Arise, Awake, and Stop Not Till the Goal Is Reached!

[Guest guest]

This

clarion call of Vivekananda is essentially

a mantra for

the

modern man. Vivekananda placed great

emphasis on “awakening”; so what exactly

does this

awakening constitute? The

fact that you

are reading this article

indicates that you

are awake, right? Nay,

that is

being awake at the

physical level. Real awakening is when one wakes up to the

beauties of

one’s own inner self. It is the

realization that

one’s body is a temporary

“shell” and the

real self, the

“inner you,” is Atman

[soul].

To attain

self realization,

one has to

awaken to truth—higher

levels of wakefulness.

There are four such levels. The first is the

apparent

wakeful attentiveness with

which we move about and

busy ourselves everyday. We are very much like others,

alert and aware,

when thus

awake. But Vedanta

reveals four categories

of wakefulness: the

fully awake, the

wakefulness of the

mind only (as while dreaming), the

wakefulness of the

self alone (as in deep sleep), and the

illumination of

the

self (awakening into the Over-self).

These are named as S

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Kaarana, and Mahakaarana

[The Gross, The

Subtle,

The Causal, and the

Super-cause].

The

Upanishads say, “Get up,

arise, awake”; time is

fleeting

fast. Use t

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font-family:Garamond">he Divine in all. When you

die, you must not die

like a tree or

a beast or a

worm, but like

a man who has realized that he is

Maadhava [God]. This realization is

the

consummation of

all the

years you spend in the

human frame. (Divine Discourse, Kaakinada,

1965).

In the

mirage of modern life, when one is forced to

fulfill never-ending obligations

and when responsibilities

and burdens weigh on man with all

force, how can one even think

of realizing the

indwelling spirit? The

answer lies in realizing the

fleeting nature (temporariness) of

worldly objects.

When man realizes that all

he does is perishable and will not lead to real

happiness, the

burdens will cease to hold

weight any

further.

Baba

often quotes a

beautiful

illustration:

There was once a man traveling

by train.

While seated in the train,

in the

foolish assumption that the

responsibility of

carrying the

luggage was on him, he placed the

luggage on his own head. Would it have

mattered

if he had put the

luggage on the train’s

floor? The train

was already bearing the

burden of the man

and his luggage. Modern man can be likened to such

a traveler.

While traveling

through

the

journey of life, he places all worldly burdens on his own head. While in reality God

is carrying both man

and his burdens, he assumes

all burdens on himself and invites

worries and unhappiness.

It is

man’s incessant

desire to run

after

worldly objects that has

caused the

burdens to

increase in the

first

place. When desires are controlled

and work is done in a spirit of

dedication to God,

work then

becomes worship and burdens lighten automatically.

When God blesses man

with a

Volkswagen, he wants a

Lexus. When he gets a

Lexus, he wants a

BMW. These desires are endless and

with the

progressive

fulfillment of

every desire, man unknowingly increases burdens. At first, man

makes objects,

such as cars, work for him, but when

he has acquired them, these

objects start

making a man work (for their

upkeep).

So do

we need to throw

away all our work and sit in

laze? NO! Baba, through

his own life, has shown us the

value of work. He is working every second to teach

us the

importance

of seva [selfless

service]. The work done by Swami, however, is suffused with love

and is performed with a

selfless motive.

He does not seek

any reward for his deeds. He is demonstrating that we too can

work the

same way. All our work can be done in a spirit of

dedication to God.

A beautiful story

comes to

mind: One night a man

had a dream. He dreamt that he

was walking with the

Lord. Across the sky

flashed scenes from his life. For each scene, he noticed two sets of

footprints in the

sand; one belonged to him,

and the other to the

Lord. When the last scene

of his life flashed before him, he looked back at the footprints in the

sand. He noticed that many times

along the path of

his life there

were only one set of

footprints. He

also noticed that it

happened at the

very lowest and

saddest times

in his life. This really bothered

him and he questioned the

Lord about it.

“Lord, you said that once

I decided to

follow you, you’ll walk with me

all the

way. But I

have noticed that

during the most troublesome

times

in my life, there

are only one set of

footprints. I

don’t

understand

why when I needed you the most, you

would leave me.”

The

Lord replied, “My precious, precious child, I love you and I would never

leave you. During your times

of trial

and suffering, when you saw only one set of

footprints, it was then that I

carried you.”

The

story illustrates

God’s infinite

compassion.

Let us

from this

day make a commitment to

ourselves. We will perform all our actions

as if they

were for God; let us

spend our time in

performing sadhana [spiritual

exercises]; let us

arise from our present states;

awake to the

beauties of

our inner selves; and tirelessly

march toward

God until we

achieve the

GOAL (self realization).

Source: http://www.omsaimandir.org/arise_awake.cfm

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