The last letter from a father

Hello, my loved ones. Hugs and kisses. 

You’re going to read this letter after I die. I want to focus on something specific in this: my mediocrity.

By social standards, I did not achieve “excellence.” I did not garner grand success in my career, nor did I accrue tremendous wealth. I did not “scale” my life to help thousands of people. My impact remained limited; I was heard by only a few, and the quality of my work never exceeded a certain level of worldly clarity or renown. By many metrics, I remained average.

But do not think I am dying with any pain or regret because of this. 

I want to tell you that my success—the way I defined it—lay in being completely at peace with that mediocrity. Because you love me, you might argue that I achieved a different kind of excellence simply by being so comfortable not fulfilling social standards. I am not sure what to call it.

But here is what I have understood about life: How can anything be truly mediocre if everything is a piece of the Divine?

If the Creator is in everything, how can there be mediocrity? The concept of “mediocrity” lies only in the minds of people who haven’t tasted, experienced, or understood Divinity. 

Have I experienced the divine? I don’t know. But I have experienced some level of joy, contentment, and peace. Was that Divinity? How do I know? I only know that what I experienced was valuable to me, and I would never exchange it for worldly excellence.

A father who loves his children can only wish for them the highest that he has seen. So, I wish for you this: Whether you achieve excellence by social standards or remain “ordinary” in the eyes of the world, may you experience this Joy. May you have peace and contentment.

I hope that you listen to Kirtan.

I hope that you listen to Gurbani.

More than that, I hope you understand Gurbani. I hope your experience of the Divine is real—that you are not limited to just an intellectual understanding, but that you actually taste it in your life. I hope this feeling grows so big within you that you help others taste it, too.

Finally, I want to ask you: How will you respond to someone who calls your father a mediocre person?

Would you like to know how I wish you would respond?

I wish that you would respond with agreement. Smile and say:

“Yes, he was. And he was completely fine, at peace, and even joyful being that way. While you see his mediocrity, we also see what was way beyond that. And not just him, no human being can be measured by what he accomplished or failed to accomplish in this world.”

Your father