Carpe Diem-Seize The Day

Couple of days back I saw a movie named “dead poets society” from which I took this quote ‘carpe diem.’
Although I did not like the movie much but the overall concept of the movie was interesting. It was
about how our education system is creating machines and not human beings and how we all need a
push to just be ‘ourselves’ and live our dreams.

Unlike many other college graduates, I chose for me a totally different path; working here at
Government schools of a village as a Gandhi Fellow. I will not say that I am working here to bring a
change in the society because I never thought about doing such work in past. But I can very strongly
say that I am here searching for the answer to a very important question,i.e., who am I?

And this is not probably because I am working here, but just because I am doing something which I
want to do. I agree that we all want a comfortable life, decent salary package, etc, but is it fair to
sacrifice your own self, your aspirations and your desires; to learn and to explore, and just get a
degree by studying something you are least interested in? You spend years of your grad in misery,
always asking yourself why exactly you are doing it and maybe, the answer is an obvious one- to
survive in this fast-paced world that that is possible only with academics. But is it, really?
I wonder why choosing a not-so-common path for your life has become a taboo. Why parents think
their children are not smart enough to think wisely for their future?
We all want our children to live with morals, like helping others, staying away from bad deeds and all
that theoretical shit. But when I am working here and finding it satisfying to help underprivileged
children of Government schools in getting what they deserve, then why on this holy planet should I
think about studying further so as to get a degree? or find a good job? Why is money becoming
everything for everyone? Obviously I do not deny that money plays an important role in our lives,
but there are hell lot of things which matter a lot than this piece of paper.
Learning about your own self, about the world you live in, finding answers about yourself is, I
believe, much bigger a thing. And that is what I am getting by choosing a ‘different’ path. What’s
frustrating is when, at times, you can’t convince others about it.

This is the first time I’m writing and this is just an effort to put my point and thoughts forward.

The second most frustrating thing for me is when people want you to believe blindly in an invisible
thing called GOD. And when you say that you don’t believe in his existence, I wonder why others
think that we are from an immature generation. They just don’t understand that we do not want to
follow blindly what our parents told us. Instead, we want to follow what we really believe in. Also,
not believing in God does not mean that there is god but I reject to believe in him, but it means that
I do not believe that there is something called God, at all.

I respect all the historical characters like Rama, Shiva etc, and I also respect books like Gita, Quran
etc. Also I have been reading philosophy lately and have started reading Quran. But it does not mean
that I have started believing in God. I would rather choose to follow what we learn from these
characters and books.

Unfortunately, maximum no. of people are just busy praying and singing and banging their heads in
front of these idols, something that I may call ‘blind following’. I think rather than doing this, they
should follow the real teachings of these characters.

For example, I hear these lines in Punjabi “awwal allah nooh upaya kudrat ke sab bande, ek noor se
sab jag upjeya kaun bhale kaun mande”. I don’t know the exact meaning of these lines but I
definitely know what their essence is. It says that this whole world has been created out of one
consciousness or energy and that everyone is equal. I wonder how many of us really follow it. Accept
the sad reality that we all differentiate on the basis of caste, religion, etc.

There are just so many examples I can give but I would rather keep it for the future because I know I
need to sit down, take help from others, articulate my thoughts in much better way. Then I would
love to write much more than this because while I am planning to finish this, I somewhere feel that I
have not expressed everything that I wanted to just because this is the first time I’m typing down my
views.

Before ending it, I would like to raise the last point about ‘Dharm Gurus’ or whatever these people
are called. I believe in the power of meditation and in single consciousness and I have my own
definition of God. I also read numerous spiritual and philosophical writings by different people but I
just don’t start following them blindly. We all have the capability to attain spiritual enlightenment
and to be more precise, in my view we all are God; we all have the capability to become a similar
entity.

I would like to conclude by sharing a line by Osho, “ never believe in a teacher or master if he
expects you to be his slave or follower because you can also become a master someday”

Om, omkar, amen!

I know there are people much more smarter than me. Thus, even if you don’t agree with my opinion,
please send me a feedback. I would really appreciate it. For parents, I’d suggest them to let their
children seize their lives and have faith in them. Friends, let’s make this generation an example of
change, to bring a change in the thousand-year old blindly followed thoughts and conditioning.

THANKS TO SAURABH SAHNI FOR EDITING :)