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

REQUEST TO & FROM A MOTHER

  Today on the occasion of Mother's Day, I went to meet the cow, our mother to wish her for Mother's Day and make a request to her. I requested her to shower her blessings and mercy on her children who are suffering so badly due to the deadly covid virus. The good news for all of us is that, she mercifully agreed to shower her heartfelt blessings, prayers, mercy on all her children. After all, that's the heart of a mother - always wanting and desiring best for her children. I was elated, my mission accomplished - now, the suffering of humanity will reduce. As I was leaving, the cow also had one personal request. She requested me with tears in her eyes to request her children not to abuse, exploit and slaughter her mercilessly. I could literally feel her pain and suffering as she made this request. This was the pain of a mother. Tears swelled up in my eyes. I didn't know what to reply her. I did tell her that I will pass on her request to her other children and I walked
Post a Comment
Read more

THE MOTHERLY TOUCH (Dedicated to all mothers)

" It may be possible to gild pure gold but who can make his mother more beautiful " - Mahatma Gandhi We all exist because of our mothers. We owe our entire existence to them. But the scriptures explain that we have not one but a couple of them. Being connected to them is the way we can fill our life with love, nourishment and a sense of security.  MOTHER OF BIRTH A few days ago, while I was traveling in the train from Mathura to Delhi, I saw a young mother with her little baby. I could witness the natural love a mother has for her child. Whenever another train would cross our train, she would jump to close the ears of the sleeping baby, so that he is not disturbed in his sleep. When Sun started to shine on the child's face, she at once closed the shutter of the window. I started to think of all the inconveniences my mother must have taken for me - the sleepless nights she must have spent in taking care of me as a child, the commitment and consistency to cook f
Post a Comment
Read more

A LIFESTYLE OF GRATITUDE

"Being grateful is a state of consciousness, a state awakened awareness. Are we grateful for every breath we breathe?" - Radhanath Swami Every opportunity that comes to us in life, we should learn to be grateful for. We can't take anything for granted. I recently got the opportunity to go to Mauritius and had a good experience there but, if it was not for Krishna's mercy, so many things could have gone wrong. It could have rained heavily and spoilt the experience. I could have got sick there and not been able to move out. The flight could have met with an accident. And the list can go on and on. There could have be "n" number of possibilities to disrupt my experience there.  We cannot take anything in life for granted. The difference between children and adults is this - the children take for granted whatever they get but a mature adult knows that things don't come that easily. A child is in the mood of demanding what he doesn&#
Post a Comment
Read more