Sure Signs of Tamas

#119 post in Dauntlesssathya (last post of 2018)

This lesson did not strike me until this week. It’s a powerful life lesson and any reader can benefit from. The lesson is simple but it took me a long time for the penny to drop – DON’T ARGUE OR REASON WITH FOOLS.  They are sure to bring you down to their mean levels. You end up hurting yourself.  Let me illustrate this from my life experiences.

            I used to tell V and L for decades: That you have not included me in festivals is something that hurts me. It reduces me to an ORPHAN status. Also when I fall sick or not in a physical state to walk to the restaurants for breakfast, I could do with a either a moral or physical assistance. Despite a million times of broaching this topic on phones, mails, in person and even a blog post they refused to get this into their minds. JUST BLANK IT OUT or wear a raincoat. Then I realized this: ONE CANNOT REASON OR DRILL SENSE INTO A CLOSED MIND. Latha was very finicky about the impression she creates with her industrialist sister-in-law. I even wrote to the tycoon expressing my disgust at L's behaviour and yet she did not have the courage to address.  One definition of TAMAS is “they don’t see reason even if you keep their heads on a western closet and flush it for a torture that is commonly seen in Hollywood interrogation scenes.” Or for an Indian imagery of shaking a tree for the fruits to drop. Some trees are so stiff that your hands would wring in exhaustion; these trees would rather prefer being hawed down than yield. Some people are sadly like that for a definition of INFLEXIBLE and INTRACTABLE. 

            Another person I drilled a hole in their head without getting anywhere was pUsHpa (she is always spelled this way to indicate a slithery snake). I used to tell her in the second half of 2008. “Look, you have your differences and I have my lists of angst against you. Let us meet, thrash it out. We owe this much to ourselves after Ahmedabad and Kodaikanal and Bangalore. Then we either reconcile or we snap away.”

            She just would not hear even as I warned, “ Please don’t call me for it affects me psychologically. Friends can become lovers but lovers cannot be friends. Either we meet in your next monthly visit to Bangalore or we put an end to these useless calls.” I was too weak of mind as I continued to take her calls. Once I even feigned a Vipassana retreat for a 10 days respite from these calls. On the eleventh day, she calls me repeatedly and my heart melts to take it in the third attempt. I am such a sentimental ass!!!

            With pUsHpA I read all the signs of a SNAP right but I did not have the emotional strength to put them in practice. She was after all my first and only woman whom I hugged and kissed. We were not suited for each other. I am much too honest and brainy; she was more a consumer who buys expensive clothes, change her car every second year, overseas vacation and a pseudo feminist. Very money minded as you could imagine a Sindhi while for me MONEY holds no special meaning as long it meets my living expenses. But she was deadly attractive when she wanted to turn on the charms with her humour and wit. Even in 2008 when she downgraded my stock from LOVER to a FRIEND on her own volition, I was not exactly enamoured. If I was, I would have flown to Ahmedabad and brought this matter either to a closure or reconciled our growing differences. Point is, DRILLING SENSE for more than 8-9 months and this woman just stood her ground. All the wisdom of a Solomon was wasted even as I saw my first romance go down the tubes ever so agonizingly slow. It was only when she went to Goa in February 2009 and start dating in March that I mentally wrote this relation off yet continue to engage over phones --- extreme STUPIDITY and DIFFIDENCE on hindsight.

            Even my mother is like that. Some times I used to grow large of heart to think even in my graduation days, “ This woman breastfed me in my infant days and so deserves respect and affection.” But such a noble sentiment did not last for a day. She would torture even when I was in the SHIT SHOWER SHAVE. That kind of verbal torture is something I am yet to heal completely. Again no amount of persuasion, kindness and gentleness worked.

            The point of the blog post is clear. YOU CANNOT HOPE TO REASON WITH TAMAS. You see your loved ones driving a car without a brake and you know in your mental vision that the racing car is tearing down straight to a crash. But you cannot do anything; you suffer in slow agony as they drag you down alongwith them. Then you understand how it should be with WISE people. When there is an emotional outburst or a direct charge against a wise man, what would be their options?  My surmise is EITHER dismiss the allegation as false or acknowledge it and learn from it if the cap fits. You either end up saying, “ You are unreasonable and I don’t share your feelings at all” and snap those ties or have the mental courage to say,” There is a lot of truth in what you say. I am sorry for your angst. Please don’t rile, I will do a course correction. “ A wise man is FLEXIBLE to change a thought pattern, acknowledge the errors and march forward while a TAMAS is a car stuck in sand and no amount of acceleration and power will make it move an inch. Some lesson I realized last week.  
Post Script: It is for this reason no SATTVIC person ever ventures out to advise unless the other person falls on the knees and begs for wisdom. Why and when did Krishna preach the Bhagavad Gita? to whom? Arjuna fell on his knees and crawled saying, "Krishna, my dear friend. I am at the end of my rope. I am going to pieces. Please advise me as to the right course." It is only after this surrender, Krishna dons the teacher's hat and not before.