Where is life...within or around you....

Off late, I’ve heard way too many lectures about spirituality and finding love & happiness within, so I thought why not write something about it. Being spiritual is the in thing these days. Just about everyone I see around me seems to be reading books on finding happiness within, the power of now or the laws of attraction etc, etc. Being a part of some spiritual society is becoming fashion, a discussion point in social gatherings, at work or casual conversations. We’re all out there to tell the whole world how close we are to our inner self and the All Mighty.
It’s actually nice to see more & more people trying to know and discover the true meaning of life and who we are, but my question is are we actually doing that. I’m yet to come across a person who is following the spiritual path and actually has made changes to his/her life style. Or has accepted people as they are, or displays compassion towards all living beings around. When I joined the Art of Living, my reason was to get the strength to fight the challenges I was facing in life. I was under severe depression and I needed something to get me out of it. The course, the teachings and the experience of doing the Kriya was amazing. It not only got me out of the depression that was killing me but also gave me the strength to be strong. It actually made me aware of who I was; a person as strong as a mountain with unshakable will power. I didn’t know this before the course. It made me realize the strength I needed was within me I just had to dust it out and use it. This learning helped me a lot. Today I know no matter what the circumstances are I can deal with it. The fight no matter how fierce I can fight it and win it too!!!!
But did I use this lesson of spirituality and oneness with self and God to accept people around me?
The answer is – NO.
I didn’t, yes I got the strength to fight my battles, but with this new found strength I fought with other people to succeed. And not even for a minute I looked at anyone as just a fellow human being and over look their faults and short comings. And not just me I really doubt if anyone else does. The people I met there appeared calm and peaceful during the short interactions that I had during the discourses. But when I got to know them better I realized, that the lessons they had learnt there were not applied at home.
A friend who calls himself a devotee and thinks he wants to dedicate life to God and has hymns and prayers for his ring tones. He spends his time cheating on his wife and eventually they’ve separated. He is fighting for the custody of his child, with the woman who meant everything to him at one point in time. Another lady I met, calm, quiet and peaceful woman, so devoted and so dedicated to the group, that you can’t find a fault in her. One day I land up at her door for some work, and she’s standing there abusing her very old almost fragile & lifeless mother in law. She was calling her names and cursing her one minute and was saying “Jai Gurudev” to me in the next moment.
Then I met another lady, a very attractive woman studded in diamonds, well spoken and polite. She was married to a diamond merchant and was a mother of two children, who were studying outside the country. Till now looks like a normal woman with some time on hand, but looking closely I realized that she was having an affair with another man in the group. And the two of them were travelling the country not following Guru Ji, but to be together. Spirituality was just the cover up.
And many more cases like these. Where people leave their families and homes and children and run to the ashram in search of peace and not realizing that peace is not in the ashram. It’s all around you. And you will not be at peace till people around you who matter and who make what your life is, are happy and at peace. God or your Gurus don’t tell you to leave people around you and just run after things that make you happy.
Spirituality isn’t selfish, it never about you…it’s about people, animals and beings around you. Spirituality and true peace is not in finding peace, love and happiness within you. Coz what you have in you is yours, just for you to feel and experience. True love and happiness is not about being happy within yourself, it’s about making people around you happy. Each time you make someone smile, you add a little drop of peace to your life. Each time you water a plant and see it grow it adds to your happiness.
It’s about giving and not receiving. You need to give love and happiness to all around you. That’s what spirituality is. To love someone selflessly, just love even if you don’t get it in return, this will bring you closer to God. It would be painful but if you manage to experience this kind of love even once in life, you’ve achieved peace. Love someone so much that it physically hurts, that’s when you attain happiness. That’s when you experience God.
All the saints in the world loved God to this extent, and they became saints. We don’t intend to be saints but we do intend to get close to the All Mighty, whatever form we see him in. If that’s what you want then love people, animals, trees everything around you and you’ll find him. We talk about looking within and finding peace coz it’s very very difficult to love without even the hope of getting something in return. We are scared and therefore we want to look within. It’s more comforting. When look around you see hurt and pain, it’s difficult to deal with. We don’t want to love coz we are scared of getting hurt. But what’s love without the pain. Love needs sacrifice; it needs you to suffer to know what it truly is. Once you experience it, nothing looks difficult. No challenge or pain big enough to scare you.
This is what truly the Art of Living is and it’s learning. I learnt to love so deeply that it hurt and realized the true meaning of life. I hurt myself so deeply for that love that I became tough enough to endure any challenge in life. Each day instead of asking God “why me…” for the pain I felt, I could say “try me…” And in spite of being heartbroken and hurt, it gave me the courage to start all over again.
This, my friend is true spirituality.
Life is always around you in all that you see…not within you….
So look up and love….