Peace, Satisfaction & Life

I have always been meaning to write about this subject; but somehow never got down to it. Maybe it was that I was never actually ready to write about it in the first place. There are some things in life that you get to know only by experiencing them; this is one of those things. Often it happens that there remains a void between the practical side of things and the philosophical. Prudent is the man who knows when to be practical and when to be philosophical.

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Spirituality is naught but an understanding of this subtle art of living. In life we often see that life hardly ever turns out the way we envision it to be. Often we find that life at times surprises us at every point, as we wander aimlessly through its varied and twisted turns. However the one fact that often stands out is that in the end, life gives us that which we desire; it gives us that which we need the most.

Again, there are subtle differences between what you want and what you need; there is a popular saying that states it almost perfectly. God shall give you what you need; but not all that you want. That is simply owing to the fact that desire itself forms the driving force that in a way sustains life. Without desire, without incompleteness, there would be no life; it is in a way ironic, but most of the times, life starts out as a journey towards completion.

However many of you would be knowing that it hardly ever ends in completeness; for if it would, why would we be here in the first place? Why would I be writing this? Why would you be reading this? The answers to all those questions is but one; that we are all woefully incomplete; that we are all in search of consummation and happiness; but above all we are all in search of satisfaction.

Then again, satisfaction is one thing that is quite elusive in itself. I mean of all the mystics who have roamed these lands, there have been few who have been able to clearly elucidate on the ways to attain satisfaction; hardly any of us are ever able to unearth that secret and reveal that mystery. What on earth would satisfy the unending thirst of human desire? But then again, we come back right where we had started off; should we finally be satisfied, should the waters finally stand still in the tumultuous and roaring seas of life, would we be truly at peace? Would we truly love that existence? An existence with no desires…

That again is a question that I ask myself and the answers I confess to be more deluding than anything else. The answer is that man never truly seeks for satisfaction; he only ever seeks for happiness, that he desires to find in success; success that he hopes to find in the mundane desires of this world; the desires which once again lead him towards incompleteness thus completely rendering his search for true bliss pointless. Such is life… the moment you start searching for completeness, it renders that search incomplete, for in that search itself it leaves you desiring and craving for the things that can never truly grant you bliss. Such is life. I muse to myself and ask of the lord, how would a man be truly at peace… and the reason is that he just has to be at peace; he has to believe and he has to trust. At one point, man just needs to sublimate into his existence and not pursue it like a hungry hound.

Then you shall realize that there is no incompleteness left, because there is no search for completeness; there is no search, for you find that completeness within yourself; only when you stop to seek for the same; you find it bloom from your midst like a flower in the spring, bringing with itself unending joy and ceaseless mirth. Such an existence is truly a blessed one and one that is coveted by thousands… yet hardly few ever live it…

Simply put, life is to be lived and not to be filled; for the more you seek to fill it, the emptier shall it be; within yourself shines the brightest light and within yourself exists the darkest night. What you shall embrace is upto thee, for the burden of thy choice lies on thee …

May the Lord light our ways with peace, wisdom and eternal bliss… Amen.

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Satisfaction

In today’s world when man is indeed embroiled in the rat race that constitutes an eternal part of his existence, he indeed finds little time to introspect. As he lives through the daily motions of life, he hardly ever gets the time to sit back and enjoy the fruits of his labor. He hardly ever gets the time to truly be at peace; because every now and then he is posed with great challenges and even greater ambitions. Owing to this overly competitive lifestyle, he can hardly gain satisfaction from life.

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Through his life, as man works to fulfill his personal or professional ambitions he never realizes the fact that he is indeed walking a road that leads to nowhere. Man cannot realize the fact that his ambitions and desires only end up infusing a sense of perpetual dissatisfaction in him. He also fails to realize the fact that the challenges that he could take on are indeed countless; but he has to his disposal only a few precious moments in his life. How he chooses to utilize those moments is entirely up to him. When man goes into an incessant streak of ambitious achievement, he often realizes at the end, that he never ever took time to appreciate the little things in life; that he never took time to smell the roses and feel the wind blowing through his hair; that he never took the time to self-introspect. In the end he realizes that he indeed took great efforts to find success; but what he found in the end was a hollow sense of unrequited desire and perpetual disquiet in his heart.

The reason as to why any ambitious man finally comes to this stage in his life is that he equates success with satisfaction. Man often desires satisfaction from his job. To facilitate this, he tries to find new and innovative ways within his line of work. In a sense, he tries to find that one thing in the organization that truly bears semblance to what he is. In a way, he tries to find his place, his identity and his soul in the well-oiled machine that the corporate world represents. At such times, he is deluded into accepting that his rate of productivity and his rate of success in the organization would essentially translate into satisfaction for him. Thus he goes ahead and works days on end, at times even bearing great dis-regard for personal problems and health issues; all for one thing; to gain a sense of achievement; through which he hopes to gain a sense of satisfaction and peace.

What man in the end doesn’t realize is that he cannot hope to get inner peace and satisfaction in the well-oiled corporate machine that is his organization. He cannot realize the fact that he has to search for that sense of satisfaction and bliss within himself. He can never get it anywhere else. Man also has to realize that he simply cannot hope to get perpetual satisfaction through success alone. He has to realize that to be truly satisfied in life, he has to have a spiritual outlook towards life. Only then will he find satisfaction amidst the chaotic channels of change that he encounters in his life; only then will he find the inner silence; and only then will he truly be unconditionally happy.

The aforementioned directives seem simple to the casual observer, but are surprisingly hard to implement. For the moment it would suffice to say, that man indeed has to search for ways to derive happiness and satisfaction from life. He cannot get it; rather he will not get it from his job. So what would any man do to truly be satisfied in life? Well I would say, indulge creatively. Every man should find that one thing, doing which truly yields him boundless satisfaction. It may be anything. Poetry, Music, Dance, Reading, Gardening; the list is indeed endless. But it would suffice to say that every man should indeed make it a point to nurture a hobby that would indeed inspire the creativity within him to flow boundlessly. Once he does that, he would indeed find himself in a better place; not just personally but professionally as well…

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