Take life as it comes

Intuitively, he understands that something has gone wrong. Do adults not have a conscience? We all have a conscience, but we put a stone on it. We think: “Let’s do it, and we’ll worry about the consequences later.” Each time we put a stone on our conscience, it becomes quieter and quieter, and the heart eventually stops giving signals. The moment the heart stops giving signals, you can consider yourself to be spiritually dead.

How to salvage such a situation? How to sensitise the heart? Just as intuition can be heightened, conscience can be heightened too. Having developed a certain level of conscience, how to infuse children or for that matter adults with courage to follow the heart’s signals? How to infuse courage so that, come what may, they will do what is necessary and they will not turn back? They will not be fearful about doing the right thing. Children should be encouraged to feel the heart: “What is right and what is wrong?” “What is beneficial for me, what is not beneficial for me?”

Over time, the things we use the most become dull. For example, we are prone to happiness. Who wants unhappiness? Do we invite unhappiness? No one does. We are predisposed to want happiness all the time, so we overuse our senses – physical as well as emotional – in order to saturate ourselves with happiness. Eventually, in order to make ourselves happier, we need more and more stimuli coming from within as well as from outside. It is the overuse of our senses, internal as well as physical.

What happens with pain, misery, sadness? Nobody wants them. If at all they come our way, we ignore them – as if ignoring them will make them go away! Since we don’t use them, whatever little miseries may come our way become really highlighted. Happiness is made dull by overuse, whereas sadness becomes extremely sharp through underuse. It cuts you like a razor. The more you avoid it, the more every little bit of sadness or unhappiness will drive you crazy.

With expectations also, when we have greater expectations from our loved ones, it creates this dullness and sharpness phenomenon at an emotional level. It’s not that I advocate inviting unhappiness, but if it comes your way, don’t discard it. When your senses perceive sadness, etc., undergo the whole process and be thankful to God. Neither sadness nor happiness is going to last forever. Can you hold air in your fist? You can’t. It is just momentary. It’s the same thing with this emotional rollercoaster. That’s why it’s good to pay attention within, to your inner Deity, the divine presence within your heart. Even if you don’t believe in God, that’s all right too. The main focus is to interiorise in such a way that you set your mind on that fulcrum, making it balanced. Only in the balanced state will you be able to enjoy life.

Start accepting things in life in such a way that they don’t dull you or sharpen you. If sadness comes, get used to it, and don’t avoid it. Otherwise, even a little bit of inconvenience can become a big pain, and that is why the wisdom of Babuji Maharaj (Ram Chandra, Shahjahanpur) is to take miseries as blessings. It’s very difficult to take miseries as blessings until you understand the reason behind it.