Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde – Of Male Psychology

Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde – Of Male Psychology

Firstly, 3 cheers & a round of applause to all Indian men who have stood up and raised a voice, and are continuing to do so, against the hideous Delhi Gang-rape. It is men like these that will give women a safer world in years to come.

Away & far removed from gentlemen like these – is a special brand of men who believe that every calamity that occurs to a woman – the woman has brought it upon herself. In the esteemed thought process of such men – be it mental abuse, verbal abuse, physical abuse, humiliation, subordination, gender bias, violation, rape, gang-rape AND gang-rape with a brutal assault to pulverize the mind & body of a woman, and then throw her out of a moving bus to bleed to death (Delhi Gang-rape) – happens because the woman has acted, behaved and/or provoked such an abuse upon herself.

These are men who believe that they are sentinels of light-bringing truth, when they stand up and pass remarks like:-

1. If a woman exposes her body, how can a man not be tempted?
2. Ask women not to dress provocatively.
3. If a woman goes to a pub, dances & drinks into wee hours of the morning, she is asking for rape.
4. If a woman behaves in a manner that indicates that she is available, then don’t blame men if they force themselves on the woman. (As in – permission not required)
5. What is this whole issue of marital-rape? Sex is part of marriage contract. If women don’t want sex, then why get married?
6. A woman will be stripped & paraded naked if she chooses to marry outside of caste. We are doing this to protect the modesty of women. (UP/Bihar/Haryana Khaap Panchayat [a form of Rural Governance]. They are referring to the same `modesty’ that they are dragging naked on the streets. And the same `modesty’ they outrage when a daughter-in-law is forced to satisfy the sexual needs of her widowed father-in-law, because he cannot be seen having sex outside the home.)
7. We are used to see you doing seductive dances on TV, now we have to take political advice from you? (Male Indian politician Sanjay Nirupam to female Indian politician Smriti Irani.)
8. All these dented & painted women protesting at India Gate do not qualify as students. (Indian President Mr. Pranab Mukherjee’s son Abhijit Mukherjee commenting on the anti-rape agitation led by girl students of Delhi. Dented = shapely/good figure. Painted = cosmetic make-up.)
9. She is a successful career woman. Which educated, successful man will want to marry her? Any man will want a woman who can look after his home & family. (On successful, career-oriented, single women.)
10. The list is endless.

Incidentally these are the very same men:-

1. Who pray to all forms of the Cosmic Female Energy – as depicted in India’s Mother Goddesses; and where the Female Cosmic Energy is shown as being equal, or even a tad superior to Her male counterpart.
2. Who have perfect family pictures with mother, sisters, wife, daughters.
3. Who are super-protective of mother, sisters, wife, daughters; and who talk & wish for safer havens & higher skies for their women.

Enough is enough. Can we stop this bull-shit, God-damned philosophy? Can we put an end to this sick-minded hypocrisy? Women are women. Period. Women are not objects. Period. A woman outside your home is as honorable as the woman inside your home. Period. If you are one of those male specimens who does not respect women even in his own home – then you are a virus, you need to be deleted from the system. Period.

Women are like this. Women are like that. Ok. Even if we accept your point of view for 1 nano-second, what stops men from NOT reacting? What stops men from evolving themselves from the primal-cave-man? You want to be “superior”? Then you have to “rise higher” from your “lower/base” instincts. You have to EVOLVE. Where & when did you fall so low?

Rewind to Biblical times. In the Garden of Eden – Eve tempted Adam with an apple. The proverbial apple. The temptation. The apple-of-temptation.  Adam succumbed. And in the Bible that is EXACTLY what is documented – ADAM succumbed to temptation, and hence it was ADAM’s fault. Nowhere in Biblical texts is EVE ever blamed for Adam’s temptation.

Let us take a lesson from the Bible – a woman is not to be blamed for a man’s lack of strength-of-character. If men believe they are “superior” – and superior means “higher” – then let them show their “superiority” by “rising” “above” base emotions to a point of “elevation” in mind & body – where they refuse to be tempted. They are “above” temptation. They are “higher”. They are “evolved”. They are “superior”. Superiority is about “raising self” to a higher level – not “lowering another” to a level below you. The day men “rise” to this level, undoubtedly every woman will feel proud to accept men as the superior-half, the better-half, of the race. Period.

I heard a heart-rending piece of news recently in my social circle. News of an almost-broken marriage hanging together by a thread. Reason? The husband could not deal with the (supposed) infidelities of his wife – more so, because it happened with his closest friends. I would not like to comment on either the wife or the husband – there may be realities we do not know; every person is entitled to his/her personal truth and we must honor & respect that.

BUT what about the “friends”? What unacceptably base instinct can lead you to cross that sacred boundary line of friendship? I heard way back in my 20s, a church Father chiding a young man with these words: “Friend’s spouse & spouse’s friend are sacred space, my son. Always remember & respect that”.

It comes down to the same thing:-

1. A monstrous physical assault of a group of men on a girl, who apparently “provoked” them to act that way: Delhi-Gang-Rape.
2. Dating your friend’s spouse – a monstrous social assault on a woman, by crossing sacred lines, because the woman “took the initiative” and is “flirtatious”: Rape-Of-Trust.

I’m not being judgmental. I do not know all the facts. Either about the Delhi gang-rape or about the social-occurrence. But when a human soul (at a higher level), or a home (at a lower level) breaks & crumbles – then even if we have thrown 1 single pebble in mock-humor, we are GUILTY. Period.

Violation scars the soul for a lifetime. Violation from a place-of-trust scars the soul for many lifetimes.

Men must understand that there will always be boundary lines & sacred spaces in their interaction with women; whether at home or outside. Respect boundary lines. Honor sacred spaces. It makes you a better man. It shows you have strength of character. It shows you have evolved. It shows you are superior.

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You Don’t Find Your Calling/Karma – Your Calling/Karma Finds You

You Don’t Find Your Calling/Karma – Your Calling/Karma Finds You

There comes a stage in our lives, when we all yearn for our `Calling’; we search for our `Calling’. What is the 1 thing that will define us? What is the 1 thing that we’ll be happy to do for the rest of our lives – and perhaps in all the future lives that unfold before us?

Few weeks back, I was idly observing the squirrels in my balcony over my afternoon cup of tea.  1 little fellow was meticulously cutting away wires from my strands of Diwali lights; another young chap had made my potted plants his forest, and needless to say, his basic instinct destroys a few of them, now & then. To save my plants, I have created a basket of dried flowers for him to jump around & frolic in; as for my strands of lights, I have given up lighting my balcony for want of any other solution.

Looking at them – a thought unfolded from the basis of my Hindu philosophy of upward mobility & reincarnation: looking downwards from my humble stage of human evolution today, I couldn’t help wondering about the soul progress of my squirrels. How long exactly before they rose up the ladder? What exactly would they turn out to be when they reached a stage of human evolution?

It is with these subconscious questions, that I fell asleep that night, chanting my mantra-of-the-moment:  `Shri Krishna Sharanam Mama”. I woke up early next morning on the finishing threshold of a dream. My dream was thus: My squirrel no.1 had transformed into a tall, handsome human, who clearly was a Handyman & whom I saw fixing things up efficiently, and putting things in place. My squirrel no.2 was a Gardener & whom I saw putting in place a beautifully designed garden of exotic pots and plants. I heard a strange voice saying inside my head “this is the future of your squirrels”. The dream ended, I woke up.

What I have just described is a dream – and must be treated as one; but from this dream of mine – sprung forth a philosophy.

The philosophy goes thus – What we destroy, we must create. What we hurt, we must heal. What we yearn to do today, is what we have undone in a distant past. What we are searching for today, is what we had, and what we threw away. That is the final balancing of Karma. That is our `Calling’.

When we destroy, hurt, undo or throw something away – it is not intentional. It is never executed with a conscious mind or desire. Most of the times, it happens as an unconscious, unwarranted reaction to circumstances. At that point in time, we neither create the circumstances nor do we plan our reaction to it. Reactions are usually spontaneous and on-the-spur-of-the-moment. In lower life forms, we are probably acting according to our birth; we do not know any better.

It is the sum total of these reactions, unwittingly & unconsciously executed, that forms the foundation pit of our future Calling; our final balancing of Karma at a later stage.

A friend of mine from Graduation college, runs a super successful, super profitable matrimonial agency in my hometown. I commented that it was strange a qualified Chartered Accountant should have chosen this profession. He jokingly retorted that he was paying his debts for breaking up all those couples back in college, because he was jealous that those gorgeous girls hadn’t dated him instead. A joke, of course. But it had a deeper meaning. We don’t choose our profession. Our profession chooses us according to what we need to balance.

Another dear friend of mine, a qualified Pharmacy & Management graduate has had a compulsion to teach since she was in high school. Today, she says she has found her Calling. Maybe it’s the other way round. What she needs to balance out, has come back to her.

My better-half is curious about my `Calling’: Why do have an urge to write, he asks? I can’t find a blank piece of paper in house to scribble even a number.

My urge to write stems from my urge to give away information – and to give it away free of cost. To simply throw it away into the Universe, and hope it touches the life of at least 1 person. Information given away = Knowledge. That’s what I read somewhere. By giving away Information, Knowledge is what I hope to earn. What I may have done, in a distant past, to have ignited this urge to share information – that I do not know. Maybe I stole important information; monopolized it; hid it; prevented others from having access to it – and in the process I may changed the course of many lives. Today it comes back to me as an urge to give it all back; as much as I can; and with no barriers.

Every Saint has a Past, every Sinner has a Future. That’s what I read somewhere. It only means that all those misdirected souls hurting the World today in a bad way by infusing death, destruction & hatred – will have to return someday Messiahs of love, peace & healing. That’s not such a bad thought, except that you wish & pray it happens sooner than later.

First – We create the foundation pit of our Calling through acts that are not consciously executed; perhaps even innocently so. But in this stage, we unwitting destroy or undo.

Second – In a higher form of human evolution, we feel an urge to `create’ or `do’ a particular activity that draws us to it. Here we learn the `trade’. We start from ground zero. We strive, we labor, we struggle towards perfection.

Third – We progress to a stage where we have achieved perfection; this is when we experience `Love’ for what we are doing; we reap the fruits of the seeds we have sown; this stage earns us name, fame & wealth in Earthly terms. We are recognized as being `good’ at what we are do. This is the stage of Maslow’s `Self-Esteem’.

Fourth – We yearn to the same things, but now it is beyond Self. We now wish to use our perfection of a Craft to better others’ lives; to heal them; to help them. This is the Self-Actualisation stage of Maslow. We strip ourselves of name, fame, wealth & go right back to ground-zero – but this time by choice, not by compulsion. It is here that we will earn our place as the humble messiahs of this world.

Coming back to my 2 squirrels from the brood – my Handyman squirrel will surely work his way up to be an Architect who will build lasting monuments of beauty for the world & my Gardener squirrel, an Environmentalist definitely. Amen.

So the next time you hear someone wondering/pondering about their Calling, their Karma – ask them to be still and let go. Their Calling will come to them, when things fall in place for the balancing of their Karmic accounts. It has already been scripted in a distant past. They just don’t know it yet.

On Aging

On Aging

Someone who turned 40 recently said to me – God, I’m aging. So this is how it feels to be old.

Hearing that took my mind to a friend of mine, of roughly the same age. She’s on the threshold of a very fresh arena of life – looking forward to marriage, motherhood, marital bliss, parenting, planning her children’s future, taking holidays with family, and so on. Talking to her you’ll see that she feels young, youthful, vibrant and motivated.

What could be the difference in the state of mind of two 40yr olds? Experience I guess. Age is neither biological nor chronological. Age is the sum total of your experiences in life. If you have seen more, been there, done that – you’re older. If you’ve sampled nothing much from Life’s vast, exotic menu – then you’re younger.

It’s the soul that ages, not the body. Perhaps that’s why we often use the term he/she is an `old soul’. The older the soul, the closer is its journey to Truth & Light. The younger the soul, the longer the journey.

When a soul has had enough experiences in a lifetime that has allowed it to `grow’ spiritually; it senses it is `older’ and also perhaps a bit tired. And when such a soul reaches a spot where it can rest a bit – it feels relieved, rejuvenated and grateful. It understands that it has completed a significant chapter in its journey. It has earned that spot. That is when we feel confident to say – we’re older; so this is how it feels to be older.

The younger soul has yet to cover those many long miles; and the hurdles across those miles. It needs to have those rose-tinted glasses to take it through; it needs to feel young to undertake that journey.

So next time someone says old – be aware that they may not be referring to biological age or a number. It may simply mean they have achieved a new milestone in experience.

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