‘M only Human

Sometimes I shudder to think how ‘human’ I am, that I am all too vulnerable! The image that often crosses my mind is a dry leaf caught in a whirlwind, unable to find its way, but being tossed by forces from all sides; it may have to land in a place it would have least desired, and all its dreams and aspirations would have gone awry. It is true, as a human person, endowed with reason, I am able to stir my life to a certain extent, but more than that I am but a fry in the limitless ocean, and my words and actions can make too little difference in the world I live and have my being. To realize that I am a limited being in the midst of limitless universe, is too frightening.

But that is what reality is, and I have no other alternative than to accept this fact, that I am incapable of changing most of myself, what I am and what I have been taught, and what I carry with me 24x7. Sometimes I wish I have been endowed with limitless powers to control the forces which make me dance according to their tunes, but I am frightened that it would only mean that there would be anarchy all around me, if that same limitless power is given to all those who wish to control my existence, my being and my life in this universe. Ultimately I have to accept my limitations, vulnerabilities and live with them happily.

There were times when I would think of changing one particular aspect of my personality, do my best to practice asceticism or self-control in order to discipline myself; but now I realize that all those had been mere eye-wash; I change too little even after several self-conscious attempts. I am reminded of that beautiful story of a jackal which fell on a bucket full of water-color, and went around claiming himself to be the king of the forest, and all others believed him, until one rainy day he got wet and all the color disappear, and he had to acknowledge his true self. That is what happens often with me, and it would not take too long for my true color to appear.

From my younger days, I had been taught to consider myself as a strong person with strong inclinations and habits, with a capacity to design my own life as I desire. There had been deliberate attempts to undermine the ‘human’ aspect in me, and there were some who considered that to accept one’s own vulnerability is to give in to them. They would not permit me to acknowledge my weaknesses, but I realize as I grow that one area of blessedness opens only when I see my own weaknesses, my own vulnerabilities, or to use an idiomatic expression, when I see my own nakedness. I am no different from the rest of humanity, and I do not need to put up a face to show that I am better than the rest, I feel comfortable being one among the weak humanity.

I can be conscious of my weaknesses, and yet be on the alert not to give in to them whenever they assail me. To know that I am a sinner does not make me truly a sinner, but when I allow myself to sinful action, words and thoughts, then they do make me truly a sinner. The same can be applied for my weaknesses and vulnerabilities too. My weaknesses do not necessarily make me weak; I can put up a fierce battle even with all my weaknesses, but when I give in to my base nature and indulge in things which make me dehuman or subhuman, then I become weak, and they can gradually lead me to meet my nemesis. But so long I am on my guard, safeguarding my weaknesses from being assaulted, then I can be sure that I can retain my sanity, come what may!

Streams of Sympathy

It may be hard to believe, but I think sympathy is directly related to selfishness, and to a large extent self-centeredness. I have several examples to illustrate this point. When I am drawn to sympathy towards the urchin begging at the road-side, and I dolling out a five rupees coin, I am not so much giving him anything, rather than giving something to myself. I would have the psychological satisfaction that I was able to share (and it may never dawn to me that what I had done is far from sharing) the little I had! The truck-load of inner satisfaction is worth the five rupees coin! But that is where my sympathy stops!

My friend still feels that she was partially right in expressing her sympathy towards a friend of hers, by allowing him to pour out all his pain and agony to her! It is true that the gentleman needed someone to whom he could disclose his ins and outs, without being careful to edit out the more sensitive episodes, but I feel he was seeking something more than a patient pair of ears! Nor was he seeking mere sympathy, though his self-pity could have mady any one to be sympathetic towards him. It may not be easy for women to read through the thin lines of men, who project something, while meaning something else! That was what I was cautioning my friend to be careful about!

But there is something else about sympathy. I was asking myself, is there any place for sympathy between friends? Where does sympathy really fit in? Friendship, by its very definition, is a relationship which is established based on mutual trust. If there is already trust between two persons, then how can sympathy pop up? Will a friend seek sympathy from his/her friend? We approach friends, only because we trust that person would get into our shoes, and feel with us. Probably even the word 'empathy' may not adequately express what happens between two good, genuine friends. But it is far from self-centered sympathy!

There is yet another angle to the entire story: the young man expected something which my friend refused to offer, and the man was greatly offended and even hurt! A person who wished to pour out his soul to a confidante generally would not expect anything more than unburdening of oneself; what would put a period to his long winding stories could be a sigh of relief that he was able to "throw off" all that had been causing his psychological indigestion! If a person comes with a calculated agenda, and looks for it, and even taking the liberty to demand it, on the basis of friendship, can such a relationship be trusted (however long it had taken to groom it!)?

I am careful if I feel sympathetic towards someone; the chances of making use of those who are in a vulnerable position are heightened, if my psychological need to satisfy my ego is equally blown. It is possible, when we relate to persons, we really do not think about all these, the notions of self-centeredness and sympathy, satisfying the ego, etc. But we will be able to trace the path and find on hind sight that we were not as holy as we thought to be. Ultimately it is not to blame anyone, but to see each one as one really is, without labels and attributes. I have realized that signs of 'sympathy' can switch on the danger light in me, and I am cautioned to go beyond it, towards entering into another's shoes by empathising, and at the same time careful not to breach friendship!

Salvaging the Savior

Often in life, we wish to be saviors, redeemers, and don the mantle of patrons, parents and trouble-shooters. We are on the lookout for people, whom we can adopt in a psychological sense, and help them come up to our expectations, and these are the people who are vulnerable in one way or other, and wish to come to terms with their own dreams and aspirations. There is a greater amount of selfishness in any patronage and desire to “help” someone in need; the parent in us pops up at a moment when we find a scope to exercise certain amount of control over the vulnerable, and what a joy it is to have someone who listens to us with ears and heart wide open, and even promises to follow our roadmap to happiness.

When we sincerely seek to help someone who is in dire need of assistance, counsel or a helping hand, subconsciously or unconsciously we are trying to help ourselves, even though we may not accept this fact easily. But how do we test if our spontaneous help to another person in need is genuine or it has a reasonable dosage of selfishness? The criteria is rather simple: if the person we seek to help is someone we do not know, one with whom we do not have longtime association, one who may not remember us after the help is rendered, one who may not even say ‘Thanks’ for the valuable help we provide, one who does not ask for our mobile phone number or address, one who may not even speak kindly to us after receiving help, then we can say with certain amount of certitude that our help had been genuine. Needless to say, if it happens to be otherwise, then there are all the chances that it is our need and not that of the other person.

As an average human being, we all of us are born with same amount of selfishness and self-centeredness, and what makes us different is the tactics we use in order to fulfill our ego. Human mind is capable of devising any amount of ways to “trap” others, especially those who are in some way vulnerable and limited, and most often we may not even be aware of the fact that we are on the prowl looking for a victim. But the tragedy takes place, when the victim begins to seek his/her own selfish needs, and we are caught unawares. We realize the sheer futility of our “sincere and genuine” desire to help others, when the recipients take advantage of our generosity, and ultimately make us suffer in the end.

But does that mean I should not be prepared to reach out to others in need? Of course not; that is not the point. The point is that I need to be conscious of the fact, while I am trying to help someone in need, I am trying to help myself too, and the other person is also going to make use of me (either positively or negatively). The tendency to be saviors and redeemers can go to a higher level, when on realizing that I had been taken for a royal ride by the victim I was trying to help, I begin to console myself saying that it is alright even if I lose, so long the other person is happy! That is the savior-syndrome entering through backdoor, while we let the ‘victim’ has his/her final laughter!

I am surely not against reaching out to others in need; we all of us need to strengthen the bonds of cooperation and collaboration, and it may not be possible for us (human as we are) to completely overcome selfishness, which is mixed with our blood. Even an eternity may not be enough to remove this dosage of self-centeredness from us. So, let us not camouflage ourselves as doing good to others, while in fact we are trying to do good to ourselves. Being conscious of this tendency in us can make us reach out to those who are in real need of our help, and if we are there to give a helping hand without counting the wounds or the cost, not even the psychological satisfaction of doing good, then we can be proud that we have climbed yet another difficult step towards divinity.

Art of Surrendering

Someone may raise the eye brows on reading the title of this blog: art of surrendering! Is it an art, like those conventional art forms? I call surrendering an art, basically on two grounds : like all art forms, surrendering needs to be cultivated, and one may partake of the aesthetic joy, even after surrendering oneself to the Supreme. This may already imply that surrendering demands something very precious from me, and until I am ready to place myself before the situation and prepare myself to accept whatever may be for the greater good of society, I may not be partaking of the solution, but continue to be only part of the problem.

The very word carries with it a lot of negative connotations, and as soon as one hears the word surrendering, one is sure to think that it is going to cost a lot, and sure it is! But what it costs is not as much as the joy and peace of actually surrendering. Listening to the wisdom of Echart Tolle, the master who popularised the concept of the power of now, lays great emphasis on surrendering, and I realize that surrendering places before me immense possibilities, and provides me in a much more secure zone than all that the world can offer me when I keep holding to the treasures of the world around me.

You may wonder, how can surrendering give me real security, and placate the annoying fear, anxiety, and worry, the three enemies who are responsible for messing up my peace and joy. Every time when I trust the world around me, my own talents and capabilities, my store house of treasures (in the form of acquired knowledge base, accumulated wealth and projected support systems at my disposal), I am creating an imaginary wall around me, and keep telling myself that no rain and shine can ever touch me. But the moment when I hear the thunder and my eyes are blinded by lightning, then I know that the wall around me is only fictitious.

It is then no time to start building real wall around me; before I raise up a wall barely enough to protect myself, I would realize that the thunder showers have destroyed the wall I had built. Besides I realize that there are hardly any people who would join me in raising up this wall of protection. But if I were wise, I would not try to raise up a wall, but look all around me, surrender myself to all the forces which surround me. I invoke my inner resources to acquire the strength and energy to face all rain and shine, thunder and lightning. I can hear the whisper of my heart: nothing can really shake me and pull me down.

But that is the moment when I look to the world around that I am being so very vulnerable (and in the true sense I am being very vulnerable), that I may not survive even a gusty wind. The external reality does not change; it is just as it used to be, but my approach to this reality has changed considerably. I don't look at the world around me as ravenous wolves, ready to tear me to pieces, but as beings as vulnerable as I am. There is a sense of camaraderie, and of solidarity. But what if the external (and internal) realities were to militate against me? I know that my inner self will provide me with the stamina to protect me from their onslaught. In surrendering, I come in face to face with my true identity as a vulnerable human person!

Branding

One of the secrets of success is business and commerce is branding the product or merchandise. If the branding is done with great care, then one can be sure of success, even if the product or merchandise itself may not be worth that much hype. For those who are uninitiated into the world of business, branding is related to a projection of the product as it is and affecting the customer to a large extent, highlighting the great value for money that the product can give to the buyer. Branding basically targets human psyche, whereby the customer is brain-washed by the company. Take for instance, vesting a particular brand of vests is a ‘andar ki baat’! That is branding.

I feel terrible when people begin to brand their neighbors, friends, family members, and citizens of a particular nation. This is one of the greatest injustice we can do to humanity. First of all, human beings are a commodity that can be branded, for purchase. Branding persons basically points to an accumulation of prejudices and pre-judgements. When we say, so and so is such a kind of person, we are already branding the person, as if a person is a solidified matter, which cannot change over time. We need to look at people as they are and not as we would wish them to be.

Some of us are ace human branders, who even without seeing or hearing, can brand people, just on the basis of hear-say. History will tell us how mistaken these people are. It is only human beings who are capable of changing, and sometimes these changes can occur even over night; and we may not be in a position to explain how the change took place, but that precisely are human beings. Branding a person is equivalent to condemning a person to a state of immaterial being, who is incapable of change. We cannot have a healthy social living, until we begin to look at one another as people susceptible of change and transformation.

We all of us suffer at sometime or other from social stigma, and that is one of the consequences of immortalizing these human brands. The stigma is often imposed from out, without verifying the validity of the offence. Generalization is a cousin to this social stigma. But is it possible for us to ever overcome the propensity to brand people? We may have to begin our journey to cure, from the understanding that all are vulnerable, and weak human beings, and there is no one who can truly claim to be free from human frailties. Once I know that others are as weak as I am, I would not begin to label them for all eternity, but look at the silver lining in the midst of their dark gloomy nature. It is then that we will realize the danger of branding people.

Every time I brand people, I should realize that there are others prepared to brand me too. In fact, the very people I brand may be the people who may do the same thing for me. If I am in the chair of power and authority and begin to judge everyone on earth as I see them to be, then it may be good for me to remember that the day to be on the receiving end is not very far off. I may also need to realize that if others had branded me the way I do to them, then probably my life would be very different today. It is because many people had been generous enough to spare me from the humiliation of being branded, that I am able to keep my head erect and judge others. If I feel I have all the qualities to brand others, then it is time that I prepare myself to be branded too!