What Is Life, And Who Is God, According to The Bhagwat Gita And The Scriptures?
What Bhagwat Gita says about life, God, and our existence.
(I recommend you to watch the videos of Swami Mukunananda, Srila Prabhupada, and ISKCON, on youtube. They will help incredibly with knowing about God, devotion, his love, etc.)
A person should learn to live his spiritual and material life side by side. Today, due to a lack of spirituality, people do not know what life is and what are they doing here. Born, live life, enjoy, earn money, and die? No, this must not be the meaning of life. People do not even know what matters to them. What is important to them? How to properly live life.
Most people living today are just because of material pleasures, like food, drink, sex, and entertainment/enjoyment, like movies, games, friends, etc. Just snatch these things from them, and their life will become empty, hopeless, meaningless, and useless again. The majority of the people living in this world do not know what and why are they living for. They are just existing. They are just spending their lives like animals. Why? Because no spiritual and moral knowledge has been provided to them for their higher consciousness. No one knows what this life is indeed for. Let us see what Bhagwat Geeta has to say about what is human life for.
Bhagwat Geeta states that we all are souls. We are not bodies. Human beings, animals, insects, and even plants and trees are souls. We have taken infinite births in our previous lives. This is not our first birth. We have been born a million times and have died million times. Just like we change clothes, one after the other, every day, in a similar way, the soul keeps getting a new body, one birth after the other. So, our soul is stuck in this material universe, where the birth-death cycle keeps on happening again and again.
According to the Bhagwat Geeta, there are 84,00,000 species existing in this universe, and the soul keeps on taking birth in the bodies of different species, again and again, like it is changing clothes, again and again. Sometimes this soul takes birth in a body of a dog. Sometimes this soul takes birth in a body of a deer. Sometimes, this soul gets a body of an insect, and sometimes it gets a body of an elephant. But among all these species, this human form is the most special and intelligent one. Because only in this form, a soul can know God.
A dog cannot know God. A bird cannot know God. A fish cannot know God. So, if a soul enters these kinds of species, he still cannot know God. He can only know God in a human form, in a human body, because this specie has the intellect to know God and live well and properly. That is why this human life form is the most valuable form to ever exist in this universe. The soul struggles in its every birth to get a body of a human being. Therefore, we should not waste this human form by living like animals, otherwise, what is the point of getting it?
According to the ancient scriptures, whenever a soul enters a human mother’s womb, it does suffer some pain and suffocation there. This reminds him of God, and he prays to God and promises God that he will perform devotion for him in this life and requests God to love and protect him in this life of sadness and pain. He also requests God to make his way out of the womb, due to the suffocation and pain, he is having there. And after he is born, he forgets everything due to his contact with the material energy (Maya) and starts crying, because of a new experience he faces in this material universe of dissatisfaction and discomfort.
The soul is spiritual, not material, the body is material. If we accept ourselves as bodies, we suffer pain and sadness. But our original identity is the soul, and therefore, our original nature is also spiritual as well. And the soul needs spiritual energy and power. Just like if we take out the fish from the water, no matter how much comfort and luxuries we give to that fish, its basic need is water and it will get pleasure from the water only. Similarly, our basic need is God and his abode. The soul and body are like a driver and car. A driver needs to take care of both, himself and the car. But the car helps the driver to reach his destination. Therefore, the body should be used to help the soul reach its destination, which is the abode of God himself.
We need to maintain our bodies so that the soul is able to get time and energy to do his spiritual work. Therefore, both body and soul need to be worked side by side. We need to work well both, materially, and spiritually. Remaining physically and mentally fit also helps us spiritually.
The soul needs to make his way back home. But where is its home? The abode of God himself. Each and every soul roaming and living in this universe is a part and parcel of God. We all are his children. And we need to go back to him. According to Shrimad Bhagavatam, when God created us and this universe, we were with him, and we were happy. You were with him, I was with him, and everyone was with him only.
But as we saw every soul giving love and respect to him, we started developing hatred and jealousy toward him. We started thinking that, just like God is getting love, fun, and respect from everyone, we should also get these things; why are we engaged in his service?
Now, God knows everything; he knows what every one of us is thinking and feeling. Therefore, we demanded our freedom from him, just like a toddler asks his mother to bring him a toy home of his own, so that he may play in it. The mother explains to him compassionately, that he needs her in his every second and moment, and he will not be satisfied anywhere without his mother. But the toddler was insistent. So, the mother brings him a homemade toy and lets him play with it.
One day passed, two days passed, one week passed, and one month passed. The toddler starts getting bored with it. He is now completely bored playing with it. In the absence of his mother, he cannot enjoy there anymore. He needs his mother again for bliss, compassion, and love. This is our case only. We are that toddler, and God is our mother/father. We insisted God let us live freely and independently. So, God sent us to this material universe. This material universe is like that toy home.
We are living in this material universe and trying to enjoy our freedom, like that toddler. But we are always unhappy, tensed, anxious, and troubled. We keep looking for ways to find our happiness and pleasures here and there but are unable to find them. We have even gotten bored here, and we are in pain and trouble here as well, and we need pleasure and happiness. Without our mother, we cannot get bliss, happiness, and compassion. We need God, and we need to go back to him. Back to our home, where our eternal mother and father live.
God has made this material universe in such a way that we may never be happy here, and we keep on seeking it but are unable to find it. As we are his part and parcels, we can get permanent happiness and pleasure from him and him only. God has made this material universe in such a way, that allows us to realize his deep value, and how important he is for our well-being. We have to get out of this universe of pain and sadness and make a way to him for our ultimate bliss. But here we are, who are again and again trying to find happiness in this material realm and keep on getting failed.
God is our source of permanent and complete happiness and bliss because we can get happiness from him only, as he completes us.
According to the Bhagwat Geeta, God also comes into this material universe in different forms like Krishna, Rama, etc, for 3 major reasons. 1. Re-establishment of dharma (Path of righteousness/truthfulness), whenever there is an increment in sins and evilness. 2. To protect his devotees, 3. To finish the demons and their sinful acts. But if you look into that deeply, he can simply do all these 3 things just by sitting there alone in his abode.
For example, 1. He can re-establish dharma, just by sending his prophets and servants into this universe and letting them teach people about dharma and God’s consciousness. He does not even need to come here. 2. He can protect his devotees from inside their hearts because he is sitting in everyone’s heart, especially that of his devotees and he can make his devotees more powerful, pure, and more conscious just by working inside of them. 3. He can finish the demons living a sinful life and spreading evilness in this world, just by bringing a pandemic like a coronavirus or something like that, and he can easily kill them just by infecting them, it is so easy for him to do that. All his 3 major tasks, he can do without coming here, and just sitting there. So, why does he come here?
If we take a deep look at it, he comes here to give his appearance and existence to us, so that we may see his divine form, qualities, and activities/pastimes he performs here, and we can be devoted to him. By doing his devotion, we may increase our spiritual power and consciousness and go back to him in his supreme abode of happiness and bliss. This is the biggest reason he comes here so that he can show and reveal himself to us.
In this material universe, we have forgotten him due to the effect of material energy (Maya) on us, and this Maya never allows us to perceive or know God as its work is to not reach God. As God is spiritual and divine, we are unable to know and perceive his existence with our material intellect and we are not taking steps toward him.
We keep trying to be satisfied here in this material universe, with material energy, but it is a never-ending process, and we may never be satisfied here. Until and unless we do not perform devotion toward God, the material energy, along with its torture, pain, and sadness, remains invincible. Only God can take us out of the affection of this material energy because he is spiritual and divine.
God also comes in the form of Jesus and Buddha, to re-establish dharma in a different way. Many philosophies are there, to reach God. Some say to meditate on the formless God, some say to just cleanse your heart and live your life, doing your duties. Some say to, perform rituals for God and some say to chant his name. But it is stated that God can only be known, with the help of devotion (Bhakti) and surrender towards him. Because this love, attachment, devotion, and surrender towards him is the root of all the philosophies. Every kind of philosophy gets covered on this path of reaching God, which is the path of devotion to and for him. With other philosophies, one can reach near to God, but cannot completely come to him. One can completely come to him, by performing devotion.
Through devotion, one is always eager to know and get God’s love and faith. Through this path, God slowly reveals to his devotee his many qualities. He reveals his knowledge. By performing devotion, one can know God’s, name, love, knowledge, qualities, form, pastimes, abode, etc. After knowing his qualities, he slowly starts to know God, and his entire story. God slowly reveals himself to him. God loves devotion and the first and the most important and basic step of devotion is to have love and faith in your heart for God. You can be devoted to any form of God, as you wish.
With devotion, comes service towards him. We all are his servants, and keeping God and his devotion in our mind, we need to serve him, by performing our duties (Both personal and professional), we need to read and understand about him in the holy scriptures, and also distribute this divine knowledge about him, given in the scriptures, to the people in this world. That is true service towards God.
Complete devotion/surrender and service towards God can make our way out of this universe, and into the supreme spiritual realm of God.
There are many things mentioned in the Bhagwat Gita for living life and reaching God, but the two basic, simple, and important ways that anyone can adopt today are Bhakti Yog (Yog of loving God and doing devotional service for God), and Karma Yog (Yog of performing actions, doing your duties, maintaining responsibilities for God).
The most important basis on which the person should spend his life and which are easy to do are Bhakti Yog and Karma Yog. The rest of the things are difficult to do and be focused on, mentioned in the Bhagwat Gita. Only Bhakti Yog (Loving, having faith in God, and doing devotional service to God), and Karma Yog, i.e, doing your duties and responsibilities, in the name of God. These two are the most basic and easiest paths for living life and attaining God, a person can and must do.
For Bhakti Yog, one must do any activities, practices and rituals as he wishes to do to increase the love, faith, devotion and service towards God and for the Karma Yog, one must be do his duties, works and responsibilities in the name of God and for that he has to be physically and mentally fit as well.
And with the help of the knowledge of the Bhagwat Gita, with the knowledge of Bhakti Yog and Karma Yog, the main goal of life becomes to increase our consciousness, build our character, follow the knowledge of scriptures practically, be well-disciplined, and upgrade ourselves, physically, mentally, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually, etc.
“One can understand God by devotional service. And when he becomes fully conscious about the Supreme Lord, he can enter the kingdom/abode of God” ~Bhagwat Gita, Chapter 18, Translated by A.C Bhakti Vedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada (Founder of ISKCON, International Society of Krishna Consciousness)
