Invoking Subtlety From The Challenges

“This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still treats each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight. The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.” – Rumi

When one is 40,000 feet up above in the sky, is when the enormity of those roaring words of wisdom make better sense. Perhaps, subtlety shows up its strength only when I am not dragged down by the gravity of my own past actions. Is life all about obtaining new and latest things inside my house or cleaning up the junk that already residing in it or combination of both, dominated my thinking. A thin book consists of remarkably impressive words of wisdom from many philosophical thinkers and a book titled, “Karna’s wife – The outcast’s Queen” written by Kavita Kane made my return trip home thoroughly enjoyable.

The philosophers of India always told us to treat the pleasure and pain the same way in our lives but here is arguably one of the greatest philosophers and poets of all times asking us to welcome a joy, a depression, a meanness and some momentary awareness with open arms. I always believed experiences in our lives are gifted to us to learn something out of them. But does receiving them with a right frame of mind give us the ability to change our way of thinking? Probably, yes.

Most of the time, I get bogged down by the adversities in my life and how to handle them without realizing those adversities themselves may be coming my way to reveal something much larger than what I am worried about. Should I search the meaning of my life within such adversities? May be, I should. Every time, I thought something big as this is unsolvable in life, it got resolved in ways that I could never imagine. I am beginning to wonder whether I assume way too much credit for what happens around me rather than watching what happens and how my mind reacts to such happenings. Being observant to how things unfold, what words are uttered to me as advise, how I perceive things as it happens, what impact it creates to me and others around me, is much more important.


Sometimes I am delving into dark thoughts that I keep in the chambers that are not accessible to anyone nor I am interesting in revealing that secret to anyone while other times, I am lurking in shame and guilt of what happened knowing that I am not at all responsible. While I hate evil actions of others, I carry malice in my own heart depriving a cleaner environment. Subtlety in life happens not by avoiding conflicts and pains but by facing and handling them with the courage and determination with full faith in one’s ability. Again, it is Rumi who said not to raise our voice but to raise our words as it is the rain shower that brings prosperity and not the thunder. Similarly, only a clear mind brings clarity and avoids confusion.

Inevitable negative emotions come to the surface from time to time and more than eliminating them altogether, it is how I handle them defines who I am. Accepting the reality, benefiting from clear vision and counting our blessings for the ability to handle them are three important elements in life. We have no control over the systems inside of us such as integumentary, muscular, skeletal, nervous, circulatory, lymphatic, respiratory, endocrine, excretory, reproductive and digestive, etc. and they all happen for our well-being automatically. We address them by external forces only when it is essential for our survival. Similarly, let things outside of us function independently until and unless it creates an impact in our well-being. Subtlety is something that already exists within us and all we need to do is to invoke to remove the obstacles we face in life from time to time.


Prayers could be a way people prepare themselves to face difficult situations and counting the blessings could be a way people humble themselves when things go right in life. Let us not look at the facade and instead look at the foundation that creates the strength to face life as it happens. There is no world without the pair of opposites.

 

Hi Rihana,

I am so happy to be back in Florida from oppressive heat and imposing schedule. Thank you for your first and excellent response about the choice of word. You hit the bulls eye. I get invariably humbled when I face adversities and subtlety shows up automatically. It is when I face joy, I fail to count my blessings. In both adversities and pleasant experiences, I either I take blame or credit as the case may be (assuming personal responsibilities) without spending much time on why such experiences I encounter and how my mind reacted to it.

 

Dear Sabitha,

I am so happy to be back and thank you for your wonderful feedback. The trip was very engaging. Difference is something only you can find and it is always hard for me to find differences in me as easily as others.

That quote from Rumi is extremely powerful and I am not surprised you went through a train of thoughts. As you can tell, that is precisely what resulted in this snippet itself. What a difference it makes when those experiences are with people who are the closest to us!

You and I think identical in many ways. I made the sentence initially as, "I am beginning to wonder whether I assume way too much responsibility for what happens around me rather than watching what happens and how my mind reacts to such happenings". Then, I decided to change the word "responsibility" into "credit" and what a difference it made to that sentence! Taking responsibility is okay but taking credit?

It is always revealing when I dig deep into me! I see many dark chambers that I have not bothered to put a candle inside nor I bothered to let anyone know about those dark chambers.

You are right! The second quote of Rumi resonated so well for me as well.

Viswa

 

Dear Smt. Jayasala;

Who can be better prepared to respond to this snippet of mine than you? I know you had faced considerable amount of adversities from a very young age and handled all of them with courage and determination. From what I understand from your previous snippets, you have not accepted "no" as an answer and put in significant efforts with the hope that life will change based on such subtle efforts. You have rebuilt the life of your husband with grit despite so many other responsibilities you were handling at that time with the help of your MIL. Your Sankalpa to set everything right worked well and you had the energy and needed outside support to achieve your goal.

You are so right about subtle clue, an inner thought paving way to tide over the crisis and later offer some solution which may even be in the form of another problem, leaving the old problem to disappear from the priority.

Observing all that happens around us and how we reacted to such situations and where did the energy for handling them came from, etc. are extraordinary experiences themselves. It proves that we have something in us that can handle everything we encounter in life.

Most of the tasks were completed during the trip to India and it was a very fulfilling trip.

Viswa

 

Dear Sri Thyagarajan:

Thank you for your response. Subtlety exists within us and once we face a crisis, it manifest itself with appropriate efforts from our end. I have read your dangerous situations with keen interest and how you handle them and certainly, they represent subtlety at its best. I assume you are referring to Smt. Jayasala's response and my response to her. She had handled most difficult situations in her early life than at least me and she would know this better than I do. I am humbled by your kind words.

Viswa