I was in the shower and whilst in that process, several events of my life flashed in front of my eyes. As it often happens, these are events that in retrospect force you to think of the road “not taken”. What if I did the other thing as opposed to this? Would my life have been different? Would I have been more successful? Did I make a terrible mistake that has long lasting repurcussions and changed my life for the worse? The questions were always about the seemingly bad judgements I made. They were never for the good instincts I had. I took my shower and stepped out for my daily parayan of Sai satcharithra. I opened the book and proceeded to read. I read that story several times before, but given the context of my thoughts, it made me realize an important point that I wanted to share.
It was the story of dasganu and the servant maid in one of baba’s devotee’s house. Dasganu, a devotee of Shirdi saibaba asks baba a question about an intricate philosophical text. Baba nonchalantly replies that he would know the answer at the house of a devotee through his servant maid. Everyone laughs except Dasganu, for he still has to interpret that complex philosophical text and incorporate that into his book. He doesn't question baba any further and moves on. At the devotee’s house, he does chance an encounter with the servant maid. He sees a young girl in ragged clothes who was singing merrily about a red embroidered dress. Dasganu was felicitated by a prominent gentleman and during that time, Dasganu requests that gentleman to also gift the poor servant maid a dress. The request is fulfilled and Dasganu sees the servant girl running along the next day in her beautiful red dress and being extremely happy. The following day, Dasganu sees the girl back in her tattered clothes and yet singing happily and playing along merrily. He was surprised at any absence of gloom in her face despite her condition returning back to the original.
He goes into profound thought about the issue and realizes that the girl indeed taught him the answer to interpreting the complex text he has been grappling about. The girl chose to be happy with her surroundings and not be engulfed by them. The only choice the girl had to make was whether she should be happy or not. The girl was happy before she had the dress. And while the dress did increase her happiness, it didn’t become a criterion for her to be happy the next day. She saved it and was back to being her cheerful self.
Many a times, we worry too much about the choices we made and the impact it had on our lives. We don’t seem to realize that the decisions we made are irrelevant in the bigger scheme of things and we need to be aware of the present and decide on what we need to do within the current state.
Coming back to me, tThe place where I’m is much better than where I envisioned to be in the last twenty years. I may build myself up to be always in a better place than where I’m, as such is my nature and human nature in general, but largely, my life is a blessed one. The almighty has been generous and I know that none of the things I have are purely out of my own talent, but have been aided generously by the blessings of my ancestors and the good naturedness of the people I’m surrounded with. So, whilst, my mind troubles me with the “what ifs”, I need to counter that with the blessings I’ve received and the gratitude I need to express to several of them, including the lord almighty for bestowing me with things that are necessary and a luxury than what a simpleton like me could ever envision.
Praise the lord and be contented with what you have. For, that is the true path to enlightment.
