Marriage : An Everlasting Intention

Traditional Indian Wedding Image

What is the first thing that comes to your mind on hearing this word Marriage ?

Probably joy, elation, feelings of attachment to someone who would be there every time and everyday with you and is meant just for you, with the one you’ll rise every morning and go to bed every night, with whom you can share everything about your world and that is in your world which become our world .

Again the above thoughts are restricted for the first timers, i hope i make myself clear when i say this because it aches me to write an explanation for what i actually mean by first timers , or the fresh ones. Actually I don’t want to get acknowledged each day or to remind even you that its another one or am the second timer and i have no such thoughts as i expressed above.

The definition or the contributing thoughts that surround this word marriage for me now have changed immensely and its nothing like sharing – caring or great honeymoons or candle light dinners anymore .

I feel that the actual realization that has happened to me now should happen to everyone, the first or the second timers that is marriage is not only about the display of what  ‘I’ feel so that the other spouse whose ‘I” is less than mine should fulfill all the desires i have leaving himself or herself behind where gradually with time ‘I’ grows and monotony sets in for the other and conflicts happen where the other feels left out as his/her desires remain unfulfilled and even unexplored. therefore there should be continuous effort to explore the ‘we’ desires more and give space to fulfill the ‘I’ desires alone all by yourself unburdening the other for their fulfillment.

I think marriage is more about giving solutions rather than understanding the problems of the relationship, we often develop our reactions on pre assumptions, stereotypical thoughts about the other as we always think that “I KNOW him or her so its nothing different today”, emotional assessment of the situation how it affected me , ego outbursts, etc. when there’s some issue or conflict we are tangled in the problem so much that we only understand the problem and forget about the solution or the other things to weigh and value ‘my’ emotional hurt and my suffering much more than the problem, leaving no space for the solution . So its actually creating more problem , one must remain conscious to find solutions of the problem rather accumulating more of it.

I feel that when you are in a relationship or married it is important to always be aware of emotions that lead to major disasters, because it always happens that “I’ was hurt, my feelings were hurt, i wasn’t cared for, i was left alone, i was cheated, i was ignored all these feelings are natural and may or may not be caused by the other, so its always important to inquire that is it actually caused by the other,or  if its exaggerated, or how intense are these feelings, do you encourage them more. one must ascertain all these factors before breaking out from home or breaking the relationship.

marriage is about two people coming together to share their lives so its always important for the two of them to keep others at bay even their own family, friends and relatives when things concerned with their relationship are at stake, for that reason no decisions should be left to either of family members as it should done by the mutual agreement of the two and the couple must see that they are not intensely guided or lead by their families so much that it leads to conflicts and disagreement among them, after all its them who are in the middle of everything and its their life and nothing should affect or come in between their relationship to destroy their harmony.So a married couple should know who should they follow and lead by and remain conscious in their decisions and life roles.

The intention and thinking matters as much as the responsibilities and freedom in the marriage, where everyone has some prerequisite information that there are certain things which need to be followed in a marriage, some responsibilities and that there has to be equal space and freedom too even when all things are ‘meant’ to be shared, these are well common notions that everyone knows, but what I stress more upon, is the ‘Intention’ that goes into marriage when issues arise, in case of “what ifs” like the other doesn’t fulfill the responsibilities  or the other requires more space and time alone , gives priority to his/her career or goals more than ‘me’ or ‘my  home’ or ‘my family’, in  such cases disputes happen, so its important to eliminate these disputes by disclosing your intentions to continue with the marriage and relation no matter what happens , to reassure the other about your thinking and that these issues are very temporary and the factors harming the other are merely pretending to do so because the actual mindset with which you are into this marriage is only the truth that the other must know rest is fake and sublime.

A couple in the marriage or relationship must stand with each other in every problem or distress and must support each other with everything, for marriage is not only joy-some togetherness rather its assimilation and accommodation of  both the worlds that come in form of two human beings to come together to be identified as one whole .

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Are We Really Helpless

You must have come across or encounter events which may cause an upsurge of heavy emotions within. Often i see and hear in the media about certain tragic and painful scenes where there wasn’t a single moment of humanity captured. newspapers, internet, news, etc are filled with such events that are cause for concern where the world is grossly wrong and no one is spared of brutality and pain .

Few months back I saw Wiki leaks Secrets and Lies documentary on History channel, it ensemble’s almost everything that concerns the whole world. Such up scale, top secret and most anonymous details of war and global agenda’s put out at public disposal is something to cherish and fear about at the same time.

Of all what wiki leaks does and shows the world, opens up secret files where the cruelties meted by the one’s in possession of power and dominance upon the ones who lack it . There has been a tremendous recovery among the first world countries to reach for peace and power but all in terms of their own strategy’s and systems, where it overlooks the life of common people being crushed in the third world countries.

 Am concerned and immensely concerned over such massive and gigantic problems and issues that face this world, where every system is the work of the people in power positions and every action stems from the mind of the top bureaucracy. The war in these third world counties have had the most brutal attacks and killings done by the armies, where an order to the army to kill the enemy is one thing that follows the system of such wars, but an order to the army to kill the enemy among innocent civilians is another thing, where it always overlooks the people over the trigger.

 Among the Killings even the civilians are not spared , they have to wash hands off their life without any reason, just because they were present at that time and became part of that war uncalled and untold, its all in the Video that wiki leaks have exposed so far. Its not terrorists we are talking about but the armies who can control all the other variables in their experimental missions. Among all the killings of people as adults is painful to see, but what really pains and sinks my heart is to see the children, small and completely innocent being hit by big bullets and bombs.

 What sin did they do ? How were they involved ? Did anyone had no mercy before killing them ?

All these questions surround me time and again when i witness such events, ranging from ,the fetus abortions and killing ,or  be it the roman times killing of royal lineage children almost mercilessly, or the little girls and boys tortured and abused painfully. some of the incidents like these are plenty in number and range from almost every kind of physical or mental pain afflicted upon an innocent child.

 A child who is helpless, innocent, unaware and mean no harm to anyone can not even retaliate if someone causes harm to them. Isn’t this the responsibility of  the adults who run this world from beginning to the end to create a safe haven for these little ones to bloom and foster. well things cannot change but surely CAN is what i believe and hope for.

And I dont know whether to lament over all this or not as am not Helping it to change anyhow even writing this blog or post. I can rarely help these kids, and these issues are at such big levels and spread out in almost every corner of this world its impossible to reach there to help or intervene in such matters.

To feel helpless about not being able to do anything and moreover to feel sad for the innocents being victimized and their helplessness to overcome, traumatizes me a lot. The major portions in my thoughts is, these kids be it from anyone from anywhere, to help them to reach them and to provide safety for them is what i insist to do for the kids who are at least in my reach.

 Since time immemorial, children had been ruthlessly killed for they are visioned as successors and future enemies that need to be annihilated before they could rise to power.

 Actually Its Not about Power Its about FEAR , the fear of existence, and doom . The fear to save one life by killing thousands .And because today Humanity is just left for namesake so these, fear reins the heart of every grown up who wants to create a space for himself or herself to thrive. In the process to thrive and create their own niche,they overlook humanity, which is the greatest concern of all today. 

Separate those Emotions !

 

 

Emotions are the significant part of our very being or existence, we are thought inhuman less of our emotions.

But are those emotions so important, to let them rule our life ?

Many a times we stop doing things we like to do the most,like listening, viewing, blogging, surfing and much more. why, we dont exactly want to do anything that might make us happy and why is it that we wish to be with the same state of emotions that makes us unhappy, moody, irritable, and depressed for a long time. 

we may do so because nothing around is much attractive or fun its all the same, monotony the routine, nothing unique about it that may influence us or distracts our emotional state. In such state of mind and moods we do not love to meet, talk or be with anyone nor do we wish that anyone should come to alleviate the pain but our inner desire is that someone comes around who can listen and empathize with us.

 Unfortunately people are great advisers than listeners today, and since we have learned the bitter truth since our own evolution we no longer crave for attention from others anymore. which is why we love to keep on dwelling with our pain . which is indeed a good thing where we introspect our own self with its, emotions, thoughts, mistakes, griefs, guilt, pain, stress, hate, love, etc.

The focus is to keep dwelling in pain, is the feeling where one does it quite patiently to realize that, let the pain happen, give it space to feel free and let it open, and then separate it from your own being to understand the reasons of it alone, its finding your pain, through your thoughts and not through your own being. If am in some stress today i must find the cause and see it as temporary , it can never be a part of me for the whole life . the whole is my being my entity which i separate form the pain i have today . 

This separation of emotions is the only thing that can let you live years of life in contentment and peace. You can practice separating them by being conscious of your self in thoughts, decisions, behavior in form of actions and also the surroundings where people and things may affect you. Every time you are taken over by your emotions just be alert and conscious about the thoughts that run into your mind and what it triggers you to do next. 

As soon we are aware and alert we can exercise control over our emotions. This control over the emotions can make our life better and full of peace . 

Attachment is Evil’s Desire

Buddha’s 4 Noble Truths and 8 Fold path to Achieve and Adopt for Life..

Its a fight everyday, to sail through good and bad, is no easy task. One has to slip and slide in good times wishing that it remains constant and uninterrupted.

But to forget it as soon as the shadows of bad phase surface’s,  which puts on hold everything, you may think should stop or imagine has stopped, only to make you realize that now it will be a very long time and you cannot pass this that easily. Every minute seems an hour and every hour may go like a year when you happen to experience a bad phase of life and it may prolong for, hours, days and even some years.

What contributes to these feelings of good and bad phase happy or depressing is a much  deeper fact, where life is an unending journey of the human being who from conception to death has to suffer or struggle and manage it all in between, be it mentally or physically.

The cause of every bad and good in our life is because of one and only one reason that is ATTACHMENT. this attachment to any thing can stem from material or non material choices we make and even if it concerns to Human or any other creatures we feel attached to .It is therefore the core concern for the suffering that is brought unanimously during different stages of life.

The Need for attachment is in every sense fulfilling, realizing and relieves us from the sense of being alone and deprived of social connectivity. So in a way we are Dependent for our happiness, anger, love, pain, depression, death or life upon others , we just cannot refrain form this attachment the need to be dependent the need to have someone around us even if it makes us suffer or not.

This creates all the problem where a person can just not be attached with himself/herself and is constantly in need to belong to anyone anywhere. Our emotions are no longer controlled by us , rather we are tamed by the forces outside that recover whatever kind of response or reaction they want from us.

Beginning your day from getting up, even if you hadn’t slept the whole night, you make haste for work ignoring your peace ,you do the chores ignoring your health, you skip the meal ignoring your hunger, you reach on time ignoring your heart that runs fast and the list goes on where you ignore about “Your Self” a lot only to get along in the mad race to make others happy, to get that acceptance, and approval so much that this world runs everyday, to achieve those even at the cost of physical and mental well being.

As its known that death is a certainty and no one can overcome it, but still we run expecting that we will live to see what will happen ignoring the truth that our life is not our own, we have no control over it, so how can we let the others control what happens between life and death, it is the god who controls it so just surrender.

Its a pity to see people working all their life to collect more and more and one day their cord snaps away, the shroud doesn’t have any pockets wonder what will they take along with them. Nor you can take your property, your gold, nor money nor your loved ones , they dont die after you if you were to pass away or do they ? much rare it is.

The need is to see and feel that life is not to be wasted like this, it needs to be glorified by doing good karma and deeds that bring you peace and calm, a simple hour of meditation or feeding the poor kids can bring you a lot more peace of mind than sitting in the air conditioned room and watching the mountains through a glass window and not able to breathe fresh flowers or air. Its best to keep your control ie your remote with your self rather than giving it in the hands of all these . One must realize that their life is meant to be carried out all alone. As we tend to perceive good or bad through people, events or things we come in contact with, their attachment or detachment triggers the generation of certain emotions in us that we should learn to control and detach from.

On similar lines i recall the teachings of Mahatma Gautama Buddha who had attained this truth through enlightenment and presented the same as the four noble truths.:

The Four Noble Truths:

• There is suffering and misery in life.
• The cause of this suffering and misery is desire. ( Attachment as i see )
• Suffering and misery can be removed by removing desire.
• Desire can be removed by following the Eight Fold Path

 And that following the Noble Eightfold Path is the means to accomplish this.

• right view
• right intention
• right speech
• right action
• right livelihood
• right effort
• right mindfulness
• right concentration

The above mentioned teachings by Gautama Buddha if followed can create a harmony of the body, mind and soul. we have so much to look into to ascertain the real truth of life and the meaning of it, so that we all have a purposeful and peaceful medium to cherish our life as a whole rather accomplishing it in parts.

In our Upanishads, the Vedas,the Bhagwad Gita and many more, can lead us to self realization and attainment of enlightenment that would unleash us from the vicious cycle of life, from the fear of miseries,n attachment, unknown and death. There’s so much in this one life to know,that remains unexplored because we tend to run after a good package for a year that would suffice our lower order needs. And in the end after having done the normal routine work of your life that every other man or woman does, one shall die but there always would remain an urge in the next life or this life, as when shall we break free from this attachment and desires through Enlightenment.

Karma Decides Destiny

Krishna Enlightening Arjuna about his Karma to Fight the Mahabharata Yudh to Retain Dharma on Earth.

Understand about destiny , it usually means something which is predetermined , now what has been already decided, will happen or not, who will come to witness that, have you ever thought about.

Just imagine that If you want to eat a chocolate now, you will eat it if its there around you at home, or go and buy it from the market and eat it . But consider another situation where you want to eat it in the middle of the night, if the shops close at 1 am and you couldn’t eat the chocolate then you blame it on your destiny, for not being able to fulfill your wish, but you never realize about the circumstance s that you are already aware of and still act naive and blame everything on your destiny.

Destiny is almost nothing and just a meaning in the sense of being predetermined.

Rather destiny is what you create yourself with your own hands by choosing the KARMIC actions you perform all your life and this is your function , this is your role and this is what you do and should do all life.

Karma is our actions/ deeds and behavior that we do all our lives and this is what shapes and creates our future or our present. People often forget about Karma and believe in “Bhagya” in Hindi or Fate in English which gives rise to unravel ling the mystery of this Bhagya or fate in the Kundlis or Birth charts that again generate a cycle of going after planets, stars , signs and remedies to cure or even changing our fate, It is quite unfortunate to observe that people often waste tonnes of money in these activities and never ever realize that there is nothing that can be done to change anything about life it goes by your karma and not through destiny. They eagerly wish and hope for MAGIC or MIRACLES to happen that would change.

Very often we just cannot give up on accepting that there is nothing like unseen forces, power, rituals or practices that can change the way we exist . because we love  it so much being dependent, to be connected for our needs and wishes that whoever says whatever to us to create our destiny, we tend to follow them blindly overlooking facts and logic .

One more thing i remember is that only the people in distress or who believe in miracles, or who are weak spirited go for such remedies and practices, they do not believe in the power of their own karma . They override their faith,beliefs and consequences of their own actions / behavior that is their own Karma that they do .

Karma is only what you do or have been doing all this time long , it is what you Choose to do between good and bad, truth or false, happy or sad, positive or negative, accept or reject and much more , it is the Freedom we never think about while we make the Choice to do what we want to do , nobody has snatched that choice from us isn’t it ? Then the concern is if we are the ones who do everything who choose and make decision every time for what next action will be then how is destiny planned or predetermined and if it were be that, then why should we believe in it so much, where its us who has the Control. The destiny does not even help,hinders or defines or decides what actions we take, other than our own willingness.

So, We actually have one thing to do is help our destiny shape, the way we want or like it to be,  by being conscious and doing the right karma and forget about the results and surrender to the power of god and let him take care of it. We actually fear about so many things , the planets, the destiny,the kundli, the rituals and god that we actually forget about our KARMA . In this process we try to be gods because we wish to Control and Believe that our actions, our karma is predestined and it had to be the way it should or what these unseen forces want us to do is what we actually do.

This is not right as we are afraid to uphold the sole responsibility of our deeds or actions i.e Karma ourselves . As its always the individual who decides and make the choice and is the performer, so how can anything other thing, that will come later holds responsibility for the karma you do today. Its always your call to wake up or not, to perform good action, behave right and tread upon a value, virtuous and righteous path that is good for us and others as well and doesn’t harm anyone in anyway.

Its best to Love god and surrender to him and leave everything to him and just do your karma that is your responsibility alone, as Krishna says Do your karma and dont worry about the results, leave them to me.

Beyond Gender : Whole is more than sum of its Parts

 

Single Entity GAURISHANKAR.

Since Childhood I’ve heard these words but could never unravel the facts or forces that goes around them. I’ve been quite naive in understanding the true meaning or the essentials about, what embodies the concept of feminism or masculinity or gender as a whole in true sense.

Though i frequently used to use such words in my essays and writings ,depicting and relating  to empowerment of the womenfolk at one hand and how brave and courageous are men in history.

But I was never able to gauge the real essence of these words, even after having almost vicarious experiences when the very significance of my being a women was in question and how i was being afflicted by the masculine beings, in all this i never realized how should i explore or should i explore the feminist in me ?, to get myself upright against the men.

The search began in the troubled waters, and still remained unidentified for some time,in the mean time i was actually away from all the problems and deplorable conditions, and that too without any feminism that came to rescue me.

I actually didn’t needed any gender role to help me nor any special femininity, i discovered that being a gender is being average but being a human is being the best to solve life and its issues in an objective and Superior way.

Being in control of one’s gender or sex controls the problem solving skills and limits our conscience for taking decisions in an unbiased manner is what i discovered eventually.

Its been only when i was able to think conscientiously about the other gender in specific and its nothing i keep against my own but its a way to differentiate between what is wrong and what is right, not who is wrong or who is right . it is completely off the base for any gender .

I’ve come across many textbooks during school time that our societal setup is governed by patriarchal or matriarchal structure in different, different communities or castes, influenced and maligned by favoritism and subjectivity, with regard to issues and concerns, dealing with gender roles and responsibilities. In the same way the Family, Relationships be it boyfriend and girlfriend, men and women, among friends, sisters and brothers, others, have this prominence of Domination by any of the gender controlling and occupying the major portions of decisions and role- responsibilities.

Here such setups and gender variance have influenced the peace and harmony of many relationships and almost created a divide among the two, due to inadvertent behavior .

The focus which i imply for this is to think yourself as  “NON GENDER”, i know this may sound weird and obnoxious but here may be, the key to bridge every difference and resolve issues when it comes to relationships and love.

 But we can try to achieve and attain good positive outcomes if we connect with the human side of our being and not the gender.what happens here i shall explain..

” when you have a fight say with your spouse , you may think about the verbal or non verbal behavior that affected you , and how one could demean your status , you being a man or women , got hit on your ego, your thoughts, your decisions, your ideas, your actions, here everything relates to your gender “first”- you may cry being a women, or man, or even burst out in anger being a man, or a women, the two cordially relates to the first gender being talked about , the second one if displayed such behavior would in normal settings be disapproved of ” .

So the thin line here is to Accept the behavior without the gender in concern, moreover its for both to consider the actions and deeds of others and self in a non gender specific way , and find more reasonable and logical occurrences for issues.

I cannot refrain myself from relating an Ideal relationship of Lord Shiva and Devi Parvati who are above any gender and complete forms of each other..

Shiva is called the Ardhnarishwar, that is half man 

and Devi parvati as Ardhangini .half women.

They are Incomplete without each other, their form is complete only when the two meet and join to form into one supreme part as  Gauri Shankar.

Every relationship should aim for such togetherness idealizing Shiv and Parvati who are above any gender norms and form

to sum up i can recall another very great statement that has affected me for long…                     that “the whole is more than the sum of its parts”. as stated by gestalts applies aptly here.