‘Tis time for rebuilding, renewal and revival

Life is a great leveler. At times you don’t have much choice but to just go with the hand that you have been dealt with.     

A Facebook and WhatsApp forward that was shared by my friend caught my attention. Here’s what it had to say.

(The typos are as in the original!)

Photo Courtesy: PTI/Internet

“I am prassana venkatram working as a system analyst for an American software company in Chennai. Presently drawing 18 lakhs P.A. proud owner of a 3BHK in suburbs of Chennai. Today I have 2 credit cards with more than 1 lakh credit limit and a bank balance of 65 thousand in my account. But due to heavy water logging I am not able to move out my house, all I need is water and food for my survival. Till yesterday I was worried about my appraisal and was expecting at least 15% hike but today I am standing in my terrace waiting for a food packet.

Nature is the best teacher.”

Prassana’s candor makes the learning he shares very stark, real and relatable. At least those in Chennai, at the moment surely, can relate to what he says.

Another story I saw in this morning’s TOI threw up a similar learning. It narrated the experience of Deepika from Mudichur (a Chennai suburb) who had to keep her 77-year-old father’s dead body in her home because the floods prevented freezer boxes from reaching her and even if she had managed to secure one, the whole idea was rendered useless with the lack of electricity. She kept the body wrapped in a bedsheet for 2 full days and nights as she waited for the water recede – she lit incense sticks from time to time to keep the foul odor at bay. “My father deserved better,” Deepika told TOI.  

Deservance is an aspiration that all humans have. You work hard, you are ethical, you are well-meaning and so you expect Life to be fair to you. You often always think you deserve more than what you are getting from Life. And then Life deals you a hand, catching you totally by surprise, reminding you in the process that Life happens not because of you, but in spite of you. If you are wise you will humbly accept the learning Life offers you through such an experience and move on. It is when you miss the learning, and choose to instead resist the Life that’s happening to you, that you suffer!

Prassana’s and Deepika’s stories are just two among the several million that you can hear from Chennaiites just now. And all of them will point you in one – only one – direction…just take Life as it comes, accepting it for what it is.

But there are many who simply don’t get this; they don’t understand Life.

Even as the floods were marauding Chennai, a friend pinged me on Facebook messenger. He observed: “I hope there’s no financial loss for you.” He didn’t appear to be interested in knowing if my family and I were safe. My reply to him was: “I have nothing material with me to lose.” Which is indeed true! Our 8-year-old-and-enduring bankruptcy has left us literally without material possessions. The few “things” we have, we have learnt to be detached with them, about them. The lesson that Prassana learnt with the Chennai deluge, we learnt through our bankruptcy. And that is the most beautiful quality about Life as a teacher – she always gives you the test first and the lesson later! And what she teaches you, when you internalize the lessons, make centered, anchored and grounded.

Chennai is moving on. And everyone here will have to move on too. Because there is no other way. When Life takes over, you just go with the flow. In this case, the flow – literally, the water flow – is encouraging everyone to let go of all their material possessions and make a new beginning.

The message is simply this: don’t grieve over what’s past and what’s lost! Don’t crave for deservance! Just get up, rebuild, renew and revive yourself!

Patience is the way

If you have learnt to be patient in Life, with Life, you have mastered the art of living!

My friend and I had a creative and spiritual disagreement a few days ago. My friend argued that you cannot be patient when the whole world is impatient around you. The boss is breathing down your neck. The guy behind you is honking. People rush into elevators instead of filing into them with order and decorum. Your colleague is pressurizing you to finish up your part of the work fast so that she can get her job done faster. So, patience, really? It doesn’t work, my friend protested: “You live in a Utopian world, AVIS. Here, in today’s world, if you are not moving at the speed of light, if you are not overtaking slow-coaches and laggards, someone else is going to overtake you and them. The one who is moving fast, has the advantage. Patience does not work anymore today!”

Yet, despite my friend’s well-reasoned pitch, today’s world requires patience more as a must-have quality, a necessity, than as a rare virtue which, when available and used, can create value! Because patience alone can lead you to a Life of peace, personal well-being and prosperity.

Patience comes from a deeper understanding of Life. We are impatient with people, events, circumstances, service, technology, and with Life, because fundamentally we want things to happen our way. But that’s just not going to happen. Despite our living in a time of instant gratification – WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter surreptitiously aiding and abetting it – Life works only in its own way, at its own pace. You can have your way only if you are patient with and in Life.

Osho, the Master, often narrated these three lines to help people understand Life better. He would say:

1.     Everything comes in its own time

2.     Everything comes when you are ripe

3.     Everything comes when you deserve it

Now, review your own Life in the context of these three statements. You will find that anything you have got so far from Life, stuff you have welcomed and have wanted, has come only per these three dimensions of Life. You may have wanted something and may have even been frustrated. And it has never come. You know your story better than anyone else. So, think back, and ask if you got anything you wanted any earlier or any later than when you needed it – when you finally got it? Were you not in total receiver mode to have got it? And you only got something when you truly deserved it, right?

Patience is about simply understanding these three dimensions of Life and reminding yourself of them every time you mind grieves or when frustration sets in. Simply, there is a no way to be patient; patience is the way!

On witnessing the miracle of your Life

Stop, pause, breathe and witness the miracle of your Life!   

In everyday living, the business of earn-a-living, keeps us so much on the edge that, sometimes, we don’t even know whether we are coming or going. There’s always so much to do. And so little time. Technology should have made Life easier – to be sure, it has – but we have complicated it by being addicted to it. Some people have got so addicted to facebook and Twitter that they are always feverishly typing away statuses and comments from their phones. Think about it. The first thing most of us do when we wake up is to reach for our cell-phones.

A quick look at your emails, facebook and Twitter notifications, WhatsApp messages and SMSes is now a subconscious first action. Even before you have brushed and freshened up, this is what you do. And the mind starts pounding away responses to what you have seen and read. By the time you are at work, you are so pumped up that, you carry that “rushed” frame of mind all through the day. Even when you are back home for dinner, you are still looking at your phone even as you eat. The same charade repeats itself day after day, even on weekends, and often on vacations too.

There may be nothing apparently wrong with this lifestyle. Except that you are probably missing the miracle in everyday living. Over time, as age catches up, you realize that you haven’t really lived the Life that you wanted. You have merely existed, gotten by, by surviving! This is why perhaps the venerable Russian dramatist Anton Chekov (1860~1904) famously said: “Any idiot can face a crisis. It’s day-to-day living that wears you out.”

A Zen story comes to mind. When Bankei Yotaku (1622~1693), the Japanese Zen Master, was teaching at the Ryomon Temple, a priest, who was jealous of Bankei’s large following, decided to debate with him to put him down. So, one day, when Bankei was in the middle of his Talk, the priest arrived and created a commotion. Bankei stopped his lecture and asked the preist what he wanted. “The founder of our sect,” boasted the priest, “had such miraculous powers that he held his brush in his hand on one bank of the river, while his disciple held a paper on the other bank, and yet he would be able to write the name of God on the paper – through air. Can you do such a thing?”

Bankei smiled. He replied: “Perhaps your founder, who is a genius it appears, can perform such a trick. But this is not how Zen works. My miracle is that when I feel hungry, I eat and when I feel thirsty, I drink.”

To be alive, to experience this Life that you and I have been given, is the biggest miracle of them all. It is also the greatest wealth we can ever have. The truth is that we have it and the tragedy is that we don’t realize we have it. So, we keep searching for it and in the process squander it. Remember: your Life is not going to change, unless you change the way you live!