Strange things happen on this path of spirituality. It is like making way through the forest of profound confusions. The usual notions of good, bad, right, wrong fall so short that it becomes hard to go any further without addressing this. What follows is a recent experience that made me think about it.

I went to a shopping mall with my wife. We had some coupons for this particular shop which we got on our last visit. Salesman, being salesman, had said that there are no hidden conditions, you can just use this next time any way you want. So there we were, to enjoy our freebies. We roamed for an hour or so, carefully selecting what we wanted to purchase.

We wrapped up our shopping and went to the billing counter. The salesman said this particular coupon is not valid on these things you have purchased, they are valid for only that section! It pissed me off. I said but last time you said there are no hidden conditions, we can use it in any way we want. He said yeah, these conditions are there, we can’t do anything about it.

I obviously didn’t like that. I had spent my Sunday afternoon on this. This sudden appearance of terms and conditions angered me! I cracked down upon the salesman using some hard language. Of course, in the end, we had to go according to their terms and conditions, but anyway, I at least made them realise their mistake.

We came out of the shopping mall, I was trying to pretend that everything is cool. We were walking back home and I was trying to be happy as I had rightly punished them for their behaviour. But to be honest, I was struggling with it. I wasn’t reeaally happy inside. Though I was not wrong, I didn’t like something about this episode.

I couldn’t really figure out why.

Instead of analysing and reasoning through that particular event, I simply decided to accept it as a fact about myself. From what I know about myself, one thing is sure now— I simply don’t enjoy being angry. Or more precisely, now I understand that I don’t really enjoy the feeling that comes after being angry.

So what do I do? How do I behave next time such a situation presents itself?

While thinking through this, the first thing I realised is that being right did not help. I ended up feeling low anyway. Winning a debate, or making someone realise their mistake, did not make me peaceful and joyful.

The very fact that something could make me angry and take the joy out of my moments, means my inner pond is exposed to the world. Anyone can throw a stone from outside, create ripples on it and destroy my tranquillity. Well, I can’t let this happen.

I am no one for this vast world. But I do have the power to become someone for myself. I must learn to take a pause, and see—does this makes sense? Is this something I will be ok with? Or will it affect my tranquillity? I must be able to control when to react and how to react.

I don’t need to fight every war just because I am right and I can win it.

When we decide that I am right, someone becomes wrong by default. Our mind quickly gets into the fight of good vs evil. In no time, we assume the unconditional support of all the powers in the world, morality, god and whatnot and start fighting furiously. After all, we are in god mode, punishing the evil. But, please note, it seldom results in inner peace. In most cases, such encounters can end up disturbing your tranquillity.

I hope I am being able to present the subtlety of this situation to you. It is a choice between being right and winning a debate, which can greatly satisfy my ego, versus, being peaceful. It is not as simple as I did something wrong and I regret it. It is a situation when I think I am right, and I still regret it. It makes the notions of right-wrong, good-bad irrelevant.

Of course, I recognise that there will be few situations where war would be necessary like Arjun had to do it. But by and large, in our daily lives, we can simply walk away from such ego boosting debates. Simply dropping the notions of good and bad, right and wrong, can greatly declutter our minds and help us progress on the path of spirituality!

I am trying to internalise this lesson. My intention is to free up the brain space, reduce the number of things I bother about in this world so that I can make space for my own expression.

Thank you for reading this! Please let me know your views. How do you declutter your mind? How did you learn to let go and stay unaffected?

Best,

Pratik