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Making Sense of : 'Being Seen'

5/18/2015

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Remember the first time we drew something  on a paper, as far as our memory can tell, we went to our parents to show it. ‘Look Mumma’, ‘Papa dekho’ maine kya banaya ( Look Papa, see what I drew!) And in return our parents appreciated us, kissed us, hugged us and we knew we were loved. That and more is what I call a human need to be ‘seen’, to be witnessed by someone.

When we grew up, some of our childhood needs stayed as is. What is different is our expression of that need. We still want to be seen as significant, as loved unconditionally and hugged tightly for who we are, but that simple pen and paper is just not enough. In the absence of close relationships, the world becomes our audience. And we compete with 7 billion people for significance. Why should the world care for us? Day in and out we want to show the world, our success, our talent, how smart we are. We are scared that otherwise, we will not be loved. Of course, not everyone does it to the same degree. And in the process of showing the world who we are, there is a possibility of losing people who could be the very witnesses to our life. Our best friends, that we haven’t spoken to in weeks because our time zones do not match and we are too busy. Our mother who cannot understand our work any more because we never had the patience to take her along, and she still stands there asking us the very same questions, that to her, are the only way to show love, ‘the food questions.’  ‘Beta khana kha liya? ‘ ( Have you eaten son? ’) Sometimes a partner comes into our lives and begins to witness us.  If we allow ourselves to stand still and be seen, those moments are the most cherished ones in anyone’s life. But then the anxiety seeps in and we are so scared to pause, to see,to be seen.

Work is meaningful, it is important and so is creativity. Most of us do not want to go back to the hunting gathering stage of civilisation. We all need progress. But these are vehicles our wisdom and awareness should drive. There are many of us who do not realise, that in between somewhere, we unconsciously board the bus of insecurity, a bus that we cannot steer. The bus that takes its own route, following the principles of an unaware aggregate, a route that appears safe but might just not be meant for us.

Most of us eventually want to go home,the one place where we are loved, are significant, are understood and truly ‘seen’.  But following the wrong Gods, we may never reach home.
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Making Sense of : Money

5/13/2015

2 Comments

 
On a conversation this morning. Making Sense of Money :

Money has always intrigued me. In my younger years, I desired it for what it could do, disliked it for what it made people do and absolutely despised it for what it, inturn, made some people become.

It would be foolish of me to question the necessity of the existence of money. We did live without money in a certain way and we can still live without it in very specific simple ways, but in a society as complex as ours that has a constant need to connect more and more, there is need for an exchange instrument. Currently money is the social instrument that helps us interact in our materialistic world. It is a sort of technology that has evolved over time and has proven useful. As long as we eat and breathe we need money , as a society, or something like money. So if man were only matter, more money should indeed have been the sole human pursuit.

The news, good or bad, is that man is both matter and spirit.

And the limitation of money is, that it can only be earned and spent in the materialistic world. It might serve, at best, an indirect purpose in the spiritual world, but many a times as we tend to use it, it proves a hindrance in pursuing something that is worth the while for the spirit.

We all need some money. It is the incessant ‘more’ in the money, something that has become the norm, which poses a huge crisis. Wanting ‘more’ than someone else is a whole new catastrophe altogether,for obvious reasons. And sometimes being too involved with money, we allow our spirits to go impoverished, which to me, essentially, is a lopsided human existence. Like any instrument money needs to be handled with care, used to it's fullest but kept short of addiction. We have to decide for ourselves. If our parents need a place to live in, buying them a home is as spiritual as it can get.  However, it is tougher to decide if the latest I-phone or that expensive car and yacht is worth the effort. We need to think if more days at a serene Darjeeling and Ladakh would do for us and should we let the universe decide on the euro trip or is the private chopper to Brazil more important than a week’s vacation with our parents in Kanpur.

If you love sailing on the sea, by all means go for that yacht, if there is a serious need for speed, of course that sports car is worth trying for. However, if you like your imagination to fly and taking a walk down the woods fulfills your spirit, maybe you need more time than money. If the smell of books is better than that latest Versace perfume, you need to rethink ‘how much money’ and ‘how much time’. After all, you need to read the books you buy too. Do you like the spark in the eye of a child that just learnt something new from you? Probably more than the auroras in Norway, maybe you need to work someplace, that allows you to work with kids, or spend time with your own rather than fund your trip to Norway. You might be able to go to Norway, none the less. The universe has its ways.

Money also does not get us any more real love than we give out in the world. The currency there is character and that is one thing money can’t buy.

Count yourself lucky if you can manage to have both the ‘ more’ money and the time to spend it for spiritual blossoming. Most of the times that is not the case. Such is life :)
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