Learn from life

Approach experiences and interactions without judgment.

A friend who had travelled extensively in India said that beyond the clichéd postcard images of the country, what she took back was the Visit India tourism slogan, Atithi Devo Bhava. A line that very simply and beautifully extols the virtue that the guest is god. Or that anyone who enters your home should be treated with reverence and respect. In most parts of the country, she observed, one could walk in unannounced and be greeted with a cup of chai and a smile, and, more often than not, a meal. She told us that in the more affluent part of the world where she comes from, people were so cloaked in the notion of privacy that this idea was non-existent. In the rural communities we worked in, even the most cynical among us could not help but be touched by the openness with which families welcomed us to their homes. We were definitely happy ‘gods’ for a few hours!

Handling hostility

The whole notion of guest as god can be seen as a metaphor of how we approach life. In whatever role we are playing, student, working professional or homemaker, life presents to us a series of interactions and experiences. Often we find we have no control over the experience. The only control we have is how we treat the experience that is presented to us. We can choose to turn the experience away at the door by building walls of anger, hate, resentment and fear. Many years ago, in a metro residential complex, a small quarrel between two children escalated into a world-war-like scenario between the two neighbours. The families, who had shared both birthdays and loss, were now strangers to one another. The walls they built within themselves caused many more episodes of misunderstanding, and neither felt completely free of the other. Even in their deepest animosity, they were unknowingly attached to each other. The irony was that the two children, in a few weeks, forgot their quarrels and became friends again. However, by then, egos had ballooned to gigantic proportions and neither family wanted to take the first step to hand the olive branch.

The children, now in their teens, shared this story with us in a discussion on forgiveness. They said that they would remain friends and that the adults just needed to grow up! In our own personal experiences, we would have observed (always on hindsight!) that those experiences and interactions we turned away because of fears, were like guests who, turned away from the door, go away leaving both hearts feeling burdened in different ways.

The uninvited guest

In contrast, when we approach experiences and interactions without judgment or preconceived notions, we can discover a whole new way of opening our hearts to what is present. Recently, a friend’s son had a horrific accident at a birthday party. It was a period of great stress as physical and emotional scars needed healing. It was a personal lesson that the family taught me on how to really accept what is. Their entire energy was devoted to addressing the needs of the situation. Finding creative ways to keep the young spirit engaged, the initial shock had been transformed into a loving environment. At no point was undue energy spent on blaming anyone — by focusing on what was needed for the situation, they were able to find the strength to deal with what the situation required.

By channelising their own hurt and grief into something larger, they gave the biggest gift to their child. An environment where one could truly heal. The anger felt was later used constructively when the family communicated the incident to the community. The ability to transform the personal into something larger is certainly a gift. The attitude to this uninvited guest of experience was certainly an eye-opener.

Lifelong learning

The guests in our own lives come in the form of thoughts (most of them uninvited).Our attachment to these thoughts is often the foundation of our judgment and decision-making. To be able to stand and watch these guests visit the home of your heart and mind is a lifelong learning. One of the ways to do this is to engage and have a dialogue with people who have had experiences alien to your own.

A family friend, who had experienced the atrocities of war and then had his own personal battles in life which took him from depths to elevated heights, always said that there was something within him that believed in the innate goodness in people. He said that this one simple thought kept him going through his most trying times, and by creating this belief system, the universe responded. Angels in the form of good Samaritans would always be willing to lend a helping hand. Nelson Mandela, during his 26 years of imprisonment, spent mostly in solitary confinement, is a perfect example of how thoughts of the greater good can keep the spirit alive.

There are Nelson Mandelas all around us, and more importantly, within us, who surface when least expected.

A family I knew would always keep one extra plate during meal times. Apparently, it was a tradition handed down from their Irish grandmother. Her belief was that angels passing through might just stop by for a warm meal in the guise of an unknown guest! A beautiful message that one can not only use for mealtimes, but for life itself.

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