Rajinder Singh Ji Maharaj
We live in an age in which we have made tremendous progress in the areas of science and technology. We have sent spacecraft to the moon and the planets in our solar system and have investigated the particles of the subatomic world. Great strides have been made in the medical arena. Scientists and doctors have found cures for many illnesses and can even replace vital body organs to keep a patient alive. The vast array of inventions and gadgets should have provided humanity with happiness and peace. Yet with all the advanced technology, we are not at peace. There is something missing in our lives. We find people in our times plagued by continual stress and tension. Stress-related illnesses have been on the rise. Many people have interpersonal problems and are unhappy in their relationships.
We find conflict at the level of the family, the community, the nation, and the world.
People try a variety of means to escape the pains and disappointments of life. Some try to find happiness by visiting places of entertainment’ or through engaging in sensual pleasures. Many turn to drugs or alcohol. All these means of escape may provide some momentary or temporary happiness, but they are not cures. We still must return to face the problems of life. Some of these means of escape are even addictive or harmful. In this age of scientific advances we begin to wonder if there is a way to find lasting happiness in this world. Is fulfilment possible, or is it only a dream?
Many of the greatest thinkers, philosophers, saints, mystics, and founders of religions have spent their lives in pursuit of permanent and lasting peace and happiness. If we read the writings of saints and mystics throughout the ages, we find that they discovered that true happiness and peace is within us.
In the past few decades we find more and more people coming to the same conclusion as did the saints and mystics of the past: people are exploring meditation as a means to find peace and happiness within themselves. Recent studies in the field of science are confirming that meditation can improve our physical and mental well-being. Besides having a positive effect on our body and mind, it also helps us develop spiritually. Thus, meditation can help us in the physical, mental, and spiritual spheres of our lives.
Meditation does not eliminate the problems of life, but we look at them from a new angle of vision. There is an instructive story from the life of Akbar the Great of India. Akbar was an emperor and he had a court of advisors. The wisest of his counsellors was Birbal. One day, Akbar posed a problem to his counsellors to see who could solve it. He drew a line in the sand with a stick and asked who could shorten the line without touching any part of it. The counsellors scratched their heads not knowing what to do. They could not imagine how a line could be shortened without rubbing it away or touching it. But Birbal stepped forward, picked up a stick, and drew a longer line parallel to the first, thus making the first one look shorter.
Meditation provides a similar solution to the problems of life: it does not eliminate them, but it gives us a new angle of vision, a new perspective. It takes us above the sphere of the physical world so we can enter regions of peace and bliss. Contact with this inner intoxication is so fulfilling that we no longer look at problems of this world in the same light. They begin to dissipate as vaporous bubbles. We carry this inner ecstasy with us and can tap into it anytime we wish. This inner bliss helps us to become oblivious to our pains and sorrows. We realize there is more to life than this physical world. When we realize that our life in this world is but a temporary stay of fifty, sixty, or a hundred years, and that there is a life beyond, a higher reality, the problems of life do not seem to affect us as much. We recognize that the little idiosyncrasies of other people, the difficulties that bother us in our jobs, homes, or neighbourhoods, are as passing storms, and we know that there is a realm of blue, clear skies filled with radiant light shining above the clouds.
Once we realize this higher truth and learn to live with this as a guiding principle, we attain an automatic immunity to challenges of life to have a sustained phase of inner peace and happiness. Meditation thus is a medication for ever lasting happiness.
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