The Destiny of Man - Part-3 By Swami Sivananda
Dear All,
The destiny of man as seen by these mystics is to be a similar process of going back to his source and origin. And that source and origin is a supreme state of independence, supreme state of consciousness,
transcending all vexing limitations, infinite, boundless, eternal, beyond time and space. That is the source and origin of each one of you sitting and listening to me. Within this confined, limited body house you are an immortal spark of the cosmic spirit.
You are the radiant ray of this light of lights beyond all darkness. You are ever a wave of this ocean of infinite eternal existence, never apart from it, inseparable from it, always one with it, but not aware of it. You are ever a wave, a dancing blissful wave upon the bosom of this vast, infinite ocean of eternal existence. And from that state, loosing the awareness of your essential nature, you have come down to a lesser level
of consciousness, what made you loose the awareness of your essential nature? It is an unfortunate identification with some aspects of your present human nature which constitutes not your essential Self, but a
temporary added factor being part of your temporary human personality. Before your father and mother married what were your features? What was your face? What was your name? Were you a Malay or a Chinese or an Indian or a Christian or a Jew or a Buddhist or a Hindu or an atheist? Were you male or female, short or tall, dark or fair? What were you? You were nothing. All these qualifications which now bind you to a little unit of human consciousness, where you identify yourself with the date of birth, height, age, the weight on the bathroom scale, what a great fault! You a shining center of consciousness beyond time and space, ever free, without limitations, now you are held prisoner by a little confined unit of consciousness, characterized by identification with a body, a name, a form, all these vexing qualifications and limitations. Can there be a greater bondage?
You are at the mercy of the appetites of the senses, you are at the mercy of the limitations of this physical body, hunger, and thirst, heat and cold, and you have to provide for all these factors. And because
you have become habituated to this bondage you don’t even feel it. If a person is born a slave, he is not aware of his state. It is only father and mother who were once free and then sold into slavery, they only
know, they feel the bondage, the chains, and they long to get back into that state of freedom. The child who is born into that state is quite content because he knows of no other experience. But rousing us from
this state of complacency our great sages and saints called to us from the tremendous heights of their divine experience and they said:
"What is it you are doing, you mortals wailing and weeping? Why are you prolonging this bondage? Do you not realize that this is not your natural state? You have come here and allowed yourself to be bound into
this little, abnormal, unnatural state. This is a disease. Come, come, wake up from this state, break the fetters of this limited human consciousness and claim your birthright. Come back again into that shining state of divine consciousness beyond time and space, beyond all limitations, where sorrow cannot approach you, where pain cannot touch you—into that state of absolute bliss, indescribable peace, total satisfaction, fearlessness, deathlessness!
And all the great systems of religious thoughts have at their origin this divine freedom, this divine insight, this wisdom. All the great prophets, be it Mohammed, be it Jesus the Christ, Moses, Buddha, Zoroaster, be it anyone, they came with this knowledge of man’s destiny. They called man back to his original state, to perfection and freedom. "Be ye also perfect even as your father in heaven is perfect." In this way Jesus called man back to his supreme destiny. Every prophet said the same thing. You are not what you are now. This is a fallen state. Yours is the state of immaculate purity, and this birth of yours as a human being with feeling, thinking, and reasoning is a chance given to you to ponder your own life and once again regain this lost state of divinity. Paradise lost is the state of man—paradise regained is the fate of man.
All the great religions came into being to show man the other half of the cycle. You are now in one half of the circle. You have been born into this state of identification with the gross physical body which is
perishable, which is subject to so many imperfections, change, disease, old age, infirmities and one day it has to pass. Now you are involved with that which is not your real identity, your real Self—it is non-self. It is something which is part of created phenomena, whereas you are an uncreated principle, eternal, beginning less, timeless, for you are one with the cosmic principle. Temporarily you have forgotten your eternal oneness with that. It is a state where you have wandered away and have become alienated from your source and origin, and that has started all your problems. All your weeping and wailing, all your present human pains and sorrows and sufferings are to be directly attributed to your having separated yourself in consciousness from that great reality which is the very quintessence of peace and joy. So from this state where only half the cycle has taken place you have to start the journey back home and complete the cycle and rest once again in that pristine state of divine perfection and freedom. This is the destiny of man as cognized by seers of transcendental divine insight.
They saw man not as a weeping, wailing, fighting, quarreling, laughing little earth creature. They saw within this earth creature potential for God-consciousness, potential for cosmic consciousness, potential for
divine experience. And until and unless that is attained man has not fulfilled his destiny. This is the vision of man and his destiny of the illumined sages and saints.
But then as all man-made institutions they are perfect when they come into being and gradually the limitations and defects of human nature corrupt them. And when the spirit is lost overemphasis is given to form and man clings to the outer shell. So the spirit of the quest and the attainment of once again recapturing that glorious divine state, that spirit is lost. Man becomes satisfied in fulfilling only the outer form of religion, in performing ceremonies and rituals and does not know that he deprives himself of the
greatest experience. The real essence of religion, the heart of religion is God-realization. Within the context of the great religion of the Vedas and the Upanishads the one insistence is upon realization and direct experience, not merely secondhand experience and outer form, but direct realization. The outer forms may help if intelligently pursued. They may bring about a gradual upward rise of the consciousness, day by
day, if you are genuine about them. Otherwise they can become serious obstacles holding you bound forever to a lesser plane of consciousness.
In one word, as experienced and envisioned and declared by your great ancestors, great philosophers of divine experience and wisdom, in one word it is evolution. Evolution means a steady upward movement into perfection, gradually transcending all limitations, all defects and ultimately finishing your ascent in a state of absolute perfection. It is called evolution and it is inbuilt into cosmic nature also, even into this physical nature. Take anything, any living thing in this universe. Ponder it, observe it, what do you see? Somewhere in a bush, in the branches of a tree a little bird has built a nest, an empty nest. After some time you see a tiny inert pebble-like object, maybe with delicate designs and colors. You are looking at this little inert
object which you call egg, but you are not seeing it—seeing it, yet you are not seeing it. For within that delicate shell a tremendous cosmic dynamism is taking place. Some wonderful, marvelous thing is happening. The life principle is moving in the contents of the egg, ever progressively, ever ascending. And that life principle, that tremendous movement that is going on and is not seen by you, ultimately brings into
being a perfect prototype of the bird which brought into being the egg. Held within that delicate shell is therefore the beautiful melody of birdsong, there is dormant, latent the color of the plumage, the wonderful sweetness of the bird’s flight into the blue skies, the grace of its movement through the air, the descending, all these, sweetness, grace, color, melody, beauty, everything is there—the fullest potential for it is there. And this law of evolution, this tremendous activity is going on unceasingly, day and night, even when you are sleeping. Ultimately what happens? Though it contained nothing of this when the egg was laid, the egg hatches and out comes a living thing. Not very beautiful, immediately no one will make a marriage proposal to it—no feathers, no proper wings, all beak and all tummy—but then the same process is going on. The tremendous process of making an incomplete into a complete thing, an imperfect thing into a thing of perfection, a partial thing into a whole thing. Taking all powers around it, the nourishment of the mother-bird, the warmth of the sunlight, the wind and then the day comes when it spreads its wings and out of the nest flies into the sky another bird.
Take a little bud on the branch of a flower plant. It looks very insignificant and you don’t know what is hidden in it. But if only you had some other eyes, you would be able to see the tremendous dynamism and the principle of evolution at work—forming the softness of the petals, the delicate colors, the power of attraction, the fragrance, day and night it is going on. The bud grows and slowly the inner beauty begins to make itself felt. If only someone would take a video of the entire life of a bud until it becomes a fully unfolded flower, what a marvel it would be! It would be the answer to your question "What is the destiny of this thing?" The destiny is to reach a stage where it shines as a complete perfect unit of its own species, filled with beauty, filled with fragrance, filled with the power of attraction—attracting man, woman, child, bee and bird, everything around it, wafting its fragrance, shining with color, softness of velvety and silky petals—a thing of beauty, of joy. And a little while ago it was just a bud.
Take an unripe fruit on a fruit tree appearing like a hard button. You bite in it and you make a face. But give it some time. Here also the same life principle is going on. It makes use of all things, sunshine, rain, water and nourishment from the earth and gradually it grows, develops, changes color and inside that dry button juice comes to be, and then taste, sweetness, fragrance, the power to satisfy, to give joy.
Then it is a ripe, mellow, juicy, tasty delicious fruit upon that selfsame tree upon which was a green, sour, tasteless bud. So you see everywhere in nature is this movement towards becoming a perfect unit of
the same species. An apple will be a perfect apple, a mango a perfect mango, a vegetable will be a perfect vegetable, a bird’s egg will become a perfect bird, a caterpillar becomes a chrysalis and afterwards it
bursts out into a butterfly with amazing colors and design. When a butterfly spreads its four wings, no human artist can ever fashion these colours and that delicate texture. They were not there in the caterpillar climbing the stem of a plant where it makes itself into a chrysalis, and goes into a cocoon and there I think it meditates itself into a butterfly, and when it bursts there is this beautiful butterfly—children dance with joy when they look at it. It flits from flower to flower, beauty meeting beauty!
So we see that in the whole of nature there is this process of evolution, which is the law of life moving towards a state of fullness and perfection of its own species. But then there is something wonderful
about you—there is something wonderful about the destiny of man. And here we come to the heart of the theme
!!! Will continue !!!
Chant the Mahamantra Nama kirtan :
Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
--------------------------------------------------------
If you have any questions or doubts concerning Spirituality, Mental peace or problems in life or about dharma, please write to us by clicking here:
http://www.namadwaar.org/answers/askquestion.php
His Holiness Sri Sri Swamiji personally answers these questions for you and suggests prayers.
------------------------------------------------------------
The destiny of man as seen by these mystics is to be a similar process of going back to his source and origin. And that source and origin is a supreme state of independence, supreme state of consciousness,
transcending all vexing limitations, infinite, boundless, eternal, beyond time and space. That is the source and origin of each one of you sitting and listening to me. Within this confined, limited body house you are an immortal spark of the cosmic spirit.
You are the radiant ray of this light of lights beyond all darkness. You are ever a wave of this ocean of infinite eternal existence, never apart from it, inseparable from it, always one with it, but not aware of it. You are ever a wave, a dancing blissful wave upon the bosom of this vast, infinite ocean of eternal existence. And from that state, loosing the awareness of your essential nature, you have come down to a lesser level
of consciousness, what made you loose the awareness of your essential nature? It is an unfortunate identification with some aspects of your present human nature which constitutes not your essential Self, but a
temporary added factor being part of your temporary human personality. Before your father and mother married what were your features? What was your face? What was your name? Were you a Malay or a Chinese or an Indian or a Christian or a Jew or a Buddhist or a Hindu or an atheist? Were you male or female, short or tall, dark or fair? What were you? You were nothing. All these qualifications which now bind you to a little unit of human consciousness, where you identify yourself with the date of birth, height, age, the weight on the bathroom scale, what a great fault! You a shining center of consciousness beyond time and space, ever free, without limitations, now you are held prisoner by a little confined unit of consciousness, characterized by identification with a body, a name, a form, all these vexing qualifications and limitations. Can there be a greater bondage?
You are at the mercy of the appetites of the senses, you are at the mercy of the limitations of this physical body, hunger, and thirst, heat and cold, and you have to provide for all these factors. And because
you have become habituated to this bondage you don’t even feel it. If a person is born a slave, he is not aware of his state. It is only father and mother who were once free and then sold into slavery, they only
know, they feel the bondage, the chains, and they long to get back into that state of freedom. The child who is born into that state is quite content because he knows of no other experience. But rousing us from
this state of complacency our great sages and saints called to us from the tremendous heights of their divine experience and they said:
"What is it you are doing, you mortals wailing and weeping? Why are you prolonging this bondage? Do you not realize that this is not your natural state? You have come here and allowed yourself to be bound into
this little, abnormal, unnatural state. This is a disease. Come, come, wake up from this state, break the fetters of this limited human consciousness and claim your birthright. Come back again into that shining state of divine consciousness beyond time and space, beyond all limitations, where sorrow cannot approach you, where pain cannot touch you—into that state of absolute bliss, indescribable peace, total satisfaction, fearlessness, deathlessness!
And all the great systems of religious thoughts have at their origin this divine freedom, this divine insight, this wisdom. All the great prophets, be it Mohammed, be it Jesus the Christ, Moses, Buddha, Zoroaster, be it anyone, they came with this knowledge of man’s destiny. They called man back to his original state, to perfection and freedom. "Be ye also perfect even as your father in heaven is perfect." In this way Jesus called man back to his supreme destiny. Every prophet said the same thing. You are not what you are now. This is a fallen state. Yours is the state of immaculate purity, and this birth of yours as a human being with feeling, thinking, and reasoning is a chance given to you to ponder your own life and once again regain this lost state of divinity. Paradise lost is the state of man—paradise regained is the fate of man.
All the great religions came into being to show man the other half of the cycle. You are now in one half of the circle. You have been born into this state of identification with the gross physical body which is
perishable, which is subject to so many imperfections, change, disease, old age, infirmities and one day it has to pass. Now you are involved with that which is not your real identity, your real Self—it is non-self. It is something which is part of created phenomena, whereas you are an uncreated principle, eternal, beginning less, timeless, for you are one with the cosmic principle. Temporarily you have forgotten your eternal oneness with that. It is a state where you have wandered away and have become alienated from your source and origin, and that has started all your problems. All your weeping and wailing, all your present human pains and sorrows and sufferings are to be directly attributed to your having separated yourself in consciousness from that great reality which is the very quintessence of peace and joy. So from this state where only half the cycle has taken place you have to start the journey back home and complete the cycle and rest once again in that pristine state of divine perfection and freedom. This is the destiny of man as cognized by seers of transcendental divine insight.
They saw man not as a weeping, wailing, fighting, quarreling, laughing little earth creature. They saw within this earth creature potential for God-consciousness, potential for cosmic consciousness, potential for
divine experience. And until and unless that is attained man has not fulfilled his destiny. This is the vision of man and his destiny of the illumined sages and saints.
But then as all man-made institutions they are perfect when they come into being and gradually the limitations and defects of human nature corrupt them. And when the spirit is lost overemphasis is given to form and man clings to the outer shell. So the spirit of the quest and the attainment of once again recapturing that glorious divine state, that spirit is lost. Man becomes satisfied in fulfilling only the outer form of religion, in performing ceremonies and rituals and does not know that he deprives himself of the
greatest experience. The real essence of religion, the heart of religion is God-realization. Within the context of the great religion of the Vedas and the Upanishads the one insistence is upon realization and direct experience, not merely secondhand experience and outer form, but direct realization. The outer forms may help if intelligently pursued. They may bring about a gradual upward rise of the consciousness, day by
day, if you are genuine about them. Otherwise they can become serious obstacles holding you bound forever to a lesser plane of consciousness.
In one word, as experienced and envisioned and declared by your great ancestors, great philosophers of divine experience and wisdom, in one word it is evolution. Evolution means a steady upward movement into perfection, gradually transcending all limitations, all defects and ultimately finishing your ascent in a state of absolute perfection. It is called evolution and it is inbuilt into cosmic nature also, even into this physical nature. Take anything, any living thing in this universe. Ponder it, observe it, what do you see? Somewhere in a bush, in the branches of a tree a little bird has built a nest, an empty nest. After some time you see a tiny inert pebble-like object, maybe with delicate designs and colors. You are looking at this little inert
object which you call egg, but you are not seeing it—seeing it, yet you are not seeing it. For within that delicate shell a tremendous cosmic dynamism is taking place. Some wonderful, marvelous thing is happening. The life principle is moving in the contents of the egg, ever progressively, ever ascending. And that life principle, that tremendous movement that is going on and is not seen by you, ultimately brings into
being a perfect prototype of the bird which brought into being the egg. Held within that delicate shell is therefore the beautiful melody of birdsong, there is dormant, latent the color of the plumage, the wonderful sweetness of the bird’s flight into the blue skies, the grace of its movement through the air, the descending, all these, sweetness, grace, color, melody, beauty, everything is there—the fullest potential for it is there. And this law of evolution, this tremendous activity is going on unceasingly, day and night, even when you are sleeping. Ultimately what happens? Though it contained nothing of this when the egg was laid, the egg hatches and out comes a living thing. Not very beautiful, immediately no one will make a marriage proposal to it—no feathers, no proper wings, all beak and all tummy—but then the same process is going on. The tremendous process of making an incomplete into a complete thing, an imperfect thing into a thing of perfection, a partial thing into a whole thing. Taking all powers around it, the nourishment of the mother-bird, the warmth of the sunlight, the wind and then the day comes when it spreads its wings and out of the nest flies into the sky another bird.
Take a little bud on the branch of a flower plant. It looks very insignificant and you don’t know what is hidden in it. But if only you had some other eyes, you would be able to see the tremendous dynamism and the principle of evolution at work—forming the softness of the petals, the delicate colors, the power of attraction, the fragrance, day and night it is going on. The bud grows and slowly the inner beauty begins to make itself felt. If only someone would take a video of the entire life of a bud until it becomes a fully unfolded flower, what a marvel it would be! It would be the answer to your question "What is the destiny of this thing?" The destiny is to reach a stage where it shines as a complete perfect unit of its own species, filled with beauty, filled with fragrance, filled with the power of attraction—attracting man, woman, child, bee and bird, everything around it, wafting its fragrance, shining with color, softness of velvety and silky petals—a thing of beauty, of joy. And a little while ago it was just a bud.
Take an unripe fruit on a fruit tree appearing like a hard button. You bite in it and you make a face. But give it some time. Here also the same life principle is going on. It makes use of all things, sunshine, rain, water and nourishment from the earth and gradually it grows, develops, changes color and inside that dry button juice comes to be, and then taste, sweetness, fragrance, the power to satisfy, to give joy.
Then it is a ripe, mellow, juicy, tasty delicious fruit upon that selfsame tree upon which was a green, sour, tasteless bud. So you see everywhere in nature is this movement towards becoming a perfect unit of
the same species. An apple will be a perfect apple, a mango a perfect mango, a vegetable will be a perfect vegetable, a bird’s egg will become a perfect bird, a caterpillar becomes a chrysalis and afterwards it
bursts out into a butterfly with amazing colors and design. When a butterfly spreads its four wings, no human artist can ever fashion these colours and that delicate texture. They were not there in the caterpillar climbing the stem of a plant where it makes itself into a chrysalis, and goes into a cocoon and there I think it meditates itself into a butterfly, and when it bursts there is this beautiful butterfly—children dance with joy when they look at it. It flits from flower to flower, beauty meeting beauty!
So we see that in the whole of nature there is this process of evolution, which is the law of life moving towards a state of fullness and perfection of its own species. But then there is something wonderful
about you—there is something wonderful about the destiny of man. And here we come to the heart of the theme
!!! Will continue !!!
Chant the Mahamantra Nama kirtan :
Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
--------------------------------------------------------
If you have any questions or doubts concerning Spirituality, Mental peace or problems in life or about dharma, please write to us by clicking here:
http://www.namadwaar.org/answers/askquestion.php
His Holiness Sri Sri Swamiji personally answers these questions for you and suggests prayers.
------------------------------------------------------------
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