Friday, March 22, 2013

(March 22,2013) “The Aim of Life” by Swami Krishnananda

by Swami Krishnananda

Tension is the problem that is created by a theoretical future and a practical present. So you should be very wise. You should not try to soar to the sky very quickly. When your feet are planted on earth, you must know that they are on the earth; you should not think you are in heaven.

People say, "Oh! I am concerned only with God, spirituality and yoga." That is not true. This kind of statement will not work; and, it is not a fact. The fact is that you are in the world. When the wind blows, you feel cold; you have hunger, you have thirst, sleep... And there are many other considerations. So you must eschew the idea that you are thinking only of God. One must be realistic. Though the aim should be to transcend these lower limitations, you cannot ignore their presence when they are there.

The very art of perfect living or the aim of living life is the maintenance of a higher purpose. It need not necessarily be the highest purpose; it is the purpose immediately higher, just above your present level. That is what you are concerned with, not with the supreme level. When you say this is right, that is not right; this is good, that is not good; it should be like this, it should not be like that – when you say this, you have already set a higher standard than the standard you are following. Otherwise, you will not say this is good and that is not good. You have something in your mind as the proper standard, to which you make a reference to find out what is right and what is wrong. The very fact that you are thinking "this is right, that is wrong," shows you have a link with a higher idea which you are maintaining in your mind and from the point of which you want to judge the lower level. Similarly, when you have reached that, you will find a still higher level. You go on like that until you reach the highest step. So, as I said, you must concern yourself with the immediately higher level.

The immediately higher level for an ordinary individual is the social norm. You belong to a particular society, and you have to follow its norms. So at the earliest stages of existence, social norms become the higher level. When you transcend that, there is a racial level. When you transcend the racial level, then you are independent and you do not have to hang on society for your existence, and you have strength and value of your own. Then you start judging things from the point of view of your own conscience. Sometimes your conscience will rebel against social norms. When you are in it, you have to follow it. So when your society relationship is transcended, you begin to follow the higher reason with which you are endowed. What we call conscience is the next step.

There is no need of thinking too far into the higher levels, because the mind is not used to it and, therefore, will not go to that level which it has not reached, though it will go to the cosmic level itself in time. Then, finally, the highest good is that which is in consonance with the existence of God Himself, and anything else is not good. But you cannot reach that level immediately. As I told you, slowly and gradually you must go from the lower to the higher purpose, otherwise you cannot make judgments. Every judgment logically is the standard that is set as the next higher level. In any opinion that you express, whenever you pass an opinion on anything, hold an idea or a concept or a judgment about anything, you have connection with a higher purpose which becomes your standard. Otherwise you cannot know what is right and what is wrong, what is perfect and what is not perfect, what is true and what is false. So there is a real link. But the link will develop into higher and higher dimensions. You cannot see the higher dimensions, but only the immediately higher.

Continue to read:

Aim of Life” by Swami Krishnananda


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