The Hindu : Miscellaneous / Religion : Goal of liberation

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Tuesday, May 31, 2005

Miscellaneous

Miscellaneous - Religion

Goal of liberation

CHENNAI: : The spiritual tradition affirms that if an individual remembers God and meditates on Him during his last moments of life he will be liberated from bondage. This may sound very simple in theory but it is not so in practice.

It is human nature to become habituated to whatever one does from childhood and hence it is not possible to start practising anything rigorous in old age if one has the mistaken notion that he can practise devotion to God in the evening of life. Moreover, it is highly unlikely that one's faculties will cooperate when one wants them to when the body is afflicted by disease. It becomes obvious then that a spiritual aspirant who is set on realising the goal of liberation in this birth must start practising meditation on God right from young age so that it becomes deeply ingrained in his consciousness. Such a person will spontaneously remember God without having to make an effort to do so.

In his discourse, Sri Goda Venketeswara Sastri said Lord Krishna had assured that He became easily attainable for one who constantly remembered Him. One may wonder what benefit accrues from liberation. The Gita says, "Great souls, who have attained the highest perfection, having come to Me, are no more subjected to rebirth, which is the abode of sorrow, and transient by nature." Why is birth in the world said to be sorrowful? Human birth results due to the Karma acquired in previous lives and hence one has to undergo both joys and sorrows according to the good and sinful deeds he did earlier. If one pauses to consider, even the so-called joys of the world are fleeting in nature, and hence the person plunges into sorrow the moment he loses the object of his happiness.

Another fact that man has to reckon with is that the world is transitory and hence change seems to be the constant factor in life. This makes worldly life uncertain and gives human beings a sense of insecurity even when all seems well. What then is the way out? One has to realise that which will give him eternal joy; this is the state of liberation scriptures speak of. The Self (Atman, Brahman) is eternal in nature and hence Self-realisation will give lasting joy. When this state is realised there is no more return to the world of sorrow as Self-knowledge neutralises all the Karma.

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