Embrace Your Spiritual Destiny!
Embrace Your Spiritual Destiny!
By Swami Jyotirmayananda
SELF-REALIZATION is the supreme destiny of everyone. Just as every drop of water must ultimately return to the ocean, so too, every soul must ultimately realize its spiritual destiny in Self-realization. Just as a wave must realize its identity with the ocean, so too, the soul must realize its identity with the Supreme Self.
Any other concept of destiny that involves a development in time and space or a condition of prosperity and adversity is too fleeting to be considered significant. True destiny does not lie in the passing conditions of glory, which must fade from one's view. Therefore, you must seek that victory of the spirit over matter, attaining which, there is no more defeat. You must seek that destiny wherein sorrow ceases forever.
Further, every individual has no choice but to realize his cosmic identity and negate his false individuality. To this end, everyone is predestined. Any other concept of predestination is erroneous.
Man is the architect of his own destiny from the practical point of view. Pleasure and pain, gain and loss, prosperity and adversity — all these are creations of the soul through the limited function of mind. All these are the results of karmas. No one is completely lost in any external development. No one has completely exhausted his inner potentialities and possibilities.
The innermost Self is the source of endless energy, endless creativity, and limitless possibilities. Therefore, when confronting the external circumstances of pleasure and pain, you should not hold a mechanical concept of life. Rather you must view life as an expression of the bounteous grace of the Divine Self.
Do not limit yourself with an illusory concept that your physical disability is incurable, that your mental defect is permanent, that you are conditioned by the external world, and therefore, you have no power over yourself. Rather, having adopted a clearer vision of the true destiny of your existence, you must allow the breeze of expansion to sweep over your entire personality: integrating it, refreshing it, elevating it, and unfolding it.
Behold your existence just as an ocean would behold a wave within its vastness and fullness. Begin to see things from a cosmic perspective. Begin to absorb the peace and harmony that indwell the cosmos. Change the angle of vision from a mentally confined understanding of yourself to the spiritually revealed realization of your cosmic identity. This is true movement in Yoga or in any true religion.
Detach yourself from mental impressions based upon a limited vision of your innermost Self. Do not be like a wave beholding the ocean with a sense of awe, fright, competition and turmoil. You are the innermost Self, and as such, you are the only Reality. You are your own friend, you are your foe, you are the source of endless energy, you are the essence of beauty and glory that abound in creation. You are the non-dual Self. There is no room for grief, fear and sorrow. You are the ocean of bliss, the Light of all lights, the supreme end of all desires, and the termination of all movements. Thus, realize the Goal of your life in Self-realization. This is indeed your spiritual destiny, which you cannot avoid, which you cannot ignore, and which you must realize.
“International Yoga Guide”, Vol. 51: NO. 11, July 2014
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