Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Dr. Yuvraj Kapadia: Our responses to situations

We understand all about our response to situations and how our responses actually crack our life for us. Let me share with you an interesting insight...... you might not be aware but if you look at the three basic truths which govern our existence on this planet, they are as following:

1. Duality – where there is pleasure, there will be pain; where there is love there will be fear; where there is joy there will be sorrow; where there is right, there will be wrong; where there will be correct there will be in-correct; where there is fun there will be boredom; where there is nice there will be ugly; where there is white, there will be black; where there is light, there will be darkness. This isn’t a good thing or bad thing; it is one of those truths of our lives. Show me one person in this universe who has not faced this. You won’t find anybody. Every game has its own inherent set of rules. There isn’t a game that does not have its own set of rules. For example, if we talk of cricket, then it has a basic rule that there are two sides playing against each other. There is also a basic rule that one team will bat while the other will bowl and field and vice versa. So, if one has to enjoy the game, then one must know the rules and play by the rules. For example, if both teams want to bat first then, the game won’t be able to be played. Every game for the pure enjoyment of the game needs to be played with the right rules. One of rules on earth at the moment is duality. It exists, we can’t run away from it.

2. Linearity – as in linearity of time. So there is a past and that past has a definite impact on the present and what is being done in the present has a huge impact on the future. So, I am what I am today, because of a variety of things which happened to me, maybe when I was a child or while I was growing up and that has now fashioned my response and depending on how I am responding today, my tomorrow gets fashioned. No running away. This is why we are coming across to you so very powerfully with this concept: change your response, change your response… because you cannot change your past, but if you change your response today you will be almost certainly guarantee that you will be able to change your tomorrow & you would like that.

3. Rationality – this is uniformly true for everybody. For example, yesterday I went and touched a hot vessel and my hand got burnt so today, my rationality and logic tells me that I should not visit the fire again, because the fire will burn me. So, based on the experiences I go through in the past, I rationally come to conclusions that influence my present, which in turn becomes the yardstick for my future.

Now if these are the three rules of life, then to crack these rules and enjoy the game there are three suitable responses. So, what should be your response to these three things? If you were to make your life work and if you have understood that your life’s success is about your response, then for these three rules, there are three sets of responses.

So, response #1: Everything in this world has its own inherent value. If I were to ask a question to all of you, if I give you a stone or a chain of gold what would you select? I am sure, more than 90% of the people would select gold because; in their minds gold is value. Think for a while. Suppose you want to dig a hole in the ground, how valuable is that gold? Zero! You might sell it to buy a stone, but eventually the job is done only with the stone. So, the key take away is everything that exists on this universe has its own value and one’s wealth gets determined by the recourses one has, to execute what one needs. So if I want to build a house, then the resources for me are cement and stone and that is of value. Gold just becomes the means to getting that, gold itself is not the resource. I can have all the gold in the world, but if I cannot buy stone and cement with it, then I am very poor because I can’t have a house with it. So, everything has its value. If you keep that in mind, greed will disappear from your life.

Response #2: Every human is unique and you cannot change him or her. Every single person on this earth has come for his or her own unique experience which may or may not fall in line with your chosen paradigm of existence. Not necessary. You must understand that every soul has the inherent right to pursue its path leading to its fulfilment. So the moment you understand that, you will stop judging people as good and bad. You will stop judging their responses as right and wrong simply because it is their chosen experience and you are nobody to judge their chosen experience because, if God does not judge it, who are you to judge it?

Response #3: The doer in you must embrace the duality totally... the observer in you must watch the duality totally. This also means that as a human being, since you have come here to experience emotions there is no running away from emotions. So when you are experiencing joy, experience it fully, but don’t get married to it. It is the experience of that moment. Similarly, if there is a situation which gives you sorrow, which gives you fear, understand that in that moment you need to experience it, experience it and immediately change your mindset to the fact that there is a benefit and automatically the emotion will disappear and there is no need to get married to it.

If you keep these three things in mind all the time, consistently, #1 you will fulfil your basic aspiration of being a human who has come here to feel, #2, without taking away from the pleasure of the feelings, you will be empowered enough at every of point in time through your intellect and through your response to supersede that emotion and to seek the best response for yourself at a given point of time. Finally #3, becoming non-judgmental of people around you, will naturally have people becoming non-judgmental of you. That finally is what each one of us are looking for.

At core level we all wish to be loved and accepted for what we are and not what we have to become. Just think of it. How would your life be if you were loved for what you are … I love you … enjoy yourselves…

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