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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

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