Swami Sukhabodhananda
To live life is to be related and in every relationship there are three factors, the subject, object and their connection. If the relationship is harmonious, life is harmonious; if not, life is disharmonious. The art of wisely relating to life and heightening the spirit is being spiritual.
Q:But our spirits are low and sometimes high, is it not?
A: If the content of our consciousness is low then our life is low and if the content of our consciousness is high life is high. If our content of consciousness is hurt, jealousy, anger, ego… it pulls us down and if it is love, gratitude, compassion… then one’s life will be high.
Reflect on this story: A washerman was going along with his donkey. In the dark the donkey fell in a pit. The washerman could not stand the cry of the donkey and so he decided to bury it. He started filling the pit with mud. After some time he was taken aback to see the donkey out of the pit. Whenever the mud was thrown, the donkey would shake it off and climb on top of the mud pile and thus it climbed out of the pit. In the same way if people throw muck at you, shake it off and go up. If the content of consciousness is good, every difficulty will be an opportunity for you to grow and if poor, every opportunity will be a difficulty.
Next, are you restless or restful in your daily activities of life? Being restful, being calm, being inwardly silent and not noisy is an important quality of a spiritual being. If one is restless inwardly, mind pollutes perception. If the mind is calm, one sees situations objectively; if disturbed, one sees things in a distorted way. Hence it is said, we don’t live in the objective world, we live in our subjective world. We don’t live in God’s world; we live in our private world of hurts and upsets.
Can you experience anything without the experiencer? When one looks at a flower, we word it, we silently say, I like it or don’t like it and by that inner language, we are not in touch with the flower, we are in touch with our version of the flower, polluted by our internal words, our likes and dislikes. A spiritual way of looking is -- I see an object, without wording an object, and then I am in touch with the object in a different level. If my boss scolds me, I listen to him without any internal words and get objectively what he is saying. But when he scolds me and I am crowded with my thoughts, with my internal words, then the overtone is louder than what is said.
Can I be alert to the sensations that are happening and keep it bright in my awareness? If I interpret it in a particular way, by liking or disliking it, then my sensations become dimmer and internal words becomes louder. I am disconnected with what is and caught up in what should be. What should be is a non-fact and the fact is present sensations. Be with fact and not with non-fact.
To live a life of gratitude is an enlightened way of living. Be grateful and not greedy. If one is grateful, one is sensitive to life; if not, one is sentimental. Being grateful, one will not be egoistic and being sentimental, one becomes egoistic. Drop the arrogant self to be truly spiritual.
Courtesy: Times of India
To live life is to be related and in every relationship there are three factors, the subject, object and their connection. If the relationship is harmonious, life is harmonious; if not, life is disharmonious. The art of wisely relating to life and heightening the spirit is being spiritual.
Q:But our spirits are low and sometimes high, is it not?
A: If the content of our consciousness is low then our life is low and if the content of our consciousness is high life is high. If our content of consciousness is hurt, jealousy, anger, ego… it pulls us down and if it is love, gratitude, compassion… then one’s life will be high.
Reflect on this story: A washerman was going along with his donkey. In the dark the donkey fell in a pit. The washerman could not stand the cry of the donkey and so he decided to bury it. He started filling the pit with mud. After some time he was taken aback to see the donkey out of the pit. Whenever the mud was thrown, the donkey would shake it off and climb on top of the mud pile and thus it climbed out of the pit. In the same way if people throw muck at you, shake it off and go up. If the content of consciousness is good, every difficulty will be an opportunity for you to grow and if poor, every opportunity will be a difficulty.
Next, are you restless or restful in your daily activities of life? Being restful, being calm, being inwardly silent and not noisy is an important quality of a spiritual being. If one is restless inwardly, mind pollutes perception. If the mind is calm, one sees situations objectively; if disturbed, one sees things in a distorted way. Hence it is said, we don’t live in the objective world, we live in our subjective world. We don’t live in God’s world; we live in our private world of hurts and upsets.
Can you experience anything without the experiencer? When one looks at a flower, we word it, we silently say, I like it or don’t like it and by that inner language, we are not in touch with the flower, we are in touch with our version of the flower, polluted by our internal words, our likes and dislikes. A spiritual way of looking is -- I see an object, without wording an object, and then I am in touch with the object in a different level. If my boss scolds me, I listen to him without any internal words and get objectively what he is saying. But when he scolds me and I am crowded with my thoughts, with my internal words, then the overtone is louder than what is said.
Can I be alert to the sensations that are happening and keep it bright in my awareness? If I interpret it in a particular way, by liking or disliking it, then my sensations become dimmer and internal words becomes louder. I am disconnected with what is and caught up in what should be. What should be is a non-fact and the fact is present sensations. Be with fact and not with non-fact.
To live a life of gratitude is an enlightened way of living. Be grateful and not greedy. If one is grateful, one is sensitive to life; if not, one is sentimental. Being grateful, one will not be egoistic and being sentimental, one becomes egoistic. Drop the arrogant self to be truly spiritual.
Courtesy: Times of India
