With Victor Anukwu, Oct 29 2010 — We are trying to develop ourselves and our nations but we must try to develop spiritually for spiritual development is sound and complete.” Human life is attained after many, many millions of years of evolution. We should remember that there are 8,400,000 species of life according to the Padma Purana.
Life began with the aquatics, for we can understand from vedic literature that at the beginning of creation the entire planet was merged in water. This material world is composed of five gross elements — earth, water, fire, air and either.
Besides these, there are three subtle elements — mind, intelligence and ego. Behind these curtains is the spirit soul, which is covered by these eight elements. This information is given in the Bhagavad – gita. Human beings are not the only living entities to have a spirit soul. We are all souls — beast, birds, reptiles, insects, trees, plants, aquatics and so on.
The spirit soul is simply covered by different dress, just as some of you are dressed in white clothes, some in green and some in red, etc. but we are not concerned with the dress; we are concerned with the spirit soul. Thus it is said in Bhagavad-gita 5:18 – “The humble sage by virtue of true knowledge, sees with equal vision, a saintly person, a cow, an elephant, a dog and dog eater.” The sage does not make any distinction on the basis of colour, intelligence or species. He sees every living entity as a small particle of spirit soul.
There are innumerable particles of spiritual atoms, which are measured as one ten- thousandth of the upper portion of a hair. Because we have no instrument to measure the dimensions of the spirit soul, the small particle of spirit soul is measured in this way. In other words, the soul is so small that it is smaller than atom, That small atom particle is within you, within me, within the elephant, within all men, within the ant and trees, everywhere.
However, scientific knowledge cannot estimate the dimension of the soul, nor can a doctor locate the soul within the body. Consequently, material scientist conclude that there is no soul, but is not a fact. Naturally and spiritually there is a soul. The presence of the soul makes a difference of a living body and a dead body. As soon as the soul departs from the body, the body dies.
It has no value. However great a scientist or a philosopher one may be, he must admit that as soon as the soul departs from the body, the body dies. It then has no value and has to be thrown away. We should try to understand this fact. The soul is valuable, not the body.
The fact that the soul is transmigrating is explained in the Bhagavad-gita 2:22. “As a person puts on new garments, giving up old ones, similarly, the soul accepts new material bodies, giving it up the old and useless ones.” When a suit becomes old, we give it up and accept another suit, similarly the soul is changing dresses according to desire.
Because the soul is part and parcel of God, it has godly qualities. God is the supreme will, the supreme power, the supreme independent one and we, being part and parcel of him, have all these qualities in minute quantity. We have willing, thinking, feeling and desiring. In the Vedas, it is stated that Krishna (God) is the supreme living force among all living forces.
He is also supplying the necessities of all living entities. We living entities are innumerable; there is no limit to our numbers. God however is one. He is also living as we are, but we are minute particles of that living force. For example, a particle of gold is the same in quality as a gold mine.
If we chemically analyze the ingredients in small drop of water, we still find all of the ingredients that are to be found in the vast ocean. In a similar way, we are one with God, being his part and parcel.
This godly particle, the soul or the living force, is transmigrating from aquatics to trees and plants and then from trees and plants to insect life, then to reptile life, then to the bodies of birds and beasts. Darwin’s theory of evolution is but a partial explanation of the transmigration of the soul.
Darwin has simply taken information from Vedic literature, but has no conception of the soul. The difference is that the soul is transmigrating from aquatic life, then to plants and trees, then to insect life, then to bird life, then to animal life, then to human life, and within human life, he moves from uncivilized life to civilized life. The civilized life of human being represents the culmination of evolution.
From this point we can again slide down into the cyclic process of evolution, or we can elevate ourselves to a godly life. The choice is up to us. This is indicated in Bhagavad-Gita. This human form of life actually means developed consciousness, therefore we should not waste our lives like cats, dogs and hogs.
That is the injunction. Although this body is perishable like a dog’s or cat’s body, it is different in that one can attain the highest perfection in this life. We are part and parcel of God, but somehow or other, we have fallen into this material existence, now we have to evolve in such a way that we can go back home, back to Godhead.
That is the highest perfection. There is actually another world, a spiritual world that is far beyond the heavens. As stated in Bhagavad-Gita 8:20. “Yet there is another nature, which is eternal, and is transcendental to this manifested and unmanifested matter. It is supreme and is never annihilated. When all in this world is annihilated, that part remains as it is.”
In this material world, everything is created, it stays for sometime, produces some by-product, dwindles, and finally varnishes. Our bodies are created at a certain moment by sexual intercourse. The semen of the father emulsifies and takes a pea form, and the living entity or soul takes shelter, in that form and because it takes shelter, it develops hands, legs, eyes etc
This development is complete in the seventh month and in the ninth, the human being comes out of the womb. It is because the soul is present that the child develops. If the Soul is not present, there is no development, and the child is born dead. We can take this dead body and preserve it in chemicals, but it will not develop. Development means change of body. All of us have had baby bodies, but those bodies are no longer existing.
The body of a baby develops into the body of a child and that body deve1ops into the body of a boy, and that body develops into a youth’s body, which eventually turns into an old man’s body. Finally, the body completely vanishes. The whole cosmic manifestation, the gigantic form of this material world, is also working according to this same process.
It is created at a certain time, it develops, it is maintained, and at a certain stage, it is dissolved. That is the nature of the material world. It is manifest at a certain interval and again it vanishes. The word bhava means nature, but there is another nature, which never dissolves, which is eternal.
As jivas (Spirit Souls), we are also eternal. This is verified in the Bhagavad — Gita 2:20. “For the soul there is neither birth nor death. Nor having once been, does he ever cease to be. He is unborn, eternal, ever-existing, undying, and ever primeval. He is not slain when the body is slain”.
Just as God has no birth or death, we Spirit Souls can have neither birth nor dead, but because we think, “I am this body”, we consider that we are born and we’ll die. Such thinking is called Maya or illusion, and as soon as we get out of this illusion of identifying the Soul with the body, we attain the stage called brahma-bhuta.
When one realizes aham brahmasmi, “I am not this body, I am Spirit Soul, part and parcel of the Supreme Brahman, such a person attains what is called Brahman realization. As soon as Brahman realization is attained, one becomes happy. Is this not a fact?
If you understand clearly that you have no birth and death, that you are eternal, will you not become happy? Yes certainly. Thus when one is Brahman-realized, spiritually realized, he has no more to do with hankering or lamentation.
The whole world is simply hankering and lamenting. We African people are now hankering to be like Europeans and Americans, but the Europeans have lost their Empire, and now they are lamenting. So in this way, one party is hankering and the other is lamenting. Similarly, this material life is simply a combination of hankering and lamenting.
We are hankering for those things which we do not possess, and we are lamenting for those things which we have cost. That is the business in this material world. If we realize that we are part and parcel of the supreme personality of Godhead (Parabrahman) and that we are Brahman, then we will transcend this hankering and lamentation business.
The so-called universal brotherhood or unity that the United Nations is trying to achieve is possible only when you come to the spiritual platform, or Brahman realization. Brahman realization is the aim of human life.
One should not work like cats, dogs and hogs. The hog is always very busy day and night, trying to find stool, and when he finds it, he eats it and becomes sexually agitated and will go for sex without discrimination. A hog will have sex with its mother or sister or any one else, and that is the life of a hog.
However the Scriptures indicate that the human form of life is not meant for working hard for sense gratification like cats, dog and hogs. Rather it is meant for realizing that, “I do not belong to this material world. I am a spirit soul and am eternal; ‘but somehow or other I have fallen into this conditioned life of birth, old age, disease and death.”
This human form of life is meant for making a solution to these four material miseries — Birth, Old age, Disease and Death. That is the aim of human life. Just try to understand that human life is not meant for working very hard like hogs and then having some sense gratification and then all of a sudden death takes one away.
People who do not believe in the soul are in the most unfortunate condition.
They do not know where they came from nor where they are going. Knowledge of the soul is the most important knowledge, but it is not discussed in any University. But what is the constitution of the body? What is the distinction between a dead body and a living body? Why is the body living?
What is the conclusion of the body, and what is the value? No one is presently studying these questions, but in Krishna (God) consciousness they are trying to educate people so that they can understand that they are not these bodies but spirit soul. The business of human life is different from the business of cats and dog. And that is the message. TO BE CONTINUED.
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