Jnana-Yoga : - 2.2.

CHAPTER -2. THE REAL NATURE OF MAN : 2.
(Delivered in London)

We may talk about seeing nothing beyond and keeping all our hopes and aspirations confined to the present moment, and struggle hard not to think of anything beyond the world of senses; and, perhaps, everything outside helps to keep us limited within its narrow bounds.

The whole world may combine to prevent us from broadening out beyond the present.

Yet, so long as there is death, the question must come again and again, "Is death the end of all these things to which we are clinging, as if they were the most real of all realities, the most substantial of all substances?"

The world vanishes in a moment and is gone.

Standing on the brink of a precipice beyond which is the infinite yawning chasm, every mind, however hardened, is bound to recoil and ask, "Is this real?"

The hopes of a lifetime, built up little by little with all the energies of a great mind, vanish in a second. Are they real? This question must be answered. Time never lessens its power; on the other hand, it adds strength to it.


Then there is the desire to be happy.

We run after everything to make ourselves happy; we pursue our mad career in the external world of senses.

If you ask the young man with whom life is successful, he will declare that it is real; and he really thinks so.

Perhaps, when the same man grows old and finds fortune ever eluding him, he will then declare that it is fate. He finds at last that his desires cannot be fulfilled. Wherever he goes, there is an adamantine wall beyond which he cannot pass.

Every sense-activity results in a reaction. Everything is evanescent. Enjoyment, misery, luxury, wealth, power, and poverty, even life itself, are all evanescent.

Swami Vivekananda
To be continued  ...