A Dialog with Self

When we are faced with a tough problem that needs to be solved, we often look for the root cause of the issue. Who is responsible for it? And once we identify the person behind it, we get into a dialog with him to convince him to take necessary action to remove the obstacle. This investigation and dialog process is crucial to overcoming our day to day difficulties.

When we zoom out a little and take a broader view of our life as a whole, we invariably find many things that we do not like and would like to fix. We try to apply the same process there, and to our surprise, it is difficult to pinpoint who is responsible for it. We try our best to find someone who should take action, but do not succeed.

What are we missing? We ignore a vital clue here. We ourselves are the one responsible for most of the things that happen to us. According to Stephen Covey, the first step towards improving our situation is to accept our own role in it. When we introspect closely, we can trace most of our current problems to something that we did or have been doing; and this is good news. Once we know what we should do differently to improve our life, it is well within our circle of influence to change our actions accordingly.

On the other hand, if we continue to be in denial by holding others responsible for our misery, there is little hope of overcoming the obstacle. As we shift the focus to others and blame them for our plight, we dis-empower ourselves and become helpless.

So, we must get used to these two vital steps:

• Internal investigation or introspection about our own role and actions
• Dialog with self about what we must change. 

What are we doing that is making our life worse? Why do we choose to live a life full of stress and disappointments?  Why are we being our own worst enemy? Are we not complicating our life by violating the principle of integrity and sincerity in our interactions?  Are we not cluttering our lives with too many physical possessions and forcing ourselves to be in a rat race? Can we not do something different, something better?

I am quoting below a beautiful poem written by my dear friend Dr Rajeev Bishnoi (Bodhiraj). There is no better way to express the above ideas.

Anveshan - A Poem by Bodhiraj (Dr Rajeev Bishnoi)

क्यूँ अनमने भाव से जीते हो, और क्रोध आप पर करते हो
दिन में रहते निंद्रा के वश, क्यूँ रात-रात यूँ जगते हो
दिन रात परेशान रहते हो |

क्यूँ अपने से यूँ डरते हो, और आत्म श्लाघा करते हो
हो अपने बैरी तुम ख़ुद ही, क्यूँ दोष किसी पर धरते हो
और खुद लाचार हो जाते हो |

एक भाव तुम्हारे चेहरे पर, एक बात तुम्हारे मन में हैं
क्या भाव तुम्हारे है निर्मल, क्या बात तुम्हारी है सच्ची?
क्या कर्म तुम्हारे है अच्छे ?

जीवन को आकिंचन रक्ख़ा, या भौतिकता में होम दिया
अपने दिल के आईने में, भगवान का तुमको भास हुआ
या शैतानो का वास हुआ ।

ये प्रश्न तुम्हारे तुमसे ही, ये खोज तुम्हारी तुमसे ही
जिज्ञासा अपने ही मन की, यह ख़ुद का ही संवाद प्रिये
यह ख़ुद अपना अन्वेषण है ।

Beautiful words, if you like it and want more, listen to a song based on this poem by clicking on the video below: