Treating the Diseased Roots of the Tree of Love

 

So many times we commit the folly of treating the symptoms instead of the disease’s roots. Suppose there is a tree in poor health. Its leaves dispirited pale and not fresh green. Its canopy hardly able to put shadow on the ground. It just waits for some storm to claim a natural calamity. Then you see somebody nurturing its leaves, pouring water and manure on them and dreamily look forward to greenish luxuriance. Of course it’s a folly. The problem lies in roots, not on the leaves.

That’s how it’s with human lives. We look for solutions on the surface, at the levels where the problems manifest themselves. Little do we realize that the root cause of such problems lies somewhere else. Those who get lynched by the diseased emotions of jealousy, hate, anger, frustration, insecurity and animosity have a problem deep within the self. These negative emotions are just like surface wavelets, mere symptoms of a restless self within. So stop bothering about the effects. Take care of the turbulence inside and these simply vanish. They lose their meaning and become redundant because you no longer entertain the factors that triggered them.

It’s not that the point of serenity doesn’t lie in all of us. It does. Invariably. In fact that is the biggest commonality among homo-sapiens. The only problem is that we tend to forget it and identify ourselves with shallow, shaking waters on or just below the surface. The only effort required is to be aware of this deep, unmoved tranquility inside and accept it as the seat of the real self. Instantly life acquires a new meaning. You can even witness the upheavals, which tortured you earlier like they were you only, as a neutral observer. You look through the mist. You start seeing things as they are instead of what you want them to be.

If the interior is rooted in calmness, poise and control—the elemental tools of love—such diseased leaves won’t sprout on the surface to take a toll on the physio-psychological health. In the depths of the sea, there is a calm world basking in the glory of bluish darkness that stays unmoved. On the surface there are storms and upheavals. The surface tosses and turns as if struck by some mad force. Disturbance is destined to die. But before it dies, it takes casualties like a pyre burns on firewood. Only peace and calmness can be permanent. And surprisingly calmness does not draw on any fuel to sustain its eternity. It’s self sustaining. There are no collateral damages. So isn’t it prudent to dive deep into the womb of serenity to be reborn as a calm child who is in control of his destiny?

Submerge into the cool depths of your real, inner self. Explore your undisturbed waters, your loving nature, your essential self: compassion. In its bluish darkness, you will see a lamp of self-realization. You will clearly see the funny part of surface storms and even laugh at yourself for having been so crazy in the shallow, muddied waters. Don’t waste this precious life in the muddied storms. The pearls of your destiny lie at depths. So brothers and sisters, raise your head above the stormy waters, take in a big breath, dive deep and shake hands with unruffled waters where your real self awaits with the answers to all the root causes of the problems on the surface.

There is a little exercise manual as you decide to dive deep. Practice forgiveness. It’s the most effective potion for healing the self. Since you are an inseparable part of this world, you contribute to heal the world also as you conserve vital energy that otherwise was to be burnt in brooding over hurts and pains.

Once you see through the prism of forgiveness, you will find nature ingrained with the principle of forgetting and forgiveness. If not for them, things will simply burn themselves out after a trigger. Forgiveness has healing properties beyond words. Just imagine even a blade of grass won’t re-grow if the grass isn’t able to forget and forgive after the turf has been trampled. Forgiveness is thus the potent pill of self transformation. It dusts off the negatives you have gathered around your true, loving self.

Struggle + Smile: A Love Candy

 

As you huff, puff and frown on the slippery path of life, it appears natural to lose your smile, giving you a firm, frigid look. Naturally your loving persona takes a backseat, making you a determined, steely beast. I am not asking you to abandon your steely resolve. Just that we aren’t lifting a stone all the time to make our teeth grind with effort all the time. Don’t forget your smile fella! Always remember, 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 full blossomed spring 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 defeat,

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!

Oprah Winfrey: “Where there is no struggle, there is no strength. And your strength actually gives you a smile.”

So indirectly our struggles are the catalysts for lots of our smiles. Just that we need to remember it more often than we do otherwise. Moreover, the most generous, loving people are the ones who have won odds against struggle, pain, defeat and loss. Smiles and love are the perfume manufactured in the perfumery of hard tasks and bitter odds. Real struggle and real efforts rarely turn you bitter. At the end of it you come out a cute, loving and kind-hearted lady.

The glorious triumph of life and its meaning are defined by the hard course one has taken. Actually you earn your smiles. And earned smiles are the most genuine. They emanate from the deep pool of a loving persona. It sums up to a character of gold I tell you. Long before others tell you, your own soul will give you the big-grinned thumbs-up. After that what others think of it hardly matters. With this Godly muse, a smile will not depart from your lips. The things that you considered to be a loss, lose their meaning. They simply become redundant, like darkness loses its meaning once you have lighted the room with a small lamp.

One more thing, the hardest of an effort doesn’t sound like a struggle anymore if you retain your smile. Those who pass this test, qualify to be amazingly successful, loving people.

Help the Feminine Flower to Ultimate Love-blooms

 

Jewel Parker Rhodes: “Prejudice is sinful. All blood flows red. And the most harmful and foolish kind of prejudice is prejudice against yourself. Every woman is your sister, and every woman needs her sisters. So try to give other women the courtesy of your compassion, respect, and forgiveness. Love yourself despite - and because of - your flaws.”

Well this world will become such a beautiful place if women have more love among themselves. Given their natural entitlement in caring and sharing for biological reproduction, they can bring the art of love to perfection. Unfortunately, there is a tendency among women to shower love and affection on the male half of humanity and keep lots of scorn for their own species. With this slight alignment to channelize a bit of female love in their own quarters, the power of feminine love can heal humanity, unifying many a divisive fronts. It has the possibility of remaking a society on better lines.

Rumi: “Woman is a ray of God. She is not that earthly beloved: she is creative, not created.”

Women have almost unlimited scope to exercise compassion. High time they realize their infinite worth. A woman is a bouquet of sensuality, opulence, elegance, insight, caution, splendor and humility. Don’t you think they are the best masters for the alchemy of love?

Socrates says, “Once made equal to man, woman becomes his superior.”  

In order to explore the possibility of love among women, first we have to redefine the meaning of violence. Do you think violence is basically about breaking heads, firing bullets, stabbing knives, blood, wounds, injuries, sticks and guns etc., etc.? Please give me some company for some revision if you think so. To me the most dangerous form of violence is within, in the mind in the form of ideas, emotions and thoughts. What we see in the form of broken heads and mangled bodies is just an outcome, a portion, of the volcano of violence within, in ideas, thoughts, emotions and reflections.

Do you think, given man’s penchant for expression of violence in physical form, man is more violent than woman? Please stay with me for some more moments if you believe so. Like they are suitable competitor to man in every field presently, women may not be less in violence as well, if not exactly in the bloodied form, but certainly in the intensity of the violence within, the scheming volcano that smolders over the years. And then bursts suddenly.

The coy, dove-eyed slaughterer! Quite unfortunately, the victims are fellow women predominantly. It’s more so in conservative, traditional societies. In the ghettoized social space, where women are left suffocating for freedom, violence brews up a very nasty cocktail. It’s like hen fighting within the shitty cage. They cannot come out, so they fight among themselves. The historic sense of revenge accumulates and pours out to seek a target. As is the natural law, it seeks a soft target, and who is a softer target than a dependent woman in a conservative ghetto. Often it’s dirtier than a bloody fight. Nothing can match the violence of a female for her fellow species in traditional societies. It’s about revenge, plotting and scheming. All these define a cycle of self-annihilation.

In most of the crimes related to death, dowry and divorce in arranged marriages, the plot is hatched and aided by females. No wonder, the victim of a violent female mind is another woman. The remedy lies in setting them free, a free run out of the cage of tradition and convention. The women on the open platform of life are less violent in life. Or at least this is what I think. Look at the Western societies where women are suitably empowered. You have minimal cases of females unleashing violence on their own gender.

It will help in harnessing the left out love potential of humanity. It has the capacity to reshape civilizations that have turned out to be deeply scarred. Love among women themselves is the remedy for the bruised times.

An Ounce of Love Tilts the Scale in your Favor

 

Contradiction is inherent in nature. Positive–negative, acidity–alkalinity, dark–light, etc., etc., these are all manifestations of a homeostatic balance.

You know stars are held by this same dual, contradictory force of nature. Gravitational force pulls the molecules to the core; at the same time super-temperatures force the molecules to stay away from the core at a feasible length.

The stars smile and shine just because of the contradictory chemistry of these two opposing forces. Remove either of them and the star meets its end. Remove gravitational pull, the star will explode as a supernova. Remove the escaping force born of high temperature, the star will suck into its own core as a black hole.

So survival means a fine zone in the twilight of creation and destruction. Natural laws apply to humans as well; they hold the same validity if we treat an individual as a system. The human life is a wonderful phenomena sizzling like a shiny star in the twilight of humility and pride, altruism and selfishness, good and bad, faith and atheism, etc. So greatness lies not in casting off one side of this undercurrent. It lies in tilting your balance just a bit to the side of the so-called good aspects in the pair. Why? Because we are social phenomena as well, apart from being the natural ones. Our conscious sense of loving kindness sets us apart. It’s the hallmark of humanity. This is the best carat authenticity for the human self.

Just add a teaspoon of loving kindness to your forte of skills and belief. And see how wonderfully the overall taste of life gets changed. Our consciousness equips us to shine and survive like a star–but with a definite purpose. The purpose of general well-being; of helping others in maintaining the same balance of survival leading to definite evolution; of contributing proactively to the overall balance hung between the two contradictory frames.

We can contribute more than what our natural states have defined for us. Believe me! It works. Walk ahead to be a social phenomenon and not just stay a natural incident you are born as. Just help someone in need. It can be a tiny deed. As tiny as an unconditional smile! You will feel yourself elongating your natural self a bit to the positive side. This is what it takes to be human in the social sense, which is a degree higher than existing just as a natural phenomenon.

This is the alchemy of love. Make it an essential ingredient of your thoughts, feelings and actions. You will be minting gold I tell you.

Love: The True Destiny

 

If you define yourself by the external factors around you, you surrender your destiny to the outside forces. If you identify yourself with your true self, your soul, you instantly take charge of your destiny.

God was hammering down nails into my wooden being to shape the box of my destiny. I but kept on crying with pain and cursed Him for his mercilessness. My prayers egging Him on to toil more on my behalf and all this while I thought He was deaf.

Making is a bit painful buddy, but believe me every nail writes the script of many-many pleasant moments in future. Pain is never futile. It’s always a box in the making. And was creation ever devoid of pain, sweat, labor and suffering? Ask a mother who gave birth and brought up children if you need further explanation.

The storms that strike against the planking of your ship are just simply elements of ‘making’. They are the ones that define the journey. They are as important as the steam in the engine.

Now I see the beautiful artwork of the box and come to realize why those nails were hammered. It was all meant to see me home.

So love your struggles and efforts buddies. That is when you actually get ‘made’ into something substantial. During the so called smooth phase when the life is safely on autopilot, you just trundle ahead carrying your old self cocooned in the make-believe sense of being happy and content. But in reality you hardly move ahead during this phase. The routine just plods you ahead like an impassive dummy.

So be willing to accept your pain, suffering and struggle. It’s one of the best investments I know about. When you come out of the last dark hours of the night, believe me the sun shines resplendently like never before. After coming from the dark, you realize the importance of light. After tears, a smile acquires its sweetness. After pain you come to have a real taste of joy and comfort.

The so called rough phase is nothing but a passage to a better self at a better destination. There, if nothing else, your kind and compassionate self awaits. It dissolves all the previous bitterness. Bitterness gone, your regrets and anguish vaporize. You are then left with crystals of love. There cannot be a bigger reward.

The worldly replicas, which we presume to be achievements, will stay here on earth and will be recycled to five primal elements and so will the image that they defined in other’s eyes. But the footprints of love on your karmic DNA engrained in your consciousness will go with you in your further march to evolve supremely to submerge in the sea of ultimate bliss.

Accepting the fact of your loving self is simply acknowledging the march of your soul. Any conscious effort to continuously remind yourself of your inherent loving nature is as good as removing the road-blocks from the path of your evolution.