The Essay that won me the First Place

BUDDHA LEFT HIS PALACE IN SEARCH OF PEACE AND CONTENTMENT- WHAT ARE WE AIMING AT?

The first thought that comes to my mind as I am penning down this essay is, “At long last, having read The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, The Alchemist, and to a certain extent, Osho, would serve as an advantage”.

Jokes apart, Peace and Contentment may sound ordinary words out of the Oxford English Dictionary, but they hold a lot of meaning within them. The path to Peace and Contentment, yet, remains to be explored to completion; yet remains to be walked upon by many men, and those many men might as well include us.

Buddha apparently had realized that Happiness was something evidently not present in gold coins and hearty feasts in huge palaces, or in those heavily embroidered robes of royalty. It was much more present in the natural fabrics, the wooden chappals and in sitting below a Banyan Tree at Gaya.

Well, what Buddha did was probably quite dramatic. But it sent a message out. The quest for happiness couldn't possibly be fulfilled within the realms of materialism. Peace and Contentment were maybe something that we had all been searching for in the wrong places, with the wrong notions.

Why is it that most of us are running behind those green strips of papers, flashing out silver and gold circlets and getting materialistic by each second? Why is it that we forget and ignore and ridicule the joy in small things, in details, and keep staring at the big picture screened on the drapes of our mind?

What is that inevitable charm in the green of rupee notes and the silver of coins that the green of the fresh grass blades and the silver tint of the clouds cannot overpower?

The paradox is that, almost all the answers to these questions, almost everything we need to know, is already present, deep within our own selves. ‘Perception’ is a clue.

Buddha had decided to find happiness and peace in meditation, in the blissful company of himself, in the quest of exploring his own mind. He was a human, so are we.

I am not implying that one should absolutely give up on all his possessions, strand his family and set out in search for contentment in the not-so-pleasing-for-a-holiday streets of Bihar. But what one must realize, is that, Peace and Contentment aren't something that money can buy, or something you could find being sold out in discounts at the Dollar Shops, neither something that are totally beyond the reach of the common man. They are something that are already present right within our souls, and all we need to do, to get to them, is realize our dreams, realize our potentials and realize the power and enigma that we ourselves pose unto us. What we need to do is expand our horizons and look within, rather than peeking around.

My dream and ambition is to be at oneness with my own self; to set out on the exploration of my own mind and soul. And my advice, that would also serve as the words for my conclusion and a sincere attempt at inspiring all the human beings out there, in search of Peace and Contentment, lost in the muddle of materialism, would be-

Just keep in mind the words that had once been so aptly quoted by some brilliant and wise personality-

‘THE MOST BEAUTIFUL THINGS IN LIFE COME FREE OF COST.’