Life is meant to be not a race from birth to death but a raise from mortality to immortality

“Is life meant to be a race from birth to death?”
 
If people were asked this question, they would probably reply: “Obviously not. Who will race to death? The race in life is to progress and success, power and position, treasure and pleasure.”
 
Yet this very race for worldly things blinds them to the inexorable ticking of the clock and the inevitable approach of death, bringing with it destruction or deprivation of everything they have sought. The more they chase after worldly things, the less time they have for reflecting on this sobering truth of life. While they live obsessed with their worldly pursuits, life rushes on, despite their unmindfulness, and they end up unwittingly racing towards death.
 
Gita wisdom declares that this is not humanity’s inescapable fate. Life is not doomed to pathetic termination in death. Human life is potentially destined to raise us to immortality, provided we claim that destiny by living in accordance with our actual identity.
 
Our identity, the Bhagavad-gita (02.18) indicates, is that we are indestructible souls, distinct from our perishable bodies. And the life that honors this identity is the life devoted to Krishna, for we are his eternal parts, meant to delight in everlasting love with him.
 
Devoting our life to Krishna doesn’t necessitate renouncing the world entirely; all it necessitates is that we do our prescribed duties with material detachment and spiritual devotion. Detachment protects us from getting further entangled in bodily misidentification. And devotion enables us to progressively relish glimpses of higher spiritual happiness and realize our identity as parts of Krishna, thereby disentangling us from our material misidentification and helping us reclaim our spiritual glory.
 
By living thus, we can transform our temporary life into an exciting and fulfilling pathway to the eternal.

Bhagavad Gita Chapter 02 Text 18

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