LIFE

Life is not about 'GIVE' & 'TAKE'.
Life is about 'GIVE' & 'RECEIVE'

An Illusion Named God

Everybody has his own belief about God and these come out of different reasons. Thousands of years ago somebody would have discovered the true self within and might have termed it as God. Somebody might have got the similar feeling while he would have looked at the enormity of the universe. Somebody might have witnessed a truly enlightened person and would have termed him as God. These were their own true beliefs, which they ‘felt’. And as it is a very much personal experience, it cannot be replicated, but can only be felt in its originality by every individual.

Coming generations got to know about something called God and they ‘heard’ from different people different explanations. Why some people believe in God and some do not, I think cause for both beliefs is the same. It is like this.

The concept of God is being taught from generations and as the child grows up what he sees around, it becomes deeply engraved. However, what he has learnt is only superficial and has never experienced it. But the continuous teachings, actions and talks around him makes him to believe that what he has learnt is true. As a grown up individual, he knows the concept and he is stuck with it. Though somewhere something within questions it, but he has no answer for it. And he does not dare to answer it, as he is too afraid of letting his deep rooted beliefs to be proved wrong. So he fights for it. He will try to prove everywhere that God exists. He will argue and do all to prove that. What actually he is doing is trying to prove it to himself (and he never succeeds really).

The other extreme implication is like this. Person keeps listening to the concept and something within questions it. He does not find any justified answer to what is being taught. But he is bombarded with the teachings, and society and family force him to believe what is being believed for generations. Now this person explodes on the opposite direction. He becomes against to any such belief which talks about existence of God. He keeps on doing things to prove that God does not exist. But he does it only to prove somebody or something wrong. He never moves to know the truth.

Now both these type of people are simply wasting their valuable energy. They are holding on to a strange concept, which has never been their own (they don’t even know that they have actually adopted it from somebody else) and are trying to prove it right. And what do they gain by proving it right or wrong?

The reality, the truth needs to be realized and experienced within. It is not a principal which can be learnt. But what happens in our society is that the concept of God is taught and every child is stuffed with the knowledge about God. The learning actually proves to be harmful because once you learn something, you either try to justify it, fit it somewhere or stand against it. And this effort takes the consciousness away from the reality lying within. Majority of people are just blindly believing this concept. I am saying blindly because, they learn the concept first and then try to justify its existence by using some reasoning. But it is so dry and superficial and very dangerous as it makes the person prejudiced.

It does not mean that we disprove or ignore the old teachings. We should listen to them without making any judgement on their truth. We should simply understand that somebody is telling us something and we do not know whether it is true or false.

The people who believe in God and people who deny its existence, both are bound by some mental block. There is some intellectual stuff that they want to prove by arguing over something which cannot be argued with people (as it is a personal experience).

Somebody is asking if nature is God, who created nature? It must be God and therefore God exist. Other will ask, if you say somebody must create nature, then somebody must create God also, so who created God? Other would say God has always been there and nobody created it.

Now, let’s just think over it. What do we get out of all this? This is just mental illusion to get satisfaction that what I believe is right. But just probe in within. What you think, you believe, is it really your belief or it is something which has been stuffed into your mind by the society, the family and the people around. Is it something really which you truly believe in?

No belief about God in this society can be termed as right or wrong. But yes, one thing can definitely be said that the beliefs which make the person restricted, which makes him believe that other is wrong, which takes him away from himself, are surely not the right beliefs. The true belief is the one which liberates the person from all limitations, external and internal, which makes him feel respect for the life, which makes him spread the love around and with which he can feel the oneness within.

Compartmentalising Relationships

Friends, good friends, best friends, life partner - These and many more relationships are defined by us. We have named these relations based on our experience for years. And this is required sometimes to consciously know this separation. But it becomes unnecessary effort, when we try to compulsorily fit all individuals in these categories.

Can’t we just be, what we want to be to a person, without naming the relationship? So if I feel like chatting everyday with somebody, I do that. If I feel like doing something for the other, I do that. If I feel like spending life with somebody, I do that. Do we really need to categorise them into some compartments, which we only created and which have only increased the confusion?

Let us look at the beginning of civilisation. Somebody would have felt that he is good person to chat with and I have good time with him. So they started spending time together, sharing their thoughts and doing things together (We call them friends).

And then there is somebody, who feels like - I cannot live without this person. After meeting him/her, he/she becomes an essential part of the life. One feels a completeness with him/her. So they choose to stay together (We call it marriage)

But in these cases, reason comes first and then we name the relationship. Then only purity of relationship remains. What we normally do is, as soon as we meet a person, we try to fit him into a category in our life. So the relationship is named first, and then efforts are taken to adjust things as per that. It cannot sustain. There is such a vast degree of difference in our relationships, that we cannot put two people at same place in our life. They occupy a completely different space.

Take the case of marriage. In real sense, there is no need to do adjustments, sacrifices and so on. What I mean is, even if it looks like a sacrifice to others, it is not actually. So as Ashwita said, the spouse will learn to play the sport, it may look to others that spouse is adjusting or taking extra effort for maintaining marriage. But to him/her, it is gaining happiness from the happiness of life partner. It is so natural, if two people are in love.

But problem happens, when marriages are performed as a ritual, as a necessity. And then two people try to fit themselves into the expected framework. This may work out, but it will require adjustments and sacrifices and these do not sustain for long (at least these cannot let you have the real essence of love). Today there is so much hoopla and gyan on maintaining relationships, the reason is basic feeling is missing. People marry without having the right reason for it. Marriages happen first and then reasons are searched to stay together. That’s not marriage (or at least it was not meant like that, when it would have started).

I think the question is not whether best friend can be a good husband, but point is, anybody you are going to marry, is he the one with whom you want to spend your entire life? Is he the one who gives fulfillment to your life? Is he the one with whom you are yourself? Is he the one with whom your journey of life will be more joyful and enriching? Now, the ones we call as best friends may or may not fit as the part of life. It cannot be generalized. It depends on your way of life and values, and the way you define best friends.

He is mean to me

If somebody feels that people are making fool of him or people are mean to him, the total fault is of the person himself and nobody else. Fault is not about doing something for people who do not value it or try to take advantage out of it. But fault is of doing something and feeling bad about it depending on the reactions of others.

It is true that we all expect people to respond properly for something done by us. It is very normal to feel bad when you know that people are taking advantage out of your generosity.

But first of all, let us see what we are doing? We feel like doing something. We feel like doing it because we wanted to do it. We do it. Now we should be happy about following our heart, about taking an action which WE wanted to take. But what we do - We try to get the acknowledgement from others. Nothing wrong in that. We should take reactions from people. But problem is it goes to the extent that our future actions become dependent on it? So if somebody gave a return smile, we will smile again, but if somebody didn’t, we will hate his face (many times we do not know what was the reason of him not smiling).

Similarly, many times we think that the other person is being mean to us. But it is always better to understand it completely before making interpretation. It is even better to talk it out. But we do not do that, we are more comfortable assuming things, than opening up and saying things as they are.

And it may be that person is trying to take undue advantage of us. but how can a person make us do something which we did not want to do? And if we wanted to do something, and he is taking advantage out of it, let him take. How are we bothered about it? If we feel that something should be done for the other, let’s not do it. But doing it and then cribbing – isn’t it fooling ourselves?

Another aspect of such cases is - it is not only that other people are mean in these cases, but many times person makes himself gullible to such things. He will have a self image of being good to others. He secures acceptability from doing things for others. Now even if he knows that other people are taking advantage of him, he will not have courage to come out and say 'this is enough'. He will continue doing that and will keep cribbing on the back. He will not break his image of being nice and will continue his goody things. He will not understand that by winning others acceptability he is losing self respect. Now if he does not have courage to follow his heart, how can he blame others? The people who support his goody actions, may seem like his friend but they make him even weaker. The reactions they get is rather a good trigger to know that you are following your heart and falling into other’s trap.

They say, if stone and glass crashes and glass breaks, it is not because of stone, but the nature of the glass. This may sound very rude, but it is the fact. This is not to support the mean actions of others. There is no doubt that we all should have gratitude to goodness done to us. But point is, we can’t go and change the world to react as what we wish. We can only work to become strong enough to face any foolish, stupid, mean or shrewd behaviour.

There are people who know what they are doing and are happy about it irrespective of what others say or do about it. They do their part, let people do their own. Everybody is free to do what he or she wishes. If we start bothering about reactions of others, we cannot move even a single step. Everybody has his own way of thinking.

Yes, it is difficult to do acts independent of other’s reactions. But this difficulty is just an illusion. Ask a person (or ask yourself), who has been spoiling his hours and days remembering other’s reactions. Ask him, by doing that what he has done to himself and his time. Is it not difficult to spend time like this? I think doing what we want to do and leaving reactions to other’s choices is much easier. It’s only a matter of knowing it.

Brothers & Sisters - How Chemistry Goes Bad

(Somebody shared his not-so-good relationship with his brother and this came out in repsonse).

We have always heard of great friendship stories. Childhood friends sharing a great relation for the rest of their age. they might not play around same way, but just look at them when they meet after years.

Ever seen such a bonding among siblings? There may be some, but so rare. 90% of the cases, we come across are such where siblings do not share a great bondage. Yes, they share a great deal between them, but still it does not go much beyond blood connection and rarely reaches the intensity of freindhsip (Rather, in many cases, relationship gets spoiled as they grow and start getting settled in their lives). In 9.5% cases, relationship is sour from childhood or teenage itself.

It is surprisingly so familier situation and I am sure that most of us share greater relationships with friends rather than brothers or sisters. And we all have some degree of friction with siblings, ranging from fights over petty matters to the complete cold war. There are in fact very few people who have got their siblings as their best friends. Now this seems so contradictory. They are the ones we know since our childhood and understand them much better than anybody else, and then also we are not able to develop wonderful relationships with them.

If we have a clear look, we might find that most of the times reason does not lie in what we did not do, or what we should have done, or what we need to do, but rather in contamination of relationship with needless considerations we add to the simple chemistry (Rather that’s true with any relationship).

Let’s look at this relationship simply. Here is somebody who knows us and whom we know so well. They are the ones who have cared for us and we have reciprocated. They are here so that the life is more enjoyful. They are here so that joys and sorrows can be shared. They are there so that we can remove our social masks and become the real self and open our hearts and share our feelings. They are there so that we play and laugh together. That is the simple (but very powerful) role for which they are there in our life.

In this simple chemistry, the contamination we bring is reacting to other's reaction. So, last time when I went to him (or anytime I approach him), he did not responded…or yelled at me…or gave me a sarcastic remark…or regarded me as less important and so on.... Yes, these things are painful. But we never go beyond ruminating over our bad feeling. We just withdraw ourselves from talking to him, deciding that talking to them gives pain (that’s our immediate conclusion). It is painful even to face the memory of what happened and so immediate and easiest way is to withdraw. But our mind does not let us go so easily. It reminds us continuously – no he is your brother, how can you have bad relationship with them, no that is not possible. And we get mad between these thoughts (we never go beyond these thoughts and continuous rumination).

We first need to face this reality - Yes, I had painful interaction or events with him. And if I am thinking over it, it means that I want it to transform to good relationship. We might even realize that, we do not want to have great relationship with this person. This is very much possible. It may be that we are moving with burden of obligation to make relationship strong, just because of blood connection. Once we realize this, the way he reacts will not be of any significance.

Whatever it is, let us get clear about what we want first. If we know that a nice relationship will make our life better, we would better see if we can do something about it.

“Let me see, what he did to me. He made this reaction, which I did not like and it hurt me. Why did he do that? Did he know when he did that and whether he is aware about how I feel about it? If not, let me go and ask. But asking for such things feels so embarrassing. What he will think about it? He will think that I am a fool asking such a question? Or he will react even more badly on me asking this? It will be really bad then. Yes it might be. But right now I am feeling miserable. At least here there is a hope. It might be that he did it unintentionally and so things will get clear. My intention is clear – I want good relationship – and so even if I make some mistake in doing that, it is fine. It may be that he is doing that intentionally. Then he needs to answer for that. And even if he does not answer, at least he need to know that I feel bad about it and I want this relationship to give happiness to both of us and to people around us.”

The best thing when we feel uneasiness with anybody, is to express that uneasiness as it is. In 50% cases, the other person immediately opens up and expresses his feelings, though may not be very openly (they do not expect this openness from us, but they also feel burdenless when we talk freely. Their immediate reaction might be anything, but they develop respect for openness, honesty and intentions. They rather start understanding us better). In other 50% cases, person might tell us not to worry about his reaction. Even he feels bad about the way he reacts and he will thank for giving the feedback. (In all cases, one realization which comes, is that the matter was not so complex, difficult and cumbersome, as I had created in mind by delaying the conversation for so long).

The reaction that we always dread (he will feel insulted, or will get angry or will just walk away) never arise. And even if it happens exceptionally, it is only an immediate reaction and our free talk definitely leaves a mark of openness and intentions. Somewhere he does realize the real situation. The mistake that we make in these situations is to react to his immediate reaction either openly or within ourselves. We only need to be attentive to our actions and to stick to what we think is right. In such cases, it might take some time, but gradually the person starts melting. It is difficult to accept faults and we can make their job easy by behaving in manner in which we think is right (and in not reacting to his behaviour). So if I feel like giving smile to him, I will give it, irrespective of his indifferent or puzzled looks. If I feel like telling him something, I will tell him and look at him expectantly as an ordinary person would expect an answer. If he does not answer, I will feel bad as a normal person would, if I really get that feeling. And it gives such a wonderful feeling, because we will suddenly feel liberated. We are no more dependent on others reactions to decide our actions. We become free from something which had controlled all our reactions, contrary to our will. Now we are in control of our own actions. It feels wonderful and it will transform our life as well as life of people around dramatically.

If someone feels that brother being more intelligent is not giving him proper response, he would better go deeper. See how many good friends of him are intelligent. We do not need intelligent people for relationships. We need loving and caring people. But we trade in love also. I cared and loved so much for him and he did not even notice. What is this? Why do you want a DESIRED and SPECIFIC reaction in response? Why can’t you do what you want to do and end the matter. Let other person do what he thinks he should do. But we always condition our action as per how other person should react to our actions. So if he does not react as we desire, we withdraw totally from him.

And it is not withdrawal. Rather it is a dirty attachment. Every time we remember that person or see him, we are filled with pain. So we develop a relationship, but a painful one. Yes, it is difficult not to expect a desired response. So expect it, no problem. It is painful, if it does not come that way. Yes it is so, accept it. Why to run away from these things. Life is what it is and pain is where we run away from reality, from things as they are. We do not want to even accept that what happened has actually happened. Let’s take a step forward. Yes, it is not easy. But sitting and feeling bad is also not easy. Is it easy to bear the burden of bad relationship? And we have choice of actions. We can stop talking to him. Yes. What will happen then. We will not be able to face each other. We will have this pinch all the time. If I do not want this, what’s the other way. Go and talk to him. Express all feelings truly and openly. There is no chance that he will not understand it.

What is Loss of Humour

(Somebody shared his anxiety over loss of humour and this came out)

Are you talking about situation, where you want to laugh with people, crack jokes, make people laugh, have good and fun time with them. But at the same time, you are somehow not able to do that. Either there is something which stops you from coming out with something humourous, or that even if you want to come out, you can't find the right manner, or other's probable reactions hold you from saying what you want to say?

If that is the case, it may have its roots in you trying to save your image in mind of others. Let me share this example and realisation. A child grows up in an atmosphere, where you have defined criteria of what is good and what is bad. So you learn that drinking, smoking, flirting are signs of bad boys. These boys do all mischief in school and at home. Good boys are sincere and concentrate only on studies. They do not run around, laugh around. They are serious, sincere and polite. All these years, boy gets to learn these things and get rewards for complying with society defined norms.

He sees children playing in streets, getting soiled, shouting and laughing. He also feels like going. But immediately the thought is buried, as being weired. He has seen others failing and himself getting high marks. He has got results and so he does not mind being that way.

As he grows, he knows he is good boy and is always rewarded being that way. So in all his actions, he either tries to enhance that image or to protect this image. And while concentrating on this imaginary self made projection, he loses the real self. In most of the cases that I have observed, loss of humour is because the person wants to cling to his image and does not want to create a different image in society. This fear and hesitation takes aways the inner joy, freshness and originality of person. One can't be genuinely humourous with such burden on head.

To be really humourous, person needs to be completely free of any such burden. Effective humour in most of the cases is not pre-intended. It just comes out. It is the basic nature of humans. Only we have suppressed it under multiple layers.

The only way to gain it back is to break these layers. And it may take time, depending on how many layers you have created. One way in which it can be practically done is to be attentive to the events when you hold yourself from saying or doing something. On such occassions, ask yourself why you are not moving ahead. If answer comes in terms of others will laugh or others might not feel right about it, then go ahead and do that. Break your image of being a good boy, or a serious person or a decent individual. You are what you are. If you feel that doing or saying something (which you feel like saying or doing) will make others think that you are a fool or you are mad or you are not consistent in your actions, better to listen to your voice and do it, rather than holding it up. After all before pleasing any body else you need to please the most important person - Yourself. If you only care about others and not about yourself, your SELF will be lost. So open up and do not leave an opportunity to just be.

Just a Thought

Har Karwaan se aage nikalne ka Junoo Tha hamme,
Zindagi kab peechhe nikal gayi pata naa chalaa.