08.16 – Double Empowerment for Destination Eternity

Eternity is a universal longing of all life – human and sub-human. This longing can be discerned in all species through the ingenious and indefatigable efforts they make to live for as long as possible. However, because everything material is by its very nature temporary, no species can live forever at the material level.

Does this mean that the longing for eternity is doomed?

The answer is yes for sub-human beings and no for human beings.

The Bhagavad-gita (8.16) indicates that we can attain life eternal if we redirect our love from temporary matter to eternal spirit, specifically the supreme spiritual reality, Krishna.

Gita wisdom explains that this redirection is possible only for human beings – not for sub-human beings. The human body alone offers us souls the capacity for metaphysical enquiry. By utilizing this capacity, we can recognize the inescapable temporality of the material level and detach ourselves from it. Further, we can recognize the incorruptible eternality of the spiritual level and attach ourselves to it. Thus, we humans alone can love the spiritual and thereby achieve the eternal.

If we wish to stimulate our love for the spiritual, Gita wisdom offers us a rich revelation of life at the spiritual level. Life there is an everlasting delightful celebration of love with the all-attractive, all-loving Absolute Truth, Krishna. Gita wisdom also provides us the process of bhakti-yoga by which we can easily and effectively redirect our love from matter to Krishna.

Krishna as the goal in eternity and bhakti as the process to eternity – these comprise the Gita’s double empowerments for us. Thus empowered, we can march confidently on an inner journey that culminates in destination eternity.

This is life’s supreme success and it beckons all of us. Why miss it?