The other day the mother of a student studying in my center came to me late evening and informed that she was discontinuing the course that her girl was studying. I was surprised to hear that for two reasons. Firstly, the girl is a well mannered and a committed student all set to do well in life. Secondly, the decision was too abrupt. I probed the mother for the reason and she immediately broke down. It came as a shock to me that the girl’s education has been stopped because she is in love with a boy whom the family doesn’t favour. I felt sad about this. The next day I met the girl and spoke to her. She was in tears too. I learnt from her that she had attempted suicide thrice and now she a complete mental wreck. What stuck me about this incident is that there are many such cases happening these days. The reason is pretty obvious. The values and tradition which is embedded in our family system is in clash with the freedom which is readily available today. In middle class this conflict is more visible than others. Words like love are still frowned upon. But my point is – is it worth the tussle?

Well family values have contributed a lot towards the stability of our country and have been sustaining our culture across generations, but I guess a time has come for us to open a little bit to accommodate fresh thoughts. With increasing globalization we can no longer remain an isolated breed. Boys and girls get to mingle a lot more and necessarily this will lead to quicker maturity in forging relationships at a young age. The need of the hour is not spurn and disregard these adolescent forays into infatuation or love, but to understand them and guide them if possible in the process. Caste, creed, religion are no more as material to love or marriage as it used to be earlier. The reason why there is a conflict in accepting these relationships is more often the urge to dominate the life of one’s kid as chartered by the parents and unwillingness to approve an independent decision by their children. In many families there is definitely a change in perception as is attested by the many inter caste marriages that we see today, but there is an overwhelming section of the population who still would  close themselves in a cocoon and treat any violation as an aberration to be disregarded without any consideration whatsoever. The prime age of a boy or a girl should not be wasted in mental agony over a relationship. It must be spent sharpening their brains and preparing themselves for bright career.

One more reason for parents to object to a relationship is that the chosen partner is not suitable for their kid. Either it could be that education does not match expectations or it could be family background is murky, in which case, parents are normally reluctant to accept the association. The point is taken but the fact remains that the boy and the girl like each other and no amount of reasoning can tear the relationship apart. What do we do then? To me it seems there is just one way out. The parent can try reasoning but if it does not work out, it is better to allow the kid to go his own way and make them completely responsible for their acts. In many cases we find that such an attitude changes the way the kids look at the relationship. Because the ball now is in their court and they understand that they do not have the necessary stability professionally or otherwise to sustain themselves. The relationship then begins to fade away or they take the headlong plunge and reap the consequences if it their destiny to do so. The other way would be guide them along and help them to settle down amicably. This is rather difficult to do.

To conclude, the fact of the matter is that we should start adapting to the changing times. Arnold Toynbee, the renowned historian in his masterpiece titled “The study of History” – a massive ten volume work reaches the conclusion that any society that does not adapted will gradually become isolated and eventually exterminated. Love marriages, live in relationships have become a part of our society and it is bound to percolate to all levels in the coming future. Understanding social currents and going with the flow is an integral part of remaining peaceful and happy. A society must help an individual fulfill his potential and contribute to the betterment of it. Let us then adapt and grow rather then confine and perish.

I have observed this tendency in many youngsters to reject Gods and Temples with nonchalance. It seems to them almost demeaning or embarrassing to even talk of it. They believe that life is totally in their hands and it requires nobody’s intervention. On one hand this self confidence is highly appreciated but on the other hand they have completely missed the relevance and significance of religious culture. It is true that the way religion is abused in our society leaves one with nothing but skepticism about the whole idea, but that should not take anything away from the fact that the spiritual culture we have inherited had a profound base and its tenets had a much larger meaning than what we have assigned to it in contemporary society.

For some time let us forget the various names given to religions (Hinduism, Islam etc) and their various subsets and look at the origins of this reverence to the unknown – which we call as religion. Primitive Man was hapless in front of the awesome forces of nature. His daily existence was determined by these forces and he thought by appeasing the wind or the rain in some way, his life would be more controlled and secured. And thus began the saga of rituals. Over the ages these wild incantations developed into a rigid system of “worship” with its own power hierarchies. The notable feature in this development is the fact no matter how refined and purified the prayers became the element of unpredictability and insecurity in Man’s life never left him totally. A fatalistic belief in fate began to rule the mind of man. A giving up of one’s life into unknown hands took the shape of God’s and Goddesses whose task it was to guard the world of uncertainties. Festivals and other days of worship became coded into the calendars of culture and it became the bounden duty of every person to attend places of worship and offer prayers mainly to propitiate the wild and virulent natural forces symbolized by these Gods. But the underlying urge behind these acts is the knowledge that our lives are never in our control. In every religion, we find there is parallel path of thought where a few men rejected the vain idolatry of their times. They were not atheists. They acknowledged the impersonal hold on their lives but they did not seek the reasons for it in the outer world, but dug deep within themselves to seeking out an answer. This line of thought came to be known as mysticism, and invariably in every society the mystics were looked upon with fear. The reason was clear. The mystics looked upon the Gods not as truths by themselves but as symbol of cosmic laws which none had the power to understand or change. A temple to them was not a place for appeasement but a sanctum sanctorum where one comes face to face with his own reality. The reality that life is lived through us and not by us and we have to accept whatever life has to give with a deep inner resignation. That is the true meaning of visiting temple-To prostrate before the cosmos, Understanding truly that every one of us has a role to play in this divine drama and that our personal will is only a myth. In a way we are led by destiny.

So visiting a temple is not to venerate an idol, but look beyond it and look through the inner meaning. If you want to show somebody where the moon is you have to point a finger towards it. Once the person has seen the direction of the pointed finger, he has to look beyond to actually see the moon. Similarly, the temples are pointers to the unknown. Do not get caught with pointer – See where it points too.

The search of every human being is to be able to live a balanced life. A life that is free from sorrow,pain,suffering. From birth till death this is the constant endeavour of every man. Every individual strives for peace in a unique way. But very rarely do we find a person who can genuinely-from the depths of his heart say:”I have found peace”. Why is that out of all the creatures on this planet has man made a mess of his own life? We appreciate nature for its multifarious dimensions. We yearn for the joy that a scenic beauty gives us but we are unable to acquire that quality of well being that organisms around us seem to enjoy. Have we ever observed a dog?It eats when it is hungry, It barks when in anger,it pets when needed too. There is a always a flow in its life. It never stagnates .Whereas the life of a human is always full of pauses and worries. We seek permanency in all our acts. We willfully embrace pleasure and try our level best to shun pain. A choice ridden life is what we seek. We forget to understand the life is a movement- Events happen,Deeds are done but there is no doer thereof. A balanced life is one where there is total acceptance of life and moving with the flow. I can recall a lovely anecdote in the life of the legendary Tennis player Arthur ashe. Ashe was known for gentlemanly behaviour on and off the court. He was the first Black player to have won the prestigious Wimbledon title. In his later years, he was borne down by Cancer. A reporter while interviewing him asked the following question:Why has God chosen you for such a dreadful disease?

The answer Ashe gave is an eye opener to all of us. He replied : “ Every year Fifty lakh youngsters enter into game of Tennis. Out of which 20 lakh continue playing the game. Amongst these 5 lakh get to play the game at the professional level. Out of these about 50000 play the game at the international level. From these numbers only 330 players get into the Grand slams. Then one amongst these holds aloft the championship trophy. When I held the trophy upon the podium, I did not ask God “WHY ME”. Now when I am bedridden why should I ask him “ WHY ME”. That is precisely our problem. We feel victimized by life. Why should we question the cosmic will. Let us go with the movement and we definitely find the elusive peace and contentedness that we spend our lives searching for. Lets stop asking “WHY ME” and start asking “WHY NOT ME”.

One of the greatest lessons I have learnt in my life is that it pays to remain quiet. Preoccupation has become a disease with most of us. I travel by bus everyday. Many people climb in and out of the bus as I travel to my workplace. It is amazing to see that early in the morning, fresh from their homes, men and women physically present in the bus but mentally so far away. There is a blank look on their faces. They don’t smile, they lack energy. They are outwardly quiet, but you can see it on their faces that they are chattering away internally. It happens to us all the time, doesn’t it?. There is not a single second in a day when we are not thinking. Our bodies are busy with work but our minds are somewhere else. That is why at the end of the day, we are worn out completely. A farmer puts it a thousand times more physical effort than we do, yet at the end of the day he is relaxed. The human brain is never wholly quiet. Frankly, have we had a single moment when we can confidently say that we have been thoughtless. We seem to apparently suffer from a thought tortured brain. No activity can be accomplished efficiently if there is constant interference of thoughts. Swami Chinmayananda used to say “Let your mind remain where your hands are”. In other words, focus on the task at hand and ward of any unnecceasry intrusions. This is obviously easier said than done. But if begin to apply this principle diligently in our lives, we will definitely find that it becomes easier to do this. To learn anything new, we must empty the thought bucket. Now read this beautiful story:

A earnest student kept knocking persistently at the door of a Zen master to learn about enlightenment. The master never allowed him to enter his cottage. The student came again and again. One day, the Master opened the door with a beaming smile on his face and welcomed the student . He made him sit on the chair and started preparing some tea in a vessel. Then he a picked up a cup and started pouring tea into it. The student was watching the master very intently. The cup was full, but the master kept pouring more tea into it. The liquid started overflowing. The student was perturbed. The master showed no signs of stopping. The student couldn’t contain himself any longer and blurted out ” Sir, The cup is full. It cannot contain any more”. At this point, the master halted; and looked benignly at the young boy and said ” Yes, my dear boy, an overflowing cup cannot be filled; so too an overflowing mind cannot absorb enlightenment. Empty your mind first and then come to me”. The student understood the message and payed obeisance to the Guru.

So learn to empty the mind….

As youngsters, we must realize that our personal agenda’s are short term and have no value whatsoever in the scheme of life. No, I am not trying to be fatalistic. We must have ambitions, we must be competitive and we must plan well. All these are absolutely necessary. But while doing these, we must be constantly aware that our activities are subject to cosmic approval. Let me illustrate. As a family, we plan to go out for a weekend. All preparations have been made. We are in a state of tremendous expectation. Suddenly, on Friday evening our car breaks down and the mechanic tells us that it won’t be ready before the weekend. Naturally, we are disappointed. We feel that we have been let down. We skulk over it and normally complain that life has been unfair to us. Well, it may be true. But there is nothing we can do about it. We must always bear in mind the fact that “Man proposes and God disposes”. Everything that happens to us has a meaning and purpose in life. The Chinese mystic Lao Tzu has a beautiful expression to denote this. He calls it the “The water course way”. Water’s natural tendency is to flow. No matter what the obstacle is. It ultimately flows. Our lives should follow this path. Every twist and turn that life offers us must be taken as an opportunity. Who knows what good lies in every evil? There is an old story in our literature. Listen to it.

There lived a young king, who was fair and handsome. He was so proud of his physical appearance that he would take extraordinary care to protect his body from a slightest scar. In his kingdom, there were a group of bandits who were terrorizing the population. No one in the kingdom dared to stop them. The king had no choice but to attend to the matter personally. So one day, he went along with his soldiers to the jungle, where the bandits were reportedly in hiding. The king was more worried about his own physical well being than catching the thieves. He rode carefully along the jungle avoiding all obstacles that may cause damage to his white skin. It so happened, that a small thorn jutting out a tree scratched the kings shoulder and his hand started bleeding. The king was distraught. He felt that his entire life was finished. He began cursing the gods for having wounded him. As this was going on, from no where the bandits swooped upon the king and his regiment. They handcuffed the king and took him to their den. The bandits were unusually happy because they had to sacrifice a fair young man that day. They did not know that the man they had captured was the king. On reaching the den the bandits started making preparations for the sacrifice. The young king forgot all about his wound. He was now stuck with mortal fear. He was going to be burnt alive. They had killed all his attendants and he was alone there in the midst of the forest. The chief of the thieves came up to him and said: “O young man, we are about to burn you. But our custom states that we can sacrifice only a body that does not have a scar. “. The king had forgotten all about the scar and started pleading with the chieftain that he was a king. All his wailings fell on deaf years. The thieves started stripping him to prepare the body for sacrifice. The chief suddenly noticed that there was blood on the king’s shoulder. He ordered his men to stop the proceedings. He told the king” You are fortunate! You have been saved by the smallest of scars”, now you are free to go”. The young king was let loose. He walked to his palace a changed man.

You see, sometimes we are caught up with our miseries so much, that we don’t understand the higher law at work.

Reflect on this.

The other important thing that I want you to reflect upon is Boredom. This is a very common word that is used by most of us. Is it not? We are bored; so we drink. We are bored, so we watch a movie. We are bored. So we sleep. If we analyze our lives closely, a majority of our actions are performed only to escape this demon called boredom. Let us analyze this curious phenomenon.

When do we get Bored? A straight forward answer is that any activity performed mechanically without total involvement in the act itself leads to a state of boredom. Every thing that we do gradually becomes a habit with us. And any act that is performed out of habit patterns invariably leads to a sense of incompleteness. For example, a man starts drinking. The first few pegs relaxes him. He begins to enjoy a sense of peace and well being. Now, he knows that a drink can take him to a blissful state which normally he is unable to attain. So the next time, he begins the drink with this expectation. And the moment the end result becomes more important than the act itself it becomes a habit. By and by, the act loses its charm and it becomes mechanical. This is more glaring example. But if we reflect on our day to day activities, we will find this principle at work. Listen to this beautiful ZEN story.

Three young monks were walking alongside a hill. They were chatting amongst themselves. All of a sudden one of them noticed that there was a man standing at the top of the hill, apparently doing nothing. He was standing at the very edge of the hill with his hands locked behind him and looking down the valley. Now, the three monks became curious. What would a man be doing at the top at the hill at this time of the day?

The first monk said:” I am sure that the man up there is going to commit suicide because his lover has ditched him. Look at the way he is standing near the edge of the hill”.

The second monk rebuked: “No, No. I think he has lost his cattle in the valley and he is searching for them”.

The third monk interjected and said: “Both of you are wrong. He is a spy, who is signaling the approach of the enemy”.

After much debate, the three of them decided to climb up and ask the man himself. They slowly walked up the hill. The man was still unmoved. Finally they reached the top and confronted the man.

The youngest monk said:” Sir, Can we ask you the purpose of standing alone here? WE feel that you may be a forlorn lover grieving over his beloved or a spy plotting against us or a herdsman looking for his cattle. Pray tell us what are you doing here?

The Man turned around and smiled benignly at the monks and said: “Dear monks, I am merely standing”.

Any activity that we undertake should be done with total involvement. Any activity done in this manner will not become a habit for the simple reason that the end result becomes unimportant. I Japan, they have a function called the “TEA CEREMONY”. Very simply put, this entire function is nothing but drinking tea. But in Japan, they have transformed this simple act into a beautiful episode. From sitting down, making the tea, pouring it into a cup and drinking; the entire act is done with total attention and love.

When the Bhagavad-Gita says:” To action you have the right, but to the fruits thereof”. To me it means – Do every action completely and don’t let it become a bore.

Reflect on this.

As youngsters, we have the habit of reacting to words. Observe yourself in your relationships. Every word, every gesture provokes us to do something, which we later regret. This habit develops in the early adolescent period of an individual. It is sometimes referred to as a rebel attitude. We never listen to anybody. All the time we are merely responding. This may seem all right when we are young, but later on this habit will create all sorts of problems for us. Many of us would have heard this lovely parable from Buddha’s life. Listen to it again:

Buddha and his close disciple Ananda used to go out for collecting food in the early mornings. Since he was greatly respected, every householder gave him a share of their food with great reverence. One day, as they were knocked at a door, the lady of the house romped outside and started casting aspersions on Buddha. She accused him of a being an idle man, who could not even earn his daily bread and rudely shut the door on his face. Buddha was unshaken. He merely bowed respectfully to the lady and kept walking. But Ananda was visibly upset. No one had addressed his teacher in such raw language. He was more upset by the fact that Buddha did not react at all, but merely smiled as if nothing had happened. Buddha was aware of Ananda’s state of mind, but said nothing. As they reached the end of the village, Buddha gave Ananda his bowl as a present. Ananda accepted it.

In the night, Buddha held his daily meeting with his bhiksus. He pointed to Ananda and asked him:

“O Great Ananda. The bowl that I see in your hand, whose is it?

Ananda replied “O divine one, the bowl is mine”

Buddha then said” That bowl was mine in the morning, how did it become yours by night fall?”

Ananda responded: “O Great one, you had presented the bowl to me and I had accepted it, hence the bowl has become mine”

Buddha smiled serenely and continued: “O great disciple, because you had accepted my gift, it has becomes yours. In the same way, if the words that were spoken by the house lady were accepted by me, then it would have been mine and I would have got hurt. But I refused her words and so it is hers still.”

Ananda’s eyes were full of tears. He prostrated at the Buddha’s feet and spoke no more.
True actions come out our inner core. This core is tapped only when we are silent inside and not constantly swayed by reactions that are generated by accepting every word thrown at us. Learn to be inwardly quiet. This could help us to live a quality life. Even in the midst of intense action, if our mind is quiet and unswayed, our productivity will improve. Experiment with inner quietness.

More later.