Love and Happiness: The Ultimate Joy Is Inner Growth

By Swami Sukhabodhananda

Why do sad people attract sad incidences in life? Why do happy people attract happy situations in life?

Depending on what state of being we are, we attract situations. We have to focus on heightening our state of being rather than changing situations in life. If our state of being is low, then the external situation, even though sacred, will be pulled down to our level of being. For example, a poor man in a palace will make the palace into a gutter.

Mullah Nazaruddin, while walking in the desert, saw a group of people riding horses. He thought they were robbers and started running. They turned out to be travellers. Seeing the Mullah running, the travellers thought he was in trouble - so they started going towards him.

Now the Mullah was convinced they were after him and he ran into a graveyard - the travellers followed him there. The tired Mullah lay down on one of the coffins. Then he realised they were not robbers but travellers. They asked him: "Why are you here?" "I am here because of you and you are here because of me" answered the Mullah. "This is the law of karma".

In other words, we attract situations in life.

We often find ourselves in such situations aligned to our state of being. If our consciousness is not committed to transformation, then we will not grow wiser from situations, but complain and grumble, expecting the situation to be different.

According to yogic shastras , there are different levels of being - seven chakras or centres. Some operate from the lowest centre and such people attract similar situations. Nature context is that humans evolve from lower to higher centres. This happens when you learn and grow.

If one does not do that then the situation goes on repeating itself until we learn and grow.

How can we change one state of being? There are two types of growth: Horizontal and vertical growth. Horizontal growth means more money, name, fame. People's yardstick of growth is more in the horizontal domain. People come and tell me, "I have grown" - which means five years back I earned one million dollars a year and now I earn 10 million dollars a year. This type of growth is not fulfilling.

The second type of growth is vertical growth. The yardstick for this is: Five years back how calm was I, and how calm am I now? The growth is measured in its depth and not in its width. The more one grows in love, kindness and compassion, the more one is truly growing. Such a growth is fulfilling. Growth happening in the vertical dimension changes one's state of being.

In ancient India a king sought to resolve a dispute between two of his ministers who wanted to marry the same woman. He told both of them to walk on a rope and whoever did so successfully, would win the hand of the woman. One minister spent a sleepless night worrying how he would be able to walk the tightrope. The other minister was very relaxed - he felt there was no point in getting agitated when death was imminent anyway.

The minister who kept his cool emerged the winner, walking effortlessly on the rope. Asked to share his secret, he only said, "I do not know". To walk on the rope without losing one's balance involves being relaxed, balanced and being in the present. The same qualities are vital for the success of a marriage, too.

In order to grow vertically, one has to cultivate the art of relaxation, be balanced, and stay aware in the present. Life is fulfilling only with such a type of growth. Happiness and joy flower forth in this state of consciousness.

(The writer will conduct a three-day ‘Life' workshop on Dec 6, 7 and 8 at Vishwa Yuva Kendra, Delhi. Phones: 5253649, 4692686, 3014402, 98-100-99559, website: www.swamisukhabodhananda.org)

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See also: Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Death and Dying, Body Mind and Soul)