Wednesday, April 5, 2017

on absence, love and relationships


Me, My Guru



Contd.....




“The biggest communication problem is we don’t listen to understand. We listen to reply”.  We listen in a defensive mode. And hence attack her words. Listen, listen and listen. This had been her mantra all these years. And yet we were in a hurry to justify ourselves and our actions. We thought she didn’t understand us. We thought “she didn’t live our lives and our situations and hence couldn’t understand us. She was judging us without being in our shoes. We were the way we were and we did what we did because of our circumstances and people in our lives. If only she listened to us!” It was always the same. Be it her or for that matter anyone in our life. We felt they didn’t understand us. And hence when they talked we automatically closed our ears to them. It was not like solutions were not out there for us. It was not like no one liked us. It wasn’t as if all wanted to hurt us. She had been telling us all this and more all these years. It was just that we weren’t listening.

I was walking on the road along the Dal Lake. I had my shikara ride. It wasn’t as romantic as it seemed in ‘Kashmir ki kali’ the famous Shammi Kapoor film. The lake itself wasn’t clean. It looked pathetic. I felt bad – for the lake, for the city and for myself. How we carelessly spoilt all things beautiful and given free in our lives. And to think we worked very hard for all this! Yes, it needed lots of efforts to spoil such a beautiful lake. We were ready to work – only thing is in the negative way. Somewhere, I could see the same reflected in my relationships also. I wasn’t putting any effort to keep it clean and beautiful. I was using it but my input was that of abuse. No doubt, it stinks few years down the line. And then I blame the other party for the pain in the relationship. Many times I had wondered if I had changed as a person after coming to Reiki? Now, I knew for sure where and how. I had let go of all the relationships that were parasitic and selfish to the core. Initially, I used to feel bad that I am letting go of my friends and family. But, what are friends and family for? If all that they contributed to was pain and suffering and abusing me in the relationship, then it was good to say ‘goodbye’ to those dead and deceased relationships. I didn’t explain myself or my actions to anyone. They would judge based on ‘who they are’ and not on ‘who I was’. So, it didn’t matter what they thought of me. I was free of these entire luggages that was killing me from within and pulling me down. These relationships have been my greatest teachers and they didn’t know what they had taught me. I graduated from their class the day I said “I deserve better than you’. 

My Dal lake was my own sweet heart. I deserved to clean up my ‘Dal lake’ and fill it with lotuses of love and happiness. I wanted to clean it up so I could see my reflection in it just as the mountains would reflect in the clear water of this lake water if they were cleaner. I kept staring at waters till late night.

Contd....

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