The one who is angry is often helpless

Being angry with a situation and expressing your anger on everyone and everything around you is never an intelligent response.

I watched a beautiful Malayalam film the other day called Manjadikuru. Made by Anjali Menon (of Bangalore Days fame), the film tells the story of a family as seen through the eyes of an 11-year-old boy, Vicky. One of the protagonists of the film is a man called Raghu (played by Rahman). And Raghu is forever angry with his family – with his brother and his sisters. Raghu’s anger seems often irrational and habituated. As in one moment he could be complaining about his brother’s decision to turn a Naxalite, abdicating his family responsibilities, and the other moment he could be ranting about his sisters flocking together only to seek a share in the family wealth. So, Vicky, while narrating the story, concludes that his big learning watching Raghu’s bouts of anger is that those who are angry are often helpless.

Anjali Menon (who is also the writer of the film) shares a phenomenal spiritual insight there. Something that I can totally relate to. I used to be prone to senseless bouts of anger too. I once remember, as a 20-year-old, flinging my shaving razor at our television – which left it cracked – because I could not have a reasonable, logical conversation with my parents. Years later, when these anger spells had become far too frequent and had begun to ruin my professional stature, I discovered that each time I lost it, I was choosing to express myself in a violent sort of way only because I was unable to control what was going on or what others were saying or doing or because I was unable to convince someone. Bottomline: my helplessness was manifesting as anger.

Through diligent practice of mouna (daily silence periods), I learnt that your helplessness is nothing but a ego-based position. Why do you need to convince anybody? You have a right to your opinion. And they have a right to theirs. It is only when you try to force your view on someone and you fail, it is only when you try to control a situation and you fail, that you get angry. But the truth is that you never were in control of anything or anyone. Things just happen. People just behave the way they want to. So, just go with the flow. There is no need to be angry. And even if you do experience anger, channelize it constructively. Anger is nothing but the energy within you. Don’t squander it through violent thought, expression or action. Simply use it to drive change in a logical, legitimate fashion. This is what Gandhi did to practise ahimsa and help secure India her independence. This is what anger, when used constructively, can eventually yield.

So, if you are experiencing too much anger within you, pause and ask yourself if you are responding so only because you are helpless? In asking that question, you may well unlock the way to a lifetime of inner peace.

Fight the good fight, fight the issue, but forgive the person

When people behave irrationally, trampling upon you, it is time for you to practice forgiveness.

There is no point in grieving over others’ behavior. Because you have no control over them. What you can control is how you react. Forgiveness needs to and must be cultivated. This does not mean you give up your stand or stop being firm in a situation. Fight the issue, fight the good fight, be dogged about what you believe is right, including the way you want to be treated, but forgive the person.

The practice of forgiveness involves training your mind using three steps: 1. Give the situation love. Send peaceful thoughts and energy to that person. This may be initially difficult, because the very thought of that person may make you feel angry. But keep at it. Keep saying, “May everything that this person wants to achieve in Life, and with me, be possible and may there always be light, happiness and peace in this person’s Life”. 2. Find ways to communicate to the person what your stand or views on the issue you are fighting over are. Avoid getting even. Stick to the point. Text messaging or sending a simple email are good options for such a purpose. Remember a physical interface can only aggravate and lead to a verbal duel. 3. Work hard on not revisiting that hurt. Immerse yourself in what gives you joy. Music, children, work, nature...whatever; keep reminding your mind that you don’t want to think about the hurt.  The most important reason why you must forgive and move on__irrespective of your stand on the issue__is that you__and I__are created to be happy and not in grief. You may, however, stick to your stand on the issue itself, doing whatever it takes to right the wrong that you believe has been committed.

Gandhi led the way and his Life with this idea of forgiveness. He would always champion this in his practice of ahimsa: “I cannot hate anybody, least of all an Englishman. But I hate the way the English rule our country and will fight their way till the very end.”

Big learning there. Holding on to a resentful episode at a personal level means you are continuing to hurt. This will only chew you up, keep you unhappy and in pain. When you walk away, with forgiveness in your heart, from a hurtful, resentful situation, you are walking tall. And you are walking away happy. Doesn’t that matter the most?

Stop being a ‘thought terrorist’!

You are human first. Your gender, your religion, your nationality, your qualifications and your income come later and, quite honestly, don’t matter at all.

Misbah Quadri
Picture Courtesy: The Hindu

This morning’s Hindu reports the shocking story of a 25-year-old young lady, Misbah Quadri, being denied accommodation in all of Mumbai just because she is a Muslim! “Mumbai – of all places?” I thought. If Mumbai has become so parochial, the rest of India may well be damned! But this is not an isolated story or occurrence. The other day I was at a friend’s place for dinner. And he openly acknowledged that he would never rent his apartment to Muslims. He confessed: “Call me conservative or anti-Muslim, I cannot simply trust people who belong to that religion.” My friend is educated, widely traveled, does business globally and yet he holds such a regressive view? Within my own family, I have someone who cannot refer to Muslims without using an expletive alongside. This is a sad trend and needs to be condemned with as much intensity as it is being propagated.

When I think about it deeply, dispassionately, I believe we are finding it convenient to generalize and to hide behind our insecurities and flawed assumptions. While it is true that most acts of terror in the world are conducted by Muslims, it is wrong to imagine that all Muslims are terrorists. Perhaps, people find it simpler to banish an entire community because they have never tried to – or wanted to – be discerning in their judgment. Another reason why people cannot understand or appreciate Muslims may be because of their inscrutable practices, rituals and traditions – from circumcision to Muharram to the ubiquitous burkha. But that is no valid argument. Every religion, the way each of us is raised, every community has its own idiosyncratic methods and beliefs. If you find a burkha restricting women empowerment, then you should find the Hindu practice of disallowing girl children from performing the last rites of a dead parent equally restrictive. A sandhyavandanam can be as banal as Muharram if you don’t understand the significance of either.

I think there are as many reasons to divide humanity in this world as there are people on the planet. We don’t need to invent newer ways or choose to alienate a particular community or religion just because we don’t know or understand someone or something. Those who think they are very smart in exercising options such as the ones my friend has chosen, or what building societies in Mumbai have chosen against young Misbah, are actually sick in their heads and hearts. The very thought that you can discriminate against someone just because he or she belongs to a particular community or religion is an act of violence. As Gandhi would say, it is himsa (violence) of the highest order. It is worse than the acts of terror that kill people around the world each year. We must drop this tendency to be violent in our thoughts, in our perceptions, that lead us to discriminate against fellow human beings – urgently and wholeheartedly.

Fundamentally, let’s remember that there are only two kinds of people in the world. Humans who practice love and compassion. And humans who indulge in hatred and violence. If you cannot immediately decide which category someone belongs to, it is fine. But don’t imagine they belong to the latter category just because they come from a community that you think is redoubtable. If you do that, in the absence of valid, irrefutable evidence, unfortunately, sadly, you will be indulging in himsa too! When you discriminate against someone, you are being violent in thought. And, to be sure, thoughts can kill – they are like cancer, chewing away humanity! So, unless you are one, stop being a ‘thought terrorist’! 

The enduring relevance and power of Truth and Ahimsa

Truth and Non-Violence are the only two real assets that you possess. Nobody can take these away from you. No recession can erode its market value. They are eternal, importantly, practical, assets that are as relevant today as they were in Mahatma Gandhi’s time.

In fact, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, an ordinary barrister at law, a man as trapped in worldly affairs as you and I are, transformed to become ‘mahatma’ (great soul) because he discovered these assets within him. These two transformational tools that are in our arsenal but we don’t deploy them because we think they are outdated concepts that don’t work. Wrong. I have lived, experienced and learned to report that they work. Big time. And are the only two weapons or resources that we need to survive the vicissitudes of Life.

Truth is not just about seeing, saying and doing the right thing. In fact, ahead of that, comes the realization that all Life is equal. This is the whole, the absolute truth. In front of this truth, all else pales in significance, everything is stripped naked. Apply this truth in real Life, in today’s world. You are plagued by worries of job security, of not getting a visa, of an unknown, scary future because you are out of job, of death because you are terminally ill. Now ask yourself why do you want this worry to cede, to go away? So that you can live in peace. To do what? So that you can die in peace. Now, therefore, if there is birth, you agree, you know, that death will happen sooner or later. If all of us have to eventually die, and we know that is inevitable in the future, why worry? Why wonder if we will have a job, a marriage, health and so on? Why not choose to live in peace even now? The truth is that whoever you are comparing yourself is also human. And so will eventually die too. When you awaken to the reality that all Life is equal, you start valuing Life and begin to live in the present.

Non-Violence is not just the absence of physical violence as Gandhi discovered. He found, understood, practiced and taught it as ‘ahimsa’. Which when understood from the original Sanskrit implies that ‘when all violence in the human heart subsides, the state that is arrived at is intense love’. None of us is physically violent at most times. We don’t go about hitting each other or killing people. But there is so much violence in our hearts. We hate people, we hate attitudes, we hurl abuses at each other, we swear on the roads, we wish pain and suffering to those who cause them to us. All this, Gandhi classified as violence. And pointed out that when we are filled with so much metaphorical, verbal, emotional violence__hatred__how can we go to our native state of love? From the neighbor who insensitively parks his car outside your garage to the colleague who plays petty politics at work to the tyrant boss who does not regard merit to the government official who demands a bribe from you to the guys on the street who eve tease your daughter, we are hating someone, somewhere, all the time. When so much instinctive, intuitive hatred fills our Life, where is the scope for love to prevail?

Gandhi was inspired by the Buddha’s teaching that ‘when one person hates another, it is the hater who falls ill__physically, emotionally, spiritually.’ Gandhi employed these two tenets of Truth and ‘Ahimsa’__intelligently to first transform himself and then the world. He called this process ‘satyagraha’__which means nothing but ‘truth in action’, and is certainly not some vernacular jargon for describing a protest methodology. Gandhi proved through practice that you can fight any battle, even an army, with just these two weapons. To be sure, he did not say that we must not fight for our rights, for what is right or for justice. He only said that we fight it with non-violent means and while upholding the truth of our creation as equals. He explained this, in his context, thus: “I do not hate the domineering Englishmen as I refuse to hate the domineering Hindus. But I can and do hate evil wherever it exists. I hate the system of government that the British people have set up in India.” Gandhi’s philosophy, then and now, remains a game changer.

I have learnt the futility of imagining that we are all created different__and grieving and suffering from comparing, from pining and from staying rooted to an I-don’t-have mentality. I have learnt that violence in the heart is more destructive, more lethal than all the arsenic and all the RDX in the whole world__it burns you day in and day out, and leaves you emotionally charred. I used to be called ‘chiefscreamer’ at work (my colleagues invented this, punning on my work title that says ‘chiefdreamer’) and my choicest vitriolic abuses were even compiled as AVIS-isms by some of my more creative colleagues. But when I discovered the potency of ‘ahimsa’, and practiced it, I now realize that getting angry is an option, not a necessity. And when I do get angry and agitated, an inner alarm goes away, calling me back to attention and mindfulness. These two tenets that Gandhi lived and taught have transformed me and my Life. They can do so to you too. As Gandhi himself claimed: “I have not the shadow of a doubt that any [one] can achieve what I have, if he would make the same effort and cultivate the same hope and faith.” 

To find inner peace, peace is “the” way

Peace arrives when you stop resisting, stop fighting and stop struggling with Life.

Each of us is fighting something or the other. All the time. Someone fights for health. Someone else for wealth. There’s someone fighting for dignity. And someone for identity. Someone out there fights for companionship. Another soldiers on for acceptance. Yet a factor that’s common to all constituencies is that everyone, despite their individual fights, wants peace. You look around. Ask around. And you will find that almost everyone wants just peace. And they will all talk about inner peace __  bliss, joy, plain, good ol’ happiness.

But you can’t pursue peace when you are struggling with Life, fighting its every dimension. You cannot be angry with your situation in Life and expect to find peace in it at the same time. Peace will come, when you suspend all hostility in your mind, and through that act, make your immediate circle of influence peaceful. Peace has a price to be paid for, and that is to be accepting of a situation or a person or an outcome. Many people wonder what is the way to peace. And the simplest answer to their query is what Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh champions: “Peace is the way!”

But by ceasing to fight, are you embracing inaction? And isn’t inaction equal to committing hara-kiri? Let me clarify: ceasing to fight is not inaction. It means acceptance. You can be accepting of a situation, be peaceful, and yet work towards changing it. They are not mutually exclusive. On the other hand, they are complementary. The other day, at a coffee shop, I noticed a young couple argue with each other at another table. The lady was agitated. Often gesticulating wildly, raising her voice just so much that others around could hear and perceive that she was upset with the gentleman. The man, on the other hand, was stoic. He was calm and in control of himself, even if he was not in control of the situation. At the end of their discussions and arguments, I felt nothing had been resolved. Things were where they were when they came in. But the lady stomped out in a huff, and I believe she must have been continuing to fight the situation, or the man, in her mind. The man was calm, perhaps not happy either with the way the meeting ended, and made a slow, peaceful exit. He may also have felt that things could have been better, but for sure, he wasn’t feeling worse. He was peaceful. He wasn’t fighting. Yet he was not abstaining from action. Coming to the meeting, making an attempt, while staying calm, was indeed action.

We too can embrace this way of living. Simply, don’t start with asking ‘WHY?’ of Life at each of its twists and turns. Exclaim instead, ‘Interesting, so, we have a situation…!’, and mobilize your action to resolving it. Even a fight for a nation’s independence can be a peaceful__and successful__one. Gandhi proved it and so did 300 million of his followers, fellow Indians, back then. The same principle applies here. End all violent thinking __ about anyone or anything __ and approach each problem or situation with complete focus and total equanimity. Remember: to find peace, inner peace, peace is the way! 

Employ ‘ahimsa’ for your inner peace

Learn to deal with your detractors with love and forgiveness. See how this approach helps you remain peaceful.

Ever so often we encounter detractors. Neighbors, colleagues, bosses, family, kids__everyone, at some time or the other, tries to throw a spanner in the works. Wantonly, inadvertently or even deliberately. And we immediately snap into the 'How Dare You?' mode. Our minds instantaneously start spewing negative thoughts, abuses (we may not always physically express them, but the mind goes on jabber-jabber) and we become, well, terrorists – albeit of a different kind. We start shooting off our mouths indiscriminately__at all and sundry__because one person has upset us. The issue__the reason why we are upset__is no longer important as the person that caused the upset becomes our enemy number one.

Gandhi championed and practised a process called 'ahimsa' to deal with such situations. Popularly misunderstood as his theory of non-violence, 'ahimsa' is today dealt with as a sexy ideal – something that you want to flaunt but don’t know how to practice. Many even believe 'ahimsa' is impractical. Actually, 'ahimsa' must be understood first for it to be practised right. What I have learnt from the thinker-guru, the late Eknath Eswaran (1910~1999), is that 'ahimsa' actually means the absence of violence. Which is, the state when even violent thought is absent and true love, our native state, prevails.

I have known from experience that it is possible to practice 'ahimsa' in the world and times we live in. When someone tries to derail your plans or attacks you, wantonly, inadvertently or deliberately, don't enjoin in the strife. The best way to win any battle is not to fight at all. Instead, remain silent. And wish, deeply from within, that person all luck. Wish that their deepest desire gets fulfilled. If you wish so, genuinely, any opposition/opponent will melt away! I have been practising this for several years now. And with each opportunity, my ability to harvest inner peace only gets better. I have come away unscathed from physically (when there has been a possibility of assault) challenging situations and emotionally excruciating circumstances by employing this method. I must confess that there are times when I have wanted to retaliate, but my awareness – honed by my daily practice of mouna (silence periods) – has always helped me.

To me, ‘ahimsa’ is a method. It is a process. It is a philosophy. It can be your way of Life too. Try it. It works! Happy experimenting!

Practice non-violent thought – be the change

To find inner peace, learn to practice non-violence – to ensure non-violent thought – within you!

No one practised this better than Mahatma Gandhi, whose birthday it is today. He taught the world the power of courage, the courage of non-violence. And he didn’t talk only about physical courage or summoning physical courage. He championed non-violent thought. He truly celebrated the spirit of Ahimsa – which does not simply mean non-violence as the English translation suggests, but is about non-violent thought. Gandhi was, to be sure, the original Angry Young Man (much ahead of the venerable Big B on Indian celluloid) as Shyam Benegal’s classic The Making of the Mahatma (1996) portrays. Of course, through the famous railway platform experience of Pietermaritzburg of June 7, 1893, Gandhi’s anger against the British establishment had led him to pursue a path of confrontation with the Empire – and he launched his historic crusade then – but Benegal’s film shows how Gandhi understood his tendency to lose his temper and how he conquered rage, replacing it with non-violent thought. Incessant practise through his years in South Africa, through engaging himself in service and daily meditation, Gandhi became an embodiment of love and compassion. This is what led him to employ non-violent thought – Ahimsa – as a key weapon in uniting 300 million Indians, who were as disjointed then as they are now, without even the boon of technology we are all blessed with today, in the struggle against the British empire. 10 days before his assassination, on January 20, 1948, someone, believed then to be a Sikh youth, hurled a bomb at a gathering Gandhi was addressing. The bomb missed the target and Gandhi survived. A group of Sikhs called on Gandhi the next day to clarify that the assailant, who was by then arrested, was not a Sikh. Gandhi rebuked the delegation for playing the religion card. He said, irrespective of which religion the youth belonged to, he only wished him well.

There’s great merit – and an urgent need – to reflect on Gandhi’s Life and message today. Not that any of us, busy with our unpauseable lives, even has half-a-chance to change the world and make it more peaceful. But we can focus on ourselves. And change ourselves. Every time we find a violent thought rising in our minds, we can quell it. We can make a small beginning instantaneously and slowly build on it. For example, each day, subconsciously, when we swear to ourselves over the conduct of a fellow road-user or at the slimy machinations of a colleague at work or at the dishonesty that is prevalent in public Life or at an insensitive act of a neighbor – when we even say words like idiot or f@*$ or ba#@$*d – let us remember we are encouraging violent thought. The less violent we become in our minds, the more peaceful we will be in our souls. And the more peace we are within, the more peaceful our worlds will be. This cannot happen by merely wishing for change. This can happen by being, as Gandhi famously said, the change!

Get off that “ledge” and get going…

Last night I watched the 1993 Hollywood action movie Cliffhanger. In the movie, Gabe, played by Sylvester Stallone, is a mountain rescue team member. When attempting a rescue mission, across from a ledge on a mountain top called The Tower, Gabe is unable to save Sarah, whose harness breaks and she falls 4000 feet to her death. Gabe is unable to forgive himself and vows to never attempt another rescue in his Life. In fact, he gives up climbing. Eight months after Sarah’s funeral, Gabe comes to pick up his belongings from his girlfriend Jessie’s place and asks her if she too will go with him. Jessie is livid and distraught that Gabe’s gone into a shell and is grieving with guilt. She tries to talk to him, invites him to move on while explaining to him that it wasn’t his fault! But Gabe refuses to accept her point of view. In one final, desperate attempt to make him see reason, Jessie screams at him. She says: “If you don’t forgive yourself, let go and move on, you will be on that ledge forever.”

Metaphorically, many of us are on our own “ledges” too. Often times, we make Life choices that backfire or even blow up on our face. It’s important we recognize that making mistakes, judgment errors, is an integral part of growing up. Almost with every wrong call, the realization that it was indeed a wrong call is instantaneous – as soon as it fails or bombs! Within ourselves, we know that it didn’t work out. And we know for sure that it was our __ the individual’s __ mistake. But we will not want to admit it, and instead prefer to grieve with guilt, pretty much like Gabe, because it “feels good” to take the “higher moral ground”. Well to sit on a perch, even if it made from a mountain of guilt and self-soothing morality, is good for a while. But how long can anyone be up there? And how long can anyone be carrying the burden of a past guilt? At one time or the other, you have to climb down, you have to set down your guilt, free yourself, and move on. If you don’t do that, you will be depressive and will suffer endlessly.

Today is Kshamavani – the Forgiveness Day, per the Jain calendar. Mahavira taught that forgiveness begins with the Self. Unless you forgive yourself for your mistakes, your transgressions, your anger and your ego, you cannot forgive others. And if you don’t forgive others you are a breeding ground of more hatred, more anger, more himsa (violence – violent thought). The Jains use a very beautiful phrase to practise and propagate forgiveness: Micchami Dukkadam. It means ‘May all the evil that may have been done be fruitless’.

Today’s a good day to make an intelligent choice. To forgive. Begin with yourself. Let go of all resentment. And let all the himsa in you, turn into ahimsa – non-violent thought. Get off that “ledge”, learn to forgive, if possible forget, and move on! You, surely, will live happily ever after!

Don’t fight your desires. Understand them!

Every scripture in the world will tell you that desire is at the root of all our unhappiness. But it is also intrinsic to human nature that we desire. The way to deal with desire then is to not resist it but to understand it, appreciate it and make an intelligent choice. Desire cannot be dropped. Because desire is an energy. And energy cannot be destroyed. When the energy, the desire arises, go it its root and understand it. Do you need what you desire or do you want it? If you need it, go for it. If you want it, you can still go for it, but absolve yourself of all guilt. Make a free choice by remaining alert, being awake and by practicing awareness.

The latest issue of India Today runs a cover story on ‘The Untold Story’ of Mahatma Gandhi’s experiments with practicing celibacy based on now available excerpts from the personal diaries of Manuben, who was his personal attendant for many years and was with him at the time that he was assassinated. It is common knowledge that Gandhi’s experiments with celibacy involved sleeping naked with female companions. People then, and now, see it as an eccentric side of a Mahatma, Great Soul. Others find it condemnable and questionable. We will never know why Gandhi used this method to deal with, in an attempt to perhaps conquer, his sexual desires. It is believed that Gandhi looked to conquer this enormous energy within, which would have only helped satiate his selfish and intensely personal desire, his lust, and direct that energy in the pursuit and practice of ahimsa, to help his country and its citizens. It was Gandhi’s personal choice and something he had the honesty, as Manuben’s diary jottings reveal amply now, to make no bones about what he did as part of this practice.

While the India Today story will be lapped up by its readers for the sheer expose it offers into the private Life of one of the most revered Indians, it helps us, on another plane, to reflect deeply about our own ability to deal with desire. I lean to Osho, the Master, for a better understanding of the anatomy of desire. Osho says the energy behind desire and the energy behind creation, existence, are one and the same. He quotes from the Eastern scriptures where legend has it that God had a great desire. To expand beyond himself. And so, in order to grow from one to many, he let his desire create us__humans. So, fundamentally, all desire is about expanding oneself because we are all an offshoot of the same creative energy. Fighting desire, therefore, means fighting with ourselves. No desire is bad unless you succumb to it and it starts to enslave you. And nothing must be succumbed to. We must not capitulate but we must choose freely. When a desire, let us say to smoke, to drink, to eat an additional gulab jamun, to have sex, to get angry, to feel frustrated, to be jealous, whatever, arises, look at the desire not as if you are desiring it but as a third person. As an observer. Understand the desire with your awareness. Where there is awareness, there will be prudence. It is only when we are blinded that we succumb mindlessly to our desires. When we stay alert, we will always be able to deal with the desire intelligently, effortlessly __ perhaps, overcome it by letting go of it, perhaps, choosing it consciously.

Forgive, forget, act__but don't avenge!

This may well sound counter-intuitive. Contradictory too!  How can you forgive and forget, still act, but not avenge? Doesn’t action, or reaction or revenge, come from remembering__and not forgetting__the pain of an injustice, an injury? How can one forgive and act__without avenging?

Let me share some learnings here. One sure learning is that we have made it complex with the way we deal with injustices and injuries in Life! This is not as difficult to achieve or as complex to understand as it sounds.

I met a friend recently after 20-odd years. I knew she had been divorced from her husband (whom I also knew very well__all three of us were colleagues at one point in time) for some years now. So, when we met for coffee, I did not bring up any reference to him, choosing to hold conversation over her son, her work and her interest in my work. Then, after hearing some of what I do and what I plan to do with our business, she quickly suggested that I should meet her ex-husband. I was quite surprised. I had known through common friends that in the years she been separating from her husband, things had been pretty rough for her. And so I had concluded that there might still be much acrimony between them. My first response was one of amazement when she said she would speak to him and re-connect me with him!

I asked her: “If you don’t mind, what led to the two of you divorcing? And how’s it that you both are still in touch?”

She replied: “Well, after the initial euphoria of the physical attraction had died down, we discovered that we could be excellent colleagues but never be good soul-mates. We enjoyed discussing work. But the moment we looked at each other as spouses we found we could not relate with the other on expectations, roles and responsibilities. Our sex Life had virtually ended in a few years of the marriage. But we went on with the charade of a marriage, first for family, then for society and then for our child. Every day was a nightmare__fights, followed by long periods of sulking. I always got the feeling he wanted me out. And I thought he was also interested in someone else. So I became both combative and possessive. This led to more fights. Then, seven years ago, I reasoned to myself, why am I holding him and me, and our son, to ransom in a relationship which is dead? It was so evident that it doesn’t exist. I reckoned that while I demanded him to be my husband, I had long ago refused to treat him as one. He was a doting father. But I could not accept him as my husband. While the early attempts to let go of him and our marriage were complete with mature reasoning, at the execution stage__when it came to speaking my mind__I faltered. Each time I tried, the beast of betrayal consumed me. I wanted to avenge him. But later I realized it was meaningless. It dawned on me that the reason he was interested in someone else was that he was no longer interested in me. So, I forgave myself, forgave him and decided to act! We sat together and agreed that we needed to dissolve this meaningless framework of marriage. We agreed to separate, divorce, while continuing be good colleagues. We are very good friends even now. He’s a good father to our son. He’s remarried and has a child from his second marriage. And there’s so much peace for all of us.”

I am impressed by the mature, practical approach my friend had taken in place of action that could well have been acrimonious, full of pain and suffering for all parties concerned.

My learning is that everyone who has been treated unjustly, unfairly by Life, or by someone, will initially want to dwell in the following two realms:

• How dare ____________  do this to me? Fill in the blank with he, she, person’s name, company name, team name, Life, country name__whatever suits the context.
• I will avenge this come what may!

Thinking within these realms is normal. So, relax if you have thought this way! But also know that both these realms thrive in the dark epicenter of your ego. If you are feeling hurt, feeling vengeful, about anyone or anything, it is because of your ego. The ego controls all negativity in you. The antidote for ego is awareness. When you are aware that the nature of Life is inscrutable__that anything can happen, including injustice, to you, you will be unmoved. When you realize that people act unjustly, causing untold suffering and misery to those around them, because they themselves are suffering, you will respond with empathy than react with anger.

Look around. There’s so much injustice that’s happening to you or to people around you! Even before the memories of the gory end Nirbhaya met with have died down, the Suryanelli rape case (of 1996) has come back into focus. If you read the facts of the case, your heart will ache with compassion and grieve with helplessness. If you understand truly how the ‘collective conscience of the Indian people’ led to the questionable trial and redoubtable hanging of Afzal Guru, you will feel your blood boil.

So, in a way, I don’t think either the world or Life is going to get any more just or fair. Every such episode can unleash in you a torrent of anger, anguish, suffering and misery! There’s no way you__or I__can escape being touched by the ripples of everyday Life. But you can, with awareness, refuse to be moved by them. Seeking vengeance always delivers more suffering than there already is. Awareness, on the other hand, delivers forgiveness. Understand the true implication of practicing forgiveness. Forgiveness is for you to feel free, liberated, because it is important you get away from what is causing you the suffering! It is only when you think forgiving someone is letting them go scot-free, that you hesitate, you cling on. Instead, focus on your freedom. Your liberation. Only then can you detach from what or who is causing the injustice and instead focus on the act of injustice itself. When you are free, detached, you are unmoved by the happening. It has touched you and left you unmoved. Like the way a wave touches the shore and recedes. You are then (like the shore) a mere witness, an observer, of your own Life, of people, of events (like the waves) in your Life. You will then be, and in, bliss.

This does not mean you should not act. If Gandhi had not acted on the injustice that was meted out to Indians, we would not have become free as a nation. Action, however, need not necessarily, in this context, connote revenge, violence and acrimony. Gandhi acted with monomaniacal focus, with ‘ahimsa’ (where he championed the absence of violent thought in the first place) as his main theme. Forgiving, forgetting if you can, acting, and not avenging, really means this: keeping the focus, replacing all violent thought with concerted action to change a current reality__that you find hard to accept__into a future state which you believe is the best for all concerned.

This is what my friend did. You too can try this in any situation you are faced with in your Life. Changing your approach to injustice, changes how you feel within yourself. How you feel within has a huge impact on what you will do to make things better. This is what intelligent living is all about __ making your Life better by living it better!

'Ahimsa' by you is the way forward for the world!

The way forward for the world is ahimsa. And it begins with you and me.

When something like the Connecticut killings happen, you stop for a brief while, shocked and numb. You mourn and then move on. Your own Life demands you attention and then the next big news story takes over. The candlelight vigils and the debates of gun control abate, while you return to the job of earning a living. It is not that you don’t relate to something that happened several thousand miles away, but you feel you are helpless.

This is precisely where you, me, all of us, must think differently. We are not helpless. We can do something. Beginning first with each of us.

That first step is understanding ‘ahimsa’. In his phenomenally insightful book, ‘Gandhi The Man’, published first in 1973, spiritual teacher Eknath Easwaran, invites us to consider ‘ahimsa’ in terms of our world family. He goes deep into Gandhi’s thinking and discovers that both Gandhi’s personal transformation, from man to Mahatma, and the key to his political strategy to oust the British from India were built on ‘ahimsa’. Easwaran writes: "’Ahimsa’ is not the crude thing it has been made to appear," Gandhi tells us. "Not to hurt any living thing is no doubt a part of ‘ahimsa’. But it is its least expression. The principle of ‘ahimsa’ is hurt by every evil thought, by undue haste, by lying, by hatred, by wishing ill to anybody. It is also violated by our holding on to what the world needs." So beautiful. Understanding ‘ahimsa’, therefore means, knowing that we must expunge every violent thought and emotion when it rises within us.

To do this, take the second step. Of using ‘ahimsa’ to further the flowering of inner awareness of continuously being loving – a state that each of us is capable of being in. Osho, the Master, says we are unable to be in that state forever, though each of us at various times in our lives will attain that state for a brief while, because we are busy holding on, possessing__things, opinions, negative emotions and debilitating memories of past hurts! Says Osho, “The more you possess, the less you can love. And love is the door. Or, the less you can love, the more you start possessing.” So, the trick really is to let go of anything which is a violent thought. For instance, someone betrays you and you want to get even. Every living moment of your becomes violent because your thoughts are full of anger, revenge, hurt and suffering. ‘Ahimsa’ gives you the ability to forgive, to let go and to become love.

The third step is to take your love and share your love with everyone you connect with. Which goes beyond your immediate family, your immediate circle of friends, your immediate community. Be love and loving to everyone you see, meet, speak to __ at work, on the metro, in the line at the grocers. To everyone, everywhere. When each of us can be this way, be love and be loving, we will be able to change the world too. From possessing to letting go. From hatred to love. From anger to peace.

Enforcing gun control laws and hanging terrorists may only address the problem or perhaps just its symptoms. Only love, and a world that is loving, can address what causes people, and therefore the world, to go violent.  Speaking to students at Danbury, Connecticut, a few weeks ago, the venerable Dalai Lama delivered precisely the same message. “Prayer and meditation without action is not enough to bring peace to a hurting world. Happiness very much depends on inner peace. Inner peace very much depends on happiness. And change in the world begins with each person. “Who should start” to bring peace to the world? The “individual person” … not religious leaders, not the United Nations, but each of us,” he said. “Then, from one person to 10 persons, 100 persons, 1,000. So I think any sort of movement among humanity … must start from the individual.”

Simply, therefore, if the Connecticut killings shocked you too, then let’s go do something about it. Through understanding and practicing ‘ahimsa’, let’s nail every violent thought that may arise in us. Through doing that consistently, let us allow our true loving self to flower from within. And let that love bathe our world in a new light!