JAISI SHAKAL WAISI NAKAL
“All
colours will agree in the dark.”
Francis
Bacon
I just
found some pictures of mine with a group of students. The pictures are nearly
thirty-five years old. My first reaction, when I looked at those pictures, was –
“OMG!”
The “OMG!”, as you must’ve guessed,
meant this: “Did I look so bad?”
I remembered Dilip, who had clicked
those pictures. When he had clicked them, thirty-five years ago, I had reacted
the same way – “OMG! Do I look so bad?”
Dilip’s response was instant
and typical of him: “Sir, jaisi shakal waisi nakal!”
Dilip may have been my
student. But, his freaky response had an important lesson for me: “Hello, you will see yourself exactly how you want to see!”
If I have a healthy
self-esteem, then, I am able to appreciate what I see in my pictures. If not,
no matter how good the pictures are, I would always react – “OMG! Do I look so
bad?”
Thirty-five years on, I still
have some issues with my pictures – I never look good in them, you see… It’s ‘OMG’,
even today!
So, what are we supposed to
conclude? My thinking is filtered, distorted? Or, I should use filters to make
me look good in those pictures?
A few days
ago, someone sent to me an article about him published in his community
bulletin. In that article, he had been hailed as a hero, an inspiration to
people around him…
My instant reaction, in my
mind, was: “This man?”
Now, where was my ‘This-man?”
reaction coming from?
My filtered thinking,
obviously. I was prejudiced towards this person for whatever past reasons buried
deep in my mind… I did not like him; so, I would not like an article about him, either!
Funny, isn’t it?
By the way, am I alone
suffering from this disorder - of distorted thinking?
Hope not!
Long before I heard it from
the satsang gurus, ‘Jaisi drishti waisi srishti’, I had heard it
from Dilip, my own student, ‘Jaisi shakal waisi nakal’!
After all, we will see the
world, or ourselves, exactly how we want see… Don’t we?
GERALD D’CUNHA
Pic’s: pixabay
Video: Crunchy Fusion
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