The Last Resort

“Our dear Lord, You are the last word in good fortune and the last resort of all saintly persons; therefore we all consider that we have achieved the perfection of our life, education, austerity and acquisition of transcendental knowledge by meeting You.” (Assembled sages at Kurukshetra speaking to Lord Krishna, Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Volume 2, Ch 2.29)

Attending a drug or alcohol rehabilitation center is the last resort taken by addicts to cure themselves of their problem. Due to the intensity of the treatment program, most addicts try to avoid rehab until all other options have been exhausted.

For an addict, it takes a long time to come to the realization that he or she has a problem. Drug and alcohol use typically start off on a casual level. One will have a drink with friends or coworkers once or twice a week. Very quickly the drinking becomes more frequent, reaching the point where one cannot go a single day without being intoxicated. For brief periods of time, intoxication provides a false sense of escape from the senses. The effects of the intoxicants inevitably ware off, forcing one to deal with their senses once again. In hopes of avoiding such situations, addicts try to remain intoxicated all the time. When one realizes that they may be drinking or using too much, they try various methods to kick their habit. They might try abstention for a day or two, or maybe try avoiding certain people or situations. Drug rehabilitation, involving a lengthy stay at a clinic or center, is seen as the most drastic method of therapy. Addicts know that if rehab won’t cure them, then nothing else will.

Many famous celebrities have cured their addictions by attending rehab centers. Two very famous examples are James Hetfield, the lead singer of the heavy metal band Metallica, and Rush Limbaugh, the most listened to radio talk show host in America. Hetfield developed an addiction to alcohol as his band arose from obscurity to world-wide fame over the course of twenty years. He knew he had a problem, but he tried every method except rehab to try to cure it. It was not until his wife had kicked him out of their house due to his drinking, that he decided to take the drastic step of attending rehab. Rush Limbaugh had developed an addiction to prescription pain killers after doctors initially prescribed them to deal with his back pain. Limbaugh is on the radio for three hours a day, five days a week, so staying at a rehab clinic for four weeks would have a great impact on his radio career. Like Hetfield, Limbaugh also tried various other methods for curing his addiction, but they all failed. Finally in November of 2003, the radio host gave in and spent over a month in a rehab clinic. Both Hetfield and Limbaugh have been clean ever since and say that finally going to rehab was the best decision they ever made. Trained therapists not only got them to kick their habits, but they also made them understand the reasons for why they became addicted in the first place.

In the same way that rehab is our last resort for curing our drug addictions, religion is our last resort for solving our material distresses. We all encounter some sort of distress in our day to day lives, for that is the nature of the material world. According to the Vedas, the miseries of the material world are of three kinds. Adhibhautic is the type of misery caused by other living entities. Sometimes someone will be rude to us or say something that will cause us distress. Other times they will directly inflict physical harm on us through aggression. The miseries that arise from such behavior are classified as adhibhautic. Adhidaivic miseries are those caused by material nature in the form of natural disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis, and tornadoes. The third kind of misery is adhyatmic, which is caused by our mind and body. Sometimes we hanker after something so bad that it causes us to lose our minds, or we may lament for something lost which causes us to fall into depression. These miseries are of the adhyatmic variety.

We all experience these miseries and our solution is usually the same. We make material adjustments to our lifestyle in hopes that these miseries will end. If someone causes us mental pain, such as a spouse or girlfriend or boyfriend, we renounce that person and seek companionship in someone else, thinking that a new partner will not cause us any pain. If we are feeling down on our luck, we may think of moving to a new geographic location, in hopes that new surroundings will bring us better fortune and greater happiness. Other common methods of dealing with distress include taking up new hobbies or changing jobs or careers altogether.

Do these solutions work? Not usually. Though they may give us temporary relief from our distress, new problems are guaranteed to come up. That is the nature of the material world. Even if we feel completely happy and content, we are still forced to die, an experience which can be very painful. The Vedas declare that a spirit soul that comes to this material world must repeatedly suffer birth, old age, disease, and death. So even if we come to the stage where we are materially happy and not feeling distressed, we are still forced to accept another body after death. Lord Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, declares in the Bhagavad-gita that one’s consciousness at the time death determines what type of body they will receive in the next life:

“Whatever state of being one remembers when he quits his body, that state he will attain without fail.” (Bg 8.6)

Making adjustments to our material way of life simply means we find new ways to perform the same animalistic activities of eating, sleeping, mating, and defending. Dharma, or religion, is our only permanent solution to removing the distresses of material life. Meaning more than just religion, dharma is the occupational duty of mankind. Instead of mere sentiment, it is the requirement of the living entity to know and understand God. Through service to Krishna, one becomes happy. The first stage of any religious discipline is the practice of tapasya, or austerity. Tapasya means regulating one’s activity by voluntarily undergoing penances with the aim of advancing in spiritual understanding. The requirement that one perform austerities is the main reason why religion is viewed as the last resort for those seeking solutions to material problems. As living entities, we enjoy our freedom. We love doing what we want to, whenever we want, without anyone getting in our way. We view austerities as being too restrictive, getting in the way of our fun time. What people don’t understand is that these penances are given to us by God as a way of helping us solve our problems.

Every religion prescribes some sort of austerities and the Vedas are no different. In the Vedic tradition, people are advised to abstain from the four pillars of sinful life: meat eating, gambling, intoxication, and illicit sex life. There are many varieties of sin, but these four are the primary ones since they are the most detrimental to spiritual advancement.

Those who follow the regulative principles of life, performing tapasya under the guidance of a bona-fide spiritual master, will surely have their spiritual consciousness reawakened. Tapasya brings about sobriety of the mind, allowing us to focus our attention on serving the Supreme Lord. By chanting His name, offering Him prayers, or reading books about Him, we gradually change our consciousness to the point where our material miseries no longer affect us. In the Bhagavad-gita, Lord Krishna describes this state of mind as being the brahma-bhutah platform:

“One who is thus transcendentally situated at once realizes the Supreme Brahman. He never laments nor desires to have anything; he is equally disposed to every living entity. In that state he attains pure devotional service unto Me.” (Bg 18.54)

Devotional service is rehab for the soul, for it cures us of our addiction to material sense gratification. We needn’t make it a last resort, for we can start the process today simply by chanting the holy names of the Lord, “Hare Krishna Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare”.

Enough is Enough

“After many births and deaths, he who is actually in knowledge surrenders unto Me, knowing Me to be the cause of all causes and all that is. Such a great soul is very rare.” (Lord Krishna, Bhagavad-gita, 7.19)

Drug and alcohol addiction is a major problem in America and throughout the world. People become so dependent on their preferred form of intoxication that it consumes their lives. Addiction affects people from all walks of life, from the rich and the poor to the young and the old.

Curing these addictions is not an easy task. Bad habits form over a long period of time, making them very difficult to break. Depression, family pressures, and other personal problems lead people to become addicted to drinking alcohol or taking drugs. Drug rehabilitation centers have proved to be the most effective means for curing people’s dependencies. These centers provide in depth counseling and treatment to those in need, all in a comfortable yet serious environment. Celebrities such as radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh and James Hetfield, lead singer of the heavy metal band Metallica, have attended these rehab centers and described how they changed their lives. The treatment providers really dig deep into the patient’s psyche to find the real reason why they are addicted to drugs. The pressures of celebrity and fame are removed and the patients are in an environment where they can be truly open about their problems. For both Limbaugh and Hetfield, the diagnosed problem revolved around the pressures of celebrity and pleasing friends and family. They both felt immense pressure to live up to their celebrity image in their personal life. Unable to please family and friends, they grew resentful and took to intoxication as a means of curing their pain.

The key to curing any addiction is to stop denying the problem and to completely surrender. One must admit that he has a problem before any progress can be made. Friends and family can try to intervene, but even their best efforts will bear no fruit unless and until the person is willing to come to terms with their problem. Only then can they begin the healing process.

In a similar fashion, we are all entangled in this material world, repeatedly going through the cycle of birth and death based on our karma.

“As a person puts on new garments, giving up old ones, similarly, the soul accepts new material bodies, giving up the old and useless ones.” (Lord Krishna, Bhagavad-gita, 2.22)

The Vedas tell us that this human form of life is unique in that it affords us the opportunity to understand God. Having a relationship with God and learning to love Him is our only permanent way out of this material world. There are 8,400,000 different varieties of species, each having their own level of intelligence. The animals are concerned primarily with eating, sleeping, mating, and defending. Where will my food come from? Where will I sleep? Who will I have sex with? After these three problems have been solved, then the animal must protect what it has. We human beings are supposed to be smarter than the animals, thus we shouldn’t try to imitate them. Instead of worrying about which restaurant to eat at, what kind of mattress to buy next, or which girl to chase after, we should be concerned with why we are here and what happens to us after we die. Now granted, eating and sleeping are required for our sustenance, but they shouldn’t be our primary concern. If we live a simple lifestyle then we will have more time to contemplate the real problems of life, they being birth, old age, disease and death.

Our main stumbling block is that most of us aren’t aware that we have a problem. The material world has that effect on us. Lord Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, has created an illusory energy in this material world, which is known as maya. Maya makes us falsely think that we are all gods and that we are responsible for everything that we do and everything that happens to us. We are responsible to a small degree, because we have a minute amount of independence in controlling how our senses interact with nature. However, the results of our work are determined by karma and other people’s karma. We are not the doer.

“Eat, drink and be merry” is how the saying goes. The Declaration of Independence of the United States contains the following words:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Now this is definitely true. God has surely granted us life, liberty, and the right to pursue happiness. The question that remains is how one should actually go about becoming happy. Material life means constantly hankering and lamenting. We keep making adjustments in the hopes that we will have peace of mind. Even if we are materially well off and living comfortably, that comfort will be gone at the time of death. According to the Vedic teachings, we will be forced to take another body after death, but our previously accumulated wealth doesn’t come with us.

True spiritual understanding only comes when we realize the existence of this repetitious cycle. We know for a fact that our ancestors have died and some of our relatives have even died during our lifetime. Witnessing this, we still try to pretend that we will live forever. Death is guaranteed, so we should be inquisitive to find out what happens to the soul after it leaves this body. Luckily for us, Lord Krishna, God Himself, has explained all of this in the Bhagavad-gita. If we take the time to read this wonderful book and make a sincere effort in trying to understand it, then we will surely be cured of our material disease and thus achieve everlasting happiness.