Rising Above

Hey folks, hope y’all are enjoying your Monday thus far. Things have been the same for me, and to be honest I’ve been starving hard and consistently to work on myself and make myself better. As I was pondering and still figuring out my ways, I came across this magnificent speech by Gaur Gopal Das on Youtube. He mentioned that we must be driving this particular car throughout our lives to lead a happy life.

So, here is CAR - and the acronyms for this vehicle are a little different than what we know. Here C stands for change. He said that we gotta be very comfortable with change in our daily lives, and of course almost all of us have been acquainted with the saying that change is the only constant in our lives. Maybe it’ll be prudent enough to be able to accept change as and when it comes. Next, Das made a reference of acceptance and noted that acceptance is the very heart of spirituality and we must be able to accept all of that we cannot change. 

Regarding the “r” in Car, he revealed that it could be bifurcated into two parts - the first one being removing yourself from a situation, and the next r being rising yourself up from a particular situation. I guess as the headlines aptly signifies and you must already know that I am particularly drawn towards the latter r, and sure I’ll come to that. But before that maybe I should elucidate a bit on the former, where he talked of removing oneself from a particular situation. 

Now, for sure if you do find yourself in a situation that’s causing you stress or is turning out to be toxic for you, if you got a chance maybe you can choose to opt out of it. But, honestly, how many of us have that option in real life, also because we’re aware that life isn’t meant to be a bed of roses, possibly which is why we gotta accept our situations and perhaps move on ahead. But does that seem to be the only choice? Is moving on the only way forward and can we really swear to God that we’ve been operating with so much unattachment that we would probably never encounter difficulties while having to move on? 

Hmm, for a lot of us maybe not. This is perhaps why Das spoke of this second r that talks about rising above. Rising above doesn’t necessarily have to mean that you belittle those under you, it means that it’s time that you get yourself to understand that there’s life outside of your circle and that you must choose to see outside of yourself. Easier said than done? Believe me I was thinking of the same thing. But, what I’ve noticed over the years is that there is a certain level of peace and happiness that you discover within yourself when you get there. And, sure it’s difficult to hold onto that state. 

Having professional/relationship issues? How do you transcend them? Is that even feasible? Das says yes, it is and it’s a continuous process that we have to practise and develop amongst ourselves to be able to see the bigger picture, to make ourselves understand that all of the misdeeds happening to us are temporary, they shall pass and that we must not under any circumstances descend from our thought process of rising above. 

There was this anecdote that Das mentioned in the video where he was in Manhattan and there were these huge high rises around him, that looked so giant, and when he boarded a flight the very next day he could see the same high rises appeared to look so tiny. It wasn’t that the high rises had increased or reduced their size, on the contrary it was that he had risen above all of them. 

I sincerely hope to wake up to a day when we are able to realise this potential within us, bask in the glory of that knowledge and stay there forever. Till that day, we gotta practise and practise, no rest for us there. 

Image courtesy: Greyerbaby on Pixabay