I sit under a spotlight, behind glass panes
Shining, reflecting, radiating light
And I watch as people stick their noses
To the glass, their eyes so bright
I am a diamond, I sparkle like the sun
But this beauty, this shine, is a deception
I was a rock, beneath soil hidden
I’ve come a long way, since my journey was begun
I was broken and cut, again and again
My life seemed to revolve around pain
When I thought life couldn’t get worse
I grew to realise, my hope was in vain
But today I look at myself, and think
It was all worth it, after all
My beauty today, makes that despair,
That pain, that torture, look so small
So when you’re hurting with endless pain
Remember my story please
You’ll be a bright, shining star too,
And one day this torture will cease
Mention the word meditation to a beginner, and almost always the response is the same “Oh I can’t meditate, I have too many thoughts!” In my mind, this is no different from someone saying that they cannot do yoga because they cannot, say, touch their toes. We know, don’t we, that with regular practice, a person who couldn’t touch his toes will eventually place his palms on the floor with ease? Then why the fear of meditation if there are too many thoughts? The whole practice is to help the mind calm down!
Many guided meditations and other forms of concentration are not really meditation because all they help you do is visualise something nice, or give the mind something to focus on – hence keeping it too preoccupied to engage in the disturbing thoughts that usually plague you. Such activities create a scenario of escape, where you can have a difficult day, and escape it all every evening with a wonderful ‘meditation’. Meditation is not escape – it is the act of coming face to face with reality, and eventually, making peace with it. It is something that can, and ideally should, be practiced in every moment, waking or sleeping.
Having said that, what is meditation then? Meditation is the state of witnessing everything there is – the thoughts, the emotions, the mind, the body. One can witness either one or all of these, depending on the level of practice. Here are a few ways to start meditating.
The Easiest: Ana Pana Sati
The easiest way to meditate is to simply watch the breath. Do not alter your breathing, merely watch it, as it enters and leaves your body. If you are the sort of person who tends to be creative but poor at execution, with a tendency for absent-mindedness, watch your breath in your belly – focus your attention on the way your belly rises and falls as you breathe. If you tend to be very practical and efficient, often frustrated about the inefficiency of everyone around you, meditating on the movement of air in your nostrils or the nasal passage is a good idea. This is taught as a precursor to Vipassana meditation, and it is a good idea to graduate to Vipassana once you are very comfortable with this method.
This meditation below is a good place to start your meditation journey, and eventually you can do this on your own, even in little installments while you wait for the bus, sit quietly in a cab or meeting, for example.
Vipassana Meditation
Vipassana takes the witnessing much deeper than ana pana sati. One observes the sensations in the various parts one’s body, one part at a time. One can start, for example, from the head, observing the sensations on top of the head, moving to the eyes, face, and so on, all the way to the feet, or the other way around. Some of the things to watch out for are the sensations of passing breeze, the texture of the cloth touching your skin, any aches and pains, tingling or warmth. One might feel much more, ofcourse, and these are just pointers to begin with.
Spaciousness
One of my favourite methods is the way Eckhart Tolle asks us to be present. Become aware of the space around you. Become aware of the silence in the midst of the noise. Observe the spaces between the words, as you read. Or the gaps between your breaths. Or if you can, you could even just witness the stillness within your own body. Let this space, this silence, silence you. And rest in that silence.
Witnessing
We’ve talked about watching the breath, the body and the space around us. Another simple thing to do is just watch the mind. Simply witness the thoughts coming and going. Do not encourage the thoughts by thinking them, but merely acknowledge their existence and let them pass. Some thoughts stay longer, some go quickly. Sometimes we are witnessing merely thoughts and at other times we may need to take a step back and witness strong emotions. Always remember that you are not your thoughts, opinions or feelings – these things do not define you. Sooner or later, you will find yourself thinking, believing or feeling the exact opposite of the things that pass through you. These are transient and have nothing to do with your true nature.
Staying in the Heart
There are times when thoughts don’t seem to release their grip on us. When it is impossible to stop thinking, it may be a good idea to give the mind a little to think about. Imagine the energies in the heart radiating outwards. Imagine that these energies expand as you breathe in, and slightly deflate as you breathe out. Keep your focus in your heart, as if that is where you were located in the body. This process is especially helpful when you are being swept away by strong emotions. Take a few minutes and practice this for some time to help center yourself.
Some things to bear in mind:
Beware the Distractions:
When one initially starts meditating, the mind is uncomfortable. This results in trivial distractions, like an itch on the nose, for instance. One tends to want to touch or rub the face or hands on some pretext or the other. It is important to remember that these are just tricks of the mind. Be aware and watch the desire, no matter how intense it is.
Stay Still:
It is important to keep the body as still as possible, as the body starts to heal itself during meditation. Energies start moving in certain directions, and moving the body often disrupts this flow. It is best to start with a comfortable pose, and try not to move for the entire duration of meditation. Ofcourse, this does not mean we do not move at all, even in the face of bad knees or backs. If there is a real need to move, move with awareness, slowly, and witnessing the feelings in the body as it moves.
Remember that Thoughts Come and Go:
It is the nature of the mind to think. Once we start observing the mind, we start learning much more about how it functions and slowly learn to ignore it’s antics. When thoughts come, gently push them aside and bring your attention back. Do not resist them. When thoughts or feelings are too intense, let them be, merely observe them. Resisting thoughts or feelings only intensifies the problem.
Think of the mind as the screensaver of a computer. Some days you have a quiet screensaver – clear blue skies and one daisy floating by every once in a while. On other days, it is an aquarium crazy with activity, fish swimming by in a frenzy and jelly fish popping up here and there. Irrespective of which screensaver it is, remember that it is still just a screensaver. It is not who you are.
Lastly… Meditation is not a ‘doing’, it is ‘being’. It is a way of life, something that is to be practiced in every moment, whether waking or sleeping. However, the practice of meditation itself when done right, can help your moment-to-moment meditation go deeper. Both are essential if you really wish to reach a balance in your life, and equanimity in all situations.
I came across this very interesting book that a friend was reading, and I found this chapter on guru very interesting. I think it is the most concise and beautiful way a guru-disciple relationship can be described. So here’s an extract from the Introductory chapter “The Art of the Guru” from the book “Death must die: A Western woman’s life long spiritual quest in India with Shree Anandamayee Ma” by Ram Alexander.
Although many seek the ‘consolation of religion’ in their lives and some have found solace in Eastern philosphy, yoga and spiritual teachers, not many have seriously embarked on an authentic guru-disciple relationship, which is fundamentally different. Inherent in this relationship is a particular structure and discipline that, like every art, demands a certain degree of talent and a strong commitment from the practitioner if it is to be perfected.
The Guru is a powerful aid to Self knowledge in which, it is considered, lies the ultimate truth of one’s existence. Each person’s way to his inner realisation is uniquely his own and thus there is little in the way of outer dogma on this path. But fundamental to this process of Self-discovery is the essential philosophical conviction that until and unless one directly experiences the knower as the known, all outer objects of knowledge (including God to the extent that he remains a dualistic concept) can only be less than authentic. This is not to say that devotion and surrender to God are excluded, but it is through an authentic experience of the all-pervading Divine as the essence of one’s individual being that one becomes initiated into an intense process of devotion to what alone IS. As we see with Atmananda’s training with Anandamayee Ma, she pursues both Self-knowledge as well as devotional surrender; and under the guidance of the Guru a number of devotional and yogic practices are given to facilitate this. As both Anandamayee Ma and Ramana Maharishi tell her, only when the Self is known can one truly know God, and vice versa.
That state which the Guru embodies and to which the disciple aspires is one of permanent transformation of his or her own ego structure in which a total cosmic integration occurs. In this is revealed both the ultimate humanism and the supreme individualism, in that all creation, all others, are experienced as having a fundamental integrity that is divine and in no way separate from oneself. In this state of sublime non-duality the experiencer is one with the experienced, such that the only possible response at any level of relationship is infinite love and compassion as all beings are experienced literally as oneself. To be in the presence of one who is established in this consciousness is to have this Reality awakened in oneself to some degree and this is clearly understood to be the truth of one’s essential nature and not something imposed from without. There is a fundamental authenticity about this experience, inherent in all that is most worthwhile in the human experiment that is totally beyond any external authority or belief system, although it is the source of all religion. When the Guru has finally succeeded in his job of awakening the disciple, he ceases to exist as ‘another’ and thus there can be no question of dependence or servitude of the disciple, although he will always feel overwelhming gratitude to his teacher for revealing the way.
The Guru guides those prepared to make this journey beyond death by holding up a mirror that uncompromisingly reveals one’s desperate clinging to the circular patterns of the ego-cherishing, and simultaneously reveals the individual’s true Self in which the lie of the false ego and one’s fearful clinging are dissolved. To be sure, not all gurus, or would-be gurus, are equally qualified and a great guru can achieve with a glance, or the withholding of one, what a lesser guru does with hours of haranguing the indolent or rebellious disciple. This relationship is a process that is fundamentally beyond words and the ‘teachings’ of a great Master can never be understood only from his recorded sayings. This explains why sacred books and scriptures are often so woefully misinterpreted and taken out of the context in which they were originally expounded, once the Master is no longer. The transformative presence of a living Guru is by definition a great threat to the status quo of the ego, whereas the written words of a deceased teacher can easily be turned into another prop with which one can feel spiritually safe.
A mature psychological balance and a well developed sense of morality and integrity are essential for the prospective disciple, without which he cannot possibly make significant progress in this endeavour. For the ethically and psychologically unprepared, to attempt to practice serious esoteric disciplines can often produce disasterous results. It is particularly for this that substantial association with the Guru is important so that he can closely observe the disciple and discern exactly what he may require and what he is able to absorb at each stage of his spiritual evolution.
To be in the presence of the Guru is, for the committed disciple, to be in the presence of God, which is to say that the profoundly magnetic spiritual presence of the Guru activates the spiritual centre within the disciple making him aware of the transcendent divinity within himself and all others in a much more intense way than he could normally do on his own.
The disciple utilizes this intensity to develop and deepen his meditation and to help him to clearly discriminate between right and wrong action – to see clearly the unceasing tricks of the ego as it desperately fights for its survival. Whatever heightens this inner state of transcendent awareness is seen as good and desirable, and whatever detracts is to be avoided. In this way a clear path of action opens out. Here also frequent contact with the Master is very helpful in intensifying and clarifying the this process of discrimination in which one is attempting to ‘bring down’ and ‘stabilize’ a more fundamentally subtle level of awareness. It is particularly to protect and effect this all important subtle energy transformation that the serious aspirant needs to live (for some time atleast) in a controlled and isolated environment – ideally the Guru’s ashram- in order to maintain proper ‘laboratory conditions’ in which to protect his work.
Obviously a passionate commitment and effort on part of the disciple are essential and this is invariably the result of he or she fully comprehending that the perfection of this self-transformative process art is ultimate – indeed the sole – purpose of their existence. Thus, far from being an escape from life, the disciple is convinced that only in doing this spiritual work is he taking full responsibility for his existence in that of the world. Again, this has absolutely nothing to do with any belief system or organised doctrine imposed from without; which is not to say that there is not a structure and method which is revealed through the mystical process of the Guru-disciple relationship- a relationship that is inherently beyond others until all ‘others’ have become precisely ‘That’.
Ofcourse, it is understood that the Guru is only an outer manifestation of one’s innermost Self, the in-dwelling Divinity within all, to which everyone has his own unique access. However, except for the rare phenomenon of the born saint or avatar, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible to remain on the path of illumination, referred to in the Upanishads as the ‘razor’s edge’, without the guidance of one who can shed light on the way. In any case, only can only begin from where one is at the moment, working with the inner Guru until, as it is said, ‘When the disciple is ready, the Guru will appear’. Although a great Master may give his blessings to many, there are few whom he or she would consider qualified to seriously embark on this path and such a disciple is severely tested before being accepted. This is the ancient time-honoured Guru tradition of India.
Thoughts do have power. No matter how much you ignore it, YOUR thoughts DO have power! And everytime you wish bad for someone, you are adding violence to the world – becoming a contributor. And since what goes around comes around, you will eventually become a victim of the circumstances your own thoughts created, but that is another matter altogether. My point is, WHY ADD?
Lets take a very simple example. Assume you are standing in a crowded bus, and a fat lady steps on your foot and walk away. ‘Damn her, I hope someone fatter than her steps on her foot today!’ Is this going to be your first thought too? It does feel very comforting for us to wish that way, and in those instances I’m sure a lot of us hope that all our thoughts came true instantly. Be glad it doesn’t. Let us stop and think of the consequences of that thought.
The lady stepped on your foot and walked away, and you wished that someone step on hers. A few days later, someone steps on her foot, and she wishes that that person’s foot gets stamped by someone else. And then, that person wishes the same thing when it happens to him, and so on. Eventually, you’ll stamp someone’s foot and the same thing will be wished for you, starting yet another chain reaction. How has your thought helped? As if there wasn’t enough already, you created an entire chain of foot-stamping incidents. And this is only one, simple example. How many chains have you started already?
Wish for their good
So if we shouldn’t wish for their misery, what must we think? Simple, wish for their good. No, I don’t mean that you wish that that person becomes rich and successful and famous. Wish for them to develop a quality that would prevent such incidents from repeating. For the fat lady above, we would wish that she became sensitive to other people’s pain. How wonderful. Can you imagine her treading carefully and apologizing in the event of stepping on a foot? That is what we need to wish for, and contribute to the love on earth. If someone cuts across you on the road or breaks a signal in front of you, wish for them to be better drivers. If you get cheated, wish for them to be more honest. When someone is happy, they like to see the world happy. When you wish for others’ happiness, you wish that that person stop making others miserable. When you wish for others’ misery, you add to the misery of the world.
I think we all agree that there is enough violence in the world. And violence begets violence. One person who gets slapped goes and slaps someone else, maybe two people. They carry it forward in their own way, adding their own share of violence in the process. And that is why we see the world spiraling in a violent loop – increasing crimes everywhere, inside homes and outside. Please choose to be different. Please stop the chains at yourself.
Your thoughts do have power. And positive thoughts are more powerful than negative thoughts. We just never realise it, because positive thoughts probably form less than 10% of our thinking. Replace every negative thought with two positive ones. Choose your reactions and your thoughts, and replace the ones you can’t. Spread love in others’ lives, spread happiness and smiles. And remember, what goes around, comes around. It can be a better, brighter, lovelier world. If only we pitch in our shares too.
‘Ahimsa’ or Non-violence are words that are typically associated with Gandhiji. And the Independence struggle. But that’s not what I’m talking about here. I’m not talking about Ahimsa as a policy – I’m talking about it as a way of life.
I was in Rishikesh a few weeks ago and had the good fortune of meeting Swamini Mayatitananda. I’d read her book long ago and have great respect for her. Hearing her speak was a dream come true. The main topic of her talk was Ahimsa, bringing non-violence into our lives.
Violence is prevalent in three main forms. The most violence is in our FOOD. This is followed by thoughts, words and actions.
Violence in Food
Food? So I must be talking about becoming vegetarian, right? Wrong. Although Mayaji strongly suggests that path, the views I’m expressing here are a wee bit different.
‘The Tiger is not a violent animal – it kills only when it is hungry’. Hunger is a natural urge – nature meant you to fulfil it. Carnivores are not violent, because they are only satisfying their hunger, and playing their vital role in retaining and maintaining nature’s balance. So what does all this mean? It means that Whenever you over-eat, you are being violent. If you pride yourself on being vegetarian, and you overeat – remember that every grain, every leaf you eat, is a morsel of food snatched from a hungry mouth, whether animal or man. How can you claim to be a ‘vegetarian’ then? You still kill!
It doesn’t matter what you eat – what matters is how much. If you eat to satisfy your hunger, very good. But the moment you start eating to satisfy your appetite, eating to satisfy your gastronomic desires – you are doing something unnatural and violent.
Plants do get hurt. Plants scream when a leaf is plucked insensitively. But here’s news – they’re silent when animals come to eat their leaves! Nature meant to feed every hungry mouth. Yours too. But it didn’t provide for over-indulgence, for insensitive satisfaction of desires. The next time you overeat, come online, and google for some pictures of the starving children in Africa. Why, even the plastic bags that you dispose off carelessly end up getting stuck in cow’s throats and killing them. Please be more sensitive and responsible!
An article I read once, talked about a scientific study with a monkey, a banana and a water hose. The monkey was kept in a cage, with the banana at a height, with a ladder right underneath it. Every time the monkey tried to climb the ladder and grab the banana, ice cold water was sprayed on it. It tried numerous times, with the same result. Eventually it learned its lesson – reaching for the banana = ice cold water. And this led to fear, and even preventing other monkeys from reaching out for the banana.
Our lives are just the same. Our personalities are nothing but a set of learned behaviours. Fortunately or not, the situations in life change. The ice shower is taken away. But the fear remains, the learned behaviour stays. Many even develop a paranoia towards bananas altogether. Is it sensible? No. Is it common? Yes.
So what impact does this have, in our own lives and in the lives of those around us? If we observe ourselves, we realise that we rarely react to a present circumstance. Whenever we react, we are effectively reacting to a set of similar previous situations. And we react that way, because that particular way worked for us in the past. What we don’t realise, is that circumstances have changed, and the same things don’t work anymore.
Typical examples of this shift are
1) When we start working
2) when people get married, or even go to hostels and make new close friends
3) When people around us themselves change, for example children becoming adults/ getting married, or parents getting older and helpless.
In the first case, we would tend to behave around our bosses similar to the way we behave around parents – because this is how we are used to tackling authority. Ofcourse, if the boss behaves very differently from your parents, even if that behaviour is better, there will be a level of discomfort, because we don’t know how to handle this new behaviour.
In the second instance, we react in the same way with our spouses/ room mates as we did with our siblings or parents. What usually happens here, is that our behavioural patterns are so strong that even if our mates are completely different from our parents/ siblings, we will eventually recreate this behaviour in them, because this is what we are used to. If you’ve found yourself telling your spouses to stop doing the same things to you that your mother or father does (in a negative way), then you know that this has happened already.
The third scenario is the most difficult to adjust to, because we are used to associating certain behaviours with certain people, and suddenly the same things don’t work anymore. It requires far greater work adjusting here, because nothing has really changed – there is no change of scene, location, or life patterns. Merely the person has changed.
How do we apply this to our own behaviour? By questioning ourselves regularly. Everytime you see yourself reacting to a situation, ask yourself whether that behaviour was productive, or simply a waste of time and effort. If the answer is the latter too frequently, you know you have work on your hands. We could also approach this the other way around. If we are starting to feel helpless about not being able to get through to a particular person, we could start analysing what our basic attitude and behaviour is with that person, and whether this pattern is still valid.
An understanding that every reaction is a learned response helps us accept others more easily too. Once this concept is clear, you start to understand that no one is really reacting to you – it is not personal. They are merely replaying a response they learned long long ago, and they really don’t know what else works in that situation. So the next time you are puzzled or hurt by someone’s behaviour, give them the benefit of doubt, shower them with love, and move on!
The latest trend has seen people asking me how they can influence their surroundings. While some want to learn hypnosis so they can influence other people, others are interested in the law of attraction to get what they want. Yet others have simply asked me how they can use Reiki to change their current circumstances.
And as usual, I tell them all the same thing – the only change you should be trying to make, is within. The law of attraction, the secret, and other such information have become so popular lately because it is so easy to make money by promising people what they want. Tell a person you can help him make his dreams come true, and he’ll pay you whatever you charge. Tell him, on the other hand, that you will teach him to accept his present circumstances, and he’ll probably walk away with a smirk. And that’s why you see so many books and stories of the law of attraction. Because it sells. Not because it works.
It’s just plain, simple logic. Why would you want to attract things? Because you want to be happy. And…? Anyone with a basic background of spirituality will know that happiness is a choice, a choice you can make this instant. So, what are you waiting for? Why wait to get that big house, that big car or that big fat pay check to be happy? And no, those things are not going to make you happy anyway, but then it’s going to take you a lot longer to realise that. By the time you get that, you’ll want something else, and so on until lightning strikes you one day and makes you seek true happiness.
Here’s a simple formula
Law of attraction = Possibly, a means to get what you want
Getting what you want <> Happiness
I’m not saying that if you attract things into your life you will not be happy. Attracting things and happiness are simply unrelated. The strange part is, if you are happy, you will probably not feel the need to waste your time attracting so many things, and focus instead on remaining in the present, which by the way, is the secret to real spiritual growth and true happiness. You will probably still get all those things because you are happy from within, but that is besides the point.
Bottom line? If we focussed on healing ourselves and accepting the current situation instead of focussing on trying to change everything and everyone around us, yes, we’d be happy. This doesn’t mean we take everything in life lying down. Where you can make a difference, please, go ahead and make it. Where you can’t, accept, and thank God for giving you another opportunity to learn and grow.
Faith is a bare minimum essential here, which is probably why so many scientific studies show that religious people are happier than atheists. The basic ingredient for happiness is faith. Faith that everything is going to be alright. Not in the sense that the situation will change for the better, but in the sense that we will have the strength to cope, and to learn to be happy in this situation too. That we will learn to be able to make the choice to be happy, no matter what.
The first step is to accept the current situation, the second to allow ourselves to feel miserable about it. And when you’re done with these two steps, you’ll realise that it’s ok, that the current situation is completely fine, and that you could live with it for the rest of your life, even though it would be convenient if things changed. This is when you could use the law of attraction to make your life easier, if you feel like. And this is also when you’d be a lot more effective at it, getting results almost instantaneously. But the point is, before you changed the situation, you would have learned a very valuable lesson – you would have learned how to be happy in that miserable situation too. And taken your capacity to be happy, one step further.
Many people come to me for help, because they want to find out their purpose in life. These are perfectly normal people, with good health, good families, good financial statuses, and good jobs. But something is missing. Something to live for.
And like I do for everything we explore, I ask them the same question – ‘Why?’.
If you’re one of those feeling lost and trying to explore the purpose of your life, I’d like you to ask the same question to yourself. ‘Why do I need a purpose to live?’. I know it may sound quite ridiculous to be asked that question. The most common answer I get is that they want to be able to make a difference to people’s lives, and not waste their time on a meaningless job.
It seems quite legitimate to want and need a purpose to live. Is it really? Just look at the one generation above us – our parents. Most of this generation spent their lives working in a monotonous job, possibly as a clerk in a bank, working 9 to 5, having the same routine every single day for 3 or 4 decades. When they never needed a purpose of life, why do we?
Much as we’d like to believe that we’re generation ‘Next’, and ahead of our ancestors, I beg to differ. These were people totally content with their lives. They lived in a small house, possibly a rented one, had cheap furniture, clothes bought from the roadside vendors, a small two-wheeler for a family of four and a monotonous 9 to 5 clerical job. Most people in our generation own a house by the time they are 30, have an interior designer furnish it, buy expensive branded clothes and shoes, drive around in expensive cars, have challenging jobs that consume all their time – and surprise! They are still not satisfied with their lives.
I believe that the success and progress of a generation is not measured by how much they have and how much they want, but by how much happier and content they are. Are we really better than the previous generation? What is the difference?
The difference can be summed in just one very small word. EGO. Yes, thats all. The previous generation lived as a society, followed its rules, and if you were in India, married people chosen by their parents and had no problem with that. This generation is individualistic, doesn’t care what others think, focusses on looking good, rich and successful, and doesn’t care what inner realities are. We cannot be insignificant, we MUST make a mark. This is why we have to have style in everything we do, this is why we don’t mind paying more than double the money to buy clothes that have a stamp on them, and take loans to buy expensive things we clearly cannot afford at present – because we want to feel that we are different from others, better, smarter.
Therefore, being stuck in a seemingly meaningless job drives us crazy with desire to ‘be’ something. I say seemingly meaningless because no job is truly meaningless. Everybody has a role in the society, and everyone’s work is important. It seems that our work is useless when we don’t see the results, and don’t get any adulation. And that is when we start hunting for a purpose to live. In effect, we are just looking for appreciation and rewards for our actions.
So if you are asking the universe everyday why it is not showing you the purpose of your life, think again. What is it you are really looking for? Every minute, every second of our lives is spent in progressing towards the ‘purpose’ of this life. If you were destined to be a singer, but you were an engineer for 5 years, that period greatly adds to your wisdom and progress in many ways, both directly and indirectly. When you are ready, you will automatically head towards your ‘purpose of life’, if you have one, in the first place. And every other moment until then is important because it is making you ready for it.
The real purpose of our life is to grow, and to be a better person today than yesterday. If you are working on that, you are already working at great speed toward the purpose of your life, and you don’t need an ego-satisfying role to get there. If you’re really keen to start making a difference to people’s lives, start with the adage ‘Charity begins at home’.
Focus on helping the people closest to you, and starting with having faith in their abilities and wisdom. Respect them, their personal space and their needs. Focus on becoming the best version of you there can be. When you are truly capable of helping others, you do not need to change jobs or locations, help will happen naturally to everyone around you, without effort. Colleagues, friends and even strangers will automatically approach you for help, and you will be able to help them without even trying
What would we not do for the ones we love? We pamper them, show our affection, care for them, protect them, and sometimes, even sacrifice ourselves for the sake of their wellbeing.
It is the last aspect where we go wrong. And it is the last aspect that this article is all about. We can save one person from another, but what do we do when a person becomes his own worst enemy? The worst part is, we don’t even realise how we are damaging ourselves, because it is masked in the feeling that we are making our families happy.
I’ve met many people who have been the pillars of their families. In the process of supporting everyone else, they tend to neglect themselves. Their own physical, emotional and other needs are left unexpressed and unprioritised. For example, a boy I met recently suddenly had to support his mother when his father passed away. Having promised his father that he would take care of her, he felt pressurised to never cry or get emotional about his father’s death. Being the only son, he was now expected to live up to his father’s dreams, or the mother would get upset about how she could not bring him up properly. He loved his mother, and he wanted to see her happy. So he never let her know how difficult things were for him, he never talked to her or let her know when he was going through hell, because he didn’t want her to feel guilty. As a result, he ended up carrying a huge emotional baggage that manifested itself through various physical and emotional problems.
This is an extreme scenario, but this happens in every house, all the time. Every family has one major pillar of support. One person chooses to sacrifice himself so that the others can ‘prosper’. These unfulfilled needs and suppressed emotions accumulate and rot inside the person, poisoning their souls. Eventually this poison either causes problems or comes out in other damaging ways, such as the person losing interest in the most demanding family members and/ or becoming hostile.
As a society, we also take part in making others suppress their negative emotions. When a friend is depressed, we take them out shopping or for a drink to ‘cheer them up’. What we are really doing, is telling that person that it is not ok to be depressed. When a child cries, our first reaction is, ‘don’t cry, thats not as embarassing/ hurtful/ painful as you think’! Our whole focus is on supressing our emotions – whether sorrow, misery or anger. Some of us are so good at this, infact, that we believe we don’t feel these emotions at all!
A client recently mentioned to me how he envies his colleague, who is just never angry. Even in very difficult situations, he would at most become serious, but never rude or loud. What a wonderful person! But is this behaviour really good for him? Probably not. There is a very good chance he does feel angry, and feels frustrated that he cannot express it.
If there is an emotion you are quite confident you never feel, chances are you’ve got plenty of it just buried under several layers, waiting and hoping to be healed one day. But before we reach deep hidden and suppressed emotions, we’ve got to reach the ones above them! We’ve got to learn to let ourselves feel – by first acknowledging our emotions in the current situation, and then letting ourselves and our dear ones know that it is ok to feel bad, and that this feeling too shall pass.
What we all need to tell ourselves, is that unless we take care of ourselves, it is impossible that we take genuine care of others. While we do get ourselves into situations where we feel that we have no choice, this is nothing but an illusion, and often an excuse to escape harder choices. There is always a way out, and not only do we need to find it, but stick to it no matter how hard it is, for our own sakes and for the sakes of those we love. We’ve got to let family know we have our emotions, and are comfortable dealing with emotional pain. This is also a very important lesson for parents – if your children see you suppress your emotions, they will learn this from you and imitate it – if they see that you are comfortable with both positive and negative emotions, they will realise that negative emotions are not a reason to panic, and will go away just the way they came. This will not only ensure you have no suppressed emotions, but also help them grow as indivuals, better capable of handling not only a loved one’s emotional turbulence, but also their own.
The next time you feel depressed, angry or hurt, start by asking yourself what you are really feeling. Is the deeper emotion that of shame? Or did your ego get hurt that you allowed yourself to trust a phoney person? Or is it simply that one need is not being fulfilled? Once you come face to face with what you are really feeling, allow yourself to feel it, instead of getting appalled at your feelings and trying to fight them. Remind yourself that it is natural to feel this way in this particular situation, and that this feeling will pass in a while. With practice, this will come naturally to you, and not only with you deal with your own emotions, but also help others deal with their own!
Mention the word meditation to a beginner, and almost always the response is the same “Oh I can’t meditate, I have too many thoughts!” In my mind, this is no different from someone saying that they cannot do yoga because they cannot, say, touch their toes. We know, don’t we, that with regular practice, a person who couldn’t touch his toes will eventually place his palms on the floor with ease? Then why the fear of meditation if there are too many thoughts? The whole practice is to help the mind calm down!
Many people come to me for help, because they want to find out their purpose in life. These are perfectly normal people, with good health, good families, good financial statuses, and good jobs. But something is missing. Something to live for.