Dear Tom Shadyac,
I read on Perez Hilton's blog that you have decided to renounce material life, sold your mansion, luxurious possessions, and moved into a trailer park. It is very rare thing that a celebrity like yourself is able to come to this conclusion. Material life is in deed a miserable condition of life. It is miserable for us because we are made of eternal spirit and when mater and spirit come together, an incompatible situation arrises .
Everyone of us is trying to Lord it over the material nature; but the harder one tries, the more and more entangled they become. Every entity is suffering in this material world in whatever condition they are in. Wether a king or ruler of a country, or a dog on the street, every entity must be subject to these four undeniable miseries; birth, disease, old age, and death.
Material life is like being thrown into the ocean; one maybe a very expert at swimming, but it is not a natural condition, eventually the expert swimmer will become tired and if he doesnt keep swimming he will drowned. This is our condition, we are drowning in the ocean of material existance. Therefore intelligent persons who are fed up with material life, they will ask "from where did I come? Why am I put into this miserable condition, and where will I go at death?" I do not want to get diseased but disease comes to me anyways. I do not want to die but death comes. I will get old, why is old age coming? Why are these things being forced on me?
Krishna says in Chapter Two of the Bhgavad-gita, "Na tv evaham jatu nasam, na tvam janadhipah..." , "Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor any of these kings, nor in the future shall there be a time when we cease to be." We are eternal spirit souls. Once we were in the body of young children, then young adults, then old persons. The material body keeps changing; boyhood, youth, old age, but the soul remains the same. Once we were had the body of a 1 year old child, 1 foot tall; then 20 years later we find ourselves in a different larger taller body. Krishna again says in the Bhagavad-gita , "yam yam vapi smaran bhavan" "whatever state of being one remembers at the time of death, that state of being he will attain without fail." And in another verse in the Bhagavad-gita, "As the embodied soul continually passes in this body from boyhood to youth to old age, the soul similarly passes into another body at death, the self realized soul is not bewildered by such a change." So how to get out of this entanglement of material existence? The soul is covered by two immediate coverings; the mind and the false ego. Because of these coverings we have become conditioned. Our business should be to become free from these coverings.
Everyone is thinking that they belong to a particular nation or country or body; I am American, I am English, I am French, Italian, German, Black, White, Chinese, Swedish and so on. But we have nothing to do with these designations, these are falsehoods. We are not these bodies. We are simply the spirit soul runs the body. Just like a man who drives a car, the car is useless with out the man to drive it. Similarly the body is useless with out the soul. With out the soul, the body is a dead body.
Our mind is wandering here and there aimlessly serving the needs of our senses. Our false ego shapes our actions according to the bodily identification. To break free from this, it is recommended by all spiritual Vedic authorities that the chanting of the Maha Mantra will free the mind from material discomfort. Maha means "great", mana means "mind", and tra means "to deliver". So the Maha Mantra means "the great chanting for deliverance of the mind." The Maha Mantra is: Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare / Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare. Our mind is like a kite. A kite flier out on the field gets mesmerized by the focal point of the kite flying in the sky and forgets about the landscape in front of him. If he is too concentrated and mesmerized by the kite, he may run or walk into a ditch or get entangled in a bush or tree. Because we are not the mind, relief from its wanderings is necessary to keep one in a sane condition. If a man can not at all control his mind, then he is considered a madman, or crazy person.
This Maha Mantra is not an artificial yoga technique. It springs from the spiritual realm and pierces through the intelligence, mind, and false ego and enters straight into the heart for relief of our material conditioning. Hearing this mantra from the lips of a pure devotee of the Lord is recommended so that the immediate effect can be taken. Please try chanting this mantra. You will find that it is refreshing and that the more you chant, the more peaceful you will feel. When calling out the word "Hare", one is addressing God's energy. Krishna is another name for God, it translates as "the all attractive one", and "Rama" means the Supreme Pleasure. When combined in this special 16 verse mantra, the connection between Krishna and the reciter is immediately conducted. Just as if a cell phone connects to a tower or a computer to a wifi signal. The more you chant this mantra, the more enthusiastic you will become, the more peaceful you will be, and the more pleasure you will feel.
Getting relief from this material existence, doesn't require to throw anything away or give anything away. Krishna says in the Bhagavad-gita 5.29, Bhoktaram yajna-tapasam, sarva loka mahesvaram, "The sages, knowing Me as the ultamate purpose of all sacrifices and austerities, the Supreme Lord of all planets and demigods and the benefactor and well-wisher of all living entities, attain peace from the pangs of material miseries." In other words Krishna is the owner of everything, therefore one should use all material possessions in the service of the Lord. If we use everything for Krishna, then all these material objects will become spiritualized and our life will become become peaceful, fulfilling, satisfied and successful or Krishna'ized. They are not "our" objects or possessions, they are Krishna's. It is not our money, it is Krishna's money. We are not the owner of anything. So please try this Maha Mantra and use everything that Krishna has given you in His service and you uncover your lost relationship with Him.
Sincerely,
Gadadhara das
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