Shelter in Life

What are normally our shelters in life?

Wealth, health, house, husband/wife, parents, children, job and friends. We all need shelter because by nature, we feel shelterless.

In life everybody is striving for two things: safety/security and happiness.

This implies that we think we are unhappy and unsafe/unprotected. Marketing strategies are designed to prove that we are indeed unhappy and unsafe and we will become happy and feel safe if we buy a certain product, etc.

How can this unhappiness exist because the soul is eternal, in full happiness and full knowledge? This is described in the Vedic texts. If we, the soul is happy by nature, how come we feel unhappy?

This unhappiness comes from attachment to matter. To more we identify ourselves with the material energy, the less we are in contact with our true nature of eternal happiness, inner satisfaction.

The more we are unhappy, the more we feel unsafe, our desires and dreams unprotected, the less we have faith in the love and goodness of God. In the presence of faith, fear melts and inner satisfaction and peace rule the mind and intelligence. In the absence of faith, fear controls the intelligence and the mind acts on the lower level of ignorance, thus choosing a life of sense gratification in which indulgence in eating, mating and sleeping prevail.

The only way out is to change the mindset from being unhappy to being satisfied. Being satisfied is not a feeling, but a choice. As soon as we make that choice, we restore our self-worth. This is not as easy as it sounds, it requires we consciously take shelter of the Lord and His potencies, of the company of others who have walked that path, of a spiritual coach/guide/teacher and of the scriptural injunctions in the Vedas.

Quote from Shubha Vilas prabhu:

Cities are reduced to jungles when humans are reduced to animals.