Sri Krishna declares that `man should lift himself by himself’. Man, if he wants to raise himself from an animal existence to a noble life with all cultural and spiritual possibilities which lie dormant in him, has to convert the lower instincts in him to a higher level of perfection which is his essential nature.
Man is basically a plural personality – he thinks he ought to be a morally strong, ethically perfect, physically loving and socially disciplined ideal personality but in actual practice he is always a victim of his own attachments and aversions, likes and dislikes, love and hatred etc. So long as he does not realize his own duality, there cannot be any religion for him. But if he wants to make the lower in him as bright as the higher, he has to adopt the technique called Religion. The processes by which the lower is brought under control and discipline of the higher are called spiritual practices.
This process of self-rehabilitation cannot be executed with any outside help but has to be done all by himself unto himself, all alone, all the way. Teachers, scriptures and temples etc. are all guides only and the actual achievement depends on the seeker’s ability to come out of his misunderstandings.
The step suggested so far goes only half way and the other half as suggested by The Lord, is to see that the self thereafter does not fall down to its old level of mundane existence. When the lower allows itself to be corrected by the higher, the higher is called his friend. But when the lower does not allow itself to be controlled by the higher, the latter is considered to be his enemy.
‘The Supreme is within us. It is the consciousness underlying the individualized consciousness of every day life but not proportionate to it. The two are different in kind, though the Supreme is realizable by one who is prepared to lose his life in order to save it. For the most part we are unaware of the Self in us because our attention is engaged by objects which we like or dislike. We must get away from them, to become aware of the Divine in us. If we do not realize the pointlessness, the irrelevance and the squalor of our ordinary life, the true Self becomes the enemy of our ordinary life.
The Universal Self and the personal self are not antagonistic to each other. The Universal Self can be the friend or the foe of the personal self. If we subdue our pretty cravings and desires, if we do not exert our selfish will, we become the channel of the Universal Self. If our impulses are under control and if our personal self offers itself to the Universal Self, the latter becomes our guide and teacher. Every one of us has the freedom to rise or fall and our future is in our own hands’. Dr. S. Radhakrishnan.
IDEA OF FRIENDSHIP AND ENMITY CLARIFIED
