Finding Inner Peace, for Dummies

Finding Inner Peace, for Dummies

By

Murali Murthy

I feel the daily irritants are killing me more, than anything else.

It could be the errant and unruly drivers in the traffic, indisciplined citizens, lawlessness, unrestrained behaviour, reckless people, noisy neighbours, politicians, Governance, corrupt mindset, intolerance, oblivious to humanity, hatred, venomous tongue and toxic minds.

And the co-killer: Occupational stress, working under extreme pressure situations, frustrating outcomes, lone battles, demanding and draining.

All these stress and anxiety ends up altering the temperament and behavioral changes, leading to displaying wrong emotions, impulsive expressions, even with the loved ones.

Ofcourse one solution to wipe out all problems is to go solitude, away from city life and work life. Back to simplicity, back to the nature, back to the roots, back to the basics.

While that looks far fetched, what's the intermediate solution?

To insulate myself from the irritants and not to let it consume me, my character, my persona and my temperament, the philosophical suggestion I will get is "Don't let them bother you, ignore the irritants that's not in your control"

Err, Thanks for the tip, but how!!??

What would ideally help me? Is it councelling or spirituality?

Either of them might help in training me to ignore the problems around, and in the typical voice "Calm your mind, calm your senses and focus on your goals, do not fret over things you cannot control. Find inner peace, dwell into yourself, find yourself".

All these sounds funny, and I think I myself can come up with all these gyan. People just want to hear such gyan from others to push themselves. Probably because of the stressful life we all lead, such new age godmen, inner peace factories have mushroomed in the last decade, capitalising on the weak minds.

The question still remains...how do I find peace?

Spirituality still could be the answer.

Does such inner peace factories really help, who basically takes bits and pieces of our Vedas, Scriptures, Bhagavatha, package it with good English, add Yoga, and a pinch of meditation classes, the recipe is ready!

What if I choose to find answers in my own root dharma? In my case Madhwa Philosophy.

The problem there is it's way too technical, academic. Everyone in this domain, I find them busy with the procedures, rituals and practices. The blind following of procedural aspects will actually scare away dummies like me from God and spirituality. Especially when someone like me who treats God like a Friend and the first thing I say when I see my favourite God is "Hey Buddy".

A visit to holy sites surely inspires, rejuvenates and calms the mind - only as long as am there. Once back to the grind, nothing changes.

Probably, I am my own doctor, I am my own philosopher. I need to yell at myself, when I am done frowning at others.

I need to customise my own spirituality, I need to guide myself, I need to find my own way.

What do you do to find inner peace?

Life Experiences - 1

How much to share

As I sat in an Ola Auto yesterday night, I found the Driver to be very sophisticated and spoke good English.

With no prompt from me, he started sharing everything about himself starting from how he works as HR and drives Auto part time, how much he earns, his salary, the EMIs, his Cibil score.

I am still wondering why did he share so much. For tips? For Networking?

How much do we Share, How much should we share?

We are responsible for the information we reveal to our friends, strangers, relatives.

How much I share is probably determined by how I want others to perceive me.

It also depends on my character, or by choice of either being a Private person or a Social person.

Thanks to Social Media, we probably don't even know how much we are sharing.

Perspective from this end

I stood at the edge of two coach joint inside a Metro train,

The other coach was jumping vigorously,

Saw people moving and swaying, but me and people in this coach were comparatively stable.

I took few steps to cross the coach joint and stood in the other coach.

Now I found people were moving and swaying and jumping in the coach I was previously standing!

The perspective changed based on where I stood and watched.

I wouldn't elaborate on what I was implying this on, but I leave it to your imagination and scenarios to see things in perspective.

The Austere life of our parents

The generation gap is natural and understandable, considering the upbringing and social ecosystem of each era.

As I see, one of the key difference between us and our parent's generation, is the mindset when it comes to money matters and lifestyle.

Not that they didn't have money, but they believed in leading a austere life.

Irrespective of their financial status, they were "Poor in their mind".

Irrespective of our financial status, we are "Rich in our mind".

Just one petty example: when the LPG Cylinder was 200, they marked the date on it with a chalk and calculated and monitored the usage each month.

When the LPG Cylinder is 1000+ now, we just place the order whenever it gets over!

The Grown Ups!

I wonder if everyone feels the same way I feel, that it's too much of an ask to be a grown up!

Being an Adult, comes with it's own perks though. We need not get up every single day and goto school on the clock, and keep proving the same formulas and theories already proved.

But those month long Summer holidays are the breaks we really wish we can have now.

Whenever I see a small child or an infant, I keep wondering what would be running in their minds, or would it just be blank. We adults have constant thoughts running, either planning or worrying on something.

A child is pushed to give good and equal time for studies, sports, entertainment, eating and sleeping! As an adult though we have the freedom and flexibility to do what we want, we just can't!

That Service Road entry

A huge traffic pile up on a Highway, with KMs of vehicles ahead and behind.

There is a small break to enter the Service road which seems empty. But you don't know if it connects the highway ahead, and you are new to the highway, unaware of this road. Hardly one or two vehicles are entering the service road, but you don't know where they are heading.

I hesitantly took the plunge and Bingo! I literally saved myself atleast 15 minutes of ordeal in the traffic, and could connect back to the highway, much ahead!

What do I make out of this use case! Is it being explorative? Is it being impatient? Or the ones continuing to safely wait, are just sheeps following the larger population? I found it to be a very interesting social, human behavioral observation!

Counrty Roads

A drive through the country roads is always the best, satisfying part of the journey. The view of the standing crops, greenery, the landscapes gives such a soul satisfying feeling and makes the heart happy.

And when these country roads run through villages, men and women sitting idle under the tree shades, outside their homes, the discussion among those sitting inside the car always has a topic "What do the people in the village do? They are so calm, idle, and just sitting there all day!".

Knowing that they would have done their job in their fields and farming related activities, still wondering how one can sit idle like that.

The problem is with our benchmarking. We think being busy, making work our sole purpose of life, being stressed out all the time, living in artificiality is the way of life.

We are probably just jealous of their life!

Blinded

During a routine eye checkup, I was made to close my eyes and sit for half an hour, with some eye drops loaded into my eyes.

It was a strange 30 minutes, I was practically blind. What I did observe was my hearing ability magically enhanced. Even the minutest of sounds and voices were clearly heard, Every conversation from far was heard.

Another example of how beautiful our body and mechanisms are designed. It improvises, adapts, compensates, heals & self learns.

Whatever logic we put in creating an AI/ML system, it cannot beat human intelligence and the human body, end of the day AI is just a set of pre-programmed commands, and programmed to add more scenarios as they occur.