We believe we will feel healthy when our health becomes okay. Conversely, I have realized, the more we
feel healthy, the better our health becomes. We believe that if we find that one person to love us, we will fall in love with ourselves; conversely, I have discovered that when I love myself, the entire world around me automatically finds itself in love with me. We live life outside in – and struggle on to find peace and happiness when the answer lies inside out. Peace and happiness, after all, are not commodities available in a shop. They are the bounties of the inner world.
I realized that in all the areas of my life which were going great, I was subconsciously using this ‘inside out’ formula. A while ago I had read somewhere that feel rich to become rich. Each day, I was consciously imagining abundance and ‘feeling’ it and indeed, to my astonishment, within a few months my income had grown 100 per cent. I wasn’t following the formula in relationships. Too often I depended on Arun to make me feel ‘happy’ and ‘complete’ and if ever he failed to listen to me, or understand me, I went into Being angry.
I smiled at a thought. Life is indeed like a cosmic kitchen. We are the guests who have come here to fulfill our hunger. We are ordering dishes to make us feel a certain way. We believe if we order the wonderful spouse, or the Mercedes car, or the fame we seek, or the love of the world, we will feel happy and peaceful. When the dish arrives we do feel satiated – for a moment. But, the feeling is short lived. Either we get bored of our dish or watch someone ordering a bigger and better dish and start believing now that if only we order that dish we will become happy. Wouldn’t it be so much simpler to order the feeling you want to feel instead? And grow into it, so much so that it becomes you? In peace, in happiness, you are bound to enjoy every dish served to you – be it small or big, sweet or salty.
I admire some people around me for certain aspects, and on closer observation I realized, they take care of their state of being in that particular areas. I have rarely ever seen my dad in a state of depression – he is usually cheerful and jokes are always in the air when he’s around. The result? I have seen so many things just go his way – reducing the chances of him feeling low altogether. Inside out. Whenever I ask my 85 year old granddad how his health is, he shows me a thumbs up. The result? He continues to remain radiant and glowing. Even when he had a kidney problem five years ago and the doctors said he wouldn’t make it through – he bounced back, full of life, because he kept telling everybody (and more importantly, himself) that he is simply waiting to eat some of his favourite delicacies (Jalebi and pizza, if you please!). Inside out.
The more a person feels good – and makes it into a permanent state of being, the more Life presents reasons for him to feel good. Unfortunately, the opposite also is true. The more a person feels miserable and dejected – and makes it into a constant state of being, the more Life presents reasons for this to be so. Change The Being – and life undergoes a change. There is no other way.
The problem with us humans is that the state of Being is our personal responsibility and too often, we don’t want to take it. We want to feel low because of him, we want to feel angry because of her, we want to feel we never became what we could because of them. It’s too easy to pass the buck on – but I have decided, I won’t do this anymore. After all it’s my life, and I want to experience abundance flowing, nay gushing, towards me from all directions.
Another issue, I recognized was that often I didn’t strive long enough to remain in a desired state of Being. Say, for five days if I tell myself to feel positive, and on the sixth day something goes wrong with my life, I started to believe the Law is not working for me. I now realize that the Law is immaculate. The thing that went wrong on the sixth day, went wrong because of my thinking before these five days when I decided to become positive. To ensure my life is amazing – I will have to constantly strive to feel amazing within. It’s not a day’s agenda – but a lifelong striving. However, the superb news is that the longer I stay in a particular State of Being, the easier it starts becoming to be there. For so many people they don’t have to try to BE happy – happiness BECOMES them.
Megha Bajaj
megha@wonderofwords.org
