Indeed, a very fundamental question to ask to oneself is “Who Am I”. In this “Jet-age” or “Space-age” that we are living in, where more than half of the life goes in arranging the materials for pleasure and when we have them, we have consumed ourself to enjoy their benefits, do we really have time to even ponder ourselves to questions like these? The answer is ‘yes’, but when? It is the time when one is in the company of oneself. All of us start looking for such answers when either we feel a vacuum inside or there is something lifeless in us and we are not able to unearth its traces within us or when we are deeply culpable about some event, person or circumstance in life.
The question here is not about the biological genesis and cosmic genesis, but about our existence and interaction with the perceived world. To make things simple to understand, I am referring here about a Dilemma that we all face almost every day about our Good-self or Bad-self.
Where do they come from inside us? We often ask ourselves that are we so BAD? When someone praises we have it back of our mind that Are we really that GOOD? Do we deserve this praise? So fundamentally where these Good and Bad forms come from? Still in doubt? Why does it happen that when someone leaves a complement for us, we are not able to take it gracefully or when someone criticizes us, we stand too good against any fault? I often wonder, if we are neither good, nor we are bad, then what and Who are WE?
Some philosophers have put this simplistically in words by saying that world is not black and white (evil and good), it’s in the shades of grey. So are we. The blend of goodness and evil is very much part of us. This is as true as our existence. These qualities exist in us in form of Gunas as described in Shri Bhagwat Gita. Not going into details of it, we need diagnosis of what should be done to overcome these, so as to live a life of openness, bliss and joy.
The answer to all the above questions lie within ourself. We have to take a step forward towards self-realization i.e. realizing our true self. The right response to above questions comes with the ACCEPTANCE of the very fact that we constitute of all kinds of Gunas (Rajas, Tamas & Sattva). But the warning here is that this acceptance doesn’t mean we should start living a passive life. Certainly the other door to reality that opens here is Karma (Hinduism) or Kamma (Budhism). So whatever we are living today has been manifested by us in our past and whatever we are doing today will manifest into reality in future. Hence our continuous efforts should be towards breeding goodness seeds in us.
There is a very nice story explaining this, when a boy asked his grandfather that what is there in us that make us good or bad? Grandfather replied that there are two kinds of wolves in us, a good wolf and a bad wolf. They keep on fighting with each other and eventually one of them wins. This fight happens every time we need to make choices in life, whether small or big. The boy asked with curiosity that which one finally wins – the good wolf or the bad wolf? Grandfather said the Wolf that wins is the one we feed.
So we should not condemn or hate ourselves for any bad experience with us, as all good-bad is part of us, but rather realize, learn and transform the learning to become the feed for the good wolf in us, because he is responsible for a brighter future tomorrow.
We all fight another question very often that people say that ‘think-positive’. How can we continuously plot positive ideas by nullifying the negative ones? Of course Affirmations are handful in this, but talking from my personal experience, one law has really helped me a lot. Though there is still a long way to master it, but it sets you up to easily accept things and quickly move on to life. This is the LAW of IMPERMANENCE. Rightly said by someone that “Nothing is permanent except change”. Every event that we encounter in life has a beginning – maturity – ending. If we see a bigger picture, then all these events are mere phases in life. The moment we remind ourself this law, we’ll see that the negative thought has already disappeared. You won’t even labour to plant a good thought and still will be out of negativity. Though it is miraculously good if we replace negatives with positive thoughts.
This reminds me of another story – once there was a king who was very prosperous and powerful. One fine morning he went to jungle for hunting and saw a sacred man in some problem. Since the king was kind hearted, so he decided to help the man and in return the sacred man gave him a pendent with a word that open this pendent when you are going through the worse time of your life. The king gracefully accepted it. Years passed under his great rule and one day under an invasion he lost the war and was forced to relocate to jungle. He was sitting under a tree, extremely exhausted, thirsty and hopeless, when suddenly he remembers the words of the sacred man, who gave him a pendent and asked him to open it when he going through the worst time in life. He thought what could be worse than this when he has lost his wife, empire and even loosing health. He decided to open the pendent and found a note in it which read “jaise wo din nahi rahe, ye din bhi nahi raheinge” … meaning like golden days have gone these bad days will also pass by. This fuelled him with all the zest to fight again in life.
So looking at the bigger picture of life won’t take away problems but it will reduce its magnitude to a tiny dot. All we need is an awareness of this truth that is the real consciousness.
Sending Love, Laughter and Joy….. Parth Sharma
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