A moment of lucidity...

          I was standing by the bus stop, like I do every day of the week, waiting for my office bus to come. To be honest, I was becoming a little impatient and badly wanted it to come as soon as possible, so that I can escape into its quiet air-conditioned space, away from the dust, heat and chaos that seemed to swirl all around me in that corner of the street. 


          The road in front of me was teeming with faces, making me feel as if half of Hyderabad has converged there. Though it was just ten in the morning, most of them already looked tired and weary. But in most of them, I could also discern a sense of quiet determination and a steely sense of purpose. Each of those faces, I surmised, must be clothing a mind, preoccupied with the intensity of their own narratives. And as this idea developed in my mind with all its implications, not only did I find it a revelation, but also redeeming!


          In a flash of a moment, I realized the complete fallacy and sheer absurdity of my self-pity, bitterness and a sense of betrayal with which I was approaching the many things that were happening around me. My helplessness was accentuated by the fact that there was little I could do to change or alter the chain of events, almost bordering on insanity, I was finding myself hemming me from all sides. Though I resisted every attempt to give into a sense of despair and dejection, a feeling of rancor would swell within me whenever I would dwell on the unfairness and unjustness of it all. 


        But on that morning, in all that chaos and confusion, submerged in an unknown crowd of humanity, a calm and contentment descended on my mind. And in that moment of unexpected lucidity, I realized how foolish it would be to depend on things, people and situations to make me happy. How futile it is to expect this world pulsating with a few billion souls, all entrapped in their own stories of woes and worries, to single me out, a puny speck of an individual, and relieve me of all my imagined feelings of pain and hurt. Every moment I loose in feelings of resentment and indignation, I have failed to appreciate the beauty and joy of life itself. The greatest miracle I have always held is to be alive and feel the throbbing force of life coursing through one’s veins. What can be more beautiful and exhilarating than accepting the incredible blessing of life itself with all it has to offer? 


       In the end, I realized, it’s a lonely world. And it is only up to me, how I choose to make the best of the time allotted to me by the unseen hands of destiny. At times we can choose the things we do, and at other times when there is little we can do, we can still choose the way we react to the things that happen to us.


 One alone is responsible for one's state of mind. No one and nothing else matters. 

उद्धरेदात्मनात्मानं नात्मानमवसादयेत् |

    आत्मैव ह्यात्मनो बन्धुरात्मैव रिपुरात्मनः ||

One should raise oneself through the self,

and never lower oneself;

For the self alone is one's friend,

And the self alone is one's enemy.

Bhagawad Gita 6:5.