abhaygupta

Do we have to learn new things?

In fact we have to unlearn more than what we have to learn. We have to unlearn all our conditioned responses. In the process of growing up we have learnt many things so well that we have become virtual automatons. We perform these functions instinctively, without a second thought. They have become our habits. We get angry so easily - a transgression of road etiquettes (read ‘road-rage’), a wife delaying you for a social-do where you have a time deadline as a gentleman or a particular code of conduct at the dining table, are infringements that call forward anger so easily.

We have to learn a few things. We have to learn how to desire, how to get hurt, how to criticize, how to love, how to ask, how to give, how to fight, how to experience. We actually have to learn to operate more consciously, with greater awareness. We have to stop being the automatons that we have unconsciously become because of our ignorance.

The root cause of all our problems is avidya. Because of ignorance about being automatons we have been denying the manifestation of the negativities and defending whatever we do. These are the manifestations of avidya and ego working in tandem. So the first thing is a little resolve:-

Not to defend what we are doing.

Not to justify it.

I give below a few positive examples to suggest what we may have been doing incorrectly, though unconsciously.


How to Fight

Fight like 5-year old children. They fight with such intensity which adults are incapable of.

Having fought for whatever the fight was, they move on with life, leaving the fight behind. They do not carry the fight in their heart; they do not carry it in their subconscious. Their egos are never bruised and their self-respect never shattered.

When it is time to fight again, it is a new battle altogether. The past is never recalled.

Fight you must, fight you will; but fight like a 5-year old.

How to Get Angry

After going through the fit of rage we say, ‘I got angry’. A piece of metal becomes hot when exposed to sunshine; exposed to a situation you become angry. You have no control over it. The anger appears on its own.

You should be able to get angry at will. First gauge a situation, if it warrants anger, get angry. Use your anger as a tool.

The next thing is about the after-effects of anger. As a child when you got angry, there was no carry-forward. You got angry, you expressed it and then dropped it. But as a grown up when you get angry now with someone you carry the anger for hours, even days, and sometimes even for the lifetime.

Is there a model for anger? Yes, there is. Get angry like a mother with her 2-year old who has been spotted playing with the kitchen knife. She first asks for the knife, then tries to bribe the child with something else, then gets angry and may even slap the child. Having wrestled the knife from her child she immediately picks up the crying child and consoles him. She is the perfect example of someone using anger as a tool.

You should notice that her reasons for getting angry, even expression of violence, are directed at the welfare of the child so that he may not hurt himself. A mothers’ response is an act of pure selflessness, is a graduated response and has no carry forwards. The child does not carry the hurt and the mother does not grieve afterwards for getting angry with her little baby. Immediately thereafter the two are back at playing pranks, baby-talking, busy with their gibberish.

How to Get Hurt

The impression of a hurt on your consciousness can be like:-

· A line on a stone- once imprinted, forever there.
· A line on the surface of the earth – wears off with the arrival of the rain.
· A line on sand – the winds of time cover it quickly.
· A line on the surface of water – someone can draw it but it leaves no imprint.
· A line drawn in air – only the person drawing the line knows that he did something.

If you have to really get hurt find the deepest level where the hurt can be a moment of transcendence. Get hurt at the deepest level, at the level of the soul. Reflect on the hurts of people like MKGandhi caused by the train conductor in South Africa, JN Tata by the hotel staff that prevented entry of ‘dogs and Indians’ into the 5-star hotel, Gautam Buddha hurt by the sight of world misery and Mother Teresa by the sight of lepers. It is beautiful to experience hurt at the level of the soul. But feeling hurt at lesser depths? Well, you are likely to hurt yourself.

Till you find the deep within you just delay getting hurt!!

How to Ask

Having grown up, we don’t like to ask others for help. We normally don’t ask because we fear refusal. ‘Ask, and ye shall be given’, said Jesus. There are Golden Rules for Asking:-

Ask what you need, not what you desire.
Ask, but be willing to accept refusal with the same gratitude as if you have been given.
Remember those who give.
Thank God that you had some to ask. Many are not so lucky to have someone to ask even.

Asking is a wonderful way to build a relationship. A relationship will be built only if the person who asks does not expect that his asking will be answered as per his expectations and the giver does not suffer from attachment with what he is giving. Once given, let it be the choice of the new owner to accept or discard what you have given.

The Art of Giving

Understand the Law of Giving.

You can give what you have;
You have only that what you saved;
You save what you value;
Look at the conflict between your savings and what you value!!!

All the hurts from the past are fresh in your mind;
All the good that happened to you, you’ve forgotten;
You forgot the good because you think you deserved them, and the world owed them to you!

All the bad things, hurts and bad episodes you remember vividly.

There are times when you give rather quickly; you can curse immediately, you can blame immediately, you can criticize immediately. What you give immediately are the things you personally don’t value.Give your valuable possessions, not your waste.

The moment you have the good impulse to give, do it immediately; for the impulse may pass off quickly.



How to Experience

If someone asked you to narrate an experience you quickly go narrating a past episode. What you would narrate would be a ‘memory’ and not an ‘experience’.

There are no experiences of the past; pray, they are just memories. Experiencing is possible in the Now, the present moment.

The functioning of your auto-mind mars your experiencing the present. What you actually hear is something like the sound one would hear in a theatre with bad acoustics – hearing the sound-track and its echo simultaneously! A pure experience is possible with a no-mind. When you hear a sound, hear it fully. Do not let the echo of your reaction; ‘I like it’, ‘I don’t like it’ interfere with your experiencing. The auto-mind is doing it to you all the time. It is preventing you from any pure experiencing.

All your memories are thus founded on incorrect experiencing. The entire memory needs to be reformatted, erasing all the data that may be on that disc. Your ego will flash the warning that you will lose all data. Be fearless and say ‘OK’.

After reformatting your personal hard-disc save only the pleasant, the good. You’ll need all this for future responses. Try to forgive and forget the bad experiences. If forgiveness is too much to start with try forgetting them. It is easier to forget than it is to forgive.


How to Think

Anything that requires thinking on your part should be given the treatment as an agenda point of a meeting. There is a time or sequence in which an agenda point comes up, it is discussed for a specified length of time and it concludes with a course of action. The progress is reviewed in the next meeting.

But you have become compulsive thinkers. You always need something to think. You fear that if you are not thinking, you will become obsolete.

How to Know What to Think About

We keep thinking, thinking and thinking. There are 100 jobs in our mind and we keep thinking about all the 100 at the same time. It is like doing kadam-taal, a quick march at the same spot; we make no progress but are quickly out of breath!

By this process of uncontrolled thinking, of thoughts appearing at their own will and you going along the garden-path every time, you hurt yourself. Even if you complete 5 jobs by the end of the day you have no satisfaction. Any sense of achievement that must be there for completing the 5 jobs is drowned in the din & clutter of the unfinished 95 jobs. The way out is:-

List out all issues of concern on a page.
Prioritize them after putting them in a UI grid - what is Urgent (U) and what is Important (I).
Set daily goals as per the UI grid analysis.
Carryout periodic review. A review should certainly not be a daily activity.

How to Improve All That Happens to You

Are you one of those who feel that you get more than your fair share of troubles? You may not believe at the outset that it possible to make good things happen to you.

There is no scope for randomness in Nature. Roses bloom in a particular season while jasmine in another. Planets move around the sun in a fixed orbit at a given speed. So how could you believe that bad things keep happening to you with greater repetitive rate than you actually deserve?

If there is no randomness in Nature, then it is not possible that you get a greater share of troubles than you deserve. If bad things are happening to you too often the problem lies with you, with your attitudes and your perspective. Churchill once said, ‘If you could kick the bottom of the person most responsible for your troubles, you will not be able to sit for a month’.

You can improve the quality of what happens to you by adopting the attitude of appreciation. Leave criticism for others. Appreciate whatever you can and never complain. By this simple technique you attract that which you appreciate.

The working of this model is something like the Best Cook Trophy every mother holds. A mother always cooks for her child, as often as she can, that which her child loves. She knows what her child likes just by observing the child eat, by the glitter in his eyes, by the pace at which he eats the helping served and the fact that he asks for more helpings. The silent appreciation improves the probability of being given the same dish again.

For heaven’s sake, stop taking anything for granted. Appreciate the smallest good that happens to you and you world will be full of all the goodness. Pend your criticism for the next day.

However, be cautious. False praise and false appreciation do not work; they are like blunt knives- they have the look of the knife but do not have the cutting edge. The world can see through any falsehood.

Another important thing you’d do well to remember is that have no expectation. There are enough people in this world who are quite insensitive. Grant them their insensitivity but do not lose your sensitivity.

Be hearty in your praise, in your appreciation and you’ll find that your heart will start growing to accommodate the flood of goodness rushing into your life.


How to be Ambitious

Ambition lies between the two end points- Inspiration and Aspiration.

Inspiration Aspiration
------------------------------------------------------------ Ambitions

Inspiration is a divine gift to every individual. In this field, any work done is bound to succeed. This work, instead of using energy, releases energy into the worker. A gifted painter can paint for hours without getting tired and even when he leaves painting, his mind continues to be with the painting. A man pursuing the inspiration never works for rewards or recognition; for him, his satisfaction is its own reward. The highest performers belong to this category – be it APJ, Kapil Dev, Amritraj brothers, Irfan Pathan or Sania Mirza. Be it Prannoy Roy, Shekhar Suman or Arundhati Roy. Be it Sri Sri, Baba Ramdev or Asaram Bapu.

Aspiration is the field chosen by the individual initially to make a living. He would need to do a lot of hard-work to remain ahead in the race and failure or non-recognition will leave him disheartened.

Being ambitious in the field of aspiration will leave you stressed but being ambitious in the field of inspiration will raise you to the highest level in the field. Even the inanimate objects get reverence from others when the person operates in the field of inspiration. The chair you occupy, the bed you sleep on, the chappals you wear. The shehnai is revered because Bismillah Khan holds it.

All the above is common knowledge. It is not the knowing of truth that transforms a person; it is the doing of truth that has an impact on you and in the other people you interact with.

# posted by Abhay Gupta @ 10:32 AM