Caught up in samsara

What is the nature of people caught up in samsara? What characterizes them? They are those who do not know themselves, do not know god and know nothing about serving god.

There are those who have the means to be generous, but lack the generosity. There are others who have the willingness to give, but lack the means.

God, however, is one who can give and is also willing to give. But here too, there is a problem. If there is a giver, there must be a receiver.

God is willing to give, but we, caught up in samsaric bonds, are not ready to receive, said Kidambi Narayanan in a lecture.

So it is to make us see that He is a benevolent giver and to make us good recipients of His grace, that God took many avatars and lived in the midst of human beings.

But not all people recognize God even when He is in their midst.

The Vishnu Puranam gives an example to illustrate the ignorance and the self-satisfied nature of ‘samsaris,’ who are under the illusion that their lives will go on without any catastrophe. But no one can afford to be complacent.

When the rainy season ends, the lakes are full of water. Fish therein enjoy the abundance of water and become as fat as elephant calves. They are so stout that they can hardly move. They think this bounty will last forever, but before they know it the water dries up and they die.

Similarly, man thinks that his cosy life will last forever, and he has no thoughts of God. In fact, he has no time to spare for God.

He does not acknowledge that his relatives will be gone one day.

He forgets his own mortality. But loss is a part of life, and one day the man so engrossed in life will also die.

Should we not then think of the Atma, instead of being obsessed with life on this earth? But we are caught in the ocean of ‘samsara,’ and do not know how to get out. In fact, we don’t even try to get out.

That is why Periavachan Pillai said a person who is involved in samsaric life is one who leaves his body in the shade and his soul in the sun.

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Knowing the Paramatma

How does one know the Paramatma? The Paramatma is the cause of everything and resides in everything as antaryamin. It is witness to everything.

He created the five elements, each of which has its own characteristics, the five ‘karmendriyas’ and five ‘gnanendriyas’. But these do not function separately.

There is an element that unites them all, and that bonding element is god, said B. Sundar Kumar. God created the world and during the pralaya He takes the world into Himself.

An analogy would help illustrate the point. When a mud pot breaks, it is cast away, and mud being biodegradable mingles with the soil, from whence it came.

Similarly, the world that came from God goes back to Him. But God Himself has no origin. He is primordial.

Sometimes we say we had dreams in sleep. We are awake, asleep, or in deep slumber, or in sleep punctuated by dreams. But even when we sleep, we do not lose our memory. What if we lose the memory of even the most elementary things we have learnt, through habit, say, brushing our teeth for instance, or eating? Life would become chaotic. But we are saved from such a fate, because we are have a memory that stores all the learned behaviour.

What is this memory? Even when one is asleep, there is one who is awake. And that is the Atma, which is witness to all states: wakefulness, sleep or dreams.

Our limbs and body parts do the jobs assigned to them, because of God who resides in every one of us antaryamin.

But the mind keeps us from knowing the Atma, which is in a state of composure. It is never in one place, but flits from one thought to another.

When we speak of a heavy heart, what we mean is the mind burdened with varied and unnecessary thoughts. The mind is heavy and has to become light.

Then the Atma will shine through. Once the mind gets a sample of the Atma, it will want more.

Narada, because he served the devout people, got a glimpse of God.

He was given only a glimpse. This was to motivate him to redouble his efforts.

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