Baba says, “Contentment is the special aim in your yogi life.”

At the present time, the world is full of discontentment. There is discontentment due to lack of resources to live a fruitful life, there is discontentment with the government, there is discontentment due to unfulfilled expectations of friends and family, and then there is discontentment with the self: “I am not good enough.” While it’s genuinely hard- as is the case in many parts of the world- to live with war or without enough resources to survive/live a healthy life, it is a different thing, especially as a child of God, to be discontent with the self.

To be discontent with the self is to be discontent with the Creator, with the Father. It is as if I am saying: “Baba, I deserve better than what you are giving me.” As I progress on this path, there come times when I feel that my talents, and my skills are not being used as they should. I could do so much but it seems that God keeps giving others opportunities to serve while I languish on the bench. While I keep waiting for Him to give me something to do, He keeps giving the same people more and more to do! They don’t have enough time to serve while I have all the time but nothing to do. I could easily be running that center, I could be delivering that lecture far better than those people, I can conduct workshops, teach the course…there is so much I know, so many ways in which I can help but here I am, doing nothing.

Clearly, I deserve better than what God has given me. This kind of thinking is the result of pride and discontentment is the manifestation of pride. The truth is always the opposite of what my pride would have me believe. The truth is that God has given me abundantly more than what I deserve, He always has. I could be living in ignorance, like most of the world, stumbling, and falling. I could be living in hell on earth- worrying, in despair, anxious over what will happen now or how will I do something. That could be me but it isn’t. And God is using me right now- at home, to take care of the family He has entrusted me with or at school, to be a friend to those He has brought me into contact with or at the workplace, to be a team-member or leader or mentor. He is using me at every single moment of every single day- perhaps not in the way that I wanted or expected but He is using me in ways that are useful to me in my journey. He is teaching me to live and serve in ways that are building my character including my attitude, my humility, my faith in Him and in those around me.

In addition to pride, discontentment is also an expression of rebellion. A true child of God would praise God in the good times and in the not so good times. In the Mahabharata, it is shown that the faith of the Pandavas and the love that they had for God did not lessen when they were in crisis. They were cheated out of their kingdom, sent away to the jungle, their cousins tried to have them killed, but no matter what happened, they never questioned God or wonder: “Why did God do this to us?” It’s easy to remain content and say “Baba, Baba” when things are rosy but what about when things aren’t so rosy, when it isn’t the mountain top, when the doors aren’t opening? Do I have the faith that God is still in-charge of my life? That those closed doors are also His blessing? That the situation is also here for a reason, to teach me something? A content person is content in every situation because His sense of identity, belonging, happiness, and worth always comes from God; I am a child of God in the good times and not so good times, in the ups and in the lows, in the praise and in the defamation. I am content because no matter what, I know God is always with me and is in control. I am surrendered to Him and His ways. But a discontented person’s attitude in the good times is: “God gave but He should have given more” and their attitude in the testing times is: “God has taken this away from me or kept this from me and He shouldn’t have done that.” In this way, I constantly rebel against God, never satisfied, and always feeling: “Why did You do this? You could/should have done something different.” I forget that He is God, that He is all-knowing, the wisdom of the wise.

A discontent person is always grumbling about something or the other, while often being bitter, and resentful towards others they deem to have things in order. I am constantly comparing myself and my life to others and measuring my self-worth in relative terms. I forget that our journeys are all unique and that God has a unique plan for each one of us based on our journeys. He recognizes that our needs are different, we all need help/need to grow in different areas. But when I simply compare with others, I am unable to build meaningful, healthy relationships with the Godly family. When I am discontent, I cannot bear to see others content; I want everyone to be down with me.

God says, “First of all remain content with yourself, then remain content with the service and then with your relationships, for only then can you truly be a contented soul. To remain constantly free from obstacles of Maya, to remain constantly content and to make others content: this is the special aim of servers and the certificate that servers always have to continue to receive.” The sign of being constantly content is that I will always have the praise of the Father, the Teacher and the Guide on my lips and in my heart because I experience Him with me no matter what is going on. I will be full of zeal and enthusiasm no matter how big or small the task assigned to me is. I will experience all attainments because I receive my attainments through the Father, not through service or relationships or anything else; and I will therefore always be visibly happy.

The specialty of the confluence age is contentment, Baba reminds me. This is the special attainment of Brahmin life. Therefore, He teaches, remain content and make everyone content. There is real happiness in this, because this, is true service.