Swami’s One Liner

This one particular topic has been on my mind for a while and I am finally grateful to have found the right time and words to pen it down. I have known so many people in my life of twenty two years :P, and have spent a lot of time in evaluating and contemplating about them (In a totally non-creepy way xD). You might not know this fact about me that I am very choosy when it comes to the people I interact with as I have mentioned earlier that the first step of reducing our sufferings is to monitor the type of content we feed our brains and our company has a major say in the area. Over time I have come across happy people, Sad people, complaining people, grateful people, reaction-less people and may be one or two more kinds that I don’t remember at the moment. 

The point to be noted here was Happy people weren’t the ones who had a high-paying job, cute relationships, best friends, perfect family etc and sad ones weren’t the ones having major issues in life, surprisingly, It was quite the opposite. Being an over-critical teen, I used to complain non-stop sometimes and wonder how people with worse conditions than mine not do that? ‘How can these losers act so happy ?’ was my exact teenage thought ! And yes, I also used to say that loud just to make others feel guilty. 

The answer came to me in the winters of 2019 when I was in a bad phase both emotionally and mentally. I was completely exhausted and it was the first time in my life that I felt like I needed a psychiatrist but also knew that this word “psychiatrist’ will bring down hell upon me if I let in out in our family. I was getting suicidal and needed big time help before it was too late.   Thankfully, it was the time when os.me had introduced the hot-line help and I was lucky enough to receive three lovely emails from Sadhvi Vrinda didi, she might probably be the kindest person  have talked to. She lighted me up so much that I can never be grateful enough to her and she was also super kind enough to recite my poem to Swamiji and tell me his response to it which was the best new year’s gift I could’ve received. Having talked to a thousand people through the hot line, it will be a miracle if she still remembers me, but her compassion and words has left their never ceasing impact. 

In one of her emails she had written this one particular line that has become my happiness mantra since then, and yes, it has never failed me. Just like when you invest in a blue chip stock the wealth keeps accumulating, I have only accumulated good things after that time. She wrote “Work very hard and love will follow. It always does, when we continue to do our work. This is Swami’s own words”. These words have etched themselves in my memory and have played the role of an anchor for many-many times . Whatever the situation might me, just keep doing your work, keep going-don’t quit or stop because time changes faster than you think. Didi, I want you to know that I have never been so much happy in my life and most of the credit goes to that one line you wrote to me and there are almost no chances of me going back to being that miserable human I was at the time.

Coming from a troubled house hold, there is usually not a lot to be happy about. There are no family dinner times to share our jokes. We (I, mom, Sibling) share a close bond, but what’s missing cannot be fulfilled by them or anyone else except the one human who doesn’t seem to be too interested in wife and kids (I know he loves us and don’t blame him but the circumstances). And yet, I remain in-humanly(above-normal) happy and bursting with energy almost all the time 😛 because I keep doing my job- Gym, work, reading, meditation, yoga, friends, family, writing. When these things weren’t enough keep me busy I started running extra errands and all the hard work – the constant try to follow swami’s words and to remain happy eventually paid off.

Always, Always be grateful for all that you have. We tend to focus on the things that we don’t have and take granted the awesome things that we do-Swami’s words were another way of saying -be grateful (as I see it, it’s hard to do your work with a full heart without being grateful) Even if you have a lot of thing to be unhappy about, don’t you have a roof over your head? don’t you have water to drink? air to breathe? food to eat?. Trust me, these are the things to be grateful about. Being on a gym diet has made me respect ghar ka khana so much that I can’t express it in words that how heavenly the normal aaloo ki sabzi tastes now xD. Grate-fullness  is like the blue chip stock- it will help you accumulate more things to be grateful for. The ‘keep going’ and ‘grateful stock’ creates and multiplies your happiness treasury – Thank you Swami and Sadhviji for gracing me and now all of us with your immense compassion. 

I urge all of my lovely family members here to try it out. Har Har Mahadev 😀