Tag: krishna

deserving

To feel like you deserve something can be a bit… funny. For me, anyway. For you; maybe it’s easy, but as someone who can’t help himself when it comes to the etymology and history, and who tries in ernest to be grateful for all things, and who fully acknowledges that all success is a gift from God (or Krishna, as it was explained to me, but that’s another tangent), it feels funny to look around my house that I will eventually own outright from the bank, chock full of wonderful musical instruments, vintage automobile parts, and among other things, the beautiful people I get to live out my days with and think “I deserve more.”

As I write this; we, as a family, are discussing an upcoming vacation. It won’t be a lengthy one but it will cost some money that we’ve saved for this precise application. After months of scrupulous saving, it’s suddenly time to ‘flip the switch’ and become decidedly un-precious about the fruits of our labour.

We are reserving hotel rooms, and buying plane tickets, and have already purchased concert tickets – the impetus of our journey. It’s taken a bit of time to change gears from the saving mentality to the spending mentality, and the word that brings us all into this place of feeling abundant is ‘deserving.’ As in “We deserve this.”

‘Deserving’ shares a root word with a superfluous dish that often follows dinner. An unnecessary indulgence, but an indulgence nonetheless. According to Krishna (and most other deities, I’m sure), we ‘deserve’ precisely fuck-all, and it is through the grace of God that we are permitted these indulgences. So it is not because we are ‘deserving’ of this vacation hat we are allowing ourselves to go, but by grace and grace alone.

It would do me – and probably you – well to remember these things in all that we do.

So I’ll try to seek joy in all things, because joy is like beauty in that it fades with time, especially if you are not choosing to find it where you are looking. We tip the people who are tasked with serving us in the hotels and restaurants we patronize, not only on this trip but in all our travels… this is how we tell people they are doing great work. But are we truly thankful for their efforts? Or do we feel we deserve them? As if we are ‘owed’ somehow…

As someone who is fairly tight-lipped in social settings, I’ll do my best to reach out and let people know they are appreciated.

It will mean more when my heart is in it.

everything is a gift

Despite my propensity to tune in on the regular, I’ve grown to loathe most aspects of social media. I can never say it’s 100% good or 100% bad because there’s a lot of observational evidence to deny both, but as I try to be less critical and judgemental of people, I’ve been finding that the majority of what I’m seeing on social media is what I’m trying to stop doing… which, as you can imagine, makes me want to judge people for judging people.

I’m at odds with it.

The voice of god put a book in my ears recently. It was “From Punk To Monk” – the memoir of Ray Cappo, singer of Youth of Today and Shelter, yogi, and Krishna devotee. I got a lot out of this book, so much so that it makes me want to try and contact the author – but one of his primary things he had a hard time letting go of as he made steps toward became a monk was his judgement of other people.

He addresses it multiple times, but none quite so succinctly as when he states that everything, including success, is a gift from Krishna. As I continue to paraphrase, we are all equal in our undeserving of the gifts Krisha gives us, but it’s through Krishna’s grace and generosity that we receive anything at all – so who are we to question the motives of Krishna if he gives more success to someone we feel is less deserving? Just because that gift was not meant for us does not mean we are of any more value… because we are all nothing, and deserve nothing.

He goes on to say that success, like beauty, expires with time and before long we’re all forgotten.

Then I look around my house and the beautiful things I’ve come to acquire in my life thanks to a good job, usable skills in multiple fields, a beautiful family and a handsome and well-behaved dog, and the means to maintain our lifestyle while having nothing beyond a highschool education – then any passing feeling of jealousy of someone else’s musical success, or luxurious vacations they might be able to afford, or cars they get to drive… all these feeling become so fucking trivial that I feel a sense of shame for feeling them, knowing I should be focused on my own purpose and my own path.

I wouldn’t say I’ve ever been one to sit and stew over someone else’s success, but I can certainly say I’ve peered over the metaphorical fence to see how proverbially green someone else’s figurative grass might be.

Like all of us, I am a work in progress. I will continue to be. But if I can be more focused and grateful for what I have and less concerned that of other people, I’ll be more fruitful. As the since-disgraced Louis C.K. said “the only reason you should ever look into someone else’s bowl is to make sure they have enough – not to see if they got more than you.”