Be Original, Be Happy

When you don’t long to do anything other than what you are, then your mind exists in the moment. Then you are at ease. Then you are in Dharma.

In India, it is common to see interesting message inscribed on vehicles, especially trucks. Once driving around M.G.Road in Banglore, I was amused to see a bumper sticker on a very small car: “When I grow up, I want to be a Rolls Royce.”I started pondering over it. This was not just a joke. It was indeed a very profound statement about human beings too. Everybody in this world is not happy or content with what he is; he always wants to be something which he cannot be. Our school education also teaches us to be something, it gives us great ideals to follow. Ask any school-going child what he or she wants to become, and there comes the answer: “I want to become Sachin Tendulkar” or “I want to become Shahrukh Khan”.

These answers do make us happy and proud, but the fact is that life does not want carbon copies. Life believes in originals. Life, existence, god would like every human being to flower in his original way, to become something that he, and he alone, is supposed to become. Then there’s no tension. Tension arises when a rose wants to become a lotus.

In the Psychology Of The Esoteric: “The Original source of all tension is becoming. One is always trying to be something; no one is at ease with himself as he is. The being is not accepted, the being is denied, and something else is taken as an ideal to become. So the basic tension is always between that which you are and that which you long to become. You desire to become something. Tension means that you are not really pleased with what you are not. Tension is created between these two. What you desire to become is irrelevant. If you want to become wealthy, famous, powerful or even if you want to be free, liberated, to be divine, immortal, even if you long for salvation and moksha, then too the tension will be there.

Anything that is desire as something to be fulfilled in the future, against you as you are, creates tension. The more impossible the ideal is, the more tension there will be. So a person who is a materialist is ordinarily not so tense as one who is religious, because the religious person is longing for the impossible, the far-off. The distance is so great that only a great tension can fill the gap.

Tension means a gap between what you are and what you want to be. If the gap is great, the tension will be great. If the gap is small, the tension will be small. And if there is no gap at all, it means you are satisfied with what you are. In other words, you do not long to be anything other than what you are. Then your mind exists in the moment. There is nothing to be tense about; you are at ease with yourself. You are in the Tao. To me, if there is no gap you are religious; you are in Dharma.”