Miracles of Life
I woke from a deep sleep early in the morning. I realized that it’s a Saturday. I’m supposed to go to the temple every Saturday at around 8:30 AM for morning prayer and meditation.
I think about how it’s November 2019 and three years have passed since I have gone to this temple. I get ready to leave. I feel drained. On my way to the temple, I reflect on past journeys that I’ve taken to the temple. It feels like the memories are pouring out from the depths of my brain to the forefront. My body slowly starts feeling more energetic. Simultaneously, my brain collects memory from the depths of my brain by connecting various neurons to pull up the memory data from storage.
I reach the temple. I enter it and take a quick right to take off my shoes and winter jacket. Upon entering the closet, my mind flashes with memories of past experiences of taking off my jacket and shoes and placing them inside the closet. Sometimes, when the closet was full, I used to squeeze my jacket next to other’s jackets.
I head upstairs and enter the sanctum hall. I have a vague idea of where things are located, but everything feels new. It doesn’t feel like I used to come here daily. The place is familiar to me, but at the same time, my surroundings feel new. I walk around the sanctum hall. I recall my past experiences here. I used to think this hall was spacious and very large. I had thought it could accommodate around 1,000 people for an event.
I think about the day that I visited this temple for the first time. Upon entering the parking lot that first time, I could see a very big temple. It was the biggest temple that I had seen thus far in the USA. The sanctum hall was the most spacious and large sanctum hall that I had seen thus far in the USA. Back then, I was thinking it could accommodate around 2,000 people for an event. However, I may be poor at estimating the size and capacity.
Now, that same sanctum hall appears small to me. The hall seems like it can accommodate only around 500 people for an event. The same hall that used to look very large, now appears small. What a miracle! We are always amazed by the magic that we forget to recognize what we experienced.
My mind starts to think. I ask myself what has changed over the years. The hall that used to look large to me, now appears small. I’m almost positive the temple hasn’t changed in dimension. However, why do I feel this sanctum hall has shrunk and now appears small to me. What happened? At one point, this area appeared large and now it appears small.
I have experienced similar experiences in other times of my life. One such instance is one time when I visited my relative’s house. The house was large, spacious, and luxurious. I lived at my relative’s place for about a week. It had a large hall, with all of the decorations in the perfect location and neatly done. It also had a large kitchen, two spacious bedrooms, and good ventilation throughout the house. I enjoyed staying there. I felt comfortable, relaxed, and at peace there. I also enjoyed the luxury. When the home is spacious and tidy, we tend to feel more relaxed and at peace.
When I returned back to my own home, it felt congested with things. The hall looked small and felt stuffy. I feel discontentment regarding the size of my house that I had never experienced before. I have lived at my house for many years, and just a few days away from home made it feel small upon my return. It’s the same house that I have been living in with no changes in the dimension, but it appears smaller.
As the days passed, I began to forget the seven days that I spent at my relative’s place. With the busyness of my everyday life, I grew comfortable with my place again. My place no longer looked small nor did it make me uncomfortable. I didn’t recognize the miracle that happened that caused me to feel discontent.
So what is this miracle of places looking large at one point, then looking small at another point, when there are no changes in its dimensions? I think it’s our mindset that changes. Our experiences change our thought process. After visiting temples with very large sanctum halls that accommodate over 3,000 people, the sanctum halls that I had attended prior looked small. After I visited my relative’s place with a large house, my home looked small when I returned. Our mind always interprets the sizes of the places, things, etc in comparison with similar things to give us an estimate. The places we live, the people we live with, where we are comfortable and happy: these are all areas of our life where we experience discontentment after experiencing the luxury of a slightly larger place. We forget the truth that even the new large place, which is luxurious now, will become commonplace if we happen to experience an even larger place with even more luxurious amenities.
Life goes on with continuous changes in our day to day actions to make life better than before. We experience these miracles of life. When we see a larger, more luxurious home, we experience the current home as small and uncomfortable. When we move to a larger, more luxurious home than the current one, we may feel like the new home feels less luxurious compared to even larger, more luxurious homes. This goes on unrealized, making it a miracle. We spend our life continuously setting higher goals. We work towards the goals by performing actions. We don’t realize that our life is limited and that the limited time is taken up by these actions.
We go to work with the goal of improving our living conditions. The improved living conditions are achieved by being rewarded for the work we do. But what is this “better living”? With the hard work, time, and effort spent on a typical day that goes towards the reward, we move closer to buying a bigger house for tomorrow than the one we have now.
However, over time, that bigger house becomes smaller in our eyes. After spending a few days at a larger, and more luxurious house, upon returning home, we become discontent with our now seemingly-average home where we used to live comfortably. This is when we set higher expectations in our life. We set an expectation to buy a new, more spacious, more luxurious house. To meet the expectation, we need to earn more money.
The expectation that we set leads to setting higher expectations for the rewards for the work we do. To receive recognition and achieve better rewards than the present, we try to put in more time, effort, and work hard to excel over others. In the process, when we face challenges in out-performing others, we may tend to lie or cheat someone in the name of work-politics.
When we win over others, our inner conscience knows the truth. Despite our inner conscience, we do whatever is common in work-politics. “Common” doesn’t mean that it is morally right, it means that there are many people in the working world who fall prey to these shameful actions.
Upon winning at one point by small tricks played, we feel accomplished. We continue to deceive others by tricks and it turns into a habit. We tend to fall prey to these shameful things.
Upon seeing the recent success in our life, we get involved in other forms of business to make more money, to achieve more rewards. Businesses and rewards continue to grow, but when does this cycle end? I think it ends when:
a. We are exhausted in this cycle of battle, or
b. We become too lazy to fight in the battle, or
c. We realize these miracles of life.
On the day that we experience any of these, we feel comfortable with the house we have and we are happy with the amenities we have.
The purpose of living is enlightenment to come out of these miracles of life.
So how do we come out of these Miracles of Life? Unless we go through negative things we cannot appreciate positive things happening in our life. If we only have good days, we won’t be in a state to realize that our life is wonderful the way it is. When we have both bad and good days, we’ll appreciate the good days. Similarly, we get enlightenment only when we go through the regular, routine life with expectations of rewards.
I have a colleague who was having his dream home built. During the ongoing process of building the house, he was investing most of his time into finding the best materials and decor to purchase for his house. He was exploring the various designs available on the market and connecting with people who have bought new houses. He bought various things to build the best, most luxurious house. One day, I happened to go on a drive with this colleague after work. On our drive, he shared his thoughts and accomplishments on the construction of his dream home. I listened to him, but at the same time, I was preoccupied by other thoughts. I was worrying about the current challenges in my life. I didn’t show much interest in what he was saying. I didn’t appreciate or applaud him for his beautiful house. He noticed that I wasn’t paying attention to what he was saying.
In a friendly manner, he said that when someone shares information about their process of constructing a dream home and shares the different, beautiful, expensive things that they are buying to make their home more luxurious, the listener should convey excitement and admiration. This makes the homeowner happy, because they are investing a lot of money. At that moment, I was thinking about my experience with the construction of a house. During the construction phase, we will be under the impression that the home will be constructed only once and that it is a one time investment. We tend to take out huge loans to build a more expensive, quality, beautiful, and luxurious home than we can afford. Once the construction is done and we start living in the home, we will enjoy the stay for six months to a year. After that, we start to think about how to pay off the loan. We take the pressure of paying off the loan as we got stuck in the cycle of paying the monthly EMI(Equated Monthly Installment). We tend to look for freedom from the monthly EMI payment. We realize that the luxurious home is not feeding us or helping us in paying off the loan. We start to regret putting all the money beyond our budget into the luxurious home. It’s not sustainable. We realize the consequences of building the luxurious home. With the experience we tend to realize, the Miracle of Life.
Thanks for taking time to read, Hope you enjoyed! Clap and comment to spread the enjoyment across. My work is encouraged, reviewed by my friend Jane Nelson. Loads of Thanks to her.
