From Active to Passive

As I walked into my English class I was pretty perturbed. There had been a theft  in  our staffroom the previous week  and investigations were going on. My senior had been quizzing all of us this past week. She had been asking us, if we had seen something queer or if we had seen someone hanging around the staffroom at the time of the theft.

This morning it had hit me suddenly. After everyone had left the staffroom last week I had gone back to pick up a book I had left behind and I had happened to see a colleague of mine there. Now as I recollected the event I remembered being surprised to see the fear in her face when she had seen me.

The rest of the morning I was in a dilemma. Should I tell my senior about this incident?

 “Surely I ought not to. Think of the trouble it would bring my colleague! Think of all that she would have to go through! She too must have come back like me to pick up something she had left behind. “What if she is innocent and because of me she is branded a thief?” one part of my mind told me while the other urged , “It is your duty to just say what you saw. Don’t bring personal judgments into this.”

“ But I do not want to be the cause of any harm to any one,” that part of me that prided herself  on being ‘Miss Gentle and nice’  argued. A divided mind always creates hell and finally I had to confide in a friend.

“That’s just your ego creating divisions!” she pointed out with brutal frankness.”You have created an image of yourself as Miss Gentle and Nice” and now you are scared to do the right thing, which is throw light on the investigations, because you are scared of this image being shattered.

I was shocked. I had always struggled and gone out of my way to be nice .I always acted with great care that whatever I said or did never hurt anyone.  How could that be ego? Was non violence of the ego?

“Ego is trying to be always right and good! It wants to create this image of being perfectly sweet! Your fear of harming others stems not from your concern for the other. Remember, any fear is of the ego. If you go deep down, you will trace it to an image you want to create. The ego just follows a code of right doing, every moment uniformly.

The soul is always spontaneous. The soul just does things that need to be done without any second guessing. The question of doing what is right or wrong doesn’t come into it. It just does what feels right each moment. What feels right now may not be what feels right the next moment. It doesn’t fear or care about  what others think. All it is about ,is being the best It can be at any given moment.

 “I hate being sneaky and telling tales and causing harm to people” I said defensively.

“Telling tales for the sheer joy of getting others into trouble is different from telling the truth so that justice can be done. ’

But you know if I do say what I saw, you know who will be in deep trouble. Why do I have to put her in such trouble when I’m sure that she couldn’t have anything to do with the theft? “

“How can you be so sure?” my friend asked me “…and by the way, the reason why I said you have a big ego is that you think you are powerful enough to change the course of her life. You said “why do I have to put her into trouble? You keep saying you will be causing harm. The primary factor in all of this is I do , I do ,I do. Every word shows fear and insecurity.

If you were not egoistic you would spontaneously do the right thing knowing you are just an instrument of God. You would know that it is God who runs the show.

So that morning as I walked into English class after this talk with my friend, I was not at all happy to see that I had to teach grammar- especially the Active and Passive Voice.

“How do you know that a sentence is in the active voice?” I asked mechanically.

Pat came the answer from one of my bright students. “The subject is the doer of the action. Example “ Raju is hitting the ball. Here the stress is on the subject doing the action.”

“And the passive?”

“The subject receives the action” another one quipped in. “ The ball is being hit (by Raju). Here it is the action itself that is important , not the subject who is doing the action.”

I felt that I had been dealt a blow in the solar plexus. What my friend said was true. Instead of being a detached passive observer watching the universe  happen and unfold and playing my bit with involvement knowing it was all a play of consciousness, my ego had been unduly active and entangled in the whole episode. I had not realized that there was a higher power running the universe and perhaps the reason why that power had made me go back to the staffroom at that particular moment was because it wanted me to be an instrument through which justice could be ensured.

Conditioning can be quite strong and though I had been given a message by the universe, I was still hesitant but the universe has a way of reinforcing its messages. That evening I went home to open a book of Osho’s.

“The illusion that we are the doers make us miserable” Osho had written years back but the words seemed alive now as they leapt out at me. ‘God alone does. If you ask the waves if they are rushing towards the shore they will answer  ‘No. We are being rushed towards the shore.’ God takes over the very day man comes to know that just the way the wind blows and, trees grow and flowers bloom he too is being moved. There is someone within him who moves and speaks.”

I realized in a flash that the someone within me who moves me is my Self- my highest self! As long as we think we are ‘doing ‘things  we will not only create a separate self but also sign ourselves up for misery as  we  block the universe’s flow within us and end up really doing things which are not of the truth.

I tried replacing the active- “I am reporting her presence at the scene of the theft to the authorities,” to the passive  “Her presence is being reported to the authorities   (by me).I realized that the agent  by me is just that -an  agent  through which the universe acts. What was important in this drama was not the I was doing the reporting (the body doing the action ) but the act of reporting itself orchestrated by the soul.

That is true in every case. It is not the doer that is important, for in each case it is the universe doing through various agents. It is act that is happening that is important as the very fact that it is happening means that it needed to happen.

The next day I went forward as a chief witness to the case and as it so happened, my colleague was found guilty of theft. She was treated kindly and sent for counseling- the universe is kind and steered the course of her life in the right direction.

Perhaps ego had motivated my colleague to  commit a mistake and as I allowed the universe to function through me it could be set right without further ado. If as an ego who wanted to be ‘nice’, I had kept mum, she would have gone her merry way, committing more such mistakes and harming others and ultimately herself.

“I am not the doer, The universe moves me,” is my new mantra and I find that it has really reduced a lot of stress.

What a relief to let go  of a petty little self who rushes around ‘doing ‘and let  yourself be moved by the universe.

What a relief when you are confronted with some daunting task, to surrender to the universe knowing it will move you to take right action, instead of worrying about how the little I will get things done. When I teach I am not teaching, the teaching is happening through me. The One is cooking, The One is eating ,The One moves and enjoys through this agent of the body. The result, a deep peace  which passeth understanding ,which is totally different from the emotional highs and lows that accompany the feeling that I do. I give my best to a job and then let go and let God.

Maybe that is what Krishna really meant when he told Arjuna to give up his confusion ,to take up his arms and fight- fight to uphold dharma, knowing that he of himself could never do anything .Krishna was telling him to let go and let GOD-that he was just being used as an instrument for the Divine play to unfold itself and establish perfection.

I am changing my role from the active to the passive . By passive I don’t mean that I am a pawn in the hands of a so called fate. No, I am just shifting my Awareness from the ego to my soul.The only difference is that there is no illusion of a separate self doing. And as my soul is part of the One Source that runs the universe, when I surrender to this higher power, things just happen as they ought to. It is all the One doing, the One enjoying.

By being a passive observing Awareness thus I become passively active in my life. That’s when the fun and joy of life really begins. That’s a double whammy! I get to have my cake and eat it too! I am simultaneously the wave and the ocean .They are one and the same .

A quiet Mind

When I realized that I had lost my voice, the first reaction that kicked in was despair. I am a teacher and like a singer a teacher’s main tool is her voice. No I had not got teachers nodes or anything of that sort. A throat infection ignored was screaming to be heard and had translated itself to a complete silencing of the vocal cords.

I trudged to school like an unwilling schoolgirl wondering how I was going to get through the day.

“It’s okay,” I tried to comfort myself. It’s a Saturday and as the children won’t be coming in there will not be much talking to do.”

But there were teachers all over the place when I reached school. As question papers were being readied, tempers were frayed .It was a busy day at school and I had no voice.

I settled down before the computer to type my paper and once my colleagues found that I could not speak, they left me alone. As I found that I just could not communicate the compulsion to have my say to, give my opinion, to offer some help died down. My mind sort of understood that there was nothing I could do and began to focus on the task at hand- setting a question paper. Once the work was done ,I settled down into the position of an observor.

The drama became more interesting when the bell rang for recess. Over cups of tea , I found human nature unfold itself. Gossips circulating, jokes were cracked ,opinions exchanged. All I could do was to just observe it all. When a colleague took the opportunity of me being ‘tongue tied’, to make a snide remark she had being dying to make all these months, something in me rose to retaliate but the words didn’t-could not come out. I became aware that the energy that had risen, died down. Maybe because I observed this energy too, I realized that it meant nothing, the snide hurtful remarks went through me and I knew even if I had a voice I just had no need to retaliate. The remarks weren’t about me though they were directed at me.. It was just about someone else having a bad day.

I also realized that I was very well able to take part in all the other positive vibrations circulating around the coffee room. I could smile at the friends trooping in , touch my friends hands in gratitude when she placed a comforting hand on my shoulder and giggle at jokes .I didn’t need a voice to enjoy the good vibes and It was good that I didn’t have a voice to retaliate to the nasty ones.

Once everyone was back at her desk, a kind of calmness settled down in me. It was as if my mind understood that it wasn’t of any use churning up thoughts as my vocal chords were paralyzed for the day. Perhaps if I had watched television or a movie I would have missed this quiet mind as the mind would have reacted to what I had seen on screen. Now with the practical mind zeroing in on the task at hand, the rest of the mind settled down and the task at the physical level being accomplished in a short span of time,I was free to  touch the deep layers of mind.

Here it was, in the middle of a busy school day! The stillness I had attempted to get in meditations.

I went home to spend the rest of the day in silence. No need to shout when my dog barked, no need to answer any phone calls or answer any questions there too.

By the time it was evening the stillness had grown deeper and when I sat in meditation the silence deepened into a blissfulness that coursed through every cell.

Two mornings later (after a round of antibiotics,) when I woke up I tested my voice feeling rather like a bird does when she is getting ready to sing.

Yes, it was in full form, rested and raring to go. I could speak. Yippee! I paused .There was a hint of sadness in me. It was almost as if I was good bye to silence.

Hey stop it,” my inner voice I had befriended during the two days of silence spoke up.”Now you know mauna means not merely physical silence .It means silencing the mind. That’s all you need to do. The rest falls into place. When you speak it will be only because there is really some thing coming from a deeper level of you that will make a difference in the world.”

I scrambled out of bed thankful for my voice knowing it was a valuable tool that I was in control of and that I could use to my advantage and relegate it to the backseat when it was not needed.  I had had a glimpse of the deeper silent mind and I knew the joy tucked away in its fold. I also knew that the way to reach that deep stillness was to give up effort- effort to create an impression, to create a relationship, to defend a point of view, to analyze, to justify, to label ,both at the mental and the physical level.

I had been practising Mauna these past few years but it had only been at the physical level .I decided that I would observe silence as part of my weekly routine-a day when I would drop into the silent mind sans TV, sans phone calls, sans mind chatter. I would have a rendezvous with myself.

Truly some of life’s greatest lessons come in the disguise of problems!

To choose or not to choose

“The end result of your life here on earth will always be the sum total of the choices you made while you were here.” said a wise soul driving home the importance of making the right choices in life.

Do we really give importance to the choices we make in our everyday lives or do we just function on automatic pilot? Aren’t most of our choices motivated by our conditioning, our belief systems and by what the people will think?

While times are changing now and we see youngsters making enlightened choices and ‘following their heart’ and while society is becoming more open and appreciative of it’s youth experimenting when it comes to career choices, the scene was quite different just a few years back. 26 year old Ratan who had a dream, bears testimony to this. His is a story that was oft repeated, (unfortunately  sometimes even today ) in many families. A child interested in music he had a dream of going to the Musicians Institute in USA to pursue his dream. His parents however gave him no choice .

“Snap out of it and get real!” was their dictum and they kindly added “We are doing it for your sake. You need to survive in the real world and earn your bread and butter, you know. Your father is a doctor and you need to take over and manage his clinic.”

The poor boy was talked into thinking he was selfish to pursue his dream. Recently I met his mother at a social gathering and she remarked. ‘How lucky it is that Rattan followed our advice . See how successful he is today.” Looking at the smart young man who seemed to have it all, I couldnot help feeling  that behind the successful exterior  something was missing.

Do you have the right to influence your child’s choice, using any means be it coercing or persuasion or manipulation or emotional blackmail? When God himself has given us freewill, who are we to tamper with other’s lives? Are we doing the right thing then by imposing our dreams and choices on our children and other loved ones  and snuffing out their right to exercise their own choices?

When your life is a tapestry made up of other people’s choices, two things happen. You end up feeling a victim. You blame fate and if things don’t work out you can happily  blame the people responsible for your choice. You naturally think that since they have messed up your life it is up to them to sort it out. Here the need to be responsible and accountable for one’s own life fades away and people tend to turn outward for solutions to your life situations.

I have always admired the way in which my friend Kavitha brought up her daughter Komal.  I was surprised to see that the child was taught to weigh the pros and cons of any decision she took very early in life. It could be a simple thing as how many chocolates she could eat.

“I told her that she could make her own decisions but I also pointed out that each decision came with a consequence. As early as seven she realized that she had the freewill to eat as many chocolates as she wanted but she also was told that the consequence of this could be a host of health problems. We would always advise her as to which was the wiser choice . But the final decision was hers. I remember the day she gorged on cake one Sunday in spite of repeated reminders of its consequence. The next day she was down with severe indigestion and had to miss her friend’s birthday party! That experience taught her a lesson no amount of nagging could have.

The real problem with choices however started when she became a teenager.

It was then that I realized that allowing one you loved dearly to experiment with her choices was a very tough thing to do. It needs us to have great faith in a higher power to take care of them.

The world today offers our children much more in every aspect of life than it used to do in our times. From the number of channels on the television to the number of career option to the number of things they are exposed through through media and the internet ,even the most level head ones do tend be confused as to how best to use their time and energy. Komal did bungle up once or twice as she refused to take our advice and made foolhardy choices especially in her choice of friends and how she spent her time. But every time she fell, we were there to help her get up and dust herself back on to the cycle of life .The result? By the time she was twenty she had a wise head on her shoulders. By the  trial and error method of  making her own  decisions  and being accountable for them ,she  bloomed into living life on her own terms and learnt the art of  making right decisions. Truly there is no greater teacher than experience in learning the art of making right decisions, in developing the ability to identify when to take a risk that will pay off and when to avoid foolhardy decisions.

Ironically Komal was there at the same social gathering I mentioned above and I could not help comparing the joy this young woman exuded .I realized suddenly that while both she and Ratan had made it big in their life the missing element in Ratan was that sparkle of life that was so obvious in Komal. That was because he was not living his own life. He was living a life someone else had designed. Komal had developed her will power and her planning abilities but Ratan who had buried his passion by allowing himself to be swayed and influenced by others,now needed to rely on others in making any momentous decision.

“  But surely we owe it to our children to  show them the way.” I asked Komal’s mother  over dinner.

“There you have it” she replied. “That’s all you should confine yourself to doing-showing them the way. Remember Khalil Gibran’s famous lines ,

‘Your children are not your children. They are sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not  from you…”

Our children are not our possessions to influence. We can advise them ,not live our  lives through them .They are individual souls and each comes with her own path chalked out .They come to earth wired to live out their  souls blueprint and when we impose our own egoistic man made ambitious plans on them we kill their spirit and their sparkle. A person who is wired to be an artist can never make a great engineer or a lawyer. Excellence can shine forth only when a person chooses to do what he loves.

In the Bhagvad gita, Krishna urges Arjuna very firmly to live an authentic life according to his Svadharma . He warns us that performing duties to please others (para dharma) will alter the course of our lives for the worse.

Even the great masters are careful not to interfere with the freewill of their disciples, it is thus that you will see that a true Master will just point the way. A Master will never compel anyone to make a choice ,for a Master knows that ultimately all choices have to be made by the individual. He is aware of the amount of karma he will incur by dictating and tampering with another’s freewill, even if the other is a close relative like a child or a spouse.

If the soul has a plan for us it stands to reason that the best choices we make will be those that are made in communion and alignment with our souls. That brings us back to the question of awareness. A person who is awake, alert and aware of what he is choosing therefore is one who chooses wisely. It is rather ironic that half of the time we are on automatic pilot and we choose unconsciously, even though many of our choices can be life altering. Any person who is following the beaten track and living out choices that are not his own is blocking the plan his soul has charted.

 “I took the road less travelled by

And that has made all the difference”

says poet Robert Frost in one of his best loved poems.These lines stress the importance of choices and reminds us  that regardless of the choice we make, our life will be enormously affected by it. Frost speaks about making a choice based on one’s interest and one’s passion. He symbolized this in his poem The Road not taken, by showing himself standing at a fork in the road. He knew he could walk down but one path and he knew the decision lay solely with him. The sad part of life is that most people do not even realize that the decision of how to carry their lives forward rests solely on them. They choose not to choose but even that is a choice, a weaker choice that will hamper their journey towards their pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

What helped Frost take the road less travelled and leave safe shores of America  for an unknown land (England)  where he tried his hand at poetry? (and succeeded!) Was it merely the abilty to take risks? Or was it that he was aware that he had been given freewill and had the freedom to make a choice?

In a period of time when people unconsciously followed the herd, choosing not to choose, Frost epitomizes the freedom of choice that is every human’s birthright.

Yes, the power of making a choice has been given only to the human. And the intellect is the instrument that he has been endowed with to aid him in exercising this mammoth responsibility.

Yet how many of us really sit and think out our choices? Aren’t we rather swayed by emotions while making a choice? The world is in this shape today because of decisions taken in haste.  “Decide in haste repent at leisure” our ancestors warn us stressing the need of taking time out and making responsible choices.

A calm and collected mind thus seems to be the ideal before making a crucial choice. Though one needs to at times consult near ones, and move from emotion to intellect while making a choice, the highest choices remain those that are motivated by the soul. Managing our self thus means making smart choices in tangent with the Higher self.. I say smart choices instead of right choices for what may be a right choice for one need not be the right choice for another. If Dad is a doctor and loves the profession, that is the right choice for him but Ratan is totally a different entity and the same choice may mean suicide for him, if   his cells are filled with the sound of music.

Finally the most important choice we can make is the way in which we choose to see life. If we choose to see ourselves as alien separate beings in a hostile world, that will be our destiny in this world of relativity.

If on the other hand we choose to see the world as One huge unit then naturally the actions that stem from such a choice will be of love and peace for how can you hurt others if all others are part of this ONE? And so our choices made out of oneness will chart out a beautiful destiny .

As one gets into the flow  of following the nudges of one’s Higher self ,one then slips into the enviable state of what J.krishnamurthy calls choice less awareness, where one just responds to the present moment spontaneously without any preconceived ideas. Where one’s actions are directed not even by choice but just awareness.

Till we reach this state where the chooser and the doer cease to exist and there is only the soul witnessing the experiences it has created with Life, we need to take small steps in being aware of even the littlest choices we make. Choosing to shut out external noise once in a while and connect to the stillness within and thus Choosing to connect to our Higher Self goes a long way in helping us make all other choices.

 When we choose to allow others to create their own painting on  the canvas of life using their own  colours of  choices, we truly choose to give the greatest gift to self and others-freedom-the birthright of every soul.

Through the eyes of my soul

 Published in Life Positive March 2013

I stumbled on the Higher Self game when I was deeply divided and angry.

Smarting under an unexpected verbal attack from a friend one day, the first thing I did was fall into the usual habit of getting caught in my thoughts. I was the classic victim and even after the incident was over I kept going over it in my mind. The little me kept on like a stuck record, “Who does she think she is,” followed by “You really can’t trust anyone. Everyone has their own agenda.”

At home sitting with myself during meditation I realized that I was nowhere getting to stillness.

“What if you accept this too- this feeling of disturbance?” came a calming voice. Immediately the energy shifted. It was OK to be angry. If it was showing up in my reality now it was because it had something to show me. As I was present to this anger and was comfortable with its energy, I heard my Higher self say .

“You have been experimenting with the truth that you are not the doer, that must mean your friend too is not a doer. Why don’t you apply that principle to her too? She too has not done anything to you. It is just the Universe unfolding according to your subconscious beliefs and karmas.”

“You mean she doesn’t have an axe to grind?’ I demanded my mind kicking in again.

“Well, whether she has or has not doesn’t concern you. That is her journey. Your job here is to focus on your own journey now. Take that incident as a blessing that the Universe is giving you to show you which shadow you have to heal.  Whatever is happening is happening because of various forces you have set forth due to egoic investments in the universe as a doer. “

“This happening in the universe has been likened to a potter’s wheel which when set into motion initially by someone gains momentum and keeps on moving even when there is no one to manipulate it ,hasn’t it?”

“You are right. Now find out which part of you feels ‘less than’ and wounded. That is what needs to be healed. “

I got really silent and got in touch with that inner child part of me that was still capable of being wounded and needed to be healed .

“If there is only one of us and you are part of that One what do you lack?” came the same still voice of my wise self. As the stillness took over something sprung up instead of the anger- a feeling of compassion-compassion for my friend and for people in general who carry their burdens and view points and suffer just as I had done a few moments ago. Along with it came the remembrance of reading what Echart Tolle had said that how you interpret life or your own behavior or thwe behavior of others is after all only a view point – a bundle of thought and has no reality. Now suddenly a thought came up.

” The whole shift occurs when I shift from the lower to the higher. What if instead of identifying with this lower needy self I identified with my Higher self? How could I do it?”

I remembered reading how Dr. Brian Weiss’ patients who had been regressed to their past lives often found themselves floating once they left their bodies after death. They were then able to have a detached perspective of their live and view the lessons they needed to learn.

I imagined that I was a light body floating above this human body for after all our Higher selves is really the light and clear part of ourselves. As I viewed the situation from a higher, more detached perspective I suddenly saw things the little me had never seen. I saw my part in the drama.I saw my little self holding on to her story and I saw that just as I had a right to hold on to my view point my friend too could hold on to hers. No one was right and no one was wrong. Things just were as they were. And as my Higher self had hinted, it was happening so that I could heal that part of me that was still clinging on to her opinions out of insecurity.

And then I also remembered about soul contracts. The person who attacks you has agreed to take on that role so that you could heal.

Suddenly the whole perspective changed. From being an attacker my friend really became a friend who was helping me on my soul journey.

That moment helped me start a game I call my Higher self game. When my spouse or boss or relatives or acquaintances trigger off some negative emotion in me it is time to shift with awareness to my higher self. They are just being a portal through which the universe is helping me heal. When I feel the trigger arise I use this awareness to allow me to create some space around the incident instead of getting caught in it. I float to where I imagine my Higher self is and view the situation from Her perspective. And let me tell you, when I come down to terra firma it is with a wholly new response- that of checking my own behavior, accepting their behavior as well as mine and sending love and light.

I always come out of my connection with my bigger self feeling lighter. It helps me to put things into perspective.

She always makes me realize that people are different and fine just as they are and when I connect to this real me I am able to move through this separation with ease and unity.

It all depends on who I choose to be this moment. Am I this spacious Presence of my Higher nonjudgmental self or am I the little needy me? That will make all the difference till I reach the stage where I am that pure choice less awareness