Abhey Gupta

Tag: Reflection

  • How to Deal with the Odd?

    How do I feel?

    This question is bigger than anything else — or it has become so.

    I believe — as much as scientists don’t — that children are born with certain memories of a past birth. But what nobody believes is that we are also born with certain feelings: dominant, and predominant. And that, in fact, is true. At certain times, I strongly feel that I am depressed; but every attempt to understand it has resulted in one, and only one, answer: this is just how it is. I am born like that.

    Like a sine wave, I am happy and sad — maybe not at such regular intervals, but I am. So, to answer how I feel is, at the same time, thoroughly relative, and unanswerable.

    The problem is this: we are taught so many things, but we are never taught how to live alone — how to embrace fear, how to embrace the odd. We are only ever taught how to deal with the even.

    I will write a series of posts to unravel these questions — and I hope to find some curious people, with the same mindset, along the journey.

  • A World Without Memory

    I tried to imagine a world without memory. It is strange, and unsettling — but not impossible.

  • Live & Die

    Live & Die

    I thought this time I’d get through it, but like the cycle of day and night, I am bound to fall again and again. Wondering what is so devious about it. I heard, “Take a bow and trigger it. You will get to know the arrow.” Principles to restrict, but all they do is fall blatantly. I wonder what’s in the bog of time; all I know is to fill me with something special to realize who I am. To the end, what it takes to get through all the chaos and live.

    I believe, a will to live and die.

    Living in a Mess

    I am confused all through. I am drifting apart from the regular me. I am forgetting the difference between good and bad, as I was always perplexed by it. To my situation, to my path, often celebrating the tears of sadness. If I am all the devil, I assume, I wonder what is next in the hellfire that I’m living in. Yet, call it a life to choose between two, is another lie. I’m surrounded by clouds of lies. Often I want to break free of all, but lies are all they are. But that’s all I’ve got for now.

  • Beginnings & Endings

    There is a Coldplay song — “The Scientist” — that I have been listening to for a long time; and every time, it hits me hard, and makes me wonder about beginnings and endings.

    Is it merely a concept — a particular thing happening within the framework of time? Or are we actually bound by some existential feeling, about the metaphysical boundary of beginning and end?

    I know there is no single answer to it — just like Albert Einstein’s efforts toward a Theory of Everything. But still, I choose to believe that we can work in the direction of understanding the concept behind it.

  • Peace of Mind

    Another day.

    I was delusional, and lost; my wandering mind was trying to contemplate the word “peace,” and its purpose in the context of life. I started reading some articles on spiritual awakening, and later succeeded in reading about Kundalini Tantra — but somewhere in there, my wandering mind was unstoppable in trying to understand the purpose of life, and the many variables tied to it. So I began listening to some lectures, and, as a result, I found a talk by Osho on “Peace of Mind.”

    I found it really interesting. Listen, if it calls to you — and share what you feel.

  • Why Do We Seek It?

    This is the most important question we need to understand — because the why, and the what, behind my saying that everyone is looking for a single end goal (whether they realize it or not) is the very answer that moves us closer to it.

    Suffering is the primary motive at work here. There could be many others, but for the sake of simplicity, am I considering a single motive? I would say yes, and no — because suffering itself is not simple to explain, and it does not even refer to a single thing, or a single action.

    So now the big question is: what is suffering? Is it something we don’t want, or don’t desire? Is it love, hate, or both? Is it hope, despair, or both?

    Pretty confused? So was I — and that is exactly where the search begins.

  • What Is Moksha?

    The question is not about understanding the meaning of Moksha, but about understanding the underlying concept of liberating your state of mind.

    Moksha — also called vimoksha, vimukti, and mukti — is a term in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism that refers to various forms of emancipation, enlightenment, liberation, and release. (Wikipedia)

    But Moksha is not just a word discovered by saints or sadhus; it is, rather, a quiet part of everyone’s life. Believe it or not, everyone around us is working toward a single end goal — call it Moksha.

    What is more important is to understand how easily we choose to ignore it, and mistake one of our milestones for the end goal of life.

    The beauty of it is this: how many times have we wondered why we aren’t happy after achieving something we longed for so long? Why success so often comes with the sadness of it being over? Why it is so hard to come to an end?

    Think again — and I hope you will realize that these were never the real end goals. Moksha was.

    Everything we are attached to is one step toward it. And we will look for the longer answer together, in the articles to come.

  • Life in If and Else

    One peaceful Monday morning, having ravishing food and enjoying a big brand name, I drifted slightly from my sober sight, and tried to explore the real-life meaning of adaptability and acceptability.

    And I drooled myself to sleep — only to be woken by office colleagues whispering that some senior was coming near. I woke with such a pace that I could have won a medal for it; I found my keyboard and mouse, and started staring blankly at my screen — at some import statements, instances, static members, and condition statements declared.

    If, and else? I was astonished — our life is also like this.

    Multiple ifs and elses: we call them planning, or restrictions. Instance variables are your relatives; static members are your family; and import statements are like education, degrees, friends, and so on. So our life is actually the execution of some code — in terms of if and else, deciding what will happen next — and problems arise with multiple executions, if multithreading is supported, and with all the advice, like annotations, directing our path.

    Multiple ifs and elses: if money, then switch — buy item one; and if money is greater than some amount, then buy this. If money is… and so the code of life keeps running.

  • Adaptability

    It’s weird, but I find it logical to think about how we learned to work five or six days a week, waiting for the one day off that relieves us — and then, the same trained, programmed routine again. It sounds to me like a circle of things: back to where I started, screaming for the day off, living in hell under pressure — and soon, we adapt to it so well.

    We cry about the boredom of routine and want change in life; yet the slightest chance of change tremors our so-called peace, and we want things just as they were.

    So this is how I define adaptability — and acceptability.

  • How It Feels to Love, and Be Loved

    How does it feel to love, and to be loved?

    Today I woke up early — unusual, for someone who sleeps late — and went for a short, brisk walk. People were still half asleep, dreaming dazzlingly of the past and the future; others walked beside me, for various reasons — health, schedule, office, and a few more. I took some steady steps toward a secluded road, to find my solace. I am not very friendly with the crowd around me, but the horses of my mind gallop like nothing else when I am in my comfort zone.

    The day was beautiful, before dawn. It took me a few seconds to realize what I was doing here, and in which direction I was leading myself. I checked my cell — the devil — and there was her last message, with smileys and a few words of love. And I drifted into a sea of thought: how far I have come, from a single word in life — love.

    The earliest love I remember is all about mother. Then, in the mid-90s, television played an important role in the upbringing of all of us 90s-born kids — the love of Aladdin, Popeye, Mickey and Minnie Mouse, a few films I can recall, and a few discussions in school. All these years, I have been trying to decipher love in my own words, in the world of my own thoughts; and crossing every individual’s perception, I developed my own: love is selfless, love is responsible, love is not flawless — and all that other talk.

    I have personally had two encounters with failed relationships, and every ending brought me more complex thoughts, and a fear of falling in love again. The fear of falling, and failing, again — sounds like a loser, doesn’t it? Yes, I sound like a loosely built architecture of the philosophy of failure and the fear of the future.

    But have I done justice by saying only this? I certainly say no. I found myself in the grip of love once again — and far happier than ever before; but this time, practical, and sensible. Still, the mind plays games. I thought, for a second: do we love by thinking of its security? Its future? Its feasibility? A big no.

    I checked my cell — it was nearing 6:30. I couldn’t quite understand what I had been wondering about love for the last hour. I closed my eyes and walked blindly on the road for a minute, only to find myself so insecure in my steps that I reopened my eyes in fear — to find myself alive. But it was thrilling, and fascinating. And then my mind shot out this analogy with life: some days are risky, and you take the risk of doing something you never thought you would; you were afraid of it, unknowing of its future. But things change when there are two people now, both in the same state — eyes closed, walking blindly, but holding each other’s hands this time. And this time, it wasn’t so scary — because we trust the other person.

    Love is all about this. The time will come when you will fear, when you will be scared, when you will regret your decision — but have you ever noticed how far you have come with that love alone? You may call it walking blindly, but together — and trust is the key.

    But how did I come to write this down? A few months ago, I was scared of love — or rather, scared of walking blindly, alone. But one day, I was so close to love that I put my faith and trust in it, and committed my love. And then I realized: it is not about walking alone, but walking together, with trust in each other. We may fight, we may lose hope — but remember how far we have come together, with that trust. That is how love comes into life, and flowers into happiness. It is all about trust — and a morning walk, to write this down.