Swami Swaroopananda

Life is a continuous series of experiences. Like bricks are the units of a building, life is a product of experiences. If experiences are joyful, life is joyful. If most experiences are miserable, life is miserable. Hence, the various experiences of life determine one’s happiness and sorrows. However, the fact is that life only brings situations never sorrow. Situations become problems, bringing grief and misery, when one is unable to handle or face them.

For example, if suddenly the lights went off; it is a situation. Now, if you don’t understand why the lights went off then the situation can become a problem. Suppose you understand it and you also have the knowledge about fuses, but if you are incapable of actually fixing or doing something about it, then it becomes a problem. Or thirdly, if you do not have the instruments, the wire or the screwdriver, to mend the fuse, it becomes a predicament.

Unfortunately most situations in life become problems, not due to inability or lack of tools, but because of misunderstanding of the situation. This is mainly due to lack of clarity and the agitations of the mind. We have anxiety for the future and the results of our actions because we fear sorrow. We regret a past full of sorrows and in the present all our mind’s energy is dissipated in sorrow.

In life one is faced with occasions when the mind is so overcome by sorrow that it becomes powerless to act; it cannot think properly and without the tool of the integrated mind and the intellect, problems cannot be solved. In the Bhagawad Geeta, Arjuna misunderstood the entire situation in the battlefield. It became a crisis and a calamity for him. He was so overwhelmed by anguish, that he became incapable of thinking properly. Sri Krishna could not immediately give him the knowledge, as a mind so overcome with grief cannot respond.

Until one learns how to deal with sorrow one is unable to confront the problem. Therefore, the first teaching of the Geeta, after Arjuna surrenders to Sri Krishna is that the wise do not grieve.

The sages are full of compassion for the sorrows of others but they point out:

The Truth, the cause of this world is Infinite. Infinite alone is complete and therefore it is Bliss. The world has come from Bliss hence it cannot be anything but Bliss.

However if the cause of the world is Bliss, then why do we experience sorrow? What is the reason of all our misery? The cause can only be ignorance. Not understanding the true nature of the world and this life, we condemn ourselves to a life of suffering. So, the first and foremost thing to learn is the management of sorrows.

Exercise 1

Please make a list, at this very moment, in a notepad, of all the sorrows that you are experiencing right now. Close your eyes and think. Write it down. Do it right now. You will not do it later. After you have read the following revisit your list.

Nothing is Permanent- Cultivate Forbearance

The easiest and simplest way to deal with sorrow is to remember that nothing is permanent in life; everything constantly changes. Sri Krishna points out that experiences are born from the interaction of the sense organs with the world of sense objects. They have a beginning and an end; they are impermanent and hence it is best to tolerate them with courage. In deep sleep, when the mind is not functioning, there is no experience of the world; there is neither joy nor sorrow.

Pujya Gurudev used to give a beautiful example. There was a small village in South India. A very young, intelligent South Indian boy came to Mumbai, took up a job, rented a one-room flat and when he returned home, his wise old mother immediately got him married to a village girl and sent him back. Since both of them were busy working, he invited his mother to come and stay with them to look after the house. The elderly woman was used to a lot of physical work. Now she felt confined in the one-room flat. What could she do? She cleaned every nook and corner of the room.

One day, the son returned home and saw that his mother was all packed and ready to leave, “Take me to the station. I want to go back!”

“What has happened?”

“If you don’t like my staying here, why did you bring me?”

The son looked at his wife, “What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything. I didn’t say anything.”

“What makes you think that we don’t want you? You are most welcome to stay here.”

“You don’t like my presence here. You have hidden cats in the wall to bite me all the time!”

“Cats in the wall to bite you all the time! Mother what are you saying? Show me the cats in the wall.”

“Look at these holes in the wall.” And she pointed to the electric sockets. She was working and saw dirt in the holes and if one makes contact with electricity and experiences it in an incorrect way, one is bound to get a shock!

Joy and sorrow are nothing but a pair of opposites. Where there is heat there will be cold; where there is light there will be darkness; where there is success there will be failure; where there is good there will be bad. All coexist in the world. One cannot be without the other. They always exist. What is born out of contact will also die from dis-contact. What has a beginning will also have an end. Hence, it is not permanent. If one knows that sorrows will come to an end, they are easy to bear. The way to manage suffering is to cultivate the attitude, ‘This too shall pass away.’

This Too Shall Pass Away…

I am travelling constantly. Now, thankfully, all smoking has been banned in planes, but earlier the worst situation was when you reached late; you didn’t get the aisle or the window seat and the non-smoking section was full. You got the smoking section right at the back of the aircraft and that too the middle seat among five seats. It has happened to me many times. I have often found myself between two fat chain-smoking people! Any form of smoke causes irritation, burning and tears in my eyes. It is unbearable at that moment! It is no doubt difficult to tolerate, but one realizes that after eight hours the flight is going to land and the misery will come to an end.

There was old man in Australia, during the Second World War. He was a farmer who was reluctant to use modern technology. He had no tractors and ploughed the land with a horse. One day his horse collapsed and died. The people commiserated, “This is very sad. We told you to get some machinery. What will you do? What a great calamity.”

The man looked at them, “We will see how long this calamity will last.”

Since everyone felt sorry for him, they gathered together, honoured him in the market place, and gave him the surprise gift of a horse, a young stallion. The community declared, “How lucky you are. How wonderful. Now all will be fine.”

He said, “We shall see.”

The young energetic horse could not stay in the boundaries of the farm. One day he broke the fence and ran away. The horse was gone, the fence was broken, and the kangaroos would eat the grains! Again the neighbors came, “Your luck is bad. Now what will you do?”

“We shall see.”

The next day, the stallion returned with five mares. Now he had six horses and everyone said, “How lucky you are!”

He observed, “We shall see.”

The old man’s 19-year-old son went riding around the village to show off the horse. A pretty girl passed by; he turned to look, fell down, and broke his leg. His friends came to sympathize but the man said, “We shall see.”

The next day, due to the Second World War the Australian army came to recruit all the young men of the village, but could not take the old man’s son as his leg was in plaster. The people said, “How fortunate.”

The old man said, “We shall see.”

Develop a Sense of Humour

Gurudev used to explain joy and sorrow in a humorous manner: You sit in your verandah. Miss Joy and Mr. Sorrow will keep coming and going. Life is a series of experiences. Everything can’t be our way. Sorrows and difficulties will come. Joys, too, will come. Sit there. Enjoy the beauty. When Miss Joy comes in, welcome her charming company but don’t try to stop her because she is beautiful, in demand, and very fickle. She is not going to stay with you for very long and when she goes; do not hold on to her. Hold on to joy and joy itself will cause misery. Let her go and don’t lock the door because Mr. Sorrow is coming. He is not a lady. He can shatter your roof and arrive. Welcome him with open doors lest he breaks the windows and roof and creates more problems! He is not very popular and he is quite boring company. He stays around a little longer. Offer him a drink. When he goes away, don’t worry, she is going to change her mind, Miss Joy is coming. But give her a glass of diet coke!

In life one side is sorrow and the other side is joy- that is the very nature of life – dukha, sukha. Touch your heart. Can you feel your heartbeat? Check it out and hear it. Hear a child’s heart- dukha-sukha, dukha-sukha. Unfortunately for most adults it is dukha-dukha, dukha-dukha. Try to see the humor. If we have a sense of humour, we can lighten up the atmosphere of sorrow. So even in difficulties, try to find joy and happiness.

Don’t Blame Others

In the section of the Ramayana called Lakshman Geeta, Tulsidas has pointed out how to deal with grief. Rama gives the knowledge to Lakshmana, who later on gives it to Guha, “Hey brother, remember one thing, don’t blame anybody for your sorrows.”

It is an excuse of the mind to blame others. We are always blaming other people, situations, or even God for the problems in our life. Firstly, the moment you blame anybody, you become a victim and you cannot do anything about it. Secondly, when you blame others, the sorrow intensifies.

Have you seen children playing in the garden? They push each other, jump over the swing, do all sorts of acrobatics and keep hurting themselves. When they fall by themselves, it is never that painful. But suppose Mummy appears and says, “Come and eat.” She is just about to pull him; he tries to resist and falls down and there is a slight bruise. You know the screaming and crying that will follow! He will complain to the whole world!

When you blame somebody else for your sorrow, your misery and pain increase many times more. Since you have put the blame on someone else until he or she removes your distress, the grief is not going to go. So mentally you cling on to the pain and it never ends end because that person is not going to change.

Also, the problem is that when we blame situations; when we blame people; when we blame the market; when we blame partners; we are not taking the responsibility for our actions. Only when we are ready to take the blame, we will try to do something about it. Since we are the creators of our present sorrow, we can undo it for the future, and become the master of our destiny.

Exercise 2

Please try the following experiment with a friend:

Pinch your friend and continue pinching, increasing the pressure, until the bearing point of the pain is reached. Now ask the person to think of someone he or she loves and to imagine that the pain is being endured for the good of that person. Note down the amount of pressure applied. Next, ask your friend to think of someone who has caused him or her pain, someone he or she really hates. Again, observe the tolerance point.

I remember doing this demonstration with a lady and I told her to think about her mother-in-law. You won’t believe it. I had not even touched her and she screamed. She was already experiencing the pain!

When you think you are bearing the sorrow for someone you love, you can easily bear the pain.

Observe the Endurance of Saints

Everybody goes through some sorrow and tragedy, but our saints and sages have shown us how to face them. People ask, “Why do the good suffer?” If good people do not suffer then who will? Somebody has to take on the misery of the people. Lord Shiva drank the poison. Jesus Christ was crucified. Mohammed was constantly ostracized. Guru Arjan Sahib was roasted in cauldrons of sand; Guru Tej Bahadur Sahib was beheaded; Guru Govind Singh’s children were crushed between walls.

Many sages have endured physical suffering. Raman Maharshi had cancer. Our Gurudev was physically so sick but he did not rest till the last day of his life. His heart was functioning at 15%; his legs had almost given up in the last five years, and yet he would travel around the world with the same zest and enthusiasm of a teenager. The greatness of the Masters lies in the way they dealt with problems and maintained their balance in all situations.

Examine the Nature of this World

Life has a unique way of giving us suffering where it hurts most. For example, if finance matters most, somehow that will get affected. If children are more important, then grief comes only from them. Sorrow is experienced from whatever we hold on to very strongly. Life has a unique knack of giving us blows at our weakest points and that is indeed very hard to bear.

In this world, everything is relative. Guru Tej Bahadur has said that the whole universe is like a dream. One can say that the world is an illusion and because it is so, our sorrows are not real.

One day Janak Maharaj had a dream. The king of Mithila dreamt that a famine had broken out in his country. He had become very poor and found himself dying of hunger and thirst. Finally, after fighting with hundreds of people, he managed to get a small piece of bread. As soon as he got it a dog come and snatched it away. Angry and weeping, the king woke up to find himself in his wonderful, comfortable bed. But, in the dream the beggar, the hunger and the pain had been so real. He started thinking, “Am I the beggar who is dreaming that I am a king or am I a king dreaming that I am a beggar? Which is real? In the dream, the king is not. In the waking state, the beggar is not, but each is negated in the other state. Which is real?”

Yajnavalka Rishi answered his question, “Neither the king nor the beggar is real.”

We may not ask such a profound question. But we can understand that the whole world is like a play. It is like a drama in which each one has been given a role; each one has been given a scene to enact.

Don’t Take the World Too Seriously

It is beautiful to take the whole world as a drama. Consider it as a television soap opera. You watch a tragedy. You sit and cry and at the end you say, “What a nice movie!” How you enjoyed it!

When you identify with the role, you cry but after watching the whole movie you declare, “That was wonderful!” When you see it as a movie you can enjoy the comedy, enjoy the suspense, and you can enjoy the tragedy. If you learn to see the world as a movie, as a dream, you can even enjoy it. Consider it as a role that you have to play in life. If it is that of a tragedy queen, then live it so beautifully that when you walk out of the stage you have a standing applause. Understand that all this is nothing but a play and, therefore, don’t take it too seriously. Be serious in your actions but don’t take the world too seriously. Learn to find some humour in all the tragedy.

Why is one unable to see this world as a dream and an illusion? The answer is that one is attached to it. The moment you detach; the moment you are no longer dependent on it; the moment you refuse to get affected by it; you can stand apart and witness the whole game of life. The whole world is going on according to the lawmaker, stand apart and watch the law at play in the universe; watch the director directing it; don’t interfere.

Someone approached a Master, “Look how these people are behaving around you. Why don’t you correct them? Why don’t you improve the world?” Pat came the reply, “The One who has made the world is seeing the world, He is not doing anything about it. Why should I intervene?”

Prasada Buddhi

Everything in the world is happening according to laws. You may call it the law of action in which you receive the results of your actions. Or you may insist that the Lord gives everything. He gives joy and sorrow and He also gives the wisdom to bear it. These are two conflicting views. Why fight over them and increase the sorrow?

Whether it is the result of one’s actions or whether God has given the result, the intelligent solution for a man of action is to accept it:

In the Geeta, Sri Krishna has clarified:

Thy right is to work only; but never to its fruits; let not the fruit of action be thy motive, nor let they attachment be to inaction.

Do your actions; do your best; learn to accept whatever result comes. The moment you accept the result, it stops affecting you. This is the attitude of prasada that we have in our culture, which we generally dismiss as mere rituals. Rituals, practiced properly, give the mental atmosphere to face the situations in life.

What do we mean by prasada buddhi? In the temple, we teach our children not to complain about the prasada. They must eat what is given to them. How do people go to the Gurudwara to eat the same dal and the same roti and enjoy it? If they were to get it at home, they would reject it. The moment there is acceptance that is prasada; it becomes enjoyable. When you accept the situation of your life; whether joy or sorrow, success or failure; the moment it is accepted, without likes and dislikes, it stops affecting you. Agitation and grief no longer overwhelm the mind and the intellect and you are able to plan out the future.

The stick-on posters that are so useful and practical these days were the result of a discovery from an unsuccessful experiment. The story goes that a person was attempting to produce a special type of glue that would stick well but not stain anything. He ended up making an adhesive, which stuck but also peeled off easily. At this stage he could have lamented his failure, thrown everything away, and cursed fate. He sat and observed the situation with a calm mind and suddenly realized that many people who wanted to stick and remove labels without staining demanded such a type of glue. He patented the formula and became a multi-millionaire. He accepted the result and turned the mistake itself into a roaring success.

Whatever Happens, Happens for the Best

Let us conclude the topic with a story.

There was a king who had a friendly minister. The Minister had a favourite expression, “It is the Lord’s wish. It is for the best.” He would always repeat this and nobody took him seriously until one day when the king and the minister went together for a hunt. So engrossed were they in the chase that they wandered deep into the forest. Suddenly it was evening and the king realized that they were lost.

The Minister remarked, “It is the Lord’s wish. It is for the best.”

“I think we are lost. We were tracking the tiger, now the tiger will chase us!”

The minister repeated, “It is the Lord’s wish. It is for the best.”

The king felt extremely irritated but kept quiet. Just then there was the roar of the tiger. The frightened horses ran off dropping the king and his minister on the ground. The king got up with excruciating pain in his bleeding hand; his finger had been broken.

Again the minister pointed out, “It is the Lord’s wish. It is for the best.”

Hungry, thirsty and parched in the humid heat of the forest, they came across a well. But when they looked inside, they realized that it was very deep with hardly any water and no vessel to draw it up. Angry and frustrated, the king exclaimed, “The water is so shallow!”

“It is the Lord’s wish. It is for the best.”

This was the last straw. The king lost his temper and pushed the minister in the well. Even as the minister was falling he uttered, “It is the Lord’s wish. It is for the best.”

By now the king was convinced that his minister was absolutely crazy. Soon thereafter, a tribe of wild cannibals found the king and decided that he was the right person for their sacrifice. The king was taken, tied up and just as he was about to be killed, the priest declared, “We cannot sacrifice him. The gods will get angry. He has a blemish - his finger is broken. You cannot give an imperfect offering.” They released the king.

Suddenly the king remembered the words of his minister. He went running back, recalling the shallow well, hoping that his friend was still alive. He pulled him out, told him the whole story, and asked, “You are a man of God. You stayed all night in the well not knowing whether you would be saved. What good happened to you?”

“Oh! King,” replied the wise minister, “If I were not in the well and was with you, you would have been saved but I would have been sacrificed!”

In conclusion, learn to deal with your sorrows. Don’t cover them; don’t run away from them. Take them as a test and a challenge. You will discover a thrill and a sense of pride when you come out successful. Always remember that whatever happens in life happens for the best. If you can keep this attitude with you, sorrow cannot really touch you.