What is Important?

 

Photo Credit: Thinking Faith

What is Important?

What is important depends completely on us. We can say everything is important, or we can say nothing is important – both mean the same!

Everything is ordinary, or everything is extraordinary. Whatever we want to choose, whichever word appeals to us - everything is important, everything, not excluding anything at all; or nothing is important. Both mean the same, because the moment everything is important, or everything is not important, the very word ‘important’ loses its meaning.

The meaning remains only if there are some things which are important and some things which are not important, a few things ordinary and a few things extraordinary. Then the word carries meaning. But if everything is exactly either important or unimportant, then the word loses meaning.

If we have a negative mind, then the Buddhist answer will be perfectly right. Buddha says: “Nothing is important.” Then there is nothing to make any fuss about. When hungry, eat; when thirsty, drink; when sleepy, sleep - nothing is important. And this will give us a kind of relaxed feeling, a calmness - nothing is important, so whether we succeed or fail it is all the same, whether we become famous or notorious, it is all the same, whether anybody knows us or nobody knows us doesn’t matter. It will give us a very relaxed, still, tranquil state of being - and that is the purpose!

Or we can choose Shankara’s answer. He says: “Everything is important, because all is God, even the dust is divine.” That too is perfectly right; we can choose that. Then, too, when hungry, eat, because it is important; and when thirsty, drink, because it is important; and when sleepy, sleep, because God is feeling sleepy - the God within us.

These are the two answers, the basic answers - positive and negative. We should just watch own mind… whichever appeals to us. There are people who are basically attracted towards the positive, or towards the negative. We should feel our own attraction, what attracts us more. And whichever attracts us more, that can become our path: NO can become our path, YES can become our path.

It completely depends on us what we understand to be important. We should reach a stage where we accept that nothing is, and also everything just is!