A few stanzas from one of my favourite books which has somehow spoken to me strongly over the years...can be interpreted in many ways...would be interesting to see how others do so..
Response/Ability
the game we play
is let's pretend
and pretend
we're not pretending
we choose to
forget
who we are
and then forget
that we've
forgotten
who are we really?
the center
that watches
and runs the show
that can choose
which way
it will go.
the I AM
consciousness
that powerful
loving perfect
reflection
of the cosmos
but in our attempt
to cope with
early situations
we choose or were
hypnotized into
a passive position
to avoid punishment
or the loss of love
we choose to deny
our response/ability
pretending that
things just happened
or that we were
being controlled
taken over
we put ourselves
down
and we have become
used to this
masochistic
posture
this weakness
this indecisiveness
but we are
in reality
free
a center
of cosmic energy
your will
is your power
don't pretend
you don't have it
or you wont.
- Bernard Gunther from 'Chicken Soup for the Soul'
wld u mind explaining wat this means..
ReplyDeleteI am stumped......r u sayin one must stand for wat he/she believes in and act accordingly...
Well as i understand it, it means that we have a lot more power over our lives than we give ourselves credit for...as in, we often believe we dont have choices or that situations prevent us from making a free choice...but this isnt so. you need to undertand it by beginning with the last line...if you pretend you dont have much free will, you wont; and if you acknowledge it you do -it obviously follows! This is my interpretation!
ReplyDeleteThe lines will now be clear - we start pretending, and somewhere down the line, forget that its pretense, and take it for reality. Thus we live in a non real world, where we think human will is not so powerful..and so on. The remaining stanzas follow naturally.
But again this is just my interpretation. didnt get what you meant by standing by what you beleive in, can you explain?
when I said "standing by what u believe in" I had meant you do have a choice and u can also stand by it....
ReplyDeletedue to helplessness or herd mentality one musn't back out.....
One more thing , I was recently reading Swami vivekananda's teachings n i found this
"“We are responsible for what we are, and whatever we wish ourselves to be, we have the power to make ourselves. If what we are now has been the result of our own past actions, it certainly follows that whatever we wish to be in future can be produced by our present actions; so we have to know how to act.”"
and THIS
"“Never think there is anything impossible for the soul. It is the greatest heresy to think so. If there is sin, this is the only sin ? to say that you are weak, or others are weak.”"
Is there a co-relation
one more thing though I strongly believe in what u posted..... but after 3 yrs in the industry has made me seriously think abt it.....
ReplyDeleteworst part, u hav equally smart guys like chanakya who wrote "
“Do not be very upright in your dealings for you would see by going to the forest that straight trees are cut down while crooked ones are left standing.”
sort of angry and confused.....but I guess its better to stick to ur guns no matter wat.... frankly not too sure
hmm...good quotes posted by you...i didnt think of what i had posted in that light but thats what it means to interpret something in many ways.
ReplyDeleteI guess thats what the whole this is you know...you have the choice to choose what you want to believe in. It may turn our to be wrong or it may turn out right...hard to just take any quote and try to apply it exactly to life, so it doesnt matter if one chanakya quote is to the contary...fact is most people who have achieved some level of greatness agree on a person controlling his life than otherwise, so that seems more appealing, atleast to me. Again, its just my interpretation.
And have 3 yrs made you somewhat cynical? Really?
i agree with u wen u say controlling his or her life had made that person great..... but how many of them really stuck to their point and how many of them adapted ( u get wat i mean rite, bend around) to become successful.
ReplyDeletemore so in today's capitalist society.... ( i dont mean to question my wisdom nor is this my belief)
how long do u think do u think it takes to make a someone cynical ? last thing i want is to absorb all this nonsense like a sponge and do the same thing or crib abt it 10 yrs later wen i would be 35.... at that point its close to being a loser.... Today its that anger in me and its not far from wat u wrote (choice), but a sense of helplessness creeps in now n then.
I wouldnt call it frustration just yet, its a torrent of energy/anger flowing looking at the herd around me who are ready to accept almost everythin imposed upon them... even ready to kiss somebody's feet. I am not the only one but which gives me a lot of hope..... I have always believed "die fightin like a king if the need be, no fun in living like a jester" ... u knw wat i mean rite...i guess thats a big explanation for a small statement....