Notes for myself OR Some rules to live by

1. Must do now what must be done now, and not the other thing
2. Must not try to do too many things
3. Must over-prepare


While I am, I'd like to think, quite convincingly my father's daughter we are as different as chalk and cheese when it comes to being organised. He is rarely late and rather nicely organised and I am mostly late and forever trying to juggle stuff and failing in the process. So, of course, I did what one must do - I asked! Here is what I heard and understood, if I must learn from Papa's experience, I must follow the following three rules.

Must do now what must be done now, and not the other thing
I used to think laziness is not doing anything, but that is not what it is - it is not doing what needs to be done. When, in the Mahabharata, Arjun wanted to leave the battle, this is what Krishna tells him - it is impossible for you to do nothing, as long as you are alive you will be compelled to act, so do your duty - do what you must do - and not the other thing.

What we must do depends on who we are. As a human being I must maintain a standard of behaviour; as a person of certain specific talents I must work towards expressing them; as a daughter, as a sister, as a member of my family - both natural and adopted - I owe in gratitude; as someone who lives in Australia, as someone who grew up in India, as someone who shares this earth - I owe in gratitude and I owe as a responsibility; as an employee - I MUST pay back. To not do so is laziness, or in the words of Krishna, is stealing.

Must not try to do too many things
In spite of the fact that Papa says that he doesn't try to do too many things, he is actually one of the most productive people I know and so when he advised me that one mustn't try to do too many things, it reminded me of the golf ball and sands story.

Simplify life and prioritise properly; in spite of my identifying as so many things above, I do, currently, identify primarily as a working girl living alone; which makes my first duties towards work and then towards myself - in health and self-development; and then towards the society/family etc. because if I got kicked out of work and then became sick and unhappy, I'd be doing no favours to any family or society.

However, I still realise this is rather crudely put in favour of brevity and there is much to be said about Nitya-Nimittika-Karmas (obligatory duties), Kamya-Karmas (desire-driven actions) and so on.

Must over-prepare
Or more nicely, गीदड़ का शिकार करना हो तो तैयारी शेर की करके जाओ फिर जाके गीदड़ हाथ लगेगा। If you need to be somewhere at 5, target being there at 4.45; whatever you need do - over prepare.

One of the major reasons I fail is because I start worrying and end up making a mess - I try to do too many things, I am unable to do any justice to them and I forget that you need to over-prepare to actually able to achieve your targets. So here is to - living more consciously, with greater honesty and effectiveness.  

Like Salt

If we don't stretch this example too far, it is fascinating to note how we all perfectly balance salt, so effortlessly and naturally - once we have found how much we like, we'll want no more and no less. This balance seems to fail with everything else, surprisingly, even water. One of the ancient ayurvedic declaration, "Eat with hungry, drink when thirsty" sounds rather strange till you start noticing that we tend to eat sugar when thirsty. We cry when sleepy but hold on to being awake (hopefully just as babies); we hoard when we really need to share and we rarely seem to know when to say enough. We make ourselves and the world miserable by having just the wrong-est ideas possible.

We act in ways so strange that they seem to not make much any sense in the environment we are living in. For example, we tend to listen to people wearing a uniform* more unquestioningly and can be made to do useless cruel, inhumane actions that would have been unimaginable, if only they weren't true. We justify and continue on our woeful journeys because we simply cannot handle being wrong^. Is evolution the reason we live in a world we dont really live in? Are we still living in a jungle, even tho we have escaped it? Which means that, in essence, we are living in a wonderland nightmare because the we dont see the world as it is, and it doesn't react the way we assume it will?  
And what about love? The above outpouring was because I watched a documentary yesterday that showed how needless cruelty can even be amusing to some of us - if that doesn't shake your confidence in the world, can you please email me, call me, come to my place for dinner and tell me how? Because deep in my heart I will believe you, it is more pervasive this love and warmth we share - but harm and hurt, like bad weather, act fast and brings undone a lot of work of patient peace. But let's not end on this ambiguity of what we see and what is, that maybe we never mean harm that we end up causing, and most of us end up living rather decent lives after all (which might or might not be true) - let me end on hope of a place far away that Rumi talks about,
"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing there is a field. I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass the world is too full to talk about."
maybe if we lived here and now, we'd all be in that world... after all he does say,
"Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion."

*Milgrim Experiment
^Mistakes were made but not by me