A Life Without Begging

Was just glancing through the newspaper. Two items caught my attention on the same page.

An official, a government official, wants to get a transfer to a place of his choice. He approaches a politician. The politician asks for 1 crore to get it done. If someone is willing to pay 1 crore to get a transfer, you can imagine what this is all about. But the politician is not able to do it. This fellow asks for his money back, goes behind him, keeps on pestering him. The politician says, 'I don’t have money, I will give you land instead.' Finally, the official agrees.

The politician takes him to a rural area where he is supposed to be having a lot of land holdings. He takes the official under the pretext of showing him around and gets him murdered. A missing person complaint is filed initially. The investigation leads to the truth, and the politician confesses to his crime. He is behind bars; his life is also finished.

Our scriptures say:

अधर्मेणैधते तावत्ततो भद्राणि पश्यति। ततः सपत्नाञ्जयति समूलस्तु विनश्यति॥

Someone who takes the route of adharma to become wealthy would initially see a lot of good things—a lot of comforts in life, growth, progress, and properties. The next step: he will have enemies. Money created out of adharma will naturally create enemies. You cheat someone, you steal someone’s opportunity for your own growth, and naturally, he becomes your enemy. This is direct enmity.

Even that is not required. In the case of the official, he was the one who got cheated by the politician. It is his karma that has come back to him as an enemy. How would he have earned that 1 crore? How many poor beings would he have made cry to get that 1 crore? All of them took the form of that politician to punish him. He must have been expecting, 'If I get this transfer, I can make more money, more crores.'

Bhadrāṇi paśyati. Someone who can flash 1 crore just like that—what all possessions must he have had in his life? Properties, apartments, land, gold, diamonds, cash tucked under his bed. This is the second stage—adharma will show you a lot of good. Then come the enemies. Then the last—samoola vinasha. He is uprooted, all of a sudden.

In this case, both are uprooted. The official and the politician—both are adharmis. Both are uprooted. This is the end result of making money through unfair means.

The second item was an obituary insertion. One Mr. Verghese passed away. His relatives have given a newspaper insertion about his demise—a photo with a smiling face. Normally, by default, relatives choose a photo that looks like a ghost—eyes staring at you, complaining about the injustice. This one had a smiling face; that is what caught my attention. And the caption below was:

'He passed away peacefully, surrounded by the ones he loved, laughed, and lived with.'

अनायासेन मरणं विनादैन्येन जीवनम्। देहान्ते तव सायुज्यम् देहि मे परमेश्वर॥

If you want to know how a person has lived his life, look at the way he dies. Anayasena maranam—here, the obituary says he passed away peacefully, without much suffering. That shows how he lived his life. Obviously, at his last moment, he had people around him. After having lived for 60 or 70 years, if you still have people around your deathbed, that means you are a good human being. They are the people he lived with—not volunteers from the local death rites organization or his morning walk friend. These are the people whom he truly lived with. This is great.

Because he made them happy, he laughed with them. I don’t know what he has left behind for them, but that doesn’t look like the point at all here. The relatives are saying, 'He laughed with us. He made us laugh.' Instead of being a terror or fearmonger, instead of being a habitual complainant—'This is not right, that is not right, it is too hot, too cold, too much rain'—he made them laugh. That is why they are still with him.

Exactly what the shloka says:

Vinā dainyena jeevanam—a life that is not meant for complaining, begging for comforts, telling sad stories: 'It is paining here, there is numbness here, my FD interest has been reduced.' A life without this dainyam, like how a beggar lives. This is what Paramēśvara is being prayed to for: 'Give me a life in which I don’t live like a beggar and a death that is peaceful.' Then, sayujya—to be one with Him, to be one with the Lord. If this is how you live your life, then that will naturally follow; you don’t even have to ask Him for it.

One more short subject. Someone said his son works very hard. I mean, isn’t that obvious? Since God has given you hands, legs, and a brain, aren’t you supposed to do that? What is so great about it? I was shocked—someone is actually appreciating hard work. Otherwise, God would have given you birth as a football. You wouldn’t have to do anything—people would just kick you around.

Ramaswamy Sastry and Vighnesh Ghanapaathi