By Maharshi Sanket

I hadn’t been very well for many months and recovered recently. I lacked energy and a schedule, aspects of life that I thrived on. Fretting, I began finding ways to cope with this reality. Eventually, I realised I was missing the idea of succeeding. This situation opened the doors to discovering life through different perspectives.

For a while, I turned to different religions. While I explored Sikhism I began experimenting with the message-‘Nirbhau, Nirvair’ which meant ‘without fear, without hate’. To live with this approach I needed to observe my emotions about situations. So I began learning to do that. Emotions that I never acknowledged began to surface. Anger, fear, and sadness to name a few. I learned how to meditate. That allowed me to view my thoughts and emotions from a higher perspective instead of a perspective that called for a reaction.

I began spending some time at the Ramana Ashram in Tiruvannmalai which believes that the self is supreme and neither needs an instructor nor an evaluator. Self-reflection is the key to self-discovery. One day an Israeli visitor asked a senior office bearer of the Ashram if she should perform any puja to ensure her family’s safety during the war that had erupted. The office bearer responded. “Resign to fate.” It was a message for me as well.

How would I resign to fate while seeking success? How could I live without fear and hate? What is the point of all of this? These experiences left me with questions. While recovering I was observing my days and what they meant to me.

I couldn’t help but wonder about what I’d like to fill my days with once I completely recovered. My mind told me many things and I went back and forth with different options. Each option had two facets namely experience and the reward. I needed to enquire about how I felt about each facet. I began taking each day more slowly…

I chanced upon ‘The Monk and the Riddle’ once recommended by a well-wisher. “Passion pulls you toward something you cannot resist. Drive pushes you toward something you feel compelled or obligated to do. If you know nothing about yourself, you can’t tell the difference. Once you gain a modicum of self-knowledge, you can express your passion.”

What have I been passionate about? And what have I been driven by? As I began reflecting on these two questions, it dawned on me that the most honest answers were the ones that resonated with my nature. External factors like money, power etcetera had little meaning when looked at through this perspective.

The confusion I harboured about what to do with my time began eroding. The answers were simple as long as I answered them for myself. Creating a life while making a living seemed less daunting now.

I needed to choose what mattered to me and let everything else be secondary. This began allowing me to free up my mind and my time. It wasn’t important to be busy anymore.

However, I did feel a sense of disappointment about the time I lost due to my illness. What was it for? Why did it take away my time? What did I gain? I would have to start from scratch—a blank canvas. The loss of control over my own life made me question everything. Why do we do the things we do if it’s all going to go away? I found it hard to swallow this pill of life. It felt no less than failure.

“For some of us, Silicon Valley’s forgiving attitude toward failure rests on a more profound realization: Change is certain, and in a world of constant change we actually control very little. When there are important factors outside your control, the risk of failure always looms, no matter how smart or industrious you are. We delude ourselves if we believe that much of life and its key events fall under our control.” The Monk and the Riddle p151

I came across a short interview with Niren Chaudhary, the father of the late Aisha Chaudhary, who passed away due to pulmonary fibrosis, which was a side effect of the treatment she had to undergo for SCID. He spoke about learning to accept the inevitable and having the serenity to accept what one cannot change. His words came from experience and I trusted them.

I realised I needed to learn to accept the inevitable and be able to forgive. It isn’t easy, of course. Bouts of anger, resentment and sadness keep coming my way. As each day passes by the only realisation I am coming to terms with is that learning to forgive allows a sense of contentment to emerge. The past withdraws, paving the way for the present.

I made an entry in my notebook “While aligning what one does with one’s nature it is likely that the circumstances could prove to be rather chaotic for it is in the chaos that the relentless spirit finds the condition to create a new reality for the soul. Life is transient so is reality. One reality can give birth to another. It is in this pursuit that one thrives.”