Girish's Blog

  The Art of Forgiving Throughout life we face situations which are good and not so good and the human mind is such that it invariably remembers the not so good with great clarity. In fact, even several years later the wounds of any traumatic incident can be opened by the triggering of some memory. We carry such wounds deep in our psyche. If we want to get out of this hurt, bad memory, recall bad memory get hurt again cycle then we need to learn to literally forgive and forget all people involved in that incident. Invariably, we say we have forgiven so and so, but in reality, it does not happen, because the moment some incident triggers that memory you feel the pain all over again. What I have felt most useful is to forgive one’s own self. Because most of the time one carries the guilt of hurting someone or being the cause of some hurt but one never ends up forgiving oneself. The moment we forgive ourself at the soul level, we immediately feel lighter, like a load has been lift...

  Free Spirits From childhood we are told to do this, do that and so on – this begins at home and then continues in school, university and even after we find employment. These kinds of people are in the majority, they are the followers and do what they are told. The other kind are those who lead by example, they set the trend – they are free spirits. There are again two kinds of free spirits – rebels and leaders. The rebels too are leaders but they are anti-establishment and are a negative manifestation of the free spirits – we will talk about the other kind – the leaders, those who lead by example by setting very high standards in anything and everything they do. Such free spirits are honest, transparent and highly intelligent. They not only lead by example but also make it a joy for those who follow them. Such persons are unafraid of calling a spade a spade regardless of the consequences. In today’s world such people are an aberration and become obstacles to the general class...

  Friends as Pure Companions It is said that human beings are known by the company they keep. We spend some of the best years of our life with our friends in school, college and university. As we progress in life, we make new friends in our work environment. But truly the friends who last the test of time are those which we make in school and college. These friendships are based on a selfless relationship without the desire to take advantage of each other in any way. True friends understand your silence too and just sit with you in silence offering comfort just by their presence. They understand each and every emotion of yours and are there for you in the most trying circumstances in life, and their presence is just the balm required for healing wounds created by life’s journey. Friendship is a relationship of mutual affection between people. Even when we embark on our spiritual journey, we come across people who are so in sync with our thought process that they become our soul...

  Physical and Emotional Disconnect   Personal relationships sometimes evolve from friendship into something much deeper where emotions become involved and then love blossoms. I am not talking about friends who remain in touch in spite of living thousands of miles apart – I will write a separate post on friends later – here I am talking about friendship between male and female. An ordinary friendship flowers into love and then the heightened emotions lead to physical involvement. This is a natural progression in human evolution and growth – it has been happening since time immemorial. I have always felt that physical involvement without any emotional connect is just like going to the gym for releasing excess energy – in such cases why should two people get involved? I have a friend who fell in love got married and over time after becoming a father, his partner slowly started moving away to the extent of pushing him away. For some time this led to excessive drinking, going ...

  Acceptance   The first step in mentally coming out of any sticky, sad, or otherwise negative situation is to accept that it has happened to you. Many a times the question is asked, “Why me? Why does it always have to happen with me?” Under the circumstances the questions may be valid – but it just shows a lack of acceptance – and without acceptance there is no healing. When anyone asks me this, I counter it with – why not you? What is so special in you? This may sound heartless, but it is absolutely necessary to show the mirror and make the person realise that this is reality – it has happened with you, now face it and move on! Understanding is the first step to acceptance and only after acceptance can there be recovery. Whatever happens in this world always happens for a reason, much later in life when we connect the dots, we realise why certain things happened with us in life. But when the incident takes place, we are invariably at a loss and suffer its consequences. ...

  Tomorrow is too Late It is said that procrastination is the thief of time – what this means is that when you put off doing something which can be done now, to later and then the next day and the next and so on. Basically, you are cheating on time and time waits for no one at all. With every breath we take we are losing time as we get one breath closer to the end of the chapter. People who are lazy or plain simple careless do not bother about doing things when they are meant to be done. Sometimes this does not matter but sometimes the consequences can be disastrous. For instance, if you are not feeling well or someone in your family complains about their health, the normal reaction would be to visit a doctor or call a doctor home to check whether everything is fine. But if you don’t do that and say, ‘Take a, aspirin, crocin or whatever and you will be fine’ – then if things go south and the person’s health deteriorates then the guilt of ignoring the symptoms falls on you. Your...

  Is Life just about Emotions? We react emotionally to situations throughout our lives – but that is not just true of human beings but also of the animal world. There are so many stories, where dogs, cats, elephants, crocodiles, etc. show their sensitive sides and react emotionally by denying themselves food when someone close to them dies or falls sick. Rational thought helped us shape the world for our future: rerouting rivers, breeding plants, caging tigers. We now have two highly developed systems: reason and the emotional core still sitting there, like the primitive animal inside us. As said above, mental illnesses often result from an imbalance in those two. The distinction between man and animal is that man has got the capacity to think whereas animals do not have that capacity. From very early in life, in fact immediately after a child is born love flowers between mother and child, then if the child falls sick there is care and concern, which turns to worry and fear i...