AAL AYL

[Guest guest]

Enrich Your Life

 

Enrichment has two aspects -- outer and inner. We have to enrich our

inner life. To enrich our outer life we require a lot of effort and

money but those things that are essential to living are free. Do we

require gold and silver for living? The answer is that we can live

without gold, silver and jewels. But the air, water and food, which,

we require, are all free. I read an interesting sentence which very

simply said, 'We are not cheap, we are free.' There is a difference

between cheapness and something which is free. Air is not cheap, it is

free and that is why it is most precious. We cannot live without it

but despite that we take it for granted. The space we live in is free,

but we put a price on the and and make commerce out of it. The space,

air, solar energy and wters are all free. Tulasidasji has said,

 

Mani manik mahenge kiya sahenge trun jal anaj

Tulasi etana janeye ram garib niwas

 

Bhagavan made precious stones, gold and silver expensive but out of

compassion, made all the necessities of life free.

 

We take all Nature's gifts for granted and using the raw materials

provided by her, turn them into different shapes. By the process of

value addition we continue to make things more expensive and rare. Man

always takes delight in having what the other man does not have. To

enable him to be one up, he wants what his neighbour has and also that

which his neighbour does not have. Greatness lies only in the value we

ascribe to it, which in turn gives rise to cutthroat competition. In

such cases the principle of 'live and let live' does not work. It is

either kill or get killed. The problem with material goods is that

more than one person often desires the same thing. The beauty of air

is, that all of us breathe at the same time and yet there is no

competition. But when we give value to man made and hand made things

and based on that we evaluate prestige, prosperity and power it

becomes desirable by all. These are the values that we covet. Greed is

a very peculiar quality.

 

Contd....