Totally confused...

May be life is this... We learn various things at different times and under different circumstances. We keep accumulating knowledge... Intelligence is in choosing the right knowledge to apply for the right problem at appropriate circumstances.

Today morning, actions of a very dear friend of mine troubled me very much. The actions themselves could be totally unintentional (hopefully) and hence don't mean much. But, how am I to know? Nevertheless, I had to deal with it... Lot of reading and thinking in the past few weeks gave me the problem of plenty... too many solutions which one to apply?

Lesson No 1: (learnt from "A Poison Tree" by William Blake)

http://www.newi.ac.uk/RDOVER/blake/a_poison.htm

excerpt:
I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

I should have confronted the friend and settled matters then and there.

Did not apply this one... since I was not even sure of what I was thinking. More over, there is lot to lose in this approach (unless the level of friendship is like Karna-Duryodhana or Lewis-Clark or Rohit-Jaadu) if the basis of the wrath is absurd :-)). Closest friends Brutus and Caesar did not get this - how could I ?. More over, I have a history of jumping into wrong conclusions based on my extremely fast CPU - totally unreliable.

Lesson No 2: (learnt from kannada proverbs)

ಕಣ್ಣಾರೆ ಕಂಡರೂ ಪರಾಂಬರಿಸಿ ನೋಡು (kaNNAre kaNDarU parAmbarisi nOdu)
Even when you see it, you should examine more. Because, when you see only the present you may not the context. My dear friend Anand once elucidated that any sample of the infinite is bound to be incomplete and hence inaccurate. How true?

ಕೋಪದಲ್ಲಿ ಕೊಯ್ದ ಮೂಗು ಶಾಂತವಾದಾಗ ಬಂದೀತೆ? (kopadalli koydaa mUgu shaanthavAdaga bandIte?)
If you cut your nose in anger, it will not come back when you cool down. This has reference in Ramayana when Shurpanaka got her nose cut from Lakshmana due to her anger (haste) and hence was disfigured for ever. Very wise. So, I decided to apply due diligence before taking action... or even talking about it. Again, very wise.

Lesson No 3: (learnt from some one... some day)
If you derive your feelings (joy, sorrow, anger or frustration) from any body else... sooner or later you are bound to be disappointed. True feelings, what ever they are must be from within in. That way you will have complete freedom (as well as complete responsibility) in what you feel. No body can take that away from you.

I know... but have not reached a stage where I can insulate myself from being effected by others... Long way to go.

Lesson No 4: (observed while throwing stones at a serene lake)
Mind is like the surface of a calm lake. As long as the lake is calm, the reflection that we see on it is beautiful, some times more beautiful than the real world above. Any body who has spent a moon lit night by a lake will definitely agree with me on this. But how easy is it to disturb the tranquility by just dropping a stone... It causes ripples immediately... these ripples reach the bank... and as if getting a new purpose in life, they multiply... Even before the stone reaches the bottom of the lake, the ripples have already taken over the surface... the reflection of the same world you just admired looks horrible, twisted and distorted.

However, the lake is resilient. It swallows the stone (the trouble maker), accepts it as its own... and finally brings back the tranquility at the surface.

It took only fraction of a second for the stone to disturb the peace at the surface... It takes hours for the lake to fight the turmoil within to bring back the peace.

Well.... does this even apply here?? Any way the Lake, the stone, long time to restore tranquility... good connection.

Lesson No 5: (learnt from the story of the Zen guru)

http://www.chennaionline.com/society/zen.asp

excerpt:
Once upon a time a big monk and a little monk were travelling together. They came to the bank of a river and found the bridge was damaged. They had to wade across the river. There was a pretty lady who was stuck at the damaged bridge and couldn't cross the river. The big monk offered to carry the pretty lady across the river on his back. The lady accepted. The little monk was shocked by the move of the big monk. "How can big brother carry a lady when we are supposed to avoid all intimacy with females?" thought the little monk. But he kept quiet. The big monk carried the lady across the river and the small monk followed unhappily. When they crossed the river, the big monk let the lady down and they parted ways with her. All along the way for several miles, the little monk was very unhappy with the act of the big monk. He was making up all kinds of accusations about the big monk in his head. This got him madder and madder. But he still kept quiet. And the big monk had no inclination to explain his situation. Finally, at a rest point many hours later, the little monk could not stand it any further, he burst out angrily at the big monk. "How can you claim yourself a devout monk, when you seize the first opportunity to touch a female, especially when she is very pretty? All your teachings to me make you a big hypocrite." The big monk looked surprised and said, "I had put down the pretty lady at the river bank many hours ago, how come you are still carrying her along?"

You get the point....

Finally something that I like, and I want to accept. I have carried my worries all the way till the middle of the night. I should at least drop them here. Tomorrow, is another day - another start.

Random Lesson:
There were more learnings that I saw while walking back home. I saw the most beautiful evening clouds... huge foolish clouds trying to block out the brightness of the Sun... and the Sun was still imparting a splendid silver lining around them. Today I *saw* the real meaning of "Every cloud has a silver lining"... Too bad, that does not solve my problem. Hopefully its true.

As the name of the blog and this post, it is getting too random and too confusing.