The essence or ambrosia of your life is contentment, truth,compassion, sincerity, and forgiveness.| ASHTAVAKRA GITA

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        🌺 ASHTAVAKRA GITA🌺

    

                  🌿Chapter - 2🌿

             ~ The Five Principles ~

                     🌱 Day - 12 🌱

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These five principles exist in your life :

क्षमा (forgiveness). Do you have to practise forgiveness? When are you going to forgive, after five years of practicing for ten minutes each day ? When is forgiveness to be started ? Tomorrow, the day after, the next lifetime, or will it take four lifetimes in order to forgive? Forgiveness, right now!

अर्जव (compassion). When will you be compassionate; after some time? People become very compassionate after a person dies, and give posthumous awards. Our compassion is not always in the present; it is a posthumous.

तोष (contentment). When are you going to be contended? We think that we'll be contended once we have what we don't have now. A person who doesn't have a job says he'll be contended once he gets a job. A person who is not married thinks that he'll be contended once he gets married, and finds the right partner. These are the dreams going on in the mind. Is one who is married contended? 'I should have a child, and then I'll be contended.' Is one who has a child contended? Are people who have ten children contended?

There was a king in India, known as the blind king, who had 100 children. They caused a big war in the country. Where was the contentment? Contentment is very essential in life. We think contentment is against creativity. This understanding is wrong. In fact, contentment is the mother of creativity. It appears as though being contended means being lazy and not wanting to do anything. Contentment is not a state of lethargy. Contentment is not a state of inaction. The moment you talk about contentment, you immediately think how you can make progress if you are contended with what you have? Look at the people who have nothing and are not contended. Have they become creative? Then, all the famine-hit countries should have become very creative. Has that happened? There are many, many places where people are most frustrated and discontended e.g. Bangladesh and Ethiopia. Have they become developed countries? Has creativity ever come out of frustration? Impossible! Contentment is in you. You are contented, at least for a few moments now and then. That element of contentment is in you otherwise you cannot live. Just peep between two frustrations, and you will see a bit of contentment there. But for that, you wouldn't have existed in this world. Attend to that, and you will see your contentment has increased. Maybe frustrations will come like a line and disappear for some time. It will begin like that. For some days you will feel frustrated for a few moments, and then you'll feel all right. And frustration will come again once in a while for a few minutes, and then it will disappear. Maybe you feel frustrated for one second. You will feel the whole sensation of frustration. You will laugh at it and feel that it is an illusion trying to take over. At that very moment the frustration will vanish. I'm not saying your life will be all 'airyfairy'- ever with big smiles and that you will never face frustrations in life. I'm not saying that! Contentment is a part of your life as much as frustration is. Tell somebody something again and again, and if they don't do it, you get frustrated! It's natural! Frustration is the brother of boredom. When there is boredom, there will also be frustration. They are twins. But if they doninate in your life, that is misery. If they come at fleeting moments, touching you and passing away, if they are like salt in you life, it's okay. It adds taste. But if salt becomes a meal, you have trouble.

पीयूषवद् भज Take these five principles as the nectar of your life and share them like nectar. Consider them as the essence or ambrosia of your life and nourish them: contentment, truth,compassion, sincerity, and forgiveness. This is the very five verse that Ashtavakra has said.

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji

ASHTAVAKRA GITA

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