the word "Impossible" means "I am possible". His life is a glaring example to the entire world that, if one is possessed by a burning desire to serve Guru and Gauranga, then anything, literally anything is possible.  Srila Prabhupada, in...
1 comment
Read more

FINDING RELEVANCE IN TIMES OF IRRELEVANCE

"The world will value us as long as we are valid. As soon as we become invalid, the world stops valuing us."  In the epic of Mahabharata, one of the most important and powerful leaders was Bhismadev. As long as he was active, fit and fine, everyone came to him for consultation and dependent on his performance, skill and valour but as soon as he became incapacitated and incapable of performing and delivering results being fatally wounded by the arrows of Arjuna, he sort of became irrelevant. No one depended on him, no one came to him for consultation. One who was visited by everyone and was the center of attraction, now hardly got visitors and became sidelined. The most crucial war of Kurukshetra continued on without Bhismadev, the most critical person. Life is such that everyone has to become outdated and irrelevant at some point or the other. No one, however powerful he or she may be can be in the limelight forever. History ultimately shows that how ever...
Post a Comment
Read more

THE BREATHING BELLOWS

Every morning when I wake up and notice my breathing and observe my chest swelling up and down being pumped with air, I invariably remember a verse from the Srimad-bhagvatam which states that our breathing is like the breathing of the bellows of a blacksmith. Both the bellow and our body is made of leather. The bellow may feel that it is breathing on it's own and is fully independent but, it does not know that as soon as the blacksmith stops pumping air in it, it will stop breathing and lay lifeless. Similarly, we may be proud of our breathing and our life and may feel fully independent but, we don't realise that as soon as God decides to stop pumping air into our system, our body will stop breathing and lay lifeless.  What is there to be proud of when we don't even have control over our breath?  We should be grateful to God for giving us the wonderful opportunity and gift to breathe and live. And, the way we express that gratitude is by using ...
Post a Comment
Read more