No matter how best we tried to dwell in matters physical, Bhagavad Gita always tries to sway one from path ephemeral to spiritual. Why this happens? Why could we not live physical manifest life in a meaningful way? Why the promptings from within? What exists within that tells us all the time that physical part of life was ephemeral, short lived.
Bhagavad Gita tells us we were primarily a spiritual being… a soul atman, the consciousness within on its cosmic life cycle of 8.4 million manifestations that entailed an earthly journey of 96.4 million years. Of 8.4 million manifestations on the whole, the initial 7.3 million manifestations by our soul atman occurred in insect, plant and animal life. In the remaining 1.1 million manifestations in human form we were expected to travel spiritual path to reach cosmic end of life, 8.4 millionth manifestation.
From this analogy the manifest human form becomes the highest manifest stage in cosmic life cycle. It was only in human form our soul atman finally gains absolute purity forever, the moment human beings gained enlightenment in their present life.
Back to the query, Bhagavad Gita clearly tells us that being a soul atman, the essence of all human beings, rather living beings was the same. In the circumstances, how could we misbehave or reject authority of other human beings. No matter what the discomfort, agony caused by others we had to treat every human being as representing element of God Almighty. As everything in cosmic system, on mother earth was governed by inscrutable laws of karma… we must leave all punishments to God.
Prime reason why Mahavira (24th Tirthankara of Jainism, preceptor) advocated the philosophy of “Live and let Live”! As per Bhagavad Gita we must all try to live in peace and harmony irrespective of what so-called religious teachers of present times preached. As human form was the highest manifest stage in cosmic life cycle, we must never look towards others with disdain. For human being to maintain inner calm and peace within, our following precept of “Live and let Live” was an absolute must.
Bhagavad Gita explains precept of karma as follows – if we stood at karmic level of 73 then we contained 72 KG impurities, one KG representing our pure soul atman. Our indulgence in karma in physical manifest life must always be directed towards reducing dross impurities within. To gain absolute success in life, to become a successful entrepreneur we must indulge in karma nishkama karma way of life. By working with an unattached attitude (not detached) we could still excel in our physical manifest life. Nothing could stop us from following our passion, our goal that comes from within.
Bhagavad Gita clearly tells us to manage life like JRD Tata or King Janaka, the true karma yogis par excellence. All their life JRD Tata and King Janaka lived like a true trustee of God, believing that everything belonged to God Almighty and they were only a custodian, caretaker of all things cosmic. JRD Tata lived phenomenal life something that could never be duplicated by many. The complete technological advancement we see in India today owes it with all to Tata enterprise, Tata Empire. In past and even in present the motto of Tata organization remains the same… serve humanity to its best.
In present times people indulged in karma trespassing rights of others. Bhagavad Gita does not support such thinking. Even if we gained so-called success by transgressing rights of others, it will definitely be short lived. We just could not jeopardize our present or future for sake of few short lived monetary benefits. In domain of God Almighty not even a single sin was unpardonable. Every single thought positive or negative precipitates into an act of karma. Bhagavad Gita advocates our indulgence in good karma, positive karma all the time so that we finally succeed in manifesting our destiny in present life.
As contents of Bhagavad Gita could never be realized through literal reading, we must indulge in path of self enquiry, logical reasoning to live a life full of happiness, gaiety and laughter. Not because Bhagavad Gita advocated so, path of logical reasoning must be followed in every single stage of life. We must truly work for the welfare of entire mankind if we truly desired manifesting destiny. God answered our prayers only when we catered to humanity at large. Possessing a bloated ego is abhorred by Bhagavad Gita. If we give prominence to our ego (Aham in Hinduism), we could never hear the sweet small inner voice of our soul atman that seemed to come from within our heart.
The voice of our soul atman always guided us on right path. We must never neglect the voice of our soul atman, no matter what. For gaining absolute success in any walk of life, support form our soul atman within was mandated by God. Ask any successful entrepreneur world over, story always remains the same… all were totally positive in life, all had a clear goal in life, all walked path of truthfulness to hear the sweet small promptings of their soul atman and following passion of their life they finally gained absolute success. Hard work, sincerity and diligence were part of karma… positive karma enacted by us. True success does not mean garnering material wealth untold. True happiness always comes from within.
Bhagavad Gita clearly tells us to follow path of Dharma (righteousness) to counter evil all the time. If we find someone related to us indulging in crime, violence, vice… we must always side with Dharma (force of righteousness), never our relative who followed path of adharma (lawlessness). Most human beings world over faltered at this stage of life. They often side their relative and when misfortune struck them, they blamed God Almighty… not their bad karma! In cosmic precepts of life we could never feign ignorance. Bhagavad Gita advises us to follow path of truthfulness as and when possible. In absence of truth, life becomes meaningless as is happening world over, more particularly in India. We could never blame God Almighty for karma indulged by us. God always acts as Dhrishta (onlooker) never interfering with creation of his. It is only in our ignorance we blamed God Almighty, the creator of entire cosmos.
The most important precept dealt in Bhagavad Gita was concept of mind. Every moment thousands of thoughts flowed to our brain incessantly over which we had practically no control. Bhagavad Gita advocates exercising control over five senses to reach source of mind. By logical reasoning we must conclude that human beings only had a brain that works as receiving and transmitting station, nothing more. The mind of entire cosmos was one, it had two compartments… reservoir of mind plus and reservoir of mind minus. From reservoir of mind plus flowed all positive thoughts to our brain and from reservoir of mind minus, all negative. Bhagavad Gita advocates our indulgence in positive karma to invoke only positive thoughts all the time. This helps reduce dross impurities within our soul atman.
As we gained more and more purity (as a soul atman, the spirit within) we realized we could truly manifest our present life, our destiny forever. Every single precept of spirituality detailed above was also applicable to physical manifest life. To become an energized, successful human being our taking charge of present life was an absolute must. We can do this by invoking positive thoughts all the time from reservoir of mind plus. Why invoke negative thoughts even once and mar our present and future. Through path of logical reasoning, self enquiry we could altogether stop flow of negative thoughts to our brain in totality. At this point practice of celibacy (Brahmacharya Vrata) comes to our rescue. By indulgence in celibacy as detailed in Bhagavad Gita, we could channelize all our positive energies towards the only goal of life.
The precept of celibacy in Bhagavad Gita was not a small concept. We must think over it again and again, if we really desired taking charge of present life in totality. I say all this from experience. Right from six years of age I have almost manifested destiny. I pursued path of my passion, something that came from within. I wanted to go in search of God and I finally did when 13 years of age. 25 years of yoga meditation I finally reached domain of God Almighty at 37 years of age. I have practically reached cosmic end of life, 8.4 millionth manifestation… last in cosmic life cycle. Gains of material world always seemed pretence to me. It has rightly been detailed in Bhagavad Gita that whatever belongs to us in present life belonged to someone else in past life and would again belong to someone else in next manifestation.
Gita also advocates having firm faith in God Almighty all the time. When everything was created by God Almighty, how could we ever lose faith in him? We often observe people remembered God only in times of need, sufferings… very rarely in happiness. What makes us do that? Gloating over material accomplishments never meant anything. When comes the time to depart, all shall be left behind. We must all the time go for virtues rather than material accomplishments. For a person like Swami Vivekananda… what value of a noble prize? Living sattvic life (moderation in eating) we must make all out efforts to reach our goal in present life. By remaining truthful, having faith in God we could clear all hurdles of physical manifest world. Temporal defeats must be taken in stride. In absence of sufferings, happiness carried no meaning. It is only in our sufferings we realized importance of happiness, absolute bliss.
Bhagavad Gita clearly spells out… we had only one life to live, the present earthly domain of 70 to 80 years. Make the best of it by invoking positive thoughts all the time.
By: Vijay Kumar “Atma Jnani”… The Man who Realized God in 1993 – (Ref 150903)
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