Life is what you make of it. To some life is a bed of roses to others it is a bed of thorns. But life has some common factors that beautify it and some common elements that make the same moments of life seem unbearable.
Really speaking our lives are nothing but a paradox from start to end. We are born alone and we die alone, yet no one can stand living completely isolated. Our lives are a journey into happiness, peace and tranquility and the majority of it is spent in struggle, strife, pain, agony,conflict and agitation. This is the very paradox common to our life. But no matter how difficult our lives are at the moment, the commonelement is that we all hope to come out of it and reach a pleasant state of continuous happiness, recurring success, fulfilling love and ever-lasting peace. In fact, we don’t want that experience only at the end of the journey of life but we want that experience of fulfillment during every step of the journey as well.
So, what makes us all want at least one of the above goals? Why are they so desirable to us? Why does even a fleeting moment of
such happiness, peace, joy and love seem to be worth the entire struggle or pursuit of it? Doesn’t this make you wonder, why? And more importantly, if a temporary period of these above-mentioned states of mind can make all difficulties worth it, can you imagine what the long-term version of that same state will be like? Hence, it is called a state of Immortality (Amritattvam)! These answers are the true mysteries of life indeed.
Love, Happiness and Peace are common goals we all aim to strive for. However, as we pursue them in our lives, in our given set of circumstances, we find that there seems to be many forms of love, many degrees/sources of happiness and different kinds of peace. We come to realize that all these are dependent on many factors and most of the time goes in making those factors happen. When we get the factors right we feel a sense of achievement. However, since we have created the success, joy, peace, love, happiness, etc. out of a conditioned environment, any change in the conditions will directly affect the success, joy or peace experienced. This is the reason we find our love, our joy and happiness, our success and our peace break down or fade away from time to time. This is the direct cause of stress and strain in our lives.
Now our goal is conditioned byour means. Common examples are how happiness is conditioned by the amount of money I have in the bank or love is conditioned by how beautiful the person appears or how much they do for me, etc. So how do we seek these goals such that they can be experienced minus their conditionings? The answer to long lasting state of Joy and Happiness of Peace and Success (Fulfillment) lies inidentifying with the Higher desires in us rather than the lower desires.
Thus, meditation and/or God become the means and goal to attaining the State of Immortality.The above topics will be taken up by His Holiness Swami Swaroopanandaji, the Regional Head (Australasia) of Chinmaya Mission, when he visits Auckland from 30th April to 4th May 2013. Swamiji, a compassionate and wise teacher on matters both spiritual and practical. Chinmaya Mission New Zealand gives you the chance to attend THE MYSTERY SERIES, Free Public Talks in English from 7:30pm – 9pm at Dorothy Winstone Centre at theAuckland Girls’ Grammar School Hall, Howe Street. These talks will be on: The Enigma of Peace, The Secret of Happiness, The Magic of Love, The Wonder of Meditation and the Wonder of Wonders – GOD.
I would like to encourage all readers to come and attend to benefit from the wisdom that is going to be sharedon this occasion. All are welcome.
Bramhachari AdarshChaitanya serves as the Resident Acharya of Chinmaya Mission, Auckland and conducts weekly spiritual classes. For more information go to: www.chinmaya.org.nz or call 2756954
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