The human being is born in God, breathes in God, and one day dissolves in God. Humanity is like the waves that arise, live and go back to the Ocean that is God.
The human being is made of the stuff called God, and yet he or she is completely unaware of this truth. God surrounds us, within and without. All that exists is the Divine. God is not a person but a Presence. He is Intelligence. He is Reason. He is Law. He is Truth. He is Consciousness. He is Bliss. He is Sat-Chit-Anand (SAT means truth, CHIT means consciousness, ANAND means bliss). Life is God.
One needs not go anywhere to find God; one is already in the Divine Presence. God is one’s own Inner Consciousness, one’s own witnessing and unchanging and stable Self.
The animals are happy and the trees are blissful but we are living in misery. Why? The animals and trees are in tune with the Totality that is God. But we have lost the connection. Only once in a while does there happen a person who reconnects himself or herself with God – a Jesus, a Buddha, a Kabir, a Ramakrishna. The human being is a seed- the seed of God. When the human being blooms, Godliness becomes manifest. And then the human being is no more miserable but is blissful.
[Read: Balanced Lifestyle – Introduction]
The human being is a microcosm. Every person possesses the body, mind, intellect, chit and ego with an unchanging, stable and witnessing central core called the soul or Atman. The various dimensions of a person are –
Body And Mind. With the help of the body-mind complex, a person senses the surroundings and gets the knowledge about the world. With the help of this complex, a person acts. It is the physical dimension.
Intellect. With the help of intellect, a person thinks and decides. It is the intellectual dimension.
Chit. With the help of Chit, a person feels. It is a seat of emotions. It is the emotional dimension.
Ego. It is the ego that makes a person think and feel that “I am” or “I exist”.
Atman or soul. It is a witness. It is spiritual. When a person dies, he or she leaves the body but takes away his or her Antakarna: composed of mind, intellect, chit and ego to enter another body.
Thus we see that the human being is a multidimensional entity. For complete and harmonious development and growth, for the integrated flowering of personality, the human being needs a Balanced Lifestyle. Only a Balanced Life-Design can fulfill all the natural urges. Five-dimensional Self Culture is essential –
- Physical Culture
- Intellectual Culture
- Aesthetic Culture
- Ethical Culture
- Spiritual Culture
Moreover, each human being is unique and different. Therefore, he or she needs full freedom and support for complete flowering.
[Read: Ethical Culture – Morality]
Why is the Self Culture necessary? Because the sea of human life is uncharted and one has to draw one’s own map according to one’s own uniqueness. The human being is totally free to choose. All plants and animals are born ready-made, pre-programmed. Their whole life is a simple unfoldment of something build-in. they need not live their lives consciously; their life is unconscious, it is mechanical. But the human beings live in a world of choice, hence they have to decide what kind of life they want to live. A human being can fall below the animals, or can rise above the angels. One can exist accidentally or can exist with decisiveness. This is a privilege, prerogative and also a danger for a human being. Life can be pure suffering for one who makes suffering one’s choice. One can choose the flute. One can make one’s choice for bliss. Therefore, self-culture based on a balanced life-design is a must.
The mind changes its nature according to the environment in which it lives and acts. It may get dyed in any colour. If the mind is kept in bad company, the evil influence of it will colour one’s thoughts. Placed in the midst of good, one becomes good. Wisdom consists in choosing multidimensional development and growth instead of pleasure as the principal aim of life. These are the two lights that beckon to all, leading their foot-steps in different directions. Pleasure allures with a fair but false light. It leads to misery. Development gives joy.
John Stuart Mill says, “The end of man is the highest and most harmonious development of his powers to a complete and consistent Whole that, therefore, is the object towards which every human being must ceaselessly direct his efforts.” These powers may be financial, material, physical, aesthetic, intellectual, ethical, spiritual, educational, professional and social. Only by leading a Balanced Lifestyle, one can expect to achieve one’s end or aim or object.
[Read: Be Religious]
What is Freedom? Freedom is when you really develop and express your own multidimensional power which is lying within you, in your own microcosmic system as a human being. A small person seeks in others what he or she wants. But a superior one seeks in oneself what one wants.
You need not, and must not, conform to and follow any other mind on earth. You are unique and different. The right to choose your own path, your own Life Design, is a sacred privilege.
Evolution from raw mind to an ‘Enlightened Mind’ is a long journey. And life is the art of management. You cannot change the world, but you can manage yourself in order to find a happy place for yourself in the world. This is the only workable formula for happiness in this world.
We are born again and again. Our mind and intellect go on evolving. The cause of reincarnation by now does not need more proof. Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Virginia Ian Stevenson wrote more than 300 papers and 14 books on reincarnation. Stevenson travelled extensively over a period of 40 years, investigating 3000 cases of children around the world who claimed to remember pat lives. What particularly fascinated Prof. Stevenson were cases where children had unusual abilities that could not be explained by heredity. He realized that the only viable explanation was a transfer of personality from a previous life.
A human being who is unsubdued but who possesses faith, with the mind wandering away from his or her aim, failing to attain perfection, what path does he or she treed; fallen, is he or she destroyed? See Shlokas 37-45, Sixth Discourse, the Bhagavadgita, the Blessed Lord, Bhagwan Sri Krishna said to Arjuna, “Neither in this world nor in the life to come is there destruction for him; never doth any who worketh righteousness, tread the path of woe. He, who falls and fails to attain perfection, is reborn in a pure and blessed home. There he recovereth characteristics belonging to his former body, and with these he again laboureth for perfection. By that former practice he is irresistibly swept away. The human being, laboring with devotion, constant application and diligence, purified, fully perfected through manifold births, reacheth the Supreme Goal!”
[Read: God-Realization Or Self-Realization]
Therefore our greatest glory is not in never falling and failing. But it is in rising every time we fall and fail. A human being should not get discouraged because it is often the last key in the bunch that opens the lock. Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement. A hero is an ordinary individual who possesses the spirit to persevere and endure in spirit of overwhelming obstacles, falls and failures.
Assert your right to make a few mistakes. If others cannot accept your imperfection, that is their fault. An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field. While a person hesitates because he or she feels inferior, there is the other who is busy making mistakes and becoming superior and perfect. Failure teaches lessons which one would never learn without it. Wring, extract and squeeze victory from your failures, defeats and mistakes. There is a great and lasting lesson in every reverse!
