Sri Swami Vishwananda talks about........

There was once a Rabbi. He was giving his discourse, his lecture and as he was talking to his students, there was a line which said “The one who is close to the Divine, the one who is close to God, to Jahwe, is the one who smiles in the midst of difficulties.” Then his students stopped him and said “Professor, Mr. Rabbi, reverent Sir, can you please explain us how it is possible that we can smile in times of difficulties? The Rabbi said “Well, it's very difficult to answer this question, because when there are difficulties, I, myself forget where the smile is gone. I forget how to smile." It’s true: our mind is so engrossed into negativity, that we forget the reality. Saying so, he said “It’s very difficult for me to tell you how to smile in times of difficulties or in times of great tests. But I know one person in the village, who has gone through so many trials in his life. When he was just one week old, he lost his parents. Then later on in life, in everything that he did, he didn’t succeed, but he was always very joyful and smiling.” So they went to that person, knocked at the door, and an answer came “Who is it?”. The students said, “Oh, we are the students of the Rabbi, we came to ask you certain questions.” He replied“Tell me what questions do you have?” Then they said “Oh we came across this line in the Bible that said ‘The one, who is closest to God, smiles in the midst of difficulties’”. The man answered “Well you have come to the wrong address, because I am 78 years old. Yet I don’t know what difficulties are, so I can’t tell you how to smile in it.”

So, know how close you are to the Divine, the difficulties transcend itself. How much your mind is focussed on the Divine or on your true Self. Everybody wants to attain this true Self, no? But everybody wants to attain the true Self only by being good. You don’t need to be good. You don’t need to pretend to be good. You just need to be yourself. Even if people think that you are bad, you have to know how you are.