Happy Dushera and Happy Greetings! ~N. Harpal 🥳🌼
(5-10min reading material. Enjoy!)
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In any sports or competition, at the end of the game, we focus and celebrate about the winning team. We praise for winning team captain, their strategies and teamwork etc. Have you ever wonder, why the Hindu festival of “Dushera” is not named after the winning team (Lord Ram) but rather by the loosing team (Dushera = Ten Heads)? When you have lost against Lord Ram, he is so kind that he let to celebrate in the name of loosing team. What a great sportsmanship! On today’s festival of Dushera, there are many hidden messages too. When all other festivals try to focus on winners, the Dushera festival ask us to focus on our self awareness and flush out bad habits. It embraces us to look after following ten pitfalls; (1) ego or ahankara 😎; (2) attachment or moha 😋; (3) regret or paschyataap 😔; (4) anger or krodha 😡; (5) hatred or ghrina 🤬; (6) fear or bhaya 😱; (7) jealousy or irshya 🤭; (8) greed or lobha 🤩; (9) lust or kama 😛and (10) inertia/insensitivity or jaddata 😶.
Let’s have a further deep dive to our personal lives. On 1st January New Year , Hindu New Year, our Birthday— we all make new year resolutions for upcoming year and today on day of Dushera, we celebrate winning truth over bad things/habits/character and brainstorm about our bad habits. My question here is that — Are you yet 100% calm 😊, steady 😇, truth fighter 🏹, fearless 🙏🏻, people oriented 🤝, commited ✍🏻, disciplined 💪🏼, respectful to all other lives 🤟🏼, selfless 👥 and kind 🙌🏼 like Lord Ram? And which ten Ravan elements are still resting inside you? Why haven’t you reached to 100% level yet? May be you will argue that it’s not possible in 21st century. If so, then think and ask yourself a question— why not? What’s stopping you from being your full authentic potential power? What’s holding you back? With your internal self awareness, I am pretty sure that if you give your honest effort to find the answer then you will find that it’s not the external influences but it’s your own mindset which is limiting your full potential Lord Ram character. When you are stuck in any situation, we have two options/emotions/thoughts/actions: (1) either to give up b’caz you are tired or don’t care anymore or can’t control external situations, (2) or take a small action towards goodness despite of all the hardships. Remember, you always have a choice. Happiness is a state of experience when emotions, thoughts, actions and outcomes are all aligned. You can control first three ones all the times. Every-time, you make a decision either small or big ones, give a pause and ask yourself following three questions: (1) Am I just being reactive to current existing external situation? (2) How can I influence back with positivity to my external world, and (3) Does this decision give me short term comfort or long term improvement and push my soul towards Lord Ram character? — I believe that with such repetitive brainstorming, you get closure to your real life meaning and experience. When we are not mindful and self-educated, then the bad elements comes back to create entropy in our lives. Therefore, it is an endless game and therefore endless effort has to be put for truth to win every single time.
In the form of life experience, pain and joy will come and go. Even Lord Rama went through all the hardships in his life despite being Lord. So, why does suffering exist and how can we overcome? — My suggestions is to be and stay Blissful and Focused on positivity. In either pain or joy, they both are temporary. The thing which we can do in all the situations is to experience life in moments and give 1000% positive effort with unconditional love efforts. Make joy out of small things. Appreciate small winnings. Be thankful to all elements around you. Over the time, you will realize that there is an army of Nature elements — in terms of cosmos energy, bacteria-birds-animals-fellow human beings-plants-trees — they all are pushing you to be your best. You decide how to leverage your life with such infinite power. Read signs, my friend!
With that, on today’s festival of Dushera, let’s embrace our inner charm and self evaluate our character. Make a great life every single day and every single moment. Choose your reaction carefully. Happy Dushera once again. May Lord Ram bless you and your loved ones with spirit to fight back in all situations. Amen!
~NHarpal 😇🙏🏻🏹
