“Common sense is not so common.” This is what Voltaire once commented on the general public. This quote was haunting me while I was watching FIFA Cup World Soccer final play on TV. It was reported that the whole world is watching this game. Why all these blizzards over a silly game? 90 minutes of play time went on comfortably, both teams scoring no goals. In the last quarter of the extra time that followed, we saw a calculated move from the German side pushing the ball into the Argentinean goal post. We know that it is after a tight course of rigorous training that each team comes to the ground. They might have learned straight cut to cycle cut along with all possible tricks in soccer. But a lose moment spoiled all the hopes of Argentina. I thought how true it is in our daily lives too. In spite of all the efforts we put in, we also fall due to lack of consistency.
India is a country in which every new born is initiated into a particular religion. Each grows up, quite obedient to the religion into which they are initiated. The fun is that most of them entertain a non-spiritual social face also, where power and status issues are dominant. It is for those liberals who are half spiritual and half social that I suggest a five steps simple living strategy. These steps are not my inventions; they are the five divine attributes man has identified.
1) Be loving. Remember to offer kindness every time quite mindful of other’s feelings. Only if you master this art of loving that you will cease to be a separate entity in the society. So it is for your existence that you need to love everything irrespective of time, space or species. Unless you love others, nobody is going to love you. Without somebody loving you, you are psychologically dead.
2) Be joyful. This is about choosing to continue living or closing down. You are unhappy means all the cells in your body also are disturbed. It leads to uneasiness and diseases. It is your duty to keep both the body and the environment happy.
3) Accept everything. Learn the art of accepting everything with an attitude that all that happens are well fit in time and space. Do not ever let our rational mind to categorize developments into favourable and unfavourable. Know that our capacity to foresee the result is very limited and God never intends anything that might spoil a soul.
4) Bless everything. This is another way of accepting life in its wildest nature. Summer or Fall, good or bad, right or wrong, friend or foe …, bless everything and everybody you come across. This is how you finally solemnize your relationship with the Universe. Energizing the Universe is part of your purpose.
5) Be grateful. This is living in realization of the contributions of other things and beings in your life. Expression of gratitude should continue until you are unable to do so, because of an irresistible inner urge of a cosmic oneness in between. Gratitude is your entry card into the infinite treasury of divine grace.
Joseph Mattappally
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