When age and its youthfulness have passed away, lust and its play cannot remain.

In these four epigrammatic statements Shankara drives home to the student’s understanding that, where the cause has ended the effect cannot continue. Keeping these three laws the stanza if studied will help in better understanding. If from the lake the water its cause is removed nothing remains. If from the effect the cause is removed nothing remains. The lake, including its waves, bubbles, froth is nothing but water in different forms. The effects are nothing but the cause in a different form. Example if there is a lake, it cannot be without water (its cause) Swami Chinmayananda gives three laws of cause and effect relationship. When the age (youthfulness) has passed, where is lust and its play? When water has evaporated, where is the lake? When wealth is reduced, where is the retinue? When the truth is realized, where is samsara? Realize that this consciousness presiding over all our inner experiences is the Consciousness Infinite everywhere (Brahman). Shankara here asks us to withdraw our identification with the body, mind and intellect and own up to our real nature which is the very consciousness which illumines all experiences (aatma chaitanya). Change and finitude being the very nature of the world he is bound to dissipate his energies in worthless pursuits.Īt the end of the day when he takes stock of everything he will realize that like grains of sand passes through his fingers precious life has slipped away and then there will be total personality exhaustion. This creates a false attitude towards things and beings of the world around him and his deluded ego says, ‘my things’, ‘my joys’, and ‘my ideas’ etc. When a man identifies with the body, mind and intellect he becomes the perceiver, feeler and thinker and gets tied down to the woes of life-samsara. Social connections, relationships, status, popularity and power all (jana) are also temporary. Wealth is never constant and can make a pauper out of a king in no time and vice versa.

The drama of samsara is played upon this platform and the outcome is predictable to any thinking person. Wealth, social connections and family status, youth and its vigour- these form the tottering pillars upon which is built the platform of sense enjoyments. Leaving aside all these, after knowing their illusory nature, realize the state of Brahman and enter into it. Take no pride in your possessions, in the people (at your command), in the youthfulness (that you have). That is why now are the times of decreased happiness in the midst of increased comforts! Now the only other option left with us is to decrease the denominator (the total number of desires entertained) so that Happiness can be increased easily! If we go for the first option which is to increase the numerator (increasing the number of desires fulfilled) as most of us are doing now, there is only one problem and that is, as the numerator increases the denominator (Total number of desires entertained) has a peculiar quality of increasing manifold in the mind of the person, so the happiness is in fact reduced. In order to increase the happiness we can either increase the numerator or we can decrease the denominator. Happiness α Total number of desires fulfilled Happiness which every man desires is directly proportional to the number of desires fulfilled and inversely proportional to the total number of desires entertained. The objects of the world do not have any intrinsic value and have only as much value as our own mind imparts to them. He can carry with him thick layers of vasana encrustations on his mind, for exhausting which he has to take birth again and go through the misery of birth after birth.

Not realizing that life is at the mercy of time, man desires to enjoy the sense objects, strives, sweats and toils endlessly to acquire to possess and aggrandize and when the messenger of death comes he is compelled to leave everything here as there are no pockets in the shroud. Man gathering memories from the past barricades his present, sets them ablaze with his excitements in day to day life, and the rising fumes of his bosom blur his vision to make his life rigged with his anxieties for the future. Time never stops for anybody, it keeps on marching ahead as the future becomes the present, which also rolls over to join the endless ocean of the past. And yet one leaves not the gusts of desire. Day and night, dusk and dawn, winter and spring again and again come (and depart).

Bhaja govindam ancient space battle