Welcome to Mohanji Speaks. Good day friends, hope you’re doing well. Today, I came to you with a thought about our life. How can we have a simple but effective life? It is possible.
Many people live an extremely complex life filled with activities, but lesser and lesser satisfaction. I was thinking about some of the great Masters who lived in India, and some of them live even now, the recipe for their greatness, as well as success in life. It did not mean that they never had weaknesses. They had weaknesses; they had strengths. But they did not provide fuel for their weaknesses. Instead, they concentrated on their strengths. We all have weaknesses. We all have strengths. We have everything; we are a mixture. Nobody is immune from this. Nobody is only strength. Nobody is only positivity. Nobody is only greatness.
We have everything. But what is predominant in us; that’s our basic personality. The flavour of our basic personality is what is predominant in us. Life is a flow; thoughts are flowing, activities are happening; life flows continuously. In this flow, how do you have a grip on life? With some simple factors, we can have a grip.
Simplicity and Humility
I’m referring to the great Masters and their lifestyles. Most of them lived a very simple life, uncomplicated. The fewer complexities, the better is the life. Simplicity is one of the strongest, or most powerful trait or habit that you can create to have an effective life; along with it, humility. We can be happy with what we have, but we should not show off. We could be rich or poor; we could be successful, or not so successful. Everything should remain within us, as our learning or our experience. Experience is what we have come here for. So, the experience is what we will get. And when we get the experience, neither we should resist, nor we should boast about it.
Complexes
So, simplicity and humility are very, very powerful as foundations of character. If we follow that, life will be good, peaceful, and life will be successful. Complexities lead to complexes. And complexes are inferiority, or superiority, whichever it is, every complex is a burden, or it’s a diversion. We can avoid complexes with simplicity and humility. We can nurture strengths, and some of the strengths are very easy to nurture, and these strengths are simplicity and humility.
Stability
Simplicity and humility can never be avoided if you are looking for stability in life. And all those successful people, they applied themselves in life. Whatever they did, they were totally into it. They did not do too many things. This is again, another thing. We get involved with so many different things, where we cannot concentrate on anything. So, we should not take up many things. Those things that we take up, we should be able to do justice. This is very important. So, we should not take up everything.
Instead, we take up things which we know we can accomplish, apply completely into it and complete it. That will give us satisfaction and contentment. So, with simplicity, humility, take up things, which we can complete effectively. And we should believe with them. We should believe in ourselves that we can do it, we can complete it. And then we complete it in good time.
Responsibility
Everything in life, we should be responsible for, and we should also be accountable. We can’t just take up something and do nothing about it, and then do justifications. That will not give us any richness inside. If you want stability and greatness, it’s not about money, wealth, or the comforts of life. It’s about how well we lived our life. And that’s nothing to do with anything external; it’s to do with what we are internally. So, this is also very important to understand.
While living our life, we should make sure there are no wastages, and there is no violence. Violence and wastages are distractions, and they are also bordering on irresponsibility, lack of responsibility. We should avoid that 100%.
Sharing
What we have, we share. All these great people shared what they had in abundance, then never held anything back only for them. They got more and more each time they shared. So, sharing is very important in life, share, and grow; share, and live. When we live in society, we will come across many people, many activities, and many of them might be very tempting. But what we should take or what we should accept is what suits our energy, what suits our time. If an activity or a friendship or any of the interactions with the society is too demanding, where we have to compromise everything else, it may not be worth it.
We got to be very careful with our engagements. Many people tend to engage in everything that comes their way. And in the bargain, they get distracted a lot. And sometimes the main theme, what they really wanted to do in life is missed. We should avoid that.
Purpose
We should have priorities; we should have a pre-plan every evening before we go to bed for the next day. And we should also have a revision of the pre-plan the following morning. Ten minutes you spend to revise the free plan and to make adjustments before you start the day so that the day will be purposeful. When you have a purposeful day, you have success. When you have clarity, when you can navigate, well through the day, it will be a successful day.
But many new things will come, temptations can happen. This is human life. We are prone to temptations. That’s fine, but again, priority should always be remembered. That piece of paper, you write your day’s plan on, will always be your guide of the day. And try to accomplish that, so that you have clarity when new things come, to incorporate if it is worthwhile. If it is not worthwhile, excuse yourself. This is better. That means, engage in things which are meaningful. Every day should be meaningful. Every day there should be progress, and every day, there should be contentment—every moment contentment, for which you need to have clarity. Clarity should have a clear vision; what do you want to achieve? And that should also be accompanied by simplicity and humility.
Small steps with focus
We are not trying to conquer great mountains in one day; every step takes us there eventually. We should not be in a hurry to move fast and get things sorted out or achieve the highest in one day or a few days. Instead, focus on the activity. Be humble be simple, apply yourself completely and avoid distractions and temptations. And just walk steadily consistently, and eventually, you will be on top of the mountain, without your knowledge, there’ll be no stress, you will be very, very stress-free.
Contentment
When you take up anything in life, any subject for that matter, it should be based on relevance, not profit. Mostly in today’s world, people are profit-oriented. They take up things which are profitable for them. They do not consider the contentment factor. I would recommend that you look for the contentment factor, this is very important. Contentment factor is the most important thing, and relevance to the world is equally important. Don’t look for profits; look for relevance. And relevance will lead to income or acknowledgement.
Focused reading
We tend to read a lot of books, trying to cram up information and eventually, we don’t remember anything. Hence, read less material, only relevant material, which will clarify your vision or help you to have a better understanding of what you do. Focused reading is very important. We read a lot of different stuff and get distracted, and eventually, we lose our focus. That’s not good for life. Read less, read what is relevant for your activity; for the main theme of your life, for the sake of the vision, for the perfection of the vision and move forward.
This is exactly what we should do, even if you are in an activity, improve it every day. That’s what I said, compete with yourself only, compare yourself from yesterday to today. Take one more step forward, so you become a master in whatever you do. And don’t stop there, keep growing.
Surprises
When you decide to walk a road which is less travelled, you can expect the unexpected. There could be many, many surprises.
How do we handle surprises of life?
When there is simplicity; when there are focus and priority on what’s most relevant, that itself will take us forward. Along with determination to achieve the impossible. We all have that capacity; we have that power to achieve the highest. We have the power to climb the Everest. We have the power to reach the peak of everything we do.
Determination and Discipline
So, let’s not think about our weaknesses, deficiencies and capacity restrictions. Instead, we focus on what’s possible. Everything is possible if you apply yourself to it. Everything can be done effectively and well beyond your expectations if you focus on it well. Determination is important; discipline is also important. These two things will help you to move forward peacefully and effectively.
Lifestyle of Masters
As I said earlier when we look at the life of all these great Masters, especially those Masters who have guided mankind by walking the less travelled paths, they created their own methods and style and created a difference in the world. Most of them, or all of them, they never worked for glory or any kind of achievements. Instead, they focused on work. So, they got glory and achievements. And the generations decided to follow them because they lived their lives in contentment, peace and simplicity, as well as humility. All these Masters, they wanted nothing from the world, or they wanted less from the world at least. And they give much more to the world than what they received, just by sharing their skills or knowledge or whatever they had.
Simplicity and humility are great strengths. Simplicity is our strength, and so is humility. If we base our character on simplicity and humility, we will go a great way. These Masters are walking examples. They never positioned themselves; their activities and their conviction automatically positioned themselves in the world. In a world where people are competing to be visible, they lived and existed in a world where their activity automatically brought them visibility. This will happen if you believe in yourself; if you believe in your activity; if you apply it consistently and live a life of simplicity and humility.
I wish you great success. This is Mohanji for you.
Transcribed by Ulla Bernholdt
Proofread by Rekha Murali