‘Thou shall reap what Thou sow’

Last Sunday, I went out for breakfast with my two housemates and the girlfriend of one of my housemate - Madame I. The place was nice and cozy, although a bit creepy, it was charming, after all it’s Halloween time. Invariably when a Hindu is on table with westerners the conversation has to draw towards spirituality and with me it is almost inevitable. Madame I was curious to know about why we believe in reincarnation. I told her about Karma and how we (read I) especially believe in ‘Thou shall reap what Thou sow’. What I didn’t realise is how quickly I will see live examples in front me.
Rahul Dravid being dropped from the cricket team is hot news in India. People are angry, disappointed and stunned, how can the selectors do this to him? Ex-cricketers are asking for Vensarkar’ head. My take on this, predictably, is that I agree with the selectors. Officially they say he has been rested but we all know he has been dropped. And he should be. He didn’t perform well in a couple of series, why give him more chances? After all as the captain of Team India he did pursue this policy for some players, especially for a particular “Senior player/ex-Captain” called Saurav Ganguly. Now, why change the rules? Now the selectors have asked him to go back to domestic cricket and prove himself to be back in the team. If my memory serves me right, Kiran More and his pack of jokers had advised the same to Ganguly and others like Zaheer Khan. Both these players made a comeback, why can’t Dravid do it? Self Doubt?
How uncanny can be the ways that life teaches us its rules. I guess we don’t have to wait till next birth to repay our debts, the cycle has become much faster in the Internet Age. So Mr. Dravid, you should probably go home and read Geeta, maybe that will make you understand that why the things that happened to you have happened. It is not Vensarkar or Board only to blame here, it’s your Karma and you have repay it!

Let go

I took a long break from writing my blog. Long break from blog was a result of no break available in real life. This month, a lot has been crossing my mind and also my tongue. I have been uncharacteristically blunt. Or so I think. Often I tend to convict myself too much. It has also been tough personally. It was my first Puja away from home, Bombay. Mid terms and assignments cluttered around the same week. To add to that, an event that I have known about for a long time, happened last week, causing some pain to me. That’s when I decided to search someone’s name on the net and what I ended up with was a link to non – attachment. It is said how easy it could be to relieve your pain and stress by simply letting go of the idea you feel is so near and dear to you. We often tend to have a perception of happiness in our minds and we keep trying to reach there. In the pursuit of happiness what we end up with is stress, pain and sadness. In the end, once we reach there we realize that now we need more to be happy. Let me correct myself, we want more to be happy. I never really understood the difference between needs and wants in my Marketing Management class but now I do.
So back to the spot were we thought we would be happy but now we want more. Isn’t that pain, stress and effort we put in to reach this spot seem worthless then. It does. So detach yourself from any idea that makes you feel stress. Nothing is more important in this world than peace of mind. One of the ways that I find really useful for the peace of mind is meditation. It is often hard to empty ones mind and concentrate. The secret is not to try too hard. Just let go of the idea that you need to empty your mind and you will see that you need to empty your mind and you will be startled by the results. The moment you think that my mind needs to be empty, you have given birth to a new thought. And it is this thought that brings back all worldly worries and thoughts to your mind when your mind should actually be empty.
Often I notice that the exams I try too hard for tend to go bad. However the ones I don’t try too much, let myself ease into the course material, I tend to perform quiet well. It is funny that in my first course, without any knowledge of what an A+ means for the GPA, I got one. Thereafter I could never get one. Maybe I had attached myself so hard to the idea of an A+ that I just tended to get too impatient.
It is ironic and funny that today I am trying to detach myself from someone using the spiritual ideas of non-attachment, human spirit and ultimate happiness, when these very ideas were the ones that brought us close. Close to whom? Ummm…. I think I have detached too far to remember now!