Spring symbolises festivity. There are flowers blossoming, birds chirping, and the atmosphere is filled with radiant colours and fragrance – there is jubilation in the air. However, just as seasons change outside, so also one can experience the phenomenon of spring within.

Spring – Without and Within

The difference between inner and outer spring is that the outer season has a set time and order. It follows a sequence and is cyclic in nature. But, the inner spring does not have any such fixed time or sequence. You are free to determine whether you want to experience spring within. Another striking difference is that the outer spring comes and goes. It does not stay forever. However, if you are ready, the inner spring will last for eternity.

It is unfortunate that you do not choose to experience spring within. In the greed of protecting the ego, you opt to suffer. Neither are there flowers of freshness, nor birds of freedom; neither colours of life, nor songs of joy; there are only dry stumps of empty pride and vanity. The one who decides to live in such a state within, is worldly. However, the very energy that created thorns of sorrow has the potential to give rise to flowers of ecstasy within. Surrender your ego at the Lotus Feet of your beloved Lord and experience inner spring instantaneously. All worries and difficulties vanish. In His presence, others grow; their minds dance with joy; the touch of His grace brings forth a song from every heart; they become peaceful, happy, move towards divinity and eventually attain self-realisation and manifest the eternal spring.

Do You Wish to Experience Spring Within?

The attainment of the human birth and a conducive spiritual surrounding marks the arrival of spring. This is the most opportune time for an aspirant to bring transformation in his inner life. It is time to awaken! Why do you keep sleeping? Why are you still suffering when you have been blessed with such an occasion of colour, fragrance, song and dance? Why are you living a thoughtless life?

Spring is at your doorstep. But you have not even begun to pine for the enlightened state; you have not cried for the Divine; you have not invited Him to manifest in your heart yet and very soon this invaluable opportunity of spring will pass you by. This priceless human life, these precious moments will not remain forever. Make this transient life a cry for the Divine. If you can do this, you will experience such a spring that has a beginning but lasts for all of eternity where the fragrant flowers of divinity blossom but do not get withered.

Thus far, you have enthroned negativities in your heart; now let devotion for the Divine reign. You have remained intoxicated with wealth and status; now live in the ecstasy of love for the Lord in your heart. If you can spend the energy you spend in worldliness, in the right direction; you can certainly attain divinity. All you need to do is change the direction.

Looking in the Wrong Place

Have you ever paused to think what you want from your spouse, your children, your family or your friends? You feel that those whom you love will be able to satisfy you and fill your life with eternal bliss. Time and again, you have failed; over and over you have been pained; then why do you keep searching for happiness in those same relations? You are asking for independent and eternal happiness from humans who are dependent and unsatisfied with life themselves. You remain discontent; your mind gets disturbed when they are unable to fulfil your need. You feel that they have deceived you. But is it really their fault? The fault lies in your ignorance. Your want itself is so humongous, great and boundless that it can never be satisfied by anything small, insignificant and limited. Your desire for happiness is genuine; but the place where you are looking for it is incorrect.

Once, an emperor dissatisfied with his life visited a saint. The saint’s wife asked the emperor to sit in the veranda, while she called the saint, who was working in the fields. The veranda looked so dirty that the emperor declined, preferring instead to stand and wait. The saint’s wife offered to spread a mat for him. However, the mat looked old and tattered. Then, the saint’s wife brought a cot but the emperor found the cot also unfit for him to sit. He pleaded that she go and call the saint.

The saint’s wife went to the fields and fetched the saint. On the way back, she narrated to the saint all that had transpired with the emperor. When the saint reached the hut, the emperor asked why, in spite of all the luxuries, his mind was still disturbed and discontent. The saint explained that just as the emperor had found nothing worth sitting on in the hut – the veranda, the mat or the cot, the mind too was like an emperor. Though it may perch for a while on the spouse, wealth, position, it saw none as worthy of resting on. It would remain steady only when it was made to rest in the Divine. It would not halt until then.

Good Fate or Ill Fate?

Feel fortunate that your mind is disturbed and unsatisfied with petty worldly relations. In this unrest lies hope. Your agitated mind indicates that you had not searched for peace in the right place. Restlessness of the mind is your good fate and not ill fate. Listen carefully to the cry of your mind; it says, ‘I do not find peace in wealth, power and relations. Take me to the abode of eternal peace.’ As long as it remains disturbed, the mind will not give up its search for real peace. People think that when the mind becomes quiet, it is then that it turns towards the Divine but this is not so. In fact it is when you turn towards Him, that your mind starts becoming peaceful. The unrest naturally starts coming to rest. You now know that you are looking in the right direction.

You cannot make your mind peaceful by continuing to remain in the state you have always been. Remaining entangled in worldly events will only increase your uneasiness. After momentary pleasure, once again, the desire to have more arises. This alone is ambition; this alone is emptiness.

The Raid of Death

In vain you take pride in your youth, strength and beauty but all of this is temporary. Intoxicated with this, you forget the Lord and eternal bliss. Death can raid you anytime. What is the point in repenting at the time of death, that the Divine called out to you but you did not respond to His call. When you could surrender your ego, you refused. Now when death is looting everything from you, nothing can be done about it.

Under the spell of ego, you do not think correctly. You do not even see that you are missing out on the higher purpose of this human life. If you are not able to please the Lord, your life has been wasted. Though you may console yourself by saying you are successful because you have plenty of wealth, high position and a large family; this is just an illusion. Death will shatter your illusion. You are truly successful if you are in tune with the Divine. If you can surrender your ego to Him, that is the blessedness of life.

Before death raids you, wake up! Get united with immortality. Realise that there is only suffering in seeking happiness from outside. Continue your search but change your direction. Let there be celebration in and around you. Sing the song of enlightenment. Dance in ecstasy in tune with the Divine. Choose to bring the eternal spring within.