Art Of Living - part 3

Apart from all the aforementioned, we had a beautiful session of philosophical discussion.

He mentioned a few points for a blissful worry-free life.

•Opposite values are always complementary. There’s a good side and a bad side to everything. Its important to realise that - denial will get you nowhere. It’s up to you to choose the right path.

•Don’t be a football of other’s opinions. Bawa called a guy in the audience an idiot. He obviously jumped up and started swearing at him. Bawa laughed and said “How do some words said by me, which only caused a vibration in the air and struck your tympanum, cause so much distress to you? You don’t even know me! I’m a stranger you’ve met. How come I affect you so much already that you lose your temper for me?”

•Prioritise things in your life. It is the only way to avoid any confusion at all.
And a million more points but you’ll have to attend the session to experience them fully I guess!

He also talked about theology and its origins.

The sacred colour for Hindus is orange and that for Muslims is green. How do you figure out why that is?
The Hindus are known to have come from the woods. To assert their positions to other Hindu tribes, they could not very well put up a green flag to show their position. Red obviously means danger. Almost all other colours of the rainbow are too dull. Orange was their only option.
The Muslims are known to have come from the deserts. Remember the Arabian Nights tales? The brightest colour in a desert, the one colour every traveller is alert to is green since it signifies an Oasis. Thus Green became their chosen colour.

The 2 points I mentioned above may seem very dull and insignificant to some. And they probably are if they hadn’t had such a subtle moral underlying them. One would think the Arabian Nights were only for reading pleasure, who would ever have thought of their historical value? Everything in the world has its own value. I’m terrified of lizards but they’re the ones keeping my house free of insects. People hate studying math at school but they do love counting their money.

We tend to think of many things in life as necessary evils and thus, burdens. What we don’t realise is that these burdens may be the ones pushing our backs down, but they’re also the ones allowing us to look at things that we think are below our line of sight, not important or worthy enough of our attention. Everything can teach you a lesson, if only you allow it to.

If you hate anything in your life or are annoyed by it, it is only because you let it do that to you. Take a subject for example. I never liked history in school. I don’t think it’s because the subject is boring, history is a story, and I love stories. How could I have hated it then? - Simply because I let everyone tell me that it’s not worth my time or attention.

It’s a good thing to hate someone also. When you hate someone, you do your best not to become like them, to differ from them in every possible way. You strive to bring out the best in you, if only to avoid being like them.

At the end of your life, you are who you chose to become. You might think some people were necessary to moulding your character, but they were never the potters. They were, perhaps, the force of the potter’s wheel but that’s all.