Shastri H.G. Swami

In the city of Maya Nagari there was a one hundred storey skyscraper of sky scaling height in which one thousand families and thousands of people lived in apartments. Four elevators worked round the clock to take the inhabitants to their relevant destinations inside the building.

Two friends came to the skyscraper. One was the host living at the 80 th floor of this tall building and he had invited his friends to his apartment. Unfortuneatlly the lifts were out of order and both worried about how to reach the 80 th floor as they were carrying some heavy luggage. The stairway to the 80 th floor was a long journey comparable to scaling a mountain on foot! But on the 80 th floor was a cosy and comfortable apartment ready to give them pleasure, comfort and happiness!

Anyhow, they started climbing the stairway, floor by floor dragging their tired feet and reached the 20 th floor with their bags. Both panted heavily and the luggage became an additional burden besides the burden of lifting their feet step after step. The fatigue of walking on the stairway had become unbearable and therefore they decided to leave the luggage on the 20 th floor. The onward journey up to the 40 th floor became more tiresome due to the increasing height of the stairway. The tired two dropped their bodies on the step of the 40 th floor. To walk further and climb one more step had become impossible for the fatigued visitor friend. He declared his incapability to climb further and desired to go back. Then the host friend tried his best to boost his courage!

He explained that half of the way had already been traversed and the comforts of the apartment were waiting for them. They should pull themselves together and should go ahead with enthusiasm. It was not practical to go back after reaching the first half of their destination. Some way or the other they continued to climb the steps by pulling and dragging their fatigue-loaded feet. Quarrelling and arguing among themselves, they at last reached the 60 th floor. But their lungs had swollen from constant panting and they were perspiring like a melting ice block. Now the visiting friend was in no mood to scale a step further. Both of them rested there at that place and last the host friend persuaded his hearty friend to walk a few steps further to scale the last quarter of the 80 storied stairway. Then clasping each other's hand, and climbing each step with great pain they reached the 80 th floor – their final destination and heaved the door of the house, shuddered with unimaginable pain. At that point they realised that the keys of the house had been left with the luggage on the 20 th floor! They searched their pockets helplessly but the keys were in the bag left on the twentieth floor. They were staring at each other questioningly and both were repenting on their mountainous blunder. The story is meaningful.

The world is a Maya Nagari, and the hundred storied skyscraper stands for our life. Our life of one hundred years. Man goes on the onward journey of life by leaving the key on the twentieth floor. At the age of twenty years – in his blossomed youth – he leaves and forsakes his ultimate aim and chases the pleasures of sense objects aimlessly. This hasty and tiring run of life takes him to the eightieth floor - close to his death and at that last breath he remembers the key – the lost key. That key is the key of ultimate benediction! At that juncture he can do nothing except repent. He has spent his life living by carnal desires and sense objects. After a long journey of eighty years, he is stalled only there from where he began the journey of worldly pleasures! This is why, Lord Shriji Maharaj has said, ‘Repeatedly reflect on the sum – total of the years of life – your age.' if we reflect on the sum-total and balance sheet of the life in the beginning of this year!