I don't need no education! I don't need no thought control!
Well these words are true as uttered and understood aren't they. Like that, the most valuable lessons in life are self taught and not preached by others. Just as the moment of truth requires some time to sink in, its also invariably the case with our ability to overcome.
It is usually seen that once, we experience triumph, the endurance of its process overwhelms us and so does the fear of adversity when we begin enduring it. Its a very Zen philosophical sort of style to convert fear into respect and I actually see it a lot in the Japanese way. As a culture they are known to be obnoxiously up nose in self comparison with others. But their demeanour is quite the opposite. Closely observing them one realises that they wish to fall in love with you. But that is in fact like their version of the Stockholm syndrome. Its their version of sleeping with the enemy. Drawing examples from the Mahabharat it will basically mean repeating that episode where Krishna advises Arjuna to nurture fear in his heart cause fear is in fact good. It helps you to assess your enemy and you end up respecting yourself. The bottom line being respect to others is respect to your own character. It makes lot of sense as its just speaking of general calmness and civility in the face of a not so welcome anticipation of our immediate future. Also phrased as consequences of our actions. (In this case concentrating on negative action, so as to grip our conscience, otherwise there is no need for conscience.. really!)
For example lets look at men. There are different kinds of men but they all give that look because they have to look. Its in their character when they see a good looking lass… its like a natural instinctive reaction screaming selection of the perfect for breeding the next supposedly near perfect outcome. I meant the child and not the orgasm silly, whatever! but looking at these encounters of the close kinds also, we see men who follow the Zen philosophy and carry on doing what they have to do but they don't feel the need to wear their instinct up on their sleeve. These guys are actually comfortable in their skin and thereby giving respect knowing the immediate reaction. Why should the reaction have to be negative is what you must be thinking… no I did not mean that but its an acknowledgement of the carnal to call it the least. What it means is what it means but in this instance no one had to make an all out effort to express.
Well at times I see a temperament in people who quite clearly divide their conversations in zones. There is peace time and there is war time. In a war time situation, some of them perhaps feel the need to go out on an all out war of words. Quite interestingly it happens in the corporate world very often. Here the only way to diffuse a confrontation is to comply even if you don't want to, but keep looking the other way or just deny your compliance and see it as an act of god. But when individuals who on non compliance to their wishes resort to arguments I have seldom seen people stick to their ground. This is perhaps because individuals at the receiving end are in fact scared to loose their own cool. But not only in recent times but as always, in any argument where I am sure of carrying a certain conviction, it has certainly not been easy for my adversaries.
The beauty of all such encounters is that if someone at the other end continues with their calm insistence it does tick off some crazy response. The toughest of samurai killers did practice the crudest of activities in their calm. In todays world where we choose to give up the way of the muscle to a higher cause we must also realise that not raising ones voice also delivers effective results in the most cornered of situations.
Earlier speaking about temptations of the otherwise getting the better of us, whenever I see the movie Gandhi it keeps reiterating when Baa says that he had in fact failed to give up celibacy thrice, in his own quest of some kind. So even the most powerful fail but its in fact our resilience which is culpable of swinging both ways and it decides if our character ultimately is embraced as popular or fallen from grace.
My resilience certainly swings both ways, yet I choose to acknowledge, to do the least! And yes I too have fallen from grace many a times and I learn from my fears, while I respect from my conviction.
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