Random Act of Kindness

As we grow older in our lives, we are mostly  conditioned to be more walled, more self centered  and more possessive. This conditioning often comes from our parents, relatives,  friends, teachers and gradually becomes our second nature.

It does not take place consciously but is often embedded in our minds through the generations and passes onto the next ones without even noticing. 

These mindsets created and appreciated  over the centuries often do the work of raw material for manufacturing hardcore, unhealthy and paranoid adults. 

I think this is the reason why, while leaving our childhood and entering into adulthood, we go through tough times, which I call ‘ Shedding ‘.

Shedding- of our natural characteristics  and adopting  societal persona for more acceptance and appreciation. 

Here to make my point more clear, I would like to narrate a small story which I read in Robin Sharma’s amazing book- Discover your Destiny. 

Story goes like this- several hundred years ago, a giant gold idol of buddha was built and was worshipped  by the monks but as there was an attack by the Burmese army, monks covered  the buddha with clay in order to protect it. It was not until 1957 when this great treasure was discovered by the group of monks. At first, a crack was noticed in the clay by one of the monks, when they were carrying the clay. 

Later, when they chip away the clay with a hammer and a chisel, a solid Gold buddha statue was revealed to them.

Often in our lives, we all pile up the heavy clay of outer conditioning and forget that we all are carrying a golden buddha within us, waiting to be discovered one day.

The question  that often sprouts out is, ‘ Why do we fail to discover this golden buddha if we are carrying all along?’ I think the very simple answer is, we all have lost our connection with our own very nature. We have no more purpose left in our lives, even if we have a purpose, it is often centered around ourselves and our families, because of the thought infused in us as part of our growth as an adult mental training,  that people will take our advantage and thus in order to protect ourselves, we usually build hard core adulterated defense systems around our innocent,  compassionate and treasurous golden heart just like monks did to protect the golden buddha.

Now, which hammer and chisel would work the best for chipping away this heavy mud and discovering our golden buddha? I wish it would be that easy and I could recommend you a brand name and you can pick the hammer whenever you go to the nearest brand outlet and start to dig deep, right away. But let’s face the reality, it’s not an easy task to put away the generations long thought processes which have taken the shape of our family  values and we honestly don’t want to part with these manufactured values.

But here’s some good news! the studies have confirmed that neurogenesis, which means the capacity of our brain to produce new neurons keep on taking place throughout our lives which was earlier viewed by a dogmatic perspective that as we grow older new brain cells ceases to grow and develop, which implied that we cannot develop a new habit or values as we grow.

There is incredible diversity of neurons in a mature brain having many specialized areas of function. The Hippocampus, for example, which is a brain region that plays an important role in memory and spatial navigation, alone has at least 27 different types of neurons. These differentiated neural stem cells can produce new neural cells of any type, generally called neuroplasticity which can be increased as much as we nourish and feed our brain with new outlooks. It can be compared with a muscle, on which if we work persistently, and stretch daily, the muscle tissues will become stronger. 

The baseline is,  we can develop new habits, new thought processes, new lifestyles at any age and can bid adieu to the toxic conditioning.

There are several ways that can help us to discover our long lost buddha like meditation,  reading books, instilling gratitude, and simple acts. Personally, for me Black Lotus RAK has worked very well for me in developing enriched raw material of new neurons for my brain. I thank swamiji for the gift of a beautiful app to us. It is a real treasure. 

Usually we think that people are born exceptionally kind, they are born with innate strength of helping others and the society at large. We might also think that helping the society means giving donations or sponsoring others or becoming a leader or a doctor or a lawyer in order to bring change at large and then earning the badge of a compassionate soul.

But I have learnt from black lotus app that a simple act of kindness can make someone’s day. It can help in spreading and growing the seeds of trust, kindness, love, joy of giving and gratitude.

And these simple acts are infinite if you wish to chisel away a small layer or atleast  spoon full of mud surrounding your golden heart as well as those around the others also.

I think as human beings also it is our basic and most primary duty to not let goodness bury under a heavy load of negativity and narrow mindedness.

So let us discover our inner beauty and decorate it with small tricks like this one designed by Swamiji for us. I hope as you finish reading this, you go and compliment your parents or anyone around you or you might start by adding a simple comment to this post( copying it from black lotus only😉😅).