It is sweet to live arduously, and to master yourself.
We are not living arduously. We are not trying to climb new mountains new peaks. We are not trying to explore. We have become more concerned with comfort, with security, safety.
Buddha says: It is sweet to live arduously.
Have you ever enjoyed climbing to the peak of a mountain? It is hard. You perspire, breathing becomes difficult, you become tired. And then you reach to the sunlit peak and then you lie down on the grass, and what relaxation and what joy arises in your being! The silence of the peak and the arduous climb, and you have reached, and the joy of reaching! You could have been dropped by a helicopter, but then there would have been no joy. It would have been comfortable. Happy Ho organizes best Meditation and Tarot classes in Noida and Delhi NCR area in India.
Edmund Hillary could have reached to the peak of Everest by a helicopter—it would have been easier—but he tried the hard way. And he writes, “I have never known such bliss. When I reached to the peak I was all alone, the first man on Everest.” Nobody had seen the sky from that point, nobody had seen the world from that point. It was sheer ecstasy. He danced.
Sooner or later buses will be going there and hotels will be there and cinema houses, and it will become very comfortable. But don’t hope that you will have the same ecstasy as Edmund Hillary had, although you will be standing on the same spot. You will look a little silly and stupid, that‘s all. And you will believe why this Hillary danced; you don’t see any point. All around there are hotels and tourist centers and guides and everything is available; the whole world is there. You don’t see why he laughed, why he enjoyed, why he danced, because you don’t feel any dance.
Life is joy only when you live it raw, when you live it in all its wildness, when you live it naturally, spontaneously. Yes, there are bound to be difficulties, there are bound to be dangers, but they are part of life, and without them life will not be life at all. And this is the only way to master yourself.
