Sandcastle: The Cause of Misery

04/07/2017 Sayanti aka Shine Comments 11 comments

Lies and Truth:

People love lies, but they hate a liar. Yes, it is the harsh dilemma of life. A well-dressed lie is more acceptable than a naked truth of life. Lie consoles them. Lie maintains their illusory peace. Lie resists them to face the reality. On the other hand, the truth is very dangerous to the lie lovers because it is harsh and sharp like a sword that does inflict bleed. If a truth is disclosed to them, they have no option to escape. They cannot protect their ego from the attack of “sword”. They cannot save their self-made “sandcastle”. A single twitch of truth will break the castle of lies, which is made with the blind faiths or well-dressed lies.

Sandcastle or the castle of false beliefs:

The sandcastles on the beach with the background of sea look good. When the builder built the castle along the wet sands near the sea shore, (s)he knows that this is impermanent and it can be worn anytime with the onslaught of a tidal wave or the winds o’er the ocean. But, when somebody builds this sandcastle in his or her mind with partial assumptions and the false beliefs or lies, (s)he never dares to think that it can also be destroyed by the tinge of reality.

The sandcastle in mind is very dangerous because its founding is prevarication. People hear those words, which they want to hear and construct the castle based on their assumptions. Then they feel secure to live within the self-made sandcastle. It’s very common in our daily life and this is one of the great causes of misery.

It is seen, mostly, in the parents-offspring and husband-wife relationships. When the sons and daughters become grown up and live separately from their parents, parents always want to see them happy even after their marriage. Coming out this desire, they make the sand castle by their own assumptions. They only believe what they want to hear from their grown-up child(ren). They hardly try to understand them (children) or face the truth. Even, the responsible sons or daughters don’t want to take their parents’ unhappiness and thus, help them to build their sandcastle by telling well-decorated lies.

Same things happen in husband–wife relationships unless one is super suspicious. I saw many women who don’t want to hear something wrong about their husbands. In fact, even after finding clues or proofs against their husbands’ misdeeds, they just close their eyes and ears and believe what they want, that is the “peaceful lies”. And based on this false beliefs, they build their sandcastle to make them secure. Not only wives, there are many husbands in the society who also have not enough courage to face the truth about their wives.

Breaking of the Castle: Misery

The sandcastle is good until something hurts it. When it is knocked down, sand starts to fall and slowly it blends with the dust. If one manages to save it from any external damage, (s)he can’t able to set aside it from the tidal rush of the sea. The tide will come, by its own nature, and wash out the dream castle of sand.

The false beliefs or the wrong assumptions are just like the sand. A single twitch of truth can impair the whole construction. Then, those beliefs start to fall down like the sand of the sand castle and finally, the builder has to face the wave of harsh reality.

“Sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.”

No one can escape from truth. Closed eye or closed ear can act as a measure to stay away or hide from the truth. If life is an ocean, the reality is the wave of that ocean. So, the castle of sand cannot exist for a long time. The Tide of the reality will inevitably come and sweep away all those false constructions. The pain of destruction of beliefs is more miserable than to confront the truth before making the beliefs.

Conclusion:

It’s better to face the truth or to investigate the truth before making any assumption or false belief. The truth is very powerful. It keeps haunting to the heart of the false believers. But, they don’t listen to their hearts and hold on their false beliefs. That leads to misery. But, if they find the truth and face it, they can make a solution for the particular problem or can find out any way to stand on that problem. It should be kept in mind that the fermented truth is more grievous than the fresh one. The truth is not an alcohol like the lie. It is the food that makes us healthy for living a joyful life.

photo credit: Google image

WP-Weekly Photo Challenge: Transient.

28/06/2017 Sayanti aka Shine Comments 19 comments

It’s so funny that we want permanent things in the impermanence of life. Life is transient. So, everything attached with our living is transient like the autumn clouds that float away with the passing time.

Life is short. We make it lengthy by searching stability, safety, and securities in this short span of living. But at the end when it is going to disappear, we try to back it again. We just miss the opportunity of living in the present.

The flower that blooms in the morning, fades away at the evening and finally drops down on the earth. But, the time it lived, lived with its totality with its color, fragrance, and nectar.

The change is the only permanent thing in this impermanence life. The newly born green leaves of the Monsoon turned into yellow with the ages and finally shredded down on the earth in the Winter. Even the shredded leaves also disappear in the earth. We cannot hold anything forever.

Life is transient as the dew drops on the leaves. It tries to hold the moment until it touches the ground to fade away. It spreads its beauty by reflecting its surrounding world when the morning sunshine falls on it. The beauty is also transient as it disappears with the heat of that sun rays.

The moment we live is only permanent in this transient life. So, nothing is more beautiful than to live the moment with our totality.

This week, the theme of the WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge is – Transient. This is my entry for this Challenge.

#AtoZChallenge: Z is For Zest for Life

30/04/2017 Sayanti aka Shine Comments 10 comments

Zest for life?

It is a positive approach towards the life that moves life with excitement and enthusiasm. Life will be just waiting for death if one loses it. Hence, the zest is everything that makes the life beautiful. It comes from inner happiness. If you happy from inside, you will find tremendous enthusiasm in your every activity. Discovering that inner happiness of life is the most important thing to bring back the zest of childhood.

Zen of living:

If you look at the children, you’ll find they have tremendous energy for everything. They do every single activity with full of enthusiasm. They are so energetic that parents have to struggle a lot to make them sleep. They do so because they can involve themselves totally in any activity. When the play, their total beings are involved in playing. When they paint, they invest their all energy in painting. They have no worries of future, they have no regret of past and they have no fear to lose anything. They are only living in the present. Hence, no energy is wasted in thinking about past and future and total energy is engaged in the present.

Living in the present with full of consciousness is the Zen of living. The Zen living is the key to finding the zest in life. When you know to celebrate today, you’ll find real happiness in everything.

Zest; Photography of butterfly sucking nectar from flowers. — Picture quote on Zest for life.

How to find the Zest for life?

Do those things that make you happy unless you won’t find enthusiasm in those works. Love the activity which you are doing unless you couldn’t invest your full energy within it. It’s very important to choose the work that you can do from your heart or try to find joy from the work that makes you bore. Suppose, you love to write, but you have to do a job that keeps continuing your monetary flow and you don’t like to do that job. I’ll say either you find some interesting things from that job or change it. Otherwise, the frustration comes from that work, will spoil all your enthusiasms of life.

The zest comes from inside. You cannot find that when you feel low. So, try to find your happiness in your every work. The zest will follow that and makes your life exciting and youthful at any of your age.

This post is the part of Blogging From A to Z Challenge of April 2017 on Letter- Z. My theme for this Challenge is Exploring The Beauty Of Living.

P.S: This is my last post for this challenge. I’d like to thank my fellow bloggers and visitors who regularly visit my blog, read my posts and leave their valuable comments here. Your continuous encouragements motivate me to survive in the challenge till the end after so many difficulties in real life. Thanks for all.

#AtoZChallenge: W is for Wound

27/04/2017 Sayanti aka Shine Comments 3 comments

Wound:

Every wound has a scar. Every scar has a story. And the moral of that story is “Yes, still I’m living.” It doesn’t matter how many wounds you have. But, which matters is whether you have found the story of it or not. The story is nothing but the wisdom. The wisdom is knowing yourself. The wound is like the window through which you can see yourself. Rumi said, “The wound is where the light enters you.” Light comes through the hole, where you got hurt, to light up the darkest part of you. So, use that hole for introspection and recognize your strengths and weaknesses.

People have a tendency to escape from the pain. Hence, they avoid touching the wound as it creates pain. But, the harsh truth is you cannot get happiness if you escape from pain. It’s because if you don’t heal your hurt, it will grow day by day and finally, it will ruin you. If you let your disease untreated, it spreads all over the body. In the same way, the unhealed wound will spread its pain all over the mind and you cannot enjoy the happiness of life.

Introspection through the wound:

Introspection is the vital part of healing. You need to come out from the outside noise and make sometimes exclusively for yourself.
You need to gain some courage to research on the past history of your injury. It is painful though you have to face that. Escaping from the pain is not the way of happiness.
As much as you analyze your pain and how did you get hurt by it, you will know yourself better than earlier. You can recognize your weakness and mistakes. Learning from the mistake will mature you to move forward. When you commence moving ahead, the past will not trouble you again. Letting go will be easy for you, then. In this way, wound open the window for wisdom and heal the pain for forever.

This post is the part of Blogging From A to Z Challenge of April 2017 on Letter- W . My theme for this Challenge is Exploring The Beauty Of Living.

#AtoZChallenge: M is For Maturity

15/04/2017 Sayanti aka Shine Comments 4 comments

Maturity is not the experiences or the knowledge that you have gained with your ages. It is something that depends on your awareness. It is something that depends on how consciously you enjoy your present. Life is all about living in the present. It doesn’t matter how your present is. Does it bring happiness to you or it makes you unhappy? Maturity is the thing that responds to the present. If the moment brings pain, cry out loud. If you feel happy now, laugh out loud. It’s all about responsiveness. It is all about how much you accept the present. Simply, it is a childlike attitude that is based on your innocence.

A child doesn’t know her past or future. She only knows the present and enjoys it with all her emotions and expressions. This is the innocence of the children. They don’t need any experience or knowledge to enjoy every bit of life. They are just living. But, they are living unconsciously. They don’t learn from the things happens with them. Thus, their living is not the mature living.

Maturity needs two things. One is your childhood innocence and another is consciousness. When you start to live the moment with full of awareness, you won’t be bothered about your future or worried about your past. It is the stage where you have no fear of death or loss. It is freedom from fear freedom from anything. You will be aware of that you are rich from inside. Just like a child, you will know whatever you do, do for your own peace and this peace is your asset.

Immaturity always counts experience and age. Some people always want to win by argument even at the cost of a relationship. Their argument gratifies their ego. But, the ego keeps one away from learning. If one doesn’t know to learn from the single thing of life, how can he or she grows up? Growing up means, growing inside deeply that is knowing yourself. It is possible only when your ego dissolves. Thus, maturity comes from inside and it is irrelevant with the ages and experiences. It is the rebirth that recaptures the childhood with full of awareness.

This post is the part of Blogging From A to Z Challenge of April 2017 on Letter- M. My theme for this Challenge is Exploring The Beauty Of Living.

#AtoZChallenge : H is For Happiness

10/04/2017 Sayanti aka Shine Comments 11 comments

True happiness:

The journey of true happiness starts with pain. Even, a baby has to feel pain in the birth canal to come into the world and enjoy the happiness. It’s not that it is outside and you have to cross the harsh road to find that. It is within you. But, the attachment to the external object makes you dependent on the external factors like persons, money, property, food and so on. You always try to extract pleasure from those by forgetting our inner bliss.

Inner happiness is true, independent, and constant. It stays with you, from your childhood to old age. A child itself is full of happiness. So, the external pleasure or unhappiness cannot bother a child. When a child turns to young, he/she starts to get attached to the external objects, finds his/her joy in those. In this way, you forget about your inner joy and loss yourself in the worldly attachment.

You can experience the true bliss only when you accept your pain. It makes a path which goes to the inner self. the bliss is hidden in your inner self. If you escape from pain, you will miss the happiness. Pain comes as blessings. But, you always see it as a curse. Thus, you always try to escape from the pain and find pleasure outside. Pleasure depends on various external factors. When those factors are changed, it turns into sadness.

Happiness comes from pain:

The equation of true happiness is simple. First, you enjoy the pleasure as much as you can, according to your desire. If an obstacle comes, try hard to overcome it. If you cannot, accept it, rather than escaping from it. Obstacles, like grief or pain, are the light to see your inner Self. It breaks your pride that is also called ego, which acts as a shield over our “true Self” and enlightens “Self” by the process of introspection.

Sincere introspection makes you wise. This wisdom will guide you to discover the boundless happiness. That’s mean, again, you have to suffer in the pain of the birth canal. Then you could see the light of the world. That is happiness. This is your rebirth because from now, you will enjoy the worldly pleasure in a new way. Now, you don’t have to depend on other external materials for your bliss. You are full of bliss. You are complete and independent too. This bliss is so strong that, no worries, no pain, no criticism cannot make a dent to your unbound happiness.

The Sunshine comes in every morning. But, we realize the value of sunshine after a dark and stormy night. Similarly, one can only experience unlimited happiness after suffering in pain deeply.

This post is the part of Blogging From A to Z challenge of April 2017 on letter H. My theme for this challenge is Exploring The Beauty Of Living.

#AtoZChallenge: G is Gratitude

08/04/2017 Sayanti aka Shine Comments 4 comments

Spirit is the wave of beauty. You can enjoy this beauty of living when your attitude transforms into gratitude. It is the gratefulness for everything you have and you haven’t. Complains, desires and comparisons will never show you the path of Contentment. Those are all the continuation of the inner emptiness. If you want to find the lack in your life, you can see it all over. On the other hand, if you want to appreciate every single thing of life, you will feel full and grateful for everything.

Suppose, you have no house to stay and you were dying in search of shelter for sometimes. Suddenly, someone offered you a shelter in that critical period. Then, the emotion of gratitude will flood your eyes. But, if he or she had given the same at any other time, it wouldn’t have such value in your life. You understood the importance of roof on the head at the time of crisis. This is why you are overwhelmed by your gratitude.

In the same way, you couldn’t realize the value of life and the things related to your living until you are not falling into crisis. The person, who lost his vision by some accident, ask him the importance of vision. The mother, who lost her little baby by any incident, ask her the value of having a child. The man, who is wandering the whole day for a piece of bread, ask him the value of food.

The fact is, you cannot feel grateful without the crisis. And your demands, expectations, and complaints are increasing by the time along with the gains. This is why you cannot appreciate the single gain of life.

When you can realize the way life is happening, how many things are involved in continuing your living, you will be overwhelmed by your gratitude. You will feel thankful for your joy, pain, betrayal, love and mistakes as well. Everything is happening to make you conscious about your spirit. Living with full of consciousness will help you to see the beauty of living. The feeling of gratitude makes you receptive to enjoy every pulse of life. Your whole being becomes thanksgiving because you will feel nothing is missing and everything is complete. This thanksgiving observes the richness of your livelihood.

This post is the part of Blogging From A to Z Challange of April 2017 on Letter- G. My theme for this Challange is Exploring The Beauty Of Living.

Self-discovery: A Journey Towards the Self

16/12/2016 Sayanti aka Shine Comments 0 Comment

Self-discovery:

The journey of discovering our true Self is the pilgrimage where we can gather wisdom, love and ultimate happiness of spirit. Life is a combination of joy and sorrow. Joy always makes us feel like that “I’m the top of the world or the world exists for me only”. Whereas pain always leaves us alone. It’s like that “I’m nothing in this world or I’m alone in this big world.” Pain distracts us from the rest of the world. And we have a natural tendency to avoid this aloneness and to escape from the pain. But, pain can be our greatest ally, if we accept it and enter inside it. There was a nice saying of the great philosopher, Rumi, “Grief can be the garden of compassion. If you keep your heart open through everything, your pain can become your greatest ally in your life’s search for love and wisdom.” Pain opens the path of self-discovery. We can only discover our true Self when we really learn to see ourselves in the darkness of pain.

The aloneness of pain always comes as a boon. It’s because we can only think, truly, about ourselves or see our activities in various life events as an audience when we stay alone from the rest of the world. The time when we can do that we discover our true Self or true guide or true friend. The foremost step in discovering our Self is dissolving our ego. The Pain hits that point and we feel sad for that. If we allow the pain to do its job, it will break the hard wall of ego or false Self and discover our True Self.

My journey towards the Self:

Experiencing Pain:

Life throws us many challenges in the different phases of our lives. The challenges are the opportunity to realize our Self. I’m not an exceptional from that. From my very young years, I always searched for a man who will be my friend, philosopher, and guide. A father is the first man in every girl’s life. Hence, I often tried to see my hero in my Dad. But, I was not so satisfied with his performance since he scolded me a lot. Lol. But, that scolding didn’t last for long. He passed away when I was twenty, only. That was the second time, I was traumatized by an incident after overcoming or avoiding my first trauma of my first breakup.

But, I hated trauma. I hated to cry. I always kept me busy with my friends. I passed my nights by chatting over the internet to forget the grief. That time someone came into my life as a blessing. He spread his happiness over a stagnant pool of my life me like a bag full of fragrant wildflowers. His love made me feel that I’m the out of the world. Light and shade is the rule of life. One fine morning, he went from my life and left me alone again. I lost my best friend, my guide, and my man. I was traumatized again and this time it reaches its worst. I took sleeping pills and anti-depressant to blank the heartache.

The journey within the pain:

Life had been going on and I had been missing one after one opportunity of Self-discovery. The last opportunity I found when I was the victim of an unhealthy marriage. That time, the questions bothered me so much were, “Why me and why am I alive, still?” I gained some courage to look inside the pain in search of those unsolved questions of life. That was not easy for me. I remembered the events one after one and visualized my activities, responses and thoughts during the respective incidents. When I pictured the thoughts in my mind like a live video in various incidents of life, I realized it was me, who was responsible for all. It was me, who committed mistakes one after one and blamed others for all. This body and this mind lead to all mistakes. And I’m still alive after all the misdeeds and mistakes. Isn’t that a miracle? I realized that someone is there in my life who saves me in my every struggle, in every danger and in every mistake. And the mistakes were not the mistakes, anymore. Those all guided me to the true path self-discovery. He protects me from doing any misdeeds. He is the one, who loves me, who saves me throughout the life. He is not a man or woman who stays outside. He is the one who stays within me and within my heart. He is my friend, philosopher, and guide. He is my true Self. When I realized it, all fear has gone. I just believe, I’m sitting on my Lord’s chariot and I’m going wherever he leads me out. I’m just flowing with the stream of life.

Osho's saying on Self-discovery. — Osho’s saying on Self-discovery.

Conclusion:

Life is a journey which gives us the opportunity of Self-discovery. We can savor the total fun of life with its ups and down when we live the life with full of consciousness. Hope, this journey will help you to accept the pain and discover your true Self through the path of pain.The path of pain always leads to the river of happiness. It’s better to say that in Rum’s words,

“Don’t run away from grief, o’ soul

Look for the remedy inside the pain

because the rose came from the thorn

and the ruby came from a stone.”

In response to the Indispirie prompt: #Self-discovery

Happiness Comes From Pain

10/11/2016 Sayanti aka Shine Comments 24 comments

The journey of true happiness starts with pain. Even, a baby has to feel pain in the birth canal to come into the world and enjoy the happiness. It’s not that happiness is outside and we have to cross the harsh road to find that. Happiness is within us. But, the attachment to the external object makes us dependent on the external factors like persons, money, property, food and so on. We always try to extract happiness from those by forgetting our inner happiness.

Inner happiness is true, independent, and constant. You cannot find it outside. It stays with us, from our childhood to old age. A child itself is full of happiness. So, the external happiness or unhappiness cannot bother a child. When a child turns to young, he/she starts to get attached to the external objects, finds his/her happiness in those. In this way, we forget about our inner happiness and loss ourselves in the worldly attachment.

You can experience true happiness only when you accept your pain. Pain comes as an obstacle to achieving external happiness. It turns one from the exterior to interior. It makes a path which goes to the inner self. True happiness is hidden in our inner self. If you move on from your pain, you just escape from happiness. Pain comes as blessings. But, we always see it as a curse. So, we always try to escape from grief and find happiness outside. This happiness depends on various external factors. This has no true base. When those factors are changed, it turns into sadness.

This external happiness is just like a dream, which we see during our sleep. When we wake up our dream breaks. A wise person says it “illusions”. According to Hinduism (Vedanta), it is “Avidya” or “Ignorance”. To gain the “Vidya” or “Wisdom” you have to enter into yourself. Your wisdom only can help you to find out the true happiness. Once you achieve it, nothing can disturb your happiness. You will stay as joyful as long as you live in this world.

Happiness comes from pain:

The equation of true happiness is simple, though the solving part is not easy. First, we enjoy the external happiness as much as you can, according to your desire. If an obstacle comes, try hard to overcome it. If you cannot, accept it, rather than escape from it. Obstacles, like grief or pain, are the light to see your inner Self. Grief or pain first break our pride that is also called “I”- ness. ‘I” is the ego, which acts as a shield over our “Self”. Grief breaks ego and enlightens “Self” by the process of introspection.

Sincere introspection makes you wise. This wisdom will guide you to discover the boundless happiness. That’s mean, again, you have to suffer in the pain of the birth canal. Then you could see the light of the world. That is happiness. This is your rebirth because from now, you will enjoy the worldly happiness in a new way. Now, you don’t have to depend on other external materials for your happiness. You are full of happiness. You are complete and independent too. This happiness is so strong that, no worries, no pain, no criticism cannot make a dent to your unbound happiness.

The Sunshine comes in every morning. But, we realize the value of sunshine after a dark and stormy night. Similarly, one can only experience unlimited happiness after suffering in pain deeply.

photo: Google Image

Creation After the Destruction

22/07/2016 Sayanti aka Shine Comments 0 Comment

After a terrific storm, nature becomes calm. Like that, a pure silence can be experienced after the demolition of the remaining constructions that is related to Ego. Creation begins after every destruction. Storm surges, the dark clouds cover the light blue sky, the strong wind ruins everything, the heavy rain washed off the signs of existing structures and then the calmness comes. The composure is so perfect that it seems like that nothing falls out before this. But, this calmness is very productive. In this calmness, the sun comes up, the flower blooms, birds come out by forgetting the loss and people begin to accept the destruction and moves away, slow. As the day becomes long, people set out to build the new constructions over the destruction with the new enthusiasm.

But, those, who cannot bear the passing of that devastation, who still exist in the storages of the past, cannot build anything new. Storm comes again and again and destructs them as it did before until they are ready to bear the end.

destruction_after-101781 — A famous quote of Graham Greene.

The path of creation is very tough. After experiencing a deep agony of destruction, one can discover the ecstasy of creation. After passing a heavy storm, one can experience the authentic silence. This silence is the creator of so many things those never happen before. This silence knows the pain of loss and the ecstasy after an ultimate agony. This silence can realize the meaning of all suffering and significance of surviving after the tempest. Thus, this silence can cultivate one’s life, totally. Hence it’s not an ordinary silence. It is full of wisdom and vigor. It has a tremendous power of exploding one, completely. And when it does that, only the excellence comes out from the core of the existence. It’s because now there is no fear of losing anything, there is nothing left to save for future in life. Whatever is remaining after the destruction is permanent and eternal and untouched by anything. Hence, whichever comes from the explosion is the cosmos of that eternal existence and this foundation comes from applying the totality of being.

This creation is totally different from previous creation because in this creation one can use his or her totality. So, whatsoever one will create after this storm, he or she pours his or her total energy within it. Hence, the creation after the devastation of a huge storm is incomparable to anything. It’s pure like the soul because the soul blooms like a flower in the deep silence after the storm.

This is only possible when one doesn’t avoid the storm, when one accepts the storm and its destructions and when one uses the calmness after the storm to discover oneself. The storm always comes as a pennant of triumph in life. It can be entirely understood at the first light after the conclusion of the long stormy night.

In response to WP-Daily prompt- Storm

Image source

Lies and Truth:

Sandcastle or the castle of false beliefs:

Breaking of the Castle: Misery

Conclusion:

Zest for life?

Zen of living:

How to find the Zest for life?

Wound:

Introspection through the wound:

True happiness:

Happiness comes from pain:

Self-discovery:

My journey towards the Self:

Experiencing Pain:

The journey within the pain:

Conclusion:

Happiness comes from pain:

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