Acharya Rajan Sharma
For you, the best opportunity is the place where you stand today, not your age. You can change your life right now—this very moment. Every big building is built with bricks, piled one upon another. When we have a quick look, we may feel that it is nothing but a mere brick, but when they get piles, the same bricks become the pivot for a skyscraping building.
Consider the thought that exists in your mind at this very moment, and make it positive straightaway. Resolve to yourself that you shall be happy with whatever is at your disposal right now, shall accept it with joy, and shall embrace with a smile whatever comes your way in a while.
Repeat these words in your mind right now, this very moment. This shall lead to the secretion of a special chemical in your brain, and that will lead you along a path of self-contentment. Think for a while now that after some time, you shall be munching a spiced salad of lemons that tastes both sweet and hot. As soon as you think so, your mouth will start salivating. The issue of spiced lemon was an imaginary one, but the water in the mouth is real. The scientific reason is that as soon as you thought of lemons, organs in our body got ready to digest it and they secreted the chemical necessary for that. In the same way, if you think positive every time in your life and accept everything you get, good or bad, as the harvest of time, the positive thought you just had for a minute will be able to have positive impacts in you for the entire day.
Suppose you had a wonderful day today. Repeat the same thought tomorrow, day after, for a week, a month, a year, and so on. If you continue doing so, you will acquire simplicity and the capacity to stay contented with a smile in all circumstances. Count life not by years but by smiles.
In one of her books, renowned writer Ronda Baron writes, “Every object in the world has a magnetic element attached to it, and there are magnetic waves all around it. Such waves can also have an impact in your thoughts and feelings.”
For such reasons, you will get friends—good or bad—depending on what kind of a person you are. You will find yourself in a corresponding situation. This is a situation you invited yourself. Change the waves of your thoughts this moment. Think that whatever is happening is for your welfare only. As soon as you think this way, some positive waves will develop around you.
If any incident takes place in life, it should be immediately taken in a positive sense. It’s never too late to think positive. Remove from your lexicon words like disaster, devastation, failure, traitor, etc. In place of them, start using words like wow, best, wonderful, beautiful, etc. Allegation, criticism, citation of errors, expression of grudge, engagement in gossiping are things that will pull the level of your life much lower than your due.
They say, life will take no time in improving, if we improve the quality of our speech. We often hurt others because we lack the art of speaking, or we talk in rage or mindlessness. When that happens we ourselves ache too without any reason. Good people often prevent others from getting hurt, even by enduring the pain themselves. For example, look at the flute! Though it has several holes on its chest, it never stops crooning a melodious song. Decent speech ensures the development and promotion of good relations. We must maintain relations in such a way that though its snaps, we won’t have to bow our heads in shame when we meet again.
Unless we tame the reason-guided brain, there is no possibility of taming the emotion-guided brain, which occupies 90 percent of our power. We don’t see the birth of any great personage, unless they have attain total control on both right and left hemispheres of their brain. In that case, what can be the best way to keep our left brain under total control.
The answer to this question is crucial, because that directs a way towards the evolution of great personages. Of late, scientists from all over the world have become one in opining that almost all the geniuses are, from their childhood days, of inquisitive nature and they ask a lot of questions. This nature of asking, and repeating the question until the right answer is procured, leads to the full development of our left brain. In other words, we should never satisfy ourselves with answers until and unless they lead to a fact.
With such positive thoughts, learn to laugh and keep yourself happy all the time. When you laugh, it exerts a positive impact in the mind, body and the soul at the same time. Let’s assure ourselves that such a change will take place in us today itself and not later. Make a commitment: I shall live life with new art.
The launch of such a thought is the gateway to a journey towards happiness.
Man often doesn’t find time to trust himself and expose the happiness inside him. In that case, he becomes a dedicated cripple. In regards with dedication, we can never ensure the exposure of the bliss that remains latent in us, and if that happens, we cannot think of the development of a great personality. Mahatma Gandhi is the best example of this. In his lifetime, Gandhi didn’t apply himself ardently to any intellectual or artistic endeavor. Yet, he stayed active with a defined goal all his life, and this led to the development of a great personage and a high-order saint in him.
In the same way, Siddhartha had undertaken constant struggle in order to assert his Buddhahood. Even in the twentieth century, he is counted among world’s ten most admired philosophers and leaders. In the same way, Mahatma Gandhi comes soon after Jesus and Karl Marx, when the people most frequently Googled are considered.
Let’s also take Aristotle into account. He used to say, “Greatness and spiritual peace are nothing but outcomes of diligence.” Albert Einstein is another pioneering personage, who has an opinion resembling that of Aristotle. His biography reveals that he was a slow learner as a child. Since everyone slighted him, he once day asked one of his teachers to tell him the key to greatness. To this, his teacher said, “It’s constant effort.”
By putting this very formula into practice, Einstein, a dumb boy, grew to become one of world’s greatest scientists.
Even Srimad Bhagwad Gita, in the 35th verse of its sixth chapter, identifies the rigorous practice of positive habits and self-confidence as the key to get liberation from sorrows. It says:
Abhyasena tu kaunteya vairagyena cha grihyate
(The restlessness of the mind can be contained through constant practice)
Knowledge heard of or leant once cannot be true knowledge in real sense of the term. That is merely information, or knowledge of words. Real knowledge and spiritual happiness comes only from rigorous effects and dedication.
For these reasons, methods like various sorts of meditation, yoga, vegetarianism and constant application have been developed to lead an individual towards the real spiritual happiness. Coming close to real happiness entails adopting any one way of such pursuance of truth with a lot of self-confidence.
Spirituality teaches us to enjoy the circumstances we are in, no matter where we are and in which condition. When we move professing spiritual pursuance, we will realize that our outlook towards life and the world has changed. We will be realizing that bliss, worth assimilating, exists in a location far away from our sense organs. In that case, an individual becomes happy, patient, delighted and ready to make the maximum use of the human brain.
Spirituality itself is a science. It’s essence lies in inspiring people to stay close to nature and spend life along with self-identification. Spirituality without science and science without spirituality are both lame.
Bare science, devoid of spirituality makes an individual devoid of compassion. Science lends facilities for fulfillment of physical desires and lust, while spirituality raises far above and inspires an individual to belief that living merely for the sake of fulfilling desires is not worth it; instead one should move towards the attainment of the highest goal of life. This is the core essence of spirituality.
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[Acharya Rajan Sharma (orginal name Bhimsen Sapkota) is a poet, motivational speaker and spiritual leader of Nepali origin, living presently in Sydney, Australia. His published works include Sukhashutra (2017), Safal Jeevanka Shutraharu (2017), Prashnama Ishwar (2015), Bhatkiyka Parkhal (2004), Eco Tourism in Nepal (2005). He teaches at Victoria University, Australian Ideal College, Sydney.]