Do yourself a favor: feel sorry for yourself!

A colleague stopped me in the hallway last week.

"I forgot to tell you" she said.

"About what?"

"I wanted to tell you about a performance in Seattle.  It was not the Mahabharata, but the other one."

"You mean the Ramayana?"

"Yes, that one.  But, now it is too late--it is over."

"They are both amazingly complex stories with plots that crisscross, and with characters that are so well developed" I replied.

I loved those epics.  Phenomenal works of literature from centuries ago.  What I read were mere re-telling; I can easily imagine that the works in the original will be quite a treat for those well-versed in Sanskrit.  The Mahabharata, which I prefer a tad over the Ramayana, was Rajaji's version that I read and it was one gripping page turner when I read that as a kid.

Of course, those are more than stories to the true believers.  For the atheist me, as much as I draw lessons on life from a Hemingway or a Tolstoy, there are many wonderful lessons I could draw from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata.

One of the words of wisdom that appealed to me, especially when I have to resolve issues within, is this advice from the Ramayana:

आत्मानमनुशोच त्वं किमन्यमनुशोचसि ।
आयुस्ते क्षीयते यस्य स्थितस्य च गतस्य च ॥

- रामायण, अयोध्या

You should think (and feel sad) for yourself. Why do you grieve for others?
Your life gets eroded everyday irrespective of who stays with you or leaves you.

- Ramayana, Ayodhya

It is not crass selfishness that is being referred to here.  But, a deeper understanding that life is finite, and that the passing of every second, every day, is also one second, one day less from whatever that finite number is.  And, therefore, it is up to each and every one of us to contemplate on what exactly it is that we want to do with our lives.

But, mere mortals we are, and we worry about the small stuff and about others.  But, hey that is also what makes us human!