Man does not live by bread alone
Here ‘bread’ stands for meat and drink. Man needs food to keep his body and soul together, to maintain his physical existence. But man has a body as well as a soul. Bread is the food of the body. But what about the food of mind and soul? As a Sanskrit poet says: ‘In eating, drinking, fearing and copulating-men and beasts are alike; what distinguishes man from beasts is his religion. Devoid of religion, he is worse than brutes.’ Man is a rational as well as a spiritual animal or a divine being. His desire for knowledge has resulted in the advancement of science; his thirst for spirit has led to the evolution of religion. If man had been content with the gratification of physical appetites alone, he would have perished long ago. His survival and triumph bear eloquent testimony to his mental and spiritual greatness and they have made him the crown of creation. Our mind is curious to know this hitherto unknown. Our spirit is always hankering after a world of beauty and perfection and bliss. Fulfilment of the material needs is merely the starting point for his flight into the higher realms of mind of spirit or heaven that is our home to use a phrase of Wordsworth. Man is always looking before and after. His soul is filled with divine discontentment. It is restless; it languishes even in midst of material plenty. As Saint Kabir has aptly put in: ‘Our soul like lotus languishes in the midst of water.’ What could be the cause of it? Not the lack of material possessions. The cause is the separation of our spirit from the Universal Spirit. It is home sick for a world of perfection and bliss. This home-sickness of the soul is at the root of all religions. No amount of material wealth will ever extinguish this hankering of the soul.
