Know your Self: Here and Now
इह चेदशकद्बोद्धुं प्राक्षरीरस्य विस्रसः ।
ततः सर्गेषु लोकेषु शरीरत्वाय कल्पते ॥ ४॥
iha cedaśakadboddhuṃ prākṣarīrasya visrasaḥ .
tataḥ sargeṣu lokeṣu śarīratvāya kalpate .. 4..
If a man is able to realise Brahman here, before the falling asunder of his body, then he is liberated; if not, he is embodied again in the created worlds.
Swami Vivekananda Says —
Have you seen God? Have you seen the soul? If not, are you struggling for it? It is here and now, and you have not to wait for the future. What is the future but the present illimitable? What is the whole amount of time but one second repeated again and again? Religion is here and now, in this present life.[Source]
Owing to life itself being frail and uncertain, one should be devoted to religion even in one’s youth. For who knows when one’s body may fall off?[Source]
Man has got this body simply to realise Self-knowledge. …Advance like a hero. Don’t be thwarted by anything. How many days will this body last, with its happiness and misery? When you have got the human body, then rouse the Atman within and say — I have reached the state of fearlessness! Say — I am the Atman in which my lower ego has become merged for ever. Be perfect in this idea; and then as long as the body endures, speak unto others this message of fearlessness: “Thou art That”, “Arise, awake, and stop not till the goal is reached![Source]
Let me realise the Truth this moment! In this very life!” — these are the words of a hero. Such heroes are ever ready to renounce the very next moment, and to such the scripture (Jâbâla Upanishad, 3.) says, “यदहरेव विरजेत् तदहरेव प्रव्रजेत — The moment you feel disgust for the vanities of the world, leave it all and take to the life of a monk.[Source]