Kapil was looking visibly upset today. I thought it better to let him speak on his own so I kept mum. I knew that it was difficult for him to remain silent for long. He waited till we got seclusion at our workplace. He started at once.
Sir ! I want to ask you a personal question.Please answer it honestly .
Kapil , you are like a Betaal from Vikram & Betaal Stories , whose every question has to be answered by Vikramaditya. So, feel free to ask any question Mr. Betaal ! As for the honesty in answering is concerned, it has to be evaluated by you. Any way , what is your question ?
Sir , I rarely find you worried even during crisis , while I remain worried about smaller things in life all the time. Then , I seek your help to resolve them. Since morning , I have been thinking on this , then I decided to ask you directly the secret of freedom from worries. Please share your secret with me .
" Kapil ! You have raised a very fundamental question, which is also the oldest dilemma of mankind !There is one fundamental difference between animals and mankind , called Mind . Because of this , human beings get new problems and are also able to solve some of them . Each problem , until it is solved , causes worry to mind, rather we can say that , worry forces mind to find the solution.
Nature in its constant churning , gives mankind its daily stock of problems , worries ,new questions and paradox etc. The human mind in its constant endeavour to overcome them thinks, imagines, theorises its solutions, resulting in the development of science, technology, religion, literature, philosophy etc.
The relatively fast development of so many systems to tackle various basic issues related to human existence in last two centuries led to an unfounded belief that man can control almost everything in nature . But , every person at some point of life, is compelled to think that against the forces of nature , the man made systems are nothing more than castles of sand and life has more miseries than happiness. The Tsunami disasters in south east Asia in December 2004 and then in 2011 in Japan with nuclear disaster, record breaking floods everywhere and frequent Earthquake in many parts of world, are examples of this.
To answer this basic dilemma, that , who is more capable human effort or somebody else, every society got its own theories. Most of the philosophies ended on accepting the existence of a supernatural power which controls entire nature and its habitat including human beings. This supernatural power is called GOD in all religions. Except perhaps Buddhism, all religions believed in existence of God. And all religions developed their own system to deal with eternal problem of worrying human mind through this concept of God.
Sir, that I understand , but I wanted to know in a very simple way the secret of being free of worries.
Kapil , I was coming to that point but before that I wanted to stress the complex nature of your question. Let me make it simple. The freedom from worries is commonly interpreted as PEACE (शांति). Since eternal time, people have been searching this PEACE OF MIND. You cannot find it in any market. Further , even my telling you about peace , will not bring peace to you or anybody else.
The ancient Indian literature describes PEACE as SHAANTI (शांति) , which is loosely translated as the state of equality Sama(सम) and the reverse state is known as ASHANTI (अशांति) meaning Turbulence . Now , all of us know that this world is full of ASHANTI everywhere. The Indian religious literature simplifies it in this way , ASHANTI does include SHANTI , only prefixed A is to be removed.
Suppose , you need a glass full of water to quench your thirst, but you find yourself sitting near the sea-shore, wondering what to do with immense saline seawater within your reach but no potable water being available nearby . You need to first remove salt to make it worth drinking. Once you know the method to separate the clear water from seawater, your worries for clear water are over , not for once but for forever, because you found an unlimited water source.
In the same way, every ASHANTI has hidden in it an equal source of SHANTI which needs to be separated from its packing. Just as you are not going to use a soap without unpacking it , similarly Shanti or peace is to be found only from the packet of underlying worry or Ashanti only.
You may also understand it as a duality of electron & proton or coexistence of hydrogen and oxygen in water molecule , which require special efforts to exist independently. Further , peace has to have many forms just as worry has.
Is it not ironical that worry is a state of mind and so is the peace also and both exist together in the same mind ? That is why, like worry ,peace also has some adjective with it like world peace,peace of mind , internal peace, planetary peace( Grah Shanti) etc.
Therefore, you can understand peace in as many forms as you or anyone can think. Further one person's peace may be another's worry e.g. drinking wine, listening loud music, strengthening of army etc."
O.K. Sir, now I got your point. You want to say that to be at peace depends on one's individual attributes. In other words, every person has to find his kind of peacefulness by exploring into the causes of his worries. And nobody can help in this private matter , because peace lives alongside worry in the same mind. I also feel that one cannot follow the same path to attain peace as followed by somebody else. But still I would like to know from you how I can attain my peace .
" Perfectly understood Kapil ! The way to attain peace always goes via equally deeply disturbed state of mind and there are various examples of this, including the famous case of Lord Buddha. When worries attack you from all sides on a grand scale, you are bound to get the similar magnitude of peace also later on. It is said that the lasting peace is born from the womb of war only. We have example of Second World War , most ferrocious war in human history, resulting in the longest global peace period of 66 years till now and still continuing...
There is one more mathematical truth related with peace. Just as proton and electron are equal in an atom the peace or SHANTI period is almost equal to ASHANTI just as day is equal to night . These are just two facets of the time. Therefore , deep peace is attained only after undergoing deep turmoil of the similar magnitude. And after deep peace, the turbulence has to follow again in a cyclical manner."
Sir, that means that even trying to achieve peace is equally a futile exercise. It will come on its own at its destined time in magnitude equal to the turmoil preceeding peace. Do you agree with me ?
Absolutely agree with you Kapil ! Just as any kind of attempt to get Sun Rise before twelve hours from Sunset is useless, in a similar way , the peace cannot be attained forcibly before its scheduled time.
But Sir , intellectual people and many institutions go on attempting to bring peace in world . Why they don't understand the futility of such attempts ?
In our example of Sun-rise and Sun-set , the duration is small and every human being has seen it happening it thousands time , so nobody will believe in an early Sun rise. But the cycles of War & Peace are of long years , the minimum cycle being 30 years and its multiples, therefore, a person does not have much chance to experience it many time in life. That way , the authentic information on such cycles is not available , so people go on trying all the time . And when peace arrives at its designated moment, people say that it was brought by their efforts. It is like conducting an 11 hours-ritual after sunset to get a sunrise !
Then Sir , Is there any way to know the timing of peace and turmoil for human beings ?
Yes ! But now we end our discussion at this point. We shall deal this issue in next sitting .
