GIVE YOURSELF A NEW LEASE OF LIFE

Many people think that to welcome the New Year, they must do the silliest things possible – get drunk silly, drive silly, some even die silly. It seems like if anything has to be popular today, it has to be silly! Isn’t it time we redefine our idea of celebration and learn to enjoy something profound? In the coming year, do you have the courage to commit yourself to make something happen that is bigger than you? 

You cannot preserve this life – you can only expend it. The only question is how. It is a human privilege that we can choose how we spend our lives. For every other creature, everything is fixed. However, for human beings, how beautifully, profoundly and magnificently we live, or how foolishly, uselessly and lethargically we live, is in our hands. The quality of human life will truly change only when we change within ourselves. Otherwise, we could be in the most beautiful place feeling miserable. 

Just come to your senses, then being joyful is the only way to be. This neither needs a resolution nor an amendment to the constitution that ‘everyone in this country should be joyful’. With the external situation, there are a hundred different ingredients and forces functioning, it is not all in your hands. But in the internal situation, you are the only ingredient. It will be wonderful if you can create something fantastic in the world, but even if that does not happen, at least within you, something fantastic must happen. 

If you try to create something fantastic in the world without first making something truly fantastic happen within you, it could become a tyrannical, disastrous process. Human history is full of such examples. Even someone like Adolf Hitler believed he was going to create something fantastic, but it led to the most horrible consequences. When ugly things are happening within you and you try to create something, a magnified version of this ugliness will manifest on the outside. Do what you want, in the end, who you are is what will manifest in the world. 

What is needed is a rise of human consciousness. Consciousness is non-physical. The physical dimension has boundaries but consciousness is a dimension beyond boundaries – it is all-encompassing. Once your experience is boundless, the possibilities become boundless as well. What you manifest will not be boundless, but at least bigger than you, and that is important. Only if something bigger than you has happened within you, and if possible, outside of you, can you as a human being live well and die well. Otherwise, you live a constipated life.

It is time to shed some old nonsense and come up fresh and alive. This is not about making resolutions to do a particular thing or give up another. Even crawling creatures have the wisdom to shed their old skin periodically. When a snake, an insect, or any other creature molts, they become very vulnerable for a period of time. It is a big risk living in nature without skin for a few days or weeks. Just a bunch of ants can take your life. But even these creatures have the innate wisdom to take this risk. It is time you take that risk in your life.

In the next few days, tear down something about you that has stuck with you for a long time but is no good. Now the question is, ‘How can I shed my skin?’ Some philosophers may argue that anyway by nature, slowly it will all happen. The only problem is it is a very brief life. The evolution from monkey to man took millions of years. You are fortunate enough to have come here as a human being. You have a reasonably working brain and you are aware that you need to do something about yourself – this is the time to do it. If you drop your old ways of thinking and look at things afresh, you will become a beautiful human being and the world will become a beautiful place. This new ‘you’ will only look for solutions, not problems.

If you look at things afresh, that means you have no conclusions about anything. You are willing to look at everything like you are just born. If you do this, you will walk through life untouched. Even a little child starts thinking he knows within a few days. Once you think you know, you start fumbling and bumbling. If you look at everything like you were just born every moment of your life, you will see everything crystal clear. When you see things clear, you walk through situations comfortably.

If you are able to see life just the way it is, you have the necessary intelligence to conduct it well. If you are not able to see life the way it is, your intelligence will work against you.

It happened once: Sherlock Holmes and Watson went camping in the mountains. Night fell and they went to sleep. In the middle of the night, Sherlock Holmes nudged Watson and Watson opened his eyes.

Sherlock Holmes asked him, ‘What do you see?’

Watson, lying down, looked up and said, ‘I see clear sky and stars, lots of stars.’

Sherlock Holmes asked, ‘What does that mean to you?’

Watson answered, ‘That means another nice, sunny day tomorrow. What does it mean to you?’

Sherlock Holmes said, ‘It means to me, my dear Watson, that someone has stolen our tent.’

You can successfully walk through every aspect of your life only if you see life the way it is. Look at everything like an infant does, absorbing everything – not judging anything, not labelling anyone as good or bad, not categorising people into those you love and those you hate. If you do this even for one day, you can have a fresh beginning.