“We are the middle children of history, with no purpose or place. We have no great war, or great depression. The great war is a spiritual war. The great depression is our lives.” – Tyler Durdan, The Fight Club
Each night, after dinner I like to take my dog out for a walk. On our path we meet a dog, whom I like to call Chandu, has an endearing way to greet me. As soon as he sees me, his eyes lighten up and he comes up to me, galloping and jumps on me with delight. Irrespective of how my day has been, those few moments of meeting her fill me with joy. The reason behind this joy is that for those few moments I am focused on sharing love rather than thinking of what I will get in return.
The goal of self preservation makes one drawn to, “each man for himself” as the best way to exist. However this is a recipe for gloom. Over the course of life whenever I have become self-obsessed, then I have found myself feeling miserable. Indian spiritual guru, Sri Sri Ravishankar says that the surest way to be miserable in life is to lock yourself in a room and fill yourself with “me-me” thoughts. Throughout life we work for money, thinking that money will bring us happiness. However, despite us being the most pampered generation, with everything available at a click of a button, we are the most depressed. Thus neither selfishness nor money can bring us happiness.
What then is the secret of success and happiness in life ? In accordance with the eternal laws of Karma Yoga, Swami Vivekananda lays down the answer as follows :
‘”The great secret of true success, of true happiness, then, is this: the man who asks for no return, the perfectly unselfish man, is the most successful. It seems to be a paradox. Do we not know that every man who is unselfish in life gets cheated, gets hurt? Apparently, yes. ‘Christ was unselfish, and yet he was crucified.’ True, but we know that his unselfishness is the reason, the cause of a great victory – the crowning of millions upon millions of lives with the blessings of true success.”
Having laid out the secret to success and happiness, he says that we should be unselfish despite the fact that people may hurt you. He lays down the reasons of being unselfish in the following lines :
”Ask nothing; want nothing in return. Give what you have to give; it will come back to you but do not think of that now, it will come back multiplied a thousand fold–but the attention must not be on that. Yet have the power to give: give, and there it ends. Learn that the whole of life is giving, that nature will force you to give. So, give willingly. Sooner or later you will have to give up. You come into life to accumulate. With clenched hands, you want to take. But nature puts a hand on your throat and makes your hands open.”
“Whether you will it or not, you have to give. The moment you say, “I will not”, the blow comes; you are hurt. None is there but will be compelled, in the long run, to give up everything. And the more one struggles against this law, the more miserable one feels. It is because we dare not give, because we are not resigned enough to accede to this grand demand of nature, that we are miserable. The forest is gone, but we get heat in return. The sun is taking up water from the ocean, to return it in showers. You are a machine for taking and giving: you take, in order to give. Ask, therefore, nothing in return; but the more you give, the more will come to you. The quicker you can empty the air out of this room, the quicker it will be filled up by the external air; and if you close all the doors and every aperture, that which is within will remain, but that which is outside will never come in, and that which is within will stagnate, degenerate, and become poisoned. A river is continually emptying itself into the ocean and is continually filling up again. Bar not the exit into the ocean. The moment you do that, death seizes you.”
The more love your spread, the more love you will get. It may not be from the same person, but you will surely get from other sources. The more hard work you put in your work towards your goal, the more fruits you shall reap. Those fruits may not be apparent to you at that instant, but they will surely be at your disposal at some point of time in the future. Thus inorder to achieve happiness and success in life our actions should be driven by what can we give and not by what can I get in return.
The history of mankind is proof that the ones who have left their indelible mark are not the richest or most successful but those who were selfless. The world remembers those who sacrificed themselves for others. From Swami Vivekananda to Param Veer Chakra awardee Captain Vikram Batra, from Kalpana Chawla to Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, they gave up their life for well-being of others. But what did they get in return ? An eternal place in people’s heart and more importantly self satisfaction for a life well lived.
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