For our age it is said that anything can happen to anyone at any time anywhere. Sudden loss can be disheartening. Whether it’s news about the demise of a near one, an accident or the breakdown of a relationship, it can be hard to handle a harsh reality that takes us by surprise and stares us in the face.
But even though it may seem so, nothing in the universe happens all of a sudden. There is a chain of events leading up to the present. Things are always in motion and situations are in the making around us. Even when a bomb explodes or a building collapses due to rains, the immediate cause only becomes instrumental in triggering something that was waiting to happen.
A long preparation goes on behind the scenes before something is played out ‘suddenly’ in front of our eyes. Even if we look at our day-to-day life, the law of cause and effect is always in operation. Our efforts yield us a rich harvest in the future and the negative past raises its head when we least expect it to.
A slip of tongue that embarrasses us is actually an expression of our thoughts that were ‘hidden’. And our ‘private’ feelings of competition and jealousy could embitter a relationship without any ‘apparent’ reason. Our karma defines our life every moment, and it operates at a level much more subtle than we are usually conscious of.
At the global level too, studies have confirmed that floods, earthquakes and tsunamis that cause destruction in various places are not random bouts of nature’s fury, but the result of centuries of plundering of the natural world by man. Humanity is in grave danger because of another global phenomenon – countries are stacking up weapons of mass destruction. This endless race is going to lead us some place that we are afraid to even imagine. The state of the earth is now mature for any tragedy to happen ‘all of a sudden’.
When uncertainty mars our present and the future holds no great promise, what should be our inspiration to continue? When we can see through the telescope that it is imminent for the Titanic of our dreams to hit the iceberg, what can we do to stabilize things at the individual level?
Spirituality teaches us that the boat of truth may shake but it never sinks. If we hang on to the eternal truths of life, we will be able to keep afloat even when the material world around us crumbles. The key to going on in the present demanding times is to know the difference between the perishable and the imperishable and to hold on to the latter.
A tree is bound to die one day but its seed is the source of life, and that is what we must conserve. Similarly, when we see ourselves and others as imperishable sentient beings of light, souls rather than bodies, we are able to give ourselves ground to anchor. If we recognize the things happening around us as part of an eternal, self-sustaining cycle of life, we are able to rise above fear and sadness. We can then resume our voyage unaffected by the currents of life.
Rajyoga helps us inculcate this sense of detachment through the practice of soul-consciousness. With regular meditation, spiritual truths begin to sink in and transform our world view. We emerge as composed individuals who look for solutions rather than magnifying obstacles. We dissociate ourselves from our visible difficulties and retain the power to make a difference. It is only when we sail in the lifeboat of soul-consciousness that we can rescue those struck by the abrupt change of scenes.
Source: Purity Magazine
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