Gyan-part 2

In my reflections i shall be repeating what i heard and also understood and this process extends to aprreciating rather than doubting the changes in me. For quite sometime i was feeling lost but i know where i am going now. Just like a child who is happier with the simple rattles in his infancy graduates to more technical toys as he grows up so it is not strange but a familiar direction i seem to be taking. It is amazing and also incredible how i am being illuminated from all sides now. i have just heard something and then i get to see as well as experience the same and because i am in such a disposition i am absorbing everything. So i don't feel anymore that i am groping in the dark.

People around you are so much full of unsolicited advices that they start getting on your nerves.They will all be in unison in asking you to be calm and patient and not to get angry at matters which they consider is petty but these advices don't actually work.The basic problem is that everybody pushes you to make changes in you and forget that changes should come both ways. i have decided that i am going to make a start from my side and am never going to be that person who tries to change others. i have decided to become aware of my feelings and then use them to change myself and correct the so many foibles that i have. i am also beginning to acknowledge my strengths and that acts as a catalyst in my attempt to transform.

The scholar who is respectfully addressed more as swamiji talked the other day about renunciation. He had a very interesting anecdote which sounded hilarious but so true. The entire theatre reverberated with laughter when he said that. He narrated this incident where the student approaches the master and the master asks :

Master: Do you smoke ?

Student: (feeling embarrased but wanting to speak the truth is fidgeting) Not much but yes sir.

Master: Do you drink ?

Student: (more embarrased and still avoiding eye contact) Occasionally.

Master: Do you gamble ?

Student : ( feeling low and defeated already) Only sometimes with friends.

So like this the master keeps asking more than 20 questions to which the student's answer were in the affirmative but with an added attempt of "jor ka jhatka dhire se lage" and by the end of the QA session the student was crestfallen. Head hung with shame and remorse he waits for the master to give the verdict. The master feeling bloated and pompous announces - "You will have to renounce these immediately!". The court is dismissed and the student hurries out, wipes the sweat off his brow and thinks fast...20 and more to renounce on the one side and only 1 master on the other side...easily he took take a decision and said aloud- why don't i renounce the master himself. He was tormented earlier now he was happy and he went happily his way.

This is a classic example of what happens around us all the time. Everybody is asking you to give up something. Give up sugar and sweets...give up pulp fiction...give up chaloo music listen to classicals...give up this, give up that , in fact our life is turning out to be quagmire of everything with a LESS in it for eg starting with wireless...cordless...ending with valueless... shameless... jobless and oh the mantra of the day fatless.

When Swamiji talked about renunciation he said with conviction-'' NOBODY CAN RENOUNCE ANYTHING YOU CAN ONLY TAKE UP". The explanation to this is that just like the petals of the flower fall off to give us the fruit the same way as we begin to appreciate higher values in life the lower automatically falls off. The child does not give up the rattles it is the other way around .

This made such a lot of sense to me. i was being asked by friends and aquaintances to sign up for a lot of these programmes and i was reluctant because i was not willing to sign up for a regimented programme which asks you to give up so many things. i prefer to make these changes not by giving up suddenly but more by evolving. i don't want to be tormented and miserable in the process. i have a strong belief that it may take some time but finally i'll be home.Oh and i can't help remembering now how Robert Frost had put it "...and miles to go before i sleep,and miles to go before i sleep."