All the powers that be

One of those days when I'm left wondering whether I'm incredibly lucky or up against unbelievable odds. One of those days when you can't quite figure out whether the current is with you or whether you're trying to swim upstream. Or whether the whole stream just suddenly changed direction. The co-incidences are too many to ignore. Too uncanny to nonchalantly decide that it's all my doing and there's no divine hand helping me or pulling me down. (I believe most of the times, you shouldn't crib when you encounter a deep ditch in your path that you can't cross. Many a times, that's providence telling you there's a steep cliff right behind that. Just that you need to get over the anguish of the moment and see things in broad daylight later. All answers reveal themselves, but in their own time.)

For now, I'm figuring out whether I should thank God for making me see this bungle that could've cost me a potential admit that I've spent a lot of time working towards, or whether I should curse my fate for making such bungles happen in the first place. I'd gone to my college some 2 months back to get recommendation letters from my professors. Total mood change and all that. Set cog wheels in motion again in my head. This time when I went, the difference was my state of mind. I went in the happy state that one is in after one just solves a crossword. In my case, over the last few months, a lot of my questions within me were getting answered and this I suspect has a lot to do with the meditation that I've resumed. The results always surprise you when you're not expecting them.

Kinda like how children get excited when the sand castle finally takes shape. Not that they were specifically looking towards getting excited. They never do anything with the sole purpose of recieving happiness from it, in fact,of getting ANYTHING from it. They were building a sand castle because there was sand, there was bucket, there was flag and the deep blue sea. And sand castle was what came to their mind. Not the happiness that comes from getting some work accomplished.Their tiny minds associated a sand castle with the setting, not the feeling of victory that one gets after it's created. At least not at the outset. The thrill of accomplishment may make them do it again, but it was never the primary cause. Which is why, when the sand castle is finally done, the excitement on their faces is something that no result-seeking adult can hope to achieve.

True, work done well can make me happy, but I already know that. So by the time it's done, and in fact, even while I'm doing it, I am already expecting to feel happy at the end. That kills most of the possible happiness right away. The only happiness left then, is that this work is over with and behind my back now, so I can move on to the next thing waiting for my attention. Here's where the concept of karma yoga makes profound sense to me. Any work done simply because it's your duty to do it ( and it's your duty to do your duty well !) will naturally turn out to be close to perfection. While it lasts,every minute of it, you think of the work. This wisdom is thousands of years old. Pretty much forms the backbone of the Indian civilization. Once you decide where your duties lie, the consequences are not yours to seek. Children study well because they're supposed to do to it. Parents on their part provide a peaceful loving atmosphere at home for children because it's their duty to do so at that stage of life. Children look up to their parents and later save money to take care of them in their old age because parents took such good care of them when they were helpless impressionable toddlers and confused teens. It's duty for the sake of doing it. Parents had no tags attached about being taken care of in their old age. That love comes naturally to a child when he grows up and sees how selflessly his parents brought him up. At that instant, parents don't even have to ask to be taken care of. Duty done well and for the right reasons, makes it happen.

This new-age result oriented management mantra really gets to me sometimes. Results are bound to be good if all your attention was on the job, not on the result of it. Simple. Thanks to the penetration of such success-is-the-destination-and-not-the-journey oriented management concepts in the Indian mindset, we now have almost all of Bangalore looking at the higher rung even before their foot is firm on the first one. Heck, most of them haven't even chosen the very ladders they're climbing. Any kinda ladder the herd climbs, they climb. Any ladder that looks a little different and the herd avoids, they avoid. Oh.. nevermind.. no point..

Well, actually, the point is (getting back to "duty for the sake of it" ),that since I was meditating only because it's such a beautiful state to be in, I figure that nice things happened to my mind. The last few months have been pleasantly beautiful in my mind. Particularly because after I resumed meditation, I was expecting outbursts of negativity in my mind when all the cleansing happens ( Been through that when I'd meditated earlier........long back..). Here, I was not only happy that none of the angst manifested in anything, but I was happy that I'd been ready to take head-on anything that came my way,anything that did manifest. Sometimes things work out so well, it's really naive to attribute that to co-incidence. At other times, I'm run up against a wall no matter where I go, what I do. I was prepared for both this time. Either you're in sync with the vibes or you're out of sync.I really didn't mind either, then.

In this happy state, when I met surroundings that had changed me so much in the last few years, I felt glad I'd grown the way I did. Felt sad that some people hadn't bothered to grow. Those two days I spent there were like a dream. Running into a professor on the stairs at 11 o clock, who was leaving early that day and would be on maternity leave for 4 months after that. Getting all my work done neatly, time-managing it all, getting invaluable suggestions from a very dear Professor. I got the letters sealed and left to Bangalore quite happy and contented. Thanking God for making it all happen so pleasantly. I wasn't expecting half the pleasant co-incidences that happened. 2 hours before my bus to Bangalore, I even got to watch a rare Yakshagana performance ,courtesy my friend Aditya (who's like obelix and just as happy in life. Always ready to drop off everything and go attend a concert).

Cut to today morning. I confirm the pick up address from DHL.. all set to go courier my application packets today. After my morning prayers, I get this sly buddhhi ;) to go open one of the sealed envelopes and go through words of praise that I'd written for myself. The first one I open has a spelling mistake glaring at me. Communications is spelt as Compmunications. The letter was signed and sealed and I broke the seal out of a silly impulse. Failing which, I would have mailed it without batting an eyelid.

My guess is, with all the careful proofreading I did, the mishap (what else do I call it..) happened after the floppy had changed hands at the internet cafe down the college road. The guy opened the document, asked me how many prints I want, and must've pressed ctrl P. Only that he didn't press the ctrl key hard enough and the cursor happened to be between the two " m's", where the "p" got printed. He happily pressed ctrl p again when he didnt see a printpage window the first time, and printed out 10 copies of it. Since I'd proofread the soft copy at least 5 times before, I just took a cursory glance at the prints to check the alignment, and went up to the professor. Since he too had proofread it and had suggested some namesake corrections, he missed the error too.

Now, should I feel sad it happened , or happy that I didn't send it finally? How much of all this was in my hands?

Sometimes it's best not to decide.