HOW TO HAVE JOY OUT OF LIFE - 6

[Guest guest]

HOW TO HAVE JOY OUT OF LIFE - 6

 

Practical suggestion No. 3.

 

If you would have joy of life, fill your heart with love – love of God, love of

your fellow-men, love of brother birds and animals, love of nature, love of

yourself. Where there is love there is joy. If there is one thing India and the

nations need today to come out of the dark night in which we find ourselves, it

is a resurgence of love.

 

I read of a dying miner, trapped in a coal-mine. Before he died, he scribbled a

few words to his wife. He wrote: “I love you more than you will ever know. Take

care of the children and raise them to love and serve the Lord. I am holding on

to the hem of His garment, and there is no fear in my heart. I die a happy

man!” When rescue workers reached the victim, eight days after the accident,

they found the note attached to his safety-lamp.

 

The brief message, written in a dark, underground death-chamber, is an eloquent

tribute to the miner. The miner knew how to get joy not only out of life but

even out of death. So, even in those harrowing circumstances, he could write:

“I die a happy man!” His heart was filled with the love of God, the love of his

family, the love of his fellow-beings. Wherever there is love, there is joy, -

happiness and fun.

 

We often feel there is fun in teasing others. There were some labourers engaged

in the work of construction of a building. They had taken off their shoes. The

students wished to have some fun. So they took away the shoes of the labourers

and hid them behind bushes. They thought it would be fun to watch the labourers

search their lost shoes. Beloved Dada learnt of this, and he said to the

students: “Come, I shall show you how to have better fun.”

 

He asked the students to keep the shoes in their original places and insert a

rupee coin in every shoe. Then, Beloved Dada said to them, watch the faces of

the workers when they wear the shoes, and you will have the greatest joy of

life.

 

The students followed the directions. When the labourers came and found

rupee-coin in their torn, tattered shoes, they could not believe their eyes.

They felt astonished beyond words. As the students watched the happy faces of

the workers, they said to each other: “Surely, there is greater fun in loving,

in giving, than in teasing.”

 

(Written by: J P Vaswani)

-to be continued

 

Tamaso Ma Jyotirgamaya….

 

The years roll on, one by one. But I am still far from the Goal.

 

May I learn, more and more, to forget myself, to forsake myself.

 

Forgetfulness of self is remembrance of God.

 

And this morning I prayed: “O Lord, so bless me that, in all the changing

vicissitudes of life, I may never lose sight of Thee. And make me, Divine

Master, an instrument of Thy help and healing in this world of suffering and

pain.

 

The all-new My – What will yours do?