Be cool. And you will be in bliss!
Sometimes you have no choice but to accept the Life given to you. You
have tried everything humanly possible to fix your situation. To solve your problem.
But the problem refuses to let go of you. Be cool in such times! Be in bliss.
How can you be cool when someone
you love is dying? How can you be cool when your teenaged child is insistent on
being in a relationship that you know is ruinous? How can you be cool when your
companion is cheating on you? How can you be cool when the world, perhaps your
world, is inching towards an apocalypse?
How can you be cool when there is so much injustice around you, when
people are being selfish, cold and cruel?
Good questions. But think about
it. Sometimes, you don’t have a choice! You simply will have to accept the
reality of what is, take a deep breath and attempt a new solution if you can
think of one, or simply wait for time to turn. Which is, wait for your time to
change! Intelligent living is never about applying YOUR intelligence to Life.
It is about being intelligent in letting Life be. There is an ancient Zen
saying: “Even in a fire the man who has attained satori remains cool.” ‘satori’
means enlightenment. And this doesn’t mean wearing an ochre robe and growing a
flowing beard or shaving your head of. It means being aware of the intrinsic
nature of Life!
There’s a story which comes to mind.
A wise sage had heard of the Captain Cool legend of the famous King Janaka who
ruled from Mithila (present day Janakpur, Nepal) over Videha. Janaka was known
for never being flustered with any situation. And so, like Indian cricket captain
Mahendra Singh Dhoni, he was called Captain Cool. The sage was intrigued by
Janaka’s legend and so came calling one day. The King received the sage with
full honors and left him in the guest room of his palace and promised to return
after attending to important matters in his court. The sage meanwhile bathed
and freshened up. He had only his loin cloth on him which he washed and left to
dry in the sun. He stitched a small skirt of mango leaves to cover himself and
sat in deep meditation. Janaka finished his meetings and came to the sage’s
room. When he saw the sage in deep meditation, he prayerfully sat opposite him
awaiting the sage to open his eyes. An hour or so must have passed when screams
rent the air. “The palace is on fire and
it has started in the kitchen abutting the guest room”, screamed someone. The
King remained unruffled. There was a lot of noise and smoke around them but he
kept sitting focusing his gaze on the sage. The sage leapt up when he made
sense of what people were saying and screamed at Janaka: “How can you remain so
cool, when your palace is on fire? Wait! Let me save my loin cloth which I put
out to dry and then we both will run for our Life!” Janaka still was
non-plussed! When the sage returned in a moment with the loin cloth and the two
men rushed out of the burning guest room, the sage again asked Janaka the ‘secret
of his coolness’. Janaka replied: “Every moment I am ready to depart from this
planet, giving up this lifetime. And I know I will take nothing with me when I
go. So, why grieve over anything which is not going with me in any case?”
Indeed. Why grieve, why attach
yourself to, over anything that’s not going with you in any case? So, be cool
about anything that may happen to you. And surely you will be in bliss!
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