Lessons from 2024
These are the lessons that have arisen throughout the year. These lessons are by no means unique to me; they are teachings of many teachers. I am not the first to come across these lessons, nor am I the last. But these are the lessons that stood and came to the surface this year. Take the things that fit and let go of the lessons that do not resonate with you
A Dot: We are alive for a tiny instance of time in the span of all history. Question whether to hold that grudge against anyone. Call your loved ones often, forgive more, choose your time wisely.
Death: Death will come sooner or later. Let go, smile and laugh, complement those who truly catch your attention, dare to live the dream.
Friendships: It takes time to build relationships, and as I get older, it gets harder. The reason it gets harder is that I got set in my ways—my preferences, likes, and dislikes set in stone. It become harder to accommodate. Thus, in a way, I become wiser in picking our friends who are aligned with our goals.
Growth of Friendships: It is a beautiful experience to grow old with friends. To watch them grow and change, to see them learn and adapt, to grow closer and to grow apart.
Pain: We all are constantly running away from pain and misery. This is suffering. Most of us don’t even know that we are stuck in misery, and some of us do, but we keep running to escape this misery, and few of us know how to get out of our misery.
Veerya (Effort): Right effort is important; it doesn’t involve struggling but putting full attention with mental and physical strength is key to a peaceful mind.
Routines and Stability: As we build daily routines, the constant and simple daily effort enables us to make huge progress over time. This also allows us to have a stable mind, which in turn provides clarity and focus for deep work. It allows us to slow down and focus on the important moments.
Beauty in the Mundane: As I focused on routines and stability, I was able to accept the beauty in simplicity and the mundane. It was a stark contrast to seeking pleasure after pleasure in terms of traveling and seeing new and different places.
Think Less and Be More: The way to appreciate the beauty in the mundane was to be more and think less. This meant feeling the emotions, observing things and life without judgment. To see things as they are with compassion and acceptance.
Emotions: Feel deeply. The art of feeling deeply is to observe the emotion as it is without analyzing, labeling, or reasoning the emotion. It is to feel the emotion, to sense it without judgment. Just sense and be with it. As you are with it, it will change, and don’t hold on to change. This is the way of letting out emotions. This practice enables us to connect even more deeply with the world and ourselves.
Release: Just be aware of the sensations in the body as they are. Do not try to reason; be with the sensation as it is. With that, the emotion will dissipate; that is the nature of things—impermanence. With this, pain and deep troubling emotions can be let go and released.
A Cyclical Practice (Sadana): Thus was the cycle—an increase in stability caused by beauty in life, and cherishing the moments in life, which in turn enabled deeper emotions to arise. This is the practice.
A Sinusoidal Wave: Sometimes life is smooth and easy. The direction of life, the purpose in life, is clear, and at times the path becomes a bit cloudy, and this too is a part of life. The cyclical practice applies here as well. In due time, the clouds will clear and the path will be visible again for a small period.
Unknown: The beauty of life happens in the unexpected. Some things will definitely not go our way, and that is the beauty of it. Accept the novelty, the random changes of pace in life. That willingness to embrace the unknown and give up will enable us to have deeper relationships with ourselves and the world.
I would like to thank all the individuals, from strangers to family members to friends that I have come across. Each of you has made a significant impact on my thought process and my life.
If you would like to learn more, I would recommend the teachings that have influenced me throughout my life, such as Vipassana, as well as the works of David R. Hawkins, Ramana Maharishi, and Chandrashekara Bharathi.
May all be happy,
Thejas
