The more I am living in this country, the more I am realizing that majority of the people have a spiritual yearning that they seem to fulfill in different places. People are attracted to their own or some popular versions of spirituality and fulfill their spiritual yearning. In other words, people can see that science is not able to answer all problems of life and hence they repose their residual (whatever science cannot answer) values on philosophy, religion or other esoteric concepts to complete their concept of life. Some, however, can careless and blindly adhere to science and technology and just live on the golden motto “we will solve the problems in the near future”. So the two broad categories of people either seek out spiritual values or repose them in popular concepts of religion, peace and love and the remaining just blindly follow modern science. Both groups have one thing in common…. both repose their faith (blindly) in different areas just to fulfill one ideal – that is – to enjoy the body, mind and intellect (sense gratification as we call it). This is the sole purpose of their lives. With this fundamental understanding, they select their avenues that best suit their nature to fulfill their base needs. From this root cause (sense gratification) sprout myriad departments of science, religion, spirituality and philosophy.
We can put all these in one big box and equate it with the Krishna Consciousness philosophy which fundamentally starts from a different place – that is – renunciation of sense gratification. We have to be careful because there are subtle differences in this one because even Buddhists and Mayavadis practice renunciation of sense gratification but they renounce to enjoy at the end. We as Vaishnavas, adherents of Krishna, renounce to please Krishna. We do not renounce to enjoy at the end, but renounce to please Krishna and in that pleasing we gain pleasure. So our fundamental derivation of pleasure is by seeing Krishna happy and people who fit in the other big box ultimately derive pleasure immediately or belatedly by making them selves happy.
So…yes, everyone is seeking pleasure (anandamayo 'byasat) but our pleasure is higher simply because we seek pleasure in Krishna’s pleasure who is unending (ananta), eternal (nitya) and supremely blissful (Ananda). Is there any pleasure that is unending, eternal and supremely blissful? Every other pleasure in comparison is puny and meaningless.
Even in sense gratification…the Hare Krishnas rule!
Hare Krishna
We can put all these in one big box and equate it with the Krishna Consciousness philosophy which fundamentally starts from a different place – that is – renunciation of sense gratification. We have to be careful because there are subtle differences in this one because even Buddhists and Mayavadis practice renunciation of sense gratification but they renounce to enjoy at the end. We as Vaishnavas, adherents of Krishna, renounce to please Krishna. We do not renounce to enjoy at the end, but renounce to please Krishna and in that pleasing we gain pleasure. So our fundamental derivation of pleasure is by seeing Krishna happy and people who fit in the other big box ultimately derive pleasure immediately or belatedly by making them selves happy.
So…yes, everyone is seeking pleasure (anandamayo 'byasat) but our pleasure is higher simply because we seek pleasure in Krishna’s pleasure who is unending (ananta), eternal (nitya) and supremely blissful (Ananda). Is there any pleasure that is unending, eternal and supremely blissful? Every other pleasure in comparison is puny and meaningless.
Even in sense gratification…the Hare Krishnas rule!
Hare Krishna
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