Trust and Faith

Did anyone promise you something which he/she never kept?

Did a friend close the doors on you at times of need?

Were you ever assured of some security which never rescued you from the potential danger?

Did anyone who took over your responsibility as a make shift arrangement displace you from your position?

Did someone lead you to the edge of a cliff by not completing a deadline costing you an opportunity of a life time?

Did somebody take help from you and stole all the credit without even a word of thanks in return?

Did the person whom you depended on the most back stab you when least expected?

If the answers to half of these questions are ‘yes’ then probably your Trust in life is compromised by now. But ‘What’ about your ‘Faith’? Though both the words Trust and Faith seem to mean the same there is a world of difference the way they affect our lives.

Trust is what we invest in our lives and holds a tag of expected returns. It is a sort of unsaid Contract with Life for what we contribute to it. It could be in terms of human relations, educational qualification, career pursuits, Financial /Social security or any likewise interdependence on our environment. But have we ever wondered that Trust is always with reference to our environment. What about one’s own self?

Whenever trust is battered the battle of life doesn’t cease. Where a crash landing becomes a certainty something still lifts us and shifts our paradigm in a more acceptable area. This something within us rises to the occasion like a polestar in the otherwise dark night to guide the gladiator fighting rough weathers. This is one’s own ‘Faith’.

Our belief in our own selves sails us through currents and storms of time. The kindness with which we treat ourselves and things around us, has the ability to increase this built in strength. But for that, we need to overcome the doubts of our clouded minds. Only then,our Faith can sent rays of hope to strengthen our resolve.

There was a farmer who grew award-winning corn. Every year he entered his corn in the state fair and won the prize for the best harvest.One year, a newspaper reporter who interviewed discovered that the farmer shared his seed corn with his neighbors.

"How can you afford to share your best seed corn with your neighbors when they are entering corn in competition with yours each year?" the reporter wanted to know.

"Why sir," said the farmer, "didn't you know? The wind picks up pollen from the ripening corn and swirls it from field to field. If my neighbors grow inferior corn, cross-pollination will steadily degrade the quality of my corn. If I am to grow good corn, I must help my neighbors grow good corn."

It was the Faith of the farmer in the interconnectedness of his surrounding which could make him see things that his neighbors failed to notice. This dimension helped him to bring the best out of others despite the odds at stake without tangibly expecting anything as such from them. It taught him to serve his Purpose by attending his FAITH.

Being Emotional Vs Being Practical

A contradiction of ideas is what we often come across in life. May be life sort of compels us to believe that it offers only split ends for us to choose from. This tempts our ego, since it promises our intellect an opportunity to choose. One such contradiction is being practical Vs being emotional. It appears as if these are two immiscible phenomena and we can be gratified by only one. Often do we hear people swearing upon one's virtues over the other.

In the mid 1990s, Daniel Gloeman paraphrased the ‘EQ’ or Emotional Quotient- a step towards being aware of one’s own feelings with reference to others; a motivation that improves the ability to respond. This implies that for being effectively practical one also needs to be emotional.

The quality of water as a perfect blender can epitomise the principle of acceptance: the key to Emotional intelligence. It can take up beautiful colours and impart opulent tastes to all that is added to it. Similarly, Totalitarian ideologies blended with Emotional Intelligence can smartly integrate such colours and tastes to give a sort of finesses to our responses. Equipped with such responses, we can then influence one’s environment in a much better way.

For ex: You call a friend for a grand party and in your usual way thank him for coming. He would surely feel happy about it. But does it need to be told that he would feel much better if you would make him feel that the party would never be as colourful in his absence. Wouldn’t he be touched to know that the party would be simply incomplete in his absence?

Cynics dispose such an approach as exaggeration or even go to the extent of calling it a lie. But if the truth for you is to improve your own ability to respond, make a larger part of you and your surroundings happy, the bargain is still not bad. Flavouring one’s responses with heartfelt emotions can still be favoured, over dry arguments that would only reduce one’s responsibility.

At the steps of a building a blind man sat with a hat at his feet. He held up a sign saying, “I am blind; please help me”. There were only few coins in his hat. A man passing by stopped and put some coins in his hat. He then picked up the signboard and wrote something on the other sign and now placed it as a new one for people to see. Soon the hat began to fill. There were much more coins in his hat than ever. More people were helping him. 

In the afternoon the person who had changed the sign came back to see how things had fared for this blind man. The blind man recognised his footsteps, thanked him and asked him what he had written on the sign. This is what the man had changed, “It’s a beautiful day. Do enjoy it. See it for me as well......as I am Blind.”

When we offer someone else a seat of comfort, we emotionally empathise with our surroundings. Then, the the world around us expands. It then provides more space than one was ever aware of, to accommodate the kindness around him/her. We can surely find our place in it as well. Can that be called Impractical?

B what you R

The most common question that crosses one’s mind, at every passing milestone of one’s life is what would he/she be like, next? In childhood one fancies whatever one finds appealing and tries being in those shoes in an act of playfulness. As one grows up one learns to unlearn most of those fantasies and try to see oneself in a particular role. May be one is yet to freeze a frame as yet, but yes, some convergence has started influencing one’s being. As one roles over ideas and roves over the role models that one comes across, one naturally gets regimented into the patterns that start shaping one into Some ONE successful


Yes…… Whoever we may be….. Whatever we want to be…….We get into the race of being successful. But for what, and as who? These questions are made to sound silly or lame. Living in a made to believe world seems to be the only way to go to the Fountainhead of a rationalized and glorified Fantasyland.

At least that is what one perceives seeing so many people running with us. It occurs to a very few, that as long as one is running with the stream one is never going to be some ONE. For that, one needs to be different. One needs to dream as some ONE, think as some ONE and act as some ONE ….. That is when one wakes up to the call of, for what…..and as who? But by then, many of us have ran, got tired, got bruised on the way, have failed or have abandoned. But lesser have we realized that we never asked ourselves the vital questions…..what we want to be…..and who we are?

We see birds flying high in the sky and yearn to be the one flying taller than the others. We are made to have the expanse of sky under one’s wings. Flying taller rules over the purpose for flying taller.….And when winds change? We get no where. While having their share of sky, remember that the birds are in fact searching their survival on the land. They know their what. Every bird knows the height one can reach. Have we not heard about the crow who tried flying as high as an eagle? We are all aware of its fate. But we unlearn what we need to remember, to keep us aware of who we are.

Have you heard the story of the ugly duckling that was always teased and troubled by the other ducklings? It was always told to be patient…..as one day it was to evolve.... And it did evolve into the King swan. A similar story happened when an unfamiliar bird was forced by circumstances to grow with the ducklings. It used to try swimming in the water but just couldn’t. However its wings were mysteriously disproportionate according to the ducks and they started tearing away its feathers so that it could become lighter and swim.

Only to avoid the pain did it start vigorously fluttering its wing and accidentally found out that it could fly higher and get on to a branch of a tree. Then slowly it learnt to fly higher and higher. Soon it found out who it was……..It was an eagle. Had it been patient it would have lost its feathers forever. Rules alike don’t always work. Learning from experiences, however bad they seem to appear, awaken us to who we really are.

Strengths, success are all relative terms. Once in my bad times I was advised to be as strong as iron……..I wondered and wondered and wondered, that to be strong I could well be a stone….But a stone that could pull some iron pieces together.... a magnet.

Finally, One doesn’t need a lot of best to be the best of the lot. Be that ONE out of the Some….the ONE that you are, than being just Someone!!

Truth and Fiction

A Buddhist monk once asked his Master, “What is the difference between Truth and fiction?” To this the master told them a similar story about a disciple who asked his Teacher ‘The First Principle of Life’. The disciple sincerely thought the answer would be “Knowledge.”

But to his utter surprise he was sent into the kitchen section of the ashram to wash utensils. He worked there with the same equanimity with all his attention to utmost detail of cleaning the utensils. All were surprised seeing the utensils as new as never before.

As for his query, the Teacher called the disciple again and asked him about it. The disciple just smiled at him and replied that he no longer needed any answer.

Having narrated the story till here, the Master asked all his disciple monks to go to the city and bring answers from different people about the conduct of the Teacher and his disciple.

A capitalist was asked why the Teacher had asked his disciple to clean the utensils. He replied, “Keep them busier than what they can think for themselves. That’s the way to buy cheap labor”

A communist said, “The question itself had no meaning. In fact such questions arise only in idle minds having no real work. Work makes a person forget trivial queries like these”

Many argued how a committed scholar could be happy and satisfied doing such a meager job. They went to the extent of seeing a plot in the Teacher’s mind to demean his disciple, as he was the brightest of them all. Some frivolously whisked the monks off with a scorn and ridiculed them for asking what they ought to learn from their Master.

Having gone through all this the monks returned to their Master with the answers they had received from so many different people. They found none addressing their query.

To this the Master replied, “The first principle cannot be learnt. It has to be experienced. That is exactly why the disciple was sent into the kitchen by the master. One’s experiences cannot be out of one’s choice and confirm to one’s ego. Having understood this there was nothing more to learn. So the disciple needed no answer.”

On being asked why he refrained from answering it himself, the Master answered, “The moment you have finished with the experience the only thing that remains is its effervescence….which can bring out different meanings to different people. So nothing is beyond it and nothing can be taught about it. I WANTED YOU TO EXPERIENCE IT”.

That is the difference between truth and fiction. Fiction is made to sound akin to the experiences of life so that it is accepted by the senses. The truth however can blow them (the senses) off, for the better or for the worse…….Depending on the taker!