The dark side of competition

Once upon a time there was a wicked king. He was an absolute dictator. In his kingdom there were two men, they were real good friends, and only they had the courage to oppose him, so he ordered his soldiers to catch them and he put them inside jail and sentenced them to death. Soon came the day when they were to be put to death by hanging. They both sat huddled together and the hangman called out the first person's name. "Noori". The first person walked slowly to the gallows. "You are not Noori". "Yes I am not Noori, but I love Noori so much that I want to die before him".

Yes this is real love, this is how love speaks but just think about it - what are we teaching our children? are we teaching them to love?

The answer is NO. We are teaching them competition, we are teaching them ambition, we are teaching them politics. Some of you may disagree with me, you may say that no we teach our children that they should love others. But, have you ever thought about this. The entire structure of our education system is built on competition and not on love. When one boy comes first in a class, the other boy is told that he is lagging behind and this fellow has come first. So what are you teaching him, you are teaching him to compete and get ahead? You are teaching him ego, you are telling him that one who has come first is higher, and one who is behind is lower. One who comes first is awarded gold medals and merit certificates; he is garlanded and photographed, and others, who are behind, what happens to them. They are ignored & even insulted by the system by society.

So tell me in this way when the children are trained in ego, in jealousy and in competition, how can they love?

We are all trying to push others out of our way, we all want to go ahead, and we pull others back, and this happens in case of every person, right from the peon to the president. This pushing and pulling – this is nothing but violence. Look all around you, everybody's hand is at everybody else's throat.

We say that we are teaching sympathy and generosity but how can a competitive mind be sympathetic – it cannot be – the competitive mind is always hard & selfish. Schools and universities today are indirectly teaching violence and we call it education?

The real problem is that we have made success as the center of our lives. When dishonesty increases, we go on shouting and crying that dishonesty is increasing and become unhappy. But , as long as success is the only yardstick, lies, dishonesty, thefts are bound to follow. They are shadows of success. They cannot be removed. We become so blind in becoming successful, we can do anything to achieve success. Why do you think, even the best sports people resort to drugs? They are blinded - by hook or by crook they want to win. So, everything else becomes secondary. And we have been teaching this for thousands of years. But the time has come to change our old paradigm. Success is not of any value. Success is not a matter of great respect or honor. A man must be fulfilled, not successful. Success is not a destination, it is about having fun along the journey.

Don't help others

A small child was talking to his mother, and the mother said, "Remember always to help others." And the child asked, "Then what will the others do?"Naturally the mother said, "They will help others." The child said, "This seems to be a strange scheme. Why not help yourself, why make things unnecessarily complex?"

The world is full of miserable people & they are helping other miserable people, the blind leading others who are blind. What help can you give? It is a very dangerous idea which has prevailed throughout the centuries.

In a small school the lady teacher told the boys, "At least once per week you should do a good thing." One boy asked, "Just please give us some examples of good things. We don’t know what is good.” So she said, "For example, a blind woman wants to cross the street; then help her to cross the street. This is a good job; this is virtuous."

The next week she asked, "Did any of you remember to do what I have said to you?" Three children raised their hands. She said, "This is not good – the whole class has not been following. But still, it is good that at least three boys did something good." She asked the first, "What have you done?" He said, "Exactly what you have said: One old woman who was blind, I helped her to cross the street."

She said, "That’s very good. God will bless you." She asked the second, "What have you done?" He said, "The same – a blind old woman, I helped her to cross the street." The teacher became a little puzzled – where are they finding blind old women? But it is a big city; perhaps they may have found two. She asked the third and he said, "I did exactly what they have done: helped a blind old woman cross the street."

The teacher said, "But where did you find three blind women?" They said, "You don’t understand: there were not three blind women, there was only one blind woman. And it was so hard to help her to cross the street! She was beating us and shouting and screaming, because she did not want to cross, but we were intent on doing some virtuous act. A crowd gathered, people were shouting at us, but we said, don’t be worried. We are taking her to the other side. But she never wanted to go to the other side!"

People are being told to help others, and they are empty within themselves. They are being told to love others – love your neighbors, love your friends, love your enemies – and they are never told to love themselves.

A person who hates himself cannot love anybody; he can only pretend. And this will only lead to more frustration for the one who is helping and the one who is being helped.

Beyond the Stars!

Poems, music, paintings and sculptures have always enthused me and I sometimes wonder, how these people could write so beautifully, compose such enchanting melodies, paint masterpieces or carve such elegant things from stone.

Allama Iqbal was one the greatest poets of the last century and I am presenting in this blog one of his famous poems from his poetry book "Bang-e-dara" i.e. "The Call of the Marching Bell".

The poem is first presented in Urdu (transliteration) followed by a translation. In my opinion the translation falls far short of conveying the poet's thoughts, after all language itself is a crutch to express ourselves. But that is the best I could manage. So here goes...

Sitaron se aage jahaan aur bhi hain

Abhi ishq ke imtihaan aur bhi hain

Taahii zindagi se nahin ye fazayen

Yahan sainkdon karawan aur bhi hain

Kanaa'at na kar aalam-e-rang-o-bu par

Chaman aur bhi, aashiyan aur bhi hain

Agar kho gaya ek nasheman to kya gham

Maqamat-e-aah-o-fugaan aur bhi hain

Tu shaheen hai parwaz hai kaam tera

Tere saamne aasman aur bhi hain

Isi roz-o-shab mein ulajh kar na rah ja

Ke tere zamin-o-makan aur bhi hain

Gaye din ke tanha tha main anjuman mein

Yahan ab mere raazadan aur bhi hain

The Translation

Beyond the stars there are other worlds of light

There are more trials of love, besides those on earth.

These spheres are not empty of the pulse of life

There are a hundred forms of life, latent in these spheres

Be not content with this earth, although it has a myriad of colours

There are more gardens, more worlds to be explored

Grieve not if thou losest this abode of sorrow

There are other abodes for thee, for the sighs of yearning and grief

Thou art of eagle breed, born for ethereal flights

Thou hast, beyond those narrowing skies, loftier heavens to roam

Do not get entangled in these deceptive days and nights

Thou has other worlds, beyond linear time and space

Intoxicated in love

I am not sure if this is a story or a historical fact. But a beautiful one.

Akbar was one of the greatest emperor's of India. One day he had gone hunting in the forest with all his friends, and they all got lost. Evening was descending, the sun was setting and it was the time to pray. So Akbar stopped under a huge tree, tied his horse to the tree and sat on the ground to do his last prayer of the day. And as he was praying, a woman, a young woman, ran just by his side, and collided with him - the collision was so bad that he actually fell down. It seemed as if she was mad or blind. Still, she did not look back. Akbar naturally was very angry.

An ordinary village girl, not caring at all, running like mad and hitting the emperor. Akbar finished his prayer quickly because he wanted to catch hold of the girl. She could not be allowed to do such things. If she could behave with the emperor in such a way, what to say about other people? But he could not figure out – it was getting dark – where she had gone. But he waited, thinking she must come back to the village. He was just outside the village.

And finally she came. Akbar stopped her and said, "Do you remember what you have done?"

She said, "I don’t remember anything. Do you?"

Akbar said, "You seem to be very strange. You don’t understand. You are talking with the emperor of the country."

She said, "I understand, but I don’t remember anything of what you are talking about."

He said, "What am I talking about? I have been praying here and you ran in such a way that you
pushed me, and I fell down. You disturbed my prayer!"

She said, "Perhaps if you say so, it must have been so, but you have to forgive me. I was running because I wanted to reach the spot and wait for my lover just on the road which runs through the forest. I wanted to greet him – he is coming after many years – just outside the village. I could not remain sitting in the house and waiting. I knew that he will be waiting, thinking that I must be standing just by the side of a tree where we used to meet when we were young. That’s why I was so lost in my desire to reach the spot that I did not know I had committed any mistake. Please forgive me, it must have been committed without my knowing at all."

She was so innocent and tears came to her eyes because she had hurt her own emperor. "You can give me any punishment, otherwise it will remain heavy on my heart. But just one question before you punish me: you were in prayer – still you were not so much lost in your prayer as I was, because I don’t remember at all. It cannot be that I hit you ... it cannot be one-sided. Your body also must have touched my body, but I don’t remember having seen anybody on the way – praying or falling or anything. I don’t remember that anybody touched my body. So I am puzzled, and I would like to be clear about it. Is your prayer not as strong as as my love?"

Akbar felt compelled to ask forgiveness from that village girl. He later said that "I have never forgotten her face, and I have never forgotten that my prayer is just formal. If I am lost in my prayer and my love, in my gratitude towards the ultimate, then how can I be aware that somebody has touched me, pushed me, or that my body has fallen? I would not have been aware of anything. But I was aware and that makes it certain that my prayer is just superficial.

Comparison - The Greatest Disease

From our very early childhood, we are taught comparison. Your mother starts comparing you, not only with other children but also your own siblings, "Look at your brother, see how he is getting good grades, and look at you, wasting your time in playing". The teacher compares you: "Look at Tom, how well he is doing, and you are no good at all! "

From the very beginning you are being told that you should compare yourself with others. This is the greatest disease; it is like a cancer that goes on destroying your very soul – because each individual is unique, and comparison is not possible. I am just myself and you are just yourself. There is nobody else in the world that you can be compared with. Do you compare a lily with a rose? A lily is a lily, a rose is a rose. You don’t compare. Do you compare an orange with an apple? You don’t compare. You know they are different! Comparison is not possible.
Every person is unique. There has never been any individual like you before and there will never be again. You are utterly unique. It is your privilege, your prerogative, it is God’s blessing, that He has made you unique. Don’t compare. Comparison will bring trouble. If you fall victim to this disease of comparison, then you will either become very egoistic or you will become very bitter; it depends on whom you compare yourself with. If you compare yourself with those who seem to be bigger than you, higher than you, greater than you, then you will become bitter.
You will nurture a complaint in your heart "Why am I not greater than so & so? Why am I not like that person? Why am I not physically so beautiful, so strong? Why am I not intelligent? Why am I not this, not that?” And there are millions of things in the world....If you compare yourself with the people who are greater in some way than you, you will become bitter, very bitter. Your life will become poisoned by the comparison. You will remain always in a state of depression, as if you have been deceived , betrayed , as if you have been let down.

And on the other hand, if you compare yourself with people who are smaller than you, in some way lesser than you, then you will become very egoistic. This is one of the reasons why such people collect smaller people around themselves so that they can look bigger than they are by comparison. It is stupid, but one cannot expect anything more from such foolish people.

The vast majority of us, we always look at others’ houses, their successes, their achievements, and feel somewhat bitter. But only a man who understands the uniqueness of everybody , feels immense gratitude for whatsoever God has given to him. If you don’ t compare, then you are neither bigger nor smaller, neither ugly nor beautiful, neither intelligent nor stupid. If you don’t compare, you are simply yourself And in that state of simply being yourself, spring comes, flowers come. It is only from a deep acceptance of life, do we have a deep gratitude towards what God has blessed us with & this helps to bring the spring.

A lesson from fledglings

On a nearby tree a bird was raising her young. There were two babies & they kept on growing day by day. One day they came out of the nest for the first time. When they came out of the nest, both of them settled on a branch – wonderstruck, trying their wings, thinking should we go forward or not? They had never come out of their nest before, and their mother was sitting on a distant tree giving them a call, a loud call ... she went on calling. Hearing her call, they fluttered their wings. But the attachment to the nest, to the safety was too much. And they had never before opened their wings... Should we open them or not? Will we be able to fly or not? The mother kept on calling, kept on provoking, call after call. It took about half an hour, slowly slowly they fluttered their wings, moved a little further from the nest, sat on other branches of the same tree. They felt a little more confident, flew a little in the air and came back. Confidence grew further and then they flew away... They have not been seen since. They never came back. Why come back? The nest is left behind – two egg shells left in it, broken to pieces.

Birds who have never flown before gather the courage to fly into the sky, but we are human beings, bestowed with unparalleled capabilities & still cannot gather courage. We hesitate, procrastinate, doubt & fear the unknown. Isn't it time that we learn from the baby birds?

Contradiction - that's what life is!

You see a man who is loving. When the man is loving you think,"Yes, how nice is this man." But the next moment he is angry; then there is a contradiction. He is angry and loving and jealous and possessive, and sometimes so sharing, and sometimes so mean. Have you not seen it?

Sometimes your friend is so sharing and sometimes so mean. This is how reality is. Reality contains all contradictions. Don't you realise how absurd and ridiculous we all are and yet how incredibly beautiful life is. Nothing is contradictory in it. If you were all very, very consistent, life would not be so rich. It would be stale and gray. Life is rich because it is a rainbow, it is psychedelic. It has so many colors and so many changing colors. And it is so unpredictable – that’s why it is absurd. Why do you call it absurd? Because you cannot contain it in your logic. Your logic falls short; it is bigger than your logic. It destroys your logic. Somehow you make a plan, set a goal, toil & burn the midnight oil and then what happens, life comes and destroys everything.

We want to define everything, this is right, this is wrong. We want to impose our moral values on others without realising that we ourselves are nothing but a bunch of contradictions. H.G. Wells once wrote "Self righteous morality is nothing but jealousy with a halo". If you look deeply wherever you find imposed morality, there is bound to be a trace of hypocrisy over there.

Can there be pleasure without pain, light without darkness, up without down ? And we keep arguing on petty matters. The big pine tree and the small rosebush – who is higher? Neither the pine tree ever boasts that she is higher, nor the rosebush ever says that "You may be higher, but where are the roses?" The real height in the roses is in the fragrance, in the flowering. Height itself is not enough to be higher.But the rosebush and the pine tree remain together without any quarrel, any competition, for the simple reason that they both understand that they are part of the same nature.

Truth has its own fragrance.
Love has its own power.

Silence has its own impact.