Love and Contentment

Love and Contentment

Deep contentment is an indication of love, but normally this is not found in most of us. We are all full of desires and aspirations and we keep running after them. Moreover, it appears that if a person is satisfied, will he ever venture out on an expedition, will he be creative, and will he have any quest?

True, there is a place for dissatisfaction in our life. The journey begins with dissatisfaction. One who is satisfied with his present state of affairs, is not likely to move ahead. So, to be dissatisfied is good. In order to experience contentment, one has to do through a journey of dissatisfaction and initially experience dissatisfaction, and against the backdrop of this dissatisfaction, you get the first glimpses of satisfaction. It is then that you recognize contentment and realize its worth and it is then that you aspire for it. And this again makes you further uneasy and you become thirsty for it. Before that there is no authentic thirst to reach contentment.

Contentment and dissatisfaction go together, they move hand in hand. Glimpses of contentment give rise to actual dissatisfaction and an authentic quest begins. A dissatisfied person is one who has seen something beautiful, something worthwhile and then the force of this dissatisfaction takes him ahead. One who has not experienced dissatisfaction is the one who has never come across something truly beautiful and such a person is satisfied with his prevailing conditions and stagnates there. And it is all the more dangerous if this satisfaction is a forced satisfaction. Individuals, due to their not being able to face life, force this satisfaction on themselves as a shelter. Such persons just believe themselves to be contented without actually being satisfied and they never go in search of truth. An animal memory follows them.

There are three types of memories that follow us- animal memory, human memory and spiritual memory. A person living in animal memory though living in the same world as any other is so insensitive that he lives merely in a struggle for small things in life just like animals that see and experience death but besides the initial hubbub there is no thought into it and soon life comes to normalcy for them and they continue their life in contentment.

It is only in human memory that mind comes into play. People can compare, they can judge, they can conclude, and they know death, they know that one day death will happen for them. They become sensitive. They see everything with great awareness and then nothing satisfies them, and they become anxious.

A spiritual person seeing death realizes that time is short; he cannot afford to go humdrum and waste away this precious life. He tries to speed up things. He quickly wants to throw off all unnecessary burdens to make room for more significant things in life.

This is human memory, that for valuable things he is ready to let go the mundane. It is these people who are actually thirsty, for they know the value of contentment as they have had a glimpse of the beauty from the spiritual memory. Such glimpses of deep contentment are called as satori by Zen Masters. In my opinion Satori need not be mystified, it is glimpses of deep contentment experienced by a seeker that are satori. This deep contentment brings about transformation and thereby springs of peace and bliss gush forth.

A person moving towards contentment, towards love is a threat to the so-called leaders of the society, whether they are religious leaders, or political leaders or social leaders and so a person full of love has to often face their antipathy.

The society has always opposed love for a person in love, in contentment; will not be available for exploitation and the whole business of leadership, politics, family; marriages are all ego and power games based on exploitation and not on love.

But people in search of love, in contentment move with their inner intelligence and cannot be controlled by society and this could result in devastating changes toppling the social set up to bring about something new. And nobody wants to disturb the set up, so they oppose. But this does not stop a contented person from moving ahead.

It is these contented people who are creative for whatever creativity comes through them is natural, it comes from within effortlessly without any planning. Otherwise, it is mostly targeted and planned creativity, to suit their mala fide intentions and that is not actual creativity.

In the last stations of journey, dissatisfaction and satisfaction both have to go. You transcend both as there is no duality in the journey ahead.