Remembering Prapancha Causes Sorrow
Everyone undergoes the experience that whatever and whoever you treated as yours and loved with attachment, ultimately failed to give real, genuine happiness. Therefore we should pray and ask Rama ,'this whole world is working on Your will alone. I am a petty creature, Rama, do You really find me to be a burden on You? Be kind, and forgive me for my innumerable unjust acts. I have heard stories of Your protection to those who surrender to You. Kindly have grace on me. I have come to your doorstep in the faith that You are the protector and giver; where else could I go except to You? The whole world is worthless, meaningless, without You. Everything about which I had become selfish has turned into a source of sorrow and pain. O Rama, whatever be my feeling, I now certainly belong to You. I have thrown myself at your doorstep, on Your mercy; I have no interest in worldly honour. Do whatever You like; eliminate my ego.'
So long as we associate with the body, the idea of 'me, mine' will stick on along with pride, and it will not allow awareness of God. When there is pitch darkness, there is no other remedy or its disappearance except the arrival of the sun. Similarly, the difficulties in the prapancha are inescapable. But, we should not get disheartened. Remembering and harping on these difficulties and sorrows is the real cause of unhappiness and of spoiling the inherent, inborn joy. Pleasure and pain, happiness and sorrow, are certainly creations of our attachment; selfishness means attachment. Thus, we ourselves are responsible for the sorrow. We are the owners of happiness and sorrow, worry and repentance, due to our attachment. Thoughts arising in a restless mind, create worry, and disturb the real, natural balanced state of the mind. Happiness and sorrow do not depend upon circumstances; they depend upon the attitude. We have regarded the world as real; this has caused sorrow, our mind becoming engrossed with sense-pleasures.
Remembering the past and worrying for the future are the real causes of unhappiness. There is only one remedy for this. Don't regard prapancha as a means for happiness, regard it as a field for doing duty; try to make the mind steady by continuous remembrance of God.
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