What Spirituality Has Taught Me?
Posted: Sunday, July 22, 2018 by Kratik in
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“Science asks us to prove,
spirituality wants us to feel.” The difference is small but massive.
You know, I grew up in a pretty
spiritual family and from the get-go, I was always taught that God was one, and
took different forms during various periods of humanity. Thousands of years ago,
he once came as Krishna, once as Ram, once as Jesus, once as Allah, once as
Shiva, once as Ganesh and the list goes on.
Right from how Lord Ram defeated Ravan
and came to Ayodhya, to how Ganesh got an elephant head, to how Jesus Christ
was crucified and was reborn, I was raised on their stories. To be honest,
Hanuman-ji was an icon or a superhero for me. However, in spite of all the
tales, the first-time spirituality really made sense to me was when I walked
into an auditorium in Pune and it changed my outlook, forever.
An ancient Indian legend says, “When
it’s time, your Guru finds you,” and He found me when I felt rock-bottom.
One of the first things I was
told was that religion is just a coating and the fruit is spirituality. What it
exactly meant was that one can follow any religion which he/she pleases because
they all teach more-or-less the same thing: love, respect, integrity, wisdom,
creation, transformation, maintenance and patience, and one must take the good
and throw-out the bad. I really connected with this very concept because it was
in line with everything that I had ever been raised on.
I also learned the five secrets
to happiness: living in the present, opposite values are complimentary, don’t
see intentions behind other people’s mistakes, don’t become a football of other
people’s opinions and the most important, accept people and situations the way
they are.
I thought accepting people and
situations would’ve been the toughest but to be honest, it was the easiest. The
day that you give up judgement and accept people and the situations the way they
are, you tend to make peace with this world. I taught relaxation to about a
hundred American college students and close to a hundred people who lived in
homeless shelters in Florida and speaking to them and knowing their stories was
brilliant. Now, there is a difference between accepting people for who they are,
liking them for who they are and letting them affect you. In that case, one
needs to communicate. Accepting situations was crucial too. One needs to see
the bigger picture and accept where he or she is now and how he can turn this situation
around into achieving the goal that he has set out to achieve. Before one does
anything, being real and accepting the situation is very important.
Not seeing intentions behind anybody’s
mistakes was a tough one and one that required dumping out the garbage. It
needed a clean slate and having been dumped by your childhood sweetheart, along
with screwing fifth semester engineering exams provided – even though I didn’t know
– that perfect opportunity to let go everything that I was holding on to. People
often think that the other person is doing something deliberately to hurt them
and this often is a product of overthinking. Overthinking happens when we
overanalyze things. In the past ten years, I have always wondered why people
think so much. Now, don’t be a fool and don’t let people walk all over you but
don’t be negative. Fight and fight hard when it’s necessary but see the good in
people. Even Anguilimala life was transformed by Gautam Buddha. Let’s be a
Buddha in someone’s life 😉
Life one of my friends says, “Trust
people till the time you can’t trust them anymore,” and like my Guru says, “Walk
with light feet and leave your footprints behind.”
People who know me, know that I
often talk about the ‘I don’t give a shit’ attitude and yes, that’s true. Now,
I do give an awful shit about what’s important to me but people’s opinions aren’t
one of them. If I am true to myself, to everyone whom I love and to everything
that I work for, what people think about me shouldn’t matter to me, should it?
In India they say, “What people will say has killed more dreams than anything
else,” and it couldn’t be truer. I was working as a sports journalist while studying
engineering and some of my teachers cussed me out on a daily basis for chasing
my dream, telling me that I am wasting my time. To see from their standpoint,
they weren’t wrong. Any sane person would think that I was wasting my time
because I was studying engineering but going around town covering national and
international sports stories. There will be a time when everybody will call you
crazy, but you need to believe in yourself, believe in God and trust that only
the best will happen to me. It’s incredible what disregarding people’s opinions,
faith and self-belief can do,
‘Opposite values are complimentary’
is a difficult one to explain. Let me give you a personal example. When I had
first started working as a journalist during my days of engineering, I began my
work full of excitement and enthusiasm but as time went on and it became a
little mundane, I stopped enjoying it as much. I mean they were 16-hour days
everyday but what can one do; I had a crazy engineering schedule, I was writing
two, maybe even three, stories a day, and I tremendously needed a break. So, I
took a few months off and started heading content writing for a cricket league in
India and I realized that after the break I had, I began enjoying writing about
sports and analyzing games once again. It’s funny, isn’t it…one loses enthusiasm
if he keeps at it for a good period of time. I guess that’s why vacations and
breaks from work are so important. Last year, I climbed a mountain. It was madness
but it was brilliant. I came back buzzing and glowing!
After knowing and practicing
these four pillars early on, I still hadn’t experienced ‘living in the present’
all the time feeling. I am a dreamer and my mind would oscillate between the
past and the future, many a times, and that’s when I received the golden words
from one of my spiritual teachers. I heard him say, “When you’re in the present,
smiling is automatic.” As I listened to that I was like, “Why not flip it?” Why
now smile all the time and see if it helps me live in the present? And it
worked. I smiled and I started living in the present. Obviously, there are
things that still take me back to the past and I think of what’s going to
happen in the future but it’s not as much as it used to happen. It’s been a
fantastic transformation.
I would often joke with people
that out of Brahma (creation), Vishnu (maintenance) and Mahesh (transformation),
transformation was my super-power. Spirituality installed such self-belief,
confidence and faith in me that I thought I could achieve anything. Thus, journalism,
sports marketing, working with Indian soccer teams as a sports analyst, Ireland
and America.
I have learned a lot and clearly,
this is not it but let’s leave the blog post here. I got an early start tomorrow
and I need to go to bed but I thought I’d scribble something that brings about
gratitude.
Let’s win every day and give our
100%!
Good night, people.
Love,
Kratik
