Our Real Interest in Life!

 

Today I was perusing an app I have called Gitabase, which is the compilation of nearly all of the works of my spiritual master, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada.  It has a wonderful search function where you can input any word, and it will show you all the times that it was used by Srila Prabhupada in his works.  I often love to find his words on topics, and as I mentioned in an earlier post, the idea of being "trapped" in the material matrix came up, so I searched for all occurrence of the word "trapped".  (There was about 50 occurences, and that doesn't include "trap" or "trapping", or any other variant. )    I've included the entire verse, as he always provided - the original Sanskrit, the transliterated version of the Sanskrit, a word-for-word translation, translation of the verse, and his Bhaktivedanta Purports.  

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यथा प्रयान्ति संयान्ति स्रोतोवेगेन बालुकाः । 

संयुज्यन्ते वियुज्यन्ते तथा कालेन देहिनः ॥३॥

yathā prayānti saṁyānti sroto-vegena bālukāḥ

saṁyujyante viyujyante tathā kālena dehinaḥ

Word for Word Translation  

yathā - just as;prayānti - move apart;saṁyānti - come together;srotaḥ-vegena - by the force of waves;bālukāḥ - the small particles of sand;saṁyujyante - they are united;viyujyante - they are separated;tathā - similarly;kālena - by time;dehinaḥ - the living entities who have accepted material bodies.

Translation

O King, as small particles of sand sometimes come together and are sometimes separated due to the force of the waves, the living entities who have accepted material bodies sometimes come together and are sometimes separated by the force of time.    Srimad Bhagavatam 6.15.3

Purport

The misunderstanding of the conditioned soul is the bodily conception of life. The body is material, but within the body is the soul. This is spiritual understanding. Unfortunately, one who is in ignorance, under the spell of material illusion, accepts the body to be the self. He cannot understand that the body is matter. Like small particles of sand, bodies come together and are separated by the force of time, and people falsely lament for unification and separation. Unless one knows this, there is no question of happiness. Therefore in Bhagavad-gita (2.13) this is the first instruction given by the Lord:

dehino ’smin yatha dehe   kaumaram yauvanam jara

tatha dehantara-praptir   dhiras tatra na muhyati

“As the embodied soul continually passes, in this body, from boyhood to youth to old age, the soul similarly passes into another body at death. The self-realized soul is not bewildered by such a change.” We are not the body; we are spiritual beings trapped in the body. Our real interest lies in understanding this simple fact. Then we can make further spiritual progress. Otherwise, if we remain in the bodily conception of life, our miserable material existence will continue forever. Political adjustments, social welfare work, medical assistance and the other programs we have manufactured for peace and happiness will never endure. We shall have to undergo the sufferings of material life one after another. Therefore material life is said to be duhkhalayam asasvatam; it is a reservoir of miserable conditions.

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I particularly liked the line "Our real interest lies in understanding this simple fact," as this is the very beginning of spiritual life - to first understand, and then to KNOW that we are  not this material body, but are spiritual beings trapped in the body and material nature.  And that this is the real purpose of life.  Everyone is certain that one side or other of politics, or social justice, or governmental spending, or medical "miracles" will save the day. But they won't.  People have been trying for thousands of years, and nothing we might come up with in our so-called modern and technologically advanced culture will do anything but simply distract us more from the real purpose of life!  

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On a side note, in a week, this body will hit the 70 year mark!  Of course, "Aja" means Unborn, so the true "I" is never born and never dies, and there is a grateful recognition of that fact.  But when the scriptures speak of the problems of "birth, death, old age and disease", you really don't GET it until you experience it first hand!   Few of us remember the pangs of birth, and the experience of death is yet to come, but the old age part....well that definitely SUCKS! :-D And sadly, I'm not totally transcendental to that material reality. 

much love to you all!