Does it feel like you spend your day on a treadmill going nowhere fast? Are you exhausted at the end of the day, with nothing to show for it? There is a way to find peace in the busyness of your day; to stop and smell the roses; to focus on what is truly important in life. The answers lie within.
There is an instructive story from the writing of Leo Tolstoy. There was a peasant in Russia who owned a small plot of land. He led a life of peace and contentment until one day he began to envy a rich landlord. The more prosperous he grew, the more the peasant began desiring the same. He started saving his money to buy some land.
When he travelled to see the land, he found that the people living on it lived a nomadic life.
The peasant brought some gifts for the chief in charge of that territory. The chief thanked him for the gifts and said he could have as much land as he could walk around before sunset. The agreement was that he start out in the morning and whatever distance he could walk by sunset, the peasant could keep the land.
The peasant was overjoyed at the possibility of owning such a great amount of land. The villagers gathered to watch his race against time. He started out walking extremely fast so he could cover more ground. When the sun was high in the sky it became extremely hot. But the peasant did not want to waste time stopping for food and water lest he miss out on some more land.
He grew so greedy and ambitious that as the sun became hotter and hotter, he refused to stop for water. His legs grew more and more tired, but he refused to rest even for a few moments. Finally, the sun was about to set. The crowd began to applaud his victory. As he returned to the starting point, exhaustion and thirst overcame him to the point that he collapsed. Before the crowd realized what had transpired, the man had died of exhaustion and thirst.
Sadly, the people prepared for his funeral. Thus, the only land he needed was the six feet by four feet of land in which his body would be buried.
This sad story of greed is not much different from the lives of many people on earth. Most people spend their lives in a race to try to make as much money as they can, accumulate as much land and as many possessions as they can, make as great a name for themselves as they can, or gain as much power as they can, only to find the race ends at their time of death.
Few people find contentment and peace in their lives when they live to gather only material gains in this world. People think a time will come when they will finally have enough so they can sit back and enjoy the fruits of their labour. But too many end up leaving the world before they can find that peace.
If we want peace and happiness, let us resist giving in to all the desires of our mind, and instead honor the contentment that is ours in the depths of our soul. Let us find time each day to stop and refresh ourselves in the fountain of divine treasures within by spending time in meditation. In this way, we can quench our thirst with the love of God that will fill us with love and peace as we go about our daily life. We will reach our worldly goals with peace and calm, and we will be overflowing with the inner bliss that makes our life beautiful.
As we meditate, let us bar the door from the never-ending desires knocking to get in. Instead, sit in the sanctuary of our soul in a state of peace and contentment, safe from the troubles that desires bring.
Sant Rajinder Singh Ji Maharaj is an internationally recognized spiritual Master who teaches meditation on the inner Light and Sound as building blocks for achieving spiritual illumination. Social and civic leaders throughout the world have praised Sant Rajinder Singh Ji Maharaj for his deep wisdom and efforts in promoting inner and outer peace. Visit www.sos.org