As we look at our lives, at times we may become despondent. We often look only at those areas where we feel we are having a lot of pain. As human beings, it is our tendency to focus on those areas that give us trouble. Times of pain may come to each of us throughout our lives.
Many human beings focus more on what they do not have rather than on what they do have. As they focus on what they do not have, they get into a depressed mood. As we look at our lives, we find there are many times in which we do not feel well because things are not happening according to what we expect. There are people who perpetually stay in that state because they do not have the strength, the know-how, or the guidance to get out of that state of depression.
Whenever the saints come into this world, they are always asking us to look at the brighter side of life. They want to teach us a way to look at a much deeper aspect of our life. The saints tell us that, even though we might have a Master’s degree or a PhD, our knowledge is still limited. As we go through life, we use the knowledge that we do have or that we have learned or that we received as a gift of God.
When we look at the teachings of the great saints and mystics, time and again they tell us that all of us who have come into the human body have a common purpose. That purpose is for us to truly know ourselves and to have communion or merger in the Lord. The great saints say that irrespective of how we feel, we need to take steps towards our goal.
Since our human system is set up to focus on fulfilling our desires, what is needed is the right kind of desire. The first thing is to recognise what is most important in life, and that is to truly fulfil the very purpose of our existence. Once we recognise that the true purpose of our existence is to recognise our true self, then we have to take steps towards that goal. Since our true existence is at the level of our soul, we need to know more about the soul. To know about our soul, we need to meditate. We need to go within ourselves.
In everyone’s life, there are many ups and downs. There are times of happiness and then there are times of pain. Our life is like a pendulum. It swings from times of happiness to times of sorrow and back. The right way of living is not to be affected by these times. We need to face the challenges of life. We need to have equipoise in our life. Whether times seem to be bad to us or they seem to be good to us, we are not affected by them because we need to get to a state of equipoise. We can only achieve that state when we truly recognise ourselves. When we know the reality, when we experience the truth, then we recognise that this world is an illusion.
The reason we are in pain is because we do not recognise that essential unity. What we do not realise is that everyone is coming from the same source and so the energy in each one of us is the same, which is our real self. Since we look at everyone as being different, they seem to bring pain to us. They are like thorns to us because we think that every time we interact with them, all we get is pain and sorrow. To us, they look like thorns, but they are flowers, they are fragrant, they are full of the love of God. We need to get to that state where we recognise that.
Many of us are quite worried about our life. We are not very happy about what is happening in our life and so to us, it appears as a desolate scene. Everything seems to break apart. It just looks desolate to us, but we can be in a state of bliss and joy. If we fill ourselves with the love of God, then everything will start to bloom for us. When our attention is focused on God — we are oblivious to all pain, all suffering, everything else that goes on. It is in that state that our heart is full of the love of God. Being full of the love of God, we are transported from the physical to the Divine.
