I was listening to one of your talks about the soul’s purpose and it is to transform individually and then collectively by taking part in the Divine work. Can you elaborate what collective transformation means? What happens when the soul completes the transformation? I also heard you mention that the soul’s purpose is not to attain multi but to reach the highest of consciousness. Please elaborate on this.
First about Mukti. If the soul’s purpose was only to go back or get back to its original state from where it fell then the entire drama of creation with all its challenges and pleasure and pain is not worth it. But generally that is how mukti is understood as waking up from a dream or else going back away from creation into its patent state.
However, mukti very simply means that the soul realises its truth and its purpose. It wakes up from the torpor of ignorance. With this awakening it also realises its true work, the work for which it came. That work is to manifest the Divine in terms of Time and Space through material forms and names. It is like a child is sent to school with the purpose of, lets say becoming a healer. But he doesn’t learn the Science and Art of healing in the School. In fact as he grows up he may deviate from the original purpose and take to fulfilling some outer ambition etc as if that was the reason why it studied. Late it may know its true purpose which is to manifest the Divine, the Divine Wisdom, Power, Beauty, Peace, Bliss etc upon earth in and through the conditions of earthly life.
But for this the mind, heart, life and body must themselves undergo a certain degree of transformation. Otherwise we will be in the situation of someone who has read and understood much but he cannot speak because the speech apparatus is not working and cannot write because the hands are non functional. The need of transformation is precisely to express the Divine in and through our life. Mukti is the first step, that means the soul discovering its truth and its purpose. It is like a lion brought up by sheep suddenly discovers that it is a lion. Transformation is the next.
But transformation has not much meaning if it is only individual. Earthly life is also, by its nature collective. In our present state of ignorance the individual and the collective life try to adapt to each other in terms of ignorance, by finding some kind of a balance between the individual and the collective ego. But there is possible a truer and higher possibility the individual and the collective discovering its true soul and expressing its own truth. For example, India as spiritual knowledge, America as material power, France as liberty, Japan as Beauty, Germany as material perfection, and so on and so forth. And all these groups and collectivities joining hands together, supporting each other to turn earthly life into a beautiful and harmonious Life Divine by joining their best and highest individual truths for the good of earth and mankind.
Affectionately,
Alok Da
