IF YOU ARE HAPPY, YOU ARE SUCCESSFUL
Contributed By - Dr. Meghna Thacker
Life is simple. Life can be simple, again. We are the ones that bring on what we refer to as “stress”. My husband and I are first generation in the U.S. We both left our families in India and moved to this country to pursue our graduate education. It has been almost 15 years now, and if I look back, we have come a very long way. After completion of our education, we tried to excel in our careers, then we planned to have a family and God blessed us with two lovely boys. The journey has not been easy but I am very grateful for it. We had to go through long distance relation to get “settled” in life, met all kinds of people, some gave us good experiences and some gave us lessons to learn from and move on. At times, it was hard for us to let go since we were trying to find that feeling of family and comfort that we left behind in India. My husband and I are both achievers, so kept working hard, in our fields, businesses, networking, social events and what not. Were we trying to become more “successful”? We realized that we did not have time to enjoy things that we did in the past. Then we realized, “Success is not the key to happiness, happiness is the key to success.” We will be successful only if we are happy within. I decided to write about this topic since I believe many of us have sailed in the same boat. There may come a point in life that we realize this but don’t know how to break our old habits and patterns. The key is to do less and do it with passion and to do that it’s ok to say “No”.
We started taking our boys to Chinmaya Mission Phoenix two years ago. We did that, because we wanted to introduce them to our culture and instill good values. In the process, we got drawn to this center too. Mr. Raghu Moorthy told me about the Retreat that the center was organizing over this past Labor Day weekend near Payson. He said that we must attend it as a family. I talked to my husband, Apurva and we both thought it may be a good idea to attend. We did not know anyone out of the group who was going to be there. We went and were among 115 people who had come out with families. At the end of the camp, we were so happy that we made it and came home with a feeling of peace in our hearts. The challenge was going to keep that peace in an uncontrolled environment, which means while leading our day to day lives. It was very easy to find peace in the controlled environment that the camp provided since everything was taken care of, from food, our daily agenda that involved meditation, spiritual discourses, and outdoor activities.
Acharya Vivekji led the camp for the adults. He makes Vedanta relevant, relatable and reachable to audiences. He is a powerful orator, he repeated the key concepts in his discourses, which helps me remind them to myself daily. Over the 3 days, he taught us the Sadhana Panchakam by Adi Shakaracharya. In 5 verses, it enumerates 40 ways of life that point us to the great path of Truth. According to Adi Shankaracharya, anyone who sincerely follows these pointers will not miss his way and wander in self-defeating, negative arguments and false conclusions. In my life, sometimes I am confused between what is “Right” and “Wrong”. The path shown here was trodden by innumerable Masters of the Vedas and Upanisads, so I believe that it cannot go wrong. He gave us practical ways to incorporate this in our daily life. If you are interested in what I am sharing, look up Acharya Vivekji from Chinmaya Mission on YouTube.
Acharya Shubhaniji led the camp for the kids. She got them involved in fun activities. Since it was during Ganesh Chaturthi time, the kids got to make their own Ganeshas out of clay and on the last day they did Ganesh Visarjan ceremomy. In the mornings, while adults attended meditation with Vivekji, Shubhaniji taught the kids yoga poses in the garden. On one of the days, she planned a surprise for the parents where kids performed Ganesha songs and dance with their torches in a dark room.
The camp involved time dedicated to outdoors and physical activity. We started the camp by hiking down to Tonto Natural Bridge, located outside of Payson. It is beautiful part of Nature’s creation. You must visit it when you go to Payson. Acharya Vivekji insists on physical exercise as a part of one’s routine. We enjoyed sports like soccer and cricket. It helped getting to know each other at the camp. The kids made friends and learned new things. One of the nights, they had arranged star gazing. We got a splendid view of the Moon and Saturn with its magnificent rings. Overall, I was very happy that we attended this camp and would recommend it to everyone. I am going to share a group picture that we took at the camp. Thank you to everyone who took the effort in organizing it. Thank you Gopiji and Raghuji. Thank you Srikumarji for taking the lead in the kitchen and providing us delicious food during the camp.
If you are someone living in Phoenix, looking for a path that leads you to peace and happiness for you and your family, check out Chinmaya Goloka @ http://chinmayaphoenix.org We meet there every Sunday at 9.15 am. The assembly begins at 9.30 am, followed by classes for kids and adults. Bal Vihar classes are for kids and they start from Pre-K and go through 12th grade. That is followed by Language classes. Currently, they offer Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam. Adults have a few options. There is Bhagavad Geeta class, Self-Unfoldment class and other introspective and interactive classes like Vivek Choodamani and Kindle Lit. There is a youth committee that is always working on projects that serve our community. Currently they are involved in collecting donations for people affected by Hurricane Harvey. I am happy to be involved with Chinmaya Mission. I believe that if each one of us are happy and at peace, this World will be a Happy and Peaceful place to live in. We all need to start with ourselves, first.