Things have happened, are happening and will continue to
happen on their own in Life. All you have to do is just flow with Life –
without resisting it. That’s really how all our lifetimes happen.
I am often asked by people why I have named my
Book, which releases tomorrow, “Fall Like A Rose
Petal”. The title of my Book is inspired by a story that Osho,
the Master, used to say of a Sufi Master. The Sufi Master used to say to his
disciples: “A
rose petal, so delicate, but so strong, doesn’t hesitate about where it is
falling, where it is going, whether there is any earth to find, to rest, to go
to sleep, to die… Simply Trust. Do not the petals flutter down just like that?”
The essence of this story is to accept Life for
the way it is, for what it is, to have trust in Life’s larger design for you,
and to flow with Life. My Book, “Fall Like A Rose
Petal – A father’s lessons on how to be happy and content while living without
money”, shares lessons that my wife and I have learnt through
our experience of a bankruptcy in our Life. It deals with my initial struggle
with acceptance and how, eventually, magically, all my suffering disappeared
when I embraced my problem situation and accepted it.
How I came about this title is an interesting
story.
Sometime in the winter of 2010, when we had a
few hours to kill before we took a flight out of Pune, my wife and I, on a lark,
decided to visit the Osho Ashram, a commune, in Koregaon Park, Pune. I had
heard of the Ashram being open to visitors at no fee. But when we arrived at
the gate, we were informed that a recent rule – following the February 2010
bombing of the German Bakery in the Ashram’s neighborhood – mandated that
visitors enrol as members for a fee of Rs.800/-+ per head to enter the
premises. Now, we didn’t have that kind of money. I did have some cash. But an unplanned
expenditure of Rs.1600/-+ for both of us was something we just could not afford.
So, I asked the gatekeeper, an Ashram volunteer, what’s it that we could do in
the time we had before our flight and which did not cost money. He directed us
to the Ashram’s book store which had a street entrance and also advised us to
visit Osho Teerth, commonly known as the Nalla Park, which has been transformed
from a sewage canal into a beautiful Zen garden by Osho, in his time.
The book store was to the left of the Ashram
gate. And it was open. As we entered, I was drawn to a shelf on my left almost
involuntarily. My eyes fell upon a book by Osho titled ‘Just Like That’. It was the only copy of that book in that store
that day! Like most people, I too like to read the blurbs and testimonials at
the back of any book that I pick up. When I flipped the book, on its back
cover, I read the Sufi Master’s rose petal story for the first time. I read it
at least three times. And soaked in its essence, its simplicity, its beauty. My
wife was some distance away from me. She was at a huge window that offered a
view of the beautiful garden inside the Ashram. I rushed to her and told her
that if I ever wrote a book, I would call it “Fall
Like A Rose Petal”. I must confess there was not even a germ of
an idea in my head that I wanted to write a book – definitely I had not thought
of it happening so soon, not in the manner in which it has been written now.
On the flight back to Chennai, later that
evening, I thought to myself – What were the chances that we had not gone to
the Osho Ashram that day? What were the chances that the book store was closed
when we arrived there? What were the chances that there were no copies of ‘Just Like That’ available in stock at
the store? What were the chances that I too, like my wife, was drawn to
drinking in the views from the large store windows of the beautiful Ashram –
and so I missed looking at the books? Well, for each of those situations that
happened the way they did, there was an equal chance of them not happening. And
yet they all happened.
Today, when I hold my Book in my hand, I am
convinced, more than ever before, that there’s a Higher Energy that shapes our
ends. Our lifetimes are just a series of events, and experiences, of one thing
leading to another and, eventually, bringing us to where we are. Nothing can
take you to where you are not meant to be. And nothing can stop you from
getting to where you must be. So, everything is where it must be, the way it
must be – and that includes you and your Life! The only
way to live Life is to accept each event – even if we don’t like it, even if we
don’t want it – as part of the inscrutable cosmic design, and live Life fully –
doing what you can do best in every situation. Knowing that, in the end, as
Steve Jobs famously said, the dots will always connect – backwards.
No comments:
Post a Comment