Be a healer

 All of us carry an aura around us. It comprises an electro-magnetic field born of the flow of the life energy through and around our bodies. The quality of this aura is a function of our mental, physical and emotional states. Anger, regret, fear, jealousy, desperation, sorrow, rejection and hopelessness create a sort of negative energy and consequently a negative aura. It means we carry bad aura. It pollutes the surrounding environment like a heap of garbage. Now isn’t it our bounden duty to keep the environment clean by remaining positive, happy, smiling, poised, relaxed, sympathetic and compassionate? It's our duty fella! It's as good for others' health as it is for our own. All the steps to the cleaning of all types of pollutants start from the self. Stay happy. Just by doing this we do a social service.

The lost faith

 Casting a vote feels futile in the present circumstances. As a voter, using the EVM (in its current form and management under a vastly politicised election commission) feels like going into the battle with a stick while the mighty soldiers are fighting with rocket launchers. Further, under the current political authority, my faith in free and fair elections has been jolted because when you try to retain power 'at whatever cost' then democracy gets sabotaged. There are enough loopholes in our entire bureaucratic, judicial and legislative system to allow misuse and manipulation to pass as legalized actions. The media, as all of us know, is no longer free, fair and unbiased (with the exception of few upright journalists whose name can be counted on fingers), in its reporting and coverage of issues. Fancy, fictionalized narratives do the rounds, pleasantly blinding the people in their sand-swirls. Yes, India has emerged strongly internationally, no doubt about that. But it has come at the cost of lots of undemocratic maneuvering internally. The society is highly polarized on hate principles based on caste, region and religion. The rich have turned super rich; the poor have turned poorer. The farmers and laborers are under a lot of stress. An empty stomach can't pacify its hunger by reviving the hypothetical national glory of Dharam Rajya and Vishva Guru. They need bread. We still are a poor nation with a high quotient of jingoism and hoopla. So on the voting day, it would be far better to carry on the routine work. Why should we the common people disturb our mundane schedule? The election day is a festival of democracy. One should be in high spirits on this occasion. But how can one feel it to be a festival when it's just a mudslinging game among the power aspirants?!

The art of emptying

 Well before you take steps to fulfill your dreams, learn the art of emptying, of letting go, of letting out unwanted mossy dregs in the container of your destiny. Emptying isn’t defeatist. It’s not surrender. It’s a calculated step towards victory, towards fulfillment. It’s the preparation for gain, the beginning of filling up. Instead of running after the mirage of fulfillment, focus on emptying. Fulfillment is just a step away. Fullness starts at the moment of complete emptying. Wash, scrub, rinse and drain out the muck from the pot of your destiny. Wash away hate, anger, jealousy, ignorance, desires, phobias, complexities and overblown ambition. Drain these out. Let it be a perfectly clean and swanky pot of emptiness. The universe is expanding. It wants clean chambers to pour its energy into. It will sneak into the clean house in the form of your dreams and aspirations. The swabs clinging to the bottom are the repellents to fulfillment. Clean these. Work on emptying. Work on emptiness and you are in fact moving towards fullness. In a perfectly clean container there is no limitation on fulfillment, no hurdles to materialization of dreams, no restrictions on infinite cosmic harmony pouring its vastness into the container. A scribbled canvas has limitations of painting, a clean one has infinite possibilities of shapes and pictures. Scrub the slate clean before you start the journey. Even if it means a lifetime of emptying, it still will not be a loss. Even a second of fulfillment will be worth it. It will still be better than pouring the nectar of your efforts in an unclean pot, and just adding onto the stinking broth that never gives happiness and satisfaction.

A little slice of truth

 It’s a lush green forest around you. Birds are chirping. It’s early morning and a cool breeze is blowing. Nearby, gurgling waters of a brook add music to the stillness around. You feel better. It feels good. The external orderliness, peace and calm raise the bar of your better feeling. With the same set of your own individual, internal, self-specific problems, worries and concerns you feel better if the surrounds are better.

The desert sand is burning. It’s noon and forget about trees you cannot see even a blade of grass for miles. You feel horrible. You feel bad. Worse than your self-specific set of worries make you feel normally. You feel bad if the surroundings are not convenient.

We cannot inhale in isolation. If there is misery in air, it will enter your lungs. Use air-masks and air filters, do whatever. Life still will be stifling and genuine efforts just a struggle because we cannot help inhaling our share of the miseries. The solution lies in cutting down on pollutants. Not in wearing masks. But when it comes to our struggle to increase our happiness, the efforts are almost as useless as wearing masks when the air is polluted.  

Our own set of factors that make life either good or bad are not the sole deciding elements in making us happy or unhappy. If we are happy, then we are just sharing a fraction of the overall happiness surrounding us. Our lungs are safe just in proportion to the purity of air around. If the quality of air is good, only then the individual battles like quitting smoking, eating healthy and doing yoga to keep lungs safe will be meaningful. 

If we are unhappy, that also is a fraction of the overall misery spread around. Individual is just a constituent of the whole. Happiness is drawn from the overall pool. How long the frogs will sing songs of self gratification in a vanishing pond? Its waters vaporizing. Its shoreline decreasing. Stanching green mossy puddle. What can be drawn out of it? Only death and misery, not life and happiness.   

A talented software engineer, with his tools of prosperity and happiness, is of no use at a place like Somalia. There is no surrounding prosperity to help him nurture his talent. There is no supportive economy and companies to help him contribute to the overall wellness and get a fraction of the happiness and feel good. A software engineer prospers in America because using his skills he can contribute to and earn back a fraction of the happiness spread around.         

The surroundings set the stage for either make or break. 

“Love thy neighbor!” By loving others you are loving yourself. By caring for others, you are caring for yourself. By contributing to happiness, you are adding to your own happiness because your share of happiness and prosperity will be just a fraction of the overall happiness around. With your effort and skills, you draw a big portion if the social forest around you is healthy like the natural forest where each breath installs new vitality in you. 

Long before you really start doing something to add to the overall wellness around you, start with a simple practice. You might be busy with scores of neck-breaking responsibilities, leaving you with very little time for real action on the goodness front. Start thinking good of others. Think good for your surroundings. Be happy over others’ victories. Smile over somebody’s stroke of luck. Feel bad for somebody’s loss. Say some sympathetic words as well. Over years, the goodness in womb will get healthy. It will deliver a healthy baby. And sooner or later you will definitely ‘do’ something to add to the overall goodness around you before you finish your journey. 

You will then have a larger share from the pool of wellness. When the sun will be setting and you preparing to enter the night for rest, you will walk into the forest with well-meaning steps. It will be a far happier retirement than it would have been otherwise.

Keep walking with a smile

 Usually people, most of us, walk through a grey zone of shifting shadows. It's not totally dark, it's a mundane journey. Neither too painful, nor joyous one. It leads to a common destination as well. But some people have to walk through a dark cave, you may call it dark night of the soul. It's painful involving lots of suffering. Many perish in the folds of darkness. But those who choose to continue, they finally come out and face the brightest dawn, the dawn of the soul in evolutionary terms. Such people are leaders, guides and inspiration just by default. They need not even try to accomplish anything. Just by being there they do goodness. And if they choose to guide fellow human beings, they make good masters. 

So remember this, always, as you walk through your dark nights, that you are such a soul. And the patches of darkness will keep arriving periodically till you see the sunshine finally and be an inspiration to others. So keep walking. With a smile. And keep in touch with the people who care for you. Don't allow the darkness to build more walls around you. Best wishes brothers and sisters!👍