Suspension of Suspicion

I feel bad for my brother, who has been having tough time with his wife for the past many years, the main problem being suspicion of his wife. He is now so frightened of his wife that he does not even dare to speak to his siblings freely and candidly. My sister reported to me that his wife does not even allow him to speak to my sister, who had lost her husband a year ago, and is now staying at our house. With a child studying in class 3, and my brother now nearing almost 45, his wife still claims that he is not a clean man. But then why did she choose to marry him? She is plain – she did not know that he was of that type.

I have come to know what suspicion can do to families; if my brother’s family is in deep trouble, it is all because of the suspicion of my sister-in-law, so much so that she feels obliged to guard her husband all the time. Formerly my brother used to play leadership roles in the Church and community service, but my sister-in-law had forced him to stop all these, because she suspected him speaking to ladies, some of them too young, and she could not tolerate it. She had not verified any of her allegations, and everyone knows for sure most of her allegations are baseless, but that is how suspicions grow and thrive. If only she had trusted my brother and believed in him, the family would be a happy and peaceful family.

Any relationship is based on trust and confidence; I feel frightened of relating to persons who are suspicious of my relationship with others, and sometimes I even dare to tell them that I cannot relate to persons who have innate capacity to suspect. If these people suspect my faithfulness, fidelity and commitment to them, and try to check for themselves if I am failing in fulfilling my part, then they may be spared; but if they begin to suspect how I am relating to others, if I am closer and more intimate with others than this particular person, then I consider it unwarranted, and is breaking the basic trust I had in her, and she in me.

Any relationship is sure to crack the very moment one of the partners raises the question of faithfulness and fidelity; even in marriage, the mutual relationship is strengthened and revitalised by trust and confidence. A wife cannot follow her husband wherever he goes, and similarly a husband cannot follow his wife wherever she goes. There are indeed possibilities of mistakes and slips, especially if the gentleman or the lady is smart and good-looking, and therefore attracts many persons to him/her. But that should not be construed as betrayal of the one s/he is committed to. We cannot live as an island, and need the support of all in society, and restricting any kind of relationship is sure to slowly break the social fabric.

Common sense says that if I begin to suspect my partner in a relationship, what is the guarantee that my companion cannot suspect me of the same, and how can I prove to the other that I am beyond all suspicion? I have begun to trust my friends unconditionally, and do not feel the need to know anything about with whom they are relating to, what their relationship is like, and how many times they speak to each other, what they write to each other on email, etc. I find it quite unnecessary and immaterial, because that is not my concern. I can be concerned about my relationship with her, but not her relationship with someone else. She has to manage it, irrespective of me, and I respect her freedom to do so! She may even have my blessings for it.

Called to be Fully Human

One of the blessings of modern times is that we have become numb to all existential reality; our hearts have turned solid that it is hard to say it is made up of flesh and blood. Our sensitivity to human feelings and sentiments has gone awry, and what we are today is just a passing phenomena, which does not affect anyone whatsoever. Is it not this reality that we witness each day in our surroundings? It is not rarely that we come come across incidents when crowds had stood around a dying person, not one of them moving his/her finger to help the dying person. We all want to be safe, and do not want to soil our hands. We cannot think of running to the police station, after trying to save a person; we all want to say, it is none of my business.

I find it hard to accept that the modern men and women have forgotten to have a hearty laughter, a hearty meal, a enjoyable evening. The golden rays of the morning sun is too harsh for their sensitive eyes, that they have to protect their eyes with Ray-ban, or dark glasses. The soothing drops of the first rains are too hard for them to bear that they cannot think of getting drenched in the rain on purpose. Sometimes I would like to ask myself, when is the last time that I listened to the song of a bird, or gazed at the sky and counted the stars; or when is it that I chased the flight of a bird in the evening sky. When is it last that I fixed my eyes on the laughter of a new born child!

These are nature's great gifts to humanity, these are magical moments which can touch even the hardest of hearts. If we do not want to be touched by the Midas touch in nature, then what is life on earth worth? Our lives are so full of artificial, look-alike machines, which have replaced nature's role in our lives. Our contact with nature's world (natural world!) has become so minimal that we can be within the four walls of a room for days on end, without ever bothering to venture into the open fields to realize the vastness of the sky, and the music of the waters or birds.

Our lives have become so very artificial and monotonous that we do everything routine like, without even feeling, sensing. Our eyes have lost their vision, and today we don't see reality as it is, but see only what we want to see; our ears today hear only selectively, and our bodies feel the touch of only the persons we want to. The gruesome murder or the bloodshed of a neighbor does not make us to shed a tear or two; we stand like stones, without seeing, without hearing, without feeling, and maybe when we die, we may die like a stone. Humanity has become immune to pain and pleasure, and what sells today is artificiality. There is no scope for survival for real, and that is where human civilization has taken a U-turn.

I realize that I cannot be insensitive or immune to what is happening all around me. I want to be active and alive to the reality, of which I am an integral part of. I want to enter into the world I belong to, and give myself fully. I want to see the beauty around, I want to hear the music of the birds, or the insects, or the whistling of the breeze; i want to soothe my ears with the roaring of the ocean. I wish to feel the gentle breeze passing through by skin, I want to smell the soil after the first rain, smell the rains, smell the skin of my spouse. I pause for a while today, and close my eyes and reactivate all my senses. I would like to take time to be fully alive to the world that beckons me to be part of itself. Let me see myself transformed into the universe!

Sheethoshna Sukhadukheshu…

It was 3.45 p.m. As I stood at the corner of the street where I stayed, an electronic display board read the current temperature of the place : -3 Celsius. Earlier during breakfast, I was told that in the morning hours, the mercury dipped to -10, and in the Southern areas it further dipped to -16. As I dared to have a firsthand look at the city streets of Brussels, I was welcomed by a white carpet of snow, which had rained yesterday. I was a wonderful sight for the eyes, but not to the inhabitants for whom it was far from a beautiful sight. The consolation is that when it snowed, the temperature will not dip as low as it had done this time. So seeing the snow fall is better than seeing the mercury dip further and further. But then life has not come to a standstill. I can see through the window of my room, which stands beside the street, rows of cars beautifully draped with white sheets of snow. All that I can see is an aerial wire jutting out of the white sheet.

Nature knows how to dress up the earth, and beneath the beauty that she spreads, there stands a little thorn to remind us that we are not the masters of our situations all together. Nature holds the key to the wellbeing of humanity, and all our attempts to fight nature may ultimately prove to be a false dream, and we may be the greatest losers in the battle. While spending three fierce winters in Delhi some years ago, I had told my friends that I would not mind cold winters as against the scorching heat of summer. Our city had been fortunate not to hit the extremes; while the winter is moderate, the summer does not scorch us to the extreme altogether. But I would like to think of the people who are forced to get accustomed to extremities of nature, for no fault of their own. The worst of winter and summer is something we have very little control over; however our bodies are adept to adjust according to the surrounding conditions.

The title of this blog has been taken from chapter 9 of Bhagavad Gita, which talks about who is dear to the Lord: after saying that s/he is the one who is the same in happiness or sadness, in thought and in eagerness, in good and bad, in cold and in warmth, and in contempt and in praise. It is not that easy to remain the same in differing situations and circumstances. As human beings, we are pushed to prefer one to another, and that is ingrained in ourselves, and have very little that we can actually do. We cannot ask someone to remain dead to varying situations and it happens without much effort from our side. Then what does the Gita say about the indifference that we need to possess in order to become his dear. Is it at all possible?

What is difficult for us need not be utterly impossible, but often in life, we take it for granted that what is difficult is not desirable. We have also seen that what is difficult at the time of action is deemed one of the most important and enjoyable thing at the end of the action. Therefore it is obvious that we often go by the sensations and physical feelings, rather than entering into the true self of the personhood. What we considered at the enjoyable thing can turn out to be our nightmare. To keep ourselves abreast to what nature may offer us is an art in itself, and most of us are novices in this area. It is very few people who achieve this art. And the people who have managed to keep themselves not to be easily swayed by what the body may conceive as good or bad, are the people who enjoy the benefits and blessings of nature.

Today I present myself in the presence of God and look into myself to find the areas where I am already prejudiced as to persons, events, incidents, ideas, principles and opinions. The start point of my journey to reach true indifference that the Gita talks about is truly the recognition of the blocks my mind and body put before my spirit. Once I clear these, then I may be in a better position to receive whatever may come my way. To put it in a figurative way, for the person who is prepared to receive the blessings of nature or God, everything may be alike, cold or heat, pleasure or pain. I would like to enter into the great mystery which says that reality as it is in the true sense neutral, and it is the human mind which makes the difference. It is the colored glasses that I wear which can make me believe that one is better than the other, but in fact, one may be as good as the other. I would like to prepare my heart and mind to receive reality as it comes to me without putting any conditions! (Brussels)