The need to be united

Being a loner always, I thought ‘lions hunt alone’ while ‘monkeys stay in groups’. I never need any company whether I have to eat or shop or entertain myself. I can even laugh or cry alone. After a long self introspection, I realized that whenever I had performed a task with someone, I had felt much better and learned much more. May be that’s the reason monkeys evolved but lions didn’t.

Someone might love guitar, someone else might love drums or singer’s voice. But when united, everyone and even more people love the music created by the unification of the band’s solo elements. It doesn’t mean that solos are not worthwhile. In fact, they can be worth more than the band. What exactly I think is: when unification is more progressive than each of the solo elements, it’s better to unite, else, make a one man show.

Mind is an attribute of the individual, there’s no such thing as collective brain or collective thought. But brains in synchronization with one another can produce big results. Computer, as we see today, is an example of synchronization of ideas of different geniuses to produce a thing that is more useful than the ideas alone. Everyone has to think alone, generate ideas alone. To combine it or average it with someone else’ idea is their own will.

It has been proved that chanting ‘mantras’ or meditating alone won’t give as good effects as doing it in a group will give. Probably, that’s the reason Osho meditation resorts have a huge hall where mass meditates in togetherness. Sri Sri Ravishankar also encourages the chanting of mantras in mass congregations. But the pre-requisite of all this togetherness is being on the same frequency otherwise it’s futile or may be hazardous.

Beyond boxes...

I thought about Lord Krishna, the way he thinks, the way he lives and the way he plays. At one point, he plays with the girls, flirts with them. At another point, he gives a serious discourse of Gita to Arjun. He is as good at playing flute as he is at using his weapon- the Sudarshan Chakra. At one point he gives this statement, “I am the highest goal and the supreme power. Surrender to me and you will attain Nirvana”. At another point, he washes his best friend, Sudama’s feet and wipes them with his own stole.

Probably, very few people can understand the contradictions of Krishna. And those who understand, they are the ones who understand the contradictions of life. Life cannot exist without contradictions. Happiness comes with sadness and vice versa. Success comes with failures and vice versa. All you need is to understand and be aware that living a life means living with totality, with all the contradictions.

North Pole can’t exist without South Pole. The depth of a valley comes only with the height of the mountain. There are positive charges because there are negative charges. They are two sides of the same coin. Even life has no meaning without death. We can think of uncountable opposite forces which can't exist without each other.

The key to living is to accept the situations without judging them, without putting them in the boxes of right or wrong. There is no box; it’s just a creation of our wicked mind. Good thing, bad things; hell, heaven; moralities, immoralities; are all created by us. Following one side and leaving the other deprives us from living a total life.

The problem with optimists is that they always look the brighter side. The problem with pessimist is that they always look at the darker side. Both fail to look at the totality, both fail to understand the reality which cannot exist without the merging of the dark and the bright.

That is why, for me, Krishna symbolizes ‘life’. Surrendering to Krishna means surrendering to life itself. Life which has no beginning and no end, it’s eternal. It’s complete, it’s total and existing without boxes.