Question to Radhanath Swami: Ultimately, we die alone. I have also read that our relationship with God is individual, which is unique to every soul. So, being the member of a spiritual society, how does that enable one to reach that potential individual relationship with God?
Radhanath Swami: Yes, ultimately at the time of death we have to turn to God ourselves. That’s something like a pilot having to fly his/her own plane. No one else will be there in the cockpit in mid air for the pilot. But that pilot needs help in learning how to fly, so he/she goes to school. And after one learns, one can actually fly a plane on his/her own. Similarly, for us to turn to God at the time of death, we need to be trained during our life time.
In the self-realized state, we are atmarama, we are finding the inner satisfaction of love of God within our hearts. But until we attain that state, we’re very much influenced by our environment. And in the environment of the world today there’s so much bombardment of various temptations in various ways to make us forget our true identity, our service attitude towards God. So we need to create an environment around us that encourages and inspires us to do the right thing that’s in harmony with our true identity as spirit souls; we need to create an environment around us that gives us strength to overcome our spiritual weaknesses. To create such an environment we need a society of spiritualists around us—that could be our family, or that could be our friends. But that society should be helping us to remain on the straight path of dharma.
Actually, spiritual life is enjoyable, it’s fun, and it’s wonderful. Spiritual life is the greatest excitement, the most dynamic, enjoyable, blissful lifestyle to live. That can be easily experienced when spiritual life is practiced with like-minded people. That unity gives us the strength to continue on with integrity.
