The Grandest Of All Truths-Part IV

Add as a preferred source on Google

There is no such species called 'ordinary people.' Every one of us is extraordinary. No exception there. Each soul is not only potentially divine but also equally divine. The degree of manifestation of divinity may vary, but the quality of divinity does not. The same power, said Swamiji, is in everyone. It's up to us to decide with what intensity and towards which goal that power is to be directed. If it is directed towards 'the grandest of all truths' towards the thought of our death a wonderful thing happens. Certain subtle changes take place within and our personality undergoes a radical process of transformation. At the end of it, the old person is dead and a new person takes his place.

How does this new person differ from the old one? Given below are a few major differences. In the following paragraphs 'old person' is abbreviated to OP, and 'new person,' to NP, and for the sake of convenience both are referred to as 'he'. Everything that is said about 'him' is equally applicable to 'her' too.

Attachment

OP is strongly attached to the world to his kith and kin, to his possessions, to his career and social status, to his likes, hobbies, and ideas. The strong intensity of his attachments results from the conviction (not always acknowledged) that the world is all that matters. He has neither the time nor the inclination to think of anything beyond. 'Who knows what's beyond, and who's bothered anyway?' he says with a devil-may-care attitude. Or perhaps: 'Let me make the most of what's right before my eyes. Let me now eat, drink, and make merry. There'll be ample time to think about death when I grow old.' Or putting on the cloak of a pragmatist he says: 'Wisdom lies in making hay while the sun shines.

Here's life and let me enjoy it while it lasts. As to death, there's probably nothing beyond, just zilch.' OP can even be a pseudo-devotee and may consciously or unconsciously give his attachments a religious colour! NP is different. He may have a semblance of attachment to the world, but it is not strong. His meditation on death has revealed to him that nothing lasts. Everything perishes sooner or later. Even his own body will one day either provide food to the worms underground or become a pile of ashes and merge into the soil. No sensible person gets attached to shadows. NP sees a shadowy world, so he remains free and unattached.

Desire

Attachment breeds desire. OP's attachments fill him with unending desires, big and small, gross and subtle, noble and ignoble. A mind full of desires is like a sheet of water full of ripples, eddies, and whirlpools. So OP is always restless and anxious. Where is peace for him? No sooner is one desire fulfilled than another pops up. It's an endless chain and OP is bound hand and foot.

NP, on the other hand, has been freed from his worldly desires, because his mind's constant dwelling" on death has convinced him that pursuit of desires is really the pursuit of death. It's a way of hastening the process of death. For, the needless struggle to satisfy one's desires destroys the body and weakens the mind. So NP says no to all desires except one, the desire to know the mystery of death and to explore the realm that transcends death, or in popular terms, the desire to know God. This is a higher desire a super-desire, if you like which subsumes and overcomes all other desires. This is a special kind of desire because, unlike other desires, this one takes him along the road to freedom, not to bondage.