An important and logical question arises: for how long would you keep wandering in solitude, desperate and discontented, in a crowd full of greed, selfishness, ego, and jealousy? For how long would you keep throwing yourself in the tortuous fire of physical and mental problems? For how long would you give opportunities to selfish persons, who claim to be your own but, in the event of their interest not being served, would not hesitate, repeatedly, to hurt your feelings? For how long would you allow your self-respect to be humbled? For how long? And for how long would you make an exhibition of your bleeding wounds? More often than not, listening to your heart-rending stories, people may laugh at you. Somebody may sympathize with you for a while and then move on. Very rarely will someone make an effort to heal your wounds.

Therefore, for how long would you carry the load of your ‘karmas’, birth after birth, and keep travelling in the darkness of ignorance? After all, for how long would you keep going astray with the dirt of your ‘karmas’ (performed under the influence of passion, anger, greed, emotional attachment, and ego) wrapped around your corporeal frame? In this destructible, transitory and unstable dreamland, nobody belongs to you, nor can any material object be yours forever. You have no choice but to abandon everything here. The moment your ‘Antaratma’ leaves this corporal frame made of five ingredients – earth, fire, water, air and space – your so-called close relatives will say, “Take this body away before it starts emitting foul smell, and perform the last rites at the earliest. In Pujya Guruji’s words:

दो घड़ी रो लेंगे, एहबाब तेरे घर वाले,
फिर हमेशा को भुला देंगे, तू समझा क्या हैl

बाद मरने के हुआ, बोझ सभी को मालूम,
जल्द ले जाओ, अब इस ढेर में रखा क्या हैl

And, at the earliest, chanting ‘Ram Naam Satya hai”, your body will be consigned to the flames. A day or two later, your ashes and bones will be collected and immersed in the waters of holy Ganges. At the time your bones are being picked up, your soul may cry out,

जला है जिस्म जहाँ, दिल भी जल गया होगा,
खुरेदते हो अब राख, जूस्तजू क्या है.

“Alas! you had realized the truth of ‘Ram Naam Satya hai” while in the corporal frame itself. Learn to live with restraint. Make an effort to live this life from a spectator’s point of view. Your inner peace is your personal property which cannot be purchased even by spending millions. Keep it safe. Do not allow others to loot it. While discharging your duties, responsibilities and obligations towards others, remain within limits, live life gracefully maintaining decorum. Take care of worldly relations with respect, love and affection, but do not get attached to them. Lord Buddha had said, “Exercising restraint on your desires is, in reality, their fulfillment. Desires are like a mirage. The more you try to satisfy them, the greater is the desire and they keep multiplying. Howsoever you may try, you will not be able to fulfill all your desires.”

You have strayed far enough, experienced enough of helplessness and destitution. Now make an effort, an earnest effort, to divert your attention from the sensuous and ego-centric desires and enter into the realm of your inner-self. For how long would you keep running away from your Father (Almighty God)? Right from the beginning, your relationship with Him only has been true and permanent, while all other relationships are false and temporary. You kept embracing the illusory and ran away from the real one. God Almighty has bestowed upon you the status of His highest creation and gave you the exalted human body which is like a mobile temple worthy of worship. In this mobile temple, He established Himself in the form of Aatman. But instead of making good use of this unique creation, you misused it, abused it and oppressed it with the heavy load of your bad ‘karmas’ that distanced you from your Father. He might have left you to your ‘karmas’, but He has been anxiously waiting with open arms, to receive you. But you preferred embracing those whose separation was certain and predestined, and continued moving away from your Father. He keeps yearning for you, thinking that one day His tired and exhausted child would come home and lovingly announce, “Father, I have come”. How can you disappoint your Father Supreme and deprive Him of your nearness? – is an important and a logical question that each one of us need to ask ourselves.