Yesterday I was watching a Hindi movie called Heroine (directed by Madhur Bhandarkar,
September 2012). In the movie, the film’s heroine, played admirably by Kareena
Kapoor, tells her boyfriend that she’s scared of being happy. Because she
believes that happiness is too short-lived. She’s scared that someone,
something, will take her happiness away!
Many of us lead our lives this way. Forever – fearful, anxious and worried. Happiness and inner
peace, interestingly, have no expiry date. But we, tragically, believe exactly
the opposite to be true! The truth is that all our fears are connected with
external, material, physical, reference points. These points could be people or
things. To flip the paradigm, a tectonic shift in our thinking has to happen. From
external reference points, we must move inward, anchor within, to and in our
inner core!
An old Zen
story I have read Osho say is of a Zen Master who was invited as a guest by
someone. A few friends had gathered and they were listening intently to the
Master when suddenly there was an earthquake. The building that they were
sitting in was a seven story building, and they were on the seventh story.
Naturally, they all feared for Life and ran. Everybody tried to escape. The
host, running down, paused, and came back to see what had happened to the Master.
He was sitting still, on the floor, on the mat, with not even a ripple of
anxiety on his face.
With closed eyes he was sitting just as he had been sitting before.
The host
felt a little guilty. He felt cowardly. It does not look good when a guest is
sitting while the host is running away. The others, the guests, had already
gone down the stairs but he stopped himself although he was trembling with
fear, and he too sat down by the side of the Master.
The earthquake came and went in a matter of a few minutes. Once the tremors and rumblings stopped, the Master opened his eyes and resumed his discourse which he had had to stop because of the earthquake. He began again at exactly the same sentence – as if the earthquake had not happened at all!
The host was
now in no mood to listen, he was in no mood to understand because his whole
being was so troubled and he was so afraid. Even though the earthquake was over,
he was still in shock, in fear. He said: “Now please don’t say anything because
I will not be able to grasp it, I’m not myself anymore. The earthquake has
disturbed me. But there is one question I would like to ask. All other guests
had escaped, I was also running down the stairs, when suddenly I remembered
you. Seeing you sitting here with closed eyes, sitting so undisturbed, so
unperturbed, I felt a little cowardly – I am the host, I should not run. So I
came back and I have been sitting by your side. I would like to ask one
question. We all tried to escape. What happened to you? How’s it that you did not
feel like running?”
The Master
said: “I also ran, but you ran outwardly while I escaped
inwardly. Your escape is useless because wherever you are going
there too is an earthquake, so it is meaningless, it makes no sense. You may
reach the sixth story or the fifth or the fourth, but there too is an
earthquake. I escaped to a point within me where no earthquake ever reaches,
cannot reach. I entered my center.”
This story
is the essence of Zen. It means that when you reach your center, nothing can
affect you. No external event, development, can touch you. Your center has
been, is, and will be with you. It is IN
you. In your center, you will find both perpetual happiness and inner peace. Even
if you are physically in shackles, if you are anchored, centered, no one can
take away your inner peace or make you unhappy. Know that only you yourself are
responsible for your peace and inner joy. But since you and I are not awake and
aware all the time, we keep looking at external reference points and keep
fearing, like the heroine in Heroine,
that somebody, someone will snatch away our happiness.
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