A very young terminally ill girl wrote out a beautiful poem on her hospital bed. It ends with these simple lines:
Life is not a race, do take it slower Hear the music, before the song is over.
We spend hours recording music instead of listening to it live. We waste time capturing experiences on film, while we should be savouring the experiences. We are forever rushing to be some place, and when we reach there, it is rarely the place we wish to be! Is there a purpose to life? Is it to gain fame, success, and wealth? Do these acquisitions make us happy? Look at animals. Animals go through life instinctively and naturally. They hunt when they are hungry, mate when they feel the urge and sleep when they are tired. They exist fully in the present.
Man is not happy with the world around him. He is forever at odds with nature. He would like to change the world to suit his wants, instead of living with nature to fulfil his needs. We are constantly in a rat race, forgetting that even if we win this rat race we still remain a rat! But how can one live without goals, you may ask. Let me then ask you this. How many of the goals you set out and achieved have given you true happiness? While working towards these goals, did you feel happy or stressed out? After reaching these goals, did you stop to enjoy the result, or did you plod on mindless towards other distant goals? Why don’t you try instead, for a change, to just enjoy what you are doing, without worrying about the result?
Ask any successful and wealthy man who is also happy, and he will tell you that he did what he loved to do, not because it would make him wealthy. When you enjoy the journey, the destination is always the right one for you. Within you there is the awareness of what is right for you. All that you need to do is to let that happen. Do not resist, just accept what life dishes out to you; flow with it in acceptance. What results is Ananda, bliss! Ananda the attitude, it is the path of ecstasy, rather than the path to ecstasy. Ananda is already there inside you, you only have to recognise it and set it free. Be blissful!
• PARAMAHAMSA SRI NITHYANANDA
• PARAMAHAMSA SRI NITHYANANDA
