Doing, having, being🔗

We all function around these three axes: doing, having and being. Doing for having, without enjoying being, is the sole cause of all our misery. Doing never catches up with having. Every time we work hard and fulfill one desire, there are more desires to make us run.

Never think, 'Let me work now, I can enjoy later.' Don't think you can come back later and enjoy! I tell you, it will never happen. Every tomorrow comes in the form of today. Doing should lead to being every moment, only then you are on the right track.

Don't postpone living. Celebrate! Enjoy life – it is now or never. We all run throughout our lives thinking that we can enjoy later, but we land up finally running into the graveyard. When you get onto the running track, you lose your real capacity to enjoy. You forget how to enjoy.

As they say, 'There is more pleasure in the pursuit than in the attainment!' Always, as long as you are chasing something, it seems that it is worth the whole world, but after you get it, somehow it loses its importance! If you become aware of yourself and understand what exactly you want, and try to do that alone, you will never find yourself in this kind of a self-contradictory and fragmented situation.

Ramana Maharshi beautifully says:

Adaivadar mun kadugey aanaalum malayaay kaatti Adainda pin malayey aanaalum kadugai kaattum maya manam

It means, 'Mind is that illusion which shows a tiny mustard seed to be a huge mountain until it is attained, and a mountain to be as insignificant as a mustard seed once it has been attained!'

People ask me, 'Swamiji, unless we compare, how will we know where we stand?'

In the whole world, someone is sure to be better than you at whatever you do. There is a 99.99% chance that you are not the world's best engineer, the fastest runner or the most talented painter. Does that mean that you enjoy these things any less? Only when you think that you might be enjoying less than someone else, you start enjoying less! The moment the thought that 'someone else might be enjoying more than you' comes in, your whole flavor changes. You become uneasy and jealous.

It is like this: Poverty itself doesn't trouble us. The thought that we are poor troubles us! We might be leading a peaceful life as we are, but when the thought that we are poor enters us, we suffer. And how does this thought come? By seeing others and comparing. We feel this way because this thought directly hits our ego and we shrink - like a mango.

A small story:

There were two shops opposite each other across the street, selling the same kind of things.

There was always a stiff competition between them.

The shopkeeper of one of the shops came out one day and put up a signboard outside his shop: Established in the year 1929.

The shopkeeper of the shop across the street was watching this from inside his shop.

The next day, he came out and put up a signboard in front of his shop: All fresh stock. No old goods.

You are unique

When you don't understand the potential you have been blessed with, when you have not discovered that you are enough unto yourself, you automatically don't feel confident about the stuff inside you, and you start following others.

Buddha says, 'Nothing exists except in relationship.' Suppose you were the only person on a new planet, would you call yourself tall or short? Ugly or beautiful? Rich or poor? Tell me! You can't call yourself anything, am I right? You will simply be you! That's all! Understand that this is the truth even when you are on this planet.

Each individual is unique. Can you compare a lion and a horse? Do we ever compare ourselves to flowers or birds or mountains? We simply enjoy their beauty. In the same way, why can't you see and enjoy other human beings also?

Although human beings appear to be the same, each one is unique and traveling on a different path. As long as you travel on your path with full concentration, you will experience fulfillment every minute. You won't even know what it means to look at another person's track.

A small story:

One man was driving along a dark village road where there were no streetlights.

He decided to follow the car in front of him to play it safe. They went on for some distance and suddenly the lead car stopped.

The man went and crashed into it.

'Why didn't you signal that you were going to stop?' he screamed out.

The driver put his head out and asked, 'Inside my own garage?'

If you concentrate on your own track, you will be continuously progressing and expanding your own capacity. You need to compare yourself with only yourself, never with others. You need to win yourself only by yourself, not by others. Every minute of comparison with others is a waste of time in your own progress. Another small story:

A man was running in a 1000-metre race. After running 200 metres, he looked back and saw that the rest of the runners were after him. Happily he ran on. After 500 metres, he looked back again and was happy that he was still leading and ran on.

Every few meters, he did the same thing and finally won the race.

If the man had not looked back and instead concentrated only on running faster, he would have won the race in a much shorter span of time. He would have probably set a new record! In the same way, in our lives also, if our concentration is always fully on our own progress instead of on others, we can actualize our entire potential.

We are all the time talking about conserving petrol, water and electricity. What about conserving our own energy? What about using our own energy in a proper way? If we used all our energy for our own expansion, just imagine how much we could achieve.

See, the thing about comparison is, you always measure yourself with the weakest link in yourself or your performance. That is the trouble. Never measure yourself with the weakest link. You don't have to be egoistic and claim yourself to be something great. But you can have some self-respect and realise that you are unique unto yourself. Then you won't measure yourself in this way.

When you have self-respect, you will appreciate that each one is unique and understand that there is no scope for comparison. This is also the first step towards feeling grateful for just being!

A small story:

A king once went to a master to attain some magical powers, so that he could become more powerful than his neighboring kings.

He sat in front of the master and started telling him the purpose of his visit.

The master listened patiently to the king.

He then told him to go into his garden, where a rose bush and a cactus plant were growing side by side. He told him, 'They are your teachers. They can teach you what you need to learn.'

The king went into the garden, saw the two plants and could not understand what he was meant to learn from them.

He came back to the master and asked, 'What do you mean, master? I am not able to understand how they will teach me.'

The master took him to the plants and explained, 'This cactus plant has been next to the rose plant for many years. Never once has it even aspired to become a rose plant. Similarly, the rose plant has never ever aspired to become a cactus plant. They just attend to their own duties of growing and blossoming every day. If man had been the cactus, he would have compared himself with the rose and felt jealous at the attention that the rose plant was getting from people. Or if he were the rose, he would have looked at the cactus enviously thinking how peaceful the latter was without the torture of getting plucked by people all day!'

The master said*, '*This is the most powerful magical power you can attain!'

The two plants prospered because they used all their energy for their own growth. Not even an iota of energy was wasted on analyzing the other's growth.

It is time for self inquiry

In this world, people respect you only if you have achieved something tangible in the outer world. Educational degrees, beauty titles, company designations, published papers, bank balances, are all scales that society uses to grade you.

See, first of all, you don't need to be graded by anyone. Place trust in your own intelligence and grade yourself.

But understand that there is a lot to be achieved in the inner world too. The outer world achievements are all incidental. They will get you instant name and fame and money. The real achievement is in the inner world.

Center yourself well with acute awareness and simply take part in the outer world activities like a lotus untouched in a pond. Let the work in the periphery go on undisturbed, but center yourself in your being. You will then be able to perform much better in the outer world, because your inner intelligence will be growing and guiding.

Then automatically, you will stop swaying in accordance with the outer world achievements and feel stability and joy in the center of your own being. Finding your center is the only way out of this whole cycle of comparison and jealousy.

How many successful businessmen today are facing what is known as depression of success? They have achieved everything they wanted. They have realized their own dreams, borrowed dreams, everything. But they don't feel fulfilled. There is still a void in them.

They start wondering why they ran so much. This is because they ran without awareness, without stopping to give an appointment to themselves, without any self-inquiry. As a result, when they stop running or when suddenly they can't run anymore, they fall back into themselves and find that they are out of synch or dis-eased with their own being, and this is what becomes 'depression' or 'disease'.

When you fall into depression of success, you can resort to three ways. One is, resorting to drugs – addiction that will lead to further depression. The second way out is suicide – which is escapism. The third way out is meditation – looking inward for the solution. The intelligent ones take the third way out.

Self-inquiry is the way to bail you out of this depression. The problem is inside, while you search for a solution outside. You have neglected your being for such a long time and the depression that you feel is actually the call of your being. That is why again and again, masters have given ever so many techniques to center yourself in your inner core and merely function in your periphery.

When this same thing is told to you when you are at the peak of your career, you will not be willing to pay attention, because you have enough energy. Once your energy starts waning, you will feel that something is wrong somewhere. That something is what masters try to tell you again and again.

Albert Einstein, the great physicist was on his deathbed. There were some close people sitting around him.

One of them asked him what he would like to be reborn as if ever he was reborn.

Everyone expected him to say that he would like to be reborn as an even greater scientist or something to that effect.

Einstein replied, 'If ever I would be reborn, I would like to be reborn as a plumber.'

He felt that he had achieved all that was to be achieved, but what for he achieved, he had not achieved. He gave the world great truths but felt that his whole life had become a lie.

You see, in this whole process of comparing and running, you actually become a machine. Much of your daily activities becomes unconscious. You are able to drive a car without even being aware that you are driving it. You become a machine just like the car.

Right from brushing your teeth early in the morning to going to bed, you work like a programmed robot, with absolutely no awareness of your Self. You become efficient in all that you do no doubt, but you have lost the humanness in you! You have gone so far away from the purpose of taking birth on planet Earth. You become disconnected from your being!

When you are in continuous awareness, you will not only be able to do things efficiently but you will also do things with totality, with a sense of fulfillment, because you – the microcosm - will be in tune with Existence - the macrocosm - and you will fly with roots on planet Earth. When you fly without roots, you are forever in the danger of hurting yourself any moment. So understand, working with awareness not only increases your efficiency but also ensures that you don't stray from the purpose of your being.

Jealousy about another's body

Alright, now…let us talk some more on jealousy! Jealousy as you all know, arises out of comparison. When we are unable to bear the excellence of others in any aspect, we start feeling jealous. There are ever so many reasons why we get jealous.

For example, the moment you see that another person is more beautiful than you, you are unable to bear it. You start feeling terrible inside yourself.

First of all understand that God is an artist, not an engineer. If he was an engineer, he would have made every woman or every man with the same mould. He would have probably made every woman with the mould of a Miss World and every man in the mould of a Mr.Universe!

But God is not an engineer. He is an artist. He has made everyone in a unique way.

With what scale are you measuring beauty? There is no scale. It is all your own ideas and concepts. Even if a cinema star is beautiful, can you enjoy a single cup of tea through his or her form?

When you start longing for other people's bodies, you create a wedge inside yourself. You create a split personality inside yourself. Slowly, you start hating yourself.

Do you know, the eyes that don't linger on another's body have a certain beauty and innocence in them? Have faith in what God has done to you. It is only when you don't have that faith, you try to update yourself by indulging in all sorts of methods. When you accept yourself completely, a certain grace comes to you. This grace is far more superior to mere physical beauty.

Physical beauty is one thing while grace is another. Physical beauty can be achieved by any means. These days, you have ever so many methods of achieving physical beauty. There are beauty packs, plastic surgeries and various other methods. But grace is something that comes when there is tremendous confidence and calmness in you, when there is no craving in you, when you are completely at ease with your body.

When I went to America for the first time, the officers at the airport asked me how people would listen to me if I spoke wearing this saffron robe! I told them, 'Give me one week and I will make this a fashion in America!' A leader is one who has totally accepted himself. When you accept yourself, you become a unique flower, and tremendous freedom and confidence will happen in you.

It is very important that you learn to live with your own body. The moment you think that another's body or another's dimensions are more attractive, you create a gap between yourself and your body. I have seen people who have photographs of male or female models in the walls of their rooms and do physical exercises to attain the body structure of the model. When you think that another's body is more beautiful, you create a distance between you and you.

None of us deeply love our body. We carry it only like a load. We are never inside our body because we hate it. We are everywhere else except in our bodies. We therefore have a continuous uneasiness in us and are ready to burst at any time.

For example, if your driver does something minor, you explode effortlessly. At work, you are continuously in an irritable mood. Don't think the reasons for these lie with the people around you. People tell me, 'Swamiji, all my workers are so inefficient and that is why I get irritated.' Please understand that this is not the reason for your irritability. You are not at ease with your body and that is what causes the uneasiness and irritation in your system. It is a very subtle reason and that is why it is difficult to perceive it.