The Tree of Life : Srimad Bhagavad Gita : 1.5.

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31/10/2018
The Tree of Life : Srimad Bhagavad Gita : 1.5
Chapter- 1: The Twofold Character of Cosmic Life-5.
Post - 5.


1.
The creative evolution of life, into which great research has been made in modern times by philosophers such as Bergson, is a tendency to move in every direction, outwardly expressing its power of vitality for a purpose which the human mind cannot properly envisage. When we grow, we do not know what we are growing into, and to what purpose.

Why should we become an adult?
Who has written this, in which scripture?
Why should we not remain as a baby?
What is the harm?

Let us all be babies and never grow, or let us be born as youths. Why should we be born as babies and then grow into youths, and then have this agonising decrepitude of senile ataxia? What is all this mystery?

Why should there be this growth of anything or everything?
What is the direction which things are appearing to take?
Why should the tree grow?

 Why should man prolong his life up to a certain limit and then disappear from the Earthly scene, not knowing even the time of his disappearance?

What is this tremendous impulse in us which keeps us expecting something noble in the future, though that future may be cut short in one moment by the icy hands of nature?


2.
We know very well that our Earthly life can come to an end at any moment, but we never take it very seriously. We can take it seriously if it goes so deeply into our hearts that we will not be able to breathe even for a few seconds. Something in us overpowers this instinct of the awareness of the impending discontinuity of life, and we are instinctively compelled to brush aside this immanent catastrophe of what we call death that may descend upon us at any moment of time.


3.
While there is on one side the instinct of the consciousness of death and destruction, there is also another kind of instinct which keeps us completely forgetful of this phenomenon of life. We would very much wish to forget that there is such a thing called death. Nobody would like to think there is such a thing as that because it hangs before us as an ominous horror.

To be continued ...


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