Would this have given any respite to him?

It was 2006 and my father was fighting against Cancer. I was away studying in Chennai while he was in Junagadh, Gujarat. I was going there for my semester break. April end it was. Had not seen him since about a year but somehow had this feeling that, though otherwise he was a man with very strong will power, in his 5th year of his battle with Cancer, he had started giving up because Cancer had reoccurred and he had not expected that. His wish to live had started to whither. By writing this letter i wanted to pump him up to live again, wanted to give him something to look forward to live again. Sunday, June 18th 2006, Father's Day was approaching and i knew that i would be returning back to Chennai before that so wanted to give him this letter when i was there as advanced Father's day wishes.

When i reached there, i saw that he was in no state to be able to sit also. He was reduced to a body where there was only skin and bones. He did not want to read anything. He was sufferring a lot of pain and he was scared that reading emotional things from me would make him feel like living more and prolong his pain and agony. But i wanted him to read it, as he was not ready to do so, i started reading it loud to him...

" Dear Dad
Going back to my birth, I did not know what you or I felt at the time when I was given to your hands for the first time and I cant even imagine it. But let me give it a guess, you would have felt that the whole world has shrunk and come into your hand and I would have thought that yes, this is where my world starts from.

Then came the time when you lent your finger to me to hold on and learn to stand on my feet. I don’t think that you would have succeeded in your very first attempt but I’m very sure that you did not leave trying. The proof is that I’m walking through this world without losing my balance off my feet as well as morals and values. You have always been on my side to protect me.

Dad, all fathers have some legacy to their child. The legacy can be in eyes, hairstyle, accent, looks and what not but a very few fortunate children have legacy of talent, intelligence, confidence etc. And I’m one of those fortunate ones. So let me tell you that, you have been my hero in whatever you do, whether it is managing the family, wiping our tears, smiling and laughing with us or anything else that you do. The years would have passed but you still remain my hero.

Running my mind towards those passed years, my mind fills with the memories of those days that you filled with warmth by your gentle smile. In my childhood my needs were different and now they have changed but the need that will never change is you!

You don’t know dad that your faith in me thought me the difference between giving up and trying again and again till you succeed. Your trust in my virtues, talent and wit molded me into what I’m today.

I learnt to give respect to others by looking at the way you treated others and me as well. And now I know very well that respect is that seed which will ultimately give a dense tree of love.

Dad, you are never ending source of intelligence, inspiration, hard work, talent, principles, dedication, knowledge, morals, positive attitude, optimism and what not…… I can’t think of all the great qualities that you own. It is beyond the limit of expression and writing.

When I look at myself today, I feel so proud that the qualities that I admired and respected in you are now parts of me.

Dad, you were always there when I needed you. As a friend when I wanted to pour out my heart. As a guide when I was treading through darkness. As a teacher listening and solving all my queries with patience.

Really dad you are my God, your words are my Geeta and your life is my religion that I will follow.

When I was a child, you used to give me lot of preaching when I was wrong, but, …. The only part I understood was, “Now sit down and listen to me quietly…” Beyond this, nothing went inside my mind. (Just kidding dad! )

Be rest assured dad that you will never ever have to hang your head down because of me, on the contrary you will always have your head held high when talking or listening about me.

Today my outlook of life, my choices and my sense of humor have a lot to do with the way I was brought up ad let me tell you daddy, there is no defect in your upbringing. I will prove it. In the future whenever you will look upon to me, you will always be proud of me as a son and as a human being as a whole. This is my promise dad."

When i finished reading it, i was in tears, i wiped the tears that rolled out from his eyes. Kissed him on his forehead least aware of the fact that this was my last kiss and last letter to him. He left us all and set off for his eternal journey after two days...

Dad, i know you are still with me and i want you also to know that the promise i made to you, is still ON!

You are more important than every THING that has come into your life.

The husband gifted a new car to his wife for her birthday. He first handed over the key, then a pouch with all necessary documents, including her driving license, and followed it up with a long hug. He then offered to take care of the children and asked her to go on a long drive. She thanked him with a kiss and she was gone with her auto-baby. Hardly a kilometre into the drive, she hit a median. She was safe, but the car was dented. She was consumed with guilt, “What will I tell him? How will he take it?” Thoughts and feelings ran amok. The police were quick to arrive at the accident scene. “Can we see your license?” they demanded. Her hands still shivering, she reached out for the pouch that her husband had given her. With tears rolling down her cheeks, as she picked the license from the pouch she noticed a ‘post it’ on it with her husband’s handwriting, “Honey, in case of an accident, please remember, it is you that I love and not the car. Loving you”

Blessed are those who have understood that they should be loving people and using things, and not loving things and using people.

A scratch on the car makes our blood pressure go up… but we don’t mind a scratch in our heart. I have heard of a man who broke an artifact by intentionally throwing it on the floor and then remarked, “For eighteen years it has been giving me tension – if it breaks, if it falls down… I thought it was the time to show who the boss is and gain some peace of mind.” I have heard of another person who gave a party because his Mercedes Benz was rammed and jammed in an accident. He explained, “Though the car is completely damaged, nothing happened to me, who was inside the car. Now that I’m okay I can buy another car, but if the automobile was intact and I was gone – it wouldn’t have made much sense.”

Our life began with a 60-rupee toy car. When it broke, we cried. Then we upgraded ourselves to the 2000-rupee remote controlled car. When that was damaged, we wept. Then we were gifted the 20,000 rupee battery operated car. When that stopped working, we were depressed. Then came the 4 lakh car, after that 22 lakh SUV, followed by the 86 lakh luxury sedan… and every time something happened to this machine, whether a scratch or a dent, the mercury of our tensions and worries went up. All in all, it seems our toys have grown, but we haven’t. What we cry for has changed, but the crying is still on. Just that our crying is a lot more sophisticated now. It has many new names like anger, disappointment, frustration, stress, anxiety, etc…

Toys are there to entertain us. Toys have only one purpose: to be useful to us. From your beach house to your SUV to your latest gizmos and everything else… everything exists to make your life more comfortable. You are bigger than every THING you own. You are more precious than every THING you possess. You are more important than every THING that has come into your life.

A toy is just a toy. Buy toys. Buy more and more toys. But give them their rightful place. They are just there to be useful to you, to make your life comfortable and to entertain you. Don’t ever waste another drop of your precious tears for a toy, no matter how dear the toy may be, After all, you are the dearest of them all.

The doors of peace open only with the key of trust

Irrespective of what happened to you yesterday, irrespective of what you did to the world or what the world did to you, irrespective of anything and everything, you have to wake up every morning and trust this world all over again. I know it is easier said than done, but you don’t have a choice – just don’t have another choice – because your peace is entwined with your trust. Without trust, there is no peace. Distrust leaves you distressed.

In the thousands of time that you may use public transport, your wallet may be picked a couple of times at the most. Even when you don’t trust the world and check your wallet and check your wallet every few minutes, some competent, professional thief will get better of you and pick your pocket some day… but it would have cost you a million opportunities to be peaceful otherwise. The eyes that see every co-passenger as a potential thief would have ruined your peace thousands of times, while trusting the world would have made every journey peaceful. Be wise and not otherwise.

A Nathuram Godse may get his way through, but in seeing everyone as a potential Godse you will miss a million Gandhians. Not worth it. In search of on Osama, you will have to doubt every noble heart. Not worth it.

One employee may betray your trust. Still trust the rest. A key relationship may take your goodness to be your weakness, and your trust might be exploited. Wake up another morning and start trusting all over again. I may sound naïve, but I’m showing you the gates of peace, which open only with the keys of trust.

If peace is what you seek, even if you were cheated yesterday, then you don’t have another choice but to wake up the next morning and trust this world all over again. Whenever I have been cheated or betrayed or hurt, I have always told myself, “Thank God that I was cheated but I was not the cheat; I was betrayed, but I didn’t betray; I was hurt, but I dint hurt. Let me suffer the wrong but never inflict the wrong.”

Let us assume every morning that the world will be trustworthy from today. The world will live up to our trust a zillion times and let us down a few hundred times. The odds are tremendously in our favor. Let the heart tilt in the direction of trust.

There is only one way to peace – T.R.U.S.T

The truth you resist is the battle you fight

When lived honestly, life heals itself. The truth you resist is the battle you fight.

You have dumped clothes inside a washing machine. The machine has performed its job. Now the clothes have to be taken out for drying. The longer you keep the clothes inside the machine, the fouler the odor will be. Don’t take it out for a few days and the stench will become unbearable. So it is with our thoughts and emotions. The more and more we keep building thoughts but do not communicate, and the more and more we feel emotions but do not express, the greater becomes the gap in the relationship. How long will you sweep things under the carpet? Eventually it will come out; and when it comes out, it will come out in unmanageable ugly proportions.

Thoughts formed but not communicated, and emotions felt but not expressed become incomplete cycles. Incomplete cycles linger alive in subconscious. Metaphorically, the lingering incomplete cycles are like scratches formed on the spectacles – anything and everything seen through the spectacle looks scratched. It is ironical that the scratches are not on objects, but in the medium through which the objects are viewed. In all, they hamper the vision.

When you do not spontaneously communicate your thoughts and express your feelings, you begin to distort them. You tend to exaggerate or diminish the truth to placate your suppressed feelings. When you cannot face it, you tend to deny it. What you cannot accept, you pretend not to care about. As far as our incomplete cycles are concerned, time, it seems, makes a liar out of all of us.

The secret of emotional health is to tell the persons who hurt you that they hurt you, when they hurt you. Otherwise these incomplete cycles will reappear sometime in future and ruin even your good times. The weight of the emotional baggage burdens the present. Something in the present will remind you of some unfinished suppression and reawaken old feelings. Those reawakened feelings will lead you to act in a way that may be completely irrelevant to the current context of your life. However, it is important to remember that old feelings resurface in order to be resolved and not to punish you. Emotional stress is purely due to thoughts not communicated and emotions not expressed. Emotional illness is a storage disease.

You are telling me, “Honestly, if I start expressing all my thoughts and feelings, I will hurt the person who matters so much to me.” I am telling you, “If you don’t, you will eventually hurt the relationship itself.”

Let us learn to face the truth, even if it hurts. Let those who matter to us the most learn to face the truth, even if it hurts. Communicate your thoughts and feelings directly to the person who instigated it. Be prompt. Don’t wait for ideal conditions. Be simple. Finish your complaint and let go. Don’t exaggerate, don’t nag, don’t overkill. If the person feels with you, you have succeeded. If not, understand who you are dealing with. Accept what is. Forgive and let go of your hurt. Move on… You have nothing to prove.

What must be faced, must be faced. Sooner rather than later.

“When was the last time you got your master health check-up done?” the doctor enquired. “No doc, I have never got a master health check up done,” the man replied. “Why so?” queried the surprised doctor, and added, “Post 40, you should get your master health check up done every two years.” The man said, “I don’t want to doc. Then they will come up with reports that may say my cholesterol level is high or I’m a diabetic… god knows, what else. Now I’m absolutely fine. One health check-up and I will start feeling like a sick man.”

Knowing very well that escapism can only be transitory, and also knowing very well that you cannot eternally escape anything in life, why do you still try to escape? Why do you hope against hope? Why is it that you don’t want to know what you must know? Just because you close your eyes, it doesn’t mean that the world will become blind. Eventually, what must be faced must be faced. Then, why at all eventually? Why at all postpone? Why at all delay? The forest fire you will face tomorrow is the little spark you tried to escape yesterday.

It is a fact that most of us lack the courage to face the facts of life. (I was the same till a few days back) That we lack the courage to face the facts of life is the first brutal fact that we must face.

I think my friend is drifting away from me. Only if you face this fact, something can be done about it. I think his friends are influencing our son more than we are able to as parents. A hard fact, no doubt, but only in facing it can something be done about it. I think my relationship is falling apart. True, a heartbreaking fact, but unwilling to face this fact is not going to solve anything. I think the competition is eating into our market share. I think some of our employees are nurturing the aspirations of joining the competitor. I think my kind of work wins me not only friends, but also enemies. Though I have always told him that it was his mistake, I know in my heart of hearts that I was wrong. The list is endless…

Only if you face the fact, something can be done about it. If you avoid the fact, it gets nastier and it revisits you. At least now, face the fact. Something can still be done about it. What you avoid does not go away with you. It gets uglier, and it revisits you. Every fact you escape from will haunt you in future with thoughts such as, “I should have… I could have… I must have…”

You can always seek the right medical intervention, follow the proper fitness regime and eat the right diet. You can ease out the differences with your friend through open communication; you can take the initiatives to become your son’s best friend, open up new markets, find a human beacon who take you from here to there, and take the courage to say the small-big word ‘SORRY’. Something can always be done. Face the brutal facts of life courageously; knowing very well, only then something can be done about it.

Everything ever solved, was solved only because somebody was ready to face it. It all starts with the courage to face the facts. In facing the facts that you had always tried to avoid, for the first time you are looking at life square in the eye. Escapism is not for people like you and me. What must be faced, must be faced, sooner rather than later.

Sitting alone on a winter night,
Beside a warm luminous flame,
Comes a breeze playing with fallen leaves,
And whispers in my ears your name !

Suddenly it seemed that spring has come,
There was love in air with drizzling shower,
With every breath there is a fragrance,
With every glance there is a colorful flower.

Every drop from sky seemed like
The water from your wet hair drips,
And every pink flower i saw,
Was greiving for color from your lips.

That cuckoo singing those sweet melodies,
Seemed to have borrowed your voice,
And any other sound except your name,
Fell on my ears as mere noise.

The collection of all colors, that rainbow,
Stretching across the horizon looking pretty,
Also cant lend colors to your portrait,
As mere colors cant depict your beauty.

The stream of water trickling down the rocks,
Made sound like how you laugh.
And i imagined your glittering eyes when,
I could see the setting sun only half.

Suddenly i open my eyes and wake up to see,
The same old winter night and the burnt off flame,
I realized that it was just a broken dream,
But one thing that still remained in air was "YOUR NAME"!!!!!

- Kandarp

When you truly believe you can, no force on earth can stop you…

Desire is a great creative energy. No achievement is possible without a desire to achieve it. Desire can be and should be cultivated, controlled and most importantly directed in the right direction. None of the inherent laws which govern the world, can be suspended or repelled by any force on the same plane, but it goes without saying that a higher law can overcome a lower one. By giving all your energy to a strong positive desire that will lift you, the smaller insignificant ones can be negated. For example, when you nurture a strong desire to win the marathon, your desires to eat sweets and pastries is taken over by the desire to win the race. When you nurture a strong desire to top the class, you easily give up your desire to watch the cricket match during exams. By fostering a strong desire to finish the project on time, your desire for the sleep goes for a toss. Your desire to own a house is so persuasive that you don’t mind forgoing your weekend and working for it. The list is endless… It boils down to what is that one desire that you will continuously ignite and pledge your life with, and the rest fades away in insignificance.

We often see men and women of strong mentality empower those around them. They emanate such strong desires as vibrations, which, coming in contact with minds of others, causes the desires of the latter to be in accord with the mind of the strong individual.

Great masters possess this to a great degree. Their influence is felt far and near by making others ‘want’ to act in accord with them. In this way, men of strong desire and imagination exert powerful influence over the minds of others, leading the latter in the way desired. Leadership is nothing but empowering the mass with your desires and leading them by giving their desires a sense of direction.

When the desires of a tree, for water, makes it lift water through 367 feet(tallest tree in the world) overcoming gravity, what should be the power of a human desire? Unimaginable! This is where one has to tread cautiously, for desire is a tool, which can cause destruction or creation depending on how and for what purpose you use it. Both a Hitler, who wanted to vanquish the Jews, and a Gandhi, who perpetuated non-violence became legends by making the people feel along with their desires.

No man is ever created without the inherent power in himself to help himself. There is a divine potency in every human being and even for that to happen desire is required. Ignite that desire in you, which is beneficial not only to you, but also for hoards of people around to such gigantic proportions that it engulfs all your other desires. The only way to work is to perform all your actions in tune with that strong desire, but not be desperate for the results.

Those of us, who understand that mind is a great creative power, also understand that nothing is impossible.

When you truly believe you can, no force on earth can stop you…