Saturday, December 15, 2007

Why get depressed?

Why get depressed? When you know that nobody can harm you unless if God wishes. And if it is God's wish, by harming you in this little way, He has saved you from a much bigger problem.

Let there be God in you

Let there be God in you.
Let there be warmth in you.
Let there be love in you.
Let there be fun in you.

Let us be friends for a moment.
Let us be free for a moment.
Let us be us for a moment.
Let us all live for a moment.

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

What Faith Tells?

Lots of planning, strategising, and speculations for future growth; says my intelligence. But my faith tells me to enjoy the present moment of success, do my job with utmost sincerity and leave rest to God.

Saturday, December 8, 2007

Think about it.

We all make ourselves unhappy over what we have not got or cannot get, instead of being happy over what we have got. In life we get certain things and do not get certain things.

We have precious life, loving relations, air, water, flowers, green grass and blue skies to make us happy. All nature is busy giving us pleasure. But we have no time to accept it.

We are too busy in counting what we have not got: a bigger house, better car, power and position and so on. We forget that someday in the near future we have to leave everything for our eternal abode.

Life is too short to be possessed by these transitory possessions. Since life is in motion we cannot remain happy with anything for long. So why pine for them?

Monday, December 3, 2007

A true forgiveness story

Before the tragedy, that family was considered loud and brash in the colony. On that fateful day, one of them who had just learned to drive, panicked while approaching the parking lot and rammed his car against another one already stationed there.

The matter would have been settled by an insurance company if it was just an accident involving two vehicles but for the litt1e girl of six, another neighbour's daughter, who suddenly came between from nowhere. The driver immediately took the child to a nursing home. But upon her being declared dead by the doctors, he took courage to inform her family before surrendering himself at the local police station with his can.

As usual a huge crowd gathered around and matters took an ugly turn when a section of the public threatened to teach the erring driver and his family a lesson. All along, the victim's family didn't come out of their house and over the next few days were busy performing the last rites of their dead child. They didn't even lodge a police complaint, leave alone taking revenge on the killer of their only daughter.

Without a written complaint from the victim's family, the driver got bail after a couple of days in police custody and the case is still pending before the courts. Thereafter, the 'killer' driver and his family went to the victim's father to express their remorse and offer 'compensation'. But the child's father not only forgave the driver, he refused to take money.

He told them poignantly, "It was God who gave me my little girl and if He has decided to take her away like this, how can I blame you when I know you didn't do this intentionally?"

More importantly, the bereaved father made sure that the driver and his family didn't suffer anything from other neighbours. To this day both of them are living side by side. With the change that today, the "loud and brash" family is looked upon differently by the same colony. Who says there aren't good people around?

Coming out of the Cocoon

I live in a cocoon. And whether you admit it or not, you all do. Our families, jobs, society with its institutions and conditioning, education, all of these form a big shell around us.

A shell, thick enough to block our senses from so many experiences and revelations, that we live in a half-realised world. And guess what, we never peek outside. Where there is so much beauty, bliss, knowledge and pleasure possible, that a single lifetime is just not enough to gather it all.

We construct routines for our daily lives that leave us no time for true reflection. Cramming more and more into our already brimming, creaking lives, pushing out the real meaningfill bits, we proudly proclaim that we are succeeding in life. Now that I have a bigger house, I must be happy. A bigger car, my kids go to posh schools, I must be happy. Oh yes, all that I have been told and taught through my life tells me that I must be real happy.

But here I am, jealous of that random courier boy's sudden, sparkling, unbridled laugh. What does he possess which I do not? Maybe it's something I have and not something that I lack. Have I gathered so much anguish, so many frowns and so many fat pay checks that I have forgotten to laugh like that? Maybe I lost my spontaneity doing that dull management course.

Maybe I lost my innocence in those nights I spent at the call-centre, swindling customers with sweet talk. And maybe I lost my childlike capacity for joy while I was investing in the stock market. Looking back over all those years, I think I have lost much, and earned little. Maybe I should look outside my cocoon.

Perhaps I should go and take a walk outside my shell. Maybe I should do something I love, for a change, outside protocols, alone, like a fluttering butterfly, alive for a while. Maybe I should volunteer shram daan. Give some, to get something real.