LOST IN TRANSLATION

Sometimes, its required to be a little resistant to things. Cause you gotta know yourself and make a decision as to what you need to do to achieve the things you want. That is the basic function of the human brain, to understand, to imbibe and to reason. Now, most of the things that you decide to do are spontaneous, the brain is wired in such a way, that they become a reflex, what is also called as "second nature". To control that is the challenge, cause you know that in a lot of cases this "second nature" is what brings you down, it is what makes you a slave to your own self. It may sound like a trivial thing to try and control every response you send out, but if you know and understand how these responses affect your psyche, then its better to try to curb them. For example, if you know that booze makes you emotional, unhappy and just plain bitter, don't drink so much. Cause you know that its just going to generate negativity, and you'll be stewing in a pot of self-pity by the end of the night. On the other hand, if you know that listening to music early in the morning energizes you, then keep doing that, cause its good to get out the early morning blues. They say that knowing what you want is the key to success. I think that knowing yourself is the first key to success. As long as you can do things that cause you to be comfortable in your own skin, to make you not want to be somebody else, then you're fine. If that's not the case, then you've got loads of soul searching to do, my friend.

And it all begins with acknowledgment. Acknowledge that you're not happy, acknowledge that there are regrets and mistakes at every point. Accept them at the physical level. Realize that they happened cause of your own faults. "All causes of misery are internal". Once one understands this fact, then one can build towards happiness. Life is always going to throw obstacles at you, you gotta find your way through them and emerge as a self-made person. Cause that is what you are supposed to be, that is why you have been blessed with a brain. Ill give you a very specefic example for this. Have you ever felt that feeling of being lost, when everything around you and everyone seems unfamiliar. It may be in a new country, at a drug-addled party, at a gathering in your new college, in a newly painted and furnished room or in an empty train at 12:30 am. The feeling is the essence of the loneliness that people feel when they lose a sense of who they are. Cause that sense of theirs is related to external things. Their friends might define and affect their opinions of themselves, they see a mirror everyday to see how good-looking they are, their top-range BMW provides them a feeling of status. All these things leave imprints in their mind and are a massive part of their process of self-evaluation. And when these things are absent, they lose sense of themselves, cause the thing that defines them is gone. Its like they have no meaning. Its like the movie "Lost in Translation". In a new country, when no one understands you, and nothing can really emphathize with you, you look for pillars of support, for people, things, places that can redefine or give you a sense of purpose and meaning. Its the reason why Indians, how much ever they might hate each other, try and stick together abroad. Its the reason why people go to temples, to find themselves. Its the reason why people have favourite places and things. Things and places that provide them that extra definition to their life. Things that tell them why they are where they are. Things that make them say "THIS IS ME".

An important fact that people forget is that all these are impermanent, ephemeral. Once you learn to be content and with yourself irrespective of the external environment, thats real power. Thats real enlightenment, thats a real sense of purpose. Cause all that is within you is all that is required to make you move forward. Thats when you become a universal citizen, a man/woman, with no dependence on any sect, person, situation, thing, drug or emotion to keep your sense of yourself. As long as your ever-present breath, just the fact that you are living can be that anchor, can be that pillar of support, can be that defining thing in your life, then you are FREE, totally and utterly FREE.