Ancient Culture ( Samskaram ) of Bharatham-5.2. : Swami Krishnananda.

 

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OPINION : Thursday, January 21, 2021. 07:01 AM. 2320.

 Chapter- 5. Introduction to the Epics - 2.

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How would you expect material comfort and emotional satisfaction and security of any kind unless there is a law that operates permitting you to have these perquisites? From where will you get your material needs? How will you have mental satisfaction, peace of mind and emotional security? How can you be guarded from the onslaughts of nature and other people in the world? Where comes the necessity for setting up a set of regulations and a system of law and order? On what ground will you contemplate the system of management of human society unless there is a basic, universally acceptable principle? This principle on which every other consideration is based, and has to be based, is the principle of the universal liberation of the spirit – not merely of mankind, but of creation as a whole. Here is the forte, the strong point of India’s culture, which has been misunderstood by modern historians as an otherworldly consideration, which it is not. Liberation of the spirit is not something that is to take place after the death of the body. This is a misguided modern interpretation of wrongly written history. Religion is not a guideline or a map which will take you to the other world. It is a consideration of this world itself.

Actually, this so-called moksha is not outside the world; it is inside the world in the same way as your soul is not outside your body. It is inside you. It is you. What you call liberation of the spirit is nothing but the realisation of the Self of the whole cosmos, the Soul of the universe, and if you consider the soul of the universe is somewhere far off outside the universe, it would be like thinking that your soul is outside the body, and in order to reach your soul you have to move geographically from your body to the soul. What is the distance between your body and your soul? That is the distance between life in this world and life in moksha. There is no distance. This subtlety is not properly grasped by modern theologians, philosophers, historians, and leaders of mankind. “India is a religious country. It is thinking only of the other world.” Especially Christian bigots and evangelists who are trying to throw dust upon Hinduism are very much interested in emphasising this aspect of a so-called wrongly interpreted otherworldly aspect of Hinduism, which Hinduism does not have. And modern education in colleges and universities, being Christian-oriented and Western-oriented practically, has thrust this wrong notion into the brains of modern youth who even now wrongly think that Hindu religion is an otherworldly affair and that it has no concern with modern physical, material, down-to-earth life.

Other doctrines like communism, socialism, etc., which rebut the very idea of religion, also have a wrong notion of what religion actually means because they think that religion does not feed the stomach of a person, it only promises an otherworldly goal to the soul, if it all there is a soul. These are the two errors of extra emphasis laid on the economic and physical side of life without proper understanding of the relation between matter and spirit. Communism, socialism, anti-God and atheistic religions, which are also a kind of religion, arise not because they say something wrong, but because whatever they say is based on wrong foundations.

The relation between this world and the other world, the relation between matter and spirit, the relation between religion and political existence, is like the relation between your body and your soul, so you cannot emphasise too much the body aspect of your life and forget that you have a soul and a consciousness. I am telling you all these things in order to remove from your mind any idea that religion is connected with life in the other world and it is a temple worship of gods who are not in this world. It is the worship of gods who are in this world – not only in this world, but who are the guiding principles of this world. In the same way as the soul is permeating every cell of your body, religious spirit is to permeate every activity of your life. Even your kitchen and bathroom are to be conditioned by this great goal of moksha because nothing that belongs to your body is outside the activity of the spirit or the soul, which you really are. This is something very intricate, and much of it might not have entered your mind in all its implications, but it is good for you to think over this aspect of it.

To be continued ....

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