Swami Swaroopananda

Life is a rich and precious gift given to us by God. The greatness of life is measured by what one has done with it. If one has not learnt how to manage one’s life and gain bliss, peace, happiness, and immortality, then life has been wasted. Do we ever ask ourselves the following questions: “What have I done with my life that I can be proud of? What have I achieved, by my own effort and not through sheer accident of luck or others’ goodwill, that is of lasting merit? How is the world a better place because I have been in it? At the end of my days, what can I offer at the feet of the Lord with love and joy, that will please Him and do Him proud?”

The Bhagavad Gita opens with a question by the blind king, Dhritarashtra. He said, “What did my people as well as the sons of Pandu do when, desirous of fighting, they assembled together on the holy plain of Kuruksetra, O Sanjaya?” The very word kuru in Sanskrit means ‘to do’, and kshetra, is ‘field’. Thus, Kurukshetra is synonymous with karma-bhumi or ‘field of activity’. Our entire life, when we think about it, is a karma-bhumi. For as long as there is breath in the body, for as long as the world is perceived, and there is the potential for action whether gross or subtle, we are in Kurukshetra, where, minute after minute, second after second, we make choices and accordingly craft our legacy. Dhritarashtra asked, “Oh Sanjaya tell me what did they do?” In effect (and perhaps unwittingly) Dhritarashtra is pointing at the entire mechanism of human action – the motives, methods and values behind our deeds.

One’s actions indicate whether one is inclined to material or spiritual goals, nearer to happiness or not. Mere actions, however, do not bring about success and achievement. Often people approach a Swami and say, “Maharaj, please bless me. I have been working for so many years, but nothing is happening in my life.” Well, nothing will happen! For example, I decide to drive to a certain place; I may go on driving and driving and yet never reach my destination because, as it turns out, I am driving in the wrong direction. Without working intelligently, achievement is not possible.

As for the results of our actions, these are in accord with the rightness or wrongness of our actions. Motive precedes action. Hence, Dhritarashtra uses the word, dharma kshetra before Kurukshetra. Dharma refers to the art of management by which one can bring about desirable results in material as well as spiritual life. And like all arts, dharma is rooted in Knowledge. For that matter, dharma is simultaneously a science, for, it actually covers all the laws of the universe – on every level, from the physical to the metaphysical, and every scale, from the infinitesimal to the infinite. This knowledge far from being dogma, has been filtered through the direct experience of the rishis across the ages. To use the words of Pujya Gurudev Swami Chinmayananda, “in the laboratory of their own life” using scientific methods – the stages of observation followed by hypothesis, experimentation and analysis before arriving at a conclusion. More remarkably and firmly imprinting the stamp of science on this body of knowledge, he brilliantly points out in his book ‘Manual of Self Unfoldment’, that dharmic declarations have been verified and confirmed by duplicate experiments. The exact same experiences or conclusions have been reported, by not just a few but a great many rishis, separated by time and/or location.

While the all-embracing concept of dharma as expounded in the scriptures is simply too vast to discuss here, let it suffice to say that the importance of right knowledge in guiding our actions cannot be overstated. And one of the most fundamental injunctions of dharma is that we practice introspection and regularly ask ourselves the question, “ What have I done today?” We see in the lives of all great Masters that they have asked themselves the same, in earnest. And they responded with complete integrity, abandoning old habits and adopting anew lifestyle that was in greater sync with their convictions!

Goswami Tulsidas, for instance, before he became a spiritual luminary, was passionately attached to his wife. One day she rebuked him, saying, “My body is but a mass of flesh. If you have for Lord Rama even half the love you have for my company, you would certainly gain Him and attain immortality. What have you done in your life for Shri Ramachandra?” That one question changed his life!

Ask yourselves one question again and again, “What have I done with my life this far?” This is a sure step towards gaining clarity and the right perspective on what true achievement is, and what actions are necessary as we go forward.

This article is excerpted from the book ‘Life Management Techniques’ by Swami Swaroopananda.