We meet different vicissitudes in life; we live through various tragedies and comedies. Through all this, what should be the intelligent way of living in this world? Krishna answers this question in the second chapter of the Bhagavad Gita.

Joy and sorrow can come only when the mind is contacting the outer world. In deep sleep or under chloroform, when the mind has no contact with the outer world, our experience is one of unpolluted peace and joy.

A newly married young South Indian boy moved to Bombay. He was living in a single room tenement when his wife suddenly said to him, “Why don't you call my mother? I want to see her.”

The poor man agreed. The mother-in-law, a formidable lady, was used to living in a big mansion, looking after the whole joint family in the village and doing all the work. In the single-bedroom flat, she could not sit quietly. Cooking for three people was very simple. Since she had nothing to do from morning to evening, she cleaned the whole house four or five times.

From the third day onwards, she became very angry with her son-in-law. He failed to understand the reason and at last, one day, he asked, “Amma, why are you so angry? I am trying to do everything for you.”

She answered angrily, “You have kept something in the wall which bites me. The electricity always gives me shocks.”

“But Amma, electricity will never jump on anybody. Tell me when does the electricity bite you?”

“When I am trying to clean inside the socket of the plug with a wet towel!”

“Amma, only when you go and contact it, it will kick you. If you stay away from it, it will stay properly.”

Things in the world outside do not touch you on their own. Your contact with them gives you the joys and sorrows.

A drunkard feels very happy with a bottle of whisky. But a teetotaller, even if he is given a bottle or sees one, is not attracted towards it. The bottle by itself cannot attract you because it is an inert, insentient thing. Your own mental climate makes you available for objects to tempt you; your wrong, unintelligent contact entangles you with the external world. If there is right contact with the world outside, there is no problem.

All your experiences of heat and cold, joy and sorrow – are the result of the way you contact the world. The variety of experiences arise only through your contact with the objects, people and situations in the external world.

All your mental projections are impermanent; never the same, they come and go. Therefore, when joys and sorrows, success and failure come, suffer them silently. Don’t get perturbed.

The sea will always have waves. A piece of wood floating on the waters will go up and down according to the rhythm of the waves. But the lighthouse is standing in the same waves in the harbour. The waves come and break themselves at the feet of the lighthouse, but it does not go up and down because it is not floating on the surface of the sea. It is built on the foundation of the rocks down below. Its light illumines the waves. The waves come, clash and die away. But the lighthouse stands steady.

Learn to live like a lighthouse in the tumultuous change of situations and circumstances. Learn to keep your balance in the tossing of the changing situations of the world – build your life on a firm foundation. No joy is permanent. No sorrow is permanent.

Silently suffer them with dignity, because you know that they will go away. Enjoy yourself in life. Achieve what you want to, without getting knocked down by these experiences, which come and go.

Swamiji is the Founder of Chinmaya Mission