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Listening to our heart

I was once again watching the movie Jab We Met, in which a female actor named Geet runs away from her family to marry her boyfriend, and her boyfriend refuses to marry her. She decides to stay alone without informing her parents. She says that she will suffer the fallout of her decisions alone. Later, she listens to her heart and marries the hero of the movie Aditya, who helped her all the time, leaving her boyfriend Ansuman. 

Ideally, all of us should listen to our hearts. But why does the brain take over and almost all our decisions are driven by the brain? Probably because all of us are fearful and for varied reasons. We have a fear of losing relationships, fear of the unknown, fear of losing what we have, fear of social disapproval, fear of loss of money, fear of being hurt, fear of saying, and so on. Our minds keep calculating the risks and rewards. Listening to our hearts is too expensive. It may cost us our health, relationships, and wealth. Eating what we want to eat may cause bacterial infections. Being authentic with a person may cost us a relationship. Telling what is in our heart in a meeting may cause the loss of our job. 

However, a deeper analysis would reveal that all such losses "appear to be losses" in the limited frame we perceive in this world. Tulsidas lost his most precious relationship to become one of the greatest poets of the world. Sri Aurobindo was sent to prison by the British where he got time to have an inner dialogue and post that event he could write hundreds of books to show the spiritual path to humanity. For Tulsidas, pre-separation from his wife would be quite difficult to think of separation from his beloved wife. I have met many people who have started NGOs after the death of their kids and such events changed the course of their lives. Not so that the loss of relationships with family members does not affect us emotionally, but what is important is our readiness to switch over to a new frame of life. 

Tulsidas was ready to switch to a new frame and that is the reason what could have been a disaster and beginning of depression for many turned out to be the watershed event in the life of Tulsidas. Similarly, Sri Aurobindo was ready to switch over his frame and that is why when he was imprisoned, he used that opportunity for transformation. I feel that it is just a matter of perspective. What appears to be "Good luck" from the perspective of comforts and pleasure may actually be "bad luck" from the perspective of growth and vice versa. Being born into a family of billionaires may appear to be good luck to many, but actually may be one of the worst things that can happen in life if such a person behaves like an entitled person and refuses to grow. On the other hand, being born into a poor family in a remote village may appear to be bad luck, but somebody like A P J Abul Kalam may take it as a challenge and may set an exceptional example of growth as a human being in a lifetime. 

Probably most of our fears exist due to our limited awareness of life. The moment we become aware of the possibilities beyond formal education, our fear of not being able to make it to the best of colleges disappears. The moment we get to discover the possibilities of alternative therapies, our fear of not getting admission into an expensive hospital or not being able to buy the medicines disappears. The moment we get to discover the joy of living on minimal possessions, our fear of losing wealth disappears. The moment we get to taste the joyful company of a few like-minded people, our fear of losing the bucket full of friends disappears. The moment we become aware of how little people are concerned about others and the futility and shallowness of social validation, we become free of criticism by society. The moment we become aware of our consciousness and our true nature, our fear of loss of body disappears. Fears by and large appear to be the creation of a lack of awareness. All the ghosts exist in darkness. One ray of light is sufficient to kill all the ghosts because ghosts never existed really and they are just the creation of our mind under the influence of illusive darkness. Listening to our heart is possible only when we try to confront our own fears, become aware of their genesis and become aware of the larger frame of life. 

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