Amidst the joyous celebrations of my childhood buddy’s pre-nuptial ceremony, overheard a conversation between two senior ladies in their seventies, apparently from the upper-class society. The noblewoman was discussing the perplexities weighing her down. The elderly lady was frustrated due to the late-possession of a newly constructed 4 BHK apartment gifted to her by recently deceased husband. From their talks it was evident that she has initiated and is entangled in a nasty legal battle, since 10 long years, over her ancestral home in some remote corner of the Capital of the country, worth a few crores. Also she is into a harrowing legal tussle over properties, with her own sons residing in some other part of the globe.
Due to all these issues, strained relations with family, relatives, kith and kin, her life now rests on sleeping pills and she is facing severe depression since the past 4 years. These disturbing circumstances triggered a chain of thoughts - Are these material things so important that they give us sleepless nights? Don’t we have control over our desires for sense gratification? Are we so attached to mundane material things that they devour our entire existence and strip us of our peace of mind?
One should exercise discrimination and thereby realise that attachment to sense objects is the cause of bondage and non-attachment to sense objects leads to liberation. So it is mandatory that infatuation with sense objects is renounced. By diligent effort one must elevate their consciousness and become free from the transmigratory existence of the continuous cycle of birth and death. One should not debase oneself clinging to the lower nature like the animals. Lord Krishna emphasises the changing nature of the mind. When the mind is freed from attachments one becomes lucid and clear and the mind is like one's best benefactor. When the mind is disturbed by attachments it becomes distracted and distorted and the mind becomes one's worst malefactor.
True wealth from a realistic spiritual perspective is not what we accumulate – fame, power, wealth, skills, longevity of physical life. We work day in and day out tirelessly for all these temporary pleasures, thinking they will give us happiness.
Real wealth is happiness that is not subject to the ever changing conditions of this world. Because whoever we are, whatever position we may hold, this world is full of uncertainties – honor, dishonor, pleasure, pain, happiness, distress, health, disease, fame and infamy, the birth and death of loved ones. All these dualities are most of the times beyond our control. Only by constant endeavour with faith and determination is one able to detach themselves from ego, tangible attachments and misidentification with their bodily activities. Thus, real wealth is the practice of being detached, taking shelter of the Holy Name of the Lord and being spiritually equipoised, irrespective of the constant changes in this temporary world around us.
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