The superbugs of death

There is a methodology of driving the evil, first, out of your body, second, your mind, and consequently out of your soul.

At the level of the body, the visible world, put up a conscious effort to avoid doing anything bad that may hurt someone in its multiple meanings, the physical, economical, emotional and social. Avoidance of bad at this level will help you be a law-abiding citizen. It will give you a clean social image. These are required to keep you motivated and bound to the path leading to the next level of goodness, or the path to taming the evil.

Taming the evil at the level of mind is a bit tougher. Thoughts come more rampantly than actions. It’s basically a free float. In fact these are even more suitable outlets of the bad. We can think bad to any extent in the hidden corners of our mind. We can plan any sinister scheme in the safe secrecy of our brain. We can hate anybody to any extent inside us. We can burn in jealousy about anybody on the earth. This mode of letting out badness is even more tempting because, unlike badness in action which might get us punishment at the hands of law or fall in our public image, this channel of hate does not carry the risks of such immediate, visible punishments. It but harms us in more ways than we can ever think of. The punishment crawls slowly, silently. And it is poisonous. All these negative emotions of hate, jealousy, frustration, fears, apprehensions, illusions and assumptions let out toxics on the impulse of our brain. By engaging in such thinking you are bombarding your own body with chemical weapons. You are your own enemy before anyone else. You are putting your gun at your own poor head. Slowly over a period of time these poisons, the unseen punishments of uncontrolled evil thoughts, eat away the body. Our brain, the seat of unrestricted potential to be good to the self and others, becomes the ticking bomb, letting out toxins in our blood stream, eating our vitality, our strength and drawing us to a frustrated death. That is the cruel most punishment. Your own brain letting out poison in your body. And our thoughts are the trigger for this.

So driving out the evil at the level of ideas and thoughts is utmost important. Right from our birth, life is all about bypassing the snares of mortality. But the inherent meaning of life is to find happiness while we avoid the snares of death. You cannot find happiness in any corner of this world, under any material comfort if your thoughts are plagued with the virus of evil, the bugs of hate, jealousy, selfishness and anger. We cannot avoid death. It will come. But we can turn it meaningless. The success of death lies in giving us a painful feeling that life was meaningless at the last breath. IF we die with a feeling that life has been worth it, we deny death its final laugh. Life prevails over death in this regard. Because there is journey after the interruption. We can do justice to life by being happy, and making others happy as well along the way, and be loving. There can be no other meaning of life.

So train your mind for better thoughts, better emotions. It will help your brain becoming a launch pad of creativity instead of a toxic tool of death. Meditation is the first step in taming the restlessness which is basically the foundation of the evil in the mind. Dislodge it from its seat. Sit down and practice restfulness. Calm your mind. Give it a space as you contemplate peace. As much as bugs of death are ever eager to finish their task of chucking out organisms and lives, the angels of healing are even more eager to sustain life. And the seat of healing is in love, in caring, in positive emotions. Allow yourself some time of stillness, repose and rest, the angels of healing, the agents of life, the couriers of love will cure you.

The practice of love and rest in thoughts leads to a healthier soul. It nourishes the souls as much as it heals the body. As a loving person you become a flower. Spreading fragrance and beauty. As a hateful individual you become a thorn. Drawing blood from the feet that are leading to their destination. Both die anyway. But look at the roles they play while in their journey.

Coming out of the cave sic grave

I come out of the tunnel. And see light. I smile and have a restful inhale of the fresh air. I open my arms and embrace this world, my world. It welcomes me back with a brotherly hug. I smile again and close my eyes to look inward. I take a sip of peace from the sea of tranquility and open eyes. The world has changed. It’s far better now. I have changed my eyes to look at it differently.

It was dark and intimidating. It was as much frightening and intimidating as it was painful. The tunnel was as much dug by the external circumstances as the negative tools of my own mind. I had entered a cave. A little recess in the mountainside of life. A routine trouble in life. Then I became my own enemy and started digging earth in the direction I shouldn’t have. I was digging a tunnel. An aimless futile struggle. My depressed, bruised mind moving earth faster and faster. It was taking me deeper into the womb of darkness. It was like digging my own grave. A bruised brain and injured mind are the potent tools of a self-grave digger.

Sweating, soiled clothes, aching limbs, now I come on the other side. On the other side of the mountain of life. Out of the self-dug cave that almost became a grave. Life has changed its meaning. The poles have reversed. I take credit for the small act of having kept on the digging job. It’s a new beginning. I know myself better. It’s a new sun. The air is so fresh. The earlier life seems futile. All this self-grave digging job. But as I close my eyes, a feeble smile on my lips, and inhale the essence of a new, redefined life, the journey seems worth it. Life is almost on a pause now. So slow in motion that I see the marvels of nature around. They are for me as much as they are for everybody. The spring sun kissing the winter-beaten leaves. Songs of birds. Gentle breeze and the swirls of a footloose bird in the sea of cool air. Bits of peace lying around.

I inhale the fathomless fragrance of peace, harmony and integrity from the farthest part of the cosmos. Cosmic harmony. Endless orderliness in orbits. Ever-going periodicity. Supportive harmony. Fury of explosions and astronomical speeds tamed to harmless, slow acts of space-time continuum. Me and my environment feel like an iota of this cosmic harmony. I allow myself a gentle smile. Ripples of peace cascade through my soul. I close my eyes again and look inwards. Deeper than the superficial world of my body and my worldly circumstances. I can travel far deeper than I ever thought. There are undisturbed paths leading to my true self. It’s a replica of cosmic orderliness. I am on the path to meet my true self. The self that is destined to be happy and at peace with itself.

It awaits there, the self, with unlimited dose of happiness, comfort, compassion and peace. We only deny ourselves the dose of this cosmic healing pill by looking out on this world. The superficial world of frustration, jealousy, hate, futile rat race, mundane cravings, illusions, assumptions, fears, apprehensions and cravings. It doesn’t allow us to smile, to close eyes and start the journey inward. No wonder we have hardly travelled in the real sense even if we are lucky to spend hundred years of chronological time in a lifetime. The journey to the real inner self, on the other hand, is not bound by the puny limits of time and funny horizons of space. It’s open and there are unlimited dimensions. In minutes one covers cosmic distances. And when you smile and look at this world outside, you see a replica, a reflection of the inherent beauty. You are better now and happier. You look at this world with a healthier mind and sturdier brain. More importantly you have a better heart. You are capable of loving more and hating less. The hallmark and definition of a human being.

There is something good at the end of it

There is light beyond the deepest dark depth,
There is a bright day after the ghostly haunts of nightmarish night,
After a barren famished fight there is a blossomed springed delight,
After pining pangs of separation there is a worthy end to the desperation,
After crashing in the gutters there is a surge and rise to bathe in holy waters,
After crying convulsions on the lips, a smile takes honeyed sips,
After the last deafest, still there is an undying urge to accomplish the feat,
Even when blind with despair, there is hope hiding and cajoling somewhere,
Even in hate love still lurks somewhere!!!!

A smile on your lips

A smile is like the sun on a cold, frigid, gray day. Comforting. Warm. Healing. It dispels the gloom. It absorbs the pain. It touches you with sympathy. It becomes your nonjudgmental confidante. You may not be enjoying a rollercoaster ride in life. There are pains and problems and of course you feel like crying. Of course you are not in a position to laugh. But you can smile. Just to yourself. Without any reason. Or at least try. Even a fake, feeble smile will do. It reshapes the mask of your tensions, your worries. You will instantly feel its warmth, its light. It cannot be the other way. Even a fake smile cannot give you pain, cannot aggravate your messiness however hard is the situation. Give yourself a reason to smile. Forget about the little world of your problems. The world around you is too big. And you are a part of it bounty. The things of beauty are as good for you as are for any other happy person around. Claim your share. Observe. Look around. Pick out from the unassuming treasure lying around in bits and pieces. A flower. A bird chirping. A gust of breeze. Some green tree. A sparrow’s free dart in the sky, a child’s pure smile, the sun, the stars, someone helping somebody. There are infinite reasons to let a smile kiss your lips, to help you, to sympathize, to emphasize. Just open up the door for smile. It will open up a huge gate of comfort for the inner self. Light will enter the dungeon of real and imaginary problems. There is no logic for this. It just happens. Just like you feel the healing warmth of sunrays on a cold day. Try to smile without reason. Immediately you will get a feeling of so many things to be smiled at, to be felt euphoric about, or even laugh about.     

Cow candies in patriotic barn

An effort at inciting hate is always condemnable. Be it the leftists who bind a soul to the red book so tightly that even violent options become defendable for the cause of principles cast in iron. So communists see class enemies, there are purgings, extrajudicial killings, dictatorships. Or be it the rightists, who insight phobias, sloganeering for some mythical past, blaming some section for the present woes, show exclusivist dreams. Or be it the poison-sprouting mullahs in mosques, who raise fiery speech to blur the line between faith and fundamentalist blindness. All extremist ideologies thrive on creating hate, turning a human being against a fellow human being, on flimsy, assumed, disillusioning grounds.  

There are cow patriots in Haryana. In a country where millions go deprived of even the most basic facilities, where people die for lack of clean drinking water and basic healthcare, the mythical love for cow sounds misplaced. Of course, as an animal, and like any other animal for that matter, cow needs better days, better pastures, better economical use. But cow as an instrument of fake nationalism. It sounds unjustified. Haryana government has even constituted a cow commission. But there could have been a commission for stray, homeless humans as well. In our city Sonipat, there are more stray humans than stray cows. The cow commission allocated funds. Just like the favourite Indian trait of turning any institution into the instrument of embezzling public money, it also serves as a means of siphoning funds for those in good books. There are lampoons and semi-criminalized fit-for-nothings, who having run after the saffron brigade during the election time, get reward for their patriotic loyalty. They get money to open cow shelters and cow care centres. No wonder the budgeted amount is multiple times than the amount actually spent.

They opened a cow shelter on the outskirts of the city. A good set up.  At least apparently so. A minister inaugurated the cow shelter with a fiery patriotic speech. The euphoria over cow welfare but fell too heavily on the head of a poor watchman just on the third day after the speech. The poor guy died. The main gate crashed on him. You can imagine the level of construction material. There are just a few cows in the big facility. Rest of them roam the city with stray dogs and humans like before. Nothing has changed in reality. But a lot has changed on paper. Pseudo-nationalism you know. And cow shelters proof of that. Another idler, who had been tailing after the ideologues, got a big grant to run a cow hospital. He has set up just a facility in the name of it. Groups of drunkards drink there. Cows, where? You will question if you step into it. Those who can't love people from other religions, how can you expect them to be caring for animals. Poor cow. Just a political pawn. So is Ram Mandir. So is national anthem. Oofs. What a cheap candy type nationalism. Served to the masses. Eat the candy and spit out hate. And vote for us of course. A person blinded by hate is easily taken by political tricks. Let's hope UP results put a check to their sham nationalism, forcing them to opt for healthy one, where people are progressive, loving, receptive..    

There are many eager souls to do something for the country. Feelings apart, they are incapable of doing hardly anything, not even leading the life of a law-abiding, self-responsible citizen. Following the basic principles of humanity, doing just as much as to follow the rules and regulations even if there is no chance of penalty in sight. The blood is but on boil for the cause of the nation. They fight pitched battles on social media. It won’t so much as give them the pain of a mosquito bite. It is hundred percent risk free. No dangers. All you have to do is to like, forward and gloat over hate messages. And stamp with a vote. You then become a patriot. Beyond that you can go out, take bribe, grease palms with corrupt money, break queues, eve-tease, molest, urinate anywhere, use road like it’s your courtyard driveway, pass remarks, shout, holler, do whatever. Your conscience is clear. You are a patriot. Because you just hate the perceived enemy. That is your contribution to nation-building. Still left with surplus patriotic energy, you go out and mix with ABVP zealots and attack other students who are not as patriotic as you because they have not picked up the toy gun for patriotic fun. For the extra-energied patriots there is a possible hangout. Breakroom. Gurgaon sector 29. Operated by Sanwari Gupta. Go there and smash out your hate and frustration on junk TV, microwave, radio, etc. It will soothe the angry man in you. The blood on boil will cool. And utter sense of heroism will prevail as you smash the screen. It can be a suitable punch-bag for the paper tigers of pseudo-nationalism. After pouring out hate and frustration you will come out happier and, possibly, more loving beings. You might even go beyond the tools of fake nationalism like Ram Mandir, cows and national anthem, and do something more important for this country.