Material progress and comfortable living must be understood properly

I  was recently asked about life’s goals. My answer was: “Comfortable living and a little progress”. Why is that? Aren’t there unlimited possibilities? Shouldn’t we aim for the moon? The answer to both these questions is a firm no. Let us see the big picture. We are forever doing ‘karmas’ with our bodies, minds and words. These bring ‘karmaphalas’ both good and bad. They are carried forward till they come to fruition life after life. And the cruel truth is: most of what fructify in this life comes from karmas of past lives. What we do in the present life does make a difference but in a minor way. That is why big successes come to only a few even though many try very hard. What we do in this life will not go waste but will give us results in future lives only. 

What does the Bhagavad-Geeta teach us? “The place of action and the doer and many different kinds of instruments and many different efforts and fifth in this connection is the providence only.” (18.14) That is why Lord Krishna has advised, “Be satisfied by any benefit, which comes of its own accord (due to acts done earlier).” (4.22) We must do our very best, but we must not get attached to lofty results; chances of that happening are very low. So, small progress is what we can really hope for.

Such progress can be of two types. The first one is material, which is applicable to the majority. The other is spiritual, which is only sought by the minority. Most people work for someone else or for the government. Landing a good secure job, which pays well, and is respected is also in progress. Such jobs are essential to society; people in these jobs are caring; they evoke trustworthiness. Similarly, running a business, which is service-oriented, is progress, if one supplies quality goods at reasonable prices. The underlying idea is to shun greed in whatever we do because that goes against the karmaphala principle. Anything obtained, which is much more than what we deserve at the expense of others, is not progress but is regress.

Now we come to the spiritual progress. We should all know that we are parts of God (15.7); we must connect with Him to become complete. And the easiest ways to do it are to pray, remember Him, etc. Wise persons reinforce the mode of goodness in themselves. This is simply done by choosing goodness as opposed to passion or darkness. This is crucial because we all have bad karmaphalas waiting to fructify and faults in nature, which give us trouble like getting angry readily. Such spiritual progress will also help in removing the insufficiency in the material progress we make.

Now we can take up comfortable living. What do we consider living comfortably? A nice residence comes to mind first. We all must have a comfortable home either owned by us or rented by us. Then, we must have plenty to be able to maintain ourselves. Unfortunately, many pass these two tests but fail to be comfortable due to poor sanskaras. They want to show off. I never understood why one needs an expensive car to go from one place to another. Children learn these poor habits and pay their price. Then, there should be good family relationships. A good support base of dependable doctors, etc. helps. Even if one passes all these tests, one’s mood is under the influence of externals. Things go wrong and one is not comfortable in the best of surroundings. This is why spiritual progress is critical.

Bishnoi is a spiritual writer and can be reached at spiritual@ajitbishnoi.com