"Awake Now' is an invitation for every human to break free from the shackles of the ego and awaken to our true nature-ever-peaceful awareness, the source of boundless love and joy."
SURESH NATARAJAN shares his insights on holistic spiritual wisdom that does not require scriptural knowledge or blind faith, but is rooted in rational inquiry and direct perception with reverence for the sacred ground of all existence.
All living beings desire to be happy. The pursuit of happiness is so natural to us that it is enshrined as an inalienable right along with life and liberty. And yet, the pursuit of happiness is often misguided, leading us down a path of constant pleasure-seeking and instant gratification. Indulgence in fleeting pleasures only gives temporary highs of seeming happiness but eventually and inevitably leads down a path to the very opposite - physical pain and mental anguish. As vividly seen in the case of substance abuse through various drugs but also true with any pleasure movements such as over-indulgence in entertainment, food etc., there is the same pattern of diminishing returns of pleasure and increasing amount of suffering over time.
If seeking pleasure and sense gratification is clearly not the way for true lasting happiness, then what is? One might then suggest relationships with family and friends, a career with meaningful work, contributing to society etc. as a more enlightened means of a truly fulfilling life. While all of these have great value in the journey of life, it is also an inescapable fact that all of these pursuits carry within them also a seed of suffering due to their very nature of being impermanent.
Every relationship, career, societal work all come with an expiry date and if one's entire emotional investment toward happiness is made in any of these pursuits, it also brings about a sense of great loss and the resultant mental anguish when the inevitable end comes.
Therefore, any pursuit of happiness through people or things outside us is ultimately limiting. Hence there is the need for an entirely different approach of this pursuit by looking within - to find out if there can be happiness in the very being of oneself.
Which in turn brings up the question as to what then is the very essence of our very being or put it simply, who am I? It may seem at first sight to be the body and the mind, but even a cursory inquiry reveals that the body and the mind are both not fixed entities but active processes, constantly in a state of flux.
The body, as science has clearly established, constantly goes through subtle changes with every breath and therefore ever in the process of becoming. The becoming is of course one of slow disintegration by default due to the law of entropy. It becomes weaker, stiffer and overall unhealthy if it's simply left to its own devices. Hence the need for reversing the becoming process of the body to be a healthy one through the right diet, exercise etc.
Hindu (1765)
Philosophers (2327)
Aesthetics (317)
Comparative (66)
Dictionary (12)
Ethics (44)
Language (350)
Logic (80)
Mimamsa (58)
Nyaya (134)
Psychology (497)
Samkhya (60)
Shaivism (66)
Shankaracharya (233)
Send as free online greeting card
Email a Friend
Manage Wishlist