Trpti Dipa (The Lamp of Contentment): Pancadasi Chapter 7

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Today’s world abounds with people who feel empty, incomplete, insecure and discontent. They have ‘more than enough’ gadgets, vehicles, clothes and comforts with ‘enough’ of tensions and sorrows, but they do not feel they have really achieved what needs to be achieved- peace and happiness – and are never done with what has to be done. Trpti Dipa Vidyaranya explains how by Self-knowledge we can be totally full and fulfilled in life.

Pujya Guruji Swami Tejomayanandaji through his lucid exposition fulfils the role of a wonderful commentator. None who read and study Trpti Dipa can help but feel fulfilled and fully blessed.

Some people believe in capitalism and some others in socialism, but all, irrespective of their beliefs, are followers of 'morism’. We want more and more of more and more in more and more ways. That is why our supermarkets are lined with hundreds of varieties of thousands of goods. And that is considered as one of the measures of development and standard of living.

None however are happy with what they are and what they have. This never-ending desire for more and more springs from an emptiness within, a feeling of incompleteness and a general sense of dissatisfaction. Then, can we ever be fulfilled in life?

When we are hungry and we keep eating, we do reach a point when we can eat no more. At that time we do not even want to see any food or think about it. We feel we have eaten enough and we are replete. This sense of enoughness (alam pratyaya) is defined as contentment (trpti). Having overeaten we may not want food, but our desire for other things still remains. Also in a short time the desire for food again crops up. Is it then possible to feel totally content, all the time and never desire anything?

Vedanta asserts that the lamp of Self-knowledge (dipa) - knowledge of our infinite nature - gives us such total contentment (trpti) in life. Knowing oneself to be infinite, full and complete, there remains no desires to become someone, possess anything or want anyone. The Guru can, with his knowledge, light the lamp of such total contentment (trpti dipa) in the heart of a true spiritual seeker. Svami Vidyaranya does so with 298 verses in this chapter named Trpti Dipa.

Only when we question do we think and gain doubtless and well rooted knowledge. We need to think seriously to understand how to be happy. We must be dissatisfied with our understanding of ourselves and the world to be able to enquire and arrive at true contentment. Svami Vidyaranya, through a mantra from the Brhadaranuaka Upanisad of the Yajur Veda takes us on a journey of questioning and serious thinking which will culminate in doubtless knowledge, happiness and contentment.