Contentment and see the image file!

[Hemaxi Patel]

Om Shanti

Contentment

Which comes first, contentment or happiness?  It sounds a little like the chicken and egg conundrum.  Without happiness we are unable to get within sight of contentment and yet we need to be content in order to remain happy.  But can we ever be fully content?

 

Elders, from experience, tend to know that happiness is in your own hands.  Just as beauty is said to be in the eye of the beholder, so happiness and contentment are dependent upon outlook, our ability to see some benefit in even the greatest adversity.

 

Happiness and sorrow are the peaks and valleys of life familiar to all human beings and are usually seen to be the result of our interactions, relationships or lack thereof, and countless other external sources.  On the other hand, contentment is a spiritual dimension of the personality based not on anything outside us but on a choice we ourselves make. 

 

Without some degree of happiness there cannot be contentment, but it is a state which exists when there is acceptance  having done my best in the circumstances I am at ease even with a less than perfect outcome.  I can put a full stop to thoughts about something that has passed and use the experience as another tool to move forward.  Regrets are the enemy of contentment, as are unnecessary desires, but there does not need to be an end to striving. 

 

Contentment is being grounded, having a stability, from which vantage point it is easier to identify the real seeds of happiness.  It indicates wholeness, a degree of self-containment. 

 

Age can contribute to contentment because of the other virtues acquired but there is no need to wait.  If we choose, it can be a constant state of being from this moment. 

 

Contentment has an even deeper foundation in the undervalued spiritual virtues of simplicity and innocence.  Just look at the face of a happy baby!

 

Om Shanti 

P.S Do not forget to open this file.

It is very good and true.