Life's Amazing Secrets

    Weary of facing challenges in life? Feeling impatient with life? Do you feel bitter towards God because your life is so difficult? Not able to make a relationship work? Unable to experience happiness in life? The book "Life's Amazing Secrets" by Gaur Gopal Das will provide you with the answers to all your problems if you deal with any of these or similar issues. Whether one is rich or not, most people struggle to live peacefully, regardless of their financial situation. The main reason is that we don't know how to live a balanced and meaningful life.

    Harry, one of the author's wealthy friends, was very bewildered as the author began to explain the ideas. He uses the example of a car to illustrate his points. All cars have four wheels that bear the same amount of weight on the axle. Any one of these wheels could lose air, which would reduce the car's speed. A loss of any of the wheels is fatal. The four wheels must be constantly inspected and maintained as a result. The foundation of a good existence is also built upon four principles. They apply to everyone, whether we are monks or married, young or old, rich or poor, atheist or religious because they are not based on whatever labels we assign to ourselves. They are not dependent on nationality, race, gender or profession either.

Wheel 1: Personal Life

    Everybody experiences issues in life. However, it all depends on how we handle our problems and our emotions. When tackling issues, we must be in a positive frame of mind. Is there anything good that can come out of this? Being positive does not imply we ignore the negative. We must constructively deal with negative situations whilst simultaneously focusing on the positive. How can we accomplish this?

    Gratitude! Being grateful is not a feeling. We may cultivate this frame of mind, which enables us to access an endless supply of good energy. There are two steps involved in gratitude. Realizing that there is good in the world and that good has come to us is the first step. The second is to understand that goodness comes from outside of ourselves; an external reality gives grace to our own reality. This might be our friends, loved ones, the natural world, or even God. There is so much to be thankful for!

    Even though we are unable to return every act of kindness shown to us, we can begin by doing so for those closest to us. You might express gratitude to your partner for preparing dinner. For washing your clothes, you can thank your mum. For paying the bills, you can thank your brother. And the list could go on. It generally includes keeping in mind the positive things, as well as reciprocating by giving back and upholding the same principles.

 Wheel 2: Relationships

    We forget how important individuals are to us and how to treat them properly when we are overly familiar with them.  We should deal with each other sensitively. Our attitude towards life affects how we act in our relationships. The author addresses one of his experiences which I felt really worth sharing here. Gaur Gopal Das shares his experience as below.

One day, while washing clothes, I opened the tap, water gurgled through the steep pipes and straight on to the floor of the bathroom. Reacting swiftly, I kicked a bucket under the tap.

‘What were you doing?’ a grave voice asked from behind me. It was one of the older monks.

‘Just washing my clothes,’ I replied respectfully.

‘Yes, I can see that. But what were you doing?’ he asked again.

‘Just . . . washing my clothes,’ I repeated. His eyes rolled and he frowned.

‘Yes, I can see that. But what were you doing?’ he said, enunciating each word slowly.

‘Just washing my clothes!’ I retorted, losing my patience. ‘What’s the problem?’ I was going to be late for an important talk I was meant to deliver.

‘Why did you kick the bucket?’ he asked.

‘It’s just a bucket; I had to get it under the tap quickly. It’s no big deal.’

‘No big deal?’ he questioned. ‘It is a big deal. Gaur Gopal, I want to share with you what I have learnt about relationships. When we treat inanimate objects, like buckets or our possessions, with disrespect or insensitivity, we will end up treating people the same. At one point in my life, I seemed to be losing a lot of my friends and I heard this advice from one of my guides. Insensitivity becomes part of our general attitude, and our instinct does not discriminate between things and people. Hence, when we treat our things badly, we might notice that insensitivity gradually creeping into our relationships with the people around us.’

    Are we more a part of this story? This incident illustrates one of the most crucial points: When we treat objects disrespectfully, we run the risk of doing the same to the people we care about. All aspects of our life are integrated.

    The most widely underestimated quality which can help us improve our relationships is forgiveness. Everyone is going through challenges concealed from the public eye, and we need the lens of empathy to be able to see that. This is not to say that we should tolerate abuse or not do the sensible thing and correct someone when they are wrong, but in order to practice forgiveness, we have to learn to separate the incident from the person.

Wheel 3: Work Life

    Everyone wants to get ahead of each other, and when they cannot, they get angry. In the workplace, we need to complete projects together, but there is also the air of competition. It’s found in all spheres of life, whether it is between students, professionals, couples or even monks. Competition is a mindset that we have to redefine. People with a closed mindset want to grow by beating others in their field. Open-minded people, on the other hand, grow by developing themselves. They know that nobody is their competition. They are their own competition. Every day they keep striving to become better versions of themselves, even if the growth is only a tiny fragment. They feel uncomfortable if they remain the same as they were yesterday.

    There will always be those who play dirty politics at the workplace. This will be in every office, like moisture in the air. Wherever there are human beings, we can find two types of people: those who work in honest ways, living with integrity, and those who don’t. Nobody has a perfect moral compass, neither is anyone completely morally bankrupt. Even if we leave our job to join another company, there will be people engaging in politics there as well. It may be a little less or a little more, and may be of a different flavor. However, we must learn how to manage demanding situations at the workplace in a clean way. There are a few books written by experienced professionals that explain, in great detail, the subject of dealing with workplace politics.

Wheel 4: Social Contribution

“Live your life in such a way that those who know you but don’t know God, will come to know God because they know you.”

    One can be completely selfish, completely selfless or any of the combination in between. Life is a journey from being selfish to becoming selfless. The author gives us an analogy of ice cream and candle. The idea of ice cream is to enjoy your life before it melts. It symbolizes hedonism; to savor every moment of our life through personal enjoyment. On the other hand, the candle is symbolic of another ideology: to give light to others before it melts. Both ice creams and candles melt, but their reasons for doing so are completely different. The candle is formed from wax. Its very essence is burnt just to give light for other people to see. This is the selfless nature of a candle. The journey of our life is moving from being an ice cream to being a candle.

    I have just given the gist of the book so far. However, there are many themes covered, and the author uses a lovely narrative to illustrate his points. Additionally, he covers topics like how to quit worrying and start living, how spiritual practices can improve us, how to give constructive criticism to others, how to perceive others, the importance of self-discovery, and much more. Overall, everyone can find motivation in this book.

Do give a read💚