The Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha and the Hindu community were privileged to host one of the top religious gurus of India early in 2016. Swami Avdheshanand Giri is highly regarded in Hindu circles for his writings, orations and brilliant expositions on Hinduism. In his book, Vision of Self, he records many of the deeper thoughts of Hinduism. I hereunder reproduce one of his lectures titled, "Source of Life."
"Life is the greatest gift of God. It is priceless, accept it. Stop, look and think, it is an opportunity given not to be lost. Do not run away from life, do not fight and do not escape, do not reject it.
Right from the very next moment of birth, death is swallowing life gradually and successfully. The journey towards death starts right from the moment of birth. Stop, transform the victory of death into its defeat. Change its direction, otherwise the victory of death is certain.
Your power, wealth and magnificence all are like a lifeless picture in front of death; in presence of death all are useless. The meaning of the presence of death is perishability of entire possessions. Death makes everything useless and meaningless.
"In the presence of death all is lifeless. Leaving individualism, the everlasting power of existence of 'Self' and the experience of 'Self' is nectar and pure intelligence (supreme spirit). The existence of 'Self' alone is out of the clutches of death. It is only Tattva that defeats and overthrows death. The joyful victorious death, trembles before the 'Self' (supreme spirit).
"Everything lies in the jaws of death (Kaal), but one, even when he is in the jaws of death, becomes above the personification of the destructiveness principle. In the span of time or Kaal, whatever is there is perishable and destroyable. Time is the motion of death, time is the wheel of death and time is the wings of death.
"Knowing the certainty of death, leads to increasing awareness about life. It will enable us to enter into various phases of life and let us know the real meaning and importance of life and consequently generates the courage and sensitivity to respect the gift of God that is the life as human being. Running away from life amounts to turning towards death. Therefore, what is going on, observe its reality and accept it. This makes our awareness stronger towards life and understanding its meaning. Death is such a devil-like bird whose claws catch us, as soon as we take birth. Death is such a strong whirlpool in which we have lost direction and cannot free ourselves.
"Thoughts are such a powerful tool that even in a whirlpool we can remain calm and quiet and standstill. With the support of productive thought process and deep awareness, it is possible to hold tightly the strings of the horses of death and go ahead towards life. In the present age, the entire consciousness of person is going outwards.
"We are looking only outside and want to find the ways and means to escape from death. Having tasted the western philosophy, the desperate intellectual has now collected the courage to divert himself towards oneself. We see the change in the awareness in the world. Investigations are going on all around to find out the Truth of life and Existence.
"The big powers of the world are busy eradicating weaponry. A new beginning has been made to stop wars. The terribly destructive accidents like chemical wars are being curbed. The scientist who brought death on the earth has now started making concerted efforts for safety and survival of life. The joint consciousness and preservation of the people in the world is taking steps towards the Ultimate Truth (the Everlasting Param Tattva), safety and survival of life. The collective prayers are being held.
"The centre of man's life and the centre of expression of Godliness is the same. The entire creation, with the law of succession and development began with the same point of centre and from the same centre development of human personality took place. Before the creation, that we know today, it was in subtle form–like the seed of a tree. The external features and outer existence of the tree is basically present in the seed in subtle form. In a similar manner everything in this creation started taking different forms from the subtlest original Tattva. In the creation of this creation, expansion and formation of different objects started taking place. Man also assumed his personality and existence.
"It is because of material grossness, when man reaches out to search life, he is not able to understand the real meaning of life. Whatever is seen outside, multiple times it exists inside. There are very many subtle reasons for the outer gross objective and material world. Similarly, behind the existence of man there are very many subtle reasons. Man is ignorant about full knowledge. Whatever he knows is not whole, because all his information is based on out there. Death in a fraction of moment, grounds all the information and crashes the ego of the person."