Announcements
Welcome to the Bhaja Govindam Adult Study Group blog.
Next balavihar on Sunday, Dec 18th at Cross Roads South Middle School.
Group members, feel free to contribute your thoughts on the blog.
One has to develop a sense of detachment from all objects of materialistic values. This is an absolute necessity in order to turn the mind towards seeking the Truly Highest, through constant contemplation.
An entire lifetime should not be spent in sheer bodyworship.
Quoting from our text --
It is necessary to sweat and toil, to fight and procure, to feed and breed, to clothe and shelter the body, but to spend a whole lifetime in these alone, is criminal waste of human abilities. Eventually, the body has to grow old, totter, become infirm and die away.
An animal body has value after it is dead. But, that is not the case with a human body and even the near and dear ones dread it, once the life has ebbed away.
One should keep the body clean and beautiful, feed it, clothe it, wash it but with the understanding that it is only an instrument, through which one can seek the Highest.
Man is essentially selfish and does things with expectations of something in return! Even intimate relations and dear and near ones are dependent or deferential towards the earning-saving member of the family – (meaning) one who is capable for earning or who is rich and wealthy, earns the reverence, respect, power and is adored by others.
Although, this may be true from a materialistic point of view, it can be considered as an obstruction to one’s Spiritual progress, if one does not realize that riches are temporary or transitory and may desert/leave one at any time!
Human life loses its faculties and capacities as age catches up and all physical and intellectual capabilities wane or decline. There is a nice quote in the text, “If money can purchase happiness, the absence of money can procure only sorrow!”
When one loses his capabilities or they wane with age, even the family members desist from speaking with that person. One should therefore live under no illusion that popularity, affection, consideration and reverence from others, is something permanent! One has to earn inner peace, tranquility and turn towards devotion to the Higher, “now” and “here”, when one is young and one’s faculties and mental efficiencies are at the peak!
One can seek success, fame and fortune. However, the main occupation of life should be the art of self-purification, the craftsmanship of seeking Perfection.
The text says, “The real achievement is to be gained in one’s own inner contemplations, so that even before the world comes to reject you, you can reject the world of activities and retire into a richer world of serener contemplation and more intense self-engagements.”
