Give in to an all-embracing attitude and see
And then the big bad wolf growled at the teenyweeny pig; open the door or I will blow down your house! The pig did not trust the wolf so he said, I won’t. It was one of our story sessions in progress. My little bundle of energy, Sehar, was over for the evening. “What is trust, nani (grandma)?” The four-year-old rolled the word on her tongue to get the pronunciation right. Well sweetheart, trust is when you believe.
I couldn’t come up with any other equivalent. “Oh! But you must believe everyone!” she announced with innocent aplomb. To hammer in the point further she rattled on, “I believe that Anahat was really sick when she couldn’t come for my birthday. I believe that Ansh actually thought that it was his tiffin when he ate up mine and I also believe when you say we can’t watch cartoons all afternoon because then I will start looking like one.” Point noted.
These teaching sessions with my grandchild are actually turning out to be learning lessons for me. It would save us so much trouble, if we just learn to set aside our suspicions and believe. Life is a simple walk in the rain, complicated with our need of an umbrella and expectation of zero-slush. Like the minions, who have shrunk their world into their cell-phones, can only tolerate their own perspective of things. Photo-shop the picture till it looks back at you the way you desire it to. Delete all that is eating into your memory card. Allow access to whoever and block the rest. They believe in the commodity value of human beings.
Once, a couple of decades ago, I accompanied my very sceptical dad and family friends for a personal discourse with spiritual guru Osho. Sensing my dad’s misgivings, Osho asked him, “What is the opposite of belief?” “Disbelief,” said my father. “No, you are wrong, sir. Disbelief is conviction too. Any kind of conviction has a basis in some kind of logic. The opposite of belief is doubt. For it leaves you in the middle of nowhere.”
Most of us are trapped in a web of self-created doubt. Hence, the haze of uncertainty is in our thinking. The doubtful seldom make strides in any direction. They waste too much time standing on the fringes.
Who says we have to make right decisions every time? Who expects us to win always? The game of one-upmanship would have made sense had the world been created like a vertical tunnel. Its huge horizontal expanse allows us all a space in the sun. First, we need to believe in His plan and then go about creating our own to complement it. There is so much within myself that can be resurrected, I ponder, as I gave in to the all-embracing attitude of my grandchild. We can bring alive our innocence, vivaciousness and chirpiness by just erasing out the darkness of doubt. There can be no rancour, in any association, if you refuse to actively build it up.
Hell, it was all so easy. The world is not such a bad place to live in. It is actually a learning experience, like none other!
THE GAME OF ONEUPMANSHIP WOULD HAVE MADE SENSE HAD THE WORLD BEEN CREATED LIKE A VERTICAL TUNNEL. ITS HUGE HORIZONTAL EXPANSE ALLOWS US ALL A SPACE IN THE SUN