Your loved one returns home every day at 7 pm. Today it is already 11 pm. Not returned. The phone is not reachable. No message. What are you probably thinking? Is he in trouble? Is he in an accident? Is he dead? The first thing that occupies you is: Fear and you think about “BAD”
A noble man had great thoughts. He practised good deeds all his life. One day he made a grave mistake. And everyone forgot what good he did. The mistake hounded him. It attracted all the attention. It overshadowed all his good actions. Bad for him but again: BAD won.
Recently, the license of a hospital in Delhi was cancelled due to negligence (accusation not verdict). The hospital has so far treated over 50,000 patients successfully. It never got any award, reward, tax break, appreciation from the authorities. But 1 incident and boom: License cancelled. The hospital is in hospital now and is recuperating to get back its license but here too the “BAD” over-powered.
Many of us watched the successful movie “Sholay”. It had Jai, Veeru, Sambha, Kalia, Basanti, Dhanno, Mausi, Thakur etc. All played by stalwarts and tall characters in themselves. But whom do you remember: The goon called Gabbar played by newbie Amjad Khan.
Vijay Mallya is a successful Indian businessman. In fact he created the world’s 2nd largest liquor company United Spirits and world’s 2nd largest selling beer company United Breweries. Both were divested to get partners such as Diageo (world’s largest liquor company making labels like Johnny Walker) and Heineken in the respective businesses. The UB group is also the largest investor in sports businesses in India. They own top teams in IPL called RCB, Mohan Bagan in Football, Force India F1 team (1st for India), and India’s top Derby. These businesses were invested into way before their time under the sun. Also, a world class airline was created called Kingfisher which failed. Everyone forgot everything else and only thing they know is he is a fraud etc. (accusation not verdict)
In fact, it was his “Bad” side of perceived women & wine & lavish lifestyle that attracted the brand value to his businesses. I remember people fornicating in their mind after having flown Kingfisher. I know today that people sip the beer Kingfisher thinking they are getting a pie of that bad. And now that single bad failure is overpowering all the lesser bads that people loved.
So it is to be noted that “Bad” or “Negative” or things which we consider averse are very powerful and attract all the attention.
In fact, it takes a lot of gut and character not to fall for the “Sins” or “Bad” things in life.
But the main problem is that we have made “Bad” a bad word. It is our own limited thinking and the problem of being stuck in our own ego and morality that we fail to understand life in its entirety. The darkness in the universe is omnipresent and we need stars like the sun to show light for some time. When we begin to realise this and expand our own thoughts, breaking away and beyond morality & judgement, we see that a whole new dimension opens up. In fact it is the duty of every human being to see the other side of the pendulum too.
Think about it: Human Beings are more powerful than God or Devil. How?
God cannot become the Devil.
Devil cannot become God.
But only human beings can become both, when they want.
Speaking of bad, let me also discuss the nature and food of “Bad”
Bad is very cunning. It has assured its own longevity be making itself of a certain nature. Its nature, if you observe carefully, is that it thrives on its opposition. Opposing Bad is Food for Bad. The more you oppose it, fight it, and go against it: it gets its food and thrives more. It has created this anti-climax kind of personality for itself.
My sense is that the only way to kill it is to IGNORE it.
Let me give examples:
Chocolates:
Your objective is that your child should not have chocolate so that he has healthy teeth.
Now you set out and there are 2 ways:
IGNORE this pursuit of yours to defeat chocolate. See, it will die its own death if you do “Nothing” sometimes, doing nothing is doing everything.
The other way is:
You tell your child that this is chocolate and that it is not good for teeth and don’t have it ever.
You just did three things:
Showed him the product called chocolate and created awareness.
The awareness leads to curiosity about the chocolate
Said “don’t eat it” and created a challenge in your child’s mind – let me see what bad will happen if I eat it.
Now somehow he ate it.
Again, you can IGNORE. He might not try it again possibly. But if you scold him. And then sleep. Or go out of the house. Or he goes out of the house. HAHAHA – the chocolate is back between his lips.
So my friends , I know it’s easier said than done but make your effort and let the power of BAD be with you always 🙂
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!