Mahatma moments
November 2023
Mahatma Moments
Taking a cue from Mahatma Gandhi, Megha Bajaj learns to transform hurt into understanding and positivity—into something bigger than what it started out as
I love the life the Mahatma led,
and I keep wondering, What were the thoughts of the great man? When he was thrown out onto that cold platform in South Africa due to racial discrimination, two things could have happened: First, he could have felt very hurt, expressed or vented his frustration, and finally moved on. Second, and what he actually did, was that instead of making the indignity a personal hurt, he made it a collective one—that which a whole country was going through. He sought a solution that changed the world as we know it.
I am an emotional person. I live life in the depths, and hurt is something that happens to me too. Sometimes it is deep, and other times, transient. Like all others, I have found my own mechanisms to cope with it and keep moving. Sometimes I vent, other times I express myself; sometimes I dwell in self-pity, other times I go into a shell.
However, after this beautiful realisation about Gandhi, I felt there could be a better way. Life being life, gave me a situation to immediately test it. Someone very close to me was unwilling to do a little something I really wanted him to, at a crucial juncture. He
is someone who says he always wants to be there for me, so I couldn’t understand why, when I was asking, he wasn’t obliging.
The thing about hurt is—it just is. You can’t always rationalise as to why this hurt or that didn’t, or why there was this much degree of hurt. For whatever reason, I couldn’t accept it and was disturbed.
Something phenomenal happened to my thought process as I kept watching myself. I realised that my first response was to simply vent it all out, and if he got hurt in the process, so be it. However, when I didn’t give in to that carnal need, in some time, the reactive thoughts settled.
I watched my thoughts and emotions in awe, and as I settled even further, I realised hurt is caused when someone does something we don’t want them to or doesn’t do something we want them to. If I could find a way to communicate why it meant so much to me, without rubbing him up the wrong way, perhaps it would work.
Between the message I was first about to send and the message I actually sent several hours
later, everything within me had transformed. I realised three important things:
1. If it is hurting, and it is a close relationship that really matters, suppressing won’t help. One is not expected to be a doormat in a beautiful relationship.
2. There is a way to communicate the emotion, which expresses clearly what I want without causing hurt to the other.
3.I could use this situation to perhaps help so many other seekers to find answers to their hurt through this article.
I haven’t heard back from him and whether he would do as I wish, but something within me has already transformed. Since I have been able to express myself, I am feeling relieved. Since I did it in a beautiful way, I know it won’t create drama and further hurt. If things do go the way I want them to, it will be extraordinary. If they don’t, I am still left feeling so beautiful about myself as a person. And as a lover.
Megha Bajaj is a bestselling
author, film script writer and
poet.
An ardent seeker at heart, she
also runs her online writing and
healing workshops called WoW.
You can read more about her on
www.MeghaBajajWoW.com.
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