Discovering the blissfulness of life

For long, I was enchanted by Tir Na Nog, an ancient mythical realm said to lie beneath the rain-kissed hills of Ireland. Those few ‘favoured’ men and women who find it are never seen again. For, Tir Na Nog is the land of ‘eternal youth’ with plenty of things available without any labour.

There is no pain or sorrow there, no anger or hatred, no death or decay. That’s the world I wanted, but I wasn’t eager enough. For, in Tir Na Nog, because there is no need to labour, there are no glories of achievement. Because there are no disturbances outside, there is no solace of returning to a warm and safe home.

And, because life is eternal, one cannot value the love we receive. And because there is no sorrow or sadness, there is also no joy or happiness. Denied the experience of all these dualities, we can never grow and attain selfrealisation. For, it is only in learning to embrace life in all its glory and dualities, that we can discover ourselves. What we perceive as pain actually makes us seek knowledge and God and we stumble upon our inner power.

As we change, the delights of little things begin to refresh us; we understand the language of nature, sing with little children, see innocent trust in the eyes of animals; we learn to have patience and faith, and then find God.

With even-mindedness and a refusal to succumb to despair, we can conquer our mind and grow stronger within.

As we allow life to work through us, everything in our own lives falls into place. We realise that happiness is merely a state of mind; an attitude with which one journeys through the various experiences of life.

Experiencing the adage, “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change“, we begin to listen well, and choose well. And then, I suspect, we realise that our choice had never been Tir Na Nog, but actually a vibrant journey called life.