Skip to main content

CLOSE YOUR EYES AND OPEN

Don't build your house in shifting sand, build it on a solid rock foundation." - Paraphrased from the teachings of Jesus Christ.

As I close my eyes to chant japa and open my eyes a little while later, I notice that something has changed. Either someone who was chanting along has got up and left or someone new joins the chanting. As I close my eyes to chant in the Kirtan on the beach and open my eyes a little while later, I notice that the scene has changed. As I go outside Goa for a few days for any trip and come back, I notice that things have changed, some more development has happened. As I meet a child I know after a few years, I notice that he or she has gone through a lot of changes. Change after all is constant factor in this world. Just by observing life and being aware of the happenings around, one can learn about the truths of life.

Srimad-bhagvatam mentions the story of a King called Muchukunda who once was summoned by the demigods to lead a war on their behalf. When he finished his duties there and returned to the earthly realm, he saw that millennia had passed (due to the time difference between the heavenly and earthly realms) and he was shocked to see that literally everything and everyone had changed. If things change and shift every few moments, one can imagine the changes and shifts that occur after passage of millennia. 

As William Shakespeare writes in his famous play - "All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances." Just like in a play or a drama scenes keep changing and shifting similarly, in this world scenes keep shifting and changing. Let the shifting scenes of this world remind us to shift our focus on the un-shifting, steady, rock solid, spiritual principles of the spiritual world. And, if we live our life based on these spiritual principles then rest assured, one day when we close our eyes and open it, we will see that we have reached an extraordinary place where everything is constant and nothing changes.
- Achyut Gopal Das

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

THE POWER OF OBEISANCES

Offering obeisances to the Supreme Lord in His deity form may superficially look like a very small and a simple activity. But, it is one one of the very important and significant aspect of Bhakti. Therefore Lord Krishna stresses the importance of offering obeisances to Him in one of the most important verse of the Bhagvat-gita in chapter 9, verse 34. "man-manā bhava mad-bhakto mad-yājī māṁ namaskuru mām evaiṣyasi yuktvaivam ātmānaṁ mat-parāyaṇaḥ" "Engage your mind always in thinking of Me, become My devotee, offer obeisances to Me and worship Me. Being completely absorbed in Me, surely you will come to Me." - Bhagvat-gita 9.34 This verse comes exactly in the middle of Bhagvat-gita making it all the more important. Not only that, this is the only verse that appears almost as it is, again towards the end of the eighteenth chapter of Bhagvat-gita as follows - "man-manā bhava mad-bhakto mad-yājī māṁ namaskuru mām evaiṣyasi satyaṁ te pratijāne priyo ...
Post a Comment
Read more

RACE AGAINST TIME

Time and tide wait for none. Time is one of the most powerful feature of this world. In fact, Lord Krishna introduces Himself as time in the eleventh chapter of the Bhagavad-Gita. However powerful a personality one may be, at the end everyone has to bow down in front of time and surrender to it. History is the proof of the power of time. Big, big people reduced to dust by time. Time is so imperceptible in it's working that we don't even realize how days, weeks, months and years pass away - until it's too late . Our life can be compared to a video game with a timer on. Only, the one who wins the game before the time runs out is declared the winner. The only difference between the video game and and the game of life is that in the video game, you know how much time is left but in the game of life, you don't know how much time is left. If while playing a simple game we have to be fully focused and conscious not to waste time to win it, how much more, we hav...
Post a Comment
Read more