Suffering is self-inflicted. If you
are suffering in any situation, you have only yourself to blame.
Yesterday a friend texted me his
predicament. He said he was unable to reconcile with my thoughts, which I share
in my daily blogposts, on a “practical, real Life basis”. “While I agree in
theory to what you say every day, I simply can’t believe that you can be happy
without money. Means to earn a living, having money for everyday needs, to me,
is a critical pre-requisite. I am suffering because I have no job and no
money,” he confessed.
I can empathize with my friend. I have been
in his shoes too with regard to postponing happiness by imposing pre-conditions
on Life. I have suffered too for weeks, months and years. Until I realized that
you suffer only when you set conditions on Life. How can you? How can you
insist that Life deal with you in specific manner when you don’t even know how
Life works and thinks? The problem with such condition-setting is that whenever
Life does not conform to your expectations, which will be ever so often, you
will suffer. Today, I am still in my friend’s shoes – I have no work and no
money too, but I have learnt not to suffer. Because I have accepted my
situation unconditionally. I keep trying harder every single day, with my wife,
to put our business back on track but I don’t say anymore that I will be
unhappy with what I have, and my Life, unless my business turns around.
Resultantly, while there is intense pain – if you are living or have lived
without money, you may feel my pain – there is no suffering.
I am reminded of that beautiful song from
the Hindi movie Safar (1970, Asit
Sen, Kalyanji Anandji, Indeevar, Kishore Kumar, Rajesh Khanna, Sharmila Tagore)
which talks about the inscrutable nature of the journey of Life. The lyrics go…’zindagi ka safar, hai yeh kaisa safar, koi
jaana nahin, koi samjha nahin…’ Safar in Hindi means journey and zindagi means Life, but, ironically many
are living their lives and humming this song as ‘zindagi
ka suffer…’ This is not intelligent punning. This is the reality. Many, like
my friend, are resisting their realities and that’s why they are suffering.
To summarize, you suffer only because you
have chosen to suffer. Accepting your reality, the Life that you have, cannot
solve your problems. It cannot take away your pain. But it surely can help you
not to suffer. It is only when you choose not to suffer, will you be able to
attempt better solutions to your problems. Remember: you have been given this
Life, this zindagi, for you to
journey (safar) through, experience
and learn from this lifetime, and not to suffer! So,
whatever it is that you are dealing with, accept it and journey on…with a song
in your heart!
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