From Darkness To Light

 

Yogesh Chabria at Indian Navy - Indian Army

People come to me and tell me, "Yogesh, I am confused. There is this cloud of darkness around me. What should I do?"

Every time you face confusion or don't know what to do. The first thing you should stop doing is try to hard.

The more you try, the harder some things become.

What do I mean by this?

Have you tried to remember a name? Sometimes you keep trying hard to remember a name, but the harder you try, the tougher it becomes to recall the name.

And then, when you stop trying too hard, and do something else, suddenly the name pops up in your mind.

Confusion doesn't go away, when you try harder. In fact the harder you try, the more stressed you become.

The more stressed you become, the more likely you are to suffer from anxiety and blood pressure and all other things that come with it.

To move from the cloud of darkness to clarity and light, you need to do something most people don't do.

You need to calm down. You need to learn to surrender. Surrender to nature. Surrender to existence. Surrender to the belief that you will discover your way. Surrender to a higher power than you.

You could name it anything. Names don't matter, your ability to surrender does.

It is like swimming. If you want to swim, you need to calm down. new swimmers, panic and move their hands all over the place.

Experienced swimmers, swim with a sense of calm. They know they won't sink, no matter how deep the waters are.

It is the same with life. First learn to surrender and stop resisting natural flows.

Everything happening to you right now, has a reason and purpose. You can either fight it, or you can learn from it.

Let us say you are going through a family challenge right now. You have had a fight with your husband or wife. Or you have fought with your mother-in-law. Or you have fought with your parents or kids.

You can either let the fight, cloud your judgement. You can let it suck you deep down in a dark place.

Or you can simply pause, and observe what is happening. What happens you when you fight? What can you learn from it? Not about others, but about yourself?

You have no control over how your husband or wife or mother-in-law react or parents or kids, do you? But does it mean you are helpless? Or does it mean, you can take complete control over yourself? Over your own thoughts, over your own mind.

Wouldn't things be different if you gained mastery over your own mind?

Why not use this challenge, as a chance to gain mastery? To train your mind?

For light to exist, darkness needs to be there. Without darkness, how do you define light?

Thus, every time you enter a state of darkness, know, that you have the possibility and potential of entering light.

Darkness, ensures the success of light. Even a small candle, will get illuminated more with darkness around.

The MD of a large manufacturing company came to me for a consultation. He was sharing, how over 20,000 people listened to his orders. But at home, just two people didn't listen to him. His wife and son and that bothered him.

In his head, he identified himself as the MD who everybody should obey. And the less they obeyed, the more frustrated he became.

His happiness, was linked to people obeying him.

I told him to simply pretend at home, that he wasn't the MD. He was a husband and a father.

Just pretend for a day, and see how it goes.

I told him to pretend that he wouldn't be the MD for life. Pretend that at home nobody would be obeying him.

Pretend that they didn't have to obey him. Pretend that he had to accept his ego from work didn't work at home.

After a few days he came back to me, and told me how he felt freer. He actually had fun with his wife and son.

Yes, when you are the MD, you need to have a particular type of approach. You need to use all tools and techniques to get your forces to perform. To deliver, to rule, to compete in the market.

But at home, if you go with the same approach, you will fail miserably.

So this was a chance for the MD to learn something about himself and change.

If you look at everything around you as a chance to learn, a chance to grow, a chance to experience, you will experience joy.

Even during challenges, you will have this sense of inner calm and inner joy.

Remember, you have the potential to experience light. Everyone does.

Now it is on you, to take this journey ahead or be stuck where you are.

Yogesh Chabria

Happionaire