The cinema of life
September 2015
By Shivi Verma
Life with all its imperfections is already perfect, believes Shivi Verma
I often used to wonder what a life without pain would be like. A life without the trauma and drama of failures, betrayals, loss and regrets.
I dreamed of a world where everyone was nice, had good morals, did the right thing, and bothered no one. An Utopian world where everything was perfect and there was nothing to complain about. There was enough food, money, opportunity, love and health for everyone, and everyone was happy with all their desires fulfilled.
Like everybody else, I too wanted to become popular, rich, healthy and happy. And I always felt that if the world was a fair place and people treated me well, my goals would not be far away. But these conditions were never met. I rarely met people who loved or liked me genuinely. I used to feel that people respected you only if you were worth something, otherwise they ignored you. But success required a certain self-belief and discipline to come by, and I was still struggling on both the counts.
Then I had a brainwave. The reason why people wanted fame or success was to feel good about themselves. Therefore if I could access good feelings from within permanently, I would not need to struggle for external achievements. And who knows, if I discovered the magical key to happiness and well-being from within, the outside world might become naturally agreeable to me. I was 21 years old when I had these thoughts and hardly knew anything about spirituality. Since every thought has a corresponding resonance in the universe, somewhere it must have struck a chord. In two years time, I had a brush with meditation and myriad forms of spiritual experiences occurred in my life.
In some ways spirituality altered my life drastically. My sense of self-worth increased manifold and it was not easy to shake my faith in myself anymore. Self-awareness made me more responsible, patient and optimistic.
But in other ways my life remained the same. The world did not change. I did not become rich or famous. Nobody was dying to make friends with me. I still had to work hard in order to get what I wanted. Life with all its tumultuous twists, turns and trials would still beset me. But what changed was my perception of it. I stopped longing for a picture-perfect life. Life, like a well-made motion picture, was meant for our entertainment and had to have every shade, and every emotion in proportion, in order to furnish a complete experience. And the gray shade, the negative emotion, was an essential part of this movie. The drama that we detest so much gave life its colour, its tales, its narratives, and created heroes and heroines, depending on how we tackled it. If internally you feel that life is overpowering, you would keep struggling in its quagmire. But if you feel that you are the watcher of the movie of your life then you have an upper hand. Then what you do with each emotion is in your hands. It is up to you to either savour the flavour of the emotion you are going through, or ignore it, or even convert it, depending upon your choice. Because the watcher knows that she is none of these emotions. She is beyond them. I began to stop judging myself and others for having negative emotions after this revelation. People are simply being human.
Life, like a well-made movie, was meant for our entertainment and had to have every shade, and every emotion in proportion, to furnish a complete experience
Not only that, they are giving me an opportunity to scan my inner world and map my own growth vis-a-vis my acceptance of the vagaries of life. I no longer yearn to watch onscreen movies. The kaleidoscope of life is far richer and more interesting.
"Life, like a well-made movie, was meant for our entertainment and had to have every shade, and every emotion in proportion, to furnish a complete experience"
About the author : Deputy Editor with Life Positive, Shivi Verma is a devotee who found all her answers in loving God passionately.