Category: Spirituality/Personality

Blankness


I am not sure if this is a correct word in English.  But I am not worried about that as long as I am able to express what I feel.  There are some days when you are alone and feel that you are in a state of flux.  It is a feeling of emptiness and you think as if there is no meaning in life.  You also feel that there is neither a beginning nor an end to anything you do in life.  Is this a feeling some of us feel some time or the other in our life.  What do we do when this happens ?

The first good news is that we are not alone.  Many of us go through this in our life time.  Not once but may be many times. There is nothing to feel sad or disappointed.  It is like while undertaking a long road trip, you sometimes end up on a road, which is a dead end.  Neither your map works nor anything else.  Over and above there may be no sign of life anywhere around you.  The mobile network may not work too and then you wonder what to do.

If we end up in such a situation, what do we do ?  We do not abandon the car at that point and wonder what to do.  We reflect and contemplate.  Sometimes, we may retract our route and drive from where we came till we find a turn or a person to guide us.  Life is no different.  We have to pause and take a break some times.  It will look as if there is emptiness and we are in a state of vacuum.  It is ok to feel this way.  Just take a deep breath and may be a break and you may be able to restart life all over again.

I am reminded of the problems most of us face while using computers.  When the screen hangs and no key makes any impact, what do we do.  We either switch off and on the computer or press “Control+Alt+del”.  It is the same thing we have to do in our lives.  When we reach a dead end, we have to take a break.  We have to reboot ourselves and start all over again.  There is nothing right or wrong about such instances.  Interestingly many of us face such situations more often than not today in our lives.

This may happen in our career too.  We may feel we have reached a dead end and there may appear no light at the end of the tunnel.  There is no need to panic.  We need to introspect.  Are we equipped to deal with changing directions in our career.? Are we skilled to deal with the changing business environment?   Are we the best in whatever we do so that nobody can bypass us ?  If the the answer is yes to one or all of the above, we know what do do.

In case, we are still groping to find the answer, it may still never be too late.   If we cannot find the answer ourselves, we can ask our colleagues, seniors, family, friends or well wishers.  After all in life, we may have all the questions and it is human not to have all the answers.  If we did, we may not believe in that spiritual power, whom we may call God or by any other name.  Like in the photo above, if you are in a hot air balloon with a boat in the midst of the sea and do not know which side to row, what do you do ?

I am a born optimist.  I believe every question has to have an answer.  If we do not the know the same, it does not mean the answer does not exist.  We need to have the humility first to accept that we do not know the answer to our question in life and then the courage to ask the right person to help us.   Life is complex but the way to deal with it is simple.  When in doubt, ask ?

Is it possible ?

S Ramesh Shankar

You miss something you do not have any more …

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As we grow up in our family, we are lucky to have all the comforts of home.  We are fully taken care of by our family members and get all the comforts of life.  But, as we complete our education and then get into a job, we are compelled to move out of our home.  We live on our own and have to fend for  ourselves.  We realise that our mom is not around to give us our morning coffee.  As the day progresses, we miss her and many more people and things around us, which we were quite used to.

We search for our tooth brush and it was not in place as soon as we get up and look for it.  Then there is nobody to offer our morning coffee.  The breakfast is not laid on the table and nobody to wish us a great day ahead.  As this change sinks into us, we realise that we miss our mom or spouse or that special person in our life, who has be nurturing us from dawn to dusk every day.

We are busy at work but may be even forget this vacuum in our life temporarily but as we return to our den in the evening, we realise that the situation is the same.  There is nobody to open the door for us.  There is no evening tea waiting for us and more important we have to freshen up and cook our own food.  This cycle of life makes you realise that you always “miss something you do not have any more”.

We were used to the pampering by your beloved mom  and then when we have moved out we suddenly miss her.  We may have been complaining morning, evening and night how bad our mom’s cooking is.  We may tell her how our friends get excellent delicacies every day and we don’t and so on.  But, as we land all alone in life, we realise how much we miss her.  Her food, her warmth, her care and love can no longer be measured in a value.  

Today I visited my niece.  She is married and settled down in life.  She narrated an incident of how her mom visiting her made her day.  She was feeling more cared for when someone is there to say good bye, when she leaves for work. Her mom’s cooking food for her makes it tastier and more enjoyable.  She said she realises today after being married for more than a decade when her mom visits her once a year.

This is true for everything in life.  We miss something only when you do not have it any more.  Life is a competitive journey and we face all odds to do our daily chores.  We are taken care by our family and friends as we grow up.  But, as we try to stand alone and live life on our terms, we realise how much we miss all that we had in life before.  It may be things or people but they look invaluable and irreplaceable to us now.

Of course, we can always buy things and replace them to comfort ourselves.  But, we cannot replace the love, warmth and care of the people around us.  It is this realisation, which makes us human and helps us to keep our feet on the ground.  It is important to realise that we can never repay this debt in life.  It is an emotional debt and has to repaid by love and care only.

At this moment, when our elders grow up, we may have to realise that it is not good enough for us to provide them with physical comfort.  Even they can buy them from the market place, which they can afford.  We need to repay our debt by unconditional love.  We have to be with them not only when they need us but even when they may not expect us.  

Like in the photo above, the baby elephants may miss their mother after they get separated from her in the wilderness of the forest.

Life is a journey and we need to learn from all that we miss, which we do not have today.

S Ramesh Shankar

Who is the ultimate judge ?


There have been many instances in my personal and work life when I have felt that I was misjudged.  Let us start from my personal life. As I grew up as a child, I felt I was scolded by my parents or teachers for no fault of mine.  It could be a simple incident wherein your younger sibling could have done some mischief but you are scolded by your parents as the elder one. Similarly in the class room your teacher may scold you for some nuisance created by your neighbouring classmate. In all such cases, you feel let down. 

The work situation is no different.  You give your best and feel that you have had a great year.  When the annual appraisal is done, your manager assesses you as below par.  All through the year, you are praised by everyone for your contributions – team members, colleagues and even seniors.  But, when the promotions are announced you are ignored or superseded.  You feel miserable and feel the whole system is unfair to you.

So, whether it is the work situation or your personal life, such instances occur in regular periodicity.   I have always wondered as to “Who is the ultimate judge ?”.Some may philosophically state it is God.  But, having experienced many such situations at work or my personal life, I feel the ultimate judge is our own conscience.  If we ask ourselves objectively, what is the answer you get – that is the ultimate truth.  What the world sees is extrinsic but what we see from within is intrinsic.

It is easier to look back and examine it objectively.  It is very difficult to go through a situation like this and digest it.  I have gone through at least three such situations in my work life and may be many in my personal life too.  Each time I have felt very bad and deeply hurt.  It has taken a lot of time to recover and bounce back.  But, each time, when I have asked my conscience, I have got the right answer.

Today, when I sit back and reflected on these moments of my life, I laughed at myself.  It may neither be easy to cry nor laugh at oneself.  But, when you reach a stage in life when such incidents can be taken in your stride, you start believing more in yourself.  One sure shot answer to judge yourself apart from your conscience may be the feedback you get from all the people around you other than the person, who has misjudged you.  If the majority opinion is similar to what your conscience states, there is nothing to regret.  On the contrary, the person making the wrong judgement may regret such a judgement on you some day.  After all they too have a conscience and it will tickle them some day to wake up .

Life is a journey of ups and downs.  Each incident teaches you something.  It is up to us to live through and learn from them. It may be easier to learn from the positive experiences rather than the negative ones.  It takes time to reflect on the negative experiences but when you are able to do it, it could teach you more than the positive ones.  It is like failures teach you more than successes in life.

Like in the photo above,  God does not necessarily exist in a puja room.  God is within us.  

Let us listen to our conscience every time we are in doubt on anything in our life.

S Ramesh Shankar