Man has the choice to actualise his potential

CHENNAI, OCT. 29. Only human beings among the countless living beings are endowed with a highly evolved intellect to exercise the choice to evolve further and thereby realise their potential spiritual nature. While all creatures can follow only their natural instincts, man is blessed with discrimination to choose between the two paths available to him. The first is the path of ``Pravrtti'' which indicates his natural inclination to engage in the world by remaining centred in his ego ( feelings of ``I'' and mine). This promotes his acquisitive tendency which is responsible for fuelling his desires and greed. The other path is termed as ``Nivrtti'' which literally means renunciation - casting away of his lesser self to actualise his spiritual Self (Atman).

It is apparent then that these paths indicate a certain disposition of an individual to what life offers to him and how he will exercise his choice - to better himself or wallow in the quagmire of bondage. Without knowing the true blissful nature of the Self, the majority of humanity out of ignorance are caught in the whirlpool of worldly existence. They drift through life unaware of the precious chance of a human birth given to them to liberate themselves from the shackle of bondage. They miss the wood for the trees in the short-lived pleasures of the world.

This is analogous to a child deriving joy from a toy elephant made out of clay. It assumes the toy to be a real elephant and its joy when it plays with it, and its sorrow when the elephant- toy's tusk is broken, are very real. When the mother fixes the damaged tusk the child is ecstatic to see its original toy. The mother however sees only the clay though she panders to her child's fancies. Man's predicament was similar to the child's as he failed to behold the truth underlying the worldly phenomena, said Sri T. G. Narayanaswamy in his discourse.

Due to ignorance the worldly joys and sorrows are experienced as real by human beings as they fail to see the truth of their relative nature. In the Yoga Vasishta, Sage Vasishta compares the five senses to the sea turtle's four legs and head. When it senses danger the animal retracts all of them into its shell. Likewise man must learn to withdraw his sensory organs which are responsible for involvement with worldly matters as they are the source of his sorrows. It is only by renouncing sensory pursuits that the human mind can develop the faculty of introspection with which it can experience the subtler realms of the human psyche, including ultimately the Self.

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