Celebrate success & failure in life

Life is full of surprises. Each surprise is a gift from the unknown. We can’t experience a surprise as a gift if our minds are filled with preconceived notions of what we should receive and what we should not, for then, the wonderful experience of surprise is lost.

Few experience moments of surprise. So, life becomes boring. We are bored as we nurse a borewell of boredom within us. Boredom happens when we take life for granted and are indifferent to the mystery of life. The soul of enlightened living is not to be indifferent to the message of life, but to flow with life.

Is it not a miracle when the sun rises, the birds start chirping, when the seed becomes a tree and from the tree seeds are born? In the finite seed, infinite possibility is hidden. Those who don’t take life for granted will retain that childlike innocence; they participate in the movement of life with grace and joy. Success and failure become points of celebration rather than points of frustration.

How can we celebrate both success and failure? Ordinarily, when you are successful, you want to be more successful and so you tend to lose your ability to rejoice in success. Greed makes you look at the other as a competitor, a threat. Instead of learning from failure you wallow in self-pity. Failure is in fact an opportunity to learn.

When you celebrate your success, don’t fill that moment with greed, fill it with joy. Include planning for the future. Planning is part of greed but is also part of wise living. Greed is like an ulcer to the soul. When faced with success or failure, don’t be dead to surprise. The moment wonderment is dead, you are dead. Embrace each moment with wonder and you can then celebrate both success and failure.

What constitutes the soul of enlightened living? Understand that truth wins, not lies. Being upset is self-damaging. See opportunity in difficulty; not difficulty in opportunity. See every experience and situation as messages from the Divine. Operate from infinite possibilities, be prosperity-conscious. Next, find out, ‘Who am I?’

We observe the world of objects but are not aware of the subject. You will find that the self or soul is not just body or mind, but space, in which body and mind exist. This inner space has no form; it only appears to take the form of body and thoughts. Space in a room appears to be limited by the room but the room exists in space. So too, body exists in inner space.

Every time you ask, ‘Who is in?’ it leads you to a new awareness of your state of being. Always be aware of who is inside you, a calm being or a restless one? This discipline will lead you to a bigger question: ‘Who am I?’ Understand that your ego is blocking the bigger picture of who you are.
A true Christian, Hindu, Buddhist or Muslim should reduce his ego and finally have no ego. That is the essence of enlightened living.

- Swami Sukhabodhananda