Creating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul is a rare achievement. In a culture that relentlessly promotes avarice and excess as the good life, a person happy doing his own work is usually considered an eccentric if not a subversive. Ambition is only understood, if it’s to rise to the top of some imaginary ladder of success.
Someone who takes an undemanding job because it affords him the time to pursue other interests and activities is considered a flake. A person who abandons a career in order to stay home and raise children is considered not to be living up to his potential. As if a job title and salary are the sole measure of human worth.
You’ll be told in a hundred ways, some subtle and some not, to keep climbing and never be satisfied with where you are, who you are and what you are doing. There are a million ways to sell yourself out and I guarantee you’ll hear about them.
To invent your own life’s meaning is not easy but it’s still allowed and I think you’ll be happier for the trouble.
All this from Bill Waterson, the wonderful creator of the Calvin & Hobbes cartoon.
This post spoke to me at so many many levels. Read this old post of mine “What if?” [Link to post] to clearly see that these are some of the things that I have also thought about so many times in the past.
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Verses for Introspection: 6
कृत्वा पापं पूर्वमबुद्धिपूर्वं पुण्यानि यः कुरुतॆ बुद्धिपूर्वं।
स तत् पापं नुदतॆ पुण्यशीलो वासो यथा मलिनं कषार युक्त्या।।
Krithvaa paapam poorvamabuddhipoorvam punyaani yaha kuruthe buddhipoorvam
Sa tat paapam nudathe punyasheelo vaaso yathaa malinam kashaara yukthyaa
- Mahabharata, Santi Parva (Bheeshma’s advice to Yudhishtira after the battle)
Sources :-
http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/mbs/mbs12148.htm
http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/m12/m12a151.htm
Meaning:
If having committed sin through folly, one does meritorious acts understanding their nature, one succeeds, by such righteousness, in cleansing one’s self from sin even as a piece of dirty cloth is washed clean by means of some saline substance.
Inspired by Swami Bhoomananda TirthaJi’s talks and satsangs.
