The Highest Consolation

[Guest guest]

Dear Devotees in TBP,

 

Love and Love alone....

 

I would like to reproduce every day a few paras from the booklet

titled " The Highest Consolation: The Way to Peace and Serenity " by

Sri Swami Chidananda of The Divine Life Society, Rishikesh. I hope

you all enjoy and appreciate.

 

Love and Love alone....

 

P. Gopi Krishna

 

" The Highest Consolation: The Way to Peace and Serenity " by Sri

Swami Chidananda of The Divine Life Society, Rishikesh.

 

1.

The Way Beyond Sorrow

 

Beloved Divinites! May we find the solace and the understanding to

accept with humility and grace, with trust and surrender the

dispensation of the Supreme. May God grant us recognition of the

need to accept with faith that which is known to be inevitable.

 

The quintessence of the Upanishadic teachings, namely the Srimad

Bhagavad Gita Jnana Upadesh, commences with the admonition: " na tvam

sochitum arhasi (Thou shouldst not grieve), " and it ends with: " ma

suchah -- sorrow not, grieve not. " These teachings exist in order to

liberate man from sorrow, to show us the way of accepting with

equanimity that which is inevitable and thus conquering sorrow by

going beyond it through a vision of understanding. That is the key

to understanding.

 

" Tasmat apariharye'rthe na tvam sochitum arhasi (Therefore over the

inevitable thou shouldst not grieve). " And Lord Krishna also

says: " Jatasya hi dhruvo mrthyuh dhruvam janma mrtasya cha (For

certain is death for the born, and certain is birth for the dead). "

Even that He said only in reference to the body. For He also

said: " ajo nityah sasvato'yam purano na hanyate hanyamane sarire

(Unborn, eternal, changeless and ancient, the Self is not killed

when the body is killed). The Spirit never dies. There is no death.

There is only eternal life, which is the one Truth. " Thus, while

referring to the inevitability of death, Lord Krishna clarified this

reference and said: " This inevitable death, O Arjuna, is not for

you. It is only for your outer vestment. It is only this outer

vestment that has a beginning and an end. Within you, you shine as

the deathless, the eternal, beyond time, the ever-permanent Reality. "