Solving the problems of life - 1

Step 2: Eradicating Problems

So we have been reading about the major problems of life, i.e. to say Birth, Death, OldAge, Disease.
Many of you replied saying that everyone of us knows about these problems, but since we have no control over them we should not think about them and cause anxiety. Krishna, on the contrary states otherwise.

See now that we are here, we'll have to suffer the reactions of the material world. - Disease, old age, death. The moment we took birth we were sentenced to these problems. But the intelligence is in doing something so that at least we dont have to suffer these things again.

Its like a person steals and gets punished and is in the jail. He has to agree to certain strict schedule. Doing extreme hardwork. Sometimes even menial work. He gets food which is not very relishing. Now its out of control to do anything.
But if he uses his intelligence to realise his misery and resolves not to undergo such misery again, he can be called a wise man. A thief, but a wise man.
So if he does some backtracking, he'll understand, it was his act of stealing which put him into this problematic situation. And once he commits, to not steal again, once he completes his term. He will never again have to suffer the jail conditions.

Coming back to reality, thinking back and back analysing we should also come to a conclusion about our miseries. What was that one thing we did wrong that led us to this world. Remember Krishna says in Bhagwad gita that this world is "dukhalaya" - abode of misery.

Now this thinking process, contemplation on this particular subject matter is only a human's privilige. Its the man's foremost duty to enquire into the nature of problems and then try to find out solutions.

This has been written in our scriptures. Vedanta Sutra is a scripture which enjoins the vedic wisdom into one-line quotes. And the first sutra (principle) is

Athato Brahmna Jigyasa

Means "Now is the time to enquire".

Now ----> here means now that you, the living entity has got a human body, you should enquire. So all in all its not selfish or wrong to get rid of problems. Don't get cheated by people who say "problems are a part of life, everyone has to suffer them, so you do so too". Cos here even god says that get rid of the problems.

Leaving you to ponder over this subject and come to some sort of conclusion. It might help to go through this twice.

So happy contemplating.