The Chief is Hunted Down

An intelligent , successful, dynamic, powerful, suave gentleman is heading a large multi-national monetary fund that lends money for emergency purposes to poor (oops deserving) nations. The total assets are astronomically high. The post of the chief is the most envious of all. The gentleman is at the peak of his career. Coming weeks will see his application for running for the post of the President of France. Amid all this fanfare, nobody guesses that he is hungry for something.

Meeting an attractive hotel maid in a hotel ends it all. He is behind bars, trying to collaborate with his lawyers fighting hard to get him free of all the much that finds its way to him. The media denounces him; his plans for his future are already buried dead. All he wants is freedom.

Why did this happen? Unsatisfied lust.

At age 59, one would expect him to cool his heels a little bit. But this man has a heart blazing with lust. He has been accused of having such encounters in the past too. Attraction to the physical body reigns supreme on all.

How do we protect ourselves against this?

Transform lust into love. Lust is something that is uncontrolled and unnecessary. Love is a pure emotion and very much necessary. Lust is avoidable. Love is necessary. We have all felt this.

In absence of an object of love, we lose our understanding of true love. We interpret any kind of attraction to anyone around us as an expression of love. But love is of a different grain altogether. Love is based on sacrifice. Love is based on service. Love is based on tolerance for a higher cause. Love is based on the truth. Lust is mostly based on a false sense of ownership/ proprietorship over someone else and using the other person for one’s own enjoyment. Love will seek to uplift the person; lust will seek to degrade the person.

As a remedy, we can first try to find out an object of love for ourselves. Till the time we do not have an object of love, we will only find an object of lust.

A true object of love would be someone who is always standing by our side to help us and guide us no matter what-a true shelter offering protection. In the absence of a shelter, we feel vulnerable and one expression of our own deep-rooted vulnerability is the desire to exploit others. In the presence of a shelter, instead of trying to exploit others we will seek to uplift others. And in uplifting others we uplift ourselves.

This is what is lacking in the modern world. With so many facilities and gadgets etc. we are just too occupied to search for an object of true love.

We need to invest more time into seeking the true object of our love.

The Terrorist is Dead

After a week or so, the newspapers still carry some tidbits about the dreaded terrorist. But, he is dead. But, then that is what the celebration is all about. While most are happy, some are apprehensive. Is he really dead? If he is dead, where are the photographs? Why was he cremated in such a hurry? If he is dead, who is his successor? What if his successor is more inspired than him? The list goes oni

Reading all this, we can infer that the terrorist is dead but terrorism is not.

The legacy will continue. If not this one, somebody else.

But, can we do something about this?

To begin with, let us first understand truly what this person stood for. He stood for fight against oppression. Did he himself not oppress anyone? He did indeed. But he oppressed those who oppressed him and his people. Eye for an eye. Brick for a brick. The fight will continue. Sometimes, the rusty guns will win and sometimes laser-guided, night vision guns will win. However actually both are losing. They are losing men, money, time, opportunities etc. You name it and they are losing it. What else do you expect in a war?

War kills everyone.

Can we stop wars?

We can if we become calm. If we become satisfied. Without and within. If we are just calm without and not within, it is only a matter of time when the storm raging inside comes pouring out-another war impending. But if we control ourselves internally, then we are calm outside too. The external world is only a reflection of what we are inside. If we are happy inside, we meet happy people. If we are angry some day, we meet all kinds of frustrated and angry people.

So, how can we avoid this? How do we do that?

Try to understand who you are. If you are a fish-you will be satisfied in water. If you are a cow-you will be satisfied eating green, fresh grass. Tigers need meat. And so on.

You try giving these animals anything else and they will be dissatisfied. Find out who you are. Are you the body? Are you not the body? If you are the body then feed all kinds of pleasure for the body. If not, what is the point of bodily pleasure? Then, for what are the wars required? Without wars, will we need terrorists?

They will be relegated to the history books only.