Is there anyone of us who want to suffer? How many of us want to be insulted by others? How many of us want to fail in our life? How many of us want to be separated from our loved ones? How many of us want to get diseased? But almost all of us go through these phases in our life and most of the time we find we are so helpless to do anything, we silently weep. Suppose our boss in the office shouts at us we feel humiliated but we can’t do anything else we may lose our job. And some people develop thick skin to such an extent that in spite of insults and sufferings they continue with their lives behaving as if nothing has happened.

Just like cats, dogs and donkeys do not bother for self-respect and continue serving their hostile masters for few morsels of food. We two legged being too do the same thing for our survival. We may think that this is an exaggeration but it is not so. Just look around or google and we can find many such instances of people being humiliated at home, at workplaces and even in public sometimes. In fact scriptures tell us that soul even gets used to suffer in hell. Many of us may not be realizing that we are suffering because we have got so used to suffering. Just like a hog, who gets so used to eat stool that even if someone tells that it is abominable he will just ignore the message. 

Animals are always helpless they cannot do anything. But human beings have got the opportunity to change their destiny.  We souls are not meant for suffering. We are not meant for humiliation. We are not meant to suffer the cycle of birth and death. We are meant to enjoy eternally just like the Supreme Lord enjoys eternally. As long as our desires are separate from the Lord as long as we try to enjoy with our senses we will suffer. Let us not get fooled by the false promises of enjoyment of this temporary world. Let us stop serving the pseudo masters of this world who exploits us and instill fear in our heart. 

Let us seek shelter of the original master of the entire creation who is the supreme protector who promises to burn all our sins because of which we suffer. Let his glance enlighten our hearts with transcendental knowledge. Let his sharp arrows pierce our hearts to vanquish all our desires, which binds us to this mortal world. Let us bind our hearts to his lotus feet and cross over the turbulent ocean of material existence.  Let his abode become our permanent abode where we can serve him, love him and live with him forever. Let our sweet Lord not leave us again. We without him are like flower without fragrance, river without water and life like a barren island.

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(Purushottam Nitai Das is a member of congregation at Iskcon Kolkata. He works in IBM as an Advisory Consultant. He writes at http://www.discoverursupersoul.com)