Risk, Hurt, Change, Comfort

A. Risk

Risk is defined as variability in outcome. Risk is, ‘I may succeed, I may not succeed.’ What if I am not at all thinking about success and failure? Is there any risk then?

Risk is only when I am bothered about success and failure, only then there is a risk, otherwise there is no risk.

I see there is an eighty percent risk of failure. What if I am not at all thinking of failure? What if I am happy with just trying? Then there is no risk. So, why think in the language of risk at all? Let stock brokers do that. They talk a lot about risks, rewards and returns.

B. Hurt

Hurt is a feeling of loss. A belying of expectations. A shock to beliefs. A rude jerk to the mind and its imaginations. Can there be hurt without accumulation? Can there be hurt without expectations and beliefs? Are you not hurt the most when you want the most?

Who hurts us? Strangers? Or those whom we want to capture in relationships, and fail in our attempt? Is hurt not another name for the shock that my relationship is not what I imagined it to be?

Hence, is hurt not a product of blind desire?

Truth never gets hurt. Only the ego gets hurt.

To live simply, innocently- in direct realization- is to live free of hurt.

C. Change

People are very keen to change jobs, or houses. Whenever people talk of ‘change’, what is the change that they mean? It is a ‘change’ in terms of the work that they do, the professional work.

My question is – are we equally eager to change the other aspects of our life?

Had we really wanted change, would change have not first come in my simple, direct relationships with people, in the way I live in my house, in the way I manage my kitchen, my drawing-room, my bedroom? And these are simpler changes, right? They do not even require the collaboration of others.

You cannot say, “This particular change is pending, or obstructing because the situations are not favourable right now.” The agency that wants change, is the same agency that roots for continuation, and stands opposed to change.

The one, who wants change, does not wait for favourable conditions.

He does not talk of ‘age’ or other supporting or debilitating factors. He says, “Change is needed. I have to change, this very moment. And whatever is possible this very moment, it shall be done. Whatsoever is possible the next moment, it shall be done the next moment.” And that is how change comes, moment after moment, step by step.

But it is far easier and pleasurable to ‘plan’ for change, than to actually change, right? Planning for change, gives such great satisfaction. I feel I am benefitting both ways.

First of all, I have the pleasure of being a change agent in my own eyes. I can tell myself, “I do not accept the status quo. I am a revolutionary. I want to bring about great changes.” And on the other hand, I have the hidden pleasure, of not changing anything. When you really want change, then you want change with the desperation of a drowning man.

You do not postpone it for the next day, and you do not postpone it for the ‘big things’ in life. You do not say, “When change comes, it must come using the royal highway.” Remember, when it will come, it will come with urgency, with immediacy. And when it comes, it is all-pervasive. It is not just that you change your job. You also change the paintings that are there on your walls.

Of course, I am not saying that just changing the paintings would suffice.

But when everything about you cries for change, how can the paintings remain the same? How can your sense of dressing, how can your choice in food, how can your manner of conversation, how can anything about you, remain the same?

D. Comfort

Comfort is that which you are conditioned to.

There is no other definition of comfort and that is why comfort means different things to different people, at different points in time. Nothing else defines your comfort. The conditioning of the mind is what defines comfort.

You are conditioned to take a particular kind of food. You say, “Now I am comfortable with this.” You are conditioned to think in a particular way and avoid thinking in other ways, and then you become uncomfortable with those thoughts, and comfortable with other thoughts. You are conditioned to wear a particular kind of dress, and when some other kind of garment comes to you, you feel uncomfortable in wearing it.

What is comfort, except that which time and ritual have given to you? And you spend so much energy after seeking comfort, and you give it so much importance, as if comfort has any objective value.

Because comfort means conditioning, conditioning means dead patterns. “I want to live on my patterns,” and that will keep you very comfortable. Comfort says, “Just repeat. Just repeat! For the sake of diversity, mix and repeat. But just repeat.”

And it is all very comfortable, very comfortable. That is what comfort is – repetition, pattern, conditioning.

It is an inability to break out in the open. It is an inability to breathe in fresh air. That is what comfort is. “I can’t break out of my cocoon. I can’t break out my four walls.” That is what comfort is.

It is poison. It kills life.

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