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It is none of my business what people say of me and think of me because I believe that I am what I am, I do what I do and what I say I am free to say. I expect nothing and accept everything. This is one of the reasons why it makes my life so much easier to live. I too share the loaded view of Dalai Lama who says that there is no need for temples and there is no need for complicated philosophy because our own brain and our own heart is our temple if our philosophy is kindness.
I have been and am not only responsible for my own life and actions but I believe that doing my very best at every moments of my short but interesting life has always placed me in the box seat of my life and living to better structure my future. I thank God Almighty for guidance and blessings. I pray whenever and wherever I can with no fixed unnecessary traditional ceremonies. My prayers are simple and straightforward. ’Oh God Almighty take me in your fold and guide me to live a truthful, good and beautiful life. I ask for nothing more than your kind blessings.’
PURPOSE OF MY LIVING
The last time I was in Fiji, I had an important discussion with my soul during a ride in my rental car from Suva to Nadi. These are my thoughts of those peaceful moments when I am alone and perhaps among the moments I cherish most because I am free to relate to my soul.
A lot of topics churned through my mind for a while but after driving for nearly half an hour, somehow the topic that intrigued me was about being happy, so my soul and I discussed the four aspects of our being: Body, Mind, Heart and Soul or the physical world, our thoughts and knowledge, our emotions and our spirituality.
Before I proceed any further with the discussion, let me state that I am not an expert in any of these fields but it feels like a balance between these four can perhaps contribute to a certain harmony in our life, while neglecting some in favour of other fields that may lead us into various problems.
This is an example of the circle I used to draw. In the outer circle went the long term goals and purposes. In the second inner circle I used to put the short term goals. It was always fun to give these things some thought and I enjoyed doing these. I even encouraged my people to do the same to be successful in life.
Many years ago, I used to draw a circle for my younger son with four quadrants. Then I asked him to think about his ambitions and his goals and tell me where and what were his purpose in each of the four above fields. His answers used to inspire me to guide my other children as best as I could.
My son pointed to the sky and said that is where I want to reach in my life time. So I concluded that like Douglas Barder he too wanted to ‘reach for the sky’ in his life. Then he touched his physical body and said he wanted to make his body physically strong in order to face the world. He added that he had to have a heart of a human being to be kind, caring and full of love. Then he said his mind must have the determination to move ahead with new ideas and skills.
A long time has elapsed now, in fact over half a century but I have not even thought about my life, divided in these four areas and as we quite often do, so I kept living on without too much thought about goals and purpose.
Today I gave it a try to fill in the quadrants of the circle for myself. It reminded me of goals and purposes of the early days, some of which seemed to have been "magically" achieved, some of which had still quite a bit of work to be done. One thing was certain that I never moved in my life without setting definite goals and objectives.
While driving my car, I listened to my soul talking about goal setting and I think my soul had something interesting to tell me. It said that it was about wanting to be the person we dream of rather than wanting to get that thing we dream of or wanting to do that action we dream of.
It further said that too often our goals are to get that car, to get that house or to get that amount of money, or to make that trip around the world, or to do this or that extreme sports or study. My soul then told me that before we can get and do extraordinary things, we have to become extraordinary people. To be truly extraordinary people means invariably to be kind, invariably to love, to be humble, honest and above all good and beautiful in our words, actions, thoughts, character and heart.
When I stopped for a rest at the National Park of Sigatoka Sand Dunes I thought while having my lunch that the next time I ever thought about goal setting I may start thinking about who, where, why, when and how, I want to be and then only about what i want to get and do.
Upon reaching Denarau Island I sat in my room and decided to let the world know about my discussion with my soul by expressing these in words. This is what I call soul searching.
