Birds naturally long to fly. Even if kept in the most comfortable cages, they still look for ways to escape into the sky and fly to their hearts’ content.

Similarly, the human spirit longs to fly in the infinite sky toward life and love eternal. Something within us calls us to discover whatever exists beyond, in the vast unknown. Since time immemorial, that inner adventurer has inspired humans to face ferocious beasts and raging storms, to dive deep into the ocean and rise high into space, to probe inside atoms and inside psyches – seeking that elusive something which will thrill and fulfill. 

Normally however, we don’t recognize that we are longing for the infinite; we keep longing for many worldly things. Yet such longings, even if fulfilled, can’t fulfill us. Being mundane and finite, they keep us inside the cage of materialism. 

Unfortunately, though we are often dissatisfied, we don’t often become dissatisfied enough to look outside the cage, for the infinite. Why? Because materialistic culture allures us with seemingly infinite pathways to pleasure. Allured, we keep seeking forever in places where nothing lasts forever. 

Fortunately, the doors of the material cage open slightly on special moments when we start asking ourselves earnestly: “What really counts?” Such moments can occur when we are about to lose everything we hold dear or when everything we hold dear is exposed to be unfulfilling. 

In the Bhagavad-gita (02.07), Arjuna had such a spiritual eureka moment when he recognized the futility of the conventional path to prosperity and power. As soon as he became receptive, the Gita provided him a time-honored path to the infinite. 

The Gita stands ready, inviting us all to unleash our inner adventurer. 

 

Think it over:

  • How does human adventurousness express the longing of the human spirit? 
  • Even if dissatisfied with the finite, why do we not seek the infinite?
  • When do the doors of the material cage open? 

 

 ***

02.08 I can find no means to drive away this grief which is drying up my senses. I will not be able to dispel it even if I win a prosperous, unrivaled kingdom on earth with sovereignty like the demigods in heaven.

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