Letting Go

To tie and untie the rope that is tied to the shore from a boat is an art, and it is only those who know how and where to tie the rope, that can sure the safety for the boat and the people who may travel. It is an art to let things go, and it might require quite an amount of learning that goes along with this art, just like every art needs to be cultivated. The best example I can think of for letting things go, is the art of swimming. It requires quite a bit of courage to jump for the first time into a tank or a pool; we should be happy if there is someone who is at our side to help us teach how to place our strides, and I had learned to swim all by myself, and at one moment even felt sinking, and had not the voice or courage to call friends who were swimming at a little distance. But luckily I managed to float and since then I know I cannot sink in water. Then the few moments of sinking was agonizing.

If one is too frightened of sinking, one may never learn to swim. The same logic also applies for those who learn driving a vehicle, either two wheelers or four wheelers. If one is too frightened of meeting with an accident, one would never dare to take the vehicle on the road; there would be something preventing that person from daring. What I would like to point to is the experience of the freedom and ease that dawns after we take the leap, to borrow a term from the existentialist philosophers. In order to experience the freedom and the ease that follows the leap, the risk is worth taking. Worries and anxieties are blocks which prevent us from experiencing the freedom and ease which is our due, but these also present to us a sense of false security, and we might cling on to them hoping they would last long. The mind can scarcely think that true freedom is in letting things go, rather than holding on to them.

The false sense of security that worries and anxieties present to us is also linked to our own existence, and we cannot think of anyone who would allow ourselves to be annihilated. We all want to live, and we believe, though erroneously, that we could live only by holding on the things we hope will keep us safe and secure. But relying on worries and anxieties is like chasing mirages, and ultimately we might land up nowhere, or might find ourselves in the same place. To let go of things is daring to take the risk, and be prepared to face whatever that might happen to us, during the moments which follow the letting go. It is a very brief moment, but very crucial, because it is during these moments that the human mind may present black as white and white as black; if we are carried away too easily by the mind, then we might not reach the other shore, we may never learn to drive.

Let me explain why worries and anxieties present to us only a sense of false security. We know only too well that worries and anxieties are related to what is yet to come, and in most cases they are only hypothetical cases, because if we know certain thing for sure, then we do not worry about them, but if there is something not known to us may take place, that sucks our energy, and at the end we are more tensed imagining what could possibly happen. The clinging to worries and anxieties is nothing but a pigment of our imagination, and there is not an iota of truth and real security. Let me also face the other side of the coin : is it possible that my life may be endangered if I let things go free? Human experience has shown that that happens but very rarely, and we may not experience such things in our lives.

In fact, worries and anxieties do not allow us to take a step forward; they are oriented towards keeping us bound to the shore, hoping one day the other shore might exchange place with this one. There is nothing potentially dangerous with worries and anxieties, but they could become cause of one’s diseases, especially those relating to the heart, food habits, allergies and mental stress and tension. This is also related to a realistic self-assessment, so that we do not assess ourselves either as too simple or as too grand. Worries and anxieties rely on the qualities and securities which do not happen in reality, they are only in the imaginative and possibility domain. Too much of calculation and estimates might not work well with letting things go free, but we may have to make decisions on the basis of reality, and act upon them instantaneously.

Of Human Bondage

In the recent years, I have realized that blood relations need not be the best relations for a person; I don’t know exactly how others would value and esteem blood-relations, but at least in my case they come only secondary to the so-called non-blood relations. It is possible when we are young, we feel the need to depend on our siblings for the fulfillment of our basic necessities, but as we grow in age and dependence, the fabric which keeps us together slowly gives way, and suddenly we may realize that we are not as closely knit with our siblings as we were years before.

Sometimes I feel that the bond of love and understanding that existed between we brothers and sister in the family is no more palpable; there is a feeling that things are falling apart, ever since the other siblings got married, began to set up their own families, manage their own affairs. It is natural that they begin to stand by themselves without depending too much on the other members of the family. But in the process, we could notice something was missing. We all are aware of it, but something is blocking us from really taking a good look at it.

Probably a man, who has not married, will not be able to realize the responsibilities levied on the part of the partners in a marital relationship. There are restrictions for them from all sides, from friends, neighbors, in-laws. If the attention of my brothers is turned towards their wives and children and not to my parents, or least of all to me, they are not to be blamed for it. Sometimes my parents grumble that the sons do not care for them, as they were doing before their marriage, and it may take them some years to realize that they are now on their own, and that has to be respected.

Human relations is an art, and not many people master it; there are some who are able to keep a healthy balance between their private life (together with their wives and children) and their wider family life. I understand the situation of handling human relations vary from place to place and culture to culture. Probably families are closely knit in the rural setup, because there is need for greater dependence on one another there than in a urban setup. Having grown up for some years in a joint family, I realize what we gained and what we lost.

Among several other things, what gives meaning to our human existence is the web of relations we weave day after day; while some links in the web get snapped, others are woven, sometimes even without our being conscious of them. And luckily the web of relations does not depend on the centre, which has given birth to the web. Wider this web, happier are we in life. There may be people who help us widen this net, and some others who wish to destroy this net. Possessiveness and excessive dependence in relationships try to curtail the widening of this web, and attempt to bring the web to a close, which can only sound the death-knell of human relations.