Ganesha Writing the Mahabharata
Everyone has a narrative about their own lives and its meaning. You can hear it in the stories that are told, the tone and tenor as well as the content; how those events are selected and interpreted makes up your narrative.
When two people encounter a similar situation they will each have unique understanding. An atheist looks out at the world and sees random chaos devoid of higher meaning. A lover of God sees those same events and knows that it is the hand of the Divine that guides every circumstance. Each sees the same event, both have radically different narratives.
I have met those who I have not seen in some time, and they will lead the conversation with, “Let me tell you my latest disaster.” In dramatic fashion they will list all the things that have gone wrong in their own lives, or lives of others they know about.
News organizations make it their business to sell bad news, with dramatic interpretations of whatever has occurred, glorifying the salacious, bloody and tragic in life. Bad news sells, good news—well—doesn’t.
We need to be conscious of what we focus our attention upon and how we interpret events. When Swami Ramdas walked the earth he saw everything as God, and he was in bliss. When Paramhansa Yogananda looked out upon this creation he saw the face of God in every flower, tree, mountain, even a blade of grass. When Jesus stood in front of the supreme temporal power in his world, Pontius Pilot, he declared that Pilot would have no power over him if it had not been given from above; in his narrative he knew that God is the ultimate power.
You love to read about saints and the great epic spiritual stories, whether it is Krishna, Jesus, Hanuman, St. Francis or Rama. What made each of them heroes is the fact they faced great challenges, but transcended circumstances by keeping their minds upon God alone. Your coming into contact with these heroes awakens the sleeping God that resides in you. Then you take that story and weave it into your own. Your narrative of life takes on new meaning and you see familiar events in life in completely new ways, even as your epic heroes did.
Now you are not merely going to work, but you are in service to God through what you do. You are not just sitting in meditation trying to focus, but you have joined a pantheon of yogis who are merged in a sea of bliss. The obstacles and challenges in your life are not mere irritants, but God testing you to look to Him first, then heroically striving to overcome them. You no longer feel isolated and alone, rather you have a river of love flowing through you to all that you meet; and you feel complete.
It is vital that you get a hold of the narrative of your life that you tell yourself daily. If you leave it to the habits of the past you will go in circles and arrive back where you started, or even in a worse condition. But when you conform to the highest Light within, you rise to new heights and join the greatest of realized Beings who have ever lived.
Make your life an epic in which Light triumphs over darkness, you discover vast realms of Spirit within, and you are a blessing to all whom you meet; now that is a story worth telling, and a life worth living!