Animated by a Fire

Seldom do we come across people who are so full of life and zest; it is not easy to be enchanted by something which turns our life topsy-turvy, that we do not think of anything else. Some years ago, Pedro Arrupe had said something which always ring in my ears. He said, “Nothing is more ractical than finding God, that is, than falling in love in a quite absolute way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you will do with your evenings, how you will spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love and it will decide everything”.

One thing is sure, only people who are impelled by the power of love, who could be so full of life, and I had two duos, who were so animated by what they were convinced of that I could see they had truly fallen in love with what they had found. If there are people who are half dead in our society, it is because they have not fallen in love. A priest who had realized the power of the Word of God is making ripple effects of the transformation that the Word can bring in the lives of simple and ordinary people, and there is a nun, who is young and vibrant, fearlessly taking the Word to far and wide, fully convinced of her mission to help people open their hearts and minds to the Word to be transformed.

I had spent just a couple of hours with them, and they had so many things to share with me that they could not stop talking about what they had experienced, and now feel convinced. It was their love for the Word which is drawing hundreds of people to experience personally the power that Christ is pouring out into the hearts of all those who take the first step to reach the Bible House in Krishnagar. When there is love, which can move mountains, then there is the indefatigable conviction that what they are in love has the power to do the impossible. I had the opportunity to listen to some of the wonderful stories of transformation. Many of the stories are humanly impossible stories.

The young and beautiful girl, who is a post-graduate student, had left her house on the Bengali New Year day to spend a few hours at the Bible House. A Hindu by birth, and quite traditional in approach, she did not mind to leave the house on such an auspicious day, because she felt that she had a lot more to receive at the Bible House than at her home. From lack of peace at home and in her heart, now she has an over flowing of peace and harmony within that she talks about her transformative experiences wherever she goes. She does not even spare marriage parties and even as she decorates the bride and her party (she has done a beautician course), she talks about Jesus and what he could do to people who call on him. She is not a Christian, and there is no talk if she would embrace Christianity soon, but she is a changed person, and there is fire when she shares about the story of her transformation.

The story of the young man, who also had a U-turn in his life two months ago, tells a similar experience, and after seeing the transformation that he had gone through, neither his mother or the Father or Sister, or he himself cannot explain what had happened. All that he had done was to make the effort to reach the Bible House for once, and now he behaves and relates with people in a different note. He confided that he was used to smoking and drinks and ever since he had stepped into the Bible House, he had not touched a cigarette or drinks. There is no inner urge in him to take them. He does not know how all these things happened in him. He is inviting his friends to the Bible to experience for themselves what the Word can do in their lives. There was fire in the two young people too, and I was telling myself, if only our young men had this kind of fire in them, then there would be miracles taking place in every village, town and the state. But to begin with, we will have to start with what we are in love with.

Ushering New Year

It is Bengali new year day, but as I travel to another place, some four hours from home, I see no sign of celebration on the way, except some small shops were beginning to decorate the entrance with flowers; the traffic on the road was relatively less, but what about the celebrations? A good many people in the state seem to be quite oblivious of the fact that they were beginning yet another calendar year, and given the fact that in rural Bengal it is the Bengali calendar which is more in vogue than the English calendar, but we have long embraced the English New Year day than the regional one, and that says a lot about the change in attitude of the people towards long cherished traditions and cultural moors.

As New Year ushers in new hope and new aspirations; unfortunately promises and great plans are still stringed to the English New Year day; and they disappear into thin air a few days after the New Year. I have not heard about anyone taking New Year promises on a Bengali calendar year. For the general public, the regional calendar is of much less significant than the accepted English calendar. We are on the verge of giving a decent burial to the calendar which was shaping our socio-cultural living for centuries, and are prepared to replace it with the foreign and even alien system of calendar which may place us on an equal footing with the rest of the world.>/p>

Exchange of greetings on this day is not common either; as I travelled and met friends and familiar people, only one remembered to wish me Happy New Year, and that person is not a Bengali (in the true sense of the word, but a true Bengali at heart); I too did not dare to wish friends and associates, lest they should think I am old fashioned. The world is fast changing, and whatever that is local, close to the soil, is being relegated to the dusty store rooms, and whatever is foreign (bilati, and even our vegetables and fruits now have a prefix of ‘bilati’ – even our long time favorites, brinjal and tomatoes have fair skins) is glorified, treasured at the core of our homes and hearts.

The one word that goes round in our newspapers and during election campaigns these days is the ‘change’; it seems that the ‘change’ is inevitable in the political, cultural and social levels, and when the whole state is on the move towards change, no one can resist its powerful currents. There is a mad rush to welcome change, as if we had not experienced it all these years; we think only in terms of political powers, but we had been confronting change, for better or worse, almost everyday, and many of them had done good too. Those who forget their history are condemned to repeat it, so says an old Indian proverb, and therefore we need to keep our records intact, the path we have come along.

New Year ushers in new hope and enthusiasm; every business person or a shopkeeper who opens a new “haal khatha” (account book) hopes that the New Year will come with “subha laabh” (manifold rewards). We all of us plead with the gods and goddesses on this day to make each day, a day of plenty, because it is only in plenty could we find our joy and happiness. But this is a paradox that we have landed in; we may find true joy and happiness only in scarcity and not in plenty. A person who has just a few hands full of rice enjoys it with great relish than the one who has too much to eat and throw off. The person who has just a few rupees spends it with great care than the person who has too much to spare. Therefore my New Year wish is that all may have just enough for them to be happy and contended, and share the surplus with those in dire need of them, and that is when each day of the year can be a New Year’s day.

E/Affecting Changes

If there is one thing which is so very peculiar to the human race is that it is never contended with the way things are. Unlike most other primates, the human beings are constantly in search of change; everything that is new becomes out of date (or out of style, as is in vogue today)within no time; if one looks at the fashion world, we would be puzzled to realize that even before a fashion commodity reaches the market, it is declared out of fashion. Things are changing at break-neck speed, and it is quite impossible to keep pace with them. But the moot question is: should we keep pace with changes and adapt ourselves ever so often?

New Year celebrations bring along a bagful of promises to change; we want changes to take place as the clock strikes 12 on the new year eve. It is as if we all have the Alladin's magic lamp, which can change and transform us at the fraction of a second! We all wish to hear the whisper of the genie, Your wish is my command! We hear a thousand and one promises for change that people assure us of: giving up smoking, drinks, some vital bad habits! There are also others who promise positive things - to call up parents at least once a week, to do household chores with the wife, etc. But how long do the changes work?

Unfortunately changes as we desire do not take place; even before we take note of what we had promised, we had broken the promises, and we are back to square one. We see ourselves just as we were before the new year! We often fail to ask ourselves this simple question: can a new year (which by the way, is just an imaginary concept) change the way how we relate to people, behave, and act in our personal and social lives? Are we not asking for too much from a concept, which is just incapable of ushing in changes in us? But then, are changes impossible in our lives? Can't we break out of our unhealthy habits and soar to newer heights?

Of course it is possible, and there is a simple way to do that! Paradoxically, the more we try to change ourselves, the more we fail, and therefore in order to change something in ous, the best thing to do is to become conscious of what we want to change, and stop at that. That is where the trick is: to stop with becoming conscious of what we want to change; if we force ourselves to change, then it would end up in a disaster. One may ask, then how will a change take place? The universe will take care of it; our body-mind-spirit will take care of the change that is to be effected. Mind you, the change that will take place will not be dramatic, nor spectacular, but would be lasting.

There is a simple way to test this theory: look at the lasting changes which have taken place in ourselves, and we would notice that these changes took place without our realization. Look at the way trees and plants grow; the change or transformation is imperceptible to our naked eyes, and yet it is real and lasting. We need to trust in the transformative power of the universe and the body-mind-spirit complex, because there is nothing which is beyond the power of these two vital poles which determine what we are! We might call them the divine powers, because they have so much of creative potentiality, if only we surrender to be moulded and shaped! To be transformed and be changed!

Old and New

New Year, and a new beginning! As everyone talks about "new" things which try to capture our attention wherever we go, I thought it is worth reflecting about this newness that we attribute to things, persons and experiences. If we have to wake up the dead Greek philosopher Heracletes and ask him if there is anything new in the world, he would leap for joy and shout that every moment of human existence is new. Was it not the same old philosopher who said we do not step into the same river twice? Newness all around, and mind you, the very concept is very subjective; that is to say, there is no objective criteria to label a thing or an experience new or old.

True, what is new for me might be very old for someone else; and the reverse too can be true. I dare not stand against Heracletes and shout that there is nothing new in the world; whether we like it or not, we are get into the same old rut (to be in line with the river image of the Greek philosopher). In fact, the newness is not so much in an object, but in our eyes! Here we land up with John Keats, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder! So newness is in our eyes, in our hearts, in our minds. It does not exist out there. But is there anyone who would buy my proposition?

To stand up for a while in company with Heracletes is a great pleasure; everyday morning as I open up my eyes, do not a fresh new morn welcome me with a song of the bird, scent of the flowers, and a adorable 'namoshkar' of the insects, and a soal-soothing radiance of the golden sun? Can the song of the birds ever become old? Will the golden rays of the sun ever become old or stale? Can a human smile ever become monotony? If ever they do, then probably I may need to show myself to an ophthalmologist and get my eyes checked; and then to a psychiatrist and get my sanity checked!

Even before the year 2009 bade goodbye, there was too much of noise, fireworks, firecrackers to welcome the year 2010! Park Street alias Mother Teresa Sarani was a sea of mirth and jubilation, and what happened after the clock stroke 12 at midnight? Except the cheers and bursting of the crackers (and opening of the much awaited Champagne bottle in select hideouts and restaurants), nothing seemed to have changed. For the manual laborers of the municipality, the day has not changed, because when the new day broke, they were back on the street to clean it as they had been doing for years! Has anything changed for them? Or has anything changed in fact?

We see newness all around and yet things seem to be the same, much against our expectation and longing. I have a bright idea to offer to the people who do not find newness around them : get a dozen different color celophane papers and cut them to the size of your spectacle glasses size, and stick one color papers to your spectacles each day, and look things with that glasses. The next day, change the color papers, and you will see everythng with a different color, and that would have changed how they looked to you the previous day. Am I just kidding? But until we change our mindsets and eyes, perhaps this great idea may supply some newness to our otherwise mundane, monotonous lives!

The Human Audit

The title may appear intimidating, especially in the background of the crumbling markets and the malpractices which cripple many a commercial firm. As we stand at the last lap of the year, what does this human audit means. First of all, the very term needs explication and explanation, for this is not a common term that is often used to expound the evaluation at the end of the year. By the phrase human audit I mean a need to evaluate one’s performance, not on the basis of a set of criteria, but on the basis of one’s achievement as seen by oneself, without any intrusion by a second or third party. This includes basically two areas: the success and the failures, but these two are seen not as water-tight compartments, but as one flowing into the other. At the end of the year, we may find that we have so many incomplete tasks to be completed, and may realize that all our efforts to fix deadlines have failed miserably. But it is important that we become aware of our strengths and drawbacks, so that we are able to take ourselves seriously in the new year.

Very seldom do we make a self-evaluation at the end of the year; all the business firms and commercial houses undertake routine exercise to evaluate their performance. The two primary concepts around which evaluations are conducted in business sectors are : performance and achievement. But when we come to human resources, of persons we cannot force these two concepts to take top position. If we attempt that way, then we will realize that we too soon equate human persons to machines, and that may be the death-knell of the human-oriented business center. Perhaps the most effective evaluation that we can think of for human persons is the one where in they are the subject and the object. They evaluate themselves using their own norms and criteria. But an opportunity should be given to them to see for themselves how they have fared in the year that has passed away.

I would like to make five or ten criteria to evaluate my success, and another ten criteria to evaluate my failures. It is not important for me to identify the areas where I have failed, but more than merely identifying, I need to find the reasons which were responsible for such failure. It may be related to either myself or others, or even the infrastructure facilities provided by the firm. What is important is that I am able to see these for myself, and don’t require someone to tell me what had gone wrong in my sector. If I find out the lacunae in my work, that would save my face and help me to redress the lacunae without even letting others know that something had gone wrong in my area of work.

Needless to say, I need to take an audit for all the different areas where I am involved, interpersonal, academic, social, economic, religious and even familial. I cannot afford to drop any particular area, without assessing how I had fared. If I do this exercise consciously and seriously, then I am sure to make progress in the days to come; if I don’t feel the need to assess my different areas of involvement, then I am sure to stagnate, if not go backwards in progress. One may not do this officially, but it is important that one spends some time quietly reflecting about these two areas, and similarly finding reasons what had gone wrong in the process. It is important that I take forward the areas where I had succeeded and to re-plan the areas where I need extra effort to make it tick. Human mind is capable of fusing ideas from nowhere in order to provide solution to most difficult of problems. All that we need is effort to find adequate solutions.

In order to engage in this sort of human audit, I need to take time off from the hustle-bustle of everyday life and commitments, so that I can seriously enter into my inner self, pick up areas which I rarely pay attention to. It would benefit if I can go to a place where I can be all by myself without anyone to disturb me. There are two ways how I can conduct audit : I may go chronologically from the first of January last year, and go month by month, recollecting the different events and incidents which had either helped you or prevented you from carry out the task you have been given. The second way is to go in terms of area of work or involvement. In either case, one can see for oneself that there are areas which require fine-tuning, and there are areas which require rescheduling of action plans. If I am honest to myself and genuinely wish to take my life forward, then I can be sure to find areas where I need to improve. The next year provides an opportunity for me to take life forward.

Ever New, Ever Fresh!

New year! So they say, and I really wonder if any particular day can be called new! What about the other 364 days of the year? Do the days become old as they pass? In short, every day is new and every hour is new, and every minute is new. In fact, for the discerning hearts, every moment comes with decked in new attire, new attitude. It all depends on how we look at reality. Think of the Greek philosopher Heraclitus who said that every drop of water running through the river is new, though we might think that the water is the same, and that is what made this philosopher say that we do not get into the same river twice. Just as every moment that dawns sinks into past and future is made into present, and though we may think that we have moments ever new, ever present, but we don’t realize that every moment is born anew, eternity is sliced for us into fragments, and every moment is forever new, forever fresh. But the moot question is, do we ever realize the beauty of this newness all around us.

I sometimes do a simple exercise to make my senses look at reality with new senses. I go to a vast expanse, and stand in a particular place, close my eyes for a while, and then open them wide… awaken all my senses, sense of smell, hearing, seeing, tasting and feeling, as if I am in an altogether new situation. I turn even the familiar trees, plants, objects into new; gently forcing my senses to believe that I am seeing them, hearing them, feeling them for the first time. Often my senses so get used to reality around me that I fail to take note of things, even when they bear newness with them. I go close to the flower plants, and look at them carefully, and try to find something new which I had not taken note of earlier. Sure enough, often I come across many new elements in the most familiar surroundings.

Our senses do not wish to acknowledge that we are presented with new reality every moment, and it is demanding for the senses to adjust themselves according to the new realities, and so they wish to retain the old memories, and pretend as if there is nothing new in the reality. It is only when we take things for granted that we get used to things, we get fed up of them, we take things for granted. Often we hear people make excuses saying, Oh, I thought it was the same old thing, and therefore I didn’t take note of the changes. Reality all around us is ever new, and we need to focus our attention to find the newness; it is easy to forget the newness and indulge in the ever old, so that we cannot find vitality and newness in all that we do.

It is not only the external reality which is full of newness, but every human being too is ever new. Scientists have found that there are hundreds of body cells get replaced each day, so much so after a few years, we have a brand new body, with brand new body cells, all of them having been replaced in the preceding months. Therefore the skin, bones, even the nail get new cells, and most of the time we do not even realize that we have a new body. All that we take for granted is that we have the same old body which we had inherited at child birth, and we had grown in size, but have maintained the same elements. So also everything is changed in the universe at every moment; the stars and planets keep changing their places, and there are ever new developments in the universe that we cannot even predict what would happen the very next day. It is not that they are left to the fate of chances, but there is newness all around.

The whole universe is charged with newness, and though many of the realities surrounding us seem to bear the monotony of mundane reality, they all have the potentiality to be new and remain ever fresh, and it is time that we open our minds to recognize that newness all around us. Today I would like to pause for a while and recollect to my mind all the persons I met and events I participated in, and try to find out the new elements I had failed to take note of. Reality cannot remain monotonous, because remaining unchanging or monotonous may be the death-knell of any kind of reality. As one of my old professors used to say, change is the only thing that does not change, and every change brings in newness. It is this newness which makes life worth living, and makes life all the more meaningful. I know when I meet my partner in the morning, I will know that she is a new person, and that when I see my boss in the office the next day, and if I tell myself that I am going to meet a new person, life may become quite adventurous and exciting. Let me start looking at reality with new eyes each day, each hour, each minute, and each second, and my life cannot remain the same again!