The Aim of Human Existence – Part 1/3 : 3. Swami Krishnananda

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Thursday, April 27,  2023. 06:00.

Philosophy :

(Spoken at a Conference in Delhi on Sept. 20, 1980)

Post-3.

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We were told by some of our speakers of the dread that is before us from the future world, the possibility of the utter annihilation of even the particles of sand. But who injects this fear into our bodies? The dread itself cannot be the answer to this question. The source of fear cannot be equated with the complexion of the sources of fear. We fear death because we are immortal. That is the final answer. It is the great proof of the immortality of what we essentially are. The fear of death demonstrates the immortality of the soul of things. Otherwise, we will not fear death. If death is our nature we cannot be afraid of death, because nature cannot be afraid of its own self. Death is not our nature; therefore, something else which has wrongly got identified with this peculiar phenomenon of destruction is shuddering at the bottom of itself under the impression that it is perhaps going to be annihilated by the processes of nature's movements.

A question arises again of a peculiar nature within us: that which is not subject to destruction cannot fear death, and that which is death itself also cannot fear death. Who is afraid of death, then? Not the immortal soul, because we have already said it is immortal, and nothing that is in nature, because it is nothing but destruction. Here is a peculiar inexplicable, indescribable something which can be called only ‘something' and not by any other designation. There is a mix-up of things that has taken place.

It is not true that the fear of death has arisen from the bottom of our immortal being, because it is a misnomer to say the immortal is afraid of death. It is also not true that this fear has arisen from our bodies, because the bodies are subject to destruction. They have to be annihilated into powder, into the final constituents of what nature is made of. So wherefrom has this fear arisen? Can you answer this question?

Now, questions lead to further questions and we are not anywhere near the final answer, evidently. The incapacity of the resources of man to find an answer to the problems of life is the fear in us, fear in everybody; and what can be a greater fear than this? We have a great question before us, and we are unable to receive an answer. Not I, not you, not anyone in the world can give an answer to this question that the whole of the world has raised before itself, a large question of the nature of existence: Why should anything be what it is? Why should there be a tree, why should there be a mountain, why should there be a man, why should there be a river? Why should there be anything as it is? We cannot answer these questions unless we are in a position to transfer ourselves into the position of a circumstance or a situation which is not involved in this procession of phenomena – due to the workings of which, these questions have arisen.

The question cannot answer itself. The answer has to come from a source which is other than the source of the question or the nature of the question. If we are involved in the circumstances which have raised the question, we cannot answer the question. As I have been telling you oftentimes, a justice in the court cannot pass a judgment if he is one of the clients himself. We are the clients, and yet we want an answer from a judicial source – which is an utter impossibility under the existing circumstances. Mankind does not see any aim before itself.

Which of you can say that you have an aim before you? We seem to be drifting from day to day like a leaf that is moving in the direction the wind blows, without knowing where. Only the wind knows where it is going; the leaf cannot know. And we are the leaves and not the wind that directs us. The wind is the purpose of nature, which is hidden from our view somehow or other secretly by the tactics which nature is employing purposely – to deceive us, perhaps. Why she wants to deceive us, we do not know. She has a plan for us. Anyhow, we are not prepared to be deceived always. She can deceive everybody for some time and some people always, but not everybody always.

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To be continued

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