Being Green


It's hard to say whether I am happy with my life... because happy seems to be an insignificant word. Someone once said: "happiness is not a goal of life, it's rather a by-product". And when it does become like that you really don't feel it: it instead seeps into you and begins to transform your life in a very subtle way. You stop thinking on your life. That is you stop thinking on yourself.

Life offers you a lot to learn. To learn from people around you. What is meant by being human? At the bottom everyone is selfish, isn't it? Yes. Everyone is. But being human means you should understand and accept that everyone around you is as selfish as you are. That is how we have built a community, a society. We have learned to sacrifice for the sake of others' selfishness. And to expect others to sacrifice for the sake of ours. It's like building this reserve inside you from where you get the view of a bystander. It's important to see yourself from outside: from people's point of view. This builds your social self.

But isn't this where we tend to stop? Or isn't this what we tend to wish for? Being respected by the society is fulfilling. But respect is a symmetrical attribute. When you pay it you receive it. And paying respect is the more difficult of the two.

Learning never stops. Even for an old man. My gradfather, who died last year at the age of ninety-seven, learned new things everyday: he kept saying it. He astonished me. To him life itself was so fulfilling! I find his life complete from many angles; he never wished for more. He was happy -- both when he lived and when he died. And only when you know that others are growing more by paying you respect than you are by receiving it -- you learn this supreme truth: that respect generates something which is hollow in itself: the Ego. Because it doesn't change who you are. If it does then remember it's only adding a hollow part to your true, pious self which you must get rid of. This reminds me of Spiderman-3 and how Spderman got rid of his black coat. It's not easy! But you must do it! Because it's false and it's a pity to incorporate a false part in your self, keep aside the misery of carrying it all your life.

Life is astonishing. Because you are astonishing and all the souls around you are. The more you shed off your Ego the more you discover yourself: that is you do not remain all that what society calls you, that is you do not stop at being that identity. Once you conquer your identity you can see through many things in life: even yourself. You see that you are no one. You see that you are a child -- still learning. It makes you independent of anyone and anything in life. It makes you fearless. It makes you alone and you realize that everyone in this world is alone, and they always were -- right from the beginning. But you do not feel lonely! Because of that reserve of selfishness inside you that you had built where everyone deposits their own share including yourself! Let this reserve be in you because it will eventually make you understand how people are and why they can't be like anything else!

Humility is neither a goal nor a by-product. It's a necessity like food, shelter and clothing. If you have it you stay alive: that is you keep growing in life. Else we were all dead right from the beginning!