I NEED THE WORLD

The world doesn't need me; I need the world.

I was talking to Rekha yesterday. She teaches in a reputed Management college, and she has been a very popular faculty among the students. She has made a conscious effort to go beyond the text books, organise special sessions and camps for their self-development as well, she has kept in touch with several of her ex-students through e-mails and her blog. They look up to her, seek her advice. And, for Rekha, helping her students like that comes naturally. That's her second skin.

"Many call me to be a training faculty, particularly for the corporate training," Rekha told me yesterday. "They try to lure me with good money; but, I tell them that I am not interested. It hurts them, and they even think I am crazy."

Rekha, like most of us, began with the same 'search' -"How to make it 'there'?" And, like most of us, when she made it there, she found it was all a mirage. She would always 'miss' it! But, unlike most of us, she realised, that she did not have to search any thing 'out there' ... that, the search light had to be turned within ... that, there was nothing wrong with the world, but in in the eyes that saw it.

She quickly began to 'simplify' her life ... drop the illusion that she had to 'fix' the world. She began to appreciate her 'vacant' time, for the first time - without feeling guilty about it. Loss of money did not threaten her; the old age and sickness - failed to intimidate her; the ailing parents were still the same ... she knew every thing would be taken care of, with out she having to bring down the roof.

Yes, Rekha had found her anchor in the timelessness of spirituality.

"When some one talks about all the personality development stuff, I simply do not get moved, no matter how many people turn up for their programme, and no matter how many millions read their books. What moves me is a simple story of how one became the change one sought in others, how he remained integrated till the end," Rekha told me. "Rest, for me, is just like any other business."

Integrity. Oh, that gap!

I can never find another test as challenging as this one.

Jesus Christ is all beautiful, so nice ... but in the Bible, from the pulpit. But, the moment He comes in your life as your husband, father or brother, I am sure, you would nail Him, again.

Probably, to me, too - for uttering that blaspheme!

"What anger-management? What Success?" Rekha asked me. "It is all so superficial, for me. There is some thing so simple yet so profound ... and we, in our race and rush, are completely blind to this."

How can we see it, when the search light is focused outside - 'out there'?

One blind man can not lead another. Nor can one unhappy man make happy another.

True, The world doesn't need me; I need the world ...

Because, the world is within me!



GERALD D'CUNHA

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