Excitement and depression are complimentary

Guruji said in the 2nd talk of Ashtavakra Geeta that you are blessed when the realization of futility of existence and boredom of routine, which cannot be done away with any other pleasurable activity, comes in you.

What pleasure can you seek in future? Remember that life is boring and life is routine; and life is meant to be like this.

No ambition or even intention in job is going to help you be with that inner self of bliss. At the same time, all that you need (not want) will come by whenever needed. So, tapas lies in living life freely, with no intention from moment to moment and serving others whenever they are in need.

Always remember, a mind excited about good prospects of future is going to go into depression in the next few moments. Because it seems that both excitement and depression are complementary and they follow each other. So, tapas lies in knowing that neither expectation from future, nor excitement is to be fallen prey to, because in later moment they will lead you to low feelings, misery and depression. Tapas lies in staying dispassionate even during times of success and failure, as finally all this is the play of the Divine and its only when we enter the small mind, that these distortions in feelings start and pains start in life.

Aggression and depression

Many times, I have found myself going through cycles of aggression, followed by depression. Aggression normally happens due to high energy, may be high prana, that makes me desirous of doing some good things, and all this finally leads to restlessness and aggressiveness in the mind, maybe to express, and followed by smashana vairagya, depression and misery later. Next time, be aware when this cycle approaches you.

So, whenever such aggression about some activity starts touching you, know that you need to drop it or atleast be aware of it, else depression will queue up at your doorsteps.

Know that there is no peace outside. And there is no need for any strong intention or desire for anything to happen in any particular way outside. All is already governed by the universal intelligence and all that needs to happen will happen. For example, if you feel that a particular volunteer or a person is not ‘correctly mentored’, then this thought may guide your actions. But finally know that that volunteer, as any other person on this planet, is guided by God and will get the experiences that he/she needs either through you or through somebody else.

Know that you are here only to put efforts and keep yourself busy. Rest, what happens outside is not of interest and is to be surrendered.

Amidst chaos, everything is perfect.

Longing and Imperfections

I experienced that with longing come imperfections and distortions of love.

When you are in longing, you seek love and attention of others. This brings imperfections like ego and jealousy, especially when you feel that others are getting that love and attention.

Longing has no solution. You have experienced both being in the presence and not being in the presence of the person you long for. You learnt that even if you be in the presence of the person you long for, it is incomplete and does not guarantee trupti for ever. Maybe, a couple of days later or even hours later, you will again long. And if you are not in that presence, you feel that urge and maybe, depression.

Whatever it be, it seems that first you go through both being in the presence and not being in the presence, and experiment with both. And, maybe, what you conclude is that you should learn to be with the self and not with any other person’s company.. however difficult that may be, that seems to be the best solution.

Tapas

Many people on the path of devotion have longing to do service. Any other activity, like job may lose its juice and at times, it may seem like a jail.

But, if God has made it compulsory for people to spend time going through job and earning money, then there’s got to be some purpose. Searching for purpose is futile as the scope of logic is very limited; the mystery and purpose of life extends beyond logic and intellect of an ordinary man.

Guruji says that the purpose of job is experience, money and discipline in life.

So, just like seva, take the responsibility of job and other things in life as tapas. It’s no longer about whether you enjoy your work or get bored. Practicing dispassion in your work, both during likes and dislikes is also a sadhana. Make your life a sadhana even during job. Because in job, you need to be always aware to see that you are not carried away either by the enjoyment or boredom of the work that you do or by the six distortions of love.

So, henceforth, whenever you are in your office, know that this too is tapas dictated on you by God. This is not your choice.

Expression and Ego

Expression to others should always be freed from ego. The more the ego is, more is the lack of energy in expression and more the dryness in it. If ego comes before expression, you have to work consciously and dissolve it at that moment.

At the same time, in the inner self, there should be dispassion and detachment. If you start expecting from others around you, you shift your centre outside you and your prana becomes low. You again forget that there is not anything outside. Everything is only inside.

So, completeness and silence inside with no expectation of inclusion from others outside, and fullness in outer expression of enthusiasm in any activity that you take needs to be practiced at every moment.

Why at all??

It seems that life is a constraint. Every person born on the planet is destined to live it. When you realize that almost everyone you know is imperfect, has ambitions, unaware of the purpose of life and maybe living out of compulsion- may have to work hard to pay EMI or may have to painfully travel by company transportation or by a private two-wheeler on the polluted roads, or go through pains of poor health, you lose interest in impressing anybody or for that matter, even talking to anybody. Jealousy ceases to stay on others’ success, because you know that the other person is also living this mystery filled with events.

You know that no matter what, you have no choice but to live this life till the end. In the process, keep facing happy, pleasurable as well as unhappy and depressive moments, keep feeling the pain of desires (if they bother at all) and keep experiencing the six distortions of love daily. In this complex MATRIX, it may not matter what you do. But what surely matters is whatever you do, whether you do it with contentment, happiness and fullness, or with feverishness and desires. Because, no matter what, in life, you are going to see both pleasure and pain. You will keep seeing the pain of others dying in front of you till you die one day..

Through the streets of Mumbai

Ever since I have been with the Art of Living, I have been observant of the things and events around me. Recently, I was in my hometown, Mumbai and was helping my dad out with some of his business work. I visited a govt. office located in a very congested part of the city. I passed through utterly crowded streets and as expected, there was the usual hustle and bustle, super busy market areas, roads camouflaged on both sides with old dilapidated 2-3 floored buildings inhabited by their ‘original’ city residents; and cluttered with road-side stalls that would sell you all the things you would ever want for your household at the cheapest possible rates. And of course the 4-wheelers moving inch by inch trying to make their ways through the busy pedestrians. Once in a while, one happens to travel through such streets. Today, I moved through one of them and as I moved, something that really pinched me happened..

On my way, I passed through a red light area. Now, whenever I have seen prostitutes on the streets, I have silently and passively prayed for them and then, moved on, completely forgetting. However, this time my confrontation was a bit more touching. As my taxi slowed down due to heavy traffic congestion, I gradually passed across three young prostitutes standing separately barely a few meters away. With all the little time that I had, I observed them in more detail. I felt that all the three of them were just normal innocent people and very very young, not more than 18-20 years. Their eyes seemed to be waiting for customers probably. They looked not educated or intellectual, just young innocent kids from some far-off villages.

Now, I have been a volunteer for the Youth Empowerment and Skills Workshop (YES!+), a 7 days amazing workshop for city youth. In the recent months we got a few local engineering college students from the city suburbs doing this workshop along with the young, busy and ever-stressed IT professionals. I realized that whenever we volunteers go out to graduate colleges to publicize our workshop, we normally speak to people of the age of these prostitutes about sharpening their skills. But this time I do not talk to these kids. I just leave them to be ruled by their cruel fates. I felt disturbed. Why am I available to help only the college kids and not these? Can I just take these girls out of that miserable area and drop them to some rehabilitation centre? Certainly not. These girls have been enslaved by some of the powerful and brutal local mafias and no one has the guts to do anything like that. What a shame, the entire country knows what happens on that street of Mumbai, but no body bothers to take any action. Our entire system is sinked in corruption. No single person can do anything against it. Thinking all this, I just happened to leave the street and the kids behind as my taxi moved on.

I realized that even after organizing so many YES!+ courses in the last 3 years, I am not empowered. Reaching back home, I hurriedly searched the google to know more about the menace. Many of these girls are lured/forced/sold into prostitution from the poorest parts of Nepal by middlemen. What are the NGOs doing about it? Nothing substantial has happened so far. Of the lakhs of prostitutes in the country, only a handful have been rescued from the clutches of the pimps and brothel-owners. The pinch still lingers in my heart, wondering whether anything can really be done about it.. and if not, then what did I learn from the YES!+ ?