When Lord Yama knocks one's door!

[Gummuluru Murthy]

On Wed, 6 Jan 1999, Ravisankar Mayavaram wrote:

> When the mind is troubled by mundane concerns like deadlines and
> other worries, the verse that bring solace to the heart is
>
> bhajagovindaM bhajagovindaM
> govindaM bhajamuuDhamate |
> saMpraapte sannihite kaale
> nahi nahi rakshati DukR^iJNkaraNe || 1 ||
>
> When one pauses for a moment and asks this question, "If I were
> to die now what use of this is to me?" Be it an official deadline
> or a Ph.D degree or memorizing a rule from grammar book! It will
> not at all help, yet we all worry about them.

Namaste.

It is nice to see this contemplative posting by Shri Ravi. Similar
thoughts have passed through me at various stages in my life as well.
It is true that these deadlines, Ph.D. comprehensives, grant proposals
etc do not mean anything. We can say at some stage "Stop the world,
I want to get off", but it is up to us to stop the world (samsAra).

Throughout our life, we can go through this rat-race of samsAra, but at
the same time keep thinking of what would have been the case if I had
not done that ... or this is the time I want to get off, but still get
sucked into the samsAra by various forces.

In my view, Shri Shankara wrote bhajagovindam for such souls. Know the
vyavahArika things are unreal and take that step to say No to samsAra.
If one is ready to take that step, one is on way to experience infinite
bliss from which there is no turning back. While this looks like a
major turning point in one's life, in my view, it is not. These are
only symptoms of gradual evolution of the true human spirit.

Also, in my view, one would like to get off this this samsAra, not
because one is tired of the miseries of the samsAra, but because of the
unreality of the pairs of opposites of this samsAra.

In that scenario, where is Lord Yama? Can one be afraid of Him?

Regards
Gummuluru Murthy
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