Contentment is the prince of the jewels of life. We may have any amount of wealth or possessions, but unless we are content, we will never be happy. A poor man who has only two meals a day can be content and sleep well at night. A rich man who has a huge amount of wealth is not content but unhappy. He is unable to sleep in peace. Few of us have the ability to appreciate the gifts that we have been given by Divinity. Most of us spend our lives in a state of dissatisfaction though we have more than our fair share of goods and things that we need for our daily use.
When greed or need for more enters our being, we become obsessed with getting more. This driving urge for a little more is never satisfied and we lose our peace of mind and become discontent. We should understand what we need in our lives and how much. To yearn for and accumulate more than this self imposed limit will lead to unhappiness. There is no limit on our greed and need for wealth, power and possessions. We will be eternally miserable if we live for fulfilling our greed and collecting more wealth and possessions. The following story could be the story of our lives when greed enters it:
Once upon a time, there lived a King who was unhappy and discontent though he lived a very luxurious life and had a huge amount of wealth. One day, he came upon a servant who was singing happily while working in the palace. His happiness was fascinating to the King as the man was poor yet joyous, while he the King was very rich and depressed. The King asked the servant why he was so happy. The man replied that he was only a servant and he considered himself and his family to be lucky as they had a roof over their heads and good, warm food to eat. They did not need anything else in life and were content. So he sang while he worked and was thankful for all that he received in life.
His reply did not satisfy the King. So the King sought the advice of his most trusted minister. On hearing the King’s story, the minister said: Your Majesty, let us give this man 99 gold coins and leave out one coin missing! We will place 99 coins in a bag and leave it at the doorstep of the servant and watch what happens.
The next morning, the servant saw the bag and picked it up. He opened the bag and shouted with joy. There were so many gold coins in it. He began to count them. There were 99 coins. He counted several times to be sure. He searched around him and in the bag repeatedly to find the single missing coin. But that coin was elusive. After counting many times, he was finally convinced that one coin was missing and there were only 99 coins.
Finally the man was exhausted and decided that he would work harder than ever to earn that gold coin. Then he would have 100 coins. From that day, the servant’s life changed. He overworked himself, he was tired all the time and irritable. He shouted at his family for not helping him to earn the 100th coin. He stopped smiling and singing while he worked.
The King witnessed this drastic transformation in the servant and was puzzled. He asked his minister to explain why this happened. The minister replied: Your majesty, this man has a single missing coin in his collection of gold coins. Though he has 99 gold coins, he is unable to appreciate his wealth as his entire focus is on what is missing – one single gold coin!
We are like this man. We can be happy with very little. But the minute we get something better and bigger, our greed increases and we focus on that one single thing that we do not have and become unhappy. We lose our joy in life and are endlessly grumpy and frustrated. Let us learn to be happy and content with what we have while we work hard to improve our lives. As long as we have appreciation for what we have, we will always be content and happy. Following the teachings of the Guru, doing the SitaRam mantra and meditation helps us to be content and happy in life with what we are blessed with.
