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The scriptures and saints often talk about spiritual bliss, but why is
it inaccessible for the rest of us? How can we experience it ourselves?
Answer: By absorption.
People living in the same world see it remarkably differently: a cricket fan
sees cricket everywhere, a prurient youth sees sexual stimuli everywhere, a
greedy person sees money everywhere. To understand how all these different
mental worlds arise among those living in the same physical world, let’s
consider the way a TV works. When a person tunes to a particular channel,
the TV antenna catches the corresponding vibration among the hundreds of
vibrations present in the atmosphere, and the person gets absorbed in the
program being broadcast on that channel. Another person sitting in the same
house may tune to another station and get absorbed in an entirely different
program.
If we look back at our own lives, the most joyful times are generally the
times when we were single-mindedly absorbed in something, be it sports,
music, hobby, work or whatever else. Distracted people seldom get any
pleasure in anything. All absorbed people get a sense of pleasure by their
respective absorptions. But the best pleasure comes by absorption in God.
Why?
The Bhagavad-gita explains that all of us are essentially spiritual beings who
belong to the spiritual realm. There, we are eternally, ecstatically absorbed in
loving service to the all-attractive supreme person, God, Krishna. When we
come to this world, we seek that same ecstasy by absorbing ourselves in
various worldly objects. The Gita (10.41) explains that all opulent, beautiful
and glorious objects attract us because they transmit but a spark of the
splendor of God. But because all worldly objects are temporary, whereas God
is eternal, so the mental worlds arising from absorption in worldly objects are
temporary mental creations, whereas the mental world arising from
absorption in God connects us with the eternal abode of God, to which we
actually belong. It’s like a TV program that reminds a lost child about his
original home and shows him the way back.