Saturday, December 14, 2013

Detachment and surrender...

A few days ago mom happened to tell me that it was easy to speak about the Maarjaara tatva or complete surrender to God, but difficult to actually follow it. Similarly I have often - for lack of a better word - romanticized the concept of detached attachment. To be there in situations but not get attached or affected by people and circumstances.

Many a time, life presents us queer circumstances which we may encounter for the first time, where so many aspects of our character are tested. Patience, response to stress/pressure, emotional reactions - the decision of guarding them or not, so on and so forth. I remember a dialogue from a film that 'response under pressure is the best judge of character'. Though I don't think there is a one-size-fits-all sort of  a advice, I don't know why this line usually comes to my mind when faced with, say, what I think may be a tough situation. And again how 'tough' a situation is also subjective. People react to instances based on their own life experiences, their past, based on accounts from others in their family or their circle of reference. Should we judge someone or something based on trace elements of similarity with an encounter or an experience in the past? Perhaps not. A point in time like this may be where we listen to a higher force, intuition, or the inner voice; some of us may resort to prayer, some others may just know the right thing to do and they may do it easily. 

However, what I am learning, with each passing day, is that people will do a lot of things. It might be an unthinking, flippant act, or premeditated. One may react or feel a myriad emotions even or just a couple of significant ones. Blood may rush to the head and we may be able to hear only that noise loudly in our ears. 
And perhaps one of the ways of redressal is to spend time with oneself and accept what we are for who we are first. Identify our own failings, our responses under pressure and try not to be acidic in self criticism and forgive ourselves first. Thereafter one may reconsider and revisit decisions. And I definitely believe if one can be honest to oneself first and never compromise on knowing the truth about oneself things could be easier. 

A journey called a lifetime. Several paths, crossroads, dead ends and intersections, highways and flyovers, speed limits and speed breakers. And choices. The learned know what lies in the end. And they say that we know about the things that were truly worth it, only in the end. If only we could have the wisdom early on, things'd  be simpler. 

However, maintaining a graceful bearing, poise and dignity is paramount to me and my upbringing.

Life. And learning. Or so they say :)

I am trying to see and learn how it is to walk the talk of detachment that I romanticize about. Would that hurt people closest to me or would they understand, I wonder. Of course to even get to that zen like state I guess I must be some sort of a yogi :p


6 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is the interesting post indeed. But the detachment and leaving the control is not possible unless we know the higher truth that we are not in control. We are all not acting separately from each other, we are all one being, entire human race is one singular expression of universe, we no need to bother about how to respond to other and no need to learn either, because that happens spontaneously.Anger,depression,irritation all are expression of universe and other people are just mediator to that. Once inner aspect is changed, Universe re-organize itself in such way that those people would be replaced in our life. And according to the decision, decision is not something we are taking, it's something which has been set in our lesser consciousness level even before we are aware of that, we are merely experiencing those decision.

Padma said...

Hi Chinmayi,

How r u?Writing to u after a long time.
I am blogger Pattaampuchi alias Padma from Bangalore.
I am in Melbourne now.I just happened to miss Ilaiyaraja sir's concert in which you participated too.Booked my tickets for the concert and I had to transfer them to my friend since I went out of station for a month.When my friends and other bloggers who were lucky enough to attend told me about the concert,I came to know what I missed.I wish I was there to enjoy the Maestro's uplifting music and who knows maybe a chance to introduce myself personally.When I came to chennai,you were off to Hyderabad for shooting few years back.I missed my chance back then too.My all-time favorite "Avaram poo" of yours is travelling with me everywhere till date.
Hope you forgot that Japanese translator recruiting issue with my Japanese Sensei.Mentioning this incident to kindle your memory about our interactions only.
If possible,would love to meet you when you find time and when I am back in Chennai.
My heartfelt regards to your mother.
All the best.

Regards,
Padma.

Sri said...

Wow! Can't believe you wrote such a deep post at such a young age!

"response under pressure is the best judge of character"-so true...we are so often reactive without thinking for even a minute..

Kathirraysen said...

Great! It could be related personally to each person reading this article.

Sowmya Gopal said...

'Would that hurt people closest to me or would they understand, I wonder' - Be warned, this is extremely difficult, especially if were not 'detached' before and have set certain precedences. To have a clear, smooth transition, you should be willing to accept that certain people would perceive this as you not caring about them anymore and you should be able to make your peace with it.

Anupama said...

Thank you Chinmayi!

What you have said about redressal has stuck a chord within me. Sometimes we set too high standards for ourselves and put ourselves under constant pressure to outperform them.
When we fail to do it, we start looking for reasons outside- like my boss could have listened to me when i told him, or that my senior could have taken up more responsibility, etc. But the answer has been staring at us all the time. We could have said a simple NO or could have been more communicative about our work pressure and tried to get additional help.
I agree, knowing our limitations can help us.