The Quest

Familiarity is our worst enemy. There are ever so many things in this world which because we see them daily, we have ceased to be curious about. How few of us look at the sky? Very few really see it, for it has been our companion from the earliest moments of our lives, and has by its assuring constancy lulled to rest the spirit of questioning. The child stares with surprise at a stranger, but never so at its own mother. If however, the same sky with its beauty had not been there when we were born and were to surprise us with a sudden arrival our wonder and curiosity would reach a poetic height. But now look at our dullness. The sky is hourly minutely phenomenal. No two moments of its life are alike. Clouds pass and re-pass. The sun rises and sets with epic pomp, the moon shines out with lyric sweetness. There is a ceaseless rising and falling of the curtains above, and the scenes there are being endlessly shifted; but the majority of us are perfectly dull to such charms, though we know absolutely nothing about them.

But why talk about the sky: We are hardly concerned with it; How far it is going to meddle with our day’s work, the meteorological chart shows us, and that is quite enough for all our practical purposes: Let us go to things nearer home; Let us take man himself the one object in creation with which we are mostly concerned. Very few men can rid of human associations; in work and out of work we are always with men. ‘Society, Love and friendship’ is the silent cry even of our spare moments. But what do we know about Man? Nothing. He comes and goes, we do not know where? One man is a poet and another a warrior. We hardly know why. Man breathes while he lives, but at the moment of death, breath fails. No human physiology can tell us satisfactorily enough what it is that lies breathless, and that what which was breathing, why we came and where we go, if the life we lived ends with death, and whether we are matter, or spirit, or soul, or mind, or the senses, or everything or nothing. The great and profound mystery that encircles us all around baffles. We are eternally in contact with problems. Man is an obscure being. He knows little of the world and of himself least of all. We have no measure for this huge machine – the world. We cannot calculate its relations: we know neither its primary laws nor its final causes. We do not know ourselves; we know neither our nature nor our active principle. This kind of thoughts should at least shake off the dullness of familiarity. To feel the mystery, to understand the problem, to recognize the feebleness of our understanding is itself a privilege in the world.

Sri Vidyaranya Swami, in his famous vedantic book ‘Vedanta Panchadasi’ has defined the mystery of creation in the following beautiful sloka which would certainly motivate all of us to ponder over all the time.

ఏతస్మాక్తి మినేన్ద్ర జాలమపరం యద్గర్భవాసస్థితమ్
రేతశ్చేతతి హస్తమీస్తక ప్రదప్రోధ్భూత నానాంకురం
పర్యాయేణ శిశుత్వ యౌవన జారావేశే రనైకైర్వపతం
పశ్యత్తత్తి శ్రుణోతి జిఝ్రుతి తధా గచ్చత్యధా గఛ్ఛతి

(గర్భవాసం లో ఉంచబడిన వీర్యం, ఛెతనత్వాన్ని పొంది, చేతులు, తల, కాళ్లు, వ్రేళ్లుగా తయారవటం, అట్లాగే కండ్లు, చెవులు వగైరాలన్నీ పుట్టటం, ఆ వీర్యమే క్రమంగా బాల్య యౌవ్వన నార్ధక్యాది దశల్ని పొందటం, చూడటం, తినటం, వినటం, వాసన చూడటం, నడవటం మొదలైన పనులన్నీ చేయటం కంటె ఆశ్చర్యకరమైన విషయం, దీనిని మించిన ఇంద్రజాలం - మాయ - ఇంకెముంటుంది.)

From the above, we can easily come to the conclusion that there is a creator who is beyond our comprehension. Mankind calls him ‘GOD’ (Paramatma). Unfortunately, almost every person has a false notion that he knows the divine just because he knows the word. Word ‘GOD’ is not godliness, just as the word ‘Water’ is not water. When one is thirsty, the word water is of no use and actual water is needed to quench the thirst. At the time of death, the principles and theories of immortality are of no use; the actual taste of immortality is needed.

Therefore, it is time to make an attempt to understand the mystery while appreciating it side by side. People say, “Yes, we want to know GOD, but at present there are lots of things to be done, there are lots of problems to be sorted out.” So, they go on postponing the religion to the last. God is the last on the list of our necessities and the last of necessities is never fulfilled. He remains the last. One day, you will be finished; you will never be able to attain him. When one necessity is fulfilled, ten others arise. When one ambition is fulfilled, thousands of others will arise. Religion always remains the last. The divine doesn’t come nearer even by an inch. A fool is one who keeps religion as last on his list of life. He has lost an opportunity. The wise person who has understood properly that he may accumulate any amount of wealth, but eventually death will snatch it away from him, so there is no sense in wasting time in accumulating things which will be snatched away in the end.

That’s why, Shri Shankaracharya in his famous celestial song of ‘Bhaja Govindam’ warns the mankind like this:

baalastaavatkriidaasaktah
tarunastaavattaruniisaktah
vriddhastaavachchintaasaktah
pare brahmani koapi na saktah

When a boy, one is attached to sport;
when a youth, one is attached to as young woman;
when old, one is attached to anxiety;
to the supreme Brahman, no one, alas, is attached!

Modern civilization is a marvel of technological achievement, material wealth and communications systems that have shrunk the globe. In spite of all the wealth and ease of modern life, people are not content. They are not content because of their attitude towards the objects of the world and towards their relationships with others. Throughout their lives, they uphold the notion that they must have more and more possessions. They have a similar notion about relationships and maintain that something is to be received from a relationship rather than given. Instead of simply enjoying the objects and people in their lives, they cling to them, own them and fear losing them.

Over the course of a lifetime of needing, having and clinging, the fear of death grows and hovers, creating a spiral of more need, greater fear and inescapable pain. In this way, life cannot be lived effectively and is merely squandered.

It is appropriate for all of us to realize that life’s purpose is to know the distinction between what is outside and fleeting, and what is inside and eternal, and to discover through practice and experience the infinite value of one to the other.

If the above observations are digested to the point of seeking more inputs of and about Godliness, more discussions we can have and stand clarified.