Inner Peace

Inner Peace :

“A man who is master of himself can end a sorrow as he can invent a pleasure. I don’t want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them." - Oscar Wild

"There is a criterion by which you can judge whether the thoughts you are thinking and the things you are doing are right for you. The criterion is: Have they brought you inner peace?"  – Peace Pilgrim

As with all the transitions, moving from the heavier darker shades to the bright and weightless emotions, the journey is usually not smooth. After all the higher power will again want to test us if we desire the new state actually. More than that, our own internal inertia will try to resist us from moving towards the sunshine of emotions.

And the overnight stay on this journey is at the rest house of inner peace. It is from this rest house you need to fill your bottles with cool waters of inner peace and carry with you for rest of your journey, if you choose to embark on a new journey all together. Many a few travelers on this roller coaster ride give up, by remaining thirsty or trying to quench their thirst from mirage than the real oasis. The other few who do embark either do not carry sufficient water with them or finish of the water too early and return back to their previous states.

While with dark emotions, remaining in that state is even more easier than feeling them initially, but in case of bright emotions continuing to feel them continuously is more tough than feeling them once. After all to make someone happy once is easier than to keep someone happy for entire life. The former is a circumstance; the latter is a lifelong effort, a process, a choice, a life style infact. And it requires maintenance, of which one of the cost is Inner Peace.

So why are - these two mystical words, the most sought after state, the so common sense knowledge - so tough to achieve & so delusional in its existence all together? The reason is this is the middle state. Like all the dual natures of life and the dichotomous states around us, Inner peace is somewhere in between. You cannot have pain when you are happy and you cannot feel complete while you are hurt. But Inner peace can exist while you are hurt as much as when you are happy. And this is the reason it is a Midas touched emotion.

Since ages many learned men, great kings and men with families have been pursuing their own personal quests for this Inner Peace. They have travelled far and wide, in the deepest of forests to highest of mountains to seek this state of eternal bliss. Many wait for their entire lifetime to achieve this state. But what is within cannot be sought without. And it is not some future state or event. The time to experience Inner peace is NOW. The place to experience it is HERE. But it definitely doesn’t unravel itself that easily. Because of the comfort it brings once you achieve it, life does make you little uncomfortable before and while you are trying to achieve it. Though it is meant for everyone, it is not for everyone to attain it.  And hence when you accept these turmoils, these strong currents like gusts of wind and crashes of waves on the thresholds of your life and embrace them, and accept the changes, you feel the first gentle breeze of Inner Peace.

Suddenly everything pauses though nothing stops. Even when everything is murky around you, you still see everything clearly.  You suddenly start to enjoy the ride because you have now aligned your speed of movement, thoughts, to that of the flow of life around you. And that is when inner peace sets is. The touch of it, the feel of it itself is a state of bliss.

And while you are enjoying this current state of euphoria, life starts forming a new challenge. That is, how long can you remain, continue in this state. More difficult is how to? Because while you may have conquered it once, the change in life will still continue. What would have helped you to achieve this state now, in the current circumstances may not remain valid for future changes.

-         

                                                                                                                                   - Contd.

Resentment

“Nothing is so intolerable to man as being fully at rest, without passion, without business, without entertainment, without care. It is then that he recognizes that he is empty, insufficient, dependent, and ineffectual. From the depths of his soul now comes at once boredom, gloom, sorrow, chagrin, resentment and despair.”

“Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.” - Carrie Fisher


So when we talk of detachment on one side, while we are left empty initially in the process of detachment, chances are resentment will creep in. We may feel so angry for our past or even the present state. Afterall we have been on a journey wherein there were the dark unwanted emotions that crept in , held our life and after slowly over coming them we have reached a middle state.


We still have chance of going back to them , very easily , by following the path of resentment , or we can overcome this emotion too, by experiencing it and handling it in a proper way. And to do that we need to understand the state we are in.


When we may have chosen to let go of our past, let go of something that no longer exists , in our mind, chances are that surroundings may not be that conducive. People may still continue asking us about the past, or the person who is no longer a part of our life , we may come across the person who doesn’t want us to be a part of their life , in our daily handling , gifts, stuff , memorabilia all linked with what once beautifully was there. And then the dirty part of it strikes us, that it is no longer there. That we were discarded , to not to be a part of it anymore. And then initially when anger has subdued, its resentment that keeps raising its head.


And during those moment we usually end up doing one thing. Change the present, rather than accepting it.


And we try to change it either by futile efforts to take it back to the previous past state, or to destroy whatever there is even in the present of other person. One arises from the leftover feeling of guilt, of something that can still be done but was not done earlier, while other arises purely out of anger and jealousy towards the other.


And while we actually hold ourselves back to do any physical damage to ourselves or the other, the feeling keeps gnawing at us, within our mind and soul. And this is what is resentment. The helpless feeling of wanting to inflict all the damage on the other but still unable to do so. Maybe cos our sane mind holds us back, or maybe cos we still linger onto something from the past.


But whatever it is , this is one emotion that is very dichotomous in nature. What we feel we do not act, and what we act we may not be feeling. And that is where the problem lies in. We as humans are not supposed to be in a state of dichotomy. The moment we realize we are, we snap, react in some form or other.


So how do we pass through this so inevitable and yet not so wanted emotion? How do we experience it and yet not regret experiencing it? How do we sail through it without sinking in the brewing storm at horizon?


The way an outcome for a dichotomous state is stabilizing into either one of the state, the same way the shore of this troubled waters of Resentment , is forgiveness .


“When you hold resentment toward another, you are bound to that person or condition by an emotional link that is stronger than steel. Forgiveness is the only way to dissolve that link and get free.” - Catherine Ponder

Detachment

To spare oneself from grief at all cost can be achieved only at the price of total detachment, which excludes the ability to experience happiness - Erich Fromm

When you learn not to want things so badly, life comes to you. - Jessica Lange 

Attachment, Detachment and Indifference, are often linked and thought to be interconnected. The only connection that they have is that there is no connection between them. Attachment and detachment are not opposite, just as color black and white are not opposite technically. The absence of any color is the opposite of white, while black itself is a color too, and white is coming together of all the colors. Same way, the absence of any kind of attachment is detachment and not, forcing yourself and attaching yourself to process of detachment. Hence while attachment and detachment are not opposite, Indifference and detachment are not synonyms either. While indifference is to be not concerned about particular person, thing or emotion, detachment is to be completely interested but not holding it tight, or getting attached to it. Its about enjoying it till it lasts. When its not there any longer, you move on to the next moment, realizing that whatever was there in past, is past now and it fulfilled its destiny and the role it was supposed to play.  

So why is detachment necessary? Is it possible to feel emotions and still be detached? Why in a social structure we have created, we are often accused of being detached by the people close to us?

Detachment is very much necessary if you want to enjoy a color in a picture completely, while not comparing it with other colors present there or anything else.  I would go further and say that detachment is the process of seeing or feeling something in isolation but in totality. And when we see or experience something in totality we tend to do justice on both the parties. The source as well as self, who is receiving it. And when all such individual colors come together fulfilling the role they were meant for, a beautiful picture is created.

The way an artist cannot be biased towards any color or shade to come up with a justified masterpiece we also should not be biased towards any emotion or person by being too attached to it. And when we stop running after the butterfly of life, but instead are composed and calm with inner peace, the butterfly of life comes and sits on our shoulders, granting us all that we desire, are interested, but will not grieve if we ever loose it. Because if we loose it eventually, it means we were supposed to loose it in first place.

Getting attached to the presence disrupts the bigger picture of enjoying the presence. We inhibit the flow of life, stopping it to pour into us a new person, feeling, emotion or experience.

The society we live in, there is often confusion between detached and indifference, our loved ones often accuse us of indifference while all we try to be is detached. We do not feel the pain or loss as much as they do, because somewhere we enjoyed it till it was there completely and we accept the fact that it can no longer be there. We move on comparatively faster than other, but then most of people stick us with label of Indifference, while all we are doing is tying to be detached. Also it is absolutely possible to feel, and feel completely all the while remaining detached. Attachment eventually creeps into when we are into love, or in any comfortable feeling, but that is the test, the difference we need to keep, the distance we need to maintain. And by being there and still not holding it, by having it and still not missing it, by living it and not being dead or living some other life , is the key to enjoy , feel an emotion in totality and still be detached.

Hence for a person who has had problems because of attachment, detachment is not the final stage. It’s the middle state of things. Once the person is detached, then a new sun rises, and the person is able to breathe in a new fresh air. The person starts valuing and cherishing every breath, every moment.

After all sometimes we need to destroy whatever we have, so that can create something new. Isnt empty hand the one that can hold the most, of whatever it may receive.

Pain

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. - Khalil Gibran

They who go Feel not the pain of parting; it is they Who stay behind that suffer. - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.- James A. Baldwin

Somewhere while walking on the path of Having Faith, we sometimes tend to loose patience, hope or infact faith itself. The reasons may be various, internal or even external. But they moment the Faith is lost, specially when we are waiting for someone or something a sensation runs across our soul and sends a shiver down our spine. And that is the moment when pain stings you. Physical pain can be dealt with; the body itself takes care of it. It is all the non –physical kinds of pain that we as humans have to deal with our conscious mind and cringing heart.

The cry of a spouse when it finally sinks that the other half has left forever to never come back, The lost eyes of a person who has missed out the opportunity which would have been turnaround in life, never getting one more chance when you would have made things correct, wanting to be with someone and still being left alone, Not being able to be as happy as you want to be, and few other such instances make us go through a feeling of helplessness. And somewhere that helplessness grows into pain. Because no matter how much we want to share it , we cannot. Either because the person with whom we can, is no longer there, or the people who are there around us, will never be able to experience the intensity of it.

But is pain always looked down upon in a negative sense? Why are we also taught, conditioned to either not accept the presence of emotional pain, or incase if its obviously visible to others then we are supposed to conceal it. Why crying is not allowed when we are sad? Why has the society built up a mould where the presence of pain is a sign of weak human being ? Instead, isn’t it the one who can handle pain and still tries to come out of it more stronger, than one who has never encountered pain?

Physical or non physical, we encounter pain quite later, after we are actually wounded, bruised, hurt, or Loss. If we actually take away all the feelings, I am pretty much sure the only feeling that would be left behind will be Pain. Isn’t it also that when we are in Pain we are actually unable to feel any other emotion? And what would be remaining if we cannot feel pain? I guess we will never be able to feel happiness either then. Hence its anyday better to have lost and hurt than to never be able to smile!! 

How do we deal with this not at all wanted and yet inevitable emotion? The only to get out of pain is to go through the pain. There is no shortcut or substitute for it. Though it’s a poison, it’s a cure to many other ailments. Anything else that we may approach instead of confronting this will be temporary, transient and will not heal it completely. At the same time while engulfed in pain it is equally important to atleast have one hand stretched out for people around us to pull us out, just incase pain may become deathly. Because the start of pain is somewhere the end of our understanding, End of circumstances, feelings, things under our control. Everyone of us has our own way to deal with it, face it, confront it. We may device our own ways of living with it, but we need to make space for other feelings too, either by reducing this emotion itself or increasing our capacity to feel more about things and people around us. After all pain is temporary too.  Eventually it will reduce something else will take its place.

And the scars it may leave behind, well those will be your beautiful scars, the sign that you had loved, been happy and above all Lived. !!

Faith

Faith :

“Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted in spite of your changing moods” - C.S. Lewis

“Faith isn't faith until it's all you're holding on to”

“As we grow older, it becomes difficult to just believe. It's not that we don't want to, but too much has happened that we just can't.”

After going through various emotions which somewhere create turbulence within, the stillness in the waters of emotions start with Faith. The moment we hear the word, we visualize sereneness with the strength of a rock with gentle breeze flowing, or the same rock in rushing gurgling waters holding itself against the stream. That is faith. Not in the stone but in behaving like one while there is turbulence in life. After all that is one rope that swings us through life when all the bridges have burnt down.

The irony with faith is that while the dark shades need to be half of what they are in a particular moment, Faith needs to be double of what it is during such times. A person who has never loved, or a person you have never lost are still ok to come across, but a person who has never had faith misses out so much in the life of being human. They actually miss out on the magic of moving mountains.

There is also a big difference between trust and faith. Trust is knowing that it won’t go away when you already have it, while faith is knowing it will eventually come, when you don’t even have it. When a child waits for his father to turn up on time in evening back from office, it’s his trust & when someone waits for the person whom they love a lot to come back in their life, it’s their Faith. While we place trust on other people in our life, we need to have faith in ourselves, within.

 Also, there is no space for doubt, when we have faith. Not even for a second. Because it is never known that universe is addressing which emotion of ours to manifest. Hence even if there is doubt for an inkling of a second, then faith is gone, lost, broken. Moreover faith doesn’t make the absolutely impossible possible , but it helps you to learn how to cope up with it, accept it eventually, in a more positive manner. 


Our forms to reinforce faith maybe many. A visit to a shrine, waiting for an omen or signs , lucky colors are some forms of our physical representation of faith. Though discarded as superstitions, if not gone over board, these physical actions help a lot to establish and reestablish faith. If you believe and believe completely, if you don’t even imagine any other option, except to go ahead, the waters will eventually part and you will reach.  

After all, faith is not a destination; it’s a lovely companion for a testing journey to a beautiful destination.

Grief

Grief is a tidal wave that over takes you, smashes down upon you with unimaginable force, sweeps you up into its darkness, where you tumble and crash against unidentifiable surfaces, only to be thrown out on an unknown beach, bruised, reshaped...Grief will make a new person out of you, If it doesn't kill you in the making (in the first place) - Stephanie Ericsson

Grief drives men into habits of serious reflection, sharpens the understanding, and softens the heart - John Adams

While most of emotions have many shades and intensities of feeling, of impact, Grief just has one. And that is Grief. This is one emotion which either you have it or you don’t, there are no milder versions. While the reason for the presence of this emotion may vary in every individual, the intensity of it makes people around even wary of coming closer. This is also one of the emotion which not necessarily everyone would have faced it by now. Many do feel it sometime in their lifetime, but not necessarily.

This emotion is very different from Hurt and Loss in a way that it occurs immediately after the realization of Loss , but lot before we realize we are Hurt. Infact once grief leaves us, then we remain with Hurt. It is the sudden realization within, an acceptance within, of what has already happened in reality outside. There is only one thing that happens exactly at the moment of grief – Damage. And there is only one taste of it – Bitter. In the spectrum of emotions, this emotions stands alone in the dark corner at the end of the spectrum. And this is the emotion which requires only one person. The person himself to feel it.  The other person simply doesn’t has any role to play in it, else everyone will be equally or nearly grieved on death of an individual. But it is the person closest, the person who loved the most, the person who felt the most, and the person whose life will be altered the most, Grieve the most.

Nothing pierces the heart more than the wail of a first time mother loosing her unborn child, or cry of the person holding the other with blood soaked hands , trying to hold firmer onto the last breaths, than the person itself,  or the child being pulled away at the moment when it has known that it will never see the parents ever again, or a lover realizing the sudden death of a love that once was. The outcome of the person who feels the grief ranges from death, to life long silence, to loss of smile to detachment to even sometimes start living again. But the reaction of people around the grieving person is only moist eyes and choking heart. The expression of grief in the form of wail is strong enough to break down the strongest of walls. And if it is expressed through silence, it breaks down the strongest of humans too.

The best way to handle it is as expressed by Hafiz of Persia – “Do not surrender your grief so quickly, Let it cut more deeply, Let it ferment and season you, As few human or divine ingredients can.” Samuel Johnson also says that “While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till it be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it “ While most of the emotions alter us, change us in a form that we may not be sure of once they pass, the aftereffects of Grief is only one – More Happiness.  The way to appreciate beauty of day, we need to know the darkness of night, we start appreciating happiness , life more, once we know what grief does to us or possibly can.

But then to not experience Grief and be totally detached comes at a price of not experiencing happiness, love, warmth, sense of security too. Do not go out and seek grief, but if it comes, do not stop breathing either, cos happiness is not far away.  Afterall there is only one lifetime and so many different shades to see, flavors of taste , places to visit and Emotions to feel.

Guilt

Guilt :

“Guilt is perhaps the most painful companion of death.”-   Coco Chanel

“You cut up a thing that's alive and beautiful to find out how it's alive and why it's beautiful, and before you know it, it's neither of those things, and you're standing there with blood on your face and tears in your sight and only the terrible ache of guilt to show for it.” -   Clive Barker

“Had Adam & Eve not felt the way they felt after eating the apple there would still be a paradise. Among all other dark emotions this one was the first born, followed by Blame, Suspicion & Shame.” – Sujal

 Among all of emotions apart from love, it’s only Guilt that has various hues, various forms and various quantities as well. And the biggest difference it has from all other emotions is that somewhere humans have become master in creating this emotion in others, either by making someone do something, and many a times by not making someone do something and still make them feel Guilty about it.  Majority of us go to graves carrying this and the twin sibling of this – Regret, in ample amounts within us. Among all other emotions this is also one emotion that we experience not at particular age, but since childhood till death. While other dark emotions also have a bitter sweet feeling about them, this one doesn’t has any except if you indulge in retail therapy.

A child still going ahead and eating the chocolate from refrigerator or the last cookie that he was so warned against to , the mid night phone calls of a teenager with the haywire hormones and newly found crush, waking up after a long night sleep when majority of syllabus still pending on the day of exam, the first physical relation with opposite sex, replying back to a mean boss when there is a dire need of the  job , an extra marital affair when there is so much belief into the institution of marriage and blind trust of partner, not being there for the kids in the form they need, not having a career the way it was dreamt and then not having people around during the final days. So many shades and yet the same emotion. So many outcomes and yet the same feeling. So many situations and yet no solution. This is what Guilt does to humans, at times it makes them more human but most of time it teaches to live with it, uncomfortably.

No emotion has been captured by Economies as better as Guilt. Travel, Hotel, Retail, Food & Beverage, Luxury, Religion to name a few industries whose major contributor is this emotion in Humans.  Every other corner at the street offers to absolve us of this feeling that too without both the parties acknowledging the presence of it in first place. Men have travelled far and wide to mend up for the mess they created, not because it was wrong to do in first place, but because they could not live with the guilt of the wrong doing. Some found the cure and were able to free themselves while many ill fateful ones carry it to their graves, still turning inside. Horace Bushnell has truly said that Guilt is the very nerve of sorrow. The mere presence of this emotion is enough to bring down great men to their knees and convert the most materialistic person into the most detached soul.    

But, this emotion is also capable of keeping one out of the moment of being where one is. It makes it tough to sleep with the self at the end of the day, let other even touch you. While it slowly gnaws at the sap of life inside, the only tentative solutions lies, either in rectifying the done, reducing the damage, or accepting the present and forgiving self. So all it takes is to acknowledge that something better can still be done about it, standing up, seeking out and trying our best to amend.

Cos somewhere we all know that though this feeling will never go away, we can only fade it by seeking forgiveness.