'It's not the weight of the load that breaks you, it's the way you carry it.' If you were going somewhere by train, when you board the train, would you continue carrying your belongings or place them in the luggage compartments? If you had to carry a backpack plus two small carry bags, would you put the backpack on your back, & have one small bag in each hand, or carry all three bags in one hand? Or perhaps the two carry bags on one shoulder each, & the backpack on your head? 'It's not the weight of the load that breaks you, it's the way you carry it.' Of course, the logical way to carry stuff is to: 1. Evenly distribute the weight 2. Put it down whenever possible! Photo courtesy of Aditya. Any experienced backpacker, hiker or mountaineer would tell you that it is also important how you arrange your belongings in your backpack, to avoid unnecessary strain on your back & shoulders! How does this metaphor of carrying luggage relate to our daily lives? Whenever we are facing difficulties in life, does it not seem like nothing else matters, & the weight of the whole world is upon our shoulders? We tend to think that our problems are the biggest, most important, most unsolvable & complicated problems in the Universe, & that no one else has problems as big as ours! If you look back on things, how much of this is true, though? We managed to solve them one way or another, & in any case, were they really as big a problem as we thought them to be? My dear friend & teacher once told us the story of his grandmother who lived through the 1984 Sikh Massacre. She saw her husband being murdered in front of her very own eyes, & later on single-handedly raised her young children. According to Deep, she was a very strong woman, both physically & mentally. Growing up around her, whenever there would be an argument within the household, everyone would get worked up except her, & she would simply wave her hand & say that these arguments are all small matters, & it's all nothing. Now every time he faces a problem, he remembers her voice, 'It's nothing! Enough now!' & just laughs at himself. Dear friends, most of us have led such blessed, easy lives which we tend to take for granted. My father always says, 'without thinking skills, thinking kills.' The mind can be either a problem-solver or a great enabler in over-thinking. It tends to want to focus on the problem at hand; which is not a bad thing, but there are two lenses which we can use to focus through: 1. Focusing on the problem itself & why it happened to me, out of all the people in the world, what were the causes, how it is negatively affecting me at the moment, how it will negatively affect me in the future. Basically the whole 'woe is me' mentality. 2. Focusing on the problem itself, what I can learn from it, how I can grow out of it & what active steps I can take to remedy the situation & hopefully avoid encountering a similar situation in the future. Both require equal amounts of energy. The only difference is that one just goes around in circles, whereas the other provides a way out. Sometimes, the answer is right in front of us. But the mind doesn't always allow us to take the easy way out. It enjoys being overly active. It always wants to revert to its old pattern, because that doesn't require any effort, although it does not bring happiness. It does not want to change because that requires moving out of its comfort zone. It is difficult, arduous to change its age-old patterns. Another thing to realize is that at the end of the day, you are not in control of anything! If you look back at the movie of your life, everything that happened, happened for a reason - both the good & the bad. Even the bad, because without them, you would never have discovered your strengths! In fact, it is the combination of the good & bad times which have moulded you into the person you are today! When you truly understand this, you know there is an imperceptible force guiding you through it all...then what else is there to do besides have a good laugh? Because you've either been holding all your bags in one hand, or sitting in a train with everything on your head! The Universe always has your back. You just need to know when to put down your bags & rest!
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19/12/2017 One of The Greatest Gifts You Can Give Someone is Your Understanding of Yourself.Read NowA few days ago, this old blog post of mine popped up in my Facebook memories. Dear Soulmate, I believe in living in the present But I can't deny that I am also an accumulation of my past. Although sometimes I wish I could erase it It has taught me a lot. Sometimes I wince at the thought of the old-me I would never wish the her on anyone, much less you. I hope you understand that although the past may sometimes fuck me up It has made me the woman I am today. I have multiple battle wounds & scars Some put there by others, some self-inflicted. I know that these have nothing to do with you Yet more often than not the internal battle is a tough one. I hope you will forgive me when I sometimes lose these battles I know it is unfair to you, my beloved. Believe me when I say I am constantly working on them. Some days I am all sunshine & unicorn glitter Other days I am a dung beetle pushing rhinoceros poop around. More often than not I'm a tornado & I will need your quiet wisdom to calm the storm. I don't want my idea of you Neither do I want to assume you will remain the same person forever. I want the you when nobody's watching The you underneath the layers society has ruthlessly blanketed you with. I want the real you, at each & every moment Even if the real you changes over time. For we are both organic beings Constantly changing, transforming, evolving. I will love you so much If it weren't for your physical size, I'd potentially accidentally squeeze you to death. I can be extremely forgetful But you will always be in my heart & on my mind. I will randomly annoy you, either on purpose or not & make you wonder how the hell you got yourself into this in the first place. Despite all this I will not let you be less of the person you are. Although I love nothing more than To stare at you unblinking with eyes of adoration. I will call your bullshit when I see it. I will push & shove you if you need it. I refuse to settle for anything less than the best Even when it comes to you. Because if there is only one wish I could make for you It would be that you never stop growing. & I hope you will do the same for me too Even if that means we may one day part ways. (eeleeong.blogspot.my/2016/12/dear-soulmate.html) When there is love & clarity of being, everything flows smoothly. I emphasize on 'clarity of being' because many other things tend to hide under the guise of love - jealousy, sentimentality & possessiveness, to name a few. & if these are not present, without clarity of being, even too much love can be a problem! Loving from a space of clarity does not mean that it's all rainbows & stardust 24/7. I beg to differ. Love which runs deeply can also be ruthless like a sword. Out of compassion, the path of least resistance has to be taken, even though it may be extremely painful. An intimate relationship is a partnership in which both are committed to their own personal growth. Relationships are not bad. In my experience, they are the fastest way towards knowing who you are & what you are about. This year, I discovered this stunning poem by Rumi: Surely there is a window from heart to heart: they are not separate and far from each other. Two earthenware lamps are not joined, but their light is mingled as it moves. Oh, what profoundness in just four phrases! Truly, this is the master at work! Photo by Gaurav Shukla Two lamps, each perfectly capable of sustaining themselves, but as they come together, their individual lights blend effortlessly, in fact, it is impossible to stop them from merging, it is as natural as the sun's rays reach for the earth...yet! Regardless of how much they mingle, at the end of the day, they are still independent of each other.
& so it is with all relationships. But first, each flame needs to be shining brightly & strongly on its own. One of the greatest gifts you can give someone is your understanding of yourself. When a lotus seed is planted, it goes through days, even weeks, of darkness, then the first sprout breaks through its shell, & moves upwards, through the murky waters, against gravity. It does not know about the existence of the sky, it has never seen sunlight, nor heard the whispers of the birds. It has never felt the lightness of the air, nor the swaying of the gentle breeze. But still it moves, unperturbed, drawn upwards by unseen forces, until one day it breaks past the water's surface. & look what beauty comes out of this! Dear friends, any growth in life requires a certain amount of faith & discomfort. It involves a certain amount of fear too - & why not? One has never experienced such a situation before, so it is natural for the primal instinct & mind to demand security & control. But how much is too much? How much of our fear is legit, & how much is just the mind playing tricks? The mind is a master at playing tricks. It can create all sorts of doubts, just for the sake of avoiding something. Even when the facts are being presented right in front of our eyes, & the mind has processed it & knows it to be the truth, it is still able to conjure up its mischief, to escape the truth, no matter how absurd its actions may be. If we are determined to grow, we must be willing to go through some degree of not-knowing & discomfort. I'm not saying that one should become a masochist & go looking for discomfort or become an absolute knucklehead! We merely need to re-wire our brains to see these two elements in a different light. If you look at it logically, the unknown & our discomforts are what made us who we are today. When we were babies, the issue was, ‘I can’t crawl,' I do not know how to move around.' When we tried to get on our knees, we kept face-planting, 'This is new & strange to me,' ‘I keep hurting myself. This is a painful situation.' But we kept at it, & look at us now! Through discomfort & exploring the unknown, we learned how to overcome obstacles in life, thereby gaining new abilities & skills. If I told you, the number 8 has a certain fragrance to it; would you believe me? Mere jaan, life is an ocean of bliss. But if one is not willing to open one’s eyes towards this bliss…
Kya karun, mere jaan? Just like the lotus sprout had never seen the sky, how does one know what the possibilities are in life? If someone told you there is a chance to live life at a higher state, would you even consider trying it? If someone said that life could be more colourful, more joyous, more celebratory...would you believe them? Life is what you make out of it. Life is always a choice. At each moment, there are two options: am I going to languish, or flourish? Am I going to react according to my old patterns, or am I going to consciously make an effort to alter them? Am I okey staying in my comfort zone, even if there is no growth happening? Or am I going to take a risk to derive a new & possibly better result? & if I want a different result, surely the course & direction of my actions must change? Everything could be working in my favour, but at the end of the day, the decision lies in my hands - am I going to languish or fluorish? This changes everything. Mere jaan, the sky awaits. |
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About Prabh LehriI am a yoga teacher based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I am passionate about yoga as a form of healing on the physical, emotional & mental level. I have been on a yoga journey for almost a decade and have been formally sharing my experience in the last 4 years. Archives
December 2017
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