Waking up this morning, I was walking around the grounds of the ashram, and I was looking at all of the little moths that come at night and just cover the wall. Our ashram is located on the banks of the river Ganga, and given the location, all these pesky things are around. They are such a nuisance. But I also noticed that there are monkeys that come every morning to pick the critters off the walls and eat them, and that’s their breakfast. It was such a reminder to me that everything has its purpose. Maybe what is inconvenient or irritating to me is a necessity for somebody else.
It is so easy to get caught up in our judgment on the way we think things should be. We remain agitated, caught up in “me” and “my way” of thinking and our mind spins around trying to find a solution or to blame someone else. If we take a step back and look at the bigger picture, we can see that everything has its place and there is really no reason to lose our peace over anything.
Events happen in our lives, in the world. We are human and judgment will come. But may we not go too far with our reactions. Remaining agitated doesn’t do any good to ourselves or to those around us. We make small things into big things and they become like a grain of sand in our eye that hides the beauty surrounding us. My guru used to say, “How can we evaluate someone else’s life and conduct? We cannot measure even a blade of grass against a mountain. A blade of grass has its own importance in its place.”
Our responsibility is first to ourselves. To maintain simplicity of the mind. To maintain peace. When we connect with our inner peace, we see solutions to everything and can access our own ability to deal with whatever is in front of us. This is why maintaining a simple daily practice of coming back to ourselves is so important.
Every soul has come alone and leaves alone. Every soul has its dharma, and that dharma is to realize freedom from any kind of bondage of the world. Whether that bondage is created by our own way of thinking or by someone else’s neurosis. The reality is that we have come into the world alone to experience the divine within and that we will leave this world alone. That is the ultimate truth.
The drama of life goes on. There will be joy and pain, there will be happiness, there will be unhappiness. We can take a break from it all. When we carve out time to be quiet, to connect with the peace that is always inside and get a little distance from all of the aspirations and failures, judgements and resentments, fear and anger, all of that. Taking a step back, coming to that pure state of being where there is nothing, and in that nothing, there is everything. Everything is there.