Are you TIRED?
- Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
Everything in the world tires you. You are tired of comforting, pleasing or convincing people. You can be tired of everything- even enjoyment. Tiredness is the shadow of enjoyment. On your journey to find joy and enjoyment, you move from one thing to another. You see joy, but when you reach it, you find it is further away – and so you move on. That “moving on” is tiring.
When children get tired of playing with their toys, they want a new toy. Tired of the toy, they want new people or games to play with. They grow a little older, and their wants change. Those, who are single, feel that married people are happier and those who are married think that being single is better off. It is like moving from one type of tiredness to another type of tiredness.
Life moves on like this, but everything is tiring. You also move from one spiritual path to another, from one practice to another and that can be tiring too.
It is the desire that tires you. The want in your mind tires you more than the body. If you are willing to work fifteen hours, then that is fine. But, if you are not willing, even four hours of work will tire you. Even if you don’t do any work, and you just sit and think – it makes you feel exhausted. Exhaustion often comes through thinking, not by doing work.
You long for the rest, solace, and love that is so comforting, blissful and eternal. But where can you find it?
There is a place, where you can rest with the Divine – and that is full of love and surrender. But you cannot do this, unless you get really tired. When you drop down, that is called surrender. This is what all enlightened Masters in the past have said: “You do your practices on your own, and when you get tired, come and rest”. That is why, the “places” of enlightened Masters, were called Ashrams.
“Ashram” means, where you come and get rid of your tiredness. “Aa” means ‘without’, “shram” means ‘effort’. An ashram is where mental and physical tiredness vanishes. You don’t have to strive for it. You only have to connect; sit and feel the presence – be part of the Divinity. Then, you will find that nothing in the world can tire you. There was once an emperor, who attained all he wanted in the world.
The whole continent of Asia was under his control; millions of people were under his command. At the snap of his fingers, he could have anything he wanted in the world – but, that could not bring him peace. He went from place to place, looking for spiritual knowledge which worked for a while.
Finally, he got tired and renounced everything – but that also did not work. Being an emperor did not work; renunciation did not work either. One day, he fell down exhausted, near a tree. It was Autumn, and at that moment, a dry leaf dropped from the tree. He kept looking at that leaf, and it flew to the east with the wind, and then to the north when the wind blew north.
It was floating in the direction of the wind. Looking at it, something snapped in his head. The wanting simply dropped. That very moment he realized that the moment is eternal – and he came back home. Living a life that way – agreeing with whatever the Divine has provided for you, floating with the moment, not regretting the past or anticipating the future, but being like a dry leaf – it is said he attained enlightenment.
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