What Is Beyond Your Idea of A Terrible Life? - 10th October 2016

What is your idea of a terrible life? I mean, if life had to become terrible now, what would it have to bring?

Poverty, with a lot of medical problems. Yeah, the rest I can handle. Guilt, regret... that's like, it feels like it's going away.

All of these things, all of these... you know, I was hearing, he said poverty. We here in this Chinmaya Mission, and Swami Chinmayananda, he started sharing satsang. He was quite a revolutionary sage. So he started sharing satsang and his Guruji sent him from Uttarakhand, close to Rishikesh, down to share his teachings. And when he came, there was no money. So what would happen is he was teaching a class of four people and there was no money for any lunch or nothing. So he would go the rest of the time, ask for some bhiksha from the people of Mumbai and get some donation and things. And then he would... that's how he would live: teaching four people and begging for food and money the rest of the day.

Then what would happen is that he wanted to... he had this real urge to share with everyone. He wanted to get everyone to understand, you see, our Vedantic tradition. He wanted everyone to understand the scriptures. So what he would do is when he had some money, he would hire a cycle rickshaw and sit behind the cycle rickshaw with the loudspeaker himself and say, 'Come this evening and see Swami Chinmayananda speak about the Upanishads.' So himself in complete poverty, but sounds like such a joyful life, no? So what would poverty take away?

This just that fear of poverty because of not having experienced such these levels of poverty. So there's this... how would it be if the story has to go that way? Yes, yes. But I mean, it is quite possible that there are a few hiccups and then I get used to it.