Sugata Bose: 'SHREYA' AND 'PREYA' -- THE DUAL PREDICAMENT BEFORE THE SOUL ON THE THRESHOLD OF YOUTH [ KATHOPANISHAD ]

Friday 10 July 2020

'SHREYA' AND 'PREYA' -- THE DUAL PREDICAMENT BEFORE THE SOUL ON THE THRESHOLD OF YOUTH [ KATHOPANISHAD ]

'SHREYA' AND 'PREYA' -- THE DUAL PREDICAMENT BEFORE THE SOUL ON THE THRESHOLD OF YOUTH [ KATHOPANISHAD ]

There are two paths open to us. The first one beckons us to enjoy life's pleasures and suffer its pains, and perish in the end, an ignorant person steeped in spiritual darkness. The other urges us to renounce the duality of sensory pleasure and pain, and transcend worldly limitations to conquer both life and death, and, so, attain immortality. The first path is the pleasurable one that is painful in the end. The second one is the preferable path that, though, apparently bitter to begin with, is blissful in the final analysis. Which of these one chooses at the onset of youth is one's own decision that is much influenced and governed by mental tendencies accruing from past births. The ignorant choose the former and come to grief. The wise choose the latter and attain to immortality and bliss.