The Waves Of Life

Let's face it, we all have good days and bad days. There are times in your life where invincibility is all that surrounds you, then within a blink of an eye the reality of humanism comes back to humble you. Love, laughter, sorrow, and suffering is all part of the cycle of life. I try to take each lesson life deals me with a grain of salt. If I can walk away from the situation a better stronger person or have been able to learn something which helps my future than I consider it a success. This morning, I came across this wonderfully written paper on life. Its very suiting that it should come to me today.I hope that it will in turn also encourage you in your life's journey.

 

How to free yourself from the grip of storms? This is the only basic problem in this universe. The first thing is to become aware of it and stop regretting it. Like waves come and go, storms in your life too will subside. No one storm can be there for ever. One storm comes and subsides, another comes and subsides and it goes on. As the storm subsides, you experience that inner cool, soft, delicate aspect of yourself. In that space of calm, all the anxiety, fear, feverishness lose their grip on you and you become yourself again. Love dawns. 

When you stop resisting the storms of life and start accepting them with open arms, they will subside on their own. That is the purpose of all spiritual practices, or sadhana,  and meditation. When you realise that somebody really cares for you, you feel at rest and all fears and insecurities drop off. 

You keep running away from small things -- your feelings, sensations, desires -- and this leads to more feverishness. Realize that like the ocean cannot be there without the waves, storms are inevitable in your life. Every storm touches you somewhere and makes you grow stronger. A storm pulls you out of your likes and dislikes and purifies you. So accept all that comes with both arms open. Even when the storms come, you are still the same ocean, as deep as ever. 

This realization is the culmination of knowledge. When this knowledge dawns, you rise above events; you grow out of them. Everybody in the world goes through crises, insecurities, confusions. It's like drowning in the ocean of life. But the person with the life jacket can survive even the worst turmoil. So keep your life jacket of knowledge handy. 

 Do not be in a hurry to get rid of the storms, be with them. Looking for perfection creates imperfection inside you. If you are peaceful, everything around you becomes peaceful. You are the center of this universe. Wherever you go, you carry your own mind, and wherever you go, you will create your own storms. It may appear to be calm and quiet for sometime but the storm will surface sooner or later. Unless you realize this, nothing will hold. There is no other permanent solution. Don't resist the storms, instead see them as an amazing play of your personality. 
--Sri Sri Ravishankar