How to Get Peace of Mind?
Questioner: If I compare my today with yesterday, I find there is a growth in everything; be it family responsibilities, accountability, professional growth, money, status, educational knowledge, research, etc.
Before eight years, I just had a dream of these things probably. At that time, I was happy from within, whatever I was doing there was a reason and for which I was happy. Every night before going to bed or some other time during the day, I used to play Casio or Guitar or I used to sketch something, or I used to write a poem or a short story.
I used to go to orphanage and old age home and love to spend time with them. This I started when I was in school. I used to pray to God every day and used to get happiness from that. Since childhood, I was very introvert and liked to sit silently all alone, but I was happy from within always.
Gradually, my dreams have started to come true but all that I achieved, well at times I remain happy seeing all that, but at other times I feel very low looking at the same things as if nothing is touching me. I could only see and know that I am running for what, where, and why.
Now, I don’t have a specific reason but many reasons to do the same work and that is causing stress. At times also, I feel all the stress I took for something, is worthless and really unnecessary. I must say, “I’ve lost my peace of mind, my calmness.” Please guide me.
Acharya Prashant: So, your dreams have realized, hmm; that is what you wanted, didn’t you? Now, what you can see is that you do not feel, in your own words, happy from within. And this feeling is made stronger by a contrast, the contrast that you see between your lukewarm state today and your happy state of a few years back.
The more you compare your state today with your state of the past the more you find a difference. The more you are able to see, that things are not today what they used to be then, probably ten years back, probably fifteen years back. The conclusion that you have drawn is that the past was a happy time and after that happy time, today you have slided into a relatively unhappy time.
That is why when you are talking of the situation that you are in today you are parallelly mentioning your situation of the past. It is a necessity with you. You find that you must mention your situation of the past because it is only in relation to the past that you are anyway finding, today’s situation bad. Now do not make a mistake.
It is enough to see that you do not feel well today. It is enough to see that you are restless today, that you lack in immersion, that peace eludes you, that an inner joy is found wanting. Enough to see that. Do not call your past, a period of satisfaction. Do not look up to it, if you will look up to it you will also start looking forward to it.
Is it not obvious that what you were in the past has led to the current situation? And if your current situation; as you say, is not one of contentment, then how can you be full of praise, for the life that you were living in the past, and the decisions that you made in the past? The decisions that you made in the past, are they not what you are today living in the present?
You have written almost a fairy tale. I used to dance, I used to play guitar, I used to pray to God, I used to serve the destitute, I was the ideal girl with the ideal life that there can be. And why then did this ideal girl land into the mess that she today finds herself in? An ideal life cannot have non-ideal results. Don’t you see the obvious contradiction? You talk of your dreams of your youth, you also say that the same dreams have now realized. What are the things that you have mentioned as having? Please always keep the question open when I’m speaking on it. You have begun by saying, “If I compare my today with yesterday, I find there is a growth in everything.” So, first of all, this today that you are lamenting is only a growth over yesterday. If yesterday was great then today should be extra great.
You will have to firstly confess that your misery of today is an accumulation of not today’s problems but the problems of a lifetime. That, which today shows up as having gone bad has been going bad constantly and consistently over your entire lifetime. It’s just that then it was not evident, now it is open, obvious. If I compare my today with yesterday I find there is a growth in everything, be it family responsibility, accountability, professional growth, money, status, educational knowledge, research, everything. This is what you craved for.
And, you are happy that today all that which you had in little measure in the past has grown, and become substantial with you so what is then, the misery? The misery is you still go back to the past and say you know what, I was happier in the past. You’re happier in the past exactly because you had very little of these things but in the past, you wanted these exactly the same things.
So, why then do you dream about the past? Why then you mention your past as your golden period? You are saying, you used to play the Casio or Guitar every day and sketch and write poems and short stories and used to go to orphanages and old age homes and did all these things and used to pray to God. What were your songs about? What were your prayers about? Your songs have borne results.
Your prayers have been answered, all that which you prayed for you have an ample measure today. You have family, you have responsibility, you have money, you have status, look at your songs of that time were you not asking for the same? The very same things, you have them now.
मन को मारू पटक के टूक टूक हुई जाए । विष की क्यारी बोई के अब काहे को पछताए ।।
Then you are just sowing the seeds. Today you are harvesting and tomorrow you will have to consume what you are harvesting today. Look forward to your tomorrow now. Chili seeds were sown now that you are harvesting them, some of the chili is coming to your eyes. It’s feeling bad. Tomorrow you would be consuming what you are harvesting today. How would you feel tomorrow?
Forgive me, if what I’m saying hurts. But I’m not here to console you. Eight years back, if I could have said the same things to you maybe today you would have not needed to send this question to me. And, if I today do not say, what I am saying right now, can you imagine the question you would be sending to me eight years later? Do you know how that question would read?
I cannot allow you to write that question, so I must say what I am saying right now. It’s simple, the matter is not new at all. It’s the same old rut. It’s the same old cycle. In the youth there is freedom, freedom from what? Freedom from the bondages of childhood, freedom from the limitations of a child’s body. So, there is freedom, but what does one use that freedom for?
One uses that freedom to gather more bondage. Now, that you are free from the dictates of mommy. You use your freedom to start running after girls. Now, that you are eighteen, and mommy can no longer dictate terms to you what do you use your freedom for? You start running after girls. Now the girl would soon be your new mummy. And, would ask to become a mommy. Having gotten rid of one mommy, now you have gathered two mommies. That is what you use your freedom for. Yes, with adolescence, with youth you start writing colorful poems.
Youth is when the poet in you opens up. But what are all your poems about? Your poems are all about inviting bondages. Aren’t they? Now, that the bondages have indeed come upon you, why do you cry? What I had just quoted, Kabir as saying meant, what do I do with this mind? Why can’t I cast it away? Why can’t I just pestle it in some more? Why can’t I just break it? It did, what it did, firstly, and having done what it did, now, it is repenting. What do I do with such a fool? Such an obstinate fool. You asked for a family, you got it. That’s a story of so many young girls.
Look at her eyes, big eyes, the eyes of a dough. Eyes having so many dreams. Lovely eyes, what is it in those eyes? Dreams! Dreams! She is dreaming of ribbons, of rainbows, or maybe many other things. But I must talk of what concerns me. I must talk of the bondages that she dreams of. She’s dreaming of her nest. She’s dreaming of feathers and feather beds. She’s dreaming of puppies, of little shoes, cozy and warm home. Love songs, sung over a guitar. Yes, the guitar. And, that’s why the guitar is so popular amongst the youth. The guitar adds romance to your fluffy dreams.
Now, what music do you hear? Where is the guitar now? What music that you are hearing daily? Where are the feathers? Where is the Casio? Where are the poems? The mighty flow of your locks, where is that? Today we rather see a bigger flow of tears. Remember how the wind used to caress you long hair, when you were a young girl? Where is that wind? And, the hair they are all falling, you are busy trying hair ointments.
Before you go to sleep every day, try this new bottle. Then, before sleeping you would be busy writing a love poem. Now, you are busy counting how many hairs have fallen today? And, the prince charming of your great dreams, he is bald. You at least have fallen here to count. He can’t even count anything. But you have a lot. You have rightly begun by saying that all that you dreamt of eight years back has today grown, family responsibility, accountability, money, status, let me add a few things to it. Weight! Tell me about your weight, please how much has it grown over the last eight years? Tell me about the inches. Tell me about the flab. Look at your photograph of ten years back, contrast it with today’s. Look at your face, you’d only see growth. That’s what you wanted. Some growth in life. That’s what your great teachers told you. You must have growth. Now, you do have growth. Why are you complaining? Why are you complaining? Life was wrong then and life is wrong today. Do not think that some accidental crisis has hit you.
What you are passing through is the justified, sum total of your actions, of your thoughts, of your intentions, of the way you have been, and, the way you are. Now, if you continue to live the same way, please think of your future, for sure you’ll have a lot of growth. You know what these growths are called — tumors. What is the definition of a tumor? An unhealthy growth in the system. That’s what a cancer is — growth. You will have to drop the notion that you need to go back to the past. You will have to disown the totality of what you are. The law of duality is straightforward. In the past, you dream of the future, when the future arrives, then the past appears glorious.
The future is both a continuation of the past and a contrast to the past. It is not a special happening that we are finding in your case. It is the story of every man and every woman. You must see it through and through, must look at the beginning of it. You are right in the middle of it. You must also know that it does not ever end.
You will have to end, for it to end, are you prepared to end? And by ending I again, do not mean that you must hard back to the past. It will have to be a new beginning all together, looking just at the situation you find yourself in currently.
Look at everything that disappoints you. Look at everything that adds to your restlessness. Look at everything that you are doing just to fulfill a responsibility, and know that it is not your destiny. Know that you must not remain confined.
If you want to change the tepid state you are in, you’ll have to change almost everything about you. If your clothes remain the same, if your thoughts remain the same, if your food remains the same, if your surrounding remains the same, your boredom two would remain the same. Do you want to continue with it?
You have been put on a rail track. It is well laid out. It offers no scope for deviation. The script is unforgiving. The script makes no allowance for anything of the beyond. The more you live within the script, the more the script dictates that you live within the script. Your life story so far, is a typical example of a scripted life. And, I know the next chapter of the script, and I also know the chapter after that. Do you want to live by the script? Do you?
By the way, this encounter today, this meeting, this question that you asked, the response that I gave, is not there in the script. Either you can conveniently forget it as an accidental deviation, or you can use it as an opportunity to break away and break free. You will not find the answer that I gave, in any script of the world. Opportunity!
