Reverse waterfalls of Sandhan valley, Bhandardara, with Tattva Adventures

The phrase “reverse waterfalls” makes one wonder, what could this be. This thought made me register on this trip, with Tattva adventures. My roommates also joined me. A few other friends were also supposed to, but they could not make it in the nth hour. I thought I would miss them, but soon realized, it is they who have missed out on something so awesome!

‘Tattva Adventures’ is a fun-filled, mischievous and adventure loving group. We started at night in a nice bus. All through the ride we played antakshari with super funny songs, and some of them were even real bollywood songs! The rest you can imagine ;) The unity in thinking was surprising. Everyone somehow thought of the same crazy things at the same time! The game at times got stuck in never-ending loop “ILU ILU” followed by “LA LAI LAI, LAI LA LAI LA LAI” followed by “ILU ILU” and “LA LAI”… until someone took a stand to break it.

The bus stops suddenly on the way. It was dark, foggy and biting cold. People get down, place the speakers in the middle of the road, start playing item songs loudly, and dance like crazy around it!! After almost an hour, people got exhausted and started getting back into the bus! Then our ride continued.

We reached the base camp and watched the sun rise. Then we get hot and spicy missal-pav along with a nice tea! There was a round of introduction, along with distribution of badges that read “Tell your story”. To me it sounded like, the organizers, Jaal and Sai, are two spiders, who have made a cobweb named Tattva. The rest were the insects who get caught in it. The difference here is, the insects do not wish to leave the cobweb ever, and could even kill the spiders in case they ever thought of destroying the web! I too am caught in it now!

After breakfast and introduction, we started off towards the reverse waterfalls. On the way, we experienced a very different type of rain. The water came flying towards us from our sides, instead of the top. The heavy pours lasted for about a minute, and repeated every 2-3 minutes. Most of the first timers came up different explanations, without noticing the silence of the experienced people. As we reached the point, we understood that they were not rains at all. It was the water from the falls that were flying upwards due to the heavy winds! It felt as though God was holding a huge hose pipe and watered us! Amazing experience :)
 https://youtu.be/TKyNA_0AJYI

We played in these showers for a while and walked towards Sandhan valley, an extremely beautiful place. One can stare at its lush, green mountains for hours. Then we came back to the base camp and changed into dry clothes. They had arranged for a home-made lunch, in one of those huts. It was a simple dal rice and roti sabzi, but the taste of food cooked on top of burning woods is just awesome. You can feel the difference from that of our gas-stove cooking!

Our return journey was equally fun. We played a customized housie game that had gifts in abundance! Every single person in this trip, whether had a gift in hand or not, sure had a smile on their face, and loads of memories we can never forget! Thank you Jaal, Sai & Tattva group for this amazing experience :)
Would love to tell many more of such stories!

Desire → Anger → Delusion → Annihilation

A four year old boy, Rahul, is playing in the park with his mother. He spots something red and sparkling at a distance. His attention is drawn towards it and he wants to find out what it is. As he goes closer, he starts to see that it is a soldier with a drum. Now he is excited and is so happy to have found it. He runs towards it. (DESIRE) Suddenly another child appeared from no where, picks up the toy and starts playing with it. Rahul is disappointed. He goes to the child and asks for the toy. The child does not want to share it. Rahul says it is his toy and he wants it back. The other child also says the same thing. The two boys get into a fight. (ANGER) Their parents come, break them off and take them to their respective homes.

On their way back, Rahul tells his mother that it was his toy and the other boy just took it away. His mother explains that the toy did not belong to him. He just happened to see it when it was left unattended. Rahul is not convinced. He feels he saw it first, so it belongs to him, and the other child lied about owning it. Rahul asks his mother to take him back to the park, but she does not agree. He starts nagging her, crying, and then throwing tantrums. Rahul's mother is growing tired of handling him and starts punishing him. This irritates him more. He explains that it is the other boy who deserves the punishment, not him. His mother tries to explain to him that he is not being punished for losing the toy. He is being punished for nagging her. Rahul still feels the punishment is unnecessary, as he will not be nagging her if the other child had just given him his toy back.(DELUSION)

Now, Rahul has undergone a lot. He has got himself beaten up and scolded by his mother, lost out on watching his favorite cartoon show, has got himself prohibited from eating chocolates for the next three days, and has started to develop a fever from all the crying and screaming that he has been doing. But Rahul has not realised the things he has lost, or what he has undergone. He surely knows he is not happy and his mother is not happy with him. But feels that none of this would have happened if the other boy had just returned his toy back to him.(ANNIHILATION)

Sometimes in life, we do not realize when we become this child. Krishna explains in two verses how one becomes deluded and destroys himself when we set our mind on acquiring trivial objects.

ध्यायतो  विषयान् पुंसः संगस्तेषुपजायते ।

संगात्सञ्जायते कामः कामात्क्रोधोऽभिजायते ॥ (2.62)

dhyayato (thought/ focus) visayan (materialistic objects) pumsah (man/ soul)

sangastesu (union) pa jayate (win/ conquer)

sangat (union) sanjayate (come into existence) kamah (desire)

kamat (intentionally) krodho (anger) bhi jayate (win).

When the focus of a man gets set on materialistic objects, a desire is born. 

This desire creates an anger to acquire or conquer it.

क्रोधात्  भवति संमोहः संमोहात्  स्मिृति विभ्रमः ।

स्मिृति भ्रंषात बुद्धि नाशः बुद्धिनाशत प्रणश्यति ॥ (2.63)

krodhad (from anger) bhavati (manifests) sammohah (delusion/ confusion)

sammohat (from delusion) smiriti (memory) vibhramah (loss/ error)

smiriti bhramsad (from memory loss) buddhi (intellect) naso (ruin) 

buddhi-nasat (from ruined intellect) pranasyati (perish).

Anger deludes our mind and erases our memory.

Memory loss ruins our intellect. And without intellect, we are destroyed.

! जय श्री कृष्णा !

"Fear of Rejection" and "Self Sabotage"

Ever wondered, if you have a fear of rejection, why will you sabotage yourself and want to get yourself rejected? The phrases may seem to contradict each other, but in reality they are deeply connected. To understand this connection, let us take the stories of two people, Ravi and Mona.

Ravi’s story

Ravi is an ordinary looking man with simple dressing sense and a decent job. He sees a girl, Mona, who is beautiful, smartly dressed and has a creative job. Of course she looks appealing in every sense, but also out of his league. He looks for every slightest opportunity to reveal his existence. At some point she starts to take notice of him. He doesn’t want to ask her out, for the fear of rejection, so he keeps her in the friend zone.

Mona hints that she is willing to take their friendship to the next zone, but he is scared to consider her hints. Ravi too wants to be with her, at the same time he is scared about getting dumped. One day Mona kisses him and that marked the start of their relationship. Ravi is not able to mentally agree on it, and constantly wonders why, a girl like Mona, will want to date him.

Mona shares her past, and tells him about her future plans. Ravi feels more close to her, but he keeps reading between her lines to find out the real reason behind why she chose him. Would it be her bad experiences that is making her settle down for him, or is it her inferiority complex, or does she have any other ulterior motive?

The more time he spends with Mona, the more he falls in love with her personality. He finds her sweet, caring, funny, creative, bold, and a really nice person. As the adjectives keep adding, so does his insecurity. Mona keeps asking him for small favours like a drop home, book tickets, recharge phone, etc. Since his observations are not yielding the answers he desires, he concludes that she is just using him, and soon he will run out of her use.

Ravi starts to dress shabbily for their dates, reach late and makes excuses of being busy. Mona buys his excuses and does not see them as a problem. Mona also has a busy job. This makes Ravi feel that she is not so much into him as much as he is. So he decides to test her love. He lies to her that he used be a drug addict. Mona becomes curious and wants to know the details. Ravi explains a false past and convinces her that he is completely over it now. He is momentarily happy that she is interested in him, but soon starts to wonder why will a girl like Mona want to be with a drug addict.

Ravi finds Mona talking to another man, and blames her of cheating on him. Mona explains herself that they are just friends. Now, if Mona spends time with Ravi, he thinks she is trying to hide her guilt.  He is curious to know why Mona finds him better than that ‘just friend’. He secretly tries to find more details about that friend and compares himself. The friend scores better. Now Ravi feels totally unnecessary in her life, and decides to move away.

Ravi calls for a breakup. Mona expresses her broken heart, but Ravi says he is doing her a favour and she will move on. Mona blames him of playing with her emotions, but he feels it was the other way around. Wasn’t she the one to kiss him first? She anyway wasn’t too much into him either. Why is she feeling so bad about the whole thing now? Is she just saying things now to make him feel guilty? Her laments are confusing him, but he is neither able to put his foot down and console her, nor apologize. He assumes that her tears are an impulse, not genuine. Either way, it is over now. He feels secure that he has dumped her, before she did, because this relationship wasn’t going to last that long anyway.

Mona stops talking to him. Ravi starts to miss her, and wonders if he did a mistake. He apologizes but Mona just ignores. Now Ravi feels, this is the truth. Mona never wanted him in the first place. It was he who wanted this relationship, and she would have walked out of it someday, ripping his heart away. Ravi’s ego is satisfied about being right. He knew she will reject him, and she did! Now his heart is filled with hatred for Mona, because he believes that she deceived him. Ravi may even try to revenge Mona!

Mona’s story

A decent guy, Ravi, shows interest in her. His simplicity and down to earth nature impresses her. She is able to see that he really likes her, and also sees his hesitation in asking her out. Mona finds that cute and kisses him. She finds Ravi caring, and as a person who can never hurt her.

Mona enjoys the freedom to be herself around him, and she shares her past and future. She seeks out Ravi in times of need and is happy to know he is always there for her. His shabby dressing or being late on dates does not bother her much, because she trusts him. Ravi’s declaration of being a drug addict did come as a shock to her, but she was happy that he is able to be honest with her.

Mona did not like Ravi accusing her of cheating on him. But she understood his insecurity and tried to spend more time with him. But when Ravi called for the breakup, it was totally unexpected. Also, Ravi was careless to her feelings when she broke down. The one thing she thought Ravi would never do was hurt her, but he did!

What went wrong?

Can you spot where the self-sabotage started, and why? There are many reasons for one to have a fear of rejection, or a fear or failure. They are usually some deep rooted childhood experiences. Self-sabotage helps in proving yourself right. You have this fear that you are going to be rejected, so build your surroundings to make sure you do get rejected.

People do this in their careers too. Go late to work, dress inappropriately, don’t be prompt in your tasks, go drunk, be rude to colleagues, make irrecoverable mistakes, etc. You drag your employer down to the extent where he/she can no longer tolerate you. Once you get fired, you say to yourself, “I knew they never wanted me”.

How to deal with this?

The trick to deal with these fears is very simple. The moment you realize it, you have dealt with it!

1. Every time you feel you want to be late, or it doesn’t matter to be late, or you don’t dress appropriately, realize you are not giving your hundred percent. This is the first stage of self-sabotage. Try to realize it at this stage, before you ruin everything.
2. Every time you attempt to think for another person, as to wonder what he/she thinks of you, or why he/she is doing a certain task, realize you are not being normal. Take time out. Stop thinking. Put on the ear phones, play the radio in high volume and let their nonsense blare into your ears.
3. Every time you interpret the other person’s actions as a rejection, i.e., you feel he/she is doing something to reject you, realize you could be wrong. Don’t try to add a meaning to every action. Not everyone thinks so much before doing anything. Confront your feelings with him/her immediately. You may sound stupid. But being stupid is kind of cute too.
4. Every time you feel the need to explain your words or actions, realize that you have replayed the action in your mind many times, and have come up with the best explanation to prove the other person wrong. This, in short, is called “manipulation”. What is spoken or enacted cannot be undone. Everyone loves you for what you are, and not for what you explain yourself to be.
5. Anytime you feel the need to test another person, realize that you are getting into the analysis mode. There is no need to analyze anyone or any situation. Live life, don’t analyze it. The more you think, the less you experience. And remember “the boy who cries wolf”? When you tell the truth, no one will believe you.

Darkness is an illusion, not real. It is just an absence of light, as described by Einstein. You may struggle in it, but the moment you put the lights on, you cannot find the darkness anywhere. Similarly, ALL FEARS ARE AN ILLUSION. Put on the light of realization, and... heyyy, what was that fear you were talking about??