Vedas..

The paradox of human life is that what we seek is closest to us but we wander here and there in search for it. We overlook what is next to us. In an earlier issue we had discussed the beautiful Vedic verse yo vah sivatamo rasa… (Rgveda 10.9.2, Yajurveda 11.51, 36.15, Atharvaveda 1.5.2) – the absolute bliss is as easily available to us as is mother’s milk to a newly born child. We have drifted far away from the Cosmic Mother. We forget that we are Her child.

The Vedas Say:

Apam madhye tasthivamsam trsnavidajjaritaram.

Mrda suksatra mrdaya. Rgveda 7.89.4

Its meaning: I am in the midst of water and I have grown old while remaining thirsty. O God! You are the savior. You are the infinite reservoir of happiness; make me happy.

Purport: The human life has a strange characteristic that it never stops from its wants. It wants to fulfill all sorts of pleasure. But, the paradox is that the absolute pleasure is in our closest reach but we do not care to obtain the same, and keep wandering after a mirage-like illusion that the worldly pleasure will quench our thirst, and in so doing, we get old.

Where Do We Go Wrong?: We seek pleasures in life. We are ever thirsty for pleasures. There is nothing that quenches our thirst in a permanent sense. The result is that we keep wandering from one source of pleasure to another, endlessly to the extent that we get old enough when our strength to enjoy sensual pleasures diminishes. The wealth that we had gathered laboriously stares at us and we are even unable to enjoy it for the fact that our body has lost its vigor and strength. It never occurs to us that there is something called absolute pleasure and that is with God and He is in our closest proximity. We have to merely seek Him with genuine love and then and there He is with us. The paradox is that we are almost like a fish in water that is thirsty, too. We have nobody to blame except our own ignorance. We must come out of it. The moral is that we must everyday seek out God within us and purify ourselves out of our deeds that our inner self is chaste pure and clean. So, we would be able to ’see’ Him and quench our thirst for pleasure in a permanent sense. Once that tastiest sap has been tasted, we will never be thirsty again.

- Dr Harish Chandra