"Strangers and Pilgrims on the Earth" |
APURBA BORUAH |
3rd year B. A. |
A philosopher travelled around the world to find a place of perfect
calm and rest. He found instead sin and sorrow, suffering and death every-
where. By the knowledge and experienee so gained thus, he arrived at
the conclusion that this world is not meant to be our permanent and real
home, but that real home, for which we have such deep longing in our
soul, is elsewhere. There the soul will find perfect peace.
Once a bird was caught near the Gulf of Maxico and sent off to a place eight hundred and fifty miles away. It was put in a close cage and did not know the way along which it was taken. But when it grew up, it returned without any guidance or help to the very same spot from which it had been taken away. Instinct did it. Just so, the man whose conscience is alive by the grace of God leaves this transitory world and, with the guidance and help of the Holy Spirit, reaches heaven, the eternal home for which he has been created.
A naturalist took the eggs of a nightingale to a cold country, and hoped that when hatched the birds would regard that country as their home and remain there. But they came out, and after the summer, they flew away to their native home and never came back. Similarly, though born in this world, we are not for this world. As soon as the time comes for us to leave the body, we shall move away into our eternal home.
At the time of death the soul does not die, nor does it go away to some far-off place. But through death, it begins a new life, entering a new state. As a child coming out from a mother's womb begins new life by entering into a new state, but the world or place he lives in continues to be the same, so the spirit after coming out of the body enters into a far better spiritual state, although the world in which it lives continues to be the same. The
