ISHAVASYA UPANISHAD - CONTD.--- Those who are unsuccessful in life certainly become miserable, but there is no end to the miseries of those who succeed either. That unsuccessful people become miserable can be understood. But the successful ones also become unhappy. Just go and find out from successful people. Then it appears that life is a great joke, a mockery. In this world the unsuccessful become unhappy,which seems quite logical; it seems just and proper. But those who succeed in life also are unhappy. In such circumstances this world appears very crazy and unbalanced. When both the successful and the unsuccessful have to be unhappy, then there seems no way to be happy. So let us first of all ask the successful people why they are unhappy, as there is nothing surprising about the unsuccessful being unhappy. Let us ask people like Alexander the Great and Stalin; let us inquire of multimillionaires like Carnegie and Ford. Ask those who got what they wanted. Ask them,”Did you find happiness?” and you will be very puzzled to hear their replies. They say, ”We have been successful, but successful in finding unhappiness.” Those who are unsuccessful also say, ”We failed to achieve happiness; we found unhappiness instead.” Those who achieved success say, ”We succeeded in becoming unhappy; we found only unhappiness in our hands.” Those who run fast in the race of life reach their destination only to arrive at unhappiness; and those who reach nowhere and wander here and there in the wilderness also wander in misery. When such is the case, what is the difference between the destination and the path? What is the difference between roaming about and reaching the destination? There appears to be no difference. The difference cannot be seen, because the person who does not know who he is will be made miserable even by his success. The day on which he becomes successful he will realize that the building which he constructed – his great achievement – has not fulfilled his need. It gives his nature no nourishment. The building has been constructed, he has accumulated wealth, he has found fame and fortune; but these achievements fail to nourish any part of his inner life, they fail to bring contentment. He should have sought to discover, ”What is my true desire, what is my longing? What do I really wish for?” Without knowing your true desire you will simply go on and on desiring, jumping from one desire to another.Some days before his death, Freud wrote in a letter to his friend: ”After hearing about the miseries of thousands of people throughout my life, I have come to the conclusion that mankind is destined to remain unhappy always, the reason being that man does not know what he wants.” When a man like Freud says such a thing, the matter is worth thinking about. He says, ”I have arrived at the conclusion that man does not know what he wants, after studying the sufferings, worries, anxieties and mental conflicts of thousands of unhappy people.” It is very interesting to observe that no sooner does a person know who he is than the journey, and all the arrangements and preparations of his entire life, are transformed. He no longer goes looking for the things which we seek. He shows no willingness to smile and look pleased because someone offers him at a throwaway price – or for nothing – the things for which we labor hard. If someone is willing to give him something free, he will turn away from that man in case the thing is thrust upon him. He is out to achieve something quite different, something unusual; and it is interesting to find that those who know themselves never fail. Up to now they have never been unsuccessful. They succeed as much as those who do not know themselves remain unsuccessful. The man who knows himself becomes successful because, on knowing the self, he opens for himself that secret and that door where bliss is. That bliss is hidden within the self. So, the Upanishads declare there are two types of people: those who know themselves, and those who are ignorant of themselves. Those who do not know themselves pursue their way deep into ignorance, and everything they do is done in ignorance. They go on acquiring in ignorance, they make decisions in ignorance, and in their ignorance, their race becomes faster and faster. We never stop to consider whether what we are trying to achieve has any inner harmony with ourselves or not. Even if the thing is achieved, it will be of no use, and if it is not achieved it cannot be of any use; and the time spent in getting it or in being unable to get it is lost. To this extent we have become our own assassins. We have become asuras, demons, killers of the atman – the self. The word asur means those who live in darkness. It means those who live in a place where the light of the sun does not reach, a place where there is no illumination. They grope in darkness, they wander about in darkness, like germs of darkness. Those who do not know themselves are living in this darkness. To know oneself is to become the sun. The journey of such an individual is into the world of light; but there are those whose inner light is not burning, is extinguished; they are deep in darkness. Those who keep on running, groping, hankering, following the blind, are like the blind following the blind. And there are some among them who are great talkers; such people have the following of those who talk less, and so the race goes on. The blind with a little courage gather around themselves the blind with less courage.
Posted on: Thu, 13 Mar 2014 10:11:15 +0000