There is many a quote that is doing the rounds on ‘change’. One of the quotes that is constant though is – change is the only constant :-). No matter the quote, no matter how much we read on change, the fact remains that there are many of us (if not most or all of us) who find change a challenge. When I see a few people who I have always take any change that comes their way with aplomb, I am awestruck. These are times when I have been proved wrong also as I talk to them. These people also resist change at first. What makes them different – They perhaps succeed in accepting that change a little more faster than the others.
I was speaking to this teenager who was going to start learning a subject with a new teacher. This teenager refused to go to learn from this teacher. Much probing later the teenager said, “I don’t like this change in the middle of the year. I was going to a different teacher whom I liked and now I am not sure of how this new teacher is going to be. I don’t have anything against this teacher but I will not go”. This teenager also said, “I really don’t like changes. I get irritated and angry and if I can’t do anything about it, I get even more angry”. And the anger was all out there to see and feel.
This reminded me of what I read a few days back that if we start something with a divided heart or if we lose our interest mid way, we would stop pursuing what we started towards.
I could feel that the incident and what I read were related and yet they were not. The more I went back to both of these, the more I felt that they were related. Is this what is meant by, “The more you feel strongly about something, the more you will find evidence and data to support what you feel”? Interesting thought indeed!!
What is it about change that makes us resist it?
Is it moving out of the comfort zone?
Is it the fear of stepping out of the cocoon that has been our very protection?
Is it about stepping into an unfamiliar territory?
Is it a fear of not knowing how we will make it thru?
Is it the thought of getting support to travel thru this journey of change?
Ask someone to articulate what they go thru’ when they need to change. It would be interesting to hear the articulation. My own interaction with people have made me hear thoughts like, “Something in me just clams up.. I just freeze.. My mind goes completely blank.. I don’t know what I am doing… I make mistake after mistake.. I just don’t know where to go.. I am not sure if I can explain to anyone what I am going thru and if I do, I am not sure if they will understand what I am saying.. I have failed in many things that I have taken up and I am sure that’s what is going to happen here also”
Is this what it means by ‘starting something with a divided heart?’ When we start with a ‘divided heart’, with what confidence do we face the obstacles and challenges that come our way? Is this also when we drop what we take up mid way as we lose interest, due to the lack of confidence?
What about people who start something new with so much of enthusiasm but drop a few months later,what they have started? There are quite a few who have dropped many things that they start. The reasons that are given for this could be many but one of them may also be that the change that is required to be made to pursue what they begin, becomes a challenge to handle.
Someone very beautifully said, “Many parents put their children in art classes when their child shows an interest to join a class. The very next day, they buy art materials for a thousand rupees. The child goes to a few classes and then decides to stop because they have lost the interest. I am just giving the example of art. It could be a few other classes also. When I talk to the child to ask why they stopped going to the art class, the child says, “I went but I could not draw the way the art teacher told me to draw and I did not want to continue”.
I wonder if as we grow older, we lose interest faster in what we take up as a task to do or a change that we are working towards, given the many other priorities that keep popping up! There is also that feeling of failure that looms larger, obstacles seem to overwhelm us and challenges just rattle us further!! We need no further reason to say ‘This change and no further’ 🙂
In my perspective, there are those times when an incident occurs in our life and that becomes a catalyst for change. This change happens in a flash of a second. There is no thought and no resistance. What we thought was not possible for us, becomes a happening. No matter the opposition to that change from others around us, we are fine with the change. This change actually makes us respect the person that we have become.
I would like to close this blog with a thought provoking story I read this morning about milk’s thoughts after it was taken from the cow’s udder (please read the spirit of the story and not the monetary value aspect of it :-)) – I was very comfortable in the cow’s udder, when I was removed by the lady who then poured me into a vessel to boil. I went thru agony while being boiled. I was cooled and then she added curd into me. I went thru further agony to become a curd. Then she diluted me to make me into buttermilk. She churned me hard to get the butter out from me which did not make me feel ‘better’. She melted the butter and made ghee out of it. I had turned from milk to ghee and I was put in a jar and kept on a window sill. I heard two women who were walking by the window talking. One lady said to the other, “Milk costs Rs. 6/- per half litre. If this we think is expensive, ghee costs Rs. 16/- for half litre”. That is when I understood the value that I have become, changing from butter to ghee. I have gone thru many challenging and painful moments to become what I am and these moments are the ones that raise the quality and value of my life.
This story makes change seem so ‘comfortable’ 🙂
This story raises one question in me which I leave you (the reader) also with, “Is every change one that is consciously sought by us or are there changes that we go thru as a matter of ‘growing up’ and without a thought too?”
NOTE: The reading on starting something with a divided heart was from a book of pUjya Swami Dayananda Saraswati and the story of the milk was one that was told by MahA Periyava of Kanchi Mutt (both adapted from their original version for this blog)..
May 10, 2017 at 8:51 am
In Sanskrit the word PariNAma means ‘change’. ‘Paripakva’ is ‘maturing’, ParivarTana is ‘reformation’, ‘ParivarDhana’ is ‘growth’, ‘PariSoDhana’ is ‘purifying’, ‘ParishkAra’ is ‘polishing’ and the list can go on to some more too.
Learning a new subject may not strictly be a ‘change’ but could be something which happens in the normal course of growing (ParivarDhana) or maturing (Paripakva). This will be by and large considered as naturally happening. Only if it is an extra ordinary learning, say, for example, PhD, the learner may naturally hesitate if they are either lazy or half-hearted or they find it tough or not useful or the benefits are not commensurate with the effort/toughness associated with it and son. Putting children in arts class without knowing their bent of mind is also a classic example. This is where the divided hearts cases will be noticed seen interest lost mid-way, irritated and angry if forced.
Change that is required of a person in his attitude or habit or behaviour to suit to the, work or family essentially, in order that the person is able to carry on further if it is correction of mistake, then it is ‘ParivarTana’ If it is to change to suit to the environment then it is PariNAma. Otherwise why should a person change? That will not be usually resisted.
A change is resisted only if it is tough to deal with it or moving out of the comfort zone or alternatively fear of coming out of cocoon or stepping into unfamiliar territory with risk of losing protection/ not getting support or very low success rate. This is what is ‘starting with divided heart’.
There can be an incident occurs in our life and that becomes a catalyst for change. This is what usually happens when someone by chance attends a course on philosophy. As it does not involve mathematical formulae or physical derivation etc. compulsions, just juicy hearing if the lecturer is articulate, the subject is spicy (like BG) and more so if the lecture sounded to have solutions to many of our complicated life experience and many elite persons attend the gathering and it gives a semblance of enlightenment. Such a change happens in a flash of a second and being inductive in itsel, there won’t be any reservation or resistance. We even go to the extent of thinking such a heavy subject which we thought was not possible for us, becomes a happening. It does not matter even the advices are not adhered to in actual life and no Implementation is taken up. This falls under the category of ‘ParishkAra’ and not a change. Someone may even get a feeling of getting PariSoDhana even!
The story of milk by ParamAchArya is one which involves ‘PariTapana’or metamorphosis and it is not a change but a sort of awakening something associated of Self and therefore willingness to undergo that Tapas. This is a very high level of Paripakva on hearing a sincere AchArya, who is bent upon guiding his disciple and his compassion and concern touches the inner-self of the disciples. The mental bent is already there as the disciple has come to his refuge with conviction and faith. This will be the highest degree of Paripakwa or maturing and there won’t be any resistance at all, rather a wholeheartedness go through this exertion or labour or difficulty (like the blogger with her Guru), just as the same with the acheTana milk getting into the state of Ghee which shows least resistance to all the ‘toughness. This therefore makes change, just not seem, but actually so ‘comfortable’!
Therefore the last question of the blogger is no more an unanswered question I suppose?
August 16, 2016 at 11:56 pm
Thought-provoking…Should make one a bit more receptive to Change when it hits them…