Just as morning follows night, gain inevitably follows loss. At each important stage of our lifespan we leave behind a part of us,
who we identified with and step into a new sense of identity. Life is a series of alternations between expansion and contraction.
Though we may desire just the positive and dread the negative, the impersonal current of our existence, inexorably moves by
laws over which we have little or no control. Our destiny is already preordained according to Bhagavan, it is just a question of
whether we identify with the prarabdha of our body / mind complex or not.
In Advaita there are three basic view points. The vyavaharika in which we see the world and presume there is a creator. There
is a sense of duality and isolation and we learn of existence of something greater that gives us immortality. The phenomenon
of existence is due to the play of maya, which is the Sakti of Isvara or God.
The pratibhasika says, the world, the soul and God are all established by the seer or Jiva and do not have any independent existence.
The third is the paramarthika, also known as Ajatavada which means that there was no existence in the first place. There is no
seeking something new, there is no bondage or liberation.
When we address loss or gain it is from the first view point, vyavaharika, the relative or empirical, that we speak. In the
other two views, the question does not arise. For most of us, the world can be nothing but implacably real however we spin
our story. But why are we involved with the physical, emotional and mental worlds that come with being a human being?
Why then do we suffer excruciating hurt on whatever physical, emotional or mental level that we identify with when it may
seem that we are not in any way at fault ourselves? There are various explanations of karma but in our immediate agony,
they are of little consolation. Ordinarily it is time that heals more than anything. Grace too, if we are so blessed, plays its
part in soothing the ravages of searing pain.
contd.,
Arunachala Siva.