God Is The Ultimate Goal - The Final Destination of All Spiritual Paths
Śrīla Prabhupāda teaches that human life is meant for inquiry into the absolute, a journey that must inevitably lead to a final destination. While modern civilization offers countless mundane objectives, the Vedic literatures cut through the illusion, declaring that the Supreme Personality of Godhead is the singular, ultimate goal of all existence.
The True Self-Interest
Conditioned souls exhaust themselves trying to find happiness in the material world, hoping to adjust their environment for permanent comfort. Śrīla Prabhupāda explains that this is a false hope, born of ignorance; the actual self-interest of every living being is to return to the Supreme Lord.
- These rascals, they do not know that his self-interest, ultimate goal of self-interest, is Visnu. Durasaya ye bahir-artha maninah. Simply by the false hope, hope against hope, they are trying to adjust things materially.
- Prahlada Maharaja says that no one knows that his ultimate goal of self-realization is to reach Visnu, the all-powerful Godhead.
- The ultimate goal of all ambitions is to become a servant of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. If an intelligent man serves the most dear Lord, who gives Himself to His devotees, how can he desire material happiness, which is available even in hell?
- These activities are generally called purusartha. But actually the ultimate goal is to understand the Supreme Personality of Godhead. This is called pancama-purusartha, the ultimate goal of life.
The Convergence of All Paths
There are many religious traditions and paths of spiritual realization in the world. Śrīla Prabhupāda clarifies that despite the differences in rituals, geography, and terminology, any bona fide religious system ultimately aims at satisfying and reaching the Supreme Lord.
- Sarva-sastre, in every scripture there is the aim, ultimate goal is God or Krsna.
- The searching process may be different according to the country, climate, but if the ultimate goal is God, then that is accepted as religion. Just like Christian religion. Christian religion, they are also searching after God.
- Whatever way of spiritual realization we accept, the ultimate goal is Narayana, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. The living entities are eternally connected with Him via devotional service.
- The sages confirm the statement that the Supreme Lord, not the demigods, is the ultimate goal of all religious principles.
Surpassing the Impersonal Conception
Many philosophers reach the platform of spiritual realization but mistakenly conclude that the impersonal Brahman is the highest truth. Śrīla Prabhupāda emphasizes that the impersonal energy is merely the glowing effulgence of the Lord; the ultimate goal is the Supreme Person Himself.
- Since impersonalists cannot understand the source of the Brahman energy, they mistakenly choose to think this impersonal Brahman the ultimate or absolute goal.
- Srila Madhvacarya says that less intelligent nondevotees think that their conclusion is the ultimate, but because devotees are completely learned, they can understand that the Supreme Personality of Godhead is the ultimate goal.
- Although impersonal Brahman, Paramatma Brahman and Brahman as the Supreme Person are all on the same transcendental platform, the personal feature of the Supreme Brahman is the ultimate goal and last word in transcendence.
- The living entity, while executing devotional service or transcendental rituals after many, many births, may actually become situated in transcendental pure knowledge that the Supreme Personality of Godhead is the ultimate goal of spiritual realization.
Attaining the Goal Through Devotion
Once the ultimate destination is known, one must adopt the most practical and direct means to reach it. Śrīla Prabhupāda consistently points out that bhakti-yoga, executed under the guidance of a bona fide spiritual master and without offenses, is the perfect path.
- Bhakti-yoga is a feasible process that begins with chanting and hearing. Bhakti-yoga and other yogas have as their ultimate goal the same Personality of Godhead, but one is practical, and the others are difficult.
- If one is infested with the ten offenses in the chanting of the Hare Krsna maha-mantra, despite his endeavor to chant the holy name for many births, he will not get the love of Godhead that is the ultimate goal of this chanting.
- Thus one engages in devotional service and attains the ultimate goal of life, the lotus feet of Visnu.
- This is the actual position of the devotee. The devotee simply wants to be in the presence of the Supreme Lord—either in this world or in the next—and engage in His service. That is the ultimate goal and benediction for the devotees.
Conclusion
A traveler who does not know their final destination will wander endlessly without finding satisfaction. Śrīla Prabhupāda explains that the conditioned souls are wandering through the cycle of birth and death, constantly making material plans, simply because they do not know that their ultimate goal is Lord Viṣṇu. While various religious systems and processes of yoga may prescribe different preliminary practices according to time and circumstance, their absolute culmination is always the Supreme Personality of Godhead. To stop at the realization of the impersonal Brahman is a symptom of incomplete knowledge. The supreme, final achievement for any living entity is to transcend all material designations, take full shelter of the Lord through pure bhakti-yoga, and return back to home, back to Godhead, where one can engage eternally in the loving service of the Supreme Person.
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