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Questions to me
This post is just a bunch of "I" s. Warning: I am not responsible if you have same questions in your mind. I didn't read your mind or steal your ideas. If it resemble your thoughts it's sheer coincidence.
1. How to know not a person and still be a friend?
2. How to put a decent distance in friendship, remain unaffected and still enjoy friendship?
3. How to stop getting frustrated and remain unattached, remain emotionally unemotional and try to arrive at clear perspectives and turn arguments into healthy conversations?
4. How to listen without interrupting, when the conversation is not going your way and you badly want to interrupt and give your side of it?
5. How to convince yourself that honesty is still the best policy even when people might tend to take you wrong?
6. How to be bold enough to say what you feel, when people around you might turn their mighty nose on you and find it improper?
7. How to stop going out of the way to help people, the same set of people who hesitate to help even if you are not out of their way. Is the expectation wrong or selfish? Helping should after all be selfless and expecting a reciprocation beats the cause.
8. How to avoid talking in circles? How to be blatant and tell people straight what you want?
9. How to stop putting others before you and start to think of you before others?
10. How to stop adding a 10th question just for some reason to make the post feel complete... Like rounding to the nearest whole number. How to break the preset mindsets?
Please help me, guide me to find answers for questions that I keep questioning myself but never found a solution. I tend to switch back to my old glorious ways. Maybe after knowing the answer I still might stick to my old ways.
4 Candles:
Some one asked me a similar question 12 years ago. And this was my answer.
----- Original Message -----
From: Uma
To: RAMKUMAR R S
Sent: Friday, October 18, 2002 10:06 AM
Since you have talked about spirituality, can you please tell me...all these spiritual books or whatever I have read so > far..advocate working detachedly....I am not talking about expecting results...I am talking about the involvement...everywhere I have read that one must be a seer...observing everything...taking part but not getting involved...I hope you understand what I am trying to say....how does one achieve that..can you elaborate please ?
Thanks and regards
Uma
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Hi Uma
Most Spiritual texts are quite misleading, mainly because there frame of reference is much larger than ours. Take for example detachment. We generally understand it as "taking part without getting involved". A literal implementation of this understanding leads to a fatalistic approach. Sometimes it may even lead to lethargy and indifference towards our job or towards our friends and relatives.
But what detachment really means is quite the opposite. It means "getting so deeply involved, that the line dividing "ME" and "MY WORK" / THE OTHER disappears. An analogy here would help.:
There are three types of dance : One - Where you see the dancer , second, when you see only the dancing and the third level when both the dancer and dancing disappears and only the dance remains.
There is another analogy in the dialog of the film "Hum Dil Dhe Chuke Hai Sanam"
"Some singers sing from the mouth, most singers sing from the stomach, but there are very few singers who sing from their heart"
Similarly, when one is so deeply involved heart and soul in one's work, the DOER and the WORK Merge and only the Work remains.
A potter working on the wheel, a mechanic taking the last thousanth of an inch in a lathe, a Commando in a deep combat situation, a software programmer who is totally lost in the logic of the program being written, a woman making a KOLLAM at the entrance of her house early in the morning....
If we look within ourselves, we would easily recall similar situations in which we were totally lost in the work that we were doing, even if it had been only for a few moments or minutes at a time.
All that is fine you might say - "THAT IS DEEP INVOLVEMENT" - But how does it relate to DETACHMENT.
The truth is "Deep Involvement" IS= "Detachment".
Wondering HOW?
Attachment happens when there is duality. YOU are there and there is the WORK that you do. There is an attachment between the two. There is a HUSBAND and there is a WIFE and there is an attachment between the two. There is YOU and your FRIEND. There is attachment between the two.
But Take Hydrogen and Oxygen in water. They have lost their individual identity. They have merged their identities to form a new identity called Water. There is no duality there. There is only one Water. And hence there is no attachment between Hydrogen and Oxygen.
One entity staying aloof from the other, does not create detachment. It only creates indifference. Or still worse there is an attachment to the CONCEPT of being detached.
But when duality disappears in to UNITY, then there can be no attachment.
That is how "DEEP INVOLVEMENT" IS EQUAL TO "DETACHMENT"
The same principle can be applied to relationships as well. To be detached from a relationship, all you have to do is get INVOLVED with the other person, SO DEEPLY, that your "I" disappears.
Regards
Ramkumar R S
“But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your head even, you experience them fully and completely. You know what pain is. You know what love is. You know what grief is. And only then can you say, ‘All right. I have experienced that emotion. I recognize that emotion. Now I need to detach from that emotion for a moment.’”
Same for loneliness: you let go, let the tears flow, feel it completely—but eventually be able to say, “All right, that was my moment with loneliness. I’m not afraid of feeling lonely, but now I’m going to put that loneliness aside and know that there are other emotions in the world, and I’m going to experience them as well.” “Detach,” Morrie said again.
Mitch Albom, Tuesdays with Morrie
Thanks Ramkumar
Thanks for stopping by Kiran and for your comment.. long time no see :D
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