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431. The Length of One’s Life

We Indians believe that our life is fixed. When the appointed hour arrives, no power is there to put it off. It is true for all men, but not for Rishis who can choose their hour of departure. A man dies when his own soul and the Superconscient together sanction it and never otherwise. Philosophically that is true of all small events. Sri Aurobindo divides knowledge into four types. 1. Egoistic knowledge 2. Non-egoistic, subliminal knowledge 3. Intuition 4. Knowledge by identity. Moksha is knowledge by identity. Man dissolves in the Spirit and achieves identification. The only example that can be given for knowledge by identity is we know we are alive, we exist. No one need tell me that I am alive because I know it, I know that I am alive - exist - because at that point I am identified with the Superconscient, the God.

Generally we are unconscious of it. The more we become conscious of it, the greater is our capacity to prolong our life. As long as a man is aware that he exists, it is a spiritual awareness. Spiritual awareness can prolong life. Let us consider this high spiritual awareness or idealism and water it down to our human life. It becomes Self-Confidence. Self-Confidence raises one's capacity to accomplish materially. In the section on Love, Thirukural says if one is aware of the fact that he is loved by the person whom he loves, he has the pride of life. In our tradition it is called mangalyabalam, the capacity of a wife's love to lengthen her husband's life.

In human life, it is the wife who carries that capacity. In spiritual life, one can prolong one's life as long as he wants if he is aware that he exists -- exists in HIM. Suppose you own a company or you are a manager of 25 staff members or the head of a family, there also this knowledge will be of effective use in a great measure. When you know you are RIGHT in every aspect of the work, that knowledge is the knowledge of ‘God in Life'. Only that you must be really right and not THINK you are right, which is an illusion. Such knowledge can make your accomplishments doubly successful.

Comments

 Para 1 - Line 4 & 5 - remove

 

Para 1 - Line 4 & 5 - remove commas

Para 3 - Line 6 - a knowledge - knowledge

K. Venkatesh



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