It is April and the Indian New Year is here. The Indian New Year starts with the spring of every year, when nature also celebrates the newness in all its forms. Plants are growing new leaves, birds have nested and the young ones are out. The snows have melted away in northern countries and the sun is with a welcoming warmth. In India, it is also greeted by April showers and gardeners everywhere prepare to plants new saplings so that they can take root along with the rains. It is the middle of the Uttaraayana [see ‘Makara Sankranti”]. And the Lord knows I welcome this New Year! Last year was a tumultuous year for me. And this year I feel will be a lot better than the previous one. There is no scientific explanation for this statement. It is just a feeling. But in as much as it is positive, we can afford to wish that it carries some element of truth.
The previous Samvatsara, has heralded the beginning of something fresh, something wonderful. Actually the name of the samvatsara and the happenings of the world are unrelated. Vatsara means a year. In Indian culture we refine all major concepts with the gentle embrace from the prefix, 'sam'. 'Sam' can be short for 'samyak' meaning 'fine', 'firm', 'proper', 'accurately defined'..... Nyaasa is trust. Samyak nyaasa is sanyaasa. Sam ['sum'] is also used to say, 'together with'. Sarati is flow. Sam + sarati = samsaara. Flowing together. bhaashana is speech. sam-bhaashana is dialogue - speech together.
Since I am no Sanskrit expert, I do not know exactly which 'sam' goes with samvatsara. But both seem appropriate. In terms of measurement, it can be 'samyak' or proper. In terms of association it can be 'sam' or together. By giving it a name, we are making the year ours. Like naming a baby and making it ours, the vatsara is made ours by naming it. I attach no specific significance to the name. What we make of the year depends on what we have sown in previous years and what we are willing to do now.
For the last several years we have allowed the false to take over many aspects of our life. Instead of Ganesha [deity of a supreme intelligence - the conqueror of obstacles] being in charge, the mouse[vehicle of the deity, Ganesha, which symbolises energies that take away from our true objective] has been in charge. And these mice eat away our vital energies and do not help in consolidating gains in life. The media is one mouse. The various and sometimes bizarre demands that we come to accept as a way of life are one mouse. The compulsion to spend and consume is one mouse. And so on. And our generation is also entering the zone of mid-life blues. Our children are going to college, making life altering decisions, some are getting married, our parents are getting older, our job situation is getting more and more unpredictable. The visibility for employment is now reduced to six months or a year. This is because of the fog created by all these mice! We have spent energies in many unnatural ways, sitting at desks for decades, suffering knee problems, and I am no longer surprised when one of my own age confesses to the onset of what used to be called the diseases of the affluent – high blood pressure and diabetes! Not so sweet - but we've got to face it. We have travelled the world and found no place that we can be at home easily. Because we can barely be anywhere for any good length of time. It seems like we have to keep going somewhere or else the world will fall apart!
I just feel we have come to a point when we must now be more cautious than we have ever been. We must consolidate our gains. We must curtail our ambitions a bit so that we do not spread ourselves too thin and lose our grip on life. We must simplify so that we can detach a bit. We must allow ourselves to work a bit more effortlessly - that means less emotional involvement - more practical work. We must allow each other to just be - that means less expectation - more patience. We must allow our children to grow and move away from home and yet retain the warmth and love in our relationship and show our parents that we care. It is easier said than done.
But a time has come for us to declare our mastery. That means we move our consciousness to a higher state, to the gentle background screen on which the movie called life is played. We must watch the happenings and keep working with a smile, and once in a while tweak the engine a little bit so that it runs smoothly. Passions must subside and yet we must not lose intensity. We must work effortlessly and yet we must not become lazy. The ask is strange; almost contradictory. But I feel that at my age of 48, we are a queer generation that is upto it. We have been blessed with a vision of the old world in our younger days, a world in which the mind did not dominate our life. A world in which we did as much as we thought. Now we think too much and not do as much. The time has come to balance work and thought, to step back a bit and see the game for what it is.
The game of life goes on endlessly and this samsaara [worldliness] will carry us away. But we must become still. We must not struggle to swim across this samsaara, we must just float with it. I do not know how to swim or float. But I think every student of swimming will come to a sudden point of realisation that he can float with very little effort provided he comes to the right balance, and just let the body be above water. Somehow we must get to float like this. And I find that it is possible. Sometimes now, I respond slowly. I take in input and smile. Every input carries some tension. But the equalising compression exists. All you have to do is recognise this availability and equalise the tension and compression....... and walk along the neutral axis. This is the art of living life - to be in it and yet to be out of it - because it is only solitude that outlasts everything. And gradually we must become friends with this solitude, and learn to draw comfort from it.
The circle of life calls on us to be masters, to be in love with solitude and yet together, to deal with situations with detachment, to work effortlessly, to not fritter away our energies and consolidate on our gains.
Financially we must not get too much into debt, we must save and find ways to establish continuing income and reduce the pressure on ourselves to keep earning. If we can do without something we must do without it. If we can live with the same car for another year or two, we must just live with it and grow comfortable with that extra cash in the bank. As they say, real profit is cash in the bank. And we must lead profitable lives.
At work, we must carry less angst against things we cannot do or change, more acceptance and less adventure; more consistency and less expansion into varied and fanciful ventures. With people, we must try to stay away from tangled relationships, free ourselves of emotions and remind ourselves of our great teacher’s lesson that 'happiness is your true state; all other disturbances are foreign bodies'. In short we must learn to enjoy life wherever we are. And the onset of the Jaya Samvatsara [April 2014-March 2015] is a great time for us to resolve positively. And draw comfort from the fact that the time has come - for the good to rise!
Happy Injun New Year to one and all!
