Quest for Enlightenment: Krishna Devotee from Denmark Considers India as Punya Bhoomi
This interview broadcasts the message of a young Danish gentleman, who is now a spiritual seeker and walks on the path of enlightenment. This write-up is based on his interview with writer Premanjana Das (Pranjal Joshi), which was conducted on 14th February 2018 in Jaipur, India. Views expressed here have been shared by Jacob.
Jacob Holck Nielsen is a young devotee of Lord Krishna from Denmark and is now known as Bhakta Jacob (bhakta means devotee). Jacob loves India as he feels that India is ‘punya-bhoomi’ (a land of piety) and has the greatest spiritual wealth, but he feels unfortunately nowadays Indians too are adopting western ways of living and have become materialistic. He feels that western civilization is formulated on the animalistic propensities of sleeping, eating, mating and defending.
Jacob says, “We should be more introspective and thoughtful, we must examine ourselves. Our lives are meant for something very important and every moment of life is extremely valuable. Not even a second which has elapsed, can be brought back, even with all the wealth a person possesses.”
The human form of life is very valuable, it is meant to obtain spiritual happiness. If we miss this chance, then we don’t know what our next life would be!
Sanatan dharma (in Sanskrit, Sanatan means eternal and dharma means duty) is eternal religion, it teaches man to love God. It’s not by changing religion that we can find God. Real love for God is within us, which we need to discover and experience, and the greatest opportunity to do that is with the Indians.
Great saints and sages have stated that the greatest happiness is spiritual happiness, so we must make an effort to achieve that. In India, people are being misled by media. The purpose of life is not to live to satisfy demands of body and senses.
Some westerners are dissatisfied with this modern way of life, in which most people are lonely and individualistic. Children in the western countries are being taken care of by people who are just paid to take care of them and the same goes for elderly people. There is no affection and concern for each other in a typical western society.
Spiritually, there is no purpose of life without Sanatan dharma. Just to eat, sleep, mate and defend oneself and then die one day with no true valuable and eternal asset cannot be the real purpose of life. When a person gets too frustrated with material life, then he tries something different. Since all of us are spirit souls, we can never be happy with money, sex and other materialistic wants and desires.
Some souls in the material existence eventually get tired of materialistic life and try to free themselves from it, which includes people from the west. Gautam Buddha set an example before us; he had material opulence, but he still went for renunciation.
Jacob is a fine example of how spiritual persons or devotees with non-Indian bodies are making Indians remember that the purpose of their lives is not sense gratification and that they must work hard to practice and preach their own spiritual beliefs or Krishna Consciousness.
Jacob shares a special bond with Indians and sets an example for people bewildered by materialistic civilization by teaching them the purpose of religion and helping them return back to Godhead.
Pranjal Joshi
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