Eternity is a universal longing of all living beings, 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?
No, not at all. We as souls are immortal; we just need to start living at the spiritual level.
The Bhagavad-gita (08.15) 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 especially possible in the human form, for this form 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 can love the spiritual and thereby achieve the eternal.
If we wish to activate our love for the spiritual, Gita wisdom stimulates us with a rich revelation of life in the spiritual world. Life there is an everlasting delightful celebration of love with the all-attractive, all-loving Absolute Truth, Krishna. For easily and effectively redirecting our love from matter to him, Gita wisdom provides us the process of bhakti-yoga.
Thus, the Gita’s double empowerment for us is the twin revelation of Krishna as the goal in eternity and bhakti as the process to eternity. Thus empowered, we can march confidently on a spiritual journey that culminates in destination eternity.
This is life’s supreme success. It beckons all of us. Why miss it?
Bhagavad Gita Chapter 08 Text 16
“From the highest planet in the material world down to the lowest, all are places of misery wherein repeated birth and death take place. But one who attains to My abode, O son of Kunti, never takes birth again.”
Hare Krishna Prabhu,
You have really empowered us through this article by uncovering Gita’s double empowerment.
Happy to be of service.