Trust Life: Fall Like A Rose Petal

In the New Year, trust Life, and fall like a rose petal!

As you reflect on the year gone by and as you think of your highs and lows, also spend a little time reviewing how you met Life each day.

The highs are obviously a lot easier to handle. They lift us. They make us go ga ga over whatever’s happening. The soul sings and you are in love with Life. And you feel like Annie (Manisha Koirala) singing that memorable song on screen in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s beautiful 1996 musical: “Aaj Main Upar Aasmaan Neeche….” “I am on top of the world and the sky is beneath my feet…”.

It’s the lows that debilitate us. What we plan doesn’t always work out. People interpret you instead of understanding you. They attribute motives when they must be seeing reason. They trample upon you and piss on you and pass over you. You lose things – money, opportunity, your job. You lose people – friends, family and colleagues. And most importantly you lose your peace of mind.

So, how do you handle your lows?

Here’s a beautiful Sufi story that lets us in on a precious learning.

A Sufi Master used to say to his disciples:

A rose petal, so delicate, but so strong, doesn’t hesitate about where it is falling, where it is going, whether there is any earth to find, to rest, to go to sleep, to die… Simply Trust. Do not the petals flutter down just like that?

A low in Life is actually an opportunity that teaches us the importance of acceptance and urges us to have faith in Life. To trust Life. This lifetime is a gift that came your way without your asking for it. So, why are you resisting anything that comes your way in this lifetime?

Learn from the rose petal. It doesn’t ask anything. It doesn’t protest. It knows it has lived its Life well, being beautiful and lifting the spirits of whoever saw it, and just gives itself up to Life. It detaches from the main bud and lets the wind take it to where it truly must, or is ordained to, rest: could be a deadbody, could be a graveyard, could be in a garland that a newly-wed couple wear, could be a God in a temple, could be on a garbage dump or could be on the street where an unwitting car tyre crushes it mercilessly.

When you dwell on the metaphor of the rose petal, an important lesson in Life will be evident. That Life’s beauty is not in what you did when everything was just the way you wanted it, but in how you received what you got from Life, when you didn’t exactly want it!

So, as you get ready to welcome another year, remember that, sometimes, Life will overtake you and all that you wish, dream and plan for will just not happen. In such times, simply trust Life. Allow it to take over, and you, you fall like a rose petal!

May the season’s energy soak you and your precious family in its abundance!

(PS – ‘Fall Like A Rose Petal – A father’s lessons on how to be happy and content while learning to live without money’ is also the title of a book by AVIS Viswanathan that is due for release in April-2014.)