Shantanu
Well-Known Member
I have been asked if I would repost the following in the General Religious Debates Section by @Thief.
I am happy to do that.
I was following a thread some weeks ago on contentment. I think it was initiated by Fireside_Hindu although I cannot remember. I have been thinking a lot about that since: what is contentment and what is its use and how it can be derived. Today I can shed some light on this issue.
Contentment is needed for peace of mind, to then live peacefully and free of worries. The Buddhists want to tell us how to relieve stress (dukha). Maybe their way works. May be it does not, I do not know. But the idea of the importance of contentment cannot be diminished. The mind needs to be still. That can only come from contentment. Can meditation help? Let us think about this.
We live in a complex world with wordly interactions. If we were monks and hermits we would cut ourselves off from the world and so minimise dukha to the mind. That is not possible if we are married and bring up children for which we need a source of income. This forces us to get educated and skilled. All these works requires an active mind coping with problems and disappointments as we struggle to survive. So in that situation how can we get contentment? We need to know the truth and face reality as we live. Meditation cannot erase all the complex interactions that one needs to engage in when living in a complex world.
This brings me to what is the single most important thing one could do to derive contentment in our complex lives. It brings me to God.
God resides in our mind and bodies and everywhere else. If only we surrender to Him does this magic reveal itself. The magic that He is the doer and is in control of everything.
When we surrender to God, all our delusions get sorted out and the path ahead for us is charted out for us. It is the path of truth: satyaadvaita or truth accommodation that I practice. Through it we find contentment: content with ourselves and our lot. Content with the world we live in.
Thus, the answer to deriving contentment is to chart a path that accepts that God is all important and knows what is best for us which each and everyone of us can access if we surrendered to Him.
I am happy to do that.
I was following a thread some weeks ago on contentment. I think it was initiated by Fireside_Hindu although I cannot remember. I have been thinking a lot about that since: what is contentment and what is its use and how it can be derived. Today I can shed some light on this issue.
Contentment is needed for peace of mind, to then live peacefully and free of worries. The Buddhists want to tell us how to relieve stress (dukha). Maybe their way works. May be it does not, I do not know. But the idea of the importance of contentment cannot be diminished. The mind needs to be still. That can only come from contentment. Can meditation help? Let us think about this.
We live in a complex world with wordly interactions. If we were monks and hermits we would cut ourselves off from the world and so minimise dukha to the mind. That is not possible if we are married and bring up children for which we need a source of income. This forces us to get educated and skilled. All these works requires an active mind coping with problems and disappointments as we struggle to survive. So in that situation how can we get contentment? We need to know the truth and face reality as we live. Meditation cannot erase all the complex interactions that one needs to engage in when living in a complex world.
This brings me to what is the single most important thing one could do to derive contentment in our complex lives. It brings me to God.
God resides in our mind and bodies and everywhere else. If only we surrender to Him does this magic reveal itself. The magic that He is the doer and is in control of everything.
When we surrender to God, all our delusions get sorted out and the path ahead for us is charted out for us. It is the path of truth: satyaadvaita or truth accommodation that I practice. Through it we find contentment: content with ourselves and our lot. Content with the world we live in.
Thus, the answer to deriving contentment is to chart a path that accepts that God is all important and knows what is best for us which each and everyone of us can access if we surrendered to Him.
