Get off the ‘becoming treadmill’

‘Just being’ does not mean abdicating ambition or the pursuit of excellence.

A young man came up to me after my Bliss Catchers edition yesterday and asked me if “flowing with Life meant that we must ‘just be’?” “In that case,” he pressed on, “should we stop becoming, drop all ambition and allow Life to take care of us?”

Good question that.

First, let us understand that Life has been taking care of us all along. It is only our economic and social conditioning, our logical thinking, that makes us believe that we control Life or that we take care of ourselves. Learning to go with the flow of Life teaches us to appreciate the value of trusting the process of Life. Just being is not inaction. In fact, when you just are, when you just be, you are engaged in celebrating the moment. That is a lot of action. When you are in the now, in the moment, you are letting go of all that worries you or scares you. That means you trust Life to take care of those issues. Now, that again is a lot of action.

Second, you don’t have to necessarily be aggressive, competitive, and hyperactive all the time. This does not mean you must stagnate or vegetate. Be ambitious, work on your ambition, but do all of that with equanimity. By just being, by being calm, you are not going to become any less efficient or less focused on getting what you want or reaching your goals.

The thinker-philosopher J.Krishnamurti (1895 ~ 1986), has said, “Real learning comes about when the competitive spirit has ceased.” And he has also said, “The ability to observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence.” If you consider both of JK’s perspectives you will understand that in effect, in the so-called real world that we have created today, there is no more learning. We have lost all our learning ability trying to grow our earning potential. And, obviously, at the cost of not employing our intelligence, we have begun to love, and therefore cling to, things and use people, whereas, it should be the other way round!

Think of what the real world really is: a place where everyone is busy running a rat race, where the spirit of inquiry and learning is stifled very, very early on in Life and people are only keen on their GPAs and placements, where top draw salaries are a means to acquire all material comfort and where innovation and enterprise are sacrificed on the altar of quarterly earnings and wanting to be seen as the number 1 and not necessarily striving to be the best! Competition has become the very basis of Life. No doubt competition, like in sport, brings out the best in a person. But to obsess oneself with competition, with being street smart and constantly comparing with others can ruin the joy of living.

It is this obsession with comparing with others, with competing with a desire to vanquish others, that has made our world, this real world of ours, such a cold place to live in. Driven by the hunger to be successful you have stopped celebrating your uniqueness. Instead of just being, you are on this ‘becoming treadmill’ – wanting to become someone else or wanting to become like someone else. Running on a treadmill has an inherent pitfall – you keep running harder no doubt but, in the end, you are still at the same place! Comparison with others, being in continuous, endless, competition, breeds ambition. No problem with being ambitious. But when ambition makes you combative, restless and subconsciously violent – where you are fighting continuously with who you are because you are wanting to become someone else – then your inner peace and happiness are destroyed.

JK urged us to look at nature. He used to say that the flowers bloom for the joy of blooming; the trees don’t compete with each other, they simply enjoy each other’s presence and growth; the sun rises and sets because it simply has to – there’s no attitude to nature’s magnificence. Osho, the Master, went a step further to clarify: “All that is divine is non-competitive – and your being is divine. So just sort it out. The society has muddled your head; it has taught you the competitive way of Life…when you are non- competitive, only then can you be yourself. This is simple.”

So stop trying to become – something, someone. Just be. Then you will always be happy and at peace with yourself!

If you learn well, you will live well – happy and peaceful

Life is teaching you something every moment that you are alive.

It’s up to you to learn or to discard or ignore the learning in that moment! And almost always Life’s lessons arrive at a time when you have no intention or interest in learning them! Yet we can’t escape the experience even if we don’t see the point just then to learn from it.

The experiences we have in this lifetime are our real education. So, clearly, our education does not cease with an academic qualification! And the more the experience, the greater your expertise. There’s no point in having all the academic qualifications that the world can offer, be brilliant with your GPA (Grade Point Average) but be a poor human being, who has no time for others, who does not see value in the moment, who merely exists, and who does not live! The tragedy with our world is that all assessments are materialistic. To most people, how much (wealth and material assets) you have is more important than how well you have lived. So, you are evaluated basis your income, your car, your clothes, your neighborhood, your club and such. And when some of these do get taken away, as they will possibly be, on one side you grieve their loss, but on another side you are discarded as worthless. The person who has seen Life’s upheavals, who has been battered and bruised by Life’s hard knocks, and who stays grounded, compassionate and humble when success comes calling, which it surely will, is far more evolved than someone who has made his millions and has seen only comfort and no pain.

One of the most important lessons that Life is teaching all of us is that each phase of Life is a guest, albeit an unexpected one, in our lifetime. If there is a lot of wealth in the beginning, know that it is a guest. It will have to leave you some day. If there is a lot of pain and suffering, it too is a guest. It too will have to depart. If there is a lot of debt, that too will stay for as long as it must and wants to. Then it too shall be gone. We must treat each phase with the same dignity and compassion that we accord to guests in our homes. Just the little extra we may like to do with Life’s guests is that we may want to learn from them. If we refuse to meet the guest and learn from the guest, there is no chance that this guest will leave. He or she will still be at the door – knocking. Don’t you think it is more prudent to just greet the guest, learn what you must and then see him or her off? This continuous inviting, greeting and learning (and unlearning) from each guest, from each phase in your Life, is what intelligent living is all about.

If you learn well, you will live well – happy and peaceful. If you resist, or refuse to learn, you will be miserable and agonize over the way things are! So, who’s your guest visiting you in Life presently? And what are you learning from your guest?