No religion can continuously serve the society unless it gives its faithful followers specific instructions and guidance on how best to live their day-to-day life. Here is an instruction which is at once applicable in the secular fields of living and in the divine realms of life. Here is a simple instruction by which not only the STANDARD OF LIVING could be raised but also the STANDARD OF LIFE could be divinised.
There are many who suspect that this method of splitting the mind between religion and life is detrimental to true success in either of them. This, in fact, is a thoughtless argument. Hardly ever is man’s mind totally invested where his hands function. Ordinarily, a major portion of the mind, all the time, wanders into the jungles of dreadful fears, or into the caves of jealousies or into the deserts of imaginary possibilities of failures. Instead of thus wasting the total mental energy and dynamism, Krishna advises us that a truly successful man, striving to achieve the highest, both in the outer world of plurality, and in the realms within, should rest his mind at the gracious and peaceful feet of Truth. He can then pour out the entire wealth of his capacities into the work in his hand, and thereby assure for himself the highest laurels both here and in the hereafter.
In Hinduism, religion is not divorced from life. If they are separated, both of them will die away. They are as intimately connected as the head and the trunk; separated from the other neither can live. Even while living through the turmoils of existence, a true seeker must learn to keep his mind continuously upon the awareness of his Real Nature and the Substratum of the world in one vast embrace of blissful homogeneity. This is not difficult, nor is it impracticable.
An actor, playing the part of a king in a drama, can never completely forget that he has a wife and a child in his own house on the outskirts of the city. If he forgets his personal identity and acts as the king even outside the stage, he will immediately be segregated, and moved to a lunatic asylum for the safety of the society! He is efficient as the actor because he constantly remembers his own real identity. Similarly, even with continuous cognition of our Divine Nature, we can act in the world without any hindrance, and thereby add a glow to our achievements, and soften the reactions of any disappointments that we might meet with in life’s pilgrimage.
A truly educated man never forgets his education; it becomes part and parcel of his very nature and in every thought, word and action of his, he brings out the fragrance of his education. So, too, the man of constant Awareness will act in the world as a mastermind — all his actions soaked in selflessness, all his thoughts flavoured with love, and all his feelings matured in kindness. This is the secret with which the Vedic civilisation enchanted the world of its time and compelled the adoration of all later generations.
Krishna is here quite clear when He says that, in the case of an individual who lives a life of battle to win righteous profits, and constantly remembers the Lord while doing so, his “MIND AND INTELLECT GET ABSORBED IN ME.” Following the above (VIII-5, 6) theory of “as you think so you become,” “YOU SHALL COME TO ME,” when once the mental equipment gets absorbed in the Self, through the process of constant contemplation on the Self with single-pointed devotion.
FURTHER:
