THE DIVINE LIFE By Swami Ramdas

Human life stands at the apex of creation because it is greater than that of all other creatures, nay, it bears a loftier significance than the life of the very gods. The possibilities which human life is capable of achieving are unique and colossal. Principally, it is made up of three main aspects, viz. physical, mental and spiritual. If this magnificent life is lived merely in the body without the cultivation of its finer and higher aspects, it assumes a position lower even than the animal life. The mental life, when it has risen above the physical, is of a more expanded sphere, partially awakened to the subtler depths of it. But, when life transcends both the lower planes, it ascends to a state which is of the Supreme Spirit in which all the narrowness and limitations of the lower aspects are dissolved into the infinite vastness of an exalted and all-embracing spiritual consciousness. In this supreme consciousness lies the root of the universal manifestation comprising the innumera...

Everyone who is in the grip of struggle for the attainment of the eternal values of life knows that life’s fulfilment and its ultimate fruition depends upon the immortal bliss and peace of the Atman. He further knows that this unchanging Truth can be his, only when the mind is withdrawn from the external attractions of the world, only when he has conceived a revulsion of feeling towards the pleasures of the senses, only when the false cravings of his soul for the unstable and ephemeral things of life have ceased and disappeared. These are the necessary conditions for the realisation of the immortal peace and joy of the Atman.  The Sages have declared: There is no higher gain in this existence than the bliss of the Atman. When you have once found it, you are utterly free from the clutches of mental turmoil and the fetters of death and misery. Suppose a man has come by a perennial spring of nectar at which he can quaff to his heart’s content and thus satisfy the thirst that parches ...