Monday, November 21, 2005

How to do the right thing effortlessly?

Sometimes I felt that I was not organized enough to handle my life. I forget settling my AMEX bill, my cellphone bill etc. I was wondering whether if it is possible to live in a state where you do the right thing every time effortlessly. Sometimes when I look back upon my own life, I hate to admit it, I get a unholy feeling that my life is just a random happening without any control. If I really look into my life deep enough it is only sane to conclude that that every thing that happens to me either good or bad seems to have a element of randomness. When I talk about an element of randomness, it is not necessarily an external event. Sometimes I feel my own judgments, emotions and the actions I take in a particular environment are fairly unpredictable. The really scary part was that since life is happening randomly, so is our happiness. As long as our happiness is tied to the external or internal life situations, our happiness can get only as random as our lives itself. At least that’s true for me. Sometimes I plan to do something and at the moment of decision or action, the same old feeling of ‘Can do it tomorrow’ comes and there goes my discipline down the drain. When I look at some of my friends who are I have to admit in more control of their lives, I cannot but feel jealous.
It was in this introspective mood that I was reading through the chapter on Karma Yoga from the Bhagavat Gita.
“One who neither hates nor desires the fruits of his activities is known to be always renounced. Such a person, free from all dualities, easily overcomes material bondage and is completely liberated, O mighty-armed Arjuna. “
“A person in the divine consciousness, although engaged in seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, Eating, moving about, sleeping and breathing, always knows within himself that he actually does nothing at all. Because while speaking, evacuating, receiving or opening or closing his eyes, he always knows that only the material senses are engaged with their objects and that he is aloof from them”
“A person who neither rejoices upon achieving something pleasant nor laments upon obtaining something unpleasant, who is self-intelligent, who is unbewildered, and who knows the science of God, is already situated in transcendence.”
I must say that the above lines are as enlightening as they are frightening me. But what I do feel convincingly is that this is the answer to the question: How can one ever take the right action every time effortlessly. Though I know the solution I don’t know if I can implement it. But for now, allow me to bask in the glory of the solution.
The reason why I felt so much effort in doing some things is that I have unconsciously classified the activities that I perform into ones that give me joy and the ones that give me boredom. It is this attachment to the activities that give me joy that I found it effortful to perform those necessary actions which happen to get classified as boring. I know I am using a discourse which is about the lofty problem of Self-Realization for solving my less-than-divine problem of procrastination. But still I feel that the argument holds: Remove your attachments, stop classifying the world around you as good and bad and you will feel that life cannot touch you. You can float around your day effortlessly doing what is required without effort and without expectation. This is indeed what was understood by me during the discourse at Isha Yoga program. This is path of Karma Yoga.

4 comments:

Fathima Sagar said...

I can also identify with this :"I have unconsciously classified the activities that I perform into ones that give me joy and the ones that give me boredom".
For example(examples):
1. I like when my mom tells me to sweep the house and hate the work when my mom tells me to mop the house. Its bcoz I feel that sweeping is easy but mopping is a hard work :)
2. I love to cook sweets but hate to cook everyday food.
3. I love to wash clothes. Hate to fold it.

Fathima Sagar said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Rams said...

I must say that u are getting amazing at the art of conveying what is in your mind.

Your posts carry an excellent depth. Good show.

An excellent post and you know what, it helps me a lot when reading this. Beauty. Absolute beauty (the verses from Gita)

kb said...

Awesome!!am gettin conscious not to fall in love with such a depth of ur perceptions of life & ur words...

As rightly posted earlier u r blessed with such a grt vocabulary..this for sure will make any weakhearted person to look back....so am i..

flattered for an effortless effort:-)