When we look around we see that life is abundant: abundant beauty, abundant bliss, abundant joy, creativity, celebration! Everything is simply overwhelming. But when we see inside we find a lack there: lack of joy, lack of love, lack of meaning, lack of everything. Something is missing inside always. The whole existence appears to be so colourful, but our own lives so colourless. The whole world appears to be a symphony, but our lives an empty echo.

The reason behind this difference is disconnection. We are disconnected from life. What makes us so disconnected? One of the reasons is distrust. We have not learnt to trust life and this has created the lack inside us. There are people who have earned enough to last for ten, hundred, thousands of lifetimes! Yet they are dissatisfied, they feel insecure; there is no trust inside them. They don’t trust their own bank accounts. How can they ever trust life?

This distrust brings the lack in our life. It creates disharmony with life. We don’t feel oneness with the whole existence. We remain separated from it and this results in frustration and emptiness. Like if a drop feels itself separated from the ocean, it will become incomplete, it will start seeing itself against the vast ocean and this disconnection from ocean, its whole existence, will make the drop frustrated. The drop will never feel itself complete until it becomes one with the ocean again. Same follows for us: until we become one with Existence, until we find the connection with Existence, our lives cannot become harmonious.

The other reason behind this disconnection is wants. All of us are filled with wants. Paradoxically, the more wants we have, the more lack we have. We try to fill this lack with wants and these wants deepen our lack. But why do we want? Because we distrust life. Remember, whenever we want something, we are living in distrust. We want something which we feel should be there. Here comes the distrust as we are not satisfied that what we have been given is enough for us. We want more, we want extra; and this urge creates lack.

Another thing that creates disharmony in our life is that we are always busy thinking. We are busy bees, always hovering in the future or in the past. We never relax. We never give present a chance to show its beauty. And this is why we never could see the abundance of life, as the past is just an image, future is nothing but mirage and present which has got everything we actually never attended to. At this very moment life is showering its bliss on us, but we are never present in this moment. We have closed all the doors of our being, there is no way for bliss to come inside. And with all the doors shut, we complain of suffocation. We need to open these doors, we need to open our senses and live the present. And this is how harmony of life can enter us.

Next hurdle between us and Existence is our complaining attitude. We find faults all the time, in everything. We complain if there is low rainfall, thinking there might be a drought, and we might starve to death. When there are heavy rainfalls, we are worried about flood. In a tremendously beautiful foggy day of winter, when trees put on that thin white garment, many of us are worried that if this fog lasts for a long time our clothes may not dry up! We go on missing the splendor for the sake of trivialities. No matter what happens, we are worried, we complain. We cannot accept life as it is. We are always standing against nature, against the whole. This conflict creates lack because nature is going to function in its own way, which is going to be often against our wishes, as we always wish opposite to what is happening. So no matter what happens our wishes will always frustrate us. Remember, whenever we make our wishes, we are creating disharmony with life and this disharmony is definitely going to disappoint us. It is going to create more pain and misery in our lives.

If you observe your life, you will find that round the clock you are creating conflict with one thing or the other, with one person or the other. This reminds me of one incident of last summer. Sometimes in the months of March and April there are unpredicted, “unseasonal” rains and hailstones, which are considered harmful for the crops. So once it happened that there were hailstones and a lot of crops was destroyed. I was sitting all alone, enjoying the coolness those hailstones had brought in the hot days of April. There came up a friend who did not like seeing me happy. I should not be happy, he thought, as so many farmers were lamenting. I asked him a simple question, “In what way are my tears going to console those farmers? Being unhappy over the loss of others, crying seeing the tears of others will never make the situation better. In addition, no one wished for those hailstones. Existence decided and they simply fell.” And the irony is these rains are quite common in the months of March and April. Then how can we call them unseasonal? Only because they destroy crops and make men unhappy! They are unseasonal because they are unwanted! This is how our closed thinking, our vocabulary, our newspapers, and news channels are creating disharmony in us. All of a sudden, we start looking at these natural events as ill timed, as ill fated.

There is a businessman in our locality who deals in fridges, coolers, and all that summer stuffs. Obviously, he looks forward to the summer when most of us curse it. The same sympathetic friend is very unhappy with this businessman because he thinks that when the summer tortures so many people how could this man be happy? I told him that, “The businessman is not inviting the summer; his business simply thrives in this season. Whether someone were happy or unhappy, this would not reduce the heat of the summer.” How can such people like my friend be happy? And when can they be happy? They are unhappy when there are hailstones, they are unhappy when there is summer.

The only way to get over this misery is to create a bonding with the whole. One who creates this bonding will see that there is sheer joy in life. He will dance and sing. To realize this beauty, we will have to become open, we have to open our eyes to see the magical world around us. In front of my house, there is a small weedy patch of land. In the autumn, many fireflies come and dance. It looks magnificent to see those twinkling lights! But few people ever enjoy it! We are too indulged in our worries to see the dance of nature. One who wants to know harmony will have to see this dance. One who can see this dance will know the dance within. This dance connects us with the whole.

Listen to the cuckoo, its solitary song, incomparable melody, and you will be able to listen to the song inside you. This song of the cuckoo will arouse the inner song inside and this will set you in harmony with nature. Look at a piece of cloud, floating in the sky calmly, relaxed. Likewise, flow with the cloud, flow with life. There are trees, see how they blossom! How many colours of flowers they bring to us! How many diverse smells! How many shapes of leaves! Look at trees, they dance when the wind blows. And they simply dance, they dance for no reason at all. We should learn to trust from nature, like from the tree. Tree has trust even before it is born. Seed trusts that the sun will rise and send its rays to it, earth will nourish it, and rain will water it. It knows that once it grows as a sapling it will be looked after, the tender plant will be protected. The seed is in bonding with the whole Existence and this connection gives birth to abundant, enriched tree.

Live life without purpose and learn from Existence how to be one with the whole. Remember, the only way to live life is to be one with the whole. Unless there is harmony, unless there is oneness with the whole, there can never be fulfillment, and an unfulfilled life is no better than death. You have to understand the lack caused by this disharmony. And one way to get over it is meditation. Meditation is not always about methods. Anything that creates harmony inside you, anything that relaxes you, anything that helps you to be one with the eternity becomes your meditation. Because in that oneness, you disappear; there are no two. So these trees, stars, birds, animals, insects, flowers, leaves, the entire nature can teach us meditation and the best meditation is to be one. So learn the secret mantra of fulfillment through harmony and the lack will disappear forever from your life.