When confronted with the uncontrollable, embrace ‘gaman’ and ‘shoganai’

Complaining or grieving don’t help – they are the root cause of suffering!

A friend lost her father a few months ago in a tragic road accident. And she’s not been able to come out of the shock. She wrote to me asking if there a way to cope with the loss of a “dear, dear one”?

Well, any instance of death, particularly of someone who you have been close to, is irreparable. You will always miss that someone. But grieving continuously is definitely going to cause – and accentuate – your suffering.

I shared with our friend what I know of the two traits that the Japanese possess as a people: ‘gaman’ and ‘shoganai’.

‘Gaman’ means ‘patience, endurance, perseverance’. And while ‘shoganai’ literally means ‘nothing can be done’  or ‘it can’t be helped’, it also denotes a calm determination to overcome what cannot be controlled. We must appreciate that Life and death are two sides of the same coin; if you are born, you will die. So, death naturally follows birth and Life. But the Japanese way of Life teaches us how to accept this non-negotiable reality and cope.

The Japanese language testifies to how a sense of precariousness__since Japan is located in one of the most seismologically active spots on the planet; remember the tsunami of March 2011?__has shaped a national consciousness. We have a lot to learn from this Japanese philosophy because most of us are forever complaining of or grieving over what could have been and what we don’t have! Obviously, my friend is going through a lot of pain and trauma over her father’s sudden passing. But ‘shogonai’ – what can be done to undo that pain? Nothing at all. So, only ‘gaman’ will work for her. Only time can heal her. I encouraged her to celebrate her father’s Life – do everything that he loved doing to engage with his ‘presence’ instead of mourning and grieving his absence!

In any context when you are confronted with the uncontrollable, we must embrace ‘gaman’ and ‘shoganai’ as simple, practical philosophies. They are effective to deal with even in everyday Life situations.  You are in a traffic jam and late for your meeting. ‘Shoganai’. You get a non-reclining seat on a packed flight. ‘Shoganai’. There is a power outage. ‘Shoganai’. By any stretch of imagination, ‘Shoganai’ does not imply fatalism. Which is why, it must be understood and practiced with ‘gaman’. Both together encourage us to stop complaining about, or grieving over, things that are beyond our control; instead they urge us to accept situations that leave us numb and helpless. In the context of acts beyond our control__like a health setback or a natural calamity or the passing away of a dear one__they remind us to accept reality and endure Life patiently.

Personally, I believe the Japanese way of Life invites us to stop complaining and grieving. Complaining or grieving does not change reality. Neither does acceptance. But acceptance of any reality at least helps the one facing it to be in peace.

Why blame (an imagined) God for the inscrutable nature of Life?

The most intelligent response to Life is to stay stoic despite its upheavals.

“What do you do when you have a problem with accepting this God theory,” asked a young lady, when we were introduced to her (by a mutual friend) as Life Coaches and Happiness Curators, at a café the other day. She went on to say that she debunked the entire God “story” as proposed by Zeno, a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, who lived around the 3^rd Century BC. Zeno championed the belief that God determined everything for the best and holding on to that view was a virtue sufficient for happiness. Zeno’s followers were called Stoics – some of the more popular followers were Seneca and Epictetus. The lady said that it was impossible for her to accept that God controlled everything and so she felt that she could not accept the God theory as a pre-requisite for happiness. “How do I make peace with myself, when I am not able to accept a majority opinion or belief,” she asked.

I replied: “Simple. Replace the word God with the word Life. Now, consider this statement – Life controls everything and understanding this truth holds the key to happiness.” I then asked her: “Do you have a problem in accepting Life as a more intelligent energy than you?”

The lady replied: “No, I don’t. I surely feel the presence of a Higher Energy. But I don’t like the idea of God.”

“So, just go with what you believe in. Why do you complicate your Life by questioning the belief systems of others,” I asked.

The lady said she got the point.

Many people are like this young lady. They are spending too much time analyzing what needs no analysis. The truth is that there is a Higher Energy – call it Creation, call it God, call it by whatever name – that powers our lives. I have learnt to simply accept this truth and trust the process of Life. I realize that the best way to live Life is to, as Zeno championed, be stoic in the wake of Life’s upheavals. The Roman philosophers who followed Zeno too advocated the calm acceptance of all occurrences as the unavoidable result of divine will or of natural order. The second chapter of the Bhagavad Gita ends with describing the highest state of consciousness a human being can attain. Krishna, replying to Arjuna, says (presenting here only the relevant extract): “…He lives in wisdom, who sees himself in all and all in him, Whose love for the Lord of Love has consumed every selfish desire and sense-craving tormenting the heart. Not agitated by grief, nor hanker after pleasure he lives free from lust and fear and anger. Fettered no more by selfish attachments he is not elated by good fortune nor depressed by bad. Such is the seer….” The key operative part is to be “not elated by good fortune nor depressed by bad”.

In our lifetimes, we are seeing stoicism all around us as people deal with publicly visible tragedies – like the Las Vegas shootings or the questionable incarceration of the Talwar couple over the unsolved murder of their child, Aarushi. We also see people deal with their private tragedies stoically – a health challenge, a relationship issue, the passing of a dear one. There is immense pain for those who are caught in these Life situations. Yet we don’t see them beating their chests and wailing. They see no point in grieving and suffering endlessly. Instead, we see them, almost prayerful, moving on with their work, seemingly unaffected by the pain and grief. This is the highest spiritual quality individuals can acquire. In learning from them, we can find a better way to deal with our own, smaller, calamities.

So, God or no God is not the debate really. Seriously, why blame (an imagined) God for the inscrutable nature of Life? The most intelligent response to a Life that you can never make sense of is to accept whatever comes your way and to stay stoic, stay anchored. This is what Zeno told us centuries ago. And if we internalize that Life lesson, we too can be happy with what is!

Lesson from the Talwars’ story: you can’t reason or negotiate with Life!

You have to go through what you have to go through!

Yesterday, the Allahabad High Court acquitted the Talwar couple, Nupur and Rajesh, in the sensational murder case of their daughter Aarushi. Vaani and I always believed that the couple were not guilty. We have been following the case closely over the past 9 years. We have read Avirook Sen’s book Aarushi and have watched Meghna Gulzar’s Talvar (2015, written by Vishal Bharadwaj, starring Irrfan Khan, Konkona Sen Sharma, Neeraj Kabi) too. Every shred of evidence in the case has always pointed to the innocence of the Talwars. And now the Allahabad High Court rules that there never was, and there isn’t, any conclusive evidence that proves that the Talwars murdered their daughter and their domestic help, Hemraj. Besides, anyone who knew anything about the case, also knew that the UP Police and the second team of the CBI that investigated the case, had done a very shoddy job of the investigations. So, as the Allahabad High Court’s verdict streamed in, many, many people across India felt justice had been done. Of course, some people, rightly so, seek justice for Aarushi and Hemraj – who killed them, and why is the killer(s) still roaming free? And there are others who maintain that the Talwars “got away with it” while some others believe that our system – of crime detection and jurisprudence – stinks.

I have blogged on my learnings from the Life of the Talwars a few times in the past. Life doesn’t bother what you feel about it ; Our Life design, the Master Plan is inscrutable, but it has to be accepted and faced; Judgments and opinions have no place in a Life that spares no one .

As I sat down to write today’s Blogpost, what struck me was the meaninglessness of it all, the inscrutability of Life’s design! If the Allahabad High Court eventually acquitted the Talwars, then why were they convicted in the first place? Why did the couple have to go through this harrowing experience – when they have not even been able to grieve the loss of their child privately? Who will compensate for the 9 years of their Life that the Talwars have lost battling courts and investigating agencies, serving an unfair jail sentence for over 4 years? Why do good people have to go through tough times?

In these questions lie a brutal, non-negotiable truth about Life. Our Life. Yours and mine. And that truth is this – Life just keeps on happening; it has a mind of its own! It doesn’t matter to Life whether you are ethical or talented or sincere or hardworking. No matter who you are, you have to go through what you have to go through. Asking Life questions serves no purpose. Because you aren’t going to get any answers.

Personally, I take away a lot from the Talwars – from the way they have stoically faced their excruciating Life situation. They have not just lost their only child, they have lost their privacy, their reputation, perhaps their sanity too in the wake of such senseless trial and scrutiny by media and public alike; in their incarceration in Dasna, UP, they lost their freedom too – yet they have soldiered on. At each stage, they have done what they had to do, and what they could do – which is, they have relied on the legal system. However biased the system may have been against them, they have ploughed on within its framework. To me, Nupur and Rajesh are embodiments of what the Bhagavad Gita urges all of us to do – focus on our actions, on what we can do in a given situation, and leave the outcome, the result, to Life.

None of us can say we understand what they have gone through and how they must be feeling now after their acquittal. But what we can do is to learn from their story – we can learn that we can’t reason or negotiate with Life; we have to go through what we have to go through! And yes, we can, of course, send them all our love and prayers…