I will be a hummingbird
-Wangari Mathai
It has been 4 weeks since I penned down my thoughts. I began writing weekly towards the end of last year and ever since it has become a soul cleansing ritual for me to write once a week. But the events of the past 4 weeks have been so different that I couldn’t write. Earlier, when I would miss a week of writing I would feel uneasy but the things that I have been dealing with in the past 4 weeks didn’t make me uneasy about not writing. I am trying to contemplate what this means. It could mean that I have healed enough for now (Yes, writing is a medium of healing) or that I write for the love of it and so I don’t like to write just for the sake of it as a routine. So, writing is an authentic experience for me and I don’t want any rules dictating it.
This may be frowned upon as being selfish or indiscipline but through my healing journey I have understood that this is far from the truth.
The catastrophic event in Afghanistan compelled me to journal today. The atrocities committed by the Taliban is nothing but media coverage as we all continue with life as normal. The so-called ‘powerful’ world leaders, heads of state or spiritual have chosen to do nothing but watch as innocent lives are being crushed. All that anybody can offer now is just sympathy. Even worse, their own political leaders chose to flee with trucks of cash instead of standing ground; it is evident that the act of self-preservation took priority for them (the primal need of any species).
I don’t know if these leaders ever heard of the famous Spiderman movie dialogue ‘With great power comes great responsibility’. It is evident that the entire game is only about power and not responsibility. Without responsibility that power they hold is empty, at the most they can save their own lives & that of their loved ones while making some money for their future generations. I don’t see accomplishment in all these perks that come with power. To say the least, it is pathetic!
I don’t know what I would do if I was in that place of power but it pains me to know that as of now I can do absolutely nothing about this event, all I can be is a powerless, helpless spectator. Just like the leaders, I have nothing more than sympathy to offer. I can be grateful for living in a peaceful nation instead of criticizing it for other pitfalls. But, who knows how the future will be and there is no guarantee that the fire will not reach my home. When I shared my feelings with a friend she told me the story of the hummingbird. https://www.youtube.com/watch?
I am an ardent follower of Sadhguru so when this happened I searched for his take on this issue. He says that in the next 25 years we must ensure that religion remains only a personal pursuit instead of making it a national or global issue. I think religion was never meant to be bigger than humanity, it was only meant to be a way of life that gives people strength while experiencing our time allocated on earth.
But the people who are suffering in Afghanistan are of the same religion as Taliban, so clearly terrorism doesn’t know religion. For a moment let’s put religion aside. The way I am seeing this unfold, I see these evil forces as a bunch of broken people who came together assuming their ideologies were correct and they wanted revenge. So, they began strategizing for many years till this time when they found power. Anybody who is part of such radical groups are just humans who are so broken (due to atrocities committed on them at some point) that they get manipulated by the powers that be and become part of a movement for which they are willing to put their lives on the line.
And what scares me is that any human that is hurt by life circumstances can be turned into a war soldier. So, heal my friends; work on yourself if you find bitterness inside you at a level where you are capable of causing pain in any way to a fellow human either physically or emotionally. Please camp with your soul to understand why you feel like this. There are various ways of doing this – coaching, counselling, therapy, meditation, spirituality, prayer; take your pick but do this work so that the pain within you heals and nobody is able to manipulate you to accomplish their agenda. Doing this work is not easy but it is the key to your own growth, how it benefits the surrounding is just a by-product.
It took me three (3) years of soul searching to get to where I am today and it is the best place to be in. I am able to practice love and compassion in an authentic way with boundaries. I do not worry about pleasing people anymore and trust me it is the place we should all be in if we don’t want to remain small. A wise man once told me that ‘change is silent’ and so the effort made by us to help ourselves will create a shift which in the long run will become a cultural shift where we won’t have broken societies who take to suppressing innocent lives. That is my prayer and the intent I am sending out in the Universe. I am doing my bit, would you care to do yours? Remember, it all begins with you.
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