"If it took more than 200 years for the ruin brought about ecologically, environmentally and socially, you could maybe negotiate for a few more years or so to execute reform from within the very system directing this."

-what i was told when I had a major panic attack about the state of the world fueled by my eco anxiety

"To just know is very different from having attained"

Oh, to have the firm and resolute Sage Nachiketa's will power to want to know about the greater truth despite being repeatedly tempted into desiring for the ephemeral pleasures of the world.

Oh, to have the intellect to discern between what is good for the soul and what is just pleasant for the body.

Oh, to not be a hypocrite living in ignorance and purporting to be an intellectual.

Oh, to be blessed to be consistently ethical.

Oh, to be one among a myriad who actually attains union or truly realises after only hearing about the Ultimate Reality.

Oh, to not have to go through various disputants' worldly understanding of the Self, which encompass mere intellectual reasoning.

Oh, to be blessed with an able preceptor who's one with the Brahman itself and is someone whose Dharma involves souls' transition from one material form to another. (YamaRaj)

Oh, to realise the oneness renouncing both joy and grief alike.

Oh, to have the mental integrity like the young Sage Nachiketa to boldly reject the transitory pleasures at all times of one's existence.

Oh, to be worthy of the final emancipation

For the one who isn't the knower yet, he can desire to know about the Brahman.

He should seek to know the Brahman through penance - in regards to the body, mentality and speech as the Gitopanishad details.

Regulate your senses, and deprive them if you have to, in order to moderate the demands of the physical body. This helps achieve mastery over not yielding to the external influences that can distract the mind, which ultimately hinders the quest for truth.

Strive to be pure mentally and bodily. Worship, revere and contemplate the divine.

Be solemn. Entertain simplicity, honesty and lack of deceit in your being.

Refrain from inflicting harm through all means. Strive for harmony.

Encourage continence. Focus inward, quieting the distractions of the physical and sensual realms. Transmute romantic longing into steadfast drive aimed to anchor you onto the path that leads you to wanting to serve the collective with everything you do.

The knower who is devoid of all sorts of desires experiences the greatest bliss. This includes the desire to even attain total emancipation from Prakriti. It is after all, the knower. It knows that the totality of Prakriti is but the sport of the Brahman in front of whom even the Maya, an aspect of its own Self, complies with a blush. Such a knower is not distressed by anything at all. This knower always seeks to submit to the Supreme Soul, tossed about as the Divine wills, never to complain.

Kali - The Spirit Of The Times We Live In

Under Kali's influence, righteousness, austerities, and Union with God will dwindle. (Guiltfree overconsumption tsk tsk)

Those righteous will feel out of place in this age and the unrighteous will be overjoyed.

The age of Kali balks all spiritual endeavours.

Hypocrisy prevails in this age.

Nowhere it is to be seen, the following of the proper tradition of devotion to the Blissful Lord.

But how does the ever gracious Shree Hari tolerate this unrighteousness?

If all this really is the penance of the victims (i acknowledge myself to be one too), I daresay then, it seems so fair - when you put it that way. I'm possibly on philosophical placebo. Lived realities mustn't feign apathy. If anything, they need fierce protection. Shouldn't everyone know of all of their doings in their previous incarnations, then? There's no way accountability's proved. To be born in such an age and timeline itself shows everyone's blemished enough and has accrued enough wrongdoings. 🤷‍♀️

Although flooded with massacres, the age of Kali has one redeemable trait to it. - The fruit of deep meditation, extreme concentration of the mind and even severe ascesis - which is the attainment of union with the Lord, can be achieved by all just the mere remembrance of The Almighty. Or maybe seeing that very divinity in everything and everyone solemnly deserving.

Such is how the Kali Yuga is valuable in this one respect.

Even if you do not inherently have certain virtues, they could still be cultivated, and to live with these virtues means to live right.

It's never too late to develop:

1. Reverence to those deserving (like genuine figures of education - and that makes it everyone)

2. Generosity only when it's needed

3. Gratitude and Humility

4. Sympathy and Compassion towards the underprivileged

5. Personal discrimination of what's right and vice versa

6. Disciplined efforts

With these attributes taken into consideration when actions are done, they are automatically virtuous.

For when there arise doubts regarding your acts or uncertainties with respect to your conduct in life, act in those matters like how you think and know the higher power would want you to act.

Additionally, one lives right when one doesn't compromise on one's own welfare without neglecting his own prosperity. This has both material as well as spiritual undertones. Because spiritual progress in the current age requires you to finish your karmas and besides, to sustain your life, a decent material life seems necessary.

Think of God as residing in everything and everyone for it is what it really is. Perform irreproachable actions which are what virtuous actions are.

Elaborating on the last sentence, an action is virtuous when it's performed with integrity, fairness, honesty and with good intentions regardless of personal gain and recognition.

How really should life be led? (This is for an entire lifetime and not just a particular timeline in your life.)

One has to live life by propagating the truth in a concertedly determined manner. And what here is the truth?

It is what is deemed as being right and proper. To live a truthful life is to follow the universal code of conduct.

But how does one acquaint oneself with the knowledge of the code of conduct to be practiced? Constant introspection of the same would likely do.

Constant remembrance would ground you. It's all really not meant for human understanding, so don't lose yourself contemplating, but use this very mystical enigma to humble you. Cultivate gratitude for everything, for you are so privileged, and to not acknowledge that would be such a shame. To sustain yourself, it's not wrong to ask the divinity for reasonable ease in life. You live the most destructive organism's life : a human. Oftentimes, it's not redressible. The guilt of every harm you've inflicted, whether conscious or involuntary, must hold you accountable to repent and to ask for forgiveness because what else really can you do if your plundering of earth's resources can't exactly be remediated? Humans are inherently consumptive. Every action you perform must be rooted in servitude to nature, humanity, and the very idea of the unquantifiable divinity. Be grateful for the direction in life that's magically provided to you.

The one invested in the Journey of Realisation that culminates with the Attainment of Dissolution must strive for moderation and control their senses with the utmost resolve, both of which consequently give a sense of tranquility.

The person should develop a service attitude to everything she performs. One should perform their duties towards the people one is bound to with a sense of service and surrender to the Almighty. In a way, this in itself is penance.

The sacred "Om" sound is the sound of Brahman. It is the sound associated with the Primordial Lord. If we go by energies, frequencies and vibrations, those of the sound "Om" align with the divine. It is the sonic representation of the divine.

"He who utters Om with the intention 'I shall attain Brahman' does verily attain Brahman." - Taittiriya Upanishad 1.8.1

The 13th Verse, like the 11th, discusses the results of the 2 paths mentioned in the post previous to this. One of the results is being absorbed into Prakriti or the manifested energy itself. This is not considered the ultimate goal of human life as it isn't what it means to attain Moksha itself. By the principles of the Advaita Vedanta philosophy, there's more to this, as Moksha is beyond the Prakriti and the Purusha. To transcend both of these and to identify or find union with Itself is what it means to have attained true moksha.

So goes the Sanskrit phrase : अहं ब्रह्मास्मि

which translates to "I am the Brahman"

The "I" here refers to the pure consciousness untouched by even the slightest hints of ego (the sense of doership).

The Eleventh Verse states the results of the two paths mentioned in the previous post.

The Twelfth Verse addresses the pitfalls of fixating on specific aspects of the divine and not the inherent divinity itself.

Worshipping Prakriti or the Manifested Energy of the Lord leads one to develop extremes in materialism. Whereas pondering on just the attributes of the creation of the Lord would entice the ponderer about the creative energy of the Lord potentially not revealing the deeper truths.

The ninth and tenth verses elucidate about how engaging in work with the mind tethered to the fruits of the aforementioned work or karma, sends one devolving from her or his spiritual progress.

But to worship deities secondary to the primordial lord would not necessarily forward the spiritual progress of the worshipper as the worshipper in question doesn't truly seek union with the ever blissful Brahman in worshipping so.

Condemn the falsehood that is the Maya you are entangled in and always seek to know the truth.

Either of the two paths mentioned here would not bring closure to the Soul's journey in the Samsaric cycle furthering deeper enmeshment in the MahaMaya's Sport.

The 8th shloka delves more on the Self's nature

The Self is :

beyond human perception and comprehension altogether

all pervading (literally what "Vishnu" means)

bodiless

self sprung

pure and resplendant

untouched by sin

untainted by ignorance

omniscient and

transcendent

Furthermore, it is the Self that allotted the eternal creators their duties.