Sunday, February 24, 2013

the right prescription

Verse 2.24: This individual soul is unbreakable and insoluble, and can be neither burned nor dried. He is everlasting, present everywhere, unchangeable, immovable and eternally the same.

I'd like to find someone who actually welcomes change in their life. The material world, due to being temporary, is full of change, but very few embrace it. Here, we find out why. The soul itself is unchangeable. Cue lightbulb popping over head....it all makes sense now!

If we delve a little deeper as to why most of us resist change, there are many reasons such as fear of the unknown, lack of control, and perhaps most commonly, the fear that something will be taken away.

Just ask any professional athlete. What are the top two things that they fear the most? My guess would be injury and age. Both result in changes in the body which they have no control over and can affect their performance.

Every single one of us fears change to some degree. We cannot forecast the outcome most of the time and hence we are left with a huge question mark. In the world we live in, where control is the name of the game, this goes against everything we are inculcated with. Yet, change is inevitable. So how does one deal with it?

The bhakti texts prompt one to examine how and where this change affects us the most. We view change through the lens of the senses and the body. So really, it's a matter of changing the lens by which we view the world.

Recently, I had to get my eyes examined. Anyone who goes to the eye doctor will tell you how you're plopped into a chair and subjected to a battery of tests. One of those tests is viewing a series of lines with letters that become smaller and smaller as you read down the page. If you do require a new prescription, oftentimes the doctor will ask you to read a line and then switch a lens and ask you whether "Lens A" or "Lens B" was better.

Krsna is acting as our eye doctor here. He is educating us on how we can view, not only the world, but change as well. We can view it from the perspective of the body and the senses or we can view it through the perspective of the soul. The soul is unchanging but our experiences are every changing. So what does that mean? It means that we (the soul) are undergoing an experience. Instead of getting caught up in that experience we can chose to rise above it or wallow in it.

For those who would like to rise above it, Krsna will give us the magic formula. Just like the eye doctor figures out the prescription for your glasses/contacts so that you can see better, similarly Krsna will give us the proper glasses that are outfitted with the lenses of bhakti. Right now, we are simply sitting in the chair being educated about our condition and given options as to which lens we want to view the world. It's our choice, which one's we want to choose.

5 comments:

  1. Fear is the culprit of almost all of our woes. It is natural and as far as I'm concerned annoying. I ran my entire life on fear until recently. Excellent post. thank you.

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  2. Thank you for sharing Jan! Yes, fear is natural and definitely annoying! However, it is possible to overcome fear by seeing things through the proper perspective.

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  3. "The soul is unchanging but our experiences are ever changing." - Believe it or not, I'd never thought about our souls in this way, but it is oh, so true! If the One who created us in His image is unchanging, it just makes sense that our eternal natures, our souls, would be unchanging, too.
    Thanks, Vrndavana, for giving this Christian a a deep insight and revelation!
    Blessings!

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  4. This is one of my favorite verses in the book so far! To me it really shows us that essentially everything is all about perspective. I really love the comparison you make between Krishna and an eye doctor here. Remembering to "wear your glasses," so to speak, is all we really need to get through anything. Even though the material problems we face might be upsetting and/or traumatic, being aware of how fleeting they all are in the grand scheme of things will really help us work our way through them. Our souls cannot be lessened or damaged by anything we experience in our material lives. Thank you for sharing! :)

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  5. Thank you so much for your comment Bailey! You know, I think it's become one of my favourite verses too. It's amazing how just spending some time and seeing the depth of the verses can also change one's perspective on the verse itself! Some, such as 2.14 just speak to you outright (it's one of my favourite verses), but sometimes you need to mine a little bit more for the jewels that are hidden a bit inside.

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