The Deepest Need

In each of us, the human beings, including me, the deepest need is one: Ananda, Joy, satisfaction, removal of the dissatisfactions and sorrows and difficulties and problems. It cannot be expressed correctly in one word. But the sense is that: Ananda. Every human seeks that and searches only that in the human life. Indeed, that is what is sought by the animals, too, as it seems.

And we never really get this Ananda. And the asking for Ananda gets involved with several other deep questions: Who am I? What is my true being? Why am I here? Why am I suffering? What is the meaning of my existence, everyone else’s existence? Why there are sorrows and sufferings? Why don’t I find any Joy, any Ananda? Why there is death? Why there are diseases? Why there are divisions, difficulties, dissatisfactions? And why there is all this Creation? Is it a Creation? Is there any One who has created all these things and all these sorrows and sufferings and all this yearning for Joy and Bliss and Ananda? And there grow numerous such questions within us, within each of us, within me.

And we start searching for the answers, along with our initial search for Joy and Bliss and Ananda. We seek within and also, we seek without. And our search begins instantly, without waiting for anyone else. We want to know.

We, in our search, find that we, the humans, are ignorant and in darkness. That is the first self-knowledge. I don’t know and I want to know. And the search grows intense. We want to know the meaning of our existence and the aim and goal of our life, which is short and uncertain, threatened by death. And we philosophize, and we dream and create arts and poetry and discover music, and also we find ‘religions’ to solve the problems. And also, we grow with sciences, techniques, mathematics, and civilizations!

And to meet the answer to the inner query, we come to discover God, come to the Seers who express the Veda, we come to Shri Krishna, the Buddha, to Jesus, to other spiritual leaders, to Plato or Aristotle or other philosophers, or in frustration of not finding any truth, and we turn Atheists!

And more or less, all of them, taught us to finally leave this earth, this Creation, and have a Nirvana, or a Moksha, or go to the Heaven! No place here, you will perish here, everything is transitory. Whether the Buddha or Shankara, your only solace is a Beyond, beyond the Creation. You shall have to return to the Origin! Go back! If any Creator is there, if any creation is here, go back to Him. Or, you shall have to go to the Heavenly Father and His Heavenly Abode.

Sciences have discovered a lot things and have advanced the standards of the human life, and have even tried to go to the origin of things, but the scientists are yet to reach anywhere in solution.

Indian philosophy has gave us a lot of wisdom regarding Existence and the Creation — it has given us the Idea of the Sat-Chit-Ananda, Existence- Consciousness- Bliss, Who is the Origin of all that is, Who is all that is. And also Indian Philosophy has given us the Idea of the Soul, the Atman, the Purusha, that we are individually — we, the human beings, the living beings!

But none has given us the satisfaction in full! If I am to go to Nirvana or Moksha, if we are to return to Heaven, then why I am here? Why should the Creator send me here, or send us here? Why this creation is there at all, if this all untrue, if this is Maya, if this is a vale of sufferings and tears, of darkness and sufferings! Why this earth, and this Universe, if they have no meaning, no worth, no aim? And what is this existence of mine, of ours, if it is a meaningless transient falsehood. If the soul is true, how and why should it come to this earth, this Universe? If it is a portion of Satchidananda, then why the soul suffer in darkness and sorrows and death.

Is there any answer? Is there any Light solving the situation, the question? Can anyone liberate me, and you all, from this condition which seems to be a dungeon.

The answer is : Sri Aurobindo.
The answer is : The Supramental Manifestation.
The answer is : The Supramental Transformation.
The answer is : The New World.


Sri Aurobindo has given me the answer. He is the Hope of Man. He is the Light. He is the assurance that our deepest need will be and ought to be fulfilled. Joy will be here! Truth will triumph! Death and sufferings will be conquered.

And we see the New Horizon, and we shall march onwards there!

[Continued]

Barindranath Chaki
18-09-2008

[This is published originally in ASPIRATION in answering a question by Devabrata Ghosh (Babul), and is to be published in Sulekha .]