CHAPTER 12
MANTRA FOR LIBERATION FROM ATTACHMENT
Be Happy No Matter What
Due to attachment, man gets attached
to the thoughts arising in the mind.
Due to this attachment, the same sad thoughts
keep popping up again and again.
If these thoughts happen to be of depression,
then this attachment can even become
the cause of death of that man.
Tejguru Sirshree Tejparkhiji
If you have sorrow in your life, who is the cause? Is it your neighbor, money, stars, destiny, your previous birth’s actions, your relatives or is it yourself? Once you know the true cause of sorrow, bliss will always be with you just as your name is always with you. Let us meditate on the following two analogies.
You are studying in the fifth grade in school. In your class, you also have a very mischievous boy. You are very good in studies while that boy is very weak. He keeps troubling you all the time. And because he does not leave any evidence of his mischief, you are not even in a position to complain to anyone. But you are sure that whatever is happening with you, it is only that boy who is doing it. You then calm down thinking that you have to bear with him for only a year, as anyway he will fail and not pass the examinations that year. But you find him with you the next year too. How did this happen? Similarly, you do want sorrow to fail, but how does it pass? You do not want the company of sorrow, but you find it with you all the time. On trying to find the reason, the secret got revealed. When the examination was going on, he was sitting just behind you. Without realizing, in unconsciousness, you yourself had allowed him to copy from your answer paper. Bliss was sitting next to you, but you hid your paper from him. The result was that bliss failed, while sorrow passed. If you keep repeating that mistake in every examination and you never find the reason of your sorrow, then sorrow will always follow you, just as the cart always follows the bullock.
In the above analogy, the mischievous boy is sorrow, which keeps troubling you all the time. He stays with you in every class. You keep praying for freedom from him, but in unconsciousness your behavior is exactly the opposite. You yourself invite sorrow, although you keep praying that it should not come.
You must break away from this unconsciousness and you must not show your paper to the person sitting behind you. In other words, you must become alert towards sorrow. Without your permission, sorrow cannot copy from you or follow you in your life. Unless you want it, no one can make you sad. You may not be in a position to stop the happening of an incident. However, you can definitely choose regarding what you want to feel about an incident. Nobody can stop you from making that choice. The choice is yours – whether you want to be happy or sad. You may not be able to prevent the theft of your shoes from outside the temple, but no thief can stop you from having positive thoughts despite the theft. No one can stop you from being happy in any situation, no matter what. If you want to, you can always be happy. Therefore, be happy, no matter what.
In every incident in life, you may recite the following mantra :
“Let bliss succeed and let sorrow fail”
Whenever sorrow overpowers you, you must tell yourself: “Sorrow is succeeding; I will not allow it to succeed in any condition; let me see how it succeeds!” When we are in a state of attachment, we are actually chanting the opposite mantra: “Sorrow is succeeding and bliss is failing.”
It is necessary to make the right use of mantras. If ‘Ram’ is reversed, it becomes ‘Mar’, which denotes just the opposite meaning. We must, therefore, make the right choice and the ideal choice. The next time you feel anger or stress, just recite the mantra: “Let bliss succeed and let sorrow fail.” By reciting this mantra, make every effort to see that sorrow does not succeed. Change your feeling and remind yourself that while I cannot change the incident that has occurred, I can definitely choose how I want to feel about it.
Every day, every moment, there are many incidents happening around you. During or after such incidents, you may either feel good or feel bad. You may feel happy or sad. Bliss either succeeds or fails. All of us would like to feel good within. Now the question arises as to how we can feel good every day and in every incident? So come let us work on this and throw some light on this issue, due to which your world will become beautiful and your perception will change.
After an incident has occurred you either feel good or you feel bad, in either case ask yourself where do you feel that feeling? Is it within your body or the body of your neighbor? If it is happening within the body of your neighbor, you can do nothing about it. However, if the bad feeling is occurring within your body, who is responsible for it? If that feeling has to be changed, who can do it? Is it the Prime Minister? Or you and only you?
When you ask yourself these questions, the following things become clear:
1. Every feeling is experienced within your body.
2. You alone are responsible for what you are feeling inside and not anybody else in the world.
3. If the bad feelings have to be changed, nobody else is going to do it for you.
4. If you have understood all these things, how are you feeling at this moment? Are you feeling what you want to feel or something else?
5. If you are feeling bad, are you prepared to change it?
6. If yes, when are you going to change it? Here and now. Bliss is always with you – here and now.
To change the feeling or experience, it does not take time. If you decide, you can immediately change your bad feelings, by which your complete outlook towards the world will get changed. If you are under the impression that someone else is responsible for your sorrow, then you can be sure that you will never be happy. This is because the point of view, approach and attitude of every person towards the world is different.
Hereafter, every moment and in every incident, ask yourself the question: “At this moment, how am I feeling? If I am feeling bad, who is responsible for it? Who will change it and when?” Then you will see that you have started feeling happy and you yourself are responsible for that too. This one question and one mantra can always keep you happy.
“Bliss will succeed and sorrow will fail.
Bliss is a sacred place, sorrow is a jail.
Bliss is because of wisdom,
and sorrow is because of wrong beliefs and
misconceptions.”