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the ascent of the spirit

by Swami Krishnananda
The Divine Life Society - Sivananda Ashram, Rishikesh, India

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CHAPTER 15: THE AIMS OF HUMAN EXISTENCE - Ii (Continued)
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But, the analysis that we have been able to conduct earlier of the true state of affairs which are, perhaps, the leading principles determining life as a whole, and of the nature of existence in its totality, would have made it obvious that it would be very far from being true for anyone to imagine that the ultimate purposes of life can be really divergent and that the laws of existence can be different for different sets of people. Rather, it should be the conclusion accepted by thoughtful intelligences everywhere that the universe is tending and evolving towards the realisation of a single purpose or aim and that, therefore, its contents, the many persons and things forming its parts, have perforce to abide by this ubiquitous law of the universe which governs everyone equally and determines the characters and behaviours, and even the thoughts, feelings and actions of everyone, and everything ought to have a relevance of the nature of an organic connectedness with a cosmic purpose, which can be, in the end, only one and absolute.

Then, why is it that people are often seen not to recognise this secret principle of all life and take to different directions of thought, feeling, behaviour and action in their lives? The reason is that people in general are able to direct their consciousness only within a circumscribed circle of the limited area of sense-perception forming just a bit or atomic part within the vast cosmic whole, to the farthest ends of which human sense-perception cannot reach. Thus people make a mistake in thinking that their limited circles of perception constitute the whole of the reality for them and what is real and meaningful to others has nothing to do with them. This is because the smaller circles, though they are all contained within the large Circle of the Universe with its ‘circumference nowhere and centre everywhere’, are unfortunately segregated from one another by the intense self-assertive selfish centres known as personal egos and the limitation of consciousness to the complex structure of the body-mind individuality which, with its limited sense operations, sees reality only within its own isolated circle of perception, thought and feeling, towards the fulfilment of which it works indefatigably throughout its life. Naturally, the selfishness of these personalised centres of life can come in conflict with other such centres because of each one’s inability to see beyond the limit of one’s own circle, and then there can be tension among people, strife or wars among them. This is life. This, indeed, is the misfortune of mankind’s present-day wisdom which it so much parades with an intolerable pride and ostentation.

It is, therefore, urgently called for that the limited centres of personalities and groups should try to see through and beyond their own circles and be able to recognise a larger interconnectedness of all circles everywhere, so that each one in this infinite number of circles would then be seen to form a phase of a single Universal Whole, or a focus of the projection of aspects of the Light of the single completeness which is the Absolute Reality. There would not then be many realities or many aims in life for different kinds of people, since it would be seen that the little purposes apparently visible are the divergent spectra of a single Universal Light passing through the prisms of the various individualities which these so-called persons and things in life appear to be. When this recognition comes, and this knowledge dawns, it becomes possible to organise persons or societies into a larger comprehensive atmosphere of a wider reality. The implementation of this knowledge in the practical affairs of life is the wisdom of life which would at once cause a living change and reorientation in the life of humanity, pointing to the fact that the rise of the vitalising, illumining and warming sun with the daylight of an insight into the real meaning of life is, after all, a possibility.

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