On Self Realization

Sometime ago, a friend of mine happily announced that she was finally blessed with a grandson and was honorably entrusted to babysit the newborn. But being an actively religious person, she had to sacrifice some of her time in leading prayer sessions at a local temple. Nevertheless, she enthusiastically undertook the assignment with the help of a maid. Unfortunately as days went by, she gradually became stressed when her working daughter-in-law began to take her for granted and dictated how the child should be cared for. So in a fix, she conferred with her close friends and the responses she got were mixed, some for and some against which further confused and frustrated her.

When we met, she appeared perturbed after having lost some sleep over her predicament. When she described her situation, my first reaction was to recommend the classic management strategy of assessing, planning and dovetailing her commitments. She gave it a brief thought and said that my suggestion has its pros and cons but would give it a try. After that day, since I didn’t hear from her I assumed she succeeded.

To my surprise, the story didn’t end there. When we caught up with each other about a year later, she was gleaming. I greeted her, “Hey you look real good. Glad my solution to your babysitting problem worked”.
“Why yes, thank you and more than that.”
“Oh yeah? Pray tell”, I couldn’t contain my curiosity.
“Well, it was tough going at the beginning. The child, maid and parents were all moving in different directions and it was hell, so much so that I scooted off to the temple to pray for a miracle! Now, don’t you laugh at that!”
“Ahem … did you get one?” I quipped in an attempt to stifle an upcoming snigger.
“No! But I got up one morning and realized that it was I going through the hell. The problem was in fact not “my problem.” My problem was the way I judged, valued and prioritized things. I couldn’t bend rules which made me inflexible. I had all the things to make me the happiest grandma in town but I couldn’t see them”.
“That’s interesting, didn’t see it that way too. So?”
“I returned to the temple, took it as a school to learn more about life and living and went home to practice what I learnt.
That worked. Don’t ask me how but it worked. It’s a long story anyway. Today, the child responds to his granny’s cuddles, the maid is more cooperative and my daughter-in-law recognizes and appreciates my services. Now my son takes the whole family including the maid for outings on weekends when he’s available. And, I still have the time to lead the prayer sessions in my temple.”
To that, I could only say, “Wow, you are certainly blessed“.

So, who says life is not a bed of roses? This is one way of making it – self realization and how much of our life we want to be a bed of roses is entirely up to us. We've to create our own miracles and no amount of hollow "please let me have it my way" prayers can do it.

Finally, this is a common but not a fabricated story. My friend the grandmother just celebrated her 62nd birthday and her grandson will be 5 years old soon.

On Visible Problems & Hidden Solutions - a dialogue

My colleague, a long-timed employee of our company often complained of not getting full cooperation from staff of other departments no matter how hard she tried. Recently, over a lunch chat she was whining away at her quandary, inviting a response from me.
Looking at her expressionless for a brief moment I said, “Knowing you, the solution to your problem is not in anyway near or in your problem”.
“Whazzat?” she replied, puzzlingly.
“Then let me share this with you. I also happen to know of a handful of people out there who wouldn’t touch you with a 10-foot pole, let alone working with you”.
Startled, she blurted disbelievingly, “Is it? You must be kidding! But why?”

I paused briefly and continued, “Believe it or not, it’s true and it’s about you, the image of you in their minds and the “vibes” you generate. I can observe that you are unaware that they have a negative image of you, even though you have not done them any harm. Also, the image of you can precede you in a way that someone whom you have little or no dealings with could developed an unfavorable impression of you using data from the others who know you. Likewise many would, in an environment where they have to occasionally deal with people indirectly so as to find out more about who they’re dealing with”.

“Next, you are obviously unaware that the “vibes” you generate from your body language (behavior), the things you say and the way you say them, are all your signatures. People around you can easily feel whether you are friendly, sincere or otherwise. Consider this, if you dislike a person for some reason, whatever the person utters is always either wrong or debatable to you, even though what is said is right. Usually if unprompted, this would be your natural response. So unfortunately in your case, not many people here are enthusiastic about working with you because they feel uncomfortable and without telling you openly, express it in non-cooperation. That’s why you’re experiencing this problem without being able to detect or establish the cause”.

At that juncture, I was not ready or capable enough to help her to resolve the complexity of her plight except to identify the salient causes.

Therefore in life, if we are not mindful we can be inflicted with many such problems where the solutions are well hidden away and not discovered even on our way to the grave. So we continue to wallow in a quagmire filled with them because our minds are deluded by skewed values blocking the view to our real selves. Unwittingly, we keep on blaming others for our predicaments. If we could only stand in front of a mirror each morning and ask ourselves whether we are happy with what we see, the answer could well be in that image.

Blessed are those who are and joyful of what they see. Otherwise, we seriously need to reinvent ourselves …

On Spiritual Maturity

In view of all the different definitions of the subject, the most common sign of spiritual immaturity is when one hints or says, “My God, Religion, Religious Teaching or Philosophy etc. is the only true one”, without realizing that no God, Saints, Deities, Prophets or Gurus can make one mature spiritually. They can only be there to guide us with and through their teachings and if the mind interprets them without some basic wisdom, it can be equally disastrous. Spiritual maturity simply means the ability to see the good in all religious teachings and philosophies as well as to understand one of the human mind's dysfunctions in the treatment or mistreatment of knowledge, views, beliefs and judgments that could be tainted with cultural, social and environmental factors. Here’s a simple and hilarious example of spiritual immaturity.

I have a colleague who swore that her God is the only one and true God and that no other Gods stand before it. I then asked her, “Who or what says so?”
“The good and holy book!” she replied without hesitation.
“Ok, I don’t disagree, but there are many such books around, why do you choose this one?” She couldn’t provide a convincing answer except to insist that her book (and version!) provides the only real and believable answers.
I added, “If you claim that your book is right, there are others who claim theirs too. So, where do we go from here?” After some unconvincing statements, she concluded, “You’ll find out when you die!” Oops …