Grief makes you understand contentment

On trusting, in the present continuous tense

Dealing with the process of grief

Every loss teaches detachment

Don’t suppress your grief and don’t hold on to it

Everything – and every person – in your Life is here on a limited-period offer

Don’t let you grief consume you

Happiness comes from transcending sadness, not by suppressing it!

Be aware. Be happy!

A young lady came to us saying she wanted to know how she can break free from feeling sad. She and her husband had been living separately for years now. Her business had folded up. The money she had borrowed from her brother for the business remained outstanding. But he had been generous enough to write off the dues. “In a way, everything that caused my sadness, my broken marriage, my failed business and my inability to pay off my loans, has been around me, with me, for a long time. Yet, I am unable to get rid of the sadness within me. What must I do,” she asked.

Good question. This lady, in my opinion, is lucky. At least she knows a. that she is sad and b. what is making her sad. Many a time, people just wallow in sadness. They don’t know it and can’t express their feeling clearly.

Even so, sadness, grief is not something unnatural. Sorrow is a very natural, real human feeling. Someone dies. You lose something. You are misunderstood. You break up in a relationship. You suffer a crippling health setback. Each of these situations can apply to any of us – at any time. And when something like that happens, chances are that you will be grief-stricken. You will wish your Life was different. This wishing will make you feel miserable and cause all your suffering. You will go down a depressive spiral and will continue to remain stuck in that cesspool of grief for a long, long time. Eventually, you will not even know what you are sad about. Sadness would have become embedded in your subconscious.

 

The way to haul yourself up in a situation like this is to focus on whatever gives you joy. It can be music, art, watching a movie or being alone with nature. Whatever makes you forget that you are sad, in a natural manner, do it. Drinking or smoking do not fall in this category because they are artificial and you impose them on you. Look for an immersive experience – where you can lose yourself, without count of time or without thinking about your grief!

Important, sadness and happiness are the same energy – expressed differently. Look around you. There are so many happy people. Why are you not happy in their midst? The reason is that when you look at them, you feel you can never be like them. You have conditioned yourself to thinking that way. Break free from that conditioning, from that pattern of thinking. The truth is, if you can be sad, you can be happy too! Not by replacing the factors that have caused your sadness. But by accepting the fact that you have reasons to be sad, and that, despite those reasons, you can chose to be happy doing what gives you joy!

Sorrow and suffering must not be resisted. Or controlled. Or repressed. They must be transcended. You can go past those feelings if you are aware. Awareness will always lead you to happiness!   

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Go to work on your problems than just lament about them

When Life’s problems seem insurmountable, take each day as it comes, but keep at your problems without thinking of the outcomes.

There will be times when nothing will seem to go your way. Situations at work will be unproductive – stressful, political and complex. Your relationship could be heading nowhere – often leaving you lonely and lost. The money may just not be enough. And any efforts you make to fix things, to find solutions, to make the situation better, may only end up confounding matters. The normal response to such a situation is anger, frustration and depression. When these emotions arise, observe them. Hold them and give them your attention. Ask yourself if feeling angry, frustrated or depressed is of any use in a situation when you don’t like what you are getting in Life. When you realize the futility of anger, frustration and depression, you will immediately want to let them go.

Running away from Life or feeling sad continuously for what has happened or feeling guilty for what you may have contributed to what has happened – none of these serve any purpose. In fact, Life never cares how you feel. Life just goes on happening. And if you bring debilitating thoughts to the table, if you keep clinging on to the negativity that arises as a result within you, you will feel bogged down and held hostage.

What is a problem situation at the end of the day? Any situation that you dislike is a problem situation. Plain and simple. If what you dislike must go away – one of two things must happen. Either you must work on driving it away. Or you must walk away from it. You can’t forever be lamenting that you dislike a situation. That’s escapism. Of course, in any situation, you can act, you can take remedial steps. So, act. Don’t worry about the results. Simply act. An action may lead you to a result. And you may like or dislike that result. Then act again if you must change that result. That’s how it works. Inaction on account of depression, anger, guilt, grief or worry is sacrilege. For anything about a current reality to change, you have to change something within you first. Which is, you must be ready and willing to go to work on your problem regardless of circumstance, outcome, reward or recognition. Just keep chipping away. When the going gets tough again, when you face rejection, failure and hit another no-go place, you may well face another bout of depression and frustration. Hold your depression again and examine its futility. Then let it all go. And you go back to work, to chipping away at your problem. One day, one day surely, what you are chipping away at will give way. And that day, when you connect the dots backward, you will be grateful for the choice you made – to have gone to work on your problem than sit and bemoan it!   

Your ‘Mahamaham’ moment awaits you – not in Kumbakonam, but within you!

A dip in a ‘holy’ river or tank can never ‘cleanse’ you. Pausing, reflecting and awakening alone can.

A friend feverishly texted me on WhatsApp a few days ago. He’s close to me and believes that the financial challenges that my family and I are enduring, for close to a decade now, is directly related to my past karma– a ‘carry forward’ of sorts of ‘sins committed in a previous birth’. He furiously appealed to me I must make the pilgrimage to the Mahamaham tank in Kumbakonam and take a dip to ‘wash away all my bad karma, my sins’. “You will see an immediate change in your fortunes,” he insisted. I merely thanked him for his compassionate perspective and offered no justification for my choice not to accept his advice.

Mahamaham – Kumbakonam Picture Courtesy: Internet

The Mahamaham is a Hindu festival that happens every 12 years in the Mahamaham tank in Kumbakonam, Tamil Nadu. I have no disrespect for the Mahamaham. Nor do I intend questioning its legend that’s drawing several millions in (what they think is) piety. Yet, I sincerely don’t believe a ritualistic dip, however ‘holy’ the site may be, can ever cleanse anyone. In his memorable 2003 classic, Anbe Sivam (Love is God), Kamal Hassan beautifully explains to his co-star Madhavan why the God within us – the Universal Energy that keeps us alive – must awaken for us to realize the magic and beauty of Life. That realization, to me, is the biggest awakening. And only an awakening from within can truly cleanse us.

To be sure, there is a Mahamaham moment waiting for each of us – provided we are ready and willing to understand Life and have seeker’s, a student’s, attitude. And that moment need not be at a temple tank, where millions are crowding with a herd mentality, throwing personal and public hygiene to the wind! My own Mahamaham moment happened in my living room, some time in 2007, when I was having my favorite Royal Challenge whisky, and was utterly bored with two other things I was trying to do at the same time – swap channels on TV hoping to find something interesting and make sense of the English translation of the Sai Satcharita, a book on the Life and teachings of Shirdi Sai Baba. My search for something meaningful on TV drew a blank. And I soon turned it off. My family had long gone to sleep. Even as I poured myself another drink, I tried – but failed miserably – to understand what the Sai Satcharita was trying to say – it will easily rank as among the most horrible works of translation ever, from the original Marathi to English! I put the book away. And I thought deeply about what Shirdi Baba had taught the world in his lifetime. In a Eureka-like flash, it dawned on me that the two principles around which all his teachings were anchored are – Shraddha, Faith and Saburi, Patience. To face Life and to overcome the challenges that you are faced with, I realized that, you must keep the faith and learn to be patient.

Over time, I employed this awakening very constructively, through my daily practice of mouna (silence periods), to understand the impermanence and inscrutability of Life. I learned that this is the only Life we have. And to live this Life well – and happily – we must train our mind to be in the present moment. In the now. I discovered that the way religion is practiced in the world today is that it encourages you and me to fear people (who peddle religion) than inspire faith in creation – that if you have been created without your asking to be born, then the same energy that created you will care for you, will provide for you. When there is fear, how can there be faith? When there is no faith, how can you be patient?   

This clarity is helping me live my Life with total inner peace, despite the storm that rages on outside, in my business, professional and material Life. This clarity makes me believe that a dip in an insanely crowded temple tank will hardly cleanse anything – not even your body, let alone your mind. I am more with Kabir, the 15^thCentury weaver-poet, here. He said:

Kabir Man Nirmal Bhaya, Jaise Ganga Neer 

Pache Pache Har Phire, Kahat Kabir Kabir

Translation

Kabir Washed His Mind Clean, Like The Holy Ganges River

Everyone follows behind, Saying Kabir, Kabir

That is, Kabir urges us to remove all impurities from our mind, from our thinking process, thus letting the light of divinity to shine forth. Truly, there is divinity in each of us. That divinity is suppressed, lying buried under layers and layers of grief, guilt, anger, fear and such debilitating emotions. This is why we are searching for God outside of us. This is why we are running to a Mahamaham.

Seriously, you don’t need to wait for 12 years to scramble to a Mahamaham for cleansing yourself. Your Mahamaham moment awaits you if you can simply pause, reflect and awaken to the opportunity of cleansing your mind, of living in the now!