Do you feel you have wasted the precious years of your life and gathered nothing?
All is not yet lost! There is still time.
Lift yourself up: and, therefore, lift your spirits high!
Do not fight the past, but rise above it.
The feeling of being lost, alienated, alone, isolated and friendless, is a recurring feeling that haunts the contemporary imagination.
Where have we landed?
What have we done with our life?
Where is the road taking us now?
Can we retrace our steps?
Introspection and self-reflection can only do us good. Pleasures, possessions and power are the lures with which this material world tries to enslave us. Let us ask ourselves, ‘Are we on the right path? Do we have inner satisfaction? Are we evolving spiritually?’
May I tell you, you will not find within you, either material treasures or the wealth of this world. What you will find are untapped resources of wisdom, spiritual strength, creativity and healing power! In our constant state of superficial existence, we continue to ignore the world within. In our persistent chase after shadow-shapes and worldly wealth, we lose sight of our inner consciousness. We emphasise speech, action and outward show; we forget that there is a far more valuable aspect to life called reflection, contemplation, introspection.
A leading practitioner of meditation in the U.S. once pointed out that several cultures and religions simply do not teach people to focus on the world within them; their emphasis is often on words, rites and rituals; on a form or a Being or Spirit outside; thus the innermost spirit remains out of reach of most people.
The Indian tradition on the other hand, has always placed great value on meditation, reflection and contemplation — on the state of inner silence and inner stillness. For it is in this state that we will find tranquility, serenity, self-knowledge and true awareness. In this state, too, we will experience true freedom — freedom from fears, desires, tensions, insecurities and complexes that haunt us in the waking state.
We will also discover our own Divinity — that we are not the bodies we wear; we are the immortal Atman, the eternal, infinite spirit that is Sat-chit-ananda — pure, true, eternal Bliss!
Dada J P Vaswani is a humanitarian, philosopher, educator, acclaimed writer, powerful orator, messiah of ahimsa, and non-sectarian spiritual leader
