Highs and Lows

Drink less, eat healthy, learn something new, get fit, lose weight, get out of debt, quit smoking, spend more time with family, enjoy life, get organized, help others.....the popular resolutions that help to jump start our new year on a high mode.

We make resolutions to resolve issues that have been impeding us from moving forward and prevent us from being the better person that we think we should be. Our intentions are valid but seldom come to fruition. We are creating phantasms.

We make resolutions and hoard them at the same time.  It takes the same amount of time to make and forget them.  The end result is that we refresh the list and perhaps add more to it, as each new year begins. 

Then why make them?

I have stopped making resolutions exactly for this reason. I have decided to do nothing but allow things to be done.

As the wise sages have said - "Wu Wei" (無為) - action through inaction.  I have hence chosen to allow, accept and go with the flow.

Easy

For twenty one days, I was observing the other.  I invited the other in every aspect of decision making.  Sometimes, the other took the responsibility but most times, the ball was thrown at my feet!  The other´s logic was pretty easy.  Authority and decision making go hand in hand.

The mind of the other has developed to become selectively convenient when it comes to decision making.  Activities that involve physical skills and pleasant vision are thumbs up.  Activies that require contemplation and work, are simply too much to ask for, from the intellect.  

I asked myself, is laziness a modern generation syndrome? Is advanced technology a curse to our intellectual being?  Is it our nature to take the easy way out?  Is there a prescribed antidote to reverse the situation?

My other forced me to contemplate on laziness.  How disrespectful we are to mother nature that gives us a mind and how little we spend time with our mind in creative activies.  Creativity entails exploration away from our comfort seeking behavior.  Exploration is not to succumb to defeat but let perseverence be the shield till we cross the threshold. 

I reminded the other of the countless gratifying excuses for intellectual procrastination, probably to no avail.  I have set the stage for this, and it is now up to the other to rise.

Just me

We all have our aspirations, our ideals, our desires. We want to become someone special, someone unique, someone extraordinary, someone flawless. In the midst of becoming someone, we have forgotten about our "self".  This reminded me of a tale about a cat and through this I learned a deep lesson. 

A samurai, came home tired after the whole day’s fight in the battle field. Just as he was about to fall into a slumber, he was disturbed by a ferocious rat in his room.  He drew his sword at the rat, trying so very hard to hit the rat but to no avail.  He reached the point of fear, and perspired profusely.  Then, he was reminded by his wife of his foolishness to use the sword, instead of using their warrior´s cat.

They became hopeful and confident to get rid of the rat, but to their dismay, their warrior´s cat who was very trained and skilfull in catching rats, was also frightened by the rat and ran far away.  They and the warrior started to believe that this was no ordinary rat.

Then the king’s cat was called. She was a master cat, very well-known all over the country; of course, she was the king’s cat - well trained and very capable.  The king’s cat came and she too was defeated by the rat.  She went in, tried hard, used all her knowledge, but the rat was just too much.

Then the king’s cat suggested a cat she knew who was not famous at all.  ”You have tried with famous cats, now you try with an ordinary one... just ordinary, plain ordinary.”  The warrior said, ”But what can a plain, ordinary cat do?”

The king’s cat said, ”You just try. I know this cat.  She is so ordinary, she does not know a thing.  The whole day she sleeps.  But there is one thing about her:this cats knows that she is very mysterious.  The mysterious thing is that she knows nothing about rats, rat-catching, the art, the technique, the methodology, the philosophy – she knows nothing; she has never been to any school or college or university.  She is a plain, ordinary cat, but rats are so afraid of her!

The cat was brought, and the samurai was not very hopeful because she was really very ordinary, just like any vagabond cat. She came in, and without any effort she simply went in, caught hold of the rat and brought it out. She was asked, ”What is your art?” And she said, ”I don’t know any art. I am a cat! Is not that enough?”

Wow! This is my realization. I am ordinary and being ordinary is enough! I am me and that is all I need to be.  Follow your nature . Do not be someone you are not. A rose does not want to be tulip, neither does a bird want to be a lion. I have come a long way to discover myself.  My nature is kind, honest, caring, sharing and loving.  I accept my nature and I let it dictate my course in life. Life is to live and to go with the flow.  To live is to accept the whole, i.e. the  sun and the rain.

Water does not fight to flow upwards.  Oceans do not reject rivers. A dog cannot be muted to bark. You are universal - do not belong to just one place, yet you have your inbuilt nature which was nurtured by your mom.  Just as the lotus blossoms in dirty swamp water- it does not try to escape.  It connects with mother nature to grow and bloom. I am connected with my mystic nature of an ordinary being.  I am just me.