Happiness is The Way

 

We convince ourselves that life will be better once we are married, have a baby, then another.

Then we get frustrated because our children are not old enough, and that all will be well when they are older.

Then we are frustrated because they reach adolescence and we must deal with them. Surely we’ll be happier when they grow out of the teen years.

We tell ourselves our life will be better when our spouse gets his/her act together, when we have a nicer car, when we can take a vacation, when we finally retire.

The truth is that there is no better time to be happy than right now.

If not, then when?

Your life will always be full of challenges. It is better to admit as much and to decide to be happy in spite of it all.

For the longest time, it seemed that life was about to start. Real life.

But there was always some obstacle along the way, an ordeal to get through, some work to be finished, some time to be given, a bill to be paid. Then life would start.

I finally came to understand that those obstacles were life.

That point of view helped me see that there isn’t any road to happiness.

Happiness IS the road. There is no way to happiness, happiness is the way.

So, enjoy every moment.

Stop waiting for school to end, for a return to school, to lose ten pounds, to gain ten pounds, for work to begin, to get married, for Thursday / Friday evening, for Sunday morning, waiting for a new car, for your mortgage to be paid off, for spring, for summer, for fall, for winter, for the first or the fifteenth of the month, for your song to be played on the radio, to die, to be reborn… before deciding to be happy.

Happiness is a voyage, not a destination.

There is no better time to be happy than… NOW!

Live and enjoy the moment.

Read Full Post »

Each thing in its own place

All Nasrudin’s disciples were gathered at a feast. They ate and drank for several hours, and talked about the origins of the stars. The night drew on and everyone made ready to go home.

A fine plate of sweets was left on the table: Nasrudin made all his disciples eat it.

One, however, refused.

“The master is testing us,” he said. “He wants to see whether we can control our desires.”

“You are mistaken,” replied Nasrudin. “The best way of dominating a desire, is to satisfy it. I would rather you had the sweets in your bellies – their rightful place – than in your minds, which should be filled with nobler things.”

Read Full Post »

Rabi’a and the Scholar

A leading scholar of Basra visited Rabi`a al-Adawiyya while she was ill. Sitting beside her pillow, the scholar spoke about how terrible the world was.

In reply, Rabi`a told him:

“You love the world very dearly. If you did not love the world, you would not mention it so much. It is always the purchaser who first disparages what he wants to buy. If you were done with the world, you would not mention it either for good or evil. As it is, you keep mentioning it because, as the proverb says, whoever loves a thing mentions it frequently.”

(Adapted from the “Memorial of the Saints” by Fariduddin Attar)

Read Full Post »

Peace is Not Attainable

“Peace is Not attainable”, says Swami Swaroopananda;

Because “Peace is What we are” … our ‘True Self’ (Nija Swaroopam).

Peace is not attainable, because it is not present in the future, nor can it be extracted from the past,

but can only be ‘Experienced’ Here and Now!’

Then the question of ‘why we are not able to feel it always?’,

This is because every now and then our status-quo is disturbed by various External elements, with the help of our sense organs, and we easily succumb to these influential elements!

What is to be done then is, Identify those elements and Eliminate them – to restore to our Own-self!

 

Four Major factors that normally disturb our Peace are:

Desire, Fear (mainly from attachments), “My’ ness & “I” ness (Feeling of Mine & Ego). Whenever you feel the disturbance of Peace, sit back and Observe for a while…..

From the depth of Quietness (of mind) you will be slowly guided to the Cause of the disturbance, which can be any One or a combination of these four factors.

As stated in Gita, using the Sword of Detachment, you have to then simply cut-off those links and restore to True-Self – the state of Everlasting Peace!

Try it Now (at least once), and you will be amazed with the Instant Result.

(Contributed by Sudha Menon)

Read Full Post »

Trust

“A man just got married and was returning home with his wife. They were crossing a lake in a boat when suddenly a great storm arose. The man was a warrior, but the woman became very much afraid because it seemed almost hopeless — the boat was small and the storm was really huge and any moment they were going to be drowned. But the man sat silently, calm and quiet, as if nothing was happening.

The woman was trembling and she said, “Are you not afraid? This may be our last moment of life! It doesn’t seem that we will be able to reach the other shore. Only some miracle can save us, otherwise death is certain. Are you not afraid? Are you mad or something? Are you a stone or something?”

The man laughed and took the sword out of its sheath. The woman was even more puzzled — what he is doing? Then he brought the naked sword close to the woman’s neck — so close that just a small gap was there, it was almost touching her neck.

He said, “Are you afraid?”

She started to giggle and laugh and said, “Why should I be afraid? If the sword is in your hands, why should I be afraid? I know you love me.”

He put the sword back and said, “This is my answer. I know God loves me, and the sword is in His hands, and the storm is in His hands — so WHATSOEVER IS GOING TO HAPPEN IS GOING TO BE GOOD. If we survive, good; if we don’t survive, good — because EVERYTHING IS IN HIS HANDS, AND HE CANNOT DO ANYTHING WRONG.”

This is the trust one needs to imbibe. SUCH TREMENDOUS TRUST IS CAPABLE OF TRANSFORMING YOUR WHOLE LIFE! And ONLY such tremendous trust is capable of transforming your life — less than that won’t do.” – Osho

Read Full Post »

This is Life

 

 

I called up my spiritual Master one day, to tell him how life is becoming chaotic. I told him how little that I demanded from life. But stream of life seems to be flowing faster and faster.

He replied, “You created it yourself, so don’t complain”

I was shocked. How could I do this to myself. I could not really get to the depth of what he said.

Until today, when I was watching one of his talks, where he narrated this story:

Once there was a spiritual seeker who lived in a remote area. He did not have any possessions. He lived alone & bare bodied except for a cloth covering below his waist. He had 2 of them. He lived and practiced his penance for many years.

One day a mouse chewed big piece of the spare piece of cloth. This was a problem. If the mouse will do the same to the only cloth he had left? So he decided to keep a cat. Now he thought the mouse will be taken care of.

But the cat needs milk.

What to do?

So he went to neighboring village and requested the landlord to donate a cow to him. After much thinking, the landlord agreed and gave him an old cow. The Seeker was happy. He has taken care of this also.

But who will take care of the cow?

So he hired a woman to look after the cow.

One thing led to the other and soon, he married her.

You can find him running a tea stall near a temple these days. As and when he gets some time, he also does his spiritual practices.

Read Full Post »

Finding Happiness

Nasrudin saw a man sitting dispiritedly at the side of the road. And asked him what troubled him. “There is nothing of interest in life, my brother,” said the man. “I have sufficient capital in order that I don’t have to work, and I am only on this trip in order to seek something more interesting and entertaining than the life I have at home. So far, I haven’t found it!” Without another word, Nasrudin seized the traveler’s knapsack and made off down the road with it, running like a rabbit. Since he knew the area, he was easily able to outdistance him.

The road curved, and Nasrudin cut across several switchbacks, with the result that he was soon back on the road, well ahead of the man he had just robbed. He put the knapsack by the side of the road and waited for the distressed traveler to show up. Presently the miserable man appeared, following the tortuous road, more unhappy than ever because of his loss. As soon as he saw his property lying there, by the side of the road, he ran towards it, shouting with joy. “That’s one way of producing happiness,” said Nasrudin.

Read Full Post »

Is That So?

 

A beautiful girl in the village was pregnant. Her angry parents demanded to know who was the father. At first resistant to confess, the anxious and embarrassed girl finally pointed to Hakuin, the Zen master whom everyone previously revered for living such a pure life. When the outraged parents confronted Hakuin with their daughter’s accusation, he simply replied “Is that so?”

When the child was born, the parents brought it to the Hakuin, who now was viewed as a pariah by the whole village. They demanded that he take care of the child since it was his responsibility. “Is that so?” Hakuin said calmly as he accepted the child.

For many months he took very good care of the child until the daughter could no longer withstand the lie she had told. She confessed that the real father was a young man in the village whom she had tried to protect. The parents immediately went to Hakuin to see if he would return the baby. With profuse apologies they explained what had happened. “Is that so?” Hakuin said as he handed them the child.

Read Full Post »

Choose Your Thoughts i.e. Choose Your Path

A group of frogs were traveling through the woods, and two of them fell into a deep pit. All the other frogs gathered around the pit. When they saw how deep the pit was, they told the unfortunate frogs they would never get out. The two frogs ignored the comments and tried to jump up out of the pit.

The other frogs kept telling them to stop, that they were as good as dead. Finally, one of the frogs took heed to what the other frogs were saying and simply gave up. He fell down and died.

The other frog continued to jump as hard as he could. Once again, the crowd of frogs yelled at him to stop the pain and suffering and just die. He jumped even harder and finally made it out. When he got out, the other frogs asked him, “Why did you continue jumping. Didn’t you hear us?”

“I Thought you were encouraging me all the while” frog said.

Read Full Post »

Solution

There was once a small boy who banged a drum all day and loved every moment of it. He would not be quiet, no matter what anyone else said or did. Various people who called themselves Sufis, and other well-wishers, were called in by neighbors and asked to do something about the child.

The first so-called Sufi told the boy that he would, if he continued to make so much noise, perforate his eardrums; this reasoning was too advanced for the child, who was neither a scientist nor a scholar. The second told him that drum beating was a sacred activity and should be carried out only on special occasions. The third offered the neighbors plugs for their ears; the fourth gave the boy a book; the fifth gave the neighbors books that described a method of controlling anger through biofeedback; the sixth gave the boy meditation exercises to make him placid and explained that all reality was imagination. Like all placebos, each of these remedies worked for a short while, but none worked for very long.

Eventually, a real Sufi came along. He looked at the situation, handed the boy a hammer and chisel, and said, “I wonder what is INSIDE the drum?”

Read Full Post »