Winner of a rat race is still a rat!

Winner of a rat race is still a rat!

• PARAMAHAMSA SRI NITHYANANDA

HEAR yourself when you speak. When I ask people who they are, they tell me they are doctors, spouses of someone or another, or friends of someone or another. These tags, doctor, engineer, husband, wife, father, daughter and friend, are labels given to you by the society. These tags are not you. “Who am I” is a deeper question beneath all these labels.

These labels serve well in the outside world. They mean nothing internally. Let us ask ourselves how to succeed in the outside world. You will say, “it is hard, Master”; you will advice me, “we should be ahead of the crowd in ideas, information, possessions, and even relationships.” I will ask you again, “Are you happy with everything you have?”
You will say, “Master, there is no such thing as a happy state. We have to keep moving to be the leader in the pack.”

You are living and describing a rat race. The problem of winning a rat race is that even after winning you are no better than a rat.

People are concerned that they haven’t yet reaped the benefit of success. Sometimes failure is better than success. Look at the other side of failure. With failure you have still hope that you can succeed; but if you are successful you have nowhere to go, if you are still dissatisfied.
You may have climbed very fast but the climb would have led you to no place in particular. In fact, you might be stuck in a place where it makes no sense to you at all. You are totally disconnected from your inner being. This kind of success brings depression. Depression of success is worse than the depression of failure. People ask me, “what will meditation do to help achieve what I want?” They want to know whether it will give them what they want.

I say to them, may be not, meditation may not give you the power, the shakti, to make your dreams a reality, but will certainly give you the wisdom, the buddhi, to know that your entire reality is only a dream. Let this be clear.

Meditation creates a space for the inner being to flower. It creates peace amidst the chaos that rules your life. Meditation creates the space where you have neither answers nor questions. You will simply be aware. This awareness is precious. Where there is pure awareness, there is enlightenment. This is true freedom.

This inner being, the inner intelligence, the inner energy guides us in our path. Vivekananda says: till inner intelligence is awakened no book will help you; once it is awakened you do not need any books.