Escape Reality
Why are we trying to escape reality? What is reality? What is it that we are trying to achieve by escaping? These and many more questions came to my mind when I saw this sign as I walked down the busy streets of downtown Chicago.
The true reality of our human existence is that we are spiritual beings having a human experience. Birth, death, old age and disease affect all material entities. We go through life looking for happiness in all the wrong places, chasing the dreams that take us further downhill away from our real identity as eternal spiritual souls. We get confused as to what actually is the reality. The situations here are not actually reality, they are an illusion called Maya, the Lord’s external energy which tries to sway us away from the Lord. Don’t get me wrong. It’s perfectly normal and a part of life to have goals and dreams to achieve and maintain a certain status in life and to maintain this body, but there has to be a shift in our consciousness along with that.
Our escape then is from the problems that come with birth, death, old age, and disease. Birth may seem to be a joyous occasion but for the soul that is coming into this world it’s a painful one, full of remorse and regret. Painful to say the least being pushed down through this tiny passage way of the mother’s womb. The soul in the last moments just before birth realizes the precarious situation and can see the super soul, Sri Krishna, who eternally exists alongside and prays intensely to be released from the painful situation called birth. The soul promises to the super soul that it will always remain a surrendered soul life after life and will never forget Him. We are then welcomed with a smack on the butt cheek or face to gasp for our first breath. Welcome!!! To the conditioned world. Our new family members start the process of our conditioning.
Old age, disease and ultimately death are then painful experiences that follow as a result of lifetimes of conditioning. The karmic cycle goes on and on. In between all of this is when we desperately are trying to escape reality. Our minds are disturbed with umpteen desires. Our hearts are full of lust, anger, greed, attachments to food, things and people, envy and madness that takes us down the road to hell. If we have a good fortune to meet a saintly person who can make us realize the destructive path that we are going on then we can be saved. Ultimately every living entity wants love, peace and happiness, isn’t it?
To put a stop to these escaping tendencies we should face the reality of the situation we are in. We should tackle each situation with surrender in our heart to the almighty Lord. Understand that there is a higher reality. Understand that we are tiny minuscule living souls who are part of the whole, like a tiny spark that is part of the bigger fire. That spark has the same qualities as the big fire but smaller in quantity. We escape by falling into addictive behavior which numbs the pain temporarily. We should question ourselves and our mind and contemplate on life. Do not allow these situations of life to distract you from the real purpose of life which is to realize God and serve Him with love. We should understand that this body is a gift, a vehicle to take us to a higher understanding of God and therefore we take good care of it. We respect what has been given to us, the water, air, this earth and its children in the form of seeds, plants, trees, rivers, oceans mountains etc. without which our sustenance would be impossible. That is humility. We respect other living entities knowing that each one has the super soul residing in their heart next to the soul. Problems will come, disease will come but it can be minimized by surrender to Krishna. These problems are seeds that we sowed in our previous births. Reap as you shall sow, Jesus had also said a similar thing. So we must then practice tolerance knowing that there is a way out of this karmic cycle. So let’s try to carve out a better life here and for the future lives. The layers of the brain carry the past samskaras, impressions from previous births. These impressions cause us to repeat the wrong behaviors due to which we are suffering now. How do we change these impressions?
A simple process of surrendered meditation and chanting of mantras can change lifetimes of patterns of behaviors and bring us to a place of joy, love, peace and happiness. These mantras, and specifically the Hare Krishna Mahamantra has the power invested in it by Krishna Himself to destroy these impressions.
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare!! has been given for this particular time era of Kaliyuga, where people’s minds are disturbed, there is hatred, hypocrisy and quarrel. Escaping the reality will not be necessary then as the reality is a happy place. A place, this body and our external world, where we have been given a chance to practice this, to realize we are spiritual beings having a human experience. Facing that reality is the goal of life.
Chant Hare Krishna and be happy!!