Gerald D'Cunha

  “Whatever you fight, you strengthen; Whatever you resist, persists.” Eckhart Tolle   B ad things should not happen to me… Unpleasant experiences should not come my way… Life should be smooth, predictable. Am I alone in this kind of thinking? I am sure, I am not. Most of us know, that Life is not always smooth and predictable… We do experience bad things and have to deal with unpleasant experiences. Yet, we desperately fight and resist the unpleasant situations in our lives. While fight we should and resist we should, it’s wise to understand the difference between ‘Life and the Life-situations’. Eckhart Tolle, in his book, ‘The Power of Now’, beautifully explains the difference between Life and Life-situations. As the ‘Serenity Prayer’ does, he, too, encourages us to recognize the situations which we are able to change – fight and resist till we succeed, and the situations which we are not able to change… let go (our fight and resistance) and simply accept. ...

“When the root is bitterness, imagine what the fruit might be.” - Woodrow Kroll W here does our bitterness come from? I think, it comes from disappointments, self-pity, blame, regrets, guilt, hurts, sadness, envy and anger. There is, always, a reason why we feel bitter in life – about situations and people. The only way to do away with this bitterness is to get in touch with the reason – the root cause, the source of our bitterness. Many a time, we are reluctant to get in touch with the root cause of our bitterness. It takes a great deal of honesty and courage to do that – to look in the mirror, straight. We would rather escape! But, by escaping, the bitterness doesn’t go. It stays back to become poison in our soul! I think, what we call ‘healing’ is the process of overcoming bitterness in life – the disappointments, self-pity, blame, regrets, guilt, hurts, sadness, envy and anger. I, also, think, we have been endow...

Pic.: Amrita Jeurkar W hen a friend of mine, wrote in one of the WhatsApp groups, last night, “Gayi bhains paani mein”, I wrote back: “Nothing is a waste in life… not even tears.” The friend of mine was referring to an uncomfortable situation, where, it seemed, the consistent efforts to come out of it had gone wasted… yes, my friend had expressed his dismay by saying… “Gayi bhains paani mein”. Apparently, one believes, that, once the buffalo goes into water, it is very difficult to bring him out. Well, the proverb may have some truth. But, I know, that, however difficult a situation seems to be – at this moment in my life - it is only a ‘life situation’… It is not my life! And, every situation, which is man-created, either by me or someone around me, ‘has to’ change as time goes by… It cannot outlive the creator! In the above situation, the creators were others… with some cruel intention. So, no way the particular situation could l...

Pic.: Dilip V. “ Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at this moment.” - Eckhart Tolle T hese words of Eckhart Tolle from his famous book – ‘Power of Now’- help me to calm down, become peaceful. The misery and suffering in my life, always, are in proportion to the resistance I throw to my life-situations. In other words, they are there in me because I do not accept the reality of my present moment. The more I spend my time resisting – blaming, cursing, self-pitying and resenting – the more I will experience the turmoil with… my misery and suffering. What Life has brought me right now is my reality. If I can’t get out of it right now, I must accept that reality and slowly and steadily take some concrete actions to come out of it… Yes, I should not lie passive, saying ‘God will get me out of ...