In recent times, the cry for equality has grown louder and louder. We have been taught to look at everyone as equal but are we all equal? If you go and tell anyone who has seen me, that Usain Bolt and I are equal, which in effect means that I can run at least as fast as him, they will burst into laughter. Yet, on a moral level we all feel that all of us are equal. What is the inner assumption in saying that everyone is equal? Equal in what terms? Are men and women equal? Are all humans equal? Leave alone the human species, are humans and animals equal? However it feels right when we say that all of us are equal.
On the surface, no one is equal, at least, from all the evidence we have and see. Each of us have different abilities. We are very heterogeneous beings. The variety that we have in this world is immense. The main root cause of discrimination is when we identify ourselves with our body and not our true self. When we call ourselves men, women, Indian, American, we are essentially identifying ourselves with our body. All the terms that we describe ourselves are bodily in nature.
Equality can never be achieved in the material platform because each of us gets a body according to our karma. But all of us are equal is true only in the spiritual platform. Our original identity is that of spirit souls and not the body that we take. We are not men or women or cats or dogs. They are just the bodies that we take. I am a man in this life, I might have been a woman in my previous life, and I don't know what birth I will take in my next life. The outer covering is temporary.
In Bhagavad Gita, The Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krishna says that
na jāyate mriyate vā kadācin
nāyaṁ bhūtvā bhavitā vā na bhūyaḥ
ajo nityaḥ śāśvato ’yaṁ purāṇo
na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre
For the soul there is neither birth nor death at any time. He has not come into being, does not come into being, and will not come into being. He is unborn, eternal, ever-existing and primeval. He is not slain when the body is slain. - Bhagavad Gita 2.20.
After our death, the soul takes on another body according our actions of the past and continues to swirl in the cycle of birth, disease, old age and death. The beginning of education is when we know that we are the spirit soul and not the body. That is true knowledge.
vidyā-vinaya-sampanne
brāhmaṇe gavi hastini
śuni caiva śva-pāke ca
paṇḍitāḥ sama-darśinaḥ
The humble sages, by virtue of true knowledge, see with equal vision a learned and gentle brāhmaṇa, a cow, an elephant, a dog and a dog-eater. - Bhagavad Gita 5.18
It is due to our original position of being spirit souls, all living entities fear death. Death is unnatural. We don't want to die because we are eternal by nature. We find ways to slow down the process of aging to delay the eventual. Krishna in Bhagavad Gita teaches us that we don't have to die. We can go back home back to Godhead and live there eternally without the miseries of this world.
Only this knowledge will help us get out of the cycle of repeated birth and death. There is no point in crying for equality unless we awaken our inner consciousness and understand how we are all equal. We can try all we want to attain happiness in this world, but all of us know that it is very temporary in nature. We yearn for happiness because that is our original nature. We are by nature eternal, full of knowledge and bliss. In order for us to go back to our original state, the process for this age, Kali yuga, is very simple.
harer nāma harer nāma
harer nāmaiva kevalam
kalau nāsty eva nāsty eva
nāsty eva gatir anyathā
In this Age of Kali there is no other means, no other means, no other means for self-realization than chanting the holy name, chanting the holy name, chanting the holy name of Lord Hari. - Chaitanya Charitamrita Adi 17.21
On the surface, no one is equal, at least, from all the evidence we have and see. Each of us have different abilities. We are very heterogeneous beings. The variety that we have in this world is immense. The main root cause of discrimination is when we identify ourselves with our body and not our true self. When we call ourselves men, women, Indian, American, we are essentially identifying ourselves with our body. All the terms that we describe ourselves are bodily in nature.
Equality can never be achieved in the material platform because each of us gets a body according to our karma. But all of us are equal is true only in the spiritual platform. Our original identity is that of spirit souls and not the body that we take. We are not men or women or cats or dogs. They are just the bodies that we take. I am a man in this life, I might have been a woman in my previous life, and I don't know what birth I will take in my next life. The outer covering is temporary.
In Bhagavad Gita, The Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krishna says that
na jāyate mriyate vā kadācin
nāyaṁ bhūtvā bhavitā vā na bhūyaḥ
ajo nityaḥ śāśvato ’yaṁ purāṇo
na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre
For the soul there is neither birth nor death at any time. He has not come into being, does not come into being, and will not come into being. He is unborn, eternal, ever-existing and primeval. He is not slain when the body is slain. - Bhagavad Gita 2.20.
After our death, the soul takes on another body according our actions of the past and continues to swirl in the cycle of birth, disease, old age and death. The beginning of education is when we know that we are the spirit soul and not the body. That is true knowledge.
vidyā-vinaya-sampanne
brāhmaṇe gavi hastini
śuni caiva śva-pāke ca
paṇḍitāḥ sama-darśinaḥ
The humble sages, by virtue of true knowledge, see with equal vision a learned and gentle brāhmaṇa, a cow, an elephant, a dog and a dog-eater. - Bhagavad Gita 5.18
It is due to our original position of being spirit souls, all living entities fear death. Death is unnatural. We don't want to die because we are eternal by nature. We find ways to slow down the process of aging to delay the eventual. Krishna in Bhagavad Gita teaches us that we don't have to die. We can go back home back to Godhead and live there eternally without the miseries of this world.
Only this knowledge will help us get out of the cycle of repeated birth and death. There is no point in crying for equality unless we awaken our inner consciousness and understand how we are all equal. We can try all we want to attain happiness in this world, but all of us know that it is very temporary in nature. We yearn for happiness because that is our original nature. We are by nature eternal, full of knowledge and bliss. In order for us to go back to our original state, the process for this age, Kali yuga, is very simple.
harer nāma harer nāma
harer nāmaiva kevalam
kalau nāsty eva nāsty eva
nāsty eva gatir anyathā
In this Age of Kali there is no other means, no other means, no other means for self-realization than chanting the holy name, chanting the holy name, chanting the holy name of Lord Hari. - Chaitanya Charitamrita Adi 17.21
knowledge will help us get out of the cycle of repeated birth and death ...keep writing man !!
ReplyDeleteThank you sree. Knowledge is necessary but not the sufficient. But we need to start with it. Sadhana (practice) along with knowledge will only yield results.
DeleteNice one Macha
ReplyDeleteNice one Macha
ReplyDeleteThanks da
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