Saturday 31 January 2015

51. Listen to Heart – Make Real life Really Real….

Hari Bol...

51. Listen to Heart – Make Real life Really Real….


We have discussed regarding Real and Unreal. Real is which does not go under any change. I had heard regarding endurance. Endurance is the ability to resist and withstand the changes. It is related to sufferance, resilience and hardiness. Endurance may also refer to an ability to keep going through a tough situation involving hardship, stress, etc. The term stamina is sometimes used synonymously and interchangeably with endurance. Endurance is state or fact of persevering. Endurance is for continuing existence. Endurance is the power or capacity to tolerate the unfavorable. We have learnt in the article, ‘Listen to Heart – Reel the Un-Real and Un-Reel the Real ….’ that everything changes including our name, fame, designation, body, situation, environment, temperature, climate, season and so on. So we conclude that all are unreal which we think as real in our life. So endurance is not effective here and thus endurance also in this case in unreal.
 
God prescribes one thing – we simply need to run towards him. We need to agree to the one thing that God requires of us.  Yes, God asks us to do something that He refuses to do for us. We need to’ Run to Win’ by performing our karma with positive attitude and stay in positive vibration. According to the writer of Hebrews, spiritual endurance requires three things from you:
·        You must go on a spiritual diet to lose the excess weight caused by unbelief.
·        You must start running after life instead of waiting for it to come to you.
·        Your ultimate destination has-to-be the Lord.
We’re running a different, longer kind of race. Our goal isn’t a t-shirt or a ribbon; we want to return to Godhead. Our race of life is difficult at times, and we can often become discouraged. However, just as I needed physical endurance to complete a physical race of some kilometers, we need spiritual endurance to help us surmount the trials we will come across in our lives to complete a spiritual race. We need to have;
·        Dedication: Dedication is vital in obtaining spiritual endurance. Making occasional, half-hearted attempts will not help our spirits be strong. It is only by committing ourselves and our families to following God that we will be able to obtain the spiritual endurance we strive for. We can show God how dedicated we are, by how we spend our time. Do we make spiritual time a necessity? Or is it easier to put those good intentions aside, telling ourselves that we’ll start tomorrow? Being dedicated towards staying close to God will not only help us, but it will also help our families as the spirit of God enters our home, and our children learn by our example.
·        Self-Discipline: Spiritual self-discipline is also vital in our lives. Often, it is the little, seemingly harmless things that chip away at our families. Exerting our will over our desires can be difficult. But by constantly exercising our mental muscles, we will soon become spiritually powerful. When we have strong spiritual self-discipline our homes will be calmer, and we will have an easier time feeling God’s love. Spiritual self-discipline can have many outward appearances. For some, it can mean the strength to stay away from pornography. Others may receive help dealing with tempers, an alcohol addiction or in having a better attitude. Exerting discipline to obey God’s laws can strengthen all aspects of our lives and those of our families
·        Perseverance: Spiritual perseverance behaves the same way. In order to compete against forces pulling us different ways, we need to maintain the spiritual health of ourselves and our families. Obviously there will be times when we fall short. But when we constantly strive to maintain our spiritual connection we will persevere. Often family members can lose their spiritual endurance. When this happens we can help them persevere by continuing to love them. Things can look bleak sometimes, and we may be tempted to quit. But God has told us many times that he will always be there to welcome us back whenever we are ready to return.

Let us try to understand the difference between body and soul & between matter and spirit. We have discussed about matter and spirit in the article ‘Listen to Heart – Matter and Spirit matters in Life ….’ It is the beginning of spiritual life and the only basis for true self-realization. Our body is constantly changing: infancy, childhood, youth, middle age, old age, and finally death. But the Soul remains the same. Soul never goes through any change. We, the unchangeable soul, witness this “virtual reality” from within. That’s why, even though our body changes throughout life, we always keep our sense of identity. Matter is temporary, and spirit is eternal. Therefore we eternal souls are more important than our bodies. To understand this point, is real knowledge. We are by nature eternally happy and full of knowledge. The human body affords us the opportunity to perform spiritual activities that will free us from getting further material bodies, which are by nature full of suffering.

Krishna recommends in the Bhagavad Gita that we satisfy the bodily needs only as much as necessary to maintain the body in a healthy condition and spend the rest of our time and energy in spiritual activities which help us to reawaken our original spiritual consciousness. It is this spiritual consciousness which is a real need, the needs of the soul. Of course the needs of the body are there and we cannot ignore that. It is not that we do not eat, or sleep, or have sex or defend, but these things are done in a regulated way to maintain the body in a healthy condition. But as the motor car is simply a vehicle which is meant to transport the driver to his destination, we see this material body as a vehicle which can be used to transport the driver ‘the soul’ to his ultimate destination: back home, back to Godhead. With this understand we can see that satisfaction of the body is not our goal, we simply need to maintain the body nicely so we can use it in the real mission of our life, advancing spiritually. If we spend all our time trying to satisfy the senses of our body we will waste all our time and energy in this way and become completely distracted from the real purpose of life which is to get out of this material world and get back home to the spiritual world where we will get an eternally youthful spiritual body full of knowledge and full of pleasure. Then we will really be happy.

Krishna teaches Arjuna, “Those who are seers of the truth have concluded that of the nonexistent [the material body] there is no endurance and of the eternal [the soul] there is no change. This they have concluded by studying the nature of both.”

Srila Prabhupada explains that there is no endurance of the changing body. That the body is changing every moment by the actions and reactions of the different cells is admitted by modern medical science; and thus growth and old age are taking place in the body. But the spirit soul exists permanently, remaining the same despite all changes of the body and the mind. That is the difference between matter and spirit. By nature, the body is ever changing, and the soul is eternal. This conclusion is established by all classes of seers of the truth, both im-personalist and personalist. In the Vishnu Purana (2.12.38) it is stated that Vishnu and His abodes all have self-illuminated spiritual existence (Jyotimshi Vishnur Bhuvanani Vishnuh). The words existent and nonexistent refer only to spirit and matter. That is the version of all seers of truth.


All Glories to Lord Krishna & All His Loving Devotees….. Hari Bol……
Courtesy: Bhagavad-Gita As It Is (by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada ) , Srimad Bhagavad-Gita ( by A. Parthasarathy  & www.gitadaily.com ) Chapter 2 : Text 16, www.google.com, Wikipedia. www.krishna.com, www.krishna.org, en.wikipedia.org, www.glossary.com, http://beliefchangers.com/blog/tag/spiritual-endurance, http://familyshare.com/training-for-spiritual-endurance, www.vocabulary.com, http://www.krishna.com/are-we-body-or-soul

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