The art of blossoming where you are

By Swami Chinmayananda

A spiritual seeker should not try to run away in the very beginning but must court life and plunge into its centre, taking life as it comes – good, bad, or indifferent – and learn to balance himself despite all imperfections in a situation.

To understand why life must be thus faced, we must recognise that the Eternal Law provides each one of us with situations and occasions to enjoy or suffer strictly according to, and in continuation of, our past. Nothing happens in fits and starts. There are no accidents in the Eternal Law. Moment-to-moment life is progressive, continual, and logical.

Seen in this light, a family, a brother, and so on are pieces set up around us to give us a definite chosen experience, conducive to our progress. Often, we are tempted to run away from our given duties, saying, “I was mistakenly placed in this situation.” But environments are not thrust upon us by blind fate. To protest or weep against them is useless. Each should pursue his life in the field where the omniscient Lord has placed him, because He knows exactly what is needed for our unfoldment.

Therefore, we must perform our obligatory duties fully. As long as an individual, as a member of society, enjoys a social life, demanding protection and profit, he has no right to abandon his duties. We do not live alone; we are gregarious. We have not only duties to ourselves, but towards the family, relations, community, nation, and world. Let each one fulfil them in a spirit of unattachment, joy, and dedication.

In this spirit, let a person stay where he is stationed and placed in life, according to his psychological texture, and proceed with the work assigned to him, the duties enjoined according to his qualifications and nature. Doing thus, he serves the higher cause.

What is to be avoided is not the world outside. In a rising tide of disgust at failure, people often renounce in a hurry and run away from life. Such people come to live in regret, suffering mental agony arising out of their privations. This storm is in the mind, which they carry wherever they go. What has to be changed is the mind, not the environment.

Hence, take what life has given you as the Lord’s gift – His prasad . He places us in the exact environment required to exhaust our tendencies. Don’t ever dare question His wisdom. Be thankful for what you have. Stop craving for what you have not. You will get what you deserve; you may not get what you desire.

Fall in love with life, not the things and beings in your life. Be in love with living. Don’t be satisfied with a superficial life of mere sense pleasures. Search for treasures beneath the world of thoughts. Build for yourself a temple of peace that no man can take, no power can destroy. By learning to respond positively to the world, we discover the secret of living in peace with it.

Thus, with life in harmony, find your joy in yourself – exactly where you are now.

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