Are you a happy soul?

Reply cautiously as there are two very important terms in my question.  Happiness is a state of intense joy, bliss and satisfaction. Soul is not the body but something which lives inside us, probably in our hearts.

So now- Are you a happy soul or a happy body? Or Are you really Happy?

Well If you say No then you are not alone .Lot of people in this world are unhappy souls and suffering. People may pose on social media but deep inside a lot have many complaints from life. And lot of them might also be serving them to God during prayers. I myself is not best version of human being and hence to become at least better,  I am on a continuous quest of improving myself and my thoughts – personally , spiritually , professionally .

Hence recently when I came across a course of 21 days, I quickly enrolled for it thinking it will help me in increasing my spiritual quotient. Now please rest assure that I am not an atheist but I am also not able to understand ways of God very well.  And at times I find them quiet unfair too.  But these 21 days helped me in understanding him and his ways of working little bit more.

Out of many important things that were covered in the course, one thing that caught my attention was that a happy soul is achieved by performing selfless service to God. Very Good! Who doesn’t want a happy soul, so ok let’s do service to God. But question is how to perform selfless service to God? Do we have to become a Sadhu?

It turned out that was not required, one can serve God using their talents, the only ask is one should not desire for any favour from him in return. It should be selfless. I know this is difficult, right. But Talents can be used in serving mankind. Remember your childhood phrase “Service to Mankind is Service to God”. We have all learnt this at some stage of our life but in midst of our desires, achievements, pride, ego, happiness, and focus on one – we forget these lessons we learnt as a child.

Service to mankind is not a new venture. It is something that we have read, heard and seen so many times in real life. I myself appreciate such gestures but forget it soon. I use to believe these are some different kind of people sent by God on earth with the sole purpose of helping others.

But in 21 days, I realised it was a myth. It’s not just their sole purpose but eventually everyone’s purpose of life is to serve selflessly. That is what really acknowledged by God.

Now this enlightenment has not transformed me completely as of today but definitely it has given me a food for thought. I have started focusing on traits of these selfless souls, to understand what motivates them.

Do you remember the story of Ramayana? How Hanuman Ji helped Lord Rama to reach Devi Sita without having any desires of Rewards in return. I am sure you have heard or seen it quite often.

But then you may say he was a God and is a mythology figure .It is just a story for most of us, but then we have so many human life examples too: Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi, Gautama Buddha , and many scientists and spiritual gurus  who thought about improving others life sacrificing their own pleasures. There are soldiers who are there on borders serving our country – what is it that drives them to give away their life for so many others in their country. I used to think may be its money or the prestige associated with the job. But I soon realised it’s not about both of those things for large percentage in that field. There are volunteers who go to any extent to save lives of others in areas of disasters; do they not love their own life? I am sure you will agree that not everybody there does it for getting fame and let’s just be real, not everybody gets it as well.

Then what is it really? How do they get that power to keep others over them?

Let’s not even go that far, within family, think about mothers: does every mother gets rewards in return to the selfless lives they live?

Do you remember what your mother use to say to your question on why does she have to slog so much for everyone? She uses to say she does it for her own happiness.

I used to think this is complete nonsense?

But still you will see them at peace.

So of course , outcome of such selfless service is intangible, probably cannot be seen by others as well .But still there are people who are doing it and I guess they are those with benevolent , kind and pure hearts and their only aim is giving pleasure to the Lord  and to attain him. It is said

Neither by only penance nor by only pilgrimage

Nor by only study of scriptures nor by only Japa

Can one cross the ocean of life…

But one can definitely achieve it by serving the pious.

Keeping these beautiful lines in mind, I would like to start my journey towards God and I hope I have given you all as well some food for thought to work towards fulfilling the sole purpose of this life given by God. For it is not going to be easy but everyone can at least try to become what God really wanted us to be – someone full of love and kindness.