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Year: 2012

Really Letting Go

Really Letting Go

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When I first learned Reiki, every thing was about problem solving. We’d request Reiki to help us make everything go our way – get well soon, get that score/ promotion/ job we wanted, let that nasty person stay away, or even something as simple as being able to eat gulab jamuns soon. But problems are a part of life. Get rid of one, and another takes it’s place. A desire for a problem-free life is a futile dream. We realised that life wasn’t about making things go your way, it was about learning to accept things as they are. So then we’d request Reiki to help us accept the situation as it was. It seemed we’d made great progress!

We know that happiness starts to seep in when we remain in the present moment. Chasing anything – money, power, fame, stability, a state of oneness in relationships, better marks, an award, give us temporary pleasure during the chase when we imagine our besotted future, and another few moments if we achieve it. Then we’re faced with the void again, and we need to chase something soon before we go insane. The only way to be free from this loop is to accept the present as it is.

This is where the catch comes in. While accepting things as they are is a beautiful endeavor, most of us forget that the desire to accept things as they are often comes from a desire to be at peace. Which is a sign that you are NOT accepting your present emotions as they are. So there is a big difference between really embracing things as they were, and the desire to accept things – because the latter is again a chase, and not in the present moment at all.

When a friend told me recently that he had been focused on being a better human being ever since he was little, I asked him why. Startled, he realised that the only reason he wanted to be better was because he didn’t accept himself for who he really was. We’re going to get better anyway, whether we like it or not. There may be short stints where we go crazy and appear like we’re regressing, but that is all part of the growth, and will happen even if we make growth the agenda of our lives. It is natural to grow. But if that drive – to be a better human being is replaced by a deep acceptance of ourselves with all our flaws, it will allow us to really experience peace, and to really love ourselves and others.

So love and peace are not a chase, they are in this moment, right now. All we need to do is completely relax into the present moment, no matter how uncomfortable it seems. Kind of like when we’re learning to swim for the first time, and the water terrifies us, and then we realise that we can trust the water, and slowly start to loosen up. We can trust life, we can slowly start to loosen up, slowly start to embrace what is, all the flaws included. Right Now.

QnA: Assessment Vs Judgment

QnA: Assessment Vs Judgment

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Are you passing judgments without giving them the benefit of doubt?

I just love it when someone asks me a nice, sensible question! Here’s another lovely question from a lovely student.

Question:

Hi Ashwita,
I was following this recent post of yours about extrovert and introverts which went a little offtrack, and you mentioned, we are not comparing, and judging. That got me thinking, and I have been wondering – Is Judging a wrong thing to do ? Isnt judging someone a mere reflection of our own image ? and if judging is wrong, why is everyone doing it all the time ? Isnt it more spontaneous ? It need not come out vocally, but isnt it a thought ? and is that not involuntary ? How can we stop our thoughts from judging or not judging a person , as we are trained in our mind to do so.

How to identify from what is judging, and what is expressing concern or expressing opinion? I want a clear thought, Can you please help me with this?

Ashwita:

To say that judging is wrong, would be a judgment in itself 🙂 But yes, judging is not a productive process and usually tends to cause pain to the person judging as well as the person being judged.

We only judge others with parameters we use on ourselves, so being aware of the judgments we make on others can be a huge learning experience if we want to understand our own minds.

However, it is possible that you have confused assessment and judgment. The former is required, the other is quite dispensable. You are right though, that judgment has become quite natural to our behaviour – but i believe that that is not because it is really natural, but because it is a very early learned behaviour – one of the first things our parents do is judge us, so we learn it quite quickly. You can let go of this behaviour just like you would let go of any other habit – by observation and acceptance.

So what is the difference between judgment and assessment? Assessment is observing and making notes about the characteristics of a person. For example, if you notice that a friend of yours lied, you might make a mental note of that, and then take her words with a pinch of salt when she talks the next time. A good assessment is hugely beneficial in protecting oneself against possible harm.

Judgment on the other hand, is assessment + opinion. Now once you realise that this friend lies, if you jump to the conclusion that she is mean and horrible, then that would be a judgment. This would affect your behaviour around her, no matter how you tried, and eventually it might lead to problems in the relationship. The biggest problem in judgment is that it doesn’t take into account the fact that your assessment might be wrong. Maybe that wasn’t a lie at all, maybe it was said because of really dire circumstances, or maybe she’s honest only with you – you never know.

Assessment would be awareness of the other person’s flaws without getting emotional about it. It is based in the broad belief that human beings have flaws and it is perfectly natural to be flawed – it allows us to accept ourselves and others completely and allows us to love more wholly. When we are very judgmental, we tend to lie to ourselves about our shortcomings, because we have an image to live up to. This prevents real growth.

And I’ve just used a small example of lying but we know things can get a lot more serious than that. We’re a very judgmental society and we judge everyone from dark skinned people to introverts, unmarried people to divorcees, and even rich and poor people. We forget that our opinion really doesn’t matter at all to anyone except ourselves.

Ofcourse I know that you’re aware by now that judgments you apply on others, you also apply on yourself, so when you do the same thing you’re judging another about, this is how your own image of yourself will also look – and that will make it that much harder for you to love yourself. And when we make judgment, from my experience I know that we have to go through those situations eventually, in this life or next, to understand what that person was really going through.

I hope that answers your question 🙂

Sympathy Vs Empathy

Sympathy Vs Empathy

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Are you helping them up or pushing them down?

 We have grown up in a society where one is allowed, or even expected, to feel sorry for someone in trouble. To be worried for a loved one is seen as a normal thing, as a sign of concern, affection or love.

But when we sympathise, what are we really expressing, and where is it coming from? When a loved one is in pain, it is quite natural to feel disturbed, and many of us find it hard to see them in that situation, and try our best to pull them out of it. Does this truly pull them out of their mess?

Sympathy and empathy are quite different, and while the latter can help someone quite dramatically, the former can, despite the best intentions, crush a tired soul.

Believe it or not, sympathy is an ego-driven emotion. It is based in the belief that we are somehow superior to the troubled one by the virtue of not being in trouble or having been through it already. It is also based in the need to be needed – a sympathetic person subconsciously believes that the troubled one is not strong enough to handle the problem on his/ her own and needs his/her help to resolve the issue. Therefore the desperation to help the other out, even if the other hasn’t asked for help.

Think about it – if you saw an old man and a teenager fall down simultaneously, whom would you rush to help first? Obviously the old man, because you’d reason that the teen can help himself, but the old man may not be able to. When you believe that a person is incapable of helping himself, you tend to rush to help, irrespective of whether the person has asked for help or not. And in this process, you are subconsciously telling them that you don’t think they are strong enough to handle the problem on their own. Consider the impact of a belief like that on one who is already crumbling under the weight of problems.

Empathy stems from an underlying belief that the other person is completely capable of handling the problem. One would offer to help but not force advice down the person’s throat. An empathetic person would spend much more time listening to the problem, and much less time offering advice. An empathetic person would also be less judgmental, thereby aiding healing, since the other person would be encouraged to feel more self-love and judge himself less harshly.

Here are a few typical statements:
Sympathy: “I know exactly what you’re feeling!”
Empathy: “I’m sure I have no idea what you’re going through right now”
What is really going on: We tend to feel sympathetic when we see a person facing a problem which we internally believe we could not have handled ourselves. That is why we get so disturbed when we see them in it. No matter what the problem is, even if you have been through a similar problem in the past, it is still not identical to the problem being described – the circumstances are totally different. A sympathetic person projects his own problems onto the person, and therefore believes strongly that he knows exactly what the person is talking about. An empathetic person on the other hand, can see clearly that the situation is something he or she has not been through before, so it would be hard to know exactly what the person is going through right now.

Sympathy: “I’m sure if you do this your problem will be solved”
Empathy: “What do you think is the best way to tackle this? Have you tried ?”
What is really going on: Since the sympathetic person believes that the other is incapable of handling his own problems, he takes it upon himself to solve the other’s problems. Solutions are offered one after the other, and this problem takes up much of his time and energy. Even after the other person has finished sharing the problem and gone home, the sympathetic person continues to pace and worry, making his problems his own. What he’s really doing, subconsciously, is asking himself what he would have done, had he been in the same situation. It has nothing to do with the other person.

An empathetic person would stay somewhat outside the picture, being able to see and show the larger perspective, maybe thus offering a larger scope for solutions. It can be compared to a person drowning. A sympathetic person would jump right in, only to realise that he can’t swim either, pulling the other person down with him. An empathetic person would stay out of the water and see if there is any way he can help from outside.

Sympathy: “I just can’t see you like this!”/ “You’re not thinking straight!”
Empathy: “You’re strong, you’ll see this through, just have patience/ faith”
What is really going on: Again, this sympathetic statement is stemming from the internal belief that the person is incapable and not strong enough. The empathetic statement directly conveys confidence and strength, and helps the person have more faith and confidence in himself.

How to be more empathetic
The first step would obviously be identifying when we are being sympathetic, which would require self-observation. Deep listening also helps quite a bit in this process. Once this is done, it is important to understand that we are trying to solve the problem for ourselves, out of our own fears, and not out of genuine concern for the other person. The last step would be to consciously remind ourselves that this person is completely capable of handling the problem on his or her own, and let our thoughts and words follow accordingly.

A Thought for Food

A Thought for Food

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Spare a moment for the molecules that’ll construct the future you

When I was in school, if a student admitted she had forgotten to do her homework, the teacher’s response was almost predictable: “When you didn’t forget to eat, how did you forget your homework?”

I always found it amusing, since I did forget to eat sometimes and I wondered if that give me the permission to forget my homework. There are those who forget, and there are those who wait for mealtimes, but I’m sure both categories agree that food is important.

And while we all agree that food is a very important aspect of our lives, I think it is also the most abused. What concerns me more is that most of those who do want to regulate their food, either quantity or quality-wise, want to do it for regulating their weight. How many of us do it out of respect for our body?

Food is important, yes. But what is the importance of food in our lives? What is the real role it is playing? No, it is not merely to give us more energy. It is not merely to give us better health. Every cell in your body comes from food. It is the food you eat that is processed and eventually formed into cells that make up your body and the vibrations these cells carry influence your thoughts and attitude. So when you are eating, you are effectively eating the future you.

Everything has vibrations. And food carries the vibration it is exposed to. The thoughts that the farmer thought when he was growing the food influence it. The thoughts and words of the middlemen who brought the vegetables to the shop influence it. And the thoughts and words of the shop keeper or the vendor influence it. And if you are eating out, then the thoughts and words of the cook and waiter influence it.

Imagine a situation where the farmer was contemplating suicide due to his inability to pay back the loans, the middle-men were busy cheating the farmer and the vendor, the vendor was cursing the buyer for bargaining, and the cook had a fight with his wife or was upset about not getting a raise. What are you feeding yourself? Is this the vibration you want to have tomorrow?

Many of us experience an identity crisis a few years after we leave home. We were fortunate to belong to a generation which mostly ate home-cooked food, so for years we ate food cooked by our mothers with tender and loving care, care that influenced the vibrations of the food. And then we left home, started eating out, thereby changing the input to our systems. Is it a wonder we changed?

So how do we fix this? We respect our food. The next time you seek out that extra-cheese, over-salted, refined flour pizza created by people whose sole motivation was to make money, remind yourself that this is what is going to make the ‘you’ tomorrow.

An ideal situation would have been where we could have grown our own food with love, plucked them with love, chopped, cooked and served them with love. Not very practical, unfortunately. The least we can do is pray and express gratitude to the food – gratitude has been shown to alter water at a molecular level. If you want to be a more loving person tomorrow, eat the food with a focus on love. Want to be more happy, efficient or healthy? Just feel it as you eat it and usher in a whole new you!

Of Duality and Lessons

Of Duality and Lessons

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As I sipped on my cucumber juice, chatting up with two very wise people at a cafe in Tiru, we watched a bunch of foreigners smoke.  I was perplexed.

“Wouldn’t a spiritual aspirant at least first aim to get rid of addictions before seeking higher levels?” I asked.

“None of this is real anyway”, my friend winked at me, and then added “Ram says that Swami Chinmayananda used to smoke too, and eat crappy food… He had 3 bypass surgeries.”

We were just back from a very intense talk by Ramji, who had strongly suggested that so many things we do, including praying, are not going to lead to enlightenment. “Must we stop doing them then?” someone asked. “No. As long as you’re still stuck in this duality, you’ve got to follow it’s rules.”

Isn’t this exactly where so many of us get stuck? Some wise person says or does something and we blindly believe or follow it, unaware that it isn’t relevant to us at all. We’ve got to know and follow our personal truths first.

Swami Chinmayananda, for instance, ate unhealthy food all the time, because he liked it. He knew first hand, that none of this was real anyway. He also knew that the pain and the surgeries weren’t real. Do you?

This is somewhat akin to a high school student declaring that he wouldn’t ever use history as he aims to be a scientist, so studying it would be a waste of time. Now this attitude would affect his grades and in the very least, make it harder for him to become a scientist.

Are you failing any history tests in life?