1.3 Voice over the choice

In the last few days, I became emotional upon two happenings.

• Michael Jackson’s dilapidated physical, mental and financial states at the time of his death.
• Mercy petition to the President of India from the farmers of a Jharkhand village to legally commit mass suicide as there are no rains in their region for the past 3 years.

While I prayed for MJ’s soul to ascend to the next level of evolution, I was painfully frozen for a day thinking of the farmers’ present state. Both the situations have agonizingly reminded me of the challenging choices that loom large at every step of life. Remember, choices are only for the living and not for the dead.

Many a time, the turbulent mind doesn’t allow us to think rationally to make the right choice suiting the situation. That’s because emotions occupy the chair seat of the mind as the already coloured thoughts are retrieved at an incredibly faster rate from the memory reservoir. In other words, our attachments rule the choices instead of the (unadulterated) discriminative power of the intellect.

We might have come across proud, supercilious and selfish genre guffawing over others’ choices but takes pride of his decisions. At the helm of victory, he doesn’t realize that choices are given based on one’s karmic debts applicable only for a stipulated period and the joy of standing at the peak with pride may end at any moment as the decision taken out of the next level of choices may wipe out his enigmatic ascension. Mind you, for such a person of pride and prejudice, the fall would be highly damaging and disfiguring. Once identifying such a puffed man, it is better to avoid or ignore his advices even if it is given voluntarily, for he is imbalanced and immature in understanding his own situations completely, leave alone others.

Moreover, what holds good for one need not be for the other and what applies for one at one point of time need not apply at another time.

It is also quite natural of the human mind to think ‘why me?’ whenever painful choices are provided by the Providence when the whole world might appear to be enjoying its luxurious afternoon siesta.

So, when the choices are provided (whether hopeful or painful), either we should have the discriminative power to choose the right one among the options given or seek the guidance of a Master who has gained control over mind and shines through brilliantly amidst the clouds of emotions, for any change in gear in our coloured thoughts.

Now I can understand more clearly why a poignant Uddhava, sitting at the summit of emotions, applied a mercy petition to Shri Krishna to take him along with him to His world. Yet he has rightly chosen his beloved friend as his mentor using his discriminative intellect to the level of identifying his Master as a man of equipoise even during great calamities.

Shri Krishna answers to the intelligent Uddhava, “When a Jiva obtains a human birth, and becomes proficient in the path of knowledge and devotion, he comes to clearly understand Me, the Spirit endowed with all powers. Unable to find Me, the Pure Spirit, by sense perception, earnest spiritual aspirants seek Me in this body through presumption and inference. The presumption is that the Buddhi and other instruments functioning in the creation of knowledge are in themselves lifeless. The display of consciousness in them can be explained only by accepting a consciousness behind them. The inference is that as the Buddhi and the senses are in the nature of instruments, they must be functioning for the purposes of an intelligent agent.”

What a wonderful explanation! I read these lines again and again to absorb the declaration of Truth.

Further Shri Krishna continues, “In illustration of this, great men cite an ancient anecdote in the form of a conversation between Dattatreya, the Avadhuta (the naked wanderer) of blazing spiritual power and King Yadu, the knower of Dharma.

Kind Yadu requested Avadhuta with great humility: O holy one! Though possessed of great wisdom, you are found merely to roam about in the world like a young boy. Kindly tell me what it is that fills your heart always with joy, though you are without any object of sense enjoyment and are companionless and alone.”

Among a whole lot of choices that are present before me at present, I am very eager to hear Shri Krishna's voice on Avadhuta’s choices of learning.



P.S. The extracts are taken from the translation works of Srimad Bhagavata of Swami Tapasyananda, Ramakrisha Math.