Which Race Are We Running? by Sant Rajinder Singh

[Guest guest]

Which

Race Are We Running?

by

Sant Rajinder Singh

A Story from the

Book

“Spiritual

Pearls for Enlightened Living”

[ ISBN-10

0-918224-52-7]

[iSBN-13

978-0-918224-52-I]

There is an instructive story from the writing of Leo Tolstoy.

There was a peasant in Russia

who owned a small plot of land. He led a life of contentment until one

day he began to envy his brother-in-law who was a rich landlord. He

watched as his brother-in-law bought more and more and more land and had more

and more tenants. The more prosperous he grew, the more the peasant began

desiring to do the same. He started saving his money to buy some land.

When

the peasant had raised enough capital, he started looking for land to

buy. He heard there was some cheap land in a neighboring territory.

When he traveled to see the land, he found that the people living on it lived a

nomadic life.

The

peasant brought some gifts for the chief in charge of that territory. The

chief thanked him for the gifts and said that he could have as much land as he

could walk around before sunset. The agreement was that he start out in

the morning and whatever distance he could walk by sunset, the peasant could

keep the land.

The

peasant was overjoyed at the possibility of owning such a great amount of

land. The villagers gathered to watch his race against time. He started

out walking extremely fast so he could cover more ground. When the sun was high

in the sky it became extremely hot. But the peasant did not want to waste

time stopping for food and water lest he miss out on some more land. He

thought if he kept going, he would get more land. The peasant was trying

to cover the largest area he could by walking in a large circle, which ended up

being a long distance.

He

grew so greedy and ambitious that as the sun became hotter and hotter he

refused to stop for water. His legs grew more and more tired but he

refused to rest even for a few moments. Finally, the sun was about to set. The

crowd began to applaud his victory. As he returned to the starting point,

exhaustion and thirst overcame him to the point that he collapsed. Before

the crowd realized what had transpired, he had died of exhaustion and thirst.

Sadly,

the people prepared for his funeral. They buried him on the same spot of

land on which he collapsed. Thus, the only land he needed was the six feet by

four feet of land in which his body would be buried.

~

This sad story of greed is not much different from the lives

of many people on earth. What do most people do? They spend their lives

in a race to try to make as much money as they can, accumulate as much land and

as many possessions as they can, or gain as much power as they can, only to

find that the race ends at their time of death.

Few

people find contentment and peace in their lives when they live to gather only

material gains in this world. People think a time will come when they

will finally have enough so they can sit back and enjoy the fruits of their

labor. But too many end up leaving the world before they can find that

peace.

The

world is like a race. Some call it a rat race. We run around on a

treadmill or wheel going nowhere fast. Before we know it, the whistle

blows and the time of the race is up.

The

peasant was content until he began to envy what others had. Then he began

a race that ended in his demise.

Few

realize that contentment and peace are ours for the asking. They are

already inside us. If we can be still and tap within, we will find riches

far greater than any available on earth. We do not need to exert to find

them. We can go about our daily life, earning our honest livelihood,

providing for our families, and making enough to share with others, and still

enjoy the peace and contentment within ourselves. We need not sacrifice that

inner peace in the pursuit of outer riches which may or may not provide the

happiness we think it will give us.

The

peasant did not even take a moment for rest and drink. Similarly, do we

take moments in our lives for spiritual retreat, rest, and a drink from the

fountain of Light within us? There is a fountainhead of bliss, love and peace

within us. Do we ever take a moment to stop and drink from it?

Let

us not be like the peasant. Let us find time each day to stop and refresh

ourselves in the fountain of divine treasures within by spending time in

meditation. In this way, we can quench our thirst with the love of God

that will fill us with love and peace as we go about our daily life. We

will reach our worldly goals with peace and calm, and we will be overflowing

with the inner bliss that makes our life beautiful.

~*~

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