The Atma Jyoti Blog

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

The poet Browning wrote of “the end of life for which the first was made.” That is a lovely expression, but very few really believe it and therefore rarely think of their life’s end. Those of us who seek liberation must from the very beginning be looking toward the end we desire. In the next to the last verse at the close of the Isha Upanishad we are given the perspective we should be living with every moment of our life if we would truly “come to a good end.”

Now

“Let my life now merge in the all-pervading life. Ashes are my body’s end. OM….O mind, remember Brahman. O mind, remember thy past deeds. Remember Brahman. Remember thy past deeds.”
–Isha Upanishad 17

Emily Dickenson wrote: “While others hope to go to heaven at last, I am going all along!” This is the only way for those who would succeed in spiritual life. Nothing should be delayed for the future–it is all now or not at all. “Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (II Corinthians 6:2)

There are many partially awakened people who know that God is the only real goal. Yet they delay their endeavor. “After I get this,” they say, “then I will really dig in and seek God.” But they never do, for as soon as one little short-term goal is reached another arises that seems even more demanding.

I know a woman that claimed she would intensely seek God the day after her only child graduated from high school. But then it became after his graduating from college. Then after he was married and “really settled down.” Death found her anticipating still another “after which,” but it was all over. And by her foolishness she had created in her mind the habit of postponing spiritual life, a habit that will surely carry over into the next life and perhaps into others.

How often do we think that the vision of God will somehow interfere with our life–when in reality we have no life outside that vision. Silly children, we dawdle and dally until the night falls, that “night in which no man can work” (John 9:4) which Jesus warned us about. “Now or never” happens to be the simple truth.

Merging in Life

Many people want to “embrace life” so they can egocentrically possess it and exploit it to the full. But they have no idea what life is. Just the opposite, for what they think is life is really death. “The all-pervading life” is the only life, for that is God. And the necessity is not to find or see God as an object (again, to possess), but to merge with God in complete unity-identity. That is, our consciousness must be completely merged in the infinite Consciousness, and irrevocably so.

Just as a cup of water poured into the ocean cannot be drawn back out of the ocean, so we need to attain that state of unity which can never be reversed. Many yogis paddle their feet or go for a quick dip in the ocean of Satchidananda, but the goal is to unite with that ocean, to merge in it and become totally one with it. Consequently at ever moment of our life we must be holding in mind and living out the sankalpa: “Let my life now merge in the all-pervading life.”

Those who are unfit for union with God become all anxious and even fearful when they hear about merging with the Divine. “O! will I go out of existence?” they quaver. “What will happen to me?” Over and over again they plunge headlong into the sea of rebirth, never raising such questions about relative existence, but “going for it” heedlessly. Only when confronted with God do they develop prudence and caution. Jesus has assured us, though: “Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it.” (Luke 17:33) This is because we are truly negative–that is, we are absolutely backwards one hundred and eighty degrees. Consequently what we think will annihilate us will immortalize us, whereas what we think will make us live will destroy us.

Like the great master, Yogananda, we must pray: “Let me drown in Thine ocean and live!”

Read more commentaries on the Upanishads.

Keep up to date with the latest posts. Subscribe to the Atma Jyoti Blog.