Do you find yourself riding an emotional roller coaster, forever?
Are you constantly navigating from unimaginable highs, to crazy depths and then chugging back up again. At one moment experiencing the addictive joys of accomplishment, appreciation, or physical pleasures. Other times suffering the unbearable pains of ailments, harsh criticisms or the stings of injustice. Is that how we are destined to live our lives? Are we mere putty that yield and mould ourselves to the circumstances that provoke us. Or are we the potter that is eternally at peace, no matter what the circumstances, is always in control and shapes the clay of our emotional life into a perfect and beautiful vase? Can we become the warrior who consciously acts rather than the individual who simply reacts.
The answer is yes, we can be in more control of our feelings, emotions and reactions. The answer lies simply in knowing, the answer to the cliche’d question, Who are you?
Who are you, really?
Are we really just our physical selves? Are you and I just the amalgamation of limbs and organs, cells and bones? But we know that it just isn’t so. We know that because:
– Inspite of having all material comforts, there is that yearning for more. If we were just our material selves, more comforts, would satisfy us, but it just doesn’t.
– We understand and respect universal values truth, love, justice etc. Specialy if they are achieved when sacrificing more tangible values such us Personal Comforts, Time and Money. All these evidences point to the fact that we are much more soul & spirit (i.e. Consciousness) than we are flesh & bones (i.e. Matter).
But if we really are more Consciousness than Matter, are our concerns proportionaly placed? What are we thinking about most of the day? Are they more material, in nature, or more spiritual? If you’re thoughts are like mine, then all I’m mostly bogged down with are matters of either:
– Work (i.e. I’ve got so much to do and there’s just so little time, Oh woe is me, the market is not so good, oh yippee market is booming again…etc.)
– Physical self (i.e. I’m hungry gosh when will lunch time come?, Yawn I feel so sleepy I could really use a cup of coffee know, Man, I’ve got a headache now where did I put that strip of Crocin)
– Other Material concerns (i.e. What do others think of me?, Do my colleagues feel I’m too lenient? Too strict? Gosh, what will everybody say if I do this/say that/weat this/wear that?)
How entrapped we are with our material concerns and little do we reflect on our spiritual ones.
So what’s the solution? What are my next actions? What can I do to get more of this Eternal Peace, thingy?
1. Keep asking Why? What? Where?
One of the best ways to gain perspective is constantly ask yourself. Ask yourself, where have you come from? Where are you going? Why you are doing what you are doing? Why are you working? Is it making you permanently happy? What would make you have everlasting bliss? It’s only with this process of asking and seeking that you can set yourself on the journey of being in a state of contsant peace.
2. Remind yourself.
Once you find yourself getting close to the answers, set reminder for yourselves daily, weekly, monthly etc. Take your favourite quotes and place them in your tickler file. Read, listen to material that places true perspective of the meaning of life. Man is of highly forgetful nature. Without constant reminders, one gets trapped again and again in the rat-race of life.
3.Give your Best at every moment.
All we ever have is, this moment. And if we give our best at every moment, we get the BEST results every time. What is regret, if not giving our best for a moment that just passed by? If you have realised now, that it’s essential to spend time to identifying your Life Purpose. Don’t give a half-hearted effort, but give it your very best, this moment and every moment.
4. Adopt Acceptance and Seek forgiveness.
Although we have unlimited desires & opportunities, we are helpless with limited knowledge & resources. We can’t help but make mistakes and fail, at times. Our Most Merciful Lord has made available for us a secret portal to return back to Him. It’s by seeking forgiveness. Seek forgiveness for the wrongs committed, be it for wrongs knowingly done or ignorantly. Seek forgiveness for not giving one’s best (be it charity, time etc.), seek forgiveness for not dealing in the best of manners with our close ones (be it parents, children, relatives or colleagues at office.) Adopt a lifestyle of constant acceptance of any situation and asking for forgiveness.
One of the best speeches I’ve heard, that spells out really clearly that indeed man is more of spiritual nature than material one is this lecture by Dr. Murtaza Alidina. It’s about an hour long. Click here to download the mp3 file.
Would love to hear your comments on the above. Keep smiling!
All your actions and thoughts are a reaction to another thought or action which has happened or is happening or will happen.
In reality you did nothing.
Not sure why the following words by Prophet Mohammed is not stressed enough
“Die, before you die”
The sanskrit equalivalent is ‘Dwij’ or the twice born.
Hi Rajkumar,
Thank you very much for the insightful comment.
If every actions and thoughts is merely a reaction and truly in reality we did nothing, then does that mean we are effectively just glorified mindless-robots that have been set in motion by our Lord at birth and are now moving along a pre-determined path with no will/control of our own. Surely we must be More than that. Thoughts and actions that have happened or are happening sure may set the pasture where we would perform our subsequent action, but it’s still “Our” subsequent action. Done (or not-done) by our will, our choice, our decision, for which we are wholely and solely responsible.
Rajkumar “Die, before you die.” is indeed one of my favourite Ahadith of Prophet Mohammed (SAW). Thank you so much for quoting it and you are right it is not stressed enough. Also I had not heard of the sankrit equivalent “Dwij” thank you for introducing it to me. Here’s a Quranic Verse in the same vein:
Chapter 3:Verse 92 “By no means shall you attain Piety/God Consciousness unless you give of that which you love.”
Hi there,
We are robots as long as we don’t realise that we are robots, the moment we realise, we stop being robots.
Its not that we stop doing what we did, just that we become more conscious of our actions.
I guess this is what you call as ‘Zikr’ or remembrance of God, where you do your normal duties while remembering God in all our actions and no action becomes an unconscious reaction.
‘No action should be done with an expectation’, is one of the main themes of Bhagwat Geetha where you have to dis-associate with your actions and any returns that comes along with it. Its only with this dis-association that you break free from the cycle of karma (cause and effect).
I see you use the word ‘our action’ or ‘your action’, any action that we do is based on who we think we are.
Right from birth our name,religion,caste, mother-tongue, culture is fed or’input’ into us. And we assume our identities based on these inputs, and any action we do is only based on these identities. These are not the actions of our real ‘I’ but of our assumed ‘I’.
I forgot to add one last line to the first para in my previous comment. This is how it should read
“All your actions and thoughts are a reaction to another thought or action which has happened or is happening or will happen.
In reality you did nothing or COULD EVER DO ANYTHING”
Thoughts of my assumed “I”.
Hi Rajkumar,
“We are robots as long as we don’t realise that we are robots, the moment we realise, we stop being robots.” – nice!
“No action should be done with an expectation,” – this reminds of an Ahadith of Hazrat Ali ibn Abi Talib (AS). I paraphrase, “Oh Allah, I don’t worship You for the reward of heaven, for that’s the worship of the market-trader. Neither do I worship You for the fear of Hell, as that’s the worship of the Slave. I worship You, O Lord, because You are worthy of worship, that’s the worship of the free man.”