I have been trying to understand what causes disappointment – not in the world at large or for humanity in general but for me in particular. What leads to a slump in the mind, the heart, the body? There is always a trigger yes, but the question is why??
Ever since I can remember, I have experimented. Was it not Gandhi who said one must experiment with the truth and before him the Buddha and before him someone else? Indeed. But I didn’t know any of them at the time when I started my own experiments. In fact, I probably wasn’t even aware that that was what I was doing. It just so happened. My biggest problem with everything around me and the way it functioned was that it was already scripted. All one needed to do was follow it and one would be safe, or safe enough. But that made little sense and so I would dive headlong, for better or worse, in trying to feel my way through, whatever the nature of the experiment. Given such a background, it is but natural for one to toughen up in a way which may not be so common. But that didn’t mean that I wasn’t vulnerable or that I was removed from the perplexing emotions that rock our daily lives. So I took a recent bout of disappointment and dissected it into little bits. Shreds rather. That is what one must do in order to not fool oneself.
I had been given a gift. A gift for me isn’t only something which is wrapped up in shiny paper or ribboned boxes. A gift is something which imparts something – a lesson, a fragrance, a song, a sunrise. It could be anything that makes the heart smile or the mind value or the body skip or the spirit rejoice. In short, a gift can come from anywhere, anytime, in any guise. My recent gift left behind a trace of confusion. While I absolutely cherished it, I also felt its purpose had been no other than to shake my world. But as moments passed on, I distanced myself from the emotions and thought some more. I found that one thing consistent in all gifts is that the source is the same. My gifts are always sent to me by my gods. Every single one of them is handpicked and chosen with deliberate intent. And if that is the case, then how can I possibly reject a gift? Or how can I insult the gods by indulging in a slump? This ensuing disappointment can only arise when I have disconnected from that Source, losing trust and assuming control over my life. This disappointment can only arise when I forget about the purity of a gift. Every gift given to us has a purity of intent, for can you possibly expect anything less from the Divine? When we receive it, we colour it with our own desires or expectations, robbing it in the bargain of that purity. And in that process, we forget the actual purpose of the gift itself.
The first task would be to look at all that comes to us in our lives as a gift; in fact life itself is a gift.
The second would be to consider it as given by Those in whom we have unshakable trust.
The third and final task would be to retain that purity of gift.
It is only then that, no matter what ensues, one would only have immense gratitude for the gift given, seeing nothing but the purity of intent, learning only that which it was meant to teach and not what we choose to learn.
Would I now be free from disappointment? I can’t say. We’ll just have to wait till the next gift arrives and do another experiment.
