Raneswar Mornings – Glass half empty

“A journey from immaturity to maturity, incompleteness to completeness, dissatisfaction to satisfaction, nothing to everything is called life. The more you get matured you are supposed to get more complete, you are supposed to get more satisfied, you are supposed to own most of everything. But this does not happen for a normal human being. You feel more incomplete day by day, you get more dissatisfied over the years and you assume that you have mostly nothing. This means over the years we are not getting truly matured rather getting immature. When we were Kids, we felt entire world is ours but over the years we feel we are getting lonely and at the end we realize that we are just one entity. This means the definition of completeness, satisfaction and everything may be wrong as well. It seems we are having wrong understanding about the fundamentals of life. I am tired of this battle in my mind. I need some proper knowledge. “, I was uttering these words to myself while sitting in the Raneswar temple.

One old priest with semi-modern dressing came and sat near me. I looked at his eyes and found very satisfying two eyes . He was happy that his facial expression was trying to convey. He was well dressed, that made it clear that he is satisfied with life. He was steady in his movement which meant that he is in no hurry and a sign of completeness. I never tried to study anybody so much but this happened naturally to me this time. I smiled at him and he gave me some sweets to me. In temple if somebody gives you something you usually accept it without questioning as offering to god. So I did accept the sweets. He was sitting quietly beside me. After 10 minutes, he showed me a glass with some water and asked, “How would you describe this glass?”. I smiled and I was confident about what answer he is expecting. I am into these motivational craps for last many years and he is trying to ask me a old question and prove that I am pessimistic. I answered, “Glass Half full of water”.

He asked, “What about the empty part?”.

“That’s a pessimistic way to look at it”, I responded.

He smiled at me, “There are two reasons why you must focus on the empty part as well.

Can you fill this glass without realizing the empty portion? Can you satisfy yourself without realizing dissatisfaction? 

What’s the fun in life if its all positive? Who bothers what you have? You care about what you want?”

I was not so happy with his answer because it’s breaking my theory. I asked, “If I don’t realize what I have then I will remain dissatisfied ever. It is always important to look at life in a positive way.”

“Okay, tell me, what all you have?”, he asked.

This is a personal question to be discussed with a stranger but I was in an argument and for me everything is fair in Love and argument. I did not mention war because I assume war and argument are all the same. In one you shed your blood and in another you shed your ego. In war you get wounds, in argument your ego gets hurt. So I started, “I have a house, car.. .. ..”

He was quietly listening to me and smiling while I was struggling to recall what all I have. He said, “The things that are not in the top of your memory are not truly your possessions. You might have bought them but they are not truly yours anymore. And those things can never satisfy you. Once you own a stuff to fulfill your need, that stuff has no value when your need is fulfilled. You don’t remember what all you ate in last 10 days. But at one point of time it was the most necessary stuff to satisfy your most natural need called hunger. So what you own is just a mental state not a physical object. What you need is also a mental state. Satisfaction does not come from any physical objects but from mental exercises.  So, it is important to know what you need. Then analyze it and then satisfy it. Many a times, realizing the need itself may satisfy the need. It may sound funny but try exercising, you will understand that.”

“If I do not keep any need for myself I will be as good as a dead. There will be nothing called life”, I told him.

“Now you are coming to point. That’s the reason I said, there are two reasons to focus on the empty part of life. You are right in saying that lack of needs can make you very boring person. Almost like a dead. By analyzing the needs or emptiness you will realize that most of the needs are not worthy. So you will get rid of them. That will also help you get the real needs in life. This way, you will find the path to satisfaction or completeness. It’s because you have a needs cloud full of unnecessary needs, you get distracted and go in haywire direction, hence you get frustrated and feel incomplete. Real growth in life gives you satisfaction and sense of achievement. So it is necessary to get rid of unnecessary needs and stay focused in life.”, he responded.

His point made sense. I smiled at him and got up to leave as it is time to go home and get ready for office. I asked him, “Where do you stay?”. He said, “Here in this ashram”. “Can I come to meet you again?”. Hew said, “Yes, but where there is a NEED” and laughed loudly. I too understood what he meant and touched his feet before leaving.

Namaste!!!

-Stray Dog

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