The Hindu Article: Art of handling life gracefully

[Guest guest]

Date:04/07/2003 URL:

http://www.thehindu.com/2003/07/04/stories/2003070400400900.htm

 

Miscellaneous - Religion

 

Art of handling life gracefully

 

CHENNAI JULY 4 . Spiritual life is not divorced from the day-to-day

life every individual leads in the world. When a person knows himself

then he becomes enabled to handle life situations also well because

he will then be in tune with any situation. There is no effort

involved in it. Spirituality is thus not an imposition. When one

looks at oneself it can be seen that there is always some kind of

seeking within. It expresses itself as a quest for love, pleasure,

power or money. As soon as a person gets what he wants he either

wants more and more of it or his seeking assumes some other form. It

becomes imperative then to understand what drives man to constantly

seek something or the other.

 

What is fundamental to this is the urge to expand. And, this

expansion does not like to be contained within any limit. It is

obvious then that it is the quest for the infinite that impels man to

express it in innumerable ways. Every person wants to expand beyond

the limitations in which he is placed in life. This is a natural

urge. There is something within which pushes one to expand beyond the

limitations— to become unbounded. This is a spiritual process. When

this quest is unconscious it takes on materialistic form and such

people try to fulfil this urge through pursuit of worldly ends. It

amounts to walking with the eyes closed. In the case of one who

became conscious of this urge it took on the spiritual dimension,

said Sri Jaggi Vasudev in his lecture.

 

Hence it is essential for everyone born as a human being to become

conscious of this natural urge within. What one does in the world

depends on one's circumstances and discretion; but what one does

within— the spiritual seeking— in this all are on common ground.

Everybody wants to be blissful. This is the innate longing in every

individual. Spirituality is the way to transcend one's limitations.

 

All the walls that one builds for survival in the world like wealth

and family ultimately become instruments of self-imprisonment. By

understanding all the dimensions of the human personality one can

handle life with poise. When one handles life situations for the sake

of survival with grit one becomes wounded, while Self-awareness will

enable one to take on life gracefully. To be truly willing is to be

without will; then life will happen. The spiritual dimension will

unfold.

 

© Copyright 2000 - 2002 The Hindu