Do Nice People Really Finish Last?

Someone said, " Nice People Finish Last." Whosoever said so perhpas missed the real point altogether. He or she couldn't understand that Nice People are generally not part of the race at all. So being first or coming last cannot be their focus. Not that they don't participate in races; only they shun the races being fought on the ground for they always live on a higher plane. Tell me folks, what do you say? And what should be the true definition of being nice? For me it's simple - not to harm any one in any way for personal benefit. Living a life of integrity without expecting anyone else to follow the same and to contribute your best in whatever you do for achieving positive results which will manifest in something good , which would give a feeling of comfort. That's it!

In absentia

In a get together of friends and foes,
He was abused and made small,
He didn’t defend, oh! he just couldn’t
Because, he wasn’t there at all.

My First Publication Ever

In late 1980s, tried a fun poem which was published in Indian Express' Youthfully Yours Page in Pune Edition - my first ever publication. - Reproducing here today on my blog:

English Not My Mother Tongue

Met him me in the evening
Wished he me 'very good morning'
"Thank god you finded me"
And that reminded me
That he was always talking English
Eating drinking and walking English
“After the game thoughted to roam
As the electricity has not come home
We will have ice cream some some
and reach home before dark will come"
That was English's direct translation
But talking English had become his passion
Without bothering what happens to me
With his english continued he …
“Yesterday in ground while kiting
I do lot of lot of fighting
Chintoo was really narrowing me
So much anger climbed on me
With anger I became yellow and red
Chintoo gone home with swollen head”.
My brain circled as I thought
What real meaning narrowing me brought
When I asked , He loudly laughed
“Arey, tang kar raha tha" thus he barked.
Then I decided to take a crack
and give his English to him back
"See cool cool wind is walking
Come with me and keep on talking”.
He laughed loudly as told a joke
Glaring at me thus he spoke
"Wind only flies & do not walk
If English do not come to you
Please do not talk"
“Sorry " said I, “For breaking leg of English
I'm still learning A-z of English
English really do not come to me
As good as it comes to thee".
Hearing this his anger flown
Eyes sparkled and his face shone
"Working very very hardly
and lifting lots of pains
English come to me
using lots of brains".
He was wondering as Isung
“Thank God English is not my mother tongue."

Good Morning , God

“The huge orange circle of Sun slowly lifts itself up from the East moving upwards shining in its own glory and splendour. The birds start singing in unison as the flowers wake-up lifting their eyelids shrugging a night of silence away. The blades of verdant grass begin to dance as the slow soft morning breeze zooms past touching their heads. Oh! It’s absolutely delicious. Yes, you must taste at least some moments early morning in this lovely park some time.” That’s what I was told by an early riser who had been regularly visiting the park that had come up next to our house. A little, small paradise – the result of a magnificent creative effort! A master stroke of paint and brush wiped out a thick jungle as that small piece of earth saw a lovely painting of colours being drawn on its face for a complete transformation. Narrated so eloquently, I could not resist such magnificence of nature and one fine morning forcing myself out of the bed early I went for a walk in the park.

It was indeed a glorious sight. A golden eastern sky beckoned me as wings grew on my heart and it took a solitary flight probably to shake hands with the majestic Sun even before it came out of its depths. I simply surrendered to the beauty all around. It was an extremely delightful experience. I exclaimed," Good Morning , God!" Ah, It was ecstacy. Pure bliss! And  I asked my friend Pashant who was also doing his morning drill of exercises there," Hey, can there be anything more beautiful than this ever?" Prashant looked at me and said, "Yes, there can be." I almost shouted, " What can be better than this, no.." He calmly replied, " Tomorrow morning!!".. A lesson forever that in optimism..

Touch wood! And I got in to this habit of morning walk in the park followed by a few minutes of deep reflection and a journey within changed my outlook towards life. But then it is bound to happen anyway. When you start your morning amidst such great delight, you choose to keep it that way with a deliberate effort. You start making choices which would add to the delight and not otherwise. The moment I step inside the park and breath the beauty of the morning sky and the splendour of the blooming flowers and feel the touch of a lovely fresh breeze and hum along with the birds my heart almost spontaneously exclaims with joy in a whispering tone – “Good Morning, God!”. And God responds by making it better in his own charming ways.

PERCEPTION

For me a bird may mean just a flight
And you may perceive it as joy and freedom
If we understand and accept just this difference
What a lovely relationship it would become!

“I will like you only if you will accept what I say. My meaning of things is more important than yours. So if you agree to this then come, hold my hand , we can be friends.” And the person in all his ignorance succumbs and accepts friendship and finds himself deteriorating rather than growing in friendship. Beware! If I have to accept everything that you say and if it’s always me who will have to take a back seat then tell me what will happen to my identity, my -self. No. I scream loudly- NO to such a relationship. Let us both enjoy a relationship which doesn’t demand, which just is; because it has to be;
because somewhere the roots are entangled. Or they are one. Let me enjoy thinking of the Rising Sun when you are lost in glittering Stars. It would be so beautiful. Come, take a plunge. An absolutely unconditional plunge. It demands only one thing – Courage..
.

Foot Prints

Wanted to follow your footprints,
Couldn't find any,
Hey did'nt you keep your feet on Earth?

SOUL’S JOURNEY BACK HOME………..

Staying alone away from family makes a person do two things occasionally – one, returning the utensils received from a friend filled with, most of the times, delicious eatables and second, one can THINK in idle time which is otherwise such a difficult task.

Well, in my case both the things got combined and poor you, this article took birth as a result!

While washing a dish, which I had to return to my neighbor after having cherished my favorite ‘Karanjies’ which were offered as part of Diwali Sweets, a stray yet very profound thought hit my head. Could also be the result of so much information filled in my head due to constant reading for almost thirty years now –

God knows what it was but the thought left me wondering.

I asked myself – why was I washing the dish? The answer came – because I needed to return it as clean and bright as it was before my neighbor had put delicious ‘Karanjies’ in the dish. And that is how my neighbor was expecting me to return it. Anybody would, won’t you? And  the next connecting uninvited thought suddenly popped in my head - Then when I was born God gave me a soul which was clean, pure and as bright perhaps as that dish was about to be. Does it mean when it is time to return it, God also expects me to return it the same way? “Of course,” the answer came from somewhere inside me. May be my soul listening to my thoughts had got disturbed and spoken for itself. I wasn’t too much bothered as I feel I had failed to make it that dirty so as to feel guilty about anything.

But then what if someone returns with guilt-ridden, trampled and bruised soul? What will God do? I was convinced that God will toss it back rejecting it because God would like to get back the same pure, clean and shining bright soul which God had given at the time of birth. Exactly the same soul? And I realized that a soul doesn’t really grow in size, it grows in spiritual dimension i.e. in effect it keeps evolving towards higher purpose; it either adds to or reduces its glow over the years. 

Well, this  The thought needed to be explored further.

So I went to one person who somehow always appreciated about my ability to receive unusual thoughts and would be keen to listen and embolden me to explore them further. Yes, he was sitting in his room and I shared my difficulty with him – difficulty because I needed an answer that I wasn't finding.

He was a little stunned for a moment and then laughed and said, “Yes, God must be tossing such a soul back, but then there is possibility that some souls which may have got very few dark spots as a  result of their Karma, they must be getting accepted.  And God after cleaning them and transforming them in to shining bright souls once again must be placing them in some other bodies to return for a sojourn on earth to continue with the cycle.” Wow! What a thought! It was possible. 

As we talked a little more, we agreed on one thing that God doesn't take back all the souls. Some having achieved a cursed status ‘beyond repairs’ must be getting tossed back by God into some void which we, the human beings, prefer to call               ‘ Naraka’ - the Hell - for such a soul never to return.

And those few who remain as pure and clean as they arrived at the time of going back after spending their time on earth, they must be achieving their eternal peace by becoming permanent residents of ‘Swarg ‘ - the Paradise or shall I say PRPs  . Looks more comfortable, yeh!

At that moment another thought knocked loudly in my head – Well, all those little children who go back to God even before opening their eyes must be getting called back as God needed to have given them the status of PRPs and because of some oversight they must be taking birth again.. Perhaps, God corrects the mistake. by calling them back. How else one can explain God sending and calling back a pure, clean soul back home so fast! Only if we the mortals could understand, this!

Anyways, only God knows God’s ways. So coming back to what had been revealed about God taking an option of cleansing some souls to send them back. I think most of us fit in to such a category i.e. souls bruised over time due to occasional choices made by mind while moving forward in the journey of life where materialistic success appears to be the only relevant aspect. Where soul is kept a little at the back as a second choice only to be brought forward for some cleansing on special occasions like ‘poojas’, festivals or visits to temples etc. But then we need to do a little more to clean it by making more efforts so as to ensure that not much work is left for God to clean it up and God doesn’t toss it back and who knows with effort we may achieve the ultimate. So what can one do?

Looking at various options, I just remembered that I was able to many a time clean up a dirty glass or dish without doing anything except keeping it under constant flow of clean water for a longer time. So can a similar process be adopted here? Can a constant flow of clean thoughts resulting in kinder and happier words and noble doings for a longer time result in slowly and steadily removing or reducing the already accumulated sores and bruises and dark spots on the soul and minimize the newer hits by mind’s ostentatious choices. Simply stated perhaps the easier way would be to take a pause before every action, before speaking any word or before entertaining any thought and asking just simple one question: Will it leave a bad mark on my soul or will it add to the glow? Trust me, we always know. Any choice we make affects the soul and its gaze on us through the eye which look straight at us when we are in front of mirror.

We know the answer that would take us forward and in final analysis make God’s work easier. But then mind will have to be placed under control and that would mean developing the discipline through meditation for which one will have to find one’s own way.

One thing is certain, when God decides to spend some time to clean a soul for sending it back and whatever process God may be using depending upon the condition of the soul, finally God must be keeping that soul in the warmth of his heart to give it essential glow and purity before putting it back for the life cycle to continue. Assuming that it must be mine nth number of time for coming back to earth, I think this sudden awareness of fact that I might have already spent some time in God’s Heart should make it easier for me to be in a constant flow with that what is ‘Good’. This knowledge should give me advantage in learning to address only that what is ‘Good’ all around to help keep my soul cleaner. I think it shouldn't be a very difficult task.

Being with me here and now, you will agree that rules of living by soul’s intentions are so loud and clear. Why don’t we listen to them? Perhaps that’s why we don’t listen to them. We get so habituated to listening to chaos and deafening noise that clarity gets blurred. Let us at least try to keep our souls such that God takes his chance to clean them to send them back for helping them grow and glow to let the cycle continue till its permanent residence. Now don’t ask me – WHERE?.

RS:)

The Beginning

Hi all,
Just now created this blog to experiment in sharing. As I have already put on the back cover of my book " A Little More Than Ordinary " - the thoughts placed in this blog are born in my heart , yet they belong not to me alone. So here's an effort to share them with you. Come, lets meet in this spectrum of thoughts without any preface or prologue because perhaps that's how the world of thoughts expands.