So what is the meaning of life?
Wisdom says that the meaning of life is to relish joy and bliss – to be happy. In the Vedanta-sutra there is an aphorism, anandamayo 'bhyasat
"By nature the
Supreme Absolute Person is anandamaya." For example You are engaged in artistic work just to have a pleasure, ananda.
Anandamayo 'bhyasat. It means pleasure, rasa, a mellow or taste
For example, By painting one picture, you enjoy some rasa or mellow which means taste a certain good feeling that you cherish, otherwise why you are working so hard?
Lord Krishna is The Supreme personality Of Godhead
There is a pleasure. So Krishna is raso vai sah. Raso vai sah: "He God, is the reservoir of all pleasure."
The soul also is happy like this, because we are from God, we are his eternal parts, we are originally spiritual souls, but on account of identifying with this our material body, we can not taste our own natural happiness which is spiritual by nature and so in illusion we try to satisfy the bodies senses made mainly from water and other matter. We are that what animates the physical body and our presence in the body is characterised by exhibiting our individual consciousness. Matter can not create consciousness, but we are conscious and aware.
We try to find happiness in 4 ways.
The four goals of life are Kama Artha Dharma and Moksha and the fifth goal the highest goal is called Prema. Most people dont know this on account of pursuing material pleasures and lack of information. Only the first three goals are known to most people because our educational systems are basically materialistic and by default do not educate students in those higher values of life.
1 Kama – Is happiness achieved through sensations that is the lowest goal
2 Artha – Is happiness through security (to stabilize our ability to enjoy quality sensations)
It means you want to have security and stability, so that whatever you call happiness is not disturbed. You think or have been educated with other words, that material security and stability can give happiness.
3 Dharma – It means happiness through morality (to cooperate with one another so that no one wants, and thus no one steals our enjoyable sensations), and so on.
4 Moksha – Is the 4th goal which is happiness through enlightenment like attaining an enjoyable sensation beyond the confinement of this world.
The 5th goal Prema, is even higher, much much higher and superior, to anything available on the material plane.
Most people in this world, give much time and effort to explore the first 4 goals and in time may be over many lifetimes, evolve to understand that joy does not come by having enjoyment, rather it comes by giving enjoyment to God. Even in material life giving gives a higher pleasure, what to speak of connecting with the Supreme Lord and making an endevour to please Him. It has to be said here, that this "Bhakti" is an exact science which has to be followed it does not work when performed whymsically
When we give enjoyment to God and try to please Him, it is called Bhakti Yoga. By practicing Bhakti yoga we ultimately experience Prema and Prema is far superior to all the other four goals.
Prema means, the highest love, which can only be experienced when we are linked with God in loving devotional service, that love is the desire to give enjoyment to the beloved and is reciprocated by God. Like there is a process to churn milk to get butter, so Bhakti Yoga is the process, to evoke Gods reciprocation, it can not be practiced whymsically.
Once we understand love it also has to evolve to find the most joyous and blissful person to love. Love for Krishna is reciprocated by Krishna and we realise that He is a person, not a formless energy or something in the sky. The realisation, that we can not merge and become Him is most liberating.
This is very important to realise
First we will love a limited person, but (a) that excludes other persons, and (b) that person is temporary and (c) that person has faults. Eventually to fully realize the meaning of life we seek love of God.
There are 5 stages of love of God.
1 santa rasa: At first love of god is merely an awestruck wonder or admiration at God’s powerful position but one remains neutral between the impersonal and personal conception of God.
It means one is not very attached to the personal feature of The Lord and the sense of intimacy is lacking. When this knowledge is further developed, one comes to the
platform of understanding the Paramatma feature of Krishna and the next stage begins to develop which is called Dasya rasa.
2 Dasya rasa: ones perception develops and evolves to actually interacting with that awe-inspiring and worship-able being, one begins to see God as master and oneself as servant…..
Stage 1&2 are the common conceptions of God, but which are above the common conceptions of just having faith in a higher force of God, and beyond that, are secret conceptions that are found in higher more realised devotees, which are
3 Sakhya Rasa. This 3rd stage is where love of Godhead evolves so that we interact with Godhead without the limitations imposed on the relationship as a result of God beings so, “God-like” and imposing.
4 Vatsalya Rasa. It can evolve beyond that so that the love intensifies so much that one expresses superiority to the beloved and takes care of him like a parent takes care of a child. This is Vatsalya Rasa.
5 Madhurya Rasa. It can finally evolve to the most intimate state, in which there are no limitations whatsoever on the intimacy of one’s joyous blissful loving relationship with God. This is romantic divine love – the sweetest bliss – therefore called Madhurya Rasa.
There are further evolutions within that category beyond the scope of this short article
Because there are various forms of Godhead to reciprocate with various people in various relationships. But the higher three relationships become more exclusively focused on the original, intimate form of Godhead known as Krsna, the “all attractive.”
Sri Sri Radha and Krishna
The means to achieve the highest goal
Nothing but love creates love. Therefore to attain divine love one needs only to practice it. This is called sadhana-bhakti-yoga.
The practice mainly centers on Sravana-Kirtana-Smarana: Which means hearing about the beloved (Krishna) and speaking about the beloved with has the effect of remembering the beloved…Krishna
There are many ways of doing this, but extra emphasis is given on the most effective way: nama-sankirtana – coming together with others who desire to love Krsna and together singing and listening to songs about Krsna, especially about his sweet name.
There is one particular Mantra, the “maha-mantra” especially suited and empowered for this practice:
The Famous Hare Krishna Maha Mantra
Back Home :-)
You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.