Vipul Agarwal, Delhi, 19 October 2024
I really wonder as to what is “good luck”. Whether “good luck” is really good luck or a sugar-coated bitter pill? If somebody has an industrial empire and has hundreds of crore rupees to spend, it is really good luck. I often recall the words of Shri S N Goenka ji that if somebody gets material wealth and powers, without awareness, probably that’s the worst thing that can happen to him. Similarly, if somebody is unaware of the inner reality and gets a comfortable life, he becomes lazy and stops exploring the possibilities of growth. When a person struggles for material comforts, at least he gets challenged to enhance his worldly capacities.
Probably, it all depends upon our understanding of life. If we feel that life is all about comfort, pleasure, and fun, then “good luck” is really good luck, at least for some time. It is the very nature of all material pleasures and comforts and their shine and gleam to disappear fast. Our body gets accustomed to the comforts and pleasures very soon. Once we get used to the same, it stops giving any pleasure to us. Rather, we become a prisoner of the same and any absence thereof makes us uncomfortable. Take any example. We all have spent our childhood without ACs and even electricity. Now we have got so used to the airconditioning that the absence of AC for even some time makes us uncomfortable. Similarly, many bureaucrats get so used to the office attendants that post-retirement, they get a shock of their lives when there is nobody to attend their bells and carry out their directions.
Thus, we have to realize that with pleasure and comforts being the center of our lives, we become narrow and keep growing narrower as we grow older. Our dependency on these things increases and we become desperate to ensure the constant supply of all these objects of comfort and pleasure. We would like to accumulate wealth at any cost. We would like to grab the highest positions of power at any cost and we would start behaving like drug addicts who may do anything if they do not get the desired dose of drugs when they feel the urge. Actually, at the neurological level, there is no difference between a drug addict and the one addicted to pleasure and comfort. The only difference is that one is socially accepted while the other is not. Truly speaking, people with an addiction to comforts and pleasures are equally helpless and weak. Their helplessness and weakness make them insecure and out of their insecurity, they try to control others. They try to use others for their own benefit to get their desired dose of neurotransmitters. Powerful people use others to enhance their powers, people in high positions use others to retain their positions and rise further up, and people with huge amounts of wealth try to use people to enhance their wealth.
On the other hand, if we feel that the purpose of life is to grow, then actually “good luck” does not matter. Money and power are not at all required for growth. People like Victor Frankl could grow phenomenally in Nazi concentration camps, Mahatma Gandhi could grow to become the father of a nation in most adverse conditions, Sri Aurobindo could become the spiritual torchbearer of the modern day while spending time in jail, A P J Abul Kalam could become a great scientist and the President of India even after having born in a poor village and having minimum resources. What matters is our centre of life. In fact, I get sometimes very surprised that some of the bureaucrats with so high qualifications do so average because somehow their brains have been conditioned that the purpose of hard work was just to get a job. Therefore, their growth stops the moment they enter civil services. However, there are some who keep growing constantly.
Rajasik people have a great appetite for horizontal growth. They make efforts to become XYZ. However, horizontal growth, is any day better than no growth. We may set up many industries, learn many languages, explore thousands of places, and know so many subjects, but that is a quite poor substitute for the inner connection. Whatever we know and whatever we achieve, we will keep feeling incomplete and insecure. There will always be a FOMO. This brain is just like a laptop that can never contain everything available on the internet. Therefore what matters is the inner connection. When we get internally connected, we establish a connection with the Universe and with that awareness of the unity, we work on the command of that greater force that guides us to connect others to it. When we work at the command of that force. there is no fear or insecurity. We act with complete awareness and without fear and insecurity. Truth is our guide and none else. We don’t need any “good luck” since the “work” itself is the reward.
