“MY LIFE IS MY PROJECT”

The beautiful words came from Sheetal Sanghavi in a recent Moved By Love retreat in Ahmadabad. They have remained with me ever since. We are often lost in our own little projects that aim to make a difference in this world. Some of us aim to work for alleviation of poverty, some choose education, some politics and some simply choose to make money. We tend to believe that the cause we have chosen for ourselves is so important that the world cannot survive until we address it. In our limited understanding, we get convinced that we are here to fix something and make a real difference to the world.  And yet, the misery in our world continues to exist… Are we doing something wrong? Did we get it right that we all are here to fix the world? Or is there something more to the puzzle? Will it be ever possible for us to create a world without problems? For me, the above mentioned quote hints an answer. The quote suggests that we are here to work on our lives, not on the world. The more I think about the quote, the more I realize what lies within me lies outside as well. If I resolve the issues inside myself, I automatically end up resolving them in my outer life. There is conflict within me, there is conflict outside me. There is anger, envy, selfishness with me, the same is reflected outside also. I see that the world that I have built within myself, perfectly reflects itself outside. With this understanding, I ask myself this question- Where can I work best- within myself or without? The quote and the question take me to another question- how can I work on my inner world so as to reflect love, compassion and empathy in the outer world? And that has become my project for life! With this understanding of cultivating love, compassion and empathy inside, I realize that my perspective towards a lot of things that I do in the outer world has started changing. For instance, I now find no value in competing or comparing as it is very clear that doing so shall not help me to cultivate love inside. On the other hand, I find a lot of meaning in forgiveness, friendship and letting go. Ego, hatred, envy, anger have suddenly lost their importance. It looks like I just need to live my life in a manner that can help me to cultivate love inside which in return gets reflected outside.  In the end, I find myself next to the question we began with- are we here to change the world? The answer comes naturally- No. We are here only to change ourselves. The world has just been created to help us in our journey.