How to be an achiever

There is a story of an artist who painted wonderful pictures. A friend asked him, 'What is the secret of your wonderful art?' The artist showed him a picture and requested his friend to read the words written beneath the picture. The words read: 'Master! May this picture draw many unto thee, but may my name be forgotten!'

Whatever we do, let us do it in the spirit of surrender to the Lord! Any service to society done with the objective of earning name or fame is a cause for attachment. One attachment leads to another attachment. Selfless service, on the other hand, is truly altruistic. This is what is required, and such aspirations and such actions are born out of humility that comes with the exploration of one's inner Self.

Epictetus was a slave in Nero's Rome. Lame and poor, he was nevertheless content, and his words are respected and admired along with the writings of great philosophers of the ancient world. 'If a man is unhappy,' Epictetus wrote, 'remember that his unhappiness is his own fault; for God had made all men to be happy.'


J B Priestley expresses this truth, 'To me, there is in happiness, an element of self-forgetfulness. You lose yourself in something outside yourself when you are happy; just as when you are desperately miserable, you are intensely conscious of yourself, and like a solid little lump of ego weighing a tonne.'

So, the choice is yours. What would you rather be? Light and liberated and truly happy and humble, or a solid little lump of ego?