Uttam Souch( Contentment – The Lack of Greed)
· Learn to enjoy what you already have.
· We do not see what we have, we see what others have.
We always expect that others should have a pure conscience and should think well about us. If we expect this from others then we must also ensure that we think for other’s wellness, our conscience does not have malice for others; but at times it does. So we have to think how to cleanse our conscience of this malice & make our mind speech & conduct purer by all means.
शुचिता - लोभ का अभाव (Contentment – The Lack of Greed)
The feeling of inner purity is in fact Shauch Dharma (Contentment). Let’s try to understand the Shauch Dharma in light of the four Kashayas namely – Anger (Krodh), Arrogance/ Pride (Maan), Deceit (Maya), and Greed (Lobha).
Contentment & purity comes in the absence of greed. If there is a reason behind malice/ impurity then it’s Greed. If we look at our day to day life then we see three kinds of malice or there are three kinds of Greed that we possess.
Types of Greed
1. वित्तेषणा (The Greed of Wealth)
The peculiarity of this greed is that the more we gain the greedier we become. Everyone has the greed for money. We have listened in so many ways about Greed for wealth, but could we really get rid of it till date? The solution to this issue is that we keep as much is necessary for us, and give up the longing for any more. Alternatively we can divert this greed in some other direction. We can spend more time in Spiritual practices so that we are away from this greed for that much time. We can surely do this much.
2. पुत्रेषणा (The Greed of Son & Family)
3. लोकेषणा (The Greed of Family)
Who doesn’t know that Greed leads to misery & downfall of a person? But does this really help? The yearning to achieve anything that we see has been deep rooted in us since ever. Although these things may not be really useful for us and in fact harm us. We know that however we still follow them blindly. We have to think over this. When we had four items in our home, we were able to live our life happily; now we have four hundred but still miss the peace of mind. It means I must limit my possessions and long for the things others have. Others long for what we have. It’s simple math – if we realize what we have then all the Greed would be gone. But we generally don’t realize what we have achieved & the feeling of discontent keeps on growing by the day. So should we just ignore what others have? No, all we need to do is to let the other person be happy in what he has & enjoy what we have.
All our longings give us are consolations but in reality we end up achieving nothing. If we are contented with what we have then we wouldn’t have anything else to be earned. What do we earn for? To achieve contentment/satisfaction. But we end up earning everything in this world but self satisfaction.
There’s a popular story by Tolstoy – “How much Land does a man require?” that all of us must have heard.
Somebody conferred a blessing on a man that “starting from sunrise to sunset all the land that you walk through and come back shall be yours.” So this man started running with first ray of sun & kept running without stopping. He had to return to the starting point before sunset. But he was so exhausted by the time he reached 4-5 feet before the finishing point; he collapsed & never woke up again. He breathed his last breath at that point. It was written on his grave – “How much Land does a man require?”
We should ask ourselves how much do we need. If we know how less do we need & start enjoying what we have, then contentment & inner purity is imminent.
PURITY IN LIFE
Purity has several meanings – a spotless life, a pristine conscience, a life full of meaning (purpose).
A spotless life is not in terms of a clean body, it means a spotless mind and thoughts. Throughout a day we get so many chances where our mind is likely to be clouded by bad feelings for others. If we know that our mind cannot have malice by anyone’s action then we can be sure that our life is spotless & sparkling. This may not sound very easy. But we can surely try that out of a hundred chances that I get in a day, I’ll restrain myself from maligning our mind.
What do we mean by pristine conscience? If we see someone crying today then we consider him a weak person. It might even be considered out of fashion. Our heart is deprived of its softness. Whereas our conscience should be so pristine that even looking at other’s sorrows, other’s misery our eyes should be sodden (become teary). Vinoba Bhave used to say – I always clean my own room & throw the dust myself so that I am reminded everyday that the way I wouldn’t like to sit in a dirty room, how would God like to come in a dirty mind. God comes only in a pristine conscious. The more we give up malice the purer our conscience becomes.
An incident from Shrimad Raychand’s life explains beautifully what a pure life or a life full of meaning means. Shrimad Raychand had made a deal of Jewels with someone. Once the deal was finalized all of sudden, prices of Jewels went so high that if the other person had to pay for the deal, he would be forced into a bankruptcy. He didn’t show up to Raychandji. This was very evident to Raychandji. He knew even if the other person sells off all his property, he cannot pay for the goods. So one day Raychandji himself went to that person’s house. On seeing him, the other person said “Sir, why did you take the pain of coming here! Believe me I’ll pay every single penny I owe you.”
To this Raychandji said “First of all you show me the paper on which we made that deal.
That person handed over the paper to Raychandji. “Just because of this piece of paper you have lost the peace of your mind.” said Raychandji tearing the paper into pieces in front of that person. He said “Raychand is a Jain. He drinks milk, not man’s blood!”
Now what do we understand from this? This is called the purity of mind, the clarity of purpose of life. And a person who is so pure is respected by everyone.
The take away from these incidents is that we have to learn how to give up on our Greed. Make sure that you find at least one chance in a day where you try to attain contentment & purity of mind & conscience. Such chances are rare in our lives but if we can benefit from them then they’ll help us give up on our greed and help us attain this Dharma of inner fulfilment and self satisfaction.
Guruvar Kshamasagarji Maharaj Ki Jai!
Maitree Samooh extends warm thanks to Yogendra for compiling and translating this nice article.
Jai Jinendra,
Regards,
Maitree Samooh
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