Plus, Mayavadis' idea of merging into the identity and self of God and becoming one with Him / Her / It would extinguish all opportunities for continuing with the sweet exchange of love with Him (or Her) that is bhakti. How can you have a relationship with yourself?! All you can do is exist. They try to say that that simple, eternal existence is blissful. But we say, just look at the nature of living beings. They are active. Rocks sit still because they are solid matter, with no soul inside. Trees and plants sit still because their consciousness is at an extremely low ebb, like they are sleeping. But look at any higher life-forms with more developed consciousness and what will you see? Activity. To be specific, service: all embodied living entities serve their own senses' demands, many serve their family members and friends and society, and in the highest consciousness of all within the material world, the individual will see the whole world and all the living creatures in it as his or her family and will try to be of service to everyone. Along with consciousness, the activity of service is symptomatic of life.
Yes,
the “enlightenment” that impersonalists tout, involving freedom
from attachment to matter and material activities, is possible; I
might call it “brahma-bhuta” blissfulness. It means the
understanding that you yourself are an immortal spark of spirit, and
unlike the temporary and vulnerable material body, you cannot be
killed under any circumstances. In this consciousness you have the
utter peace and contentment of knowing that nothing can ever harm you
and you yourself will always continue to live no matter what happens
to your body. The stress of ordinary day-to-day living in the
material world, involving the effort to keep one's body (and those of
the other persons to whom one is attached) fed, clothed, warm, and
dry, and one's mind and senses pleased, disappears. It no longer
matters whether you do these things or not. You can choose to do
them to keep body and soul together, but it's optional. You no
longer are under the impression that you have
to do these things in order to continue to exist. Thus, you are free
to take it easy – to relax and feel the joy of life itself. Your
natural love and enthusiasm can express themselves. By removing your
identification from your vulnerable, easily-destroyed material body
and the connections with others that came about because of your body,
and identifying instead with your eternal, indestructible spirit
self, you enjoy ultimate peace, contentment and security. Another
feature of this “enlightenment” is that you know the same is true
for all the other souls suffering from attachment and fear in this
world, and you may very well have the urge to help your brothers and
sisters understand the same delightful thing you've understood, and
be free of suffering just like you are. You recognize that your self
and all other life that exists, regardless of the body that life is
contained within, are of one and the same substance, and thus
distinctions of relative and foreigner, friend and enemy, are
abolished.
So
far, so good. This is a sublime and highly developed consciousness,
rarely to be found in this often nasty and selfish world. And there
is opportunity here for the natural propensity of the conscious self,
namely the activity of serving. One can adopt a mission of
compassion to bring this enlightenment to the suffering and
bewildered souls of the world. But after all the enlightened souls
leave their bodies – then what do they do?
Hare
Krishna philosophy contends that their natural attributes of enjoying
relationships and the activity of service are an innate part of all
living souls, and these souls will therefore not be able to give up
their desire for these things after leaving behind their material
bodies. They may luxuriate in the absence of suffering for a little
while as they float with other souls in the shining spiritual sky,
just existing, not interacting with anyone (because the meditation on
the strength of which they got there was simply “I am Brahman; I am
transcendental to the material world; I am one with God,” and as I
pointed out, oneness leaves no opportunities for relationship or
interaction). But in order to be content with nothing more than
mindless existence for eternity – eternally alive and conscious but
eternally doing nothing – we would have to change our fundamental
nature to something different from what it is, because right now, to
anyone in their right mind, that prospect sounds HELLISH. Why do you
think children can be punished by being put in time-out? Because
relationships and activities are necessary to the child's happiness.
Similarly, the Mayavadi idea of liberation is really like eternal
time-out. Who would want that?! It's an extreme, dramatic,
pendulum-swing reaction to the suffering of this world: “Better be
checked out, eternally uninvolved, than stay here and suffer.” But
as the pendulum swings back, they end up coming back to the material
world anyway (according to Hare Krishna knowledge; Mayavadis don't
expect to come back after they're “liberated”!) because it is
just too boring for them up there in the Brahman effulgence (the
famous “white light” that you may have heard about).
Suppose
a Mayavadi countered me by asserting, “Children, along with the
rest of us, are like that [i.e., dreading “time-out” or “just
existing in full consciousness without any activity”] because of
material conditioning; it's not our innate nature to dread that which
is our original and rightful state!”
Well,
some
religious traditions glorify
childlike nature, and say things like “except ye become as little
children, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven.”
The Mayavadi's claim would appear to criticize and devalue the
spontaneous nature of children, to say it can all be chalked up to
contamination, and to insist that we stubbornly and utterly erase all
trace of our humanity in order to attain the goal! Can that be
healthy, desirable, or even possible?! It sure sounds like an
artificial attempt that's bound to either fail or end in misery!
What's
more, how can you say it's better, purer, or more advanced to be like
a vegetable?! Oh, sorry – a conscious
vegetable!
How is it not better to do glorious, noble, admirable, wonderful, and
relishable actions
in fully enlightened spiritual consciousness?! Why shouldn't that
be held as the topmost state of being, the ideal goal for all?
To be continued...
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