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.