Swami Sukhabodhananda is a renowned Spiritual Guru, Author, Motivational Speaker, and Founder chairman of Prasanna Trust. He is also nicknamed as Corporate Guru. His book provides counsel to people to deal with the day-to-day challenges of life. It is written in very simple language using a lot of examples from real life. In each chapter, you will find interesting anecdotes giving practical lessons. Anyone can read it. It can serve as a good companion for you. You can read the whole book in one go or read any chapter. You can also read out stories from this book to your children.
Takeaways
The book has many lessons and stories. I’ll list some of the lessons from this book.
“If you serve the universe; the universe will serve you”.
There is a nice story on the first page itself. Once Fleming a poor Scottish farmer saved the life of a nobleman’s son. When the nobleman offered him a reward Fleming did not accept it and said, “It was my duty”. As a goodwill gesture, the nobleman offered to educate Fleming’s son. As years passed, Fleming’s son studied hard and became the great Alexander Fleming, the man who discovered penicillin. Years later when the nobleman’s son suffered from a fatal disease, pneumonia, he was saved by the Penicillin vaccine. The nobleman was Lord Randolph Churchill and his son was none other than Sir Winston Churchill. “What goes around comes around”.
“Tradition blindly followed kills the spirit of tradition”
The book says that prayer should not be performed as a mere ritual without understanding the real meaning. Devotion should be full of compassion and love. We may not get time to perform elaborate prayers but whatever task we perform if we do it with involvement, it is a prayer. Work is worship.
There is an interesting story mentioned in this chapter. Once when a learned Guru was teaching Vedas to his disciples, a cat was disturbing them. The Guru instructed his disciples to hold it and tither it to a pillar. It became a daily task. After some years when the Guru passed away, one of his disciples became the guru and he continued with the practice of tethering the cat. Months later the cat died. When the guru saw that cat was missing, he immediately instructed the disciples to find a new cat and tither it to a pillar because it was their tradition. The message is, that if we follow the tradition blindly we miss out on the spirit of tradition.
“The kingdom of heaven is within you; do not get lost in the trivial aspects of life.”
It says, happiness is within us but sometimes trivial matters rob us of our joys. There is one story about a woman who was playing on a beach with her child. Suddenly a huge wave came and dragged her child. Seeing this the woman wept and prayed for her son’s life. After some time her son came to her alive. She was very happy and she hugged him. But when she looked at his feet she noticed that one of his sandals was missing. Suddenly her joy was crushed. She wept again for the missing sandals. We also miss noticing the bigger gifts of our life and waste our time in trifle things.
This book can be a constant source of inspiration to all. It’s worth reading.