I have repeatedly said that we live in an age of stress and tension.
Down the ages, and in the deep distant past of history, annoying, perplexing, frustrating situations have always confronted the best of men. So much so, even the Bhagavad Gita, that Universal Scripture, the Bible of Humanity, tells us about the ideal man – the Stitha Prajna – the man who is calm in wisdom, the man of utter peace of spirit, who lives and moves in peace.
He is a man of detachment. He has renounced desires; he is without raga (attraction) and dvesha (hatred). He is thus free from the dominion of the passions. He is a stranger to fear and anger.
Let us see how Lord Krishna describes the Stitha Prajna, the man of wisdom who is unruffled at all times and in all situations:
1. He casts away desires which perturb the mind. He is nirmohi.
2. He is a man of equanimity. He is free from anxiety amid pains; he is indifferent amid pleasures.
3. His understanding is established in wisdom. He has conquered likes and dislikes.
4. He is not a man of repression but a man of will power, pure and strong.
5. He has an established mind, firm-set in wisdom.
Does this not lead you to ask yourself, “Why can’t more of us be like this ideal man? What is it that makes so many of us restless and unhappy?”
The causes of human restlessness are not far to seek:
Constant seeking after objects flares up into passion – kama.
When passion is thwarted, there flames up anger – krodha.
In this state of delusion, we lose our memory – smriti. We lose the memory of our Guru’s upadesh, the memory of our life’s great ideals.
Losing this memory, we also lose the power of discrimination; we lose reason – buddhi
Let me sum up, in these words that the secret of a happy, carefree, stress-free life: love life; love your fellow human beings; love this beautiful world you live in; above all, love the Lord – and you too, will bloom like a rose!
(Dada J P Vaswani is a humanitarian, philosopher, educator, acclaimed writer, powerful orator, messiah of ahimsa, and non-sectarian spiritual leader)
