Preciousness of Life and Other Tragedies

In Hindu philosophy, there is much importance given to the realization that our life is very precious. At a level, it is also done to keep people on the path of righteousness and to achieve a peaceful, prosperous and productive society. Sage after sage, and saint after saint has said the same thing - that our life is precious. But after centuries of progress and spiritual awakening, if we look around us, do we see people by large behaving in a manner consistent with this realization? 

There is so much selfishness all around, and wretched people making other people suffer, evil people using every opportunity to harass others, and so on. Number of 'good people' in our society in general is alarmingly low. People in general behave good with you if they need something from you,  otherwise you are nothing for them. People in general are wasting their own life in mundane race to collect more and more money, and wasting everyone else's life in the process too. Do they take some of the money to their 'afterlife' once they are dead? 

And those people who can't afford to waste their or other people's life, are busy wasting time watching short videos on their mobile phones! 

It won't be an exaggeration to say that in our society, there is absolutely zero realization of the fact that our life is precious. Or is it that there is a secret and quiet realization in our society that our life is "not precious"?

If we push this theory, it fits very well. Since life is not precious, people need to tolerate it, spend it, waste it, or do whatever with it, since nothing matters. Let wretched people harass innocent people, let evil people harass noble souls for their pleasure, because, since life is not precious, why be any good?

It is a great tragedy for our country that along with material progress, we are fast losing all the spiritual greatness achieved by our ancestors. It pains to understand what a shameful achievement we have made with this trend. 

Hoping for some miracle to save the soul of our people and our country.  

- Rahul 

Existential crisis: From futility of life to futility of death

I am not alone who has often thought about futility of life and struggled to see proof that God sent us here with a purpose. I have read similar thoughts from many others, and I think this is all part of our growing up psychology. But at the same time, we can't deny merit in the pertinent question. 

After many years passed, now I have even gone one step ahead and started wondering about futility of death. At this moment, I have not read this from anyone else, so I think this is a novel idea that occurred to me.  

What I am thinking is that as people or society, we have given too much importance to the idea of death. It is hyped, glamourised, demonised, all depending on the place, context or the demands of the time. In reality, death is nothing in itself. 

I think death is just a writing on the wall and while we can see the wall, we can't see what is beyond it, which makes us curious and make us assume things about it. In reality, we do not know anything about the other side of the wall and as I read somewhere that the Vedas tell that we as humans cannot even understand it fully.

I am not even sure if giving so much importance to this matter of death is worth it. Most likely, it is totally not worth it. One fine day, I shall vanish into thin air, and what is good or bad about it? From futility of life to futility of death, the thought process has come full circle. And I am not sure whether to be happy or sad about it, since if we do not have some existential things to worry about; what are we going to worry about? 

- Rahul 

The Falsehood of Social Service

Long back, when I was working at Infosys, a colleague joined office and he was allocated seat near my cubicle. Those days, employees used to have fixed place to sit and work from, I am sure it is like this for most companies even now, although many IT companies have switched to 'cost saving' by removing physical allocation of cubicle to employees. Due to fixed cubicle, we used to have "neighbours" and got to bond with them. I remember, the new colleague was very obese and had just come to India after working in the USA for many years. When asked, he said he shifted to India to better look after family, although he did not like life and facilities in India as much. He was also upset that some of the promises made to him at the time of joining had not materialised, and he was not even happy with his work because he was given project work in a different area than his core skill. Remembering those days, it feels like very good times, when there were plenty of jobs, plenty of employees and plenty of choices and grievances. 

At that time when the new and 'unhappy' employee started working from the cubicle next to me, there was a donation drive conducted in office to fund some social work. I remember a couple of colleagues visited cubicle-to-cubicle and collected funds. They did not ask for more than Rs 100 and I was happy to contribute the same amount when asked. But the US returned rich but unhappy colleague declined to contribute anything! When asked about the reason, he said something like, "We already pay so much money in taxes to the government, what is the need to also spend money in charity? Why government is not making use of tax money to fund all those social work?" After the contribution seeking volunteers went back disappointed, the particular colleague kept repeating his moral stand of not contributing. 

At that time, I did not understand his motive much. All these years, this incident came to my mind many times and I still did not fully understand his stand. But recently, a thought came to my mind, which made me look at that incident in a whole new light. 

First of all, I don't think the colleague was right in assuming that our social obligations end with paying taxes to government. Paying taxes is not a voluntary act from our side, but it is a statutory requirement which we fulfill without giving a thought, and often to save ourselves from prosecution or penalisation too. I think true charity or social work has to be a voluntary act, where we "choose to help" when we had a "choice not to help". Therefore, his theory and moral stand for not contributing was juvenile at best. 

At the same time, a thought came to me recently about how much role "external validation" plays in the things we do; and why do we think that only helping "strangers" count towards social service. How about a man giving money to an orphanage supporting children, but at the same time not giving time to his own children who keep getting raised without proper love and care of their parents? How about someone making visits to old-age-home and giving financial support to the old people living there, but at the same time one's own old parents are living troubled devoid of love and care by their grownup children? Why is it that giving love and care to one's own family or blood relatives not considered akin to social work? Like it has happened to child-raising where a woman goes to school to take care of other people's children while her own children are also being taken care by others, making a chain of weird "unsocial" relationships; if we stretch this to other spheres of life, the world becomes too gloomy. 

Under light of these thought, I am looking at the behaviour of my old colleague, my own behaviour and work, as well as all the ongoing things around me in a different shade.

What if there is no social brownie points to be earned for doing social work or charity; how many would still choose to do it? And how many of us would understand that prioritizing the welfare of their own family does not make them selfish or bad people? Our own family, children, parents, relatives, they all are part of the "society" we intend to service, and although we shall not get any "certificate of appreciation" for doing something for them, what we do shall still be very valuable. And perhaps irreplaceable.  

Hoping for peace and health of one and all.

- Rahul Tiwary    

Life With Background Music

 

During my teenage, once I had noticed that whenever I had a question in my mind which did not have an answer, after a while I would find the answer randomly somewhere out of the blue. I remember myself rationalizing it by thinking that when a question goes unanswered, our subconscious brain keeps searching for answers, and hence spots one when it comes across it.

Some time back, a thought came to my mind that our life would have been better and more interesting if there was ‘background music’ in it; like it happens in the movies. For example, if we were serious, an appropriate background music would be playing around us. It would help us communicate better, since the recipient would understand the context better due to the background music made for the occasion.

A few days ago, while watching a movie on TV, suddenly a dialogue appeared. A character said, “You know what? There is music in life too! It is just that not everyone can hear it!”

The depth in the dialogue stunned me. What if our world really has background music in it; but the problem is that we can’t hear it? And what if there are people who ‘can’ hear it? For example, someone said something to us, and we understood it only on its face value. But there is another person, let us say very wise and experienced, and that person could not only listen to the person but also the ‘music’; and hence got the context better?

I know this is an imaginary thought, but philosophically, the thought is magnificent.

If everyone really understood everyone else, perhaps there would be lesser conflicts and heartburns. Or maybe if everyone really understood everyone else, there would be anarchy everywhere, because at times it is better if we do not understand things too. Whatever the end results, I won’t mind a little music in life. And an ability to listen to it too.  

- Rahul Tiwary

Thoughts: What is With Children and Water?

This morning, besides a very busy road, I saw a small girl. The road was not good, and it had cracks through which water from was flowing, perhaps thrown by some nearby shops. The little girl who was alone was carrying something; perhaps having bought it from some shop and returning to her home. She had stopped and was dipping one of her footwears in the stream of water. She was completely lost in thought, not bothered by the chaos of busy traffic and neither caring for safety or any concerns. She was totally focused on ‘understanding’ water. That moment and her state of mind felt totally like ‘nirvana’ to me.

A few months ago, I saw a similar scene where a small boy who was going somewhere with his grandfather, had also stopped and was completely immersed in thoughts and focused on a little ‘pond’ of ‘water’ on the road.

I wonder what was so special about these scenes that I paid attention? It is not that I was wandering around in an observation mode; I was actually riding and moving. But these moments got captured in my mind like still photographs. I think first, these moments were so ‘out of the ordinary’. In the adult world, we are so used to doing things on purpose and we are always on to something, that such moments of pure carefree indulgence feel strange. Second, I got curious also because I thought about the ‘state of mind’ of these kids. And I could not name it or could not find words to describe it. It was like a ‘blank slate’; and anything blank is so precious in the modern world because it is full of possibilities.

I hope that out of the many things frozen in my memory, these too remain safe and secure. The little kid checking out water on the roadside – what is with children and water? Perhaps it is better never to figure out.

- Rahul Tiwary

Thoughts: God is With US

Looking at injustices and all the wrong things (apparently) in this world, we may wonder where God is. For example, when someone accuses you of something and you fail to convince the other person. Or else, you yourself want to know what is true and what is not totally true since there have been conflicting thoughts in your mind. And hence you wish if you could talk to God for a moment and clear the things out. You wish it would have been so good if God was with you in a “communicable” state.

You may wonder if you can just apply your “mind” and get the work done. First of all, mind may not be the best thing to trust in many conflicting situations. As we know, brain stores information but the older the information gets, it is sent back in the database even to the “archive”. You would be able to recall some old things with some difficulty and some things would be totally inaccessible now over the years. But some data would be with you always, in clear terms. So, the mind works in terms of physical storage of information and is not something where God can live.

Hence, if God decided to live with us, where can he live? Would he go for the “heart” then? Of course, no. Our heart may want ice-cream in winter or may want you to smoke or drink. Heart can go wrong in many situations. So, heart can’t be trusted either.

Now comes “conscience”. Let us evaluate if God can live with us in or as our conscience. First, you can only talk to your conscience when you are truly with yourself. Next, your conscience can never lie to you. It will always tell you honest things, even if it is self-criticism. It can be recalled anytime and anywhere. That is why think that God lives with us in or as our conscience.

Hence, if you want to find out what you really want, don’t ask either your mind or your heart. If you want to find out if you like or trust another person or not, or what you really think about something, you can only trust your conscience. Talking to your mind can be too ‘heartless’ and talking to your heart may be too ‘out of our mind’.

Hence, I prescribe that we should talk to our conscience very regularly. We should talk to our conscience every day and in every situation. If we are clear in our conscience, then we shall feel light. Then we shall have no doubt and we shall not be confused about anything. Try it out!

- Rahul Tiwary 

Philosophy: Finding Faults in Ourselves

First of all, I wish you a very happy and peaceful new year 2020!  

May the new year be a sunrise and bring happiness and positivity to you. 

In T. S. Eliot’s play, ‘The Cocktail Party’, there is an interesting episode. One of the characters in this play was not having a good time. She speaks to a psychiatrist about her unhappiness. And she mentions that she hopes that somehow all her suffering is her own fault! The psychiatrist asks her why she thinks so.  She explains that if her suffering is her own fault, she might be able to do something about it. But if it is God’s fault then she is doomed!

This interesting incident looks profound and can make us look at our own ways of dealing with unfavorable conditions. Sometimes if things go against our wish, we have the tendency to blame others and consider ourselves as a “pure victim”. While in many cases we may actually be a victim, but we could still find ways to find “faults” in ourselves using which we could correct our own behavior next time.

The easiest example that comes to my mind is the instances or news of crime. A few days back while a husband and wife were crossing the road around midnight, they were hit by an unidentified car and the husband died. Was traveling so late in the night really necessary? Could they have returned earlier; since darkness increases the chance of accidents? Earlier there was a case of crime against a woman where the lady’s scooter got flat tires and she trusted two unknown men and went with them for a long distance in an unknown locality. Could she not have chosen to make a safer decision and not to trust random men? In another incident, a young couple met with a brutal crime because at 11 in the night they took “lift” from a private bus. Why could not have they made a wiser decision? In matters of crime, of course the crime happens due to criminals, but still many times the people at the receiving end make unsafe decisions which lead them into becoming easy prey of the criminals.

In other matters too, if a situation is bad, we could still try to find faults i.e. improvement areas within us and do self-correction; rather than putting entire blame on the other person or party. If we think on these lines, there are endless opportunities in which we can improve ourselves.

Therefore, we can say that our tendency to put the entire blame on others bars us from using the unwanted incidents as growth and learning opportunities. Because of our tendency to consider ourselves 100% blameless and innocent, we lose a lot of opportunities where we could have done some positive improvements in ourselves.

- Rahul Tiwary