How can one book change your entire course of life and on top of it affect your mindset in ways you never thought possible? How can reading through 542 pages of someone else’s life affect yours so profoundly that the very things you used to believe in about the very most prioritized things in life comes tumbling down revealing truths deeper and more significant than your small, incapable mind would ever be able to grasp? I have had one such revelation from one book, and strangely enough it was mom who handed me down this book (my mom was never an avid reader and I never did like the materials she chose to read). It is one of those books that you read and re-read so that the essence of all that excellence in thought and impacts of the words in the book should stay fresh like how scars of past experiences remind you every single moment in life of the lessons you have learnt.
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The title: Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahamsa Yogananda
The author: A God-realised Yogi whom took up permanent residence in the West to preach teachings of the Kriya Yoga meditation methods.
Sounds very religious/spiritual doesn’t it? But coming from an average person like me it does seem odd doesn’t it. I know I am not remotely religious, I hardly ever visit the temples being a Hindu, the only reason I carry out Friday prayers, in a preset and orderly manner is so that mom is happy. How can I then be moved by a book like such?
After having read the book I can only say this, tasting coffee and saying that you hate it is more warranted than refusing it by blaming its caffeine content (or anything else that maybe doable), not having known its pleasures at all…
This is one such book that when you put down you will either be forever changed or indifference is what it results in… I am glad that it was the former for me because everything in life has become crystal clear, my destiny even (yes, I do believe we are all destined to be in this world because each and every one of us serve a purpose).
I never thought spirituality would be my calling. Never imagined it would be my one true pursuit in life. But then again, life for me has unfolded in such a way that it was almost pushing me to this one purpose that I could not possibly be wrong. Many “ah-ha!” moments (I know, I know, the clichéd Oprah phrase of many Oprah fans out there, what can you possibly do, shoot me for that???), have come to pass in my life, the ultimate one being the very instance I finished the first chapter of the book, until I put it down… It was then my very existence came to be meaningful to me… I used to beat myself up and also blame God (yes, very easy route it was to make me feel better, blame the bloody Creator of the Universe) for my birth being such an incapable, miss-matched fool, and an utterly pathetic excuse for a human being.
Come present times, I could not love myself more, and even though there will be countless saintly souls out there to contrast myself, I shall take comfort in knowing that I shall never revert to my ways of self-despise.
“No matter what you are doing, keep the undercurrent of happiness. Learn to be
secretly happy within your heart in spite of all circumstances.”
secretly happy within your heart in spite of all circumstances.”
-Paramahamsa Yogananda
The only difference would be I don’t have to be only secretly happy anymore because……
“The happiness of one's own heart alone cannot satisfy the soul; one must try to include, as necessary to one's own happiness, the happiness of others.”
And….
“If you possess happiness you possess everything: to be happy is to be in tune with God.”
-Paramahamsa Yogananda
Writing this made me happy….. And I hope reading this, whoever who does, make yourself happy too…. *carves a hearty smile*
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