Some More Lessons of Life

The Bela Bose who left you for no reason before you could even make that phone call—shouldn’t she at least get a thank you for saving you the phone bill (however small)? The Bela Bose who walks away just like that was never truly yours to begin with. Every single day she was with you was nothing but needless cohabitation with a nightmare. When someone doesn’t understand you at all, why should you feel obligated to understand them? Where do all these tears come from? What is this nation supposed to do with such waterfall-like eyes? The one who isn’t meant for you will leave you eventually—sooner or later. The sooner, the better. What’s the point of guarding someone else’s wife day after day? Don’t you have work to do? No shame? No self-respect? Pointless! Are you a banker or a customs officer that you’ve taken on the sacred duty of faithfully guarding another’s ‘beautiful wife’ (read: ‘wealth and property’)? At least they get paid for doing that job—what the hell do you get out of it, tell me? Why don’t you throw your friends a breakup party! The poor souls haven’t had a decent meal in ages! Breakup party food has a taste all its own! Even the ice cream gives off that intoxicating aroma of burnt kebab!

Someone’s words getting under your skin and ruining your mood? Getting irritated by someone’s actions? Are people needlessly talking about what you’re doing or not doing, spreading nonsense that’s spoiling both your temper and your peace of mind? Can’t seem to organize your work properly? Feel like tearing every hair from your head? Stop for a moment! I have something to say to you. Whose opinions should you actually care about? I think you only need to consider three types of people: First, those who are qualified to speak about you—meaning, your equals or those better than you. Second, those whose absence would actually affect you. Third, those who genuinely want your well-being. …………. Those who speak ill of you don’t want your good. I’ve noticed that those without whom life wouldn’t be so beautiful are so busy thinking good thoughts and doing good things for me that they never find time to think, say, or do anything harmful about me. You need to understand who cares about you and who doesn’t; and among those who do care, how many truly want your good. The Creator has never sent anyone to this earth who doesn’t care about you yet is essential to your life. In truth, no one in this world is essential to you except yourself. You have a good friend—you confided something to them in trust. Later, you discover they’re using that very confidence to belittle you in various places. Such a friend may care about you, but they don’t want your good. Try making it a habit to give time to those who truly want your well-being! You’ll find you won’t even have time to spare for worthless people. Life is short, after all! Time is terribly limited! However many days we live, let’s at least live them well! Living well isn’t possible with bad people. How can someone who belittles others, who disrespects them, ever be good? The company of worthless, petty people may give momentary pleasure, but it’s enough to make life meaningless. In all my life, I’ve never seen any bad person become truly great. Every bad person is small-minded. A petty person doesn’t have even the worth of a speck from the nail of the little toe of a great person. Bad people don’t know how to think beautifully, they have no capacity to do beautiful work. If you want to sink low in life, mix with lowly people; if you want to rise, avoid their company. How you choose to spend your life is entirely your preference! You can’t taste the flavor of a precious life while keeping company with cheap people.

The only distinguishing mark of worthless people is that they are worthless. Now, whether you’ll give worthless things a chance to enter your life—that’s your affair. Another thing. Worthlessness comes in many varieties. Educated worthless, highly educated worthless, successful worthless, civilized worthless, wealthy worthless, beautiful worthless, hypocritical worthless—and many more types that aren’t easily recognized. A person may stand at the pinnacle of education and success—what is that to you? Think about whether they’re a good human being. If not, then block them from your life right now! Start doing this work this very moment. Begin with five worthless scholars and worldly successful envious people. Believe me, even street garbage is better than them. Never show anyone more respect than you show yourself. By blocking worthless people from your life, prove that you have the strength to live without caring about them. The primary step in mastering the art of living without caring about others’ power is to increase your own power so much that you don’t need them to get by. Throw down a challenge to yourself, keep striking yourself until you become as reckless as gunpowder. Show humility to the humble, show arrogance to the arrogant. Learn to fight with your brain, not your muscles. No more delay, start right now, start now, please start the work of making your blocklist heavy! There’s a special kind of strength in the pride of being able to block someone. Practice staying well by keeping away those whose presence doesn’t let you be well. No one in this world will take responsibility for your wellbeing—that responsibility is entirely yours. Let heaps of peace surround you. Send the disturbers into exile. Let the peaceful ones stay outside, the disturbers go on the blocklist. Germs must be quarantined before they can spread. This is the rule of staying well. You don’t have to carry suffering—you have to throw suffering away and walk your path. The person who knowingly carries suffering, who shows the luxury of not emerging from it, eventually finds fate binding their life to suffering itself. The other day, when I was wondering whether to keep a highly educated, highly established, small-minded, envious bureaucrat on my friend list or not, after thinking for days I finally unfriended him, and then he knocked on my inbox. “Did you unfriend me?” “Yes, sir.” “Me too? How could you do this? Good, good!” “Just like that, sir. If you go to my profile, you can be sure about it. You’ll see it shows ‘Add Friend.’ This means I’m not on your friend list.” Actually, I think, what’s the point? Everyone is right from their own place and thinking. Why should I let my peace be destroyed for someone else’s thinking? Why should I take responsibility for someone else’s bad mentality? He might be a very important person, but he’s nobody special to me. On Facebook, I still haven’t found a single person who must be kept on the friend list, who must be followed, who can’t be unfriended, who can’t be blocked. I’m not indispensable to anyone, no one is indispensable to me—keep this in mind when using Facebook, when living your life. You’ll see that you’re much, much better off than before, living in peace.

Burning? Pour water. Itching? Apply Pevisone. Envying or speaking nonsense doesn’t reduce burning, doesn’t reduce itching. The birth, growth, death of sewer insects—all three happen in the sewer. An insect remains an insect its whole life. Whether you’ll live like an insect—that taste and decision is yours.

Instead of trying to relieve your own burning irritation by speaking pointless words in the wrong places, it’s far better to apply medicine in the right place and find true healing.

Do you know that the number of people in this world who rise in stature the moment you give them attention, wage “merciful” battles with them, or let their actions trouble your mind, is increasing by the day? A fight must be between equals. When you ignore their words, you’re essentially saying you don’t consider them worthy of fighting with you. Though they may not admit it openly, this wounds them deeply inside. No one in this world wants to live without significance. Don’t lower yourself to their level. Your position and mindset are far above theirs. Why subject yourself to unnecessary suffering by descending to their level of existence and mentality? Try showing such complete indifference—as if you don’t even have time to acknowledge their existence—and see what happens. You can embarrass them far more easily this way. Accept or reject people based on their mentality, not their position.

Haven’t you seen pigs? Where do they live? In filth. The only way to engage them in direct combat is to descend to where they dwell—meaning you must fight in the dirt. Because they cannot come to your domain to fight; they simply lack that capacity. So you descend into filth and do battle. Suppose you even win. To people, it’s the pig’s defeat. To the pig, this defeat is not shameful but glorious. Why? Because it’s impossible to defeat a pig without soiling yourself. By fighting the pig and descending to its level, you have voluntarily honored the pig. You have become as filthy as the pig you defeated. The pig gets promoted to human status, while you get demoted to pig status. The pig is clever, so it’s happy. You’re foolish, so you’re happy too. A win-win situation! One of the pig’s primary tasks is to continuously try to smear its filth on you. If it succeeds, it profits immensely—it gains another member of its species. My experience tells me that even a hundred thousand such pigs lack the power to come anywhere near you in intellect and wisdom. In other words, you’re already winning! What need is there to lose yourself in the obsession of defeating them? Sometimes the best way to win a fight is not to fight at all! The intelligent fight and win; the wise win without fighting.

What’s the point of begging for blessings from others? Instead, do something that naturally draws their heartfelt prayers for you. If you see that people don’t respect you but show respect to someone else, it means you haven’t done anything worthy of their respect. Put simply, there’s nothing about you to respect. If respect could be wrung out through sitting on street corners wailing and sobbing your heart out, or through the demanding tantrum of “Will you respect me or not!”—well, then there’d be no problem at all! Those who can’t accomplish anything in life yet want to buy the world with just their mouth and muscle would find people spitting respect at them instead of spitting in disgust. But I’ve never seen such people earn any respect! They’re more pitiable than street beggars. The lover who receives not a single love letter from his beloved surely lacks something that would inspire her to write even one. The thought of wasting time writing such a letter has never even crossed her mind. The beloved surely feels that rather than write a love letter to such a lover, feeding tender grass to an innocent kid goat would be a more soothing way to spend her time. The lover who, instead of trying to become worthy of receiving love letters, threatens his beloved with demands like “Will you write me a letter or not!” out of grief and rage over not getting letters—such a lover is no lover at all, but a complete ox of a man! To me, the words of oxen are nothing but nonsense!

Think about it — how many literature students have you actually seen writing good literature? Start counting on your fingers! The number won’t be very high. In a country where students turn to literature only after failing to get chances elsewhere, one cannot expect literature from literature graduates. Saraswati does not bless everyone — certainly not the demonic! If you wish to receive Saraswati’s grace, emerge from a demonic existence. The very first step of practice is humility. You must have noticed that having vast knowledge about literature doesn’t mean one can write literature. Words are not jackfruit leaves that you can simply chew and digest at will! Words cannot be forced; they reveal themselves in beautiful, subtle feelings. Many learn to sing, but how many can sing like Kaushiki? Why can’t they? The world’s most wretched people are those who envy others, gossip about others, harm others. With such feelings, whatever else may be possible, you certainly cannot do anything that stands out distinctly from ten other ordinary things.

The more you allow such incompetent, wretched people to hover around your life, the more you unconsciously absorb their negativity into yourself. Great artists work not with their heads, but with feeling, with heart. Take care of your good qualities. You’ll see, they alone will sustain you. Think deeply about which aspect makes you unique. Give that your utmost care. Through studies, jobs, or business, I have never seen anyone become unique. Anyone with minimal competence can manage those things. I see nothing in mere results, jobs, or business success that would make you memorable. Buddhadeva Guha is revered as a writer, not as a chartered accountant. Annadashankara Ray topped the Indian Civil Service exam — I wouldn’t even remember this fact if I didn’t know Annadashankara Ray the writer! When reading Ashok Mitra’s extraordinary writings on art, does anyone recall that the gentleman was a famous IAS officer? Samaresh Majumdar was a third-class employee in the Income Tax Department, yet all the department’s officers combined wouldn’t amount to even half of one Samaresh Majumdar. If I asked you to name a chemistry professor from Dhaka University, most would say Humayun Ahmed. Yet he’s known not primarily as a teacher, but as a writer, as a filmmaker — someone who quit his university teaching job to make ‘Aguner Parashmani’ on the very day he was to be promoted from associate to full professor. Isn’t that fascinating? What does this mean? People remember you for what you’re not supposed to be able to do, but can do — and do exceptionally well. Mere studies achieve nothing. You can count on your fingers those who became immortal solely through lifelong studying and spectacular results. Not everyone can do everything. Srikanta’s family wanted him to join the Indian Civil Service, to become a renowned ICS officer. Our great fortune that Srikanta didn’t do that. Instead, he nurtured what he could do well, practiced continuously. One artist Srikanta Acharya is far greater than a hundred thousand officer Srikanta Acharyas. What one genius can give a country, a hundred thousand skilled people cannot give even half of that. Many engineers have graduated from Jadavpur University. Which of them do we know? What do their degrees matter to us?

Whose stories has history recorded? Yet Hemanta Mukherjee, who left that university before completing his engineering degree—that very “failed” non-graduate has eclipsed millions of graduates and lives on in our hearts, and will continue to live. Read Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru’s *Glimpses of World History*. The lessons in world history that the young girl Indira received from her father Nehru in her tender years—if that child didn’t grow up to become great, then how could people of ordinary thought like us ever become great? Those who are great possess many qualities, and one of them is this: through long years of familial and personal cultivation, they come to understand the distinctions between the ordinary and the extraordinary. The thoughts of great people are certainly different from our thoughts. Without contemplating them, without knowing them, without practicing them, it is impossible to elevate oneself.

A person who lives their entire life as a worthless soul dies as a worthless soul at the end. You must decide for yourself—will you live worthlessly or not, will you die worthlessly or not? People with worthless thoughts are worthless themselves, and they make others worthless too. Free yourself from their grasp. Right now! Humanity’s greatest weakness is that people cannot understand their own place in the world. They listen to others and make decisions about themselves based on what they hear. God does not give everything to everyone; God bestows fortune according to merit. First make yourself worthy, then think about good fortune. Those who find comfort in staying busy with trivial matters—God ensures they remain busy with trivial matters their entire lives. Small people fight for small things. The amusing thing is, small people never realize what is trivial and what is not. A person who spends their life treating the trivial as significant never gets a taste of anything truly great. Small people find joy in small deeds. People with unhealthy personalities prefer to feel superior by diminishing others. I know there’s pleasure in this too. The world exists for pleasure, after all. Still, finding joy in everything is hardly worthwhile. Whatever it takes, keep yourself away from drawing pleasure from everything. Some people even find a kind of happiness in the shame of a beggar woman in torn clothes on the street. People can be known by the nature of their pleasures. If you can make your taste, thoughts, and mentality beautiful, your actions will stand out distinctly from those of ten others. Otherwise, you are nothing more than just another person dragging life along!