This morning my friend Divyesh and I were talking about how we both want to read the Bhagvad Geeta. I mentioned to him how i had wanted to read the epic in my mother tongue Gujrati and hadn’t managed to even get started! Just the thought was intimidating! I also told him how my dad was such a fluent Gujrati scholar and my mother, even being a non Hindu, had read so many scriptures in Gujrati and Sanskrit. And to be reading like them would be a Herculean effort. I told him, I’d have to stand on my toes, on a very high ladder to even touch the base of the level that they were at! At this, he made a statement that was just so powerful….all he said was, i trust you can do it…you don’t need a ladder or be standing on your toes….all you need to do is stand up!
Such a wonderful thought! so often we think of a task that we want to accomplish but start thinking of it as difficult. Not just difficult but we exaggerate it in our mind and imagine the whole long journey and then get so overwhelmed that we give up before we even start. We thereby deprive ourselves of some of the wonderful experiences we so desire.
If we just ‘sit’ thinking about it, its going to look really hard and unreachable…all we need to is stand up and pull ourselves up, using our abilities, our strengths and get moving. We often prefer to believe it is out of our league, doubt our ability and maybe then somehow that becomes an excuse to not even try doing it. This absolves us of that task, we put it aside and that provides a temporary balm, not realising that the only one who is losing is us.
All we need to do is ‘stand up’ ..we don’t need to be on toes, don’t need a ladder, just the will to stand up and get moving. We undermine our abilities and believe others are just better endowed, When the truth is we are consummately perfect and have whatever it takes to go out and experience the things we want to, if only we get started.
So, i have decided, little less doubting and a little more believing, a little less dreaming and a little more doing!
I am going to ‘stand up’ to fill up the gap between what my fingers can touch and where i want to reach. Are you going to stand up too?