Page 217 - Basic Writings of Sriramchandra
P. 217

Reality at Dawn - The Goal of Life
which brought about their resultant effects. Virtue and vice made their appearances. Slowly our existence assumed the densest form. The effect of Samskaras is the commencement of feelings of comforts, miseries, joys and sorrows. Our likings for joys and comforts and our disliking for sorrows and miseries have created further complications. We generally find ourselves surrounded with pain and misery and we think that deliverance from them is our main goal. This is a very narrow view of the problem.
The aims and objects of life conceived in terms of worldly ends are almost meaningless. We forget that pains and miseries are only the symptoms of a disease but the disease lies elsewhere. To practise devotion to please God in order to secure worldly comforts or gains is but a mockery. The problem before us is not mere deliverance from pain and misery but freedom from bondage, which is the ultimate cause of pain and misery. Freedom from bondage is liberation. It is different from salvation, which is not the end of the process of rebirth. Salvation is only a temporary pause in the rotation. It is the suspension of the process of birth and death only for a certain fixed period after which we again assume the material form. The endless circle of rebirth ends only when we have secured liberation. It is the end of our pains and miseries. Anything short of liberation cannot be taken as the goal of life although there remains still a lot beyond it. We find
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