THE PASSAGE
TO ENDLESS STRENGTH
AND COURAGE
Previous Reference : First Post :It's Never Late To Contemplate on the Values of Shastras
Second Post : Three Layers of Personality and Happiness
The summary of my previous post was that the
individuality identifying itself with subtler personalities achieves greater
and greater happiness, in the order of their subtlety, even though the
circumstances remain same. The next point was that the subtler personalities
face greater challenges than that of grosser ones. Here, a natural question
arises, “How the people, identifying with the subtler personalities, do receive
the greater share of happiness while they face enhanced quantity of challenges
and the problems? Also, where from do they get the strength and ability to
fight these over flooding challenges?” We will discuss that in this post. But
before that you must know the method of ascertaining as to which one of these
three personalities is predominantly constitute your being. It is not that
difficult.
You need to ask one simple question to your
self, “Who are you?” The answers on different occasions and in situations may
be many, and all may be correct. But this question must be from you to your
self. Introspect. Go deep within yourself and observe the answer that your
inner self (अंतःकरण) will whispers back to you. If in that answer
your get description of your body, that is how handsome or beautiful you are,
or, your age, earnings, occupation, your home, status etc, all gross descriptions,
you need to realize that you are predominantly a physical being. (I use the
word ‘predominantly’ very often. This is just to emphasize that each one of us
is a complex mixture of these personalities, but there is always one that
constitutes its major portion. I may be fifty percent physical, forty-five
percent emotional and only five percent intellectual. In this case, I am
predominantly a physical being. This ratio would vary from person to person.) In
this situation, lesser will be your struggles as well as your happiness,
compared to others having subtler personalities.
Swamy
Vivekananda once complimented the physical fortitude and uncaring nature of a dark
black man coming from the uncivilized regions of thick African forests. Swami Ji
jokingly said, “I would gladly exchange my intellectual wealth with the
unblemished health and non-bothering attitude of this man. He never got ill and
needed a pill. No worries and also no ambitions. He was immune to insults or
mental tortures where we find our selves miserably very weak. The only feelings he had were necessitated by
the instinct of survival. But most of the people are not like that. This was
just a caricature of a physical being to make things clearer.
That is enough about the physical beings. If
you are an emotional being, in the answer you receive from within yourself, you
will give least importance to your physical personality or to the things
concerning to your gross ego. In stead you will find yourself concentrating
more on and concerned with subtle things like emotions, feelings, friendship,
relationships, compassion, piety, art, poetry etc. Even the parents, especially
mothers are predominantly emotional beings. They dedicate themselves to the
welfare of their off-springs. This word ‘dedication’ defines the subtlety of
the layer and gives it a new dimension. Such dedication is not at all there in
physical beings. This dedication opens a secret door of immense energy and
strength.
Here, I feel like to tell you a short story. A
woman, a feeble woman (अवाला) comes back from the market and finds her house
ablaze. People surrounding the house are shouting for help because an infant is
still left inside the burning house. The woman runs into the house. Everybody
tries to stop her because the fire has dangerously engulfed the whole building.
But she jerks every one away as if they were all dummies and like a bullet
rushes into the house. Out side the blazing house, there is a murmur among the
bystanders. “She wouldn’t survive.” “We should have not allowed her to go
there.” “Anyone would become pakora (पकोड़ा)
by entering into such furious
flames.” But there she comes out of the house very much intact, through those
apparently all devouring flames, with her baby child, safely secured in the
protection of her loving hands. Every one stunned, keeps looks at this scene
like a zombie with their eyes amazed and the mouths wide agape. Where from did
she get such courage and energy?
Did you see Hindi movie ‘Roza’ or English
movies ‘Home alone’ or ‘The Flight Plan’ etc? Though these are the stories,
imagination of some writer, but then can you imagine some thing impossible,
some thing that is not from this world. Even the stories get characters from
this world only, may be one bit from here and the other from there. And then
the writer may mould those pieces together into one. Such things do happen. This
is the experience of all of us that these dedicated persons behave
extraordinarily under the pressure of extreme adversities. They get their
strength from their dedication, from their love, from their self-less attitude
(निश्काम भावना). There, my friends, lies hidden, the ocean of miraculous strength and
courage. I am sure, you did go through such moments, when your emotional
aspects dominated the rest of your personalities, and the seriousness of the
occasion demanded sudden and a drastic action from you; and you did perform
that action; the very action that you
cannot otherwise think even to try.
The people of ideals, ideologies, missions etc,
come under the category of predominantly intellectual personalities. They
neither care for their personal or physical things nor their feelings and
emotions. They have a vision, a target to achieve, or a mission to accomplish,
and they put all their strength into that. And while doing that neither their minds
nor bodily requirements hinder their way. In Sundar Kand of Ramayana, the
mighty Hanuman ji when get arrested by Angad and taken to the court of Ravana,
even the miserable inhabitant of Lanka stamped and spitted on him. ‘मारहिं लात करहिं बहु हसा’. But Hanuman ji remains sentimentally untouched. That is the attitude of
the people of this category. Anna says अपमान
पीना सीखो. How can some one, who
has a mission, afford sentimental setbacks and botherations? My friends circle
on Face book is very diminutive. But I fortunately have a few friends who have
dedicated themselves for certain ideals. My son, for one, is involved in a
number of selfless activities. He was once carrying a man to a hospital who got
some injuries and few fractured bones in an accident occurred a little while before,
and that convulsing and delirious man abused him all the way, but undisturbed
by all aspersions (including of bystanders and police) he took him to the
hospital and saved him. And a lady friend of mine dedicated herself to certain
ideals, the ideal of planting trees, interacting with the people and
inculcating the necessity of up-keeping the environment by maintaining the
balance of flora and fauna, fighting against corruption etc. It is India , and dedicated their life to
that vision. They made ultimate sacrifices with their faces dazzling and
smiling lips. Chandra Sekhar Azad, Bhagat Singh, Shyama Prasad Vismil, Mahatma
Gandhi .....are few to name from an unending line of selfless people dedicated
to same higher ideals. Source of all the energy and courage is the ideal. The
taller the ideal, the greater the flow of energy and courage and also the thrill.
And there lies the treasure of happiness, undiminished by much needed
sacrifices. We all know about that mighty son of Sri Ramkrishna. Only 39 years
he lived and but left a legacy of exemplary selfless dedication for millenniums
to come. Shankara, a boy of eight, got a vision, dedicated himself to that
ideal, and could accomplish what to any one else with any amount of zeal would
have been impossible. No missionary in the world could perform miracle during the
span of his life. He lived only for 29
years and fought the philosophical battles of ensuing millenniums. I don’t
think I need to talk about his achievements. Every one is expected to know all that.
Geeta says मन्मना कृत meaning perform
all your duties dedicated to ‘me’ the Lord. And when that is done, the doer
remains untouched by the fatigue, failure or foul play. The Lord takes care of
that. अहम् त्वा सर्व पापेभ्यो मोक्षस्यामि मा शुचः
. That is the law of nature and
Karma. If you are dedicated to a post of judge, you are not tarnished by the
punishments you provoke. Your ideal to which you have dedicated yourselves,
takes care of your problems, struggles, challenges, fights etc and rewards you
with endless happiness and bliss, befitting to and as per the height of that
ideal. The advice of Vedanta to the aspirant is that he should come out of his
egoistic cell, dedicate himself to some higher ideal and then selflessly and
sincerely act for it as an ambassador of that ideal. This way, there is no possibility of failure.
This is the grand passage to endless strength and courage.
Thanks. Please let me know your comments on
this and advises to improve. I am not a professional writer or philosopher, and
I don’t do ‘copy-paste’ here. I meditate, contemplate, write, rewrite and edit
it myself. So any suggestion to make this page better, is most welcome. I hope you have studied my previous two posts; the first one "It is Never Late to Contemplate on the Values of Shastras", and the second dealing with the "Three Layers of Personalities." I am sure you enjoyed both. Thanks again.
Yaduraj Singh Bais.
