Art of Living

One thing I enjoy in life is making new friends, as it leads to new discoveries, a whole new perspective to life. It is decades of different circumstances, different understandings leading to different discoveries that we gain in one new friendship. I look at Sri Sri Ravi Shankar as the first new friend that I have managed to make in a new place I shifted to. I was starved for a friend in this new place and it was a wonderful coincidence that my husband should suggest that I do the Art of Living course. The course was being conducted in our locality exactly in the week that my parents came visiting us and so could take care of my kids while I attended the course. In the class, I made a new friend, as I said, in Sri Sri Ravi Shankar though I didn't personally see him. He shared his understanding and research in the study of breath through this course. People were surprised that I,  a Christian, was attending a "Hindu" course. And I was so surprised about their surprise! What in the world is "Hindu" or "Non-Christian" about breathing a bit differently!! I was later again surprised when, while researching on the breathing techniques, I discovered that some Christian sects do not consider it very proper to undertake these classes! I feel, rather, that it is essential to understand the one thing that we definitely do as living entities which is to breathe. If we can take medicines to relieve stress and depression, and that is not 'Non-Christian', then definitely using understanding of breath to relieve depression and stress is definitely not Non-Christian. We attend any class to take what we want and have the option to ignore what we don't subscribe to. 

Another point that I would like to share is "my new friend's" understanding about the positive and negative things in life. He reiterates what Indian scriptures have to say, that there is no experience of positive without the experience of negative. Hence, one cannot be without the other. Duality is the nature of everything.

Though difficult to remember in negative circumstances, one cannot argue against the truth to it. In positive circumstances, we recognise the coincidences that lead to the good events. In negative circumstances, however, we wonder whom to blame for it. We think 'maybe if this had not been done, maybe if I had said something else, maybe if I had not surrendered to my feelings, maybe if my nature was different.. things would have been different?' Why is it that we often accord God for the good in life and want to blame ourselves for all the Bad! A moment has a power of its own that sometimes makes us react uncharacteristic to our nature, but though what it leads to may be read by our limited mental faculties as negative, if we are aware, we can realise that the negative event would have changed our direction to new discoveries in life, to new experiences, and all 'so very positive lessons' which would have been inaccessible without the nudge of the negative. 

It is, therefore, possible to feel blessed to have 'negative experiences' in life, but it does not mean we would be smiling through that rough patch of negative. The same way that anything positive in life brings smile and laughter, something negative brings tears and anger and suffering. But we have our knowledge serving as a log we hold on to during a flood, helping us endure and navigate through adversities in our life.