WHATEVER CAN HAPPEN, WILL HAPPEN
Pic.: Vinita Mantri Gopal
Young Murph: Dad, why did you and mom name me after something that's bad?
Cooper: Well,
we didn't.
Young Murph: Murphy's
Law?
Cooper: Murphy's
Law doesn't mean that something bad will happen. It means that whatever can happen,
will happen.
No matter I much I write every day – yes, on being
positive in life – belly-laughing doesn’t come to me easily. Tension does.
Worry does. Fear does…
“Come on Gerry,” I hear some of you telling
me already, “don’t’ tell me that!”
My friend, I am telling you exactly that…
That, I write everyday this stuff – on being positive, productive, good and
giving in life – just because I want to beat my own blues all the time… Not
only the blues, the blacks, the grays, the greens and those reds, too… God alone knows from which land do they come to tense my muscles, numb my
heart and take the laughter out of my soul…
I panic easily… and, I am telling you the
truth.
So, yesterday was a ‘bad’ day… In the morning
I got into some nasty argument with someone… It spilled into my work… In
addition, an uncertain outcome of a certain event was weighing down upon my heart with anxiety and irritation… and, leave alone laughter, even a simple
smile was not coming to me easily…
But then, that is a very familiar territory
of mine… and I do find my own ways to get out of the dark clouds… Happily,
almost always, I do…
Around 4 in the evening, I called my wife
and said, “Let’s watch Christopher Nolan’s space-movie, ‘Interstellar’.
Everyone says it is great movie.”
Thus, we ended up watching the 7 p.m. show
in the nearest multiplex….
Tension was slowly dying in me…
“The head was meant to perform ‘higher’ and
more ‘nobler’ functions,” on Sunday, my Tai Chi teacher had told me, “Dan-tian,
the place right below our naval, is our ‘second brain’. It is the most powerful
point in human body… It helps the body align to its centre of gravity… And most
of us are not aware of it. If we bring our attention to this place and let it
perform our routine functions… like speaking, eating, working, studying,
problem-solving, worrying and fearing... we will feel more centered, more at
peace…. Mind will, then, be able to perform what it was meant for!”
Well, of late, I have been bringing my
attention to that second brain which is housed right below my belly- button.
Yes, it works wonders… Dissolves tension!
Inside the movie-hall, right in front of us, two young-girls
were seated. They were doing exactly the opposite of what I was doing… They
seemed to be cracking some wild jokes and causing riots of laughter in each
other… so much so, that when we stood for the National Anthem, one of them
could control herself; the other couldn’t…
The man next to me was itching to say
something to her… I could sense his urge to ‘preach’ her a lesson or two on
patriotism… I could, also, sense her urge to contain the laughing gas in her
mouth… My attention went to my own dan-tian – the ‘chakra’, the wheel, right
below my belly-button… and I was feeling happy, relaxed… a lot playful and
silly like those young-girls…
“Jaya
hai… Jaya hai… Jaya hai,” I was able to
sing in true spirit… I could sense the victory over self...
“Why do You give me these ‘bad’ feelings –
of worry, fear and tension?” Like the ten-year-old daughter asked her dad, in
the movie, I, too, sometimes, ask God: “Why have parents named me after
something that is bad – Murphy’s Law?”
“Murphy's Law doesn't mean that something bad will happen.”
God, my Father, gives me the same answer, “It means that whatever can happen,
will happen!”
There is a centre of gravity up there in the Universe…
which holds all things together… and runs them smoothly…
There is a centre of gravity
right down here below my belly-button… It holds all things together in my inner
Universe… and runs them smoothly…
To laugh like those
young-girls - in the thick of seriousness or call it tension or grumpiness - I
know, I should laugh from there…
Yes, from ‘there’…
GERALD D’CUNHA
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