One of the visible signs of success is our upgraded standard of living. Each step up the corporate ladder brings with it an additional turbocharge of a better car, a swankier house, fatter bank balance, a fancier mobile, access to expensive restaurants, more exotic holiday destinations.
A large chunk of our lives goes in the pursuit of happiness through pleasure and success, not realising that each time we repeat a particular act of pleasure, the quantum of happiness derived from it declines. And each time we achieve a new milestone, the happiness derived is also short-lived, leaving us craving more. This throws us headlong into the endless pursuit of happiness.
The pleasures of life are often transient and momentary. The pleasure sensation in even the nicest chocolate chip cookie lasts only for a second. As a psychologist, Houston Smith, puts it, “Even the most elevated form of pleasure – like the music piece from Bach or Beethoven – lasts for a few seconds, and you end up wondering, is this all that there is to life.”
Today, standard of life has become a synonym for standard of living. Everything is viewed through the prism of pleasure and success. But it fails to elevate the standard of our lives.
So, what is the way out? Swami Vivekananda says it is not that you shouldn’t have property, necessary things and even luxuries, but never get wrong ideas about their proprietorship and ‘possessorship’. Everything belongs to the Divine. If you put God in your every movement, everything, the whole scene changes, and the world, instead of appearing as one of woe and misery, will become a heaven.
This adjustment in our attitude can elevate the standard of our lives. But it takes a while to develop a truly god-centred attitude, without the sense of being a possessor. The only way to build this is by committing ourselves to a spiritual journey. By controlling the shades of selfishness, greed, jealousy, pettiness, anger, attachment in us, our higher dimension will manifest in the form of an expanded heart. Till then, it can be difficult to assimilate the true, holistic meaning of dharma – a framework of virtues, such as nobility, compassion, gratitude, forgiveness, patience, and love for others. When we disregard this holistic aspect of our dharma, we set ourselves up for misery and discontentment, making us slaves to our egos.
Therefore, the only solution is to tame the natural tendencies of our mind to gravitate outwards, and make it inward directed. By controlling the mind through introspection, prayers and a service-oriented lifestyle, we can make it our friend. The Bhagwad Gita verse 6:5 states: ‘Uddhared atman-atmanam natmanam avasadayet, atmaiva hyatmano bandhur atmaiva ripur atmanah’ – Elevate yourself through the power of your mind. Never degrade yourself. Your mind can be your friend. Your mind can be your enemy.
A calm and stable mind can be a pivotal force, a friend, in our commitment to raise the quality of our lives, propelling us towards being god-centred. With this divinised vision, there will be a wonderful confluence of an elevated standard of life and an enhanced standard of living. The outcome can only be one – peace and fulfilment.
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