Effortless living – what does it mean?
abracad, · Categories: externally authored, purposeby Lt Col RK Langar
Effortless living is an inward living. Effortless living means living purposefully and mindfully, without any stress. Effortless living is only possible when we put in plenty of effort to make our living a useful event. Self effort must precede effortless living. It is only through our right understanding and self effort that we can turn stressful living into a stress free living. Today we have to struggle a great deal for our existence mainly because we have enlisted wrong priorities in our life. We are surrounded by gadgets and products which instead of empowering ourselves leave us with a feeling of deprivation even though they give us some comfort. In the present society we have worldly successful people who are not happy, then we have happy people but they are not successful in the worldly matters, then there are majority of people who are neither happy nor successful. There are very few people who are both happy and successful in the true sense. These are the people who are both happy and successful from inside. These are the people who understand the purpose of life and they are also the ones who live effortlessly. Majority of us are spending majority of our time in chasing what we want which distances ourselves from both success and happiness. First and foremost there is a need for us to close the gap between what I want and what I have. God has given us so much unasked which so many like us do not have. If we keep a count of what we have we should feel contented with it. The equation more money equals more happiness does not hold good.
To understand effortless living we should know why we are here in the world and what we are aiming to do. We are certainly not here to amass wealth by any means. We are here to understand our purpose of existence. Each one of us is a gifted person with a special purpose in life. Thus special purpose internally means to realize our true self and also our full potential. Externally our special purpose of life is to help our fellow beings by contributing towards the well being of the society we live in. Our purpose of life is to make others happy with our thoughts, words and deeds without interfering with their internal affairs which would give us never ending happiness. We cannot be happy without making others happy. We have a commitment towards people we are living with and the environment which we must fulfill. The important thing to remember here is that all of us live on the same earth, share common air and are children one God, the one without a second. By realizing this we shall be inspired to help each other to establish an ideal and peaceful society. We may be illiterate, scholar, millionaire or poor, we have the same divinity inside us. There may be pots of muds, silver or gold but when they are filled with water, they reflect the same sun in the same manner. This underscores that our outer appearance or our worldly status does not make any difference to our actual reality which is our divine self. While it is agreed that everyone has a definite outlook on life, definite mind set, definite character, temperament, taste, disposition or attitude but inside us is the same divine spark which makes our outer difference including of mind and intellect insignificant because we all can became good human beings by virtue of being essentially divine. With this understanding we can realize our true self and full potential irrespective of what we are. We should always remain what we are without any pretension or show off so that we are internally driven to be good to others.
Effortless living, which is mindful living, means that you are responsible for your actions. Mindful living is moment to moment living overcoming negative thoughts. Understanding and respecting life go hand in hand with mindful living. In mindful living we do not permit our ego or fears to take control of us rather we control them. In effortless living we do not turn away from our responsibilities or our duties which we have towards our own self, our family, our society and our environment. Life in the world is a life of action and through action alone we progress both inwardly and outwardly. Effortless living also means not to live mechanically. Be aware of yourself and be conscious of what you are doing. Do not do something which we don't know why we are doing it.
Man consists of body and soul. We lay utmost emphasis to cater for the needs of the body but neglect nourishment of our soul which is the most significant constituent of a human being. As body needs food, water, clothing and shelter for its sustenance, soul needs love, truthfulness, non violence, righteousness to project itself in an enlightened way while living inside the body. What it amounts to is that the divine soul inside the body having a covering of our mental impurities is obstructed to throw its light into our body, mind, intellect complex. To enable it to do so we have to cleanse our mind so that it becomes transparent and pure and allows the divinity inside our body to manifest outwardly into our conduct. When we fail to recognize difference between body and soul we also fail to recognize difference between needs of the body and needs of the soul. When the needs of the soul are not met, there is dissatisfaction and incompleteness even if we have plenty of worldly possessions. A complete man is one who is not only worldly wise but also spiritually elevated having given due consideration to the needs of the soul.
Effortless living means living in the world in an enlightened state by being happy and successful from inside. Real happiness and success lies in our inner growth which gives us unending newness in life. This is what Bhagavad Gita describes as a state when we remain alike in pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory and defeat because outer conditions have no influence on us.
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