02

TheV edantaK esari

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JANUARY201 7
8
Editorial

Resolve to Evolve
A new year can be a new beginning in two dimensions—in our personal journey through
life and in our relationship with the world. What New Year’s approach or resolution can ring
in real strength, happiness, and fulfilment in our personal lives and in the world around us?
To Awaken
‘What is the grandest of all the truths in life?’ Swami Vivekananda asked a group of
college students sitting around him in Belur Math.
When they could not reply, he answered, ‘We shall all die!’
Can our first resolution for the year be to meditate on this commonplace yet grand
truth—Death?
Is that a morbid thought? And why should Swamiji ask young men to think of death!?
They have a long life ahead of them. Why not instead, think of the deathless Atman—our
own immortal spiritual nature?
True enough. But bound as we are to body-consciousness, contemplating death is an
easier way for many to awaken into the life of the Spirit. Furthermore, some of us may not
be around to plan a New Year resolution next year!
Continuing his advice to the students, Swamiji says, ‘We shall all die! Bear this in mind
always, and then the spirit within will wake up. Then only meanness will vanish from you,
practicality in work will come, you will get new vigour in mind and body, ….’
Constant reflection on death will bring nobility, practicality, and strength!! But yet our
hearts quake at the thought of death. Swamiji agrees and still insists, ‘At first, the heart will
break down, and despondency and gloomy thoughts will occupy your mind. But persist, …
then you will see new strength has come into the heart, that the constant thought of death
is giving you a new life, and is making you more and more thoughtful and… the spirit within
is waking up with the strength of a lion… Think of death always and you will realize the truth
of every word I say.’ 1
A new attraction in China is called ‘Xinglai’ which means ‘awaken.’ It is a death simulator
machine which takes people through the experience of cremation and rebirth. Participants
play a game where they have to make the right choice in a life-or-death hypothetical
situation. The loser is the first to go through the death experience. He lies down on a
conveyor belt, and goes through a dark tunnel that simulates cremation. He is then ‘reborn’
out the other side through a latex womb. Participants feel that it gives them a chance to
calm down, think deeply and come out with a new perspective on life.
Sri Ramana Maharishi went through such a simulated death experience as a 16 year old lad.
Sitting in his room at Madurai, he was suddenly overcome by the thought ‘I am going to die.’
The shock of the fear of death drove his mind inward and he mimicked the experience by
lying down stiff and holding his breath. Almost without any conscious effort on his part, he
soon became absorbed forever in his ‘I’ consciousness. He came out a perfect Jnani.
Of course, contemplation on death is not usually such an easy, one-time process.
 Our weak mind has to be repeatedly cajoled to deliberate on the realities of death.
Unlike Raja Parikshit, who knew he would die in seven days, we do not know when and how
death will approach us. And when it comes, all our possessions and our beloved ones cannot
help us. Deep reflection on such simple facts of death can prepare us to live wisely and
value every moment of life. It will evoke in us a sense of urgency to achieve our purpose in
life. It will empower us to see life afresh not simply on New Year’s Day, but on every day. Our
priorities will become clear and we will find it easier to transform our thinking and let go the
piteous clinging to life.
Most of us go through life mechanically by force of habit. As a result we tend to fix
labels on ourselves and others and cling to them for years. When the labels are negative
like, ‘I’m bound,’, ‘I’m weak,’ ‘I know everything,’ ‘He is cunning,’ ‘She is arrogant,’ and
‘They are uncultured,’ it thwarts our personal growth and adversely affects our relationships
with others. We then also obsess about how badly so and so behaved with us and take every
opportunity to tell others about it. But if we contemplate death, we can give up the vanities
of the world and see the world as it is, unmasked by our assumptions, prejudices and
fanciful imaginations.
To Serve
And what indeed is the world as it is? How should we approach it? Swamiji advices,
‘Never approach anything except as God; for if we do, we see evil, because we throw a veil
of delusion over what we look at, and then we see evil.’ 2
But how does one discard old habits of thinking and feeling and develop a new outlook
on life? Sister Nivedita describes how she replaced her Occidental perception of man as a
body having a soul, with the Oriental understanding of man as a soul having a body with the
mind as the pivot of life. She writes, ‘I began to speak to people, first postulating to myself
experimentally, that I was addressing the mind within, not the ear without. The immense
increase of response that this evoked, led me from step to step till twelve months later, I
suddenly found that I had fallen into the habit of thinking of mind as dominant, and could no
longer imagine its beings extinguished by the death of the body! Every new practice
deepened this conviction, and I became gradually possessed of a conception of the world
about us as mind-born.’3
Indeed, from seeing the world as mind-born to seeing it as God is but a natural step. As Sri
Ramakrishna tells us, ‘the superior devotee sees that God alone has become everything; He
alone has become the twenty four cosmic principles. He finds that everything, above and
below, is filled with God.’4
Can our second resolution for this year be to overcome ‘the separativeness of a self-centred
life,’ and ‘serve all beings with gifts, honour and love, recognising that such service is really
being rendered to’ Him ‘who resides in all beings as their innermost soul’? 5
The onus is on enlightened citizens to strive continuously to create in their own personal
lives and in the society, an atmosphere of noble aspirations and spiritual inclinations that
will fulfil our national destiny—to awaken the Spirit, the Lord in the lives of men and women
in every society. Let us resolve to evolve together.