What More do you Want?🔗

A small story from the great Hindu epic, the Mahabharata:

There was once a king by the name of Yayati. He lived extremely well for a hundred years, enjoying his kingdom and all the physical and mental comforts of life. At the end of one hundred years, Yama (God of Death) came to take him, as it was time for him to leave planet Earth. The king was shocked to see Yama and started crying, 'Why have you come so fast and suddenly, without any notice? I have not lived my life fully yet! Please, give me some more time to live!' Yama replied that no extension was possible to one’s span of life. Yet, Yayati pleaded with him and begged him for more time. Yama finally conceded that if any one of his sons was ready to give his life for Yayati, then he could live for that much more time. Yayati was happy. He called one of his sons and said to him, ‘Please give up a part of your life and give me more time to live.’ The son was dutiful and fond of his father. He gave up the remainder of his life and died instantly. Yama granted Yayati another hundred years to live. Yayati continued to enjoy all the material comforts in the same manner as before and lived another hundred years. At the end of this period, Yama returned to take Yayati. This time too, Yayati felt he had hardly lived his life. He begged Yama saying that he was not prepared to die yet and wanted more time. Yama gave him another chance. Another of Yayati’s sons gave up his life for his father, and Yayati’s life got a lease of another hundred years. Now after Yayati enjoyed the next hundred years, Yama came back to take him. Again as before, Yayati asked for more time, but Yama refused to oblige him this time. Instead of agreeing to Yayati’s plea as before, this time, Yama asked Yayati compassionately, 'Great king! Do you think you can put out a fire by pouring oil into it? Do you think you can fulfill your desires by living them out more and more?' In just a few beautiful words, Yama explained the whole purpose of life to Yayati.

The Mahabharata says that Yayati, at that moment, experienced Lakshmi (Goddess of wealth) in his being. You may note that the Mahabharata does not say Yayati experienced Saraswati (Goddess of Learning); it says he experienced Lakshmi (Goddess of wealth). Lakshmi here does not symbolize outer world wealth; it symbolizes the richness of the inner world and the enhanced quality of life because of that. He finally realized the truth, followed Yama and rested at the feet of the Divine.

The quality of our life does not depend on the quantity of our wealth or our possessions. If this were so, then all the rich and wealthy people, the so-called successful people, would enjoy the highest quality of life. But if you just ask around, you will come to understand that it is not so.

There are many people who have failed to achieve what they want in life and as a result suffer from discontent and the feeling of failure. We may think that people who have been successful in being able to get whatever they wanted in life should be contented and fully satisfied. On the contrary, many times we see the strange situation where people who have achieved everything - material and emotional in life, still feel dissatisfied. These people suffer from ‘depression of success’.

It is true that we need wealth to enjoy life, even to lead what we may call a reasonable standard of life. But we may have all the wealth we want in life and still be discontented. Wealth as such, does not fulfill one. There is a deep driving need within us that goes beyond material possessions and acquisitions. There is a part of all of us deep within that we are not even aware of, which keeps telling us that there is a purpose to our life which is beyond material success. The discontent that arises out of this is what I call ‘depression of success’. But most often, we don’t diagnose this feeling properly, and suffer because of this.

When we fail in our attempt to achieve something, we have the hope that the next time, we will be able to achieve success. So with depression of failure, at least there is the hope that keeps us going in life. However, if we have already achieved everything and we are still not satisfied, there is nothing that can give us satisfaction through the material world. Depression of success has no cure in further acquisition, either material or emotional. We need to understand that we have to raise the quality of our life. That is the only action that will bring us true happiness and true wealth.

The story about the origin of Lakshmi is also representative of this fact: when the ocean of milk (the mind) was churned by the devas (gods) and rakshasas (demons), using the Meru Mountain as a fulcrum and the giant serpent Adi Sesha as a rope to churn, from deep inside the ocean, Lakshmi, the Goddess of wealth emerged. This is actually a metaphorical representation: when the mountain of pure awareness churns the ocean of milk, that is the mind, it raises the quality of our lives in the form of Lakshmi.

Most of us think that our minds are very logical. Actually, the mind is most illogical. Just try this experiment: sit down for five minutes, write down all the thoughts that come to your mind in these five minutes honestly without editing. Then, read what you have written and you will realize how illogical your mind is. We are running a mental asylum inside our heads! One moment, we might have been thinking about our workplace, then, for no particular reason, we find ourselves thinking about our house. The next moment, without realizing it really, we might be thinking of our children. There is no connection, no rationale and no logic in the way our mind moves from one thought to another. The association of thoughts is highly illogical.

And we have entrusted our whole lives to this mind of ours. Can we imagine the nature of the mind to which we have entrusted the entire control of our lives? Vivekananda says, ‘The mind is like a drunken monkey that has been stung by a thousand scorpions.’ Just imagine the state of this monkey! Our mind is like this monkey that just jumps madly with no control over itself! The mind is not under our control; we are under its control.

I have studied the working of the mind of thousands of people by asking them to write down their thoughts, unedited, the way I have just now described. When I analyzed these outputs in detail, I found that in the majority of the cases, what we may refer to as the average human, there was a commonality running like a thread. The commonality was: eighty percent of their thoughts were based on greed and fear. These thoughts, these desires and fears, were in fact controlling them. The interesting part was that they were not even aware of this. It was the unconscious part of their mind that was generating these thoughts of greed and fear. The unconscious mind was not only generating these thoughts but also actually deciding what was to be done in their lives.

A small story:

There was a man who had just bought a new car after learning how to drive. He was very eager to go around town and so started driving it. He started the engine and drove for sometime and gained speed. Soon, he lost control of the car and the car went all over the road in a zig zag fashion and crashed into a tree and stopped. A friend who came to his rescue asked him in surprise, 'Why are you driving the car when you don't know how to drive? And that too such an expensive car!' The man replied, 'What do you mean I don't know how to drive? Of course I know how to drive; I just don't know how to stop!'

Most of us are in a similar situation like this man who knew how to get the car to move but did not know how to stop it. He was not driving the car; the car was driving him! Similarly, most of us are not in control of our minds; our mind controls us. Be very clear: the mind is just a collection of all our thoughts. So if we lack clarity in our thoughts, it only means that we are having too many contradictory thoughts crowding in our mind.

But somehow, we are happy just being caught in the contradiction of our thoughts, unproductively. There is a popular saying that goes: if you make people think they are thinking, they love you. But if you really make them think, they hate you! All our energy gets sapped in thinking unproductively. If we expended energy to make only productive and quick decisions, we can make 10 times more decisions in any given time. We have to get out of the unconscious zone of crowded thoughts and get into conscious thinking.

It is possible to move from this seemingly generic state of unconscious non-awareness, to a state of awareness and conscious thinking. When we reach this state of awareness, almost 90% of our thoughts are for universal benefit and self-healing. Our very presence will radiate positive vibrations. That is why when you sit around a master, you feel an unexplainable goodness and a longing to be there for as long as you can. The master is an embodiment of goodness because he is in a state of pure awareness all the time. When we internalize these concepts, our awareness too will increase and slowly our mental set-up will be generated anew. Then, what the master does at his level, we will do at a microcosmic level!

When we analyze clearly what is right and what is wrong, what is eternal, what is the truth, and what is not, from this analysis, intelligence will arise and our quality of life will increase. This feeling of fulfillment is what is referred to as Lakshmi. Goddess Lakshmi stands for wealth and richness; for overflowing, for prosperity. All these refer not just to the material wealth but to the wealth of the inner world, to the inner richness. Real richness is not money, it is the quality of the being and of life itself.

Money can be got through any means. It is not a big deal. It does not require much. Just a few business techniques and greed for money is enough; you will become rich! But the inner richness is what we need to work for. It is the inner richness that is the real overflowing, the real prosperity.

Our house is filled with all kinds of comforts, with all kinds of things to make us feel happy and fulfilled, but our being is unfulfilled. Fulfilling our being is called Lakshmitva, having Lakshmi within us. Our mind always works towards having more and more. However, by its very nature, ‘more’ can never be ‘fulfilling’. I can say, ‘more’ is the opposite of ‘fulfilling’. But we always feel we need more to be fulfilled! That is where we miss the whole thing. Have you seen a single person who has been fulfilled by having more? Never! They only want more and more! So understand, the moment you ask for more to be fulfilled, you will never be fulfilled. Just see what you have with full awareness for a moment; then you will be fulfilled!

We always travel in the horizontal dimension of ‘what next’? ‘What next’? Sankara (an ancient enlightened master) says beautifully that the mind is like a musical instrument that continuously plays tata kim, tata kim (what next? what next?). As long as we are moving in this horizontal plane, we will run and run till we drop dead in our grave. Greed is what really drives us in life. If it is not greed it is fear. Either this or that.

A small story:

An eminent doctor successfully cured a sick child. A few days later, the child’s mother called on the doctor. She first expressed that his services were of the sort that could not be fully paid for. She paid her deep gratitude for what he had done and continued, ‘But I hope you will accept as a token from me this purse which I myself have embroidered.’ The doctor replied very coldly to the effect that the fees of the physician must be paid in money, not merely in gratitude, and he added, ‘Presents maintain friendship, not a family.’ ‘What is your fee?’ the woman inquired. ‘Two hundred dollars,’ he replied. The woman opened the purse. There were five $100 bills. She took them out, put back three, and handed over two to the doctor and left. The doctor sat alone and self-conscious.

Greed drives our thoughts, words and actions. We therefore fail to recognize the beautiful things in life. We are blind to the beautiful things. We see only what is there in everything for us. We miss because of this. We are in a hurry to travel in the horizontal direction. Traveling from more to more is only traveling towards our grave. It can never be life; it is just slow death.

Another small story:

A man was sitting in a bar, drinking. He noticed an old lady from the Salvation Army going from table to table, advising people not to drink and to clear their lives of bad habits. He tried avoiding making eye contact with her, but still she came to his table and started saying, 'Don't you realize that you are consuming slow poison?' The man, who was already irritated by her preaching replied, 'I know. But I am not in any hurry!'

The idea of more and more is also slow poison: traveling towards death. It will never allow us to taste life. It will never allow us to enjoy life, to totally and truly relax. If we have a deep satisfaction, we will enjoy life. If not, the greed for more will enjoy us. To a certain level, we drink alcohol. Then, alcohol starts drinking us. Up to a level, we smoke tobacco, after which tobacco smokes us. Up to a level we eat food, after that food starts eating us. If our life is based on craving, if we move on the horizontal line continuously, it will be a never ending process.

We need to understand that there is one more dimension to existence, to our life, to our being: what I call the vertical line. When you travel in this line, you start living the reality that you have; you start enjoying intensely what you have. This will give you an immensely deep satisfaction and reveal a whole new space, a whole new dimension of life. Instead of going for more and more to enjoy, your enjoyment will increase with what is already there.

Most of us think that we crave for things because we enjoy them. No! If we are sensitive, our consciousness expands and we will only enjoy and never crave. When I say enjoy, I mean enjoy what is there as reality, what is there in front of us. If I really enjoy this chair I am sitting on, I will not crave for a more sophisticated sofa. Just think: if we can enjoy this chair, will we be even thinking of the sofa? No! We think of the sofa only because we are dissatisfied with the chair. The thought of the sofa itself will not surface in our range of consciousness if we are happy with the chair! And when we don’t have the mindset to enjoy the chair, be very clear, we will not have the mindset to enjoy the sofa either, because the problem is not with the chair but with the mind. If we cannot sleep on an ordinary cot, even a queen-size bed will not satisfy us because once we get it, we will start dreaming about a king-size bed! You may say, ‘No, no, how will we think beyond a queen size bed?’ But I tell you, it will happen. It is happening to you in so many other ways already, if not with the example of the queen size bed.

If our mind set is trained towards a philosophy of ‘more and more’, a new layer which psychologists call the cerebral layer opens up, where we start enjoying things mentally but not physically. This layer stores all our fantasies and when we enjoy, we enjoy thinking of those things, and not the things that we really have. We just mentally enjoy, that’s all. If we have a Lexus, our cerebral layer will be enjoying a Benz. When we get the Benz, our cerebral layer will already be steering the wheel of a Rolls Royce! This way, we continuously escape reality.

In today’s society, we are continuously living in the cerebral layer. If we feel like dancing in a public place and we cannot, since society does not permit us to do so, what do we do? We satisfy ourselves vicariously by watching people dancing on television. Why do you think there is so much pornography around? Youngsters enjoy sex through watching it, that’s all; just mental enjoyment. At least with physical enjoyment, there is an end. When we get tired, we will stop dancing or stop enjoying or stop watching. But with mental enjoyment, where is the end? We can keep on enjoying the dance visually in our mind and we will never get tired! That is why this so dangerous. Two things happens when we mentally enjoy. One: as we continue to watch and enjoy, we accumulate more and more fantasies from what we see, and second, we never get fulfilled through it.

People ask me, 'Master, what is renunciation? Should I renounce the world to become enlightened?' I tell them that there is no need to renounce anything that you have. Just renounce what you don't have. What we have is not a problem: it is ours; we should enjoy it. Renounce what you don't have. We are trying to continuously enjoy what we don't have through fantasizing. Renounce that! That is what I mean when I say, ‘Renounce what you don’t have.’ That is what craving is.

Enjoying reality never disturbs one. It is only the ghost of craving that troubles us. In Sanskrit, there is a beautiful word called maya, which cannot really be accurately translated to English. maya: ya ma iti maya (that which is not there is maya). That which is not there, but which troubles us as if it is there, is what is maya.

When we fantasize about a super model or Miss World, immediately, our wives seem ugly. Be very clear: the outer woman never disturbs us; it is only the inner women who disturb us. Reality never creates trouble; only when we try to convert our fantasies to reality does the trouble begin.

Let me tell you a small story which I repeat very often in my discourses:

There was once an old man who used to go to the beach regularly in the evenings, sit on the sand, and watch people walking. A curious young man who had seen this old man coming everyday to the beach and sitting there for hours walked up to him and asked him why he was doing this. The old man replied, 'I am in search of my perfect life-partner.' The young man was shocked. He asked him, 'How long have you been in search of her?' The old man replied, 'Since I was twenty-five.' The young man was surprised and asked if he ever came across a single woman who met his expectations. The old man answered, 'Yes, I did meet her some years ago.' The young man asked, 'Then what happened?' The old man answered, ‘But then she was in search of the perfect man!'

Drop your fantasies, your imagination about what you don't have.

We pick up these ideas from the media, advertisements, television and movies - about the best eyes, nose, mouth and lips, and start yearning to have these for ourselves. Then, our body starts looking imperfect, even ugly to us. The billion-dollar cosmetics industry is thriving, thanks to this acceptance by us to base our self-esteem on their ideas of a perfect body. We start hating, consciously or un-consciously, this beautiful gift of our body bestowed on us by Existence. When we do this, we create a deep wedge, a deep wound in our being.

God is not an engineer to mass-produce the same type of beings. He does not have a mould to turn out identical clay dolls. He is an artist who creates unique pieces of art in His creations. Each of us is as unique as every one of His unique creations. If we understand this, we will love our bodies. And when we love our bodies, we stop asking for more.

When we drop the idea of having ‘more and more’ and start living in the present moment, we start living inside our boundary. What do I mean by ‘start living inside one’s boundary’?

We get up in the morning and while we are brushing our teeth, we think about the office. When we reach the office, we begin making plans for the evening: to go to the beach or maybe to a restaurant. In the evening, we go to a restaurant, but once we are there, we are already thinking about going home and resting. Similarly, on a Wednesday at the office, we start thinking about the weekend. But when the weekend actually arrives, we start worrying about what work needs to be done in our office on Monday. On Monday, we are already thinking about the next weekend! By living in this fashion, we tire out very easily!

One thing is for sure: if we are here, our mind is not here. Our mind never stays where our body stays. This is the life style of ‘more and more’. We run, run and run, without even knowing what we are running for. It is a rat race. In a rat race, even if we win, we are still a rat!

When we run with all our energy, we forget to enjoy, we forget to live. We forget to have Lakshmi in our life. Again, it is the quality of our life and not the quantity that is important.

The other life style, where we live inside our boundary, where we live in the present moment, creates a new mental setup: what Vedanta calls a cognitive shift; we start to live more intensely, with awareness, what Buddhists call Zen, mindfulness. Our living is then centered in our being; we feel fulfilled. We are always in bliss. Life opens a new dimension.

We feel continuously dissatisfied because we are under the continuous threat of our desires. We need to understand the term: threatened by desires. Observe carefully: the moment a desire arises, there is a deep uneasiness in our being, body and mind. If the desire is fulfilled, we start worrying about whether we will get to experience the same joy again or not. On the other hand, if our desire is not fulfilled, there is a hangover, a deep craving to fulfill the desire. Not only this: often we experience guilt the moment our desires get fulfilled. Until the desire gets fulfilled, there is greed. The moment it gets fulfilled, there is guilt! This is the usual pattern we trace with desires.

When craving enters our being, it splits our being into two halves. One side of our being craves the desired results, while the other side works towards fulfilling the craving in reality. This is what is schizophrenia. One half is thinking about what should happen, while the other half of us is living the real life. This gap between reality and imagination is what I call tension.

There are two kinds of lifestyles: living with ‘more and more’ and living with ‘this and this’. Either we enjoy this or nothing, now or never!

There are only two kinds of mental setups: that of a man who enjoys the path as well as the goal, and that of a man who enjoys neither the path nor the goal. Be very clear: we can never enjoy only the goal unless we choose to enjoy the path first, because the path itself is the goal. This is a very deep concept which if understood can turn our lives around by 180 degrees.

For example, when we are young, we yearn to settle in America, thinking that life there will be good. When we get there, we start working on buying a good house, thinking we will be happy after that. Once we get the house, we think that after marriage, life will be good. After marriage, we start feeling that when we have children, they will give us happiness. After having children, we start worrying about them and imagine that when they grow up and settle down we will finally be able to retire with money, be free from worries, and enjoy life.

However, by the time we retire, the mental setup we have created to continuously run behind ‘more and more’ becomes a habit. We forget the art of enjoying life. Relaxation is only a word for us, not an experience. Naturally, we have lost sensitivity to life, the quality of enjoying life. It is like selling your eyes to purchase a beautiful painting; selling your sleep to buy a bed; like selling

your life to purchase a house!

Krishna says emphatically in the Bhagavad Gita: karmanye vaadhikaraste maa phaleshu kadachanah (do your duty, but don't expect results.) This verse is often considered the essence of this timeless scriptural work - Bhagavad Gita. Krishna does not mean that we should work without expecting our salary. What He means is, let the job itself become the enjoyment. Let the path itself give us bliss. When we enjoy the path, even if we fail to get the desired result, we will feel deeply satisfied. However, if we do not enjoy the path, even if we succeed, we will feel only dissatisfied.

When we postpone enjoyment, when we postpone living in the present, when we constantly hope to live in our future, the habit of postponement becomes a mental attitude. Be very clear: whatever we may acquire in terms of quantity, it is the quality of our life that gives it meaning. We may have a beautiful bed, but it serves the purpose only if our mind can sleep on it. So work to increase not the height of the bed but the depth of your sleep.

A small story:

There was once a forgetful man who used to continuously keep a reminder of what he needed to do. Once, he had to remember to do three tasks and as a reminder to himself he tied three knots in his handkerchief. He finished two of the three jobs but could not remember the third job however hard he tried. He sat up the whole night racking his brains, trying to remember the third job. Just as dawn broke, he suddenly remembered the third job that he had tied the knot for: to remember to have a good night's sleep, since it was the weekend!

This is how we waste our whole life. We plan to enjoy but never actually enjoy ourselves. If the quality of the mind is not present, what is the use of getting a weekend to enjoy our vacation? We will be in a different place but if we are carrying the same restless mind, the attitude is still the same.

A man came to Buddha seeking assistance to cure him of unhappiness in his life. There was nothing exceptional about it; many others faced the same difficulties. He seemed to have had an endless succession of small disappointments and complaints. He was a farmer and he enjoyed farming. But sometimes it didn't rain enough or it rained too much and his harvests were not the best. He had a wife and she was a good wife whom he loved. But sometimes, she nagged him too much and sometimes he got tired of her. He had children and they were good children. He enjoyed them a lot. But then life was never stable; it was an unpredictable roller-coaster. And of course life is that way! Buddha listened patiently to the man's story until he finished. He looked at Buddha expectantly, waiting for some word to fix everything. Buddha said, 'I can't help you.' The man was startled. He said, 'I thought you were a great teacher! I thought you could help me!' 'Everybody has got problems!' said Buddha. 'We always have eighty-three problems, each one of us, and there is nothing we can do about it. If we manage to solve one problem, it is immediately replaced by another. We will always have eighty-three problems. We are going to die, for example. For you, that is a problem. And it is one you cannot escape. There is nothing you nor I nor anyone else can do about it. We all have problems like this and we never seem to be able to free ourselves from it.' The man became dejected and exclaimed, 'Hey! what good is your teaching?' 'Well,' said Buddha, 'It might help you with the eighty-fourth problem.' The man asked, 'The eighty-fourth problem? What is the eighty-fourth problem?' 'The problem that we don't want any problems!' said Buddha.

If we can free ourselves from our desire to be free of our difficulties, then what difficulty do we really have? As to what happens to us in life, we may have little or no choice. But as to how we deal with it, we have total choice. Why don't we exercise that?

The moment we create sensitivity in our being, even water tastes like amrita (nectar). There is a sutra (technique) in the Katopanishad that says, 'If we give away all our things in the Vajpeya yagna (sacrifice), we will become Indra (king of Gods). The underlying meaning of this sutra is that if we sacrifice the idea of craving, of having ‘more and more’, we will be in a different space. We will have the sensitivity to live and enjoy what we have.

A beautiful story from the life of Buddha:

There was a king by the name Aparasanjita whose wife was related to Buddha. From a very young age, the queen had been associated with Buddha and knew Him. She continuously inspired the king to meet Buddha at least once. Finally, the king decided to go meet Buddha. Being a rich and powerful king, he did not want to go like an ordinary person and decided to take the best diamonds with him to give to Buddha. The queen warned him that Buddha would not accept diamonds and suggested taking flowers instead. So the king decided to take both flowers and diamonds. In one hand, he had a chest full of diamonds, while in the other hand, he had a plate full of flowers. When he arrived, he saw Buddha seated with His ten thousand disciples seated in front of Him. He proceeded towards Buddha. Just as he was about to offer the diamonds, Buddha said, 'Drop it!' The king was shocked, but since he was in front of ten thousand disciples, he quietly dropped the diamond chest and proceeded with the flowers towards Buddha. Just as he started walking, Buddha said again, 'Drop it!' Surprised, the king dropped the plate of flowers, feeling really stupid in front of the big crowd. When the king now took a few steps forward, Buddha said again, 'Drop it!' The perplexed king was not able to understand. A senior disciple of Buddha who was standing and watching what was happening said, 'Buddha is not asking you to drop the diamonds or the flowers. He is asking you to drop the idea of having ‘more and more’. The diamonds are not even worth dropping; drop the idea that these things have value. If you feel that diamonds have value, you will fear the idea of dropping them. That is why Buddha asked you to drop the false idea of what is valuable, what is great. He is not asking you to drop physical things. He is asking you to drop your cravings. He is asking you to drop your mind, your ego.'

So understand: neither running after ‘more and more’ nor leaving outwardly comforts will help us; only drop the idea of having ‘more and more’.

Bring your mind to the present moment, to live life from moment to moment. Then, life will become joy, bliss, ecstasy; you will live life more intensely, with consciousness and awareness. Whatever you do, do it totally and completely. If you are drinking water, drink it with totality. If you are eating, eat it with complete awareness, totally. Whatever you are doing: walking, driving, sleeping, do it with full consciousness and awareness.

A king once went to a Zen master and asked him, 'Master, I have heard that you always live with joy and bliss. What is the technique that you use to do so?' The master replied, 'When I eat, I eat. When I sleep, I sleep.' The king was confused and asked the master, 'Do we not do the same thing?' The master replied, 'Surely not! When you eat, are you really eating? You plan for the future, worry about the past. When you eat, eat. When you sleep, sleep. Then your whole life will become worship. If you live life with the attitude of having ‘more and more’, life will be like work. If you live with the attitude of ‘this and this’, your life will be worship.'

Understand one thing clearly: either our whole life can be work or our whole life can be worship. We cannot have part-time work and part-time worship. Whether our life is work or worship depends on our attitude. With the right attitude, work becomes worship. With the wrong attitude, even worship becomes work. When we see priests in temples and other places of worship mechanically going about their jobs, often for commercial reasons with no passion, no compassion and no devotion, we can understand how even worship can turn into drudgery.

With the right attitude, anything can be converted to meditation, to worship. With the wrong attitude, even meditation will be converted to work. Going intensely into anything with absolutely no attachment to the results is the way to convert work to meditation. One more thing that has to happen here is a deep awareness about the core in you that is lying undisturbed inside although you are continuously working outside.

Once a disciple went to his master’s cottage and came out after some time, crying. After some time, another disciple entered the master’s cottage and came out laughing. The first disciple was surprised and asked the second one, ‘I asked Master whether I could smoke while meditating and he beat me. What did you do? What did Master tell you?’ The second disciple said, 'I asked Master if I could meditate while smoking! And he said OK!'

There are different attitudes for any action. Here, one attitude resulted in a disciple getting beaten and the other attitude resulted in a disciple getting praised.

Our attitude decides our life. With the right attitude, we are showered with more and more. There is a beautiful sloka (verse) in the Puranas (sacred text) which says, nanda (bliss) attracts fortune. There is one more saying, 'Where there is bliss, Lakshmi (Goddess of wealth) walks in naturally.' This is not just a simple faith or belief. Even modern-day psychologists say that if our mind is blissful, we attract happy people and happy situations around us. If we are sad and depressed, we attract the same type of people and incidents, sad and unhappy, causing us more sadness and unhappiness.

The being is like a dish antenna. If we tune ourselves to joy, we attract bliss; if we tune ourselves to depression, we attract suffering and pain. Our being always attracts like incidents.

Be very clear: we can either enjoy this moment now or never! Tomorrow is going to come to us as today. So if we postpone our enjoyment today in the name of tomorrow, we will postpone it tomorrow in the name of day after tomorrow. It is our choice.

If we understand what life is, we will understand that we don't need anything. We are not just given what we need; we are actually showered. However, if we don't understand this, however much we are showered with, we will take life for granted.

A small story:

There was once a small boy, who was begging for alms in front of the king's palace. The king on seeing him felt pity for him and offered to let him stay in the palace guest room for a couple of days. The boy was very happy to be in the palace; he had a sumptuous meal and went with great curiousity to his room. On reaching the room, he was disappointed to see a medium-sized room with a small bed and some other furniture. He was expecting a royal room with servants waiting on him, with the choicest of foods and a big and royal bed. He lay on the bed, muttering about how a palace could have such a mediocre-looking room, and finally went to sleep. The next morning, the king enquired how he was doing, to which the boy could not help expressing his dissatisfaction at how he had been treated and how the room was not up to his expectations. The king was furious at the boy's audacity and ordered his guards to throw him out. The boy was thrown out of the palace. He started walking, weeping profusely. On his way, he met a Sufi master who was begging for alms. The master asked him why he was crying and the boy told the master how he had been invited to the king's palace and was not given fair treatment and was ultimately thrown out. The master asked the boy to accompany him back to the king's palace. So the boy covered his face in case the king recognizes him and accompanied the master. On reaching the palace, the king saw the Sufi master and the boy, and invited them with all respect, to stay in the palace for a couple of days. The master profusely thanked the king for the offer, had a great meal and was taken to his room. He was given the same room the boy had been given earlier and they both spent the night in that room. The next morning, the king inquired of the master how his night had been. The master expressed deep gratitude for the excellent treatment and thanked him for the royal room and the comforts. The boy could not believe what the master was saying. The king was overjoyed and handed the master a thousand gold coins and offered him the guest room to stay in for as long as he wished. The Sufi master thanked the king once again profusely and went on his way.

The same situation gives rise to entirely different reactions and events! It is the attitude that makes the difference. When we live with the attitude of gratitude to Existence for all that it showers us with, life will shower on us and everything will become beautiful and we will live it to the fullest.

What More do you Want?

What more do you want? Let us understand this statement first.

A small story:

One man decided that he should pray as hard as he can to God so that he may live the life he has been dreaming of for all those years. He was a rich businessman but he was driven by a deep desire to have much more. God appeared because of his perseverance in prayer. The man could not believe that God had appeared. He asked him, ‘God, how much is a penny worth in heaven?’ God replied, ‘One million dollars.’ The man then asked, ‘How long is one minute in heaven?’ God replied, ‘One million years.’ The man asked, ‘Can you give me a penny?’ God replied, ‘Sure. Just wait a minute!’

When we get greedy, when we start asking for more and more all the time, God knows how to take care of us!

When we understand how much life showers on us, we will understand: what more do we want? If we don't understand what life has showered on us, even in our grave we will be complaining that our neighbour's tomb is better than ours!

Don't be cheated by the mind which tells you that you are an ordinary person with ordinary blessings. One important thing: to become a Picasso or a Ravi Verma, we need talent, we need intelligence. However, to become enlightened, we do not need talent or intelligence; just our ‘ordinariness’ is more than enough. We need this understanding, that’s all.

Ramana Maharishi once said, 'The moment you say that I am Bhagavan (God) and you are ordinary, you have missed my teachings.’ We hide our ego in a beautiful way by saying that we are ordinary. If the mind accepts the fact that whatever I say is always easy to practice, you should immediately start practicing my teachings. I never tell impractical things. But for you to practice my teachings, your mind has to die; it has to lose its grip on you. Like all other beings, the mind also has its own instinct to survive. That is the reason it does not allow you to go about without worrying about the past or the future.

With just a little intelligence, we can reason whether worrying has helped us solve a single problem in the past. If we have ten problems to start with, we create the eleventh problem of worrying about the ten problems. We cannot be so poor in our understanding. It is like saying, 'I understand fire burns, but I cannot resist the temptation to put my hand in the fire!' It is that foolish.

If this one point is understood, the very attitude of worrying will disappear from our system. I read a few lines about worry the other day. It said:

In this life there are only two things to worry about. Either you will be rich or poor.

If you are rich, there is nothing to worry about. But if you are poor, there are only two things to worry about.

Either you will be healthy or sick. If you are healthy, there is nothing to worry about.

But if you are sick, there are two things to worry about. Either you will live or you will die.

If you live, there is nothing to worry about. If you die there are only two things to worry about.

You will either go to heaven or to hell. If you go to heaven, there will be nothing to worry about.

If you go to hell, you will be so busy shaking hands with all your friends, you won't have time to worry!

In a very jovial way, this conveys the truth about why we need not worry. If you read this, you will understand, there is no need to worry at all because not even an iota of good is going to come out of it; only our minds are kept unproductively absorbed in it.

People ask me, 'Master, I have tried very hard but my mind does not become silent. What can I do?' I tell them, you don't know how much work is going on inside your mind! There are scientists doing research on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and they say that to do 1/100ᵗʰ of the work of data gathering, processing and analyzing that our mind does, we need a computer the size of a three-storey building and the noise generated will be as much as that of a large factory! The mind does so much work with no noise!

If we can put this mind of ours to productive use, if we can use it as a tool at our disposal, we can do wonders with it. Instead of going behind unwanted thought patterns and conclusions, if we can understand that we can succeed with what we have, it is enough. Don't bother if you have failed nine times and succeeded only one time. If you have succeeded one in ten times, increase the number of trials to one hundred. You will succeed ten times, simple! If we increase the number of trials, efforts and struggles, naturally we will see more and more moments of bliss.