Tuesday, June 2, 2020

START A BETTER LIFE - 11 - LESSON 2 (PART II)


Mental Makeup – Rationalists – Spends the time in understanding the true purport of matter and energy.

Mental Makeup - Service Oriented -  Carries out duty for universal greatest happiness of the greatest number.

Mental Makeup – Devotional - ritual minded, religious, like to chant.  Carries out duty with the intention of self-serving and sometimes selfless service. As he progresses in his devotion, he starts carrying out selfless service for universal greatest happiness of the greatest number. This transformation happens without the person being aware of that transformation. The devotional person when attains heights level of devotion continues carry out the selfless work thinking it is a part of ritual or religious direction.

These mental makeups coexist in every individual being. It is the question of which is predominant. To recognize it and to start the life journey based on that mental makeup. As the journey progresses often one finds transgressing now and then in other two mental makeups and it is perfectly normal to happen.

Since we have time at our disposal, we should strive to pass this time in a way which gives joy. If we don’t take control and wait for the time to pass then we are bound to be plagued by bad quality of life resulting in unhappiness. The aim of each one of us is to spend the time in such a way so as to maximize happiness and minimize sadness and pain. To achieve this, we have to select one of the three ways to lead the life. To do this one has to discern the mental makeup. This can only be achieved by spending some time thinking on self and observing oneself.

Animals also pass the time but there is a qualitative difference between passing time without knowing about it and spending time with full consciousness. If we don’t have a purpose, then it is difficult to spend available. It is much more difficult to spend time if there is a mismatch between the mental makeup of the individual and the actions the individual does to fill the time. On the contrary if there is complete synchronization of the mental makeup and our actions then the resultant passing of time is very joyous. One finds artists engrossed in art, scientist engrossed in research, businessmen in business, saints in preaching and so on. This is as per the individual mental makeups. If one sees the path of each individual from birth to death or from start of reaction to end of reaction, it is only one common path - the path of passing time. How consciously one passes the time, is of importance rather than what was done to pass the time. Every passing moment should be filled with that conscious action which gives joy to self and a remembrance to other. Once engrossed in such an action the time passes on its own.

Sometimes we get entrapped in such circumstances in life that we feel as if we are stuck in a traffic jam.  In traffic jam, although the vehicle has power to propel and we have capability to drive, we cannot use this power and capability to come out of traffic jam on our own. The one who is stuck in a traffic jam would have to bear it and experience a slow boring run ahead. It is same for our life. If we get entrapped in adverse situations, we are forced to maintain a low profile even if we have ability and talent, till the adverse circumstances are mitigated. Let us call it a traffic jam syndrome. In case of traffic jam syndrome - best is to keep cool and chant the name in which one has faith. Nothing else to do, wait for the traffic jam to clear.  To be continued……. Keep reading…….!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

You gave a simple explanation of the satva,rajas and tamasic gunas in man. The traffic jam example is a nice way of dealing with difficult situations in life. Most of the times we get so disturbed that it doesn't occur to us how simply we can confront adversities. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

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