Quite often my curiosity drives me to dig deep into a particular concept or idea...here is one of the 196 Pantajali aphorisms for living. Santosha.
Pantanjali SUTRA 2.42
[Santosha anuttamah sukha labhah]
From an attitude of contentment (santosha), unexcelled happiness, mental comfort, joy, and satisfaction is obtained.
Contentment comes from within: We humans seem to always be seeking satisfaction in the external world and our internal fantasies. Only when we comfortably accept what we currently have will be able to do the practices that lead to the highest realization.
If we are able to be content with whatever we have – physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually etc– we are going to be at ease (sukha) with ourselves, wherever we are. This is not a contentment of a tamasic nature. A tamasic contentment is for those who do not do anything (or have someone else do it for them). The rajasic one is for those who ‘do’ yet seek recognition while the sattvic contentment is for those who do without ‘showing’ that they are doing. From the ‘outside’, it looks like they are not doing anything at all. Here, again, the extremes apparently look the same. Both the tamasic and the sattvic approach may look the same (as they are not ‘seen’ doing anything) but the sattvic actually ‘do’ and thereby attain santhosha.
When we are contented, we gain unexcelled joy as we are at peace with ourselves and we are totally at ease. When we are content with whatever we get, we ‘get’ everything we ‘need’. Dichotomy doesn’t exist in contentment anymore and so we are one with the universe. When the Divine knows that we are not after anything, it will give everything to us without our even needing to ask.
Why do people want a degree, a job, a wife, children, a house, a car? Because they think it will make them happy. This only feeds discontent. The moment we realize that we can have happiness with ‘whatever we get’, we then get ‘all’. Interestingly in the Dravidian Tamil language, santosham means happiness. Please remember discontent is unhappiness. As my beloved Swamiji used to say, “You do not have a problem, ‘you’ are the problem!”
Discontent is what is being marketed by advertising today. This is also true in the world of yoga. Instead of saying “yoga will solve all your problems” one should say that yoga can help you cope better with your condition. This is more correct and truer. Otherwise one only feeds more and more discontent. In the world of yoga today one sees the marketing for more gadgets that one MUST have, if one is to experience the ‘right’ yoga session: mats, straps, bricks, belts and so on and so forth. What nonsense! It is getting to the point where if you do not have the ‘right gadgets’ you cannot practice yoga! Isn’t that the most absurd thing you have ever heard? Amazing, yet true.
Santosham is truly an inner attitude of contentment with ‘who’ or ‘what’ we are, ‘where’ we are and with every life situation we face. This is the key to our ‘tuning’ into our anandamaya kosha, our universal blissful existence. Think about the concept of nishkama, as espoused by Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita: do not be attached to the ‘fruits of the action’ but only concentrate on making the best effort. Let go of the results. Why do we do things? If it is in anticipation and expectation of the result, we will never be content. The curse of discontentment will follow us like a dark shadow until we wake up to the reality of love and life.
Do things out of love. Do them out of profound and deeply spiritual interest, and not due to any limited and mundane material interest.
Your life will then be blessed every moment by santosha.
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