Never give up

"Never, Never, Never Give Up" -- Isn't it an interesting topic? Well, recently, I was privileged to listen to an inspiring lecture on this subject by a philosopher-mentor-humanist from India, the great Dada J.P. Vaswani. I shall try to recollect some of the salient features of his speech for the benefit of The Jakarta Post readers, as well as for my own.

Man cannot escape from the bumps on the road of life. Problems and perplexities are deliberately thrown in our pathway. Only dead people have no problems. Problems are really the sign of life. However, every problem has a solution. We are all richly endowed with enormous powers within us, and we only have to unlock and harness these powers to resolve life's problems. In a way, problems are for our own good.

The statement "you are not considered a failure until you give up" is quite true. You can be what you want to be, but you have to decide what you want to be. With faith and belief, mountains of problems will vanish from our lives. In essence, strong belief generates the "can do" and the "can do" generates the "how to".

Let's remember: We do not face the problems of life alone. God, the Supreme Force, is always by our side; like what Lord Krishna told Arjuna in the battlefield of Kurukshetra, when the latter felt extremely despondent to fight with his own kith and kin. Every one of us is indeed a potential Arjuna!

There are three types of people: successful ones, frustrated ones, or cowards. Only 10 percent of the people can be considered successful, and they are the heroes of humanity. Winston Churchill, Thomas Edison, Mahatma Gandhi and such others truly belong to this category. Roughly 80 percent of people merely exist, and they are the frustrated lot. The balance, 10 percent, give up their fight for life and the cowardly commit suicide or turn to drugs, alcoholic drinks, etc., hoping for an escape from reality.

Dada J.P. Vaswani, however, added a note of caution. His exhortation should be taken with a positive connotation only. "Never give up" does not mean never giving up bad habits (such as anger, drug abuse, drinking, smoking, etc.). We should, on the other hand, never give up our attempts to overcome such bad habits.

Towards the end, the revered Dada Vaswani enumerated three pearls of wisdom. First, under no circumstances should we shirk our responsibilities. Whoever we are and whatever position we are in, we have to play our parts and fulfill our duties thoroughly. Whatever we do, we should do it with enthusiasm. Unfortunately, we put too much emphasis these days on our rights. If everyone performs his duty well, would there be a need to claim any rights at all?

Second, humanity is one big family and everyone is a brother or a sister. Therefore, we must never give up helping the poor and needy. We are here in this world to help others and we should indeed look for opportunities to do so.

Third, we are now constantly facing intensified stress and tension. Also, we live in a world of deafening noises. In this century, man has discovered a lot. But sadly, he has lost himself. It's time he discovers himself. How? We need to withdraw from the outer world of noise and spend some time in silence every day. By observing silence, we would also be keeping our daily appointment with God.

Please let me avail this opportunity to wish everyone a merry Christmas and a very happy New Year!

D. CHANDRAMOULI

Jakarta