Bivouac camp in Sahara desert / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
“So my son ..you want to learn self mastery?
I see how much you’ve been writing about it and trying
Ok, I’ll give you a helping hand
I’ll get you into a classroom
I’ll take you on a 20 hour flight from a city with sub-zero temperatures
Then land you in a city with an average temperature of 40 degrees centigrade in the evening
I’ll put you in a hotel with standards beneath other hotels you usually complain about
Oh and since you are always complaining about bad food,
I’ll make sure your choices in food for once justify your whining
Class duration is nine days, and you can’t get out of class
And did I mention that you can’t count on the Internet or phones
Let’s see ….
If you can still maintain your calm in that heat
If you can bring mindfulness to help you deal with a room in which the window faces an drab high wall
If under these circumstances, you can still be courteous to people you think you don’t need anything from
If you can still find something to be grateful for in each one of these days
If you can do these, then you will have learnt something about self mastery!
So, do you still want to continue on this path?”
Day 1: I screamed, kicked and was foul all day – I reaped lost of misery. I called someone special, spoke for a while and returned to my self pity.
Day 2: I kicked, screamed and made an emotional cocktail of anger and resentment, all brewed in blazing hot desert sun.
And so it went, anger, sorrow, disappointment, anguish and then when I had experienced all that was negative, on Day 6 I felt calm (I’d just taught a class of 40+ network engineers in a steaming hot room and their eagerness to learn was so great I forgot about the inconveniences). I became self aware and then the magic started and continued till Day 9
People went out of their way to make me happy. They did not have the traditional goodies to give but what they gave, they gave with all of their hearts, they gave me with love and I felt it. I connected and felt really good insides (God must have smiled … ‘you are not so thick-headed after all’. The best part was left for last … I beheld a sight I had thought I needed to travel to the United States and some big museum to see – a full skeleton of two kinds of dinosaur!! (yes I am a geek …that stuff amazes me). Imagine a crocodile whose skeleton is taller than a truck and that is more as long as a tanker!
Dinosaur skeletons in Niamey - Niger
Final lesson? – once you put your ego in its place (take attention away from yourself) and be in the moment, the world usually presents you a amazing bouquet of breath-taking gifts … of beauty, of simplicity, of elegance.
In Search of Excellence & Perfection 