Avert your face from luxuries to secure real happiness
The man who comes to know
that the house in which he lives is charged, both above and below as well as on
all the four sides, with dynamite that can explode any moment, can such a one
stay complacently in that house even for a second? Will his attachment for that
house continue any longer? Similarly when a man comes to know that a strong
dose of arsenic has been mixed with dish served to him, will he care to eat it?
Will he not fell inclined to leave it at once? In the same way, when one gets
convinced without doubt through discretion, through a critical sense of what is
good and what is bad, that the enjoyments of this world are all evanescent,
burning with the flames of sorrow and destructive in the end like poison, will
he ever remain attached to them any longer? Realize this fact with discerning
mind and reckoning all worldly enjoyments as destructive like poison remain
unattached to them.
Aversion for the pleasures
of sense is sure to follow in the wake of discernment. Once it is thoroughly
understood that worldly enjoyments are burning with the flame of sorrow and
poisonous, a man would cease to have any attraction for them. Nay, he would
give them up immediately. He will then feel afraid of living in their midst. He
would get impatient to be rid of them at the earliest moment. It is this desire
to be rid of the world of enjoyments that goes by the name of Mumuksa or
longing for Liberation. He who is possessed of this Mumuska is as a Mumuksu (a
seeker of liberation). This is also known as the desire for God-realization. On
this desire being kindled and whetted Liberation or God liberation or
God-realization. On this desire being kindled and whetted Liberation or
God-Realization is immediately attained. God-Realization is being delayed for
the very reason that the longing for it has not yet been fully awakened in us,
much less grown intense and undivided.
So long as luxuries appear
delightful, so long as you believe that they are so, so long as your mind feels
attracted towards them, so long as you praise and envy the lot of others who
roll in luxuries and so long as your mind pants for similar enjoyments, the
real nature of enjoyments has not been revealed to you through discernment.
Sure enough you have not realized that they are confectioneries mixed with
poison. It is immaterial whether you are called a devotee, a mahatma, a saint,
an exalted soul, a man of renunciation and dispassion or a Karamyogi. The truth
is that so long as you recognize happiness to lie in enjoyments and cherish a
longing for them, you are no other than a slave of luxuries. In other words,
you will continue till then to struggle and plunge in a bottomless sea of
sorrow.
If you seek to fulfill your
human existence to secure real peace and happiness, avert your face from
luxuries and turn it towards God. Then if luxuries remain with longer cast an
avid looks towards them. Your eyes will be focused on God, your legs would
proceed in the direction of God and your mind too will cling to God.
Under such circumstances
even the luxuries that will follow you will be blessed by serving as a means of
God-worship. The enjoyments to which a man feels attached and in which man
indulges are a picture of hell themselves and lead those who enjoy them, to
hell and burn them in the fire of misery. If developing aversion towards
luxuries you get attached to God, not only will your life have achieved its
purpose, but luxuries too, if any stay with you, will get purified and
accomplished of their purpose.