Jagdbandhu dasa: This morning while I was brushing my tooth before combing my hairs (I’m not really going bald, I’m just getting taller than my hair), I was considering how this material body really is just a lump of ignorance and a true embarrassment to the soul (of course embarrassment attacks the false ego, so it’s actually good for the soul). And yet, from the womb to the tomb we’re continually bombarded by a constant influx and onslaught of illusory propaganda with which to keep us hypnotically enthralled and hopelessly distracted from our life’s true inner purpose. As if mere gratification in the realm of the senses really was everything and all.
In just over a month this rotting carcass (please pardon the stench of decay) which my soul currently inhabits, approaches the half century mark. Overall, it hasn’t been a bad piece of biological equipment (or organic machinery) in my struggle to get beyond birth and debt. For the most part whatever the job was it “got er’ done” (but did it “get er’ right?”). I couldn’t help but wonder how many fifty year old automobiles are even out on the road at all. What to speak of running smoothly on all original parts (although I do replace the “tires” every now and then when I buy a new pair of shoes). And I can’t afford to be replacin’ any parts now. Just have to keep runnin’ on a wing and a prayer. Same as I ever have.
Sri Chanakhya Pandit taught that we should be able to find wisdom everywhere. Thinking in this way we might even learn from Hiranyakashipu who was so intensely determined in his performance of austerities that he remained unflinching or unwavering in his staunch focus even though ants were eating the flesh from his skeleton. He was so determined that he maintained his life within his mortal frame nonetheless. Having your body devoured by flesh eating ants isn’t unlike having it be consumed by deadly cancer (or a myriad of other possible terminal ailments). Such mortal peril to the body might be subjectively addressed with a kind of individual invincibility of spirit as demonstrated by Hiranyakashipu (otherwise known as “the Hiranyakashipu Method”). How much positive influence do we have the potential to assert from deep within ourselves? How strong is our determination from within to overcome what afflicts us?
Because I cannot afford medical care for myself, I’ve been forced to reflect in this way. Yet, I’ve had friends (who could afford medical care) pass away who seemed alright until the moment of the their fatal diagnosis, only to leave their bodies within months thereafter. As if the news of their diagnosis became an instant death sentence which they immediately surrendered to. If they hadn’t known how sick they were, could/would their mind and determination to live have caused them live at least a little longer?
A certain imposing awareness of one’s own impending mortality accompanies the inevitable crawl towards old age; along with a sometimes insidious paranoia about the various little internal pains which aren’t too dissimilar to a wide array of possible terminal conditions. But life itself is a terminal condition automatically remitted towards an inevitable foregone conclusion. And fear can easily degenerate into a weakening worry about one’s own mortality (thereby causing one to think old age isn’t so bad after all, when compared to the morbid alternative looming at the end of the trail).
Instead of fear, one should be able to face death (and life) with a fundamental understanding of one’s own eternality. And a fierce determination that any possible infirmity (or adversity) can’t/won’t overcome the individual soul’s innate potential to exude and exert positive influence from within. Medical science has apparently been exploring the mind/body connection for some time. I’m sure many can attest how retaining a positive spirit in the face of great apparent adversity greatly increases the potential of survival along with the possibility of healthy renewal. Proper exercise and diet can be helpful too (and it’s also OK to not eat fried food). Regardless of apparent physical vitality, sooner than I reckon, I’ll be dead anyways. Again. Nonetheless.
A friend at work once expressed to me his wish that he was immortal. His wife had recently died from cancer.
I asked him, “What if you already were immortal, but you just forgot?”
You know you’re getting old when you go past the crematorium and they chase you down with torches and kerosene. And one’s morning constitutional becomes exceedingly important, as if the rest of the day depended upon it. No. Really. Know really.
I love Jagabandhu’s thoughtfulness and it inspires in me things which Srila Prabhupad and other highly qualified Vaishnavas have taught me. First, as a physician who really does deal with so-called life and death occurrences regularly, it is not an epiphany to me to think about the finality of human life. Many of my older patients, in fact, give strength to and inspire their doctors to have more acceptance of death.
Now, enter Vaishnava theology. In my office waiting room, I have some art work and other things hanging. One such object of art is an Indian silk painting which I framed. I purchased it from one of the stalls en route from the bathing ghat in Mayapur to the Chandrodoya Mandir. It is a scene of Krishna and Balaram tipping containers on top of the gopi’s heads, with white milk or yogurt falling onto the ground at Krishna’s Lotus Feet. This scene always reminds me of Srila Prabhupad because when he visited South Africa in 1975 in Durban at the Life Member’s home where he stayed, there was a large painting of this scene on the wall across the room from him. He sat back while I sat alone nearby him and he looked up at the painting and Srila Prabhupad laughed with satisfaction. “Krishna is extracting taxes from the gopis. He will not let them pass without first offering their milk at His Lotus Feet.” So it reminds me of His Divine Grace and it sits in my waiting room, also reminding me that I am a doctor and a bhakta. More germane to this discussion, there is a photograph of a Bengali tiger mother holding its cub in its powerful jaws. Srila Prabhupad often used this image of the cub or kitten in the mouth of its mother as the fearlessness of the devotees who are always confident of Krishna, whereas the victim or prey in the mouth of the cat is in the the jaws of death. Haribol! Pusta Krishna das
We have so many ways to rationalize the substantial eternality of the soul and, in contradistinction, samsara as the external phenomenon. All knowledge must lead to bhakti lest it become dry and fruitless. We must deepen our faith in Krishna through submissive service, sincere prayer with longing (when will that day come…?), chanting of the Lord’s HolyNames, and especially hearing the glories of the Lord. It is a fact that the less we think of ourselves and the more we are immersed in Krishna consciousness, the happier we become, and the more genuinely fearless we become. I asked my friend Srila Govind