Detach

I was beginning to get very concerned at the rate at which money was leaving my hands. I started thinking twice about every small expenditure, and it became a burden to my nervous system to just be in possession of cash. Mind you, am not in dire financial straits, but this feeling of impecuniousness insisted on its right to dominate my thoughts. Then, in a sudden burst of clarity, I realised that I had every right to spend the money I earned; that the sole purpose of money that was earned was to be spent for whatever purpose I deemed fit; that no matter what I did, money would continue to leave my hands, and that's not wrong; that I am the master of my money, and not the other way round.

When I think about it now, I go, "aaaarrgh, what exactly were you thinking in those moments of needless anxiety, you fool?" After all, I am drawing a not-so-ugly figure - or an ugly figure, depending on whose side you are ;-) - as my monthly emolument, and I have every right to spend it because it's money earned honestly. Well, at least, as honestly as my laziness would permit ;-) Sometimes, I do tend to be ridiculously silly due to the sudden onset of such psychological conditions that can only be properly attributed to paranoia. Whackiness, if you will...

Confidence

It just struck me that confidence is nothing but a positive feeling about one's own ability vis-a-vis the future. Diffidence is the same forward-looking feeling, but negative. And since the only thing that is in our control (to whatever extent) is the present, then both these feelings don't make too much sense, do they?

Or am I just going wrong somewhere?

Hypocrites!

I recently went to a lunch with some people I know. It was a restaurant that served both vegetarian food and meat. I am a veggie and I don't generally like to eat in a place that serves both kinds of food if I can help it, but I didn't want to be rude so I went along. As we started deciding what to order, it occurred to one of us to find out how many of us were veggies and how many were not. Turned out three of us were all-time veggies and one didn't want to eat it because he was not supposed to for a few months. At this, another guy said that he refrained from eating meat on certain days of the week because it was considered inauspicious. This made me mad. I mean, if meat was inauspicious on certain days, then what made it suitable for consumption on the other days? Either it is okay to eat it or it is not okay to eat it. I hate this damn hypocrisy!

What's a proof?

What constitutes a proof? Does establishing cause for an effect constitute adequate proof? Or is the whole notion of proof merely a matter of perception?

Clarity

I believe troubled times are actually the only moments in life when we see things for what they are worth; that we give value to things since they don't have an intrinsic value themselves. We claim that some things are more valuable than others. In fact, so successfully have we conditioned ourselves to believe it that we're unable to break out of it and cling on to our "values". Even when the thing that we value has lost its meaning to us, we cling to the past, unable to let go.

Thank God for troubled times!

Happiness - within or without?

I’ve been trying to, as is my wont sometimes, analyze my past actions. And guess what? I’m clueless. I mean, I know why I do things, but I absolutely don’t know for sure why I want to do those things. Sometimes, I feel that the things that we do in the name of happiness and satisfaction cease to give us the egoistic highs that we crave, after a while. A case in point – I was reading a book in the hope that it will alleviate my gloomy mood. As long as I was reading it, I didn’t think of whatever it was that gave rise to my dark mood, but the moment I put the book down, the sadness came back to haunt me. That set me thinking – if our happiness cannot be created by things that are external, can it be sustained by those things? Putting it another way, can we hope to be happy forever by pursuing things that we think will make us happy? To answer this question, we’d need to know what gives us true happiness.

When we watch a good movie, or when we hear fine music, we feel elated. Does it mean that happiness was attached to those things? If that were the case, then such things must lift our moods every time without exception. Our practical experience, however, tells us otherwise. We have found that a great book and a superb musical score, things that have never failed to make us feel happy hitherto, are no good when we are suffering a deeply personal loss. It seems to us as if those things are too insignificant to make up for the magnitude of our loss. That rules out the theory that happiness is intrinsic to things that we like. If that’s so, then it should only mean one thing: that we choose to feel happy when favourable things happen. And it also stands to reason that our sadness is of our own making too. That would mean, then, that we control our happy and sad thoughts. And that means that happiness and sadness are entirely within us, and we can choose to get rid of our gloomy moods at will. And, what seems almost inhuman, we can choose to remain happy forever.

If the key to our happiness lies in our minds, then why isn’t the world a happy place? The answer to that lies in one word – conditioning. Our minds have been conditioned to believe that certain things ought to make us happy and certain other things, sad. This indoctrination has kept us company right from our childhood and is all around us. It takes a tremendous effort of will to break out of this cycle of thought and to choose to feel what we really want to feel about things. The loss of some money or property may not exactly be a fortunate event, but it certainly doesn’t mean that we fret over it for a week. It’s water under the bridge and no amount of worrying will help us. Moreover, our gloom may affect our concentration and for all we know, may even result in yet another unfortunate event.

The first step towards achieving this happiness lies in being aware of our own conditioned responses to events. Once we know how our reactions are being controlled by our conditioning, we can take the next step, which is substituting the conditioned response with a conscious response. Over a period, choosing a conscious response will almost become second nature to us, and we’ll be well on our way to leading a happy life. Ever after.

To be (polite) or not to be, that's the question

That's the question that's been eating me for quite some time now. Having spoken at some length on why it's not exactly necessary to be "good," that should come as a surprise to those of you who put yourselves through the ordeal of reading my rants. I mean, it's an open and shut case and the answer is a clear, unambiguous "No", right? Wrong, it turns out. At least, sometimes.

Okay, let me lay things out in the open: the issue at hand is, "Is it necessary for us to be polite? And if so, with whom? Friends? Or strangers?"

Some of us tend to lose our tempers with those we consider close to us while, amazingly, our fuses seem to grow in length when we deal with strangers. This is more than a little ironic because it's with our loved ones that we must show our patience. I mean, if they mean so much to us, I am sure they're worth a lot more patience, right? At least, I think so.

And then there are others who argue that if we can't be "spontaneous" with those we love, then with whom else are we going to be? To show your anger when you're angry, these people say, is being "spontaneous." There's a certain element of truth in this argument too. So, the question now becomes, "When dealing with close ones, which is more important - to be spontaneous, or to be patient?" Now that's not such a tough nut to crack, is it? The answer, of course, might vary with people, but as far as I am concerned, while it's nice to be important, it's more important to be nice to people I care about. That does not mean accepting whatever they do; all it means is you don't blast them out of existence if you think they're erring.

Go on, you can now thank me for reducing what could have potentially been a dilemma to something that's easily answered. <g>

What is Good?

In response to my previous post, "Something's wrong here," I had a friend of mine reminding me that there is no such thing as absolute good or bad, that it's only relative. True. Like she said, you'll be able to recognize good only if you know that there is something that's bad. Success is indeed sweeter for those who have never tasted it. Wimbledon may or may not be the greatest of the Slams in tennis, but ask one Mr. Ivan Lendl and he'll tell you why it's the most important tournament to any tennis player. Okay, I got carried away with that last line, but well, you get the idea now, don't you? :-)

The same friend also asked me, "why do you want to be good to others?" My answer to this would be, "It's convenient." Honestly! Being good to others is helpful because you're planting seeds of helpfulness in them, at least towards you. For all the ingrates there are, there is still something to be said for gratitude in today's world. And this can make our life move that much more smoothly. Spiritually, being good to others perhaps increases one's reserve of good karma, but I am not too sure if it really adds much to one's progress on the spiritual path.

One caveat though: Being good simply because it makes things go smoother for you is fine; but do make sure that you want to do whatever you do in the name of goodness. Because doing something sincerely does make a difference - to yourself and others.