siddhamarga

Don’t Waste Your Time Over Stupid Stuff

What is Life?

What is Life after all? Many before you, and many at the same time as you exist wonder about life. No matter how knowledgeable one is, or how wealthy one is, in every sense of the word; one thing sure strikes people who reflect upon life, that it is complex and many a times perplexing. Yes it is true. Life is full of challenges and paradoxes and yet it is beautiful. It is beautiful as long as you have learnt and if you practise the tricks to trick the unnecessary thoughts from your mind and heart to avoid the pain.

Though struggles and pain are inevitable in human life. They are also the manure for you to grow. But unnecessary pain that comes forth from petty issues don’t take you anywhere. You can well imagine the destiny of an insect, when stuck in the cobweb, are doomed to perish. Sometimes you will bask in the sunshine, sometimes you might wilt in the heat of the demanding situations in life, while sometimes you will go through tough metamorphosis to eventually evolve with colourful wings. But life is sure to keep changing every single day of your time on this planet. It is never constant. A person in coma is thought to be in a constant situation, but doctors keep nudging the person in coma also in the hope to shake the person out of that stuck situation. 

Your Actions: Basis of Your Life

The basis of your life are your actions. Each of your action is sure to yield a certain quality of result  whether pleasant, not-so-pleasant or horrible depending on the intention behind the action. Unlike the Siddha, who is free from the cycle of karma, each one of the mortals are bounded by the law of karma. Most of us do not have any clue about the intricacies of the law of karma. It is also not possible for most to perform any action in a way that would always yield a favourable result. It depends on a circumstance and different situations in life that one experiences either joy or sorrows.

Challenges in Life

Like a road, life has many bends. Each bend is full of mysteries and adventures. Challenges await each one of us in our day to-day lives. On one hand, there are varied emotions to take care of, while on the other side there are struggles to survive, thrive and fulfil our dreams. Added to that, are struggles related to our family and our contribution towards the welfare of the society. 

These very struggles also propel you to your progress. You know that exhilarating exalted state of your being when you face and cross-over a big challenge in your life, don’t you? This is the reason to set small targets in life and work towards hitting the bull’s eye. Life becomes a game that way where you must learn the rules of the game well to evolve for further journey.

These very challenges, that make life adventurous, become untieable knots when you loose yourself in insignificant matters. When you choose to lose yourself to the issues such as what constipated expressions your partner wear, particularly when you are happy. Or take example of an expert swimmer. One day, this swimmer was swimming in a wide deep lake. The lake was at least 500 metres wide and there was no exact measurement of its depth. It was deep blue in color, the likes of waters in Adriatic Sea. He chose this particular lake not for leisure but to challenge his strength and set a new benchmark for himself as he often like to do this since his early age. He travelled 6 hours to reach this lake to swim here. But today was unlike any other swim in his life. Suddenly fatal thoughts hit him while he was in the middle of the lake. He was already feeling tired. He suddenly realised that he is in very deep waters at this point. Will he able to make it to the shore?  Should he dive down and try to measure its depth? Such fatal and futile thought of measuring the depth of the water ran through his mind.

Now if this swimmer, howsoever expert he might be, spent his leftover energy in diving and measuring the depth of water, chances are he would succumb to the tiredness and confusion in his mind. Although, he came here to swim and set a new benchmark for him. Instead, he got lost in insignificant thoughts. Insignificant because for a swimmer, the deeper the water, the easier it is for him to swim. It was absolutely unnecessary for him to try to measure the depth of the lake in the very middle!

Stop Fighting for Stupid Stuff

Life is a long journey (if you are blessed with enough time on earth). 

Like in a perennial, heavy river there is infinite waters; similarly, there are infinite problems that we come face-to-face with in our lives. If you give great attention to smallest of ripple in your life, you would end up drowning in this dense pool of challenges life throws towards you. You got to become an expert swimmer in the ocean of life filled with small and big waves. Either you can choose to surf and swim through them, enjoying all the while and grow. Or you can keep using your life force to fight with every wave and crash one day. Because the waves will never stop. While you have limited life force and counted number of breaths gifted to you. An expert swimmer never worries about the depth of water. He trusts his arms and his skill and just swim through even the heaviest of rivers.

Each one of you is the swimmer in the river of life. Most of you harbor bitter differences over stupid issues with your family, parents, your friends, neighbours, people in your society….even with your lovers. If you reflect and search the reasons behind your differences with the people in your life; you will find that these reasons are utterly foolish and insignificant. It can be as petty as you don’t like your brother or your husband to leave the wet towel on the bed. Or not re-filling the ice-tray with water once the ice is being consumed. Or your parents asking you the same set of questions every time they call you. I won’t even go to the issues you have with your neighbours! You would see most of these issues are not worth your time! Remember, this life given to you is precious. Maybe you don’t realise it right now. Best would be to meet and hear out the experiences of the ones who survived fatal disease or fatal accidents in life. It will remind you of what you have is precious in your hands- Time of your life.

I would strongly suggest you (those of you who accept that you get disturbed a lot by other people’s behaviour more than other people do) to make a chart of each day. Note down each day, for a span of one month, that for how many hours out of 24 hours in a day were you sad over any kind of issue. And for how many hours were you happy. Analyse why you were disturbed or felt sad. Note the reasons and span of time you felt sad for through the day. You would soon know how much progress you are making in your life and what your future looks like. Reflect, how different your life would be at this moment, if you spent these hours into something creative or productive.

Does this mean that you overlook and ignore all the disturbing matters in your life? No. Definitely not. You would know better what to reject and which matters to devote your time to. You would know which issues that are actually petty and utterly momentary, which you thought were big enough, have made your life hell. So what should you do about this?

Be more aware in your day-to-day life. Be alert enough that when you see such a situation, where you quickly analyse, if the issue is significant or too stupid to sad over or feel worried about at all. Accordingly deal with it. The day you become both- aware and intelligent enough to recognise this trap, you will start exhibiting a strange tranquility unknown to many others. This is the beginning towards Siddhahood.