Joining the Club 99

Once upon a time, there lived a King who, despite his luxurious lifestyle, was neither happy nor content.

One day the King came upon a Servant who was singing happily while he worked. This fascinated the King; why was he, the Supreme Ruler of the Land, unhappy and gloomy, while a lowly servant had so much joy. The King asked the Servant, "Why are you so happy?"

The Servant replied, "Your Majesty, I am nothing but a servant, but my family and I don't need too much—just a Roof over our heads and warm food to fill our tummies." The King was not satisfied with that reply.    

Later in the day, he sought the advice of his most trusted Advisor. After hearing the King's woes and the Servant's story, the Advisor said, "Your Majesty, I believe that the servant has not been made part of The 99 Club."

"The 99 Club? And what exactly is that?" the King inquired.  The Advisor replied, "Your Majesty, to truly know what The 99 Club is place 99 Gold Coins in a bag and leave it at this Servant's doorstep." When the servant saw the bag, he took it into his house. When he opened the bag, he let out a great shout of joy... so many Gold Coins!

He began to count them. After several counts, he was at last convinced that there were 99 Coins. He wondered, "What could've happened to that last Gold Coin? Surely, no one would leave 99 Coins!"  He looked everywhere he could, but that final Coin was elusive. Finally, exhausted, he decided that he was going to have to work harder than ever to earn that Gold Coin and complete his collection.

From that day, the servant's life was changed. He was overworked, horribly grumpy, and castigated his family for not helping him make that 100th Gold Coin. He stopped singing while he worked. 

Witnessing this drastic transformation, the King was puzzled. When he sought his Advisor's help, the Advisor said, "Your Majesty, the servant has now officially joined The 99 Club." 

He continued, "The 99 Club is a name given to those people who have enough to be happy but are never contented, because they're always yearning and striving for that extra "1" telling to themselves: "Let me get that one final thing and then I will be happy for life."

We can be happy, even with very little in our lives, but the minute we're given something bigger and better, we want even more! We lose our sleep, our happiness, we hurt the people around us; all these as a price for our growing needs and desires.

That's what joining the 99 Club is all about." 

Here is an E-mail in circulation and, surely, it has a lesson to impart, a moral, but for the satisfied and the sedate. One has to learn how to also live in richness and plenty, in fact in the opportunities of life that come to us on its adventurous course. It is good to understand its connotations, yet there has also to be the constant urge from “good” to “great”—as Jim Collins would like to insist on us. Our “good” should not stand in the way of progress and stop growth towards “great”. Let “good” not become a block to become “great”. The spirit of adventure, our arête, should never become dull and indolent. There is always a greater mountain to climb than the mountains we have climbed and, as would Chuangtse like to tell us, you yourself become a mountain whose heights keep on constantly rising. The swift ascending slopes have never a terminal point, the flatness of the easily contended. But this urge has to spring up from not the sense of avarice and possession. It has to come from the deeper or nobler perceptions of life whose tendency is always to grow and expand, and never to stagnate. There is the fullness in that last “one” which gives us the well-deserved “hundred” and we ought to strive for it. There are always a thousand battles to be fought and these must be fought in the heroism of the Aryan fighter, as would the Gita exhort us in all our actions and in all our movements. Cease not from using the sword of conquest.

And here is the invitation which we all must accept.

Invitation

With the wind and weather beating round me

Up the hill and the moorland I go.

Who will come with me? Who will climb with me?

Wade through the brook and tramp through the snow?

Not in the petty circle of cities

Cramped by your doors and your wall I dwell;

Ove me God is blue in the welkin,

Against me the wind and the storm rebel.

I sport with solitude here in my regions,

Of misadventure have made a friend.

Who would live largely? Who would live freely?

Here to the wind-swept uplands ascend.

I am the lord of tempest and mountain,

I am the spirit of freedom and pride.

Stark must he be and a kinsman to danger

Who shares my kingdom and walks at my side.

Sri Aurobindo wrote the poem when he was an undertrial prisoner in Alipore Jail during 1908-09. Yes, it is an invitation to live largely, to live freely. To accept it is to open out the prospects and possibilities of the spirit in us.