DO NOT INVEST IN MISERY

[Pravin Kumar]

Today, most people in the world, especially young people, have developed a certain allergy towards spirituality. This has happened because spirituality has been presented in such an ugly way. Today, people interpret spirituality as torturing oneself, living a terrible life — it’s become about starving, sitting on the roadside and begging, and, above all, being anti-life. People consider that one who is spiritual should somehow not enjoy life and must suffer in every possible way.
Being spiritual has nothing to do with your external. You can be spiritual whether you live in a hut or a palace. Living in a hut or a palace is either about your choice or social and economic compulsions. It has got nothing to do with your spirituality. People always ask me, “What is the difference between a spiritual and a materialistic person?” As a joke, I tell them, a materialistic person earns only his food. For everything else — for joy, for peace, for love — he has to beg. A spiritual person earns everything himself — his love, his peace, his joy. He begs only for his food and, if he wants, he can earn that also.
To be spiritual means to experimentally know that “I am the source of my joy.” Right now, you believe that something or somebody else is the source of your joy, so you are always at their mercy. If you realize and experientially know that you are the source of your joy, wouldn’t you be joyous all the time? It is not even a choice. Our very life seeks to be joyous. Look at your life — you educate yourself, you want money, a house, a family, children. You want all these things because you have a hope that someday they will bring joy to you. But now you are piled up with too many things and joy is the one thing that has been forgotten.
People have become miserable because they have a deep misunderstanding of what life is. “No! But my husband, my wife, my mother-in-law...” Yes, all of them are there, but it is you who chooses to be miserable because you have made investments in misery. You think that by being miserable, you will get something. Let us say, somebody in your family starts doing something that you don’t want them to do. You will make yourself miserable and go around with a long face, hoping that it will produce results. You are willing to cause misery to yourself with the intention of getting something. Once you are miserable, what is the use even if you have heaven in your hands? But if you are a joyous person, even if you have nothing in your hands, who cares? It’s only your caring and loving, your needing and wanting to own this or that in the simple hope that it will bring joy to you that leads to misery. If you are truly joyous, does it matter what you have or don’t have or whom you have or don’t have?