Losing… A way of Life…

Sounds very obvious and natural when we say that we like ‘Winning’. Winning, no doubt is the best intoxication known to man. What we need to understand at times is weather this intoxication is the only way of pleasure and happiness or there is more to life. We desire for something and keep running to get the desired. If we get it, we call ourselves ‘Winners’. For some people winning remains a dream but they keep running religiously. And while their eyes are fixed at their goal, they miss to witness the happy moments they have had while losing in life. As I go with my way of experimentation in life, from a particular point of view I see a person to be the happiest when he is losing…

Let’s go through the entire cycle of life and see if we have actually lost anything while losing. A child keeps nagging, desiring something which is bad for him while his mother restricts him from having that. His mother’s restrictions are in the best interest of the child. He may only think himself as a looser by not having the desired thing but actually he is receiving all the love, affection and care inherent in his mother’s restrictions. The child might have not got the desired at that time but the love, affection and care received is unmatched.

The child grows up to a teenager. The teenager desires to be standing out of everyone, in his class and his friends. Let’s say the teenager desires for a costly bike or a costly dress that makes him stand out of rest of his friends. By not having it he may feel that he is losing something in life but in reality, he had friends, many of whom were with him because he was not standing out from them and was like them in various ways. Here he had friends who were with him because he was simply as they were. And all of us know and have always enjoyed and remembered the days that we spent with friends. Did he lose anything if he had friends with him and not the costly bike?

Say the teenager now grows to upper teens. Knowing or unknowingly for the first time he is actually enjoying ‘losing’. He loses his heart to someone special. The feeling cannot be explained. Just the realization of having lost the heart, having someone special or being special to someone makes one feel to be on the seventh cloud. This is a time when a person partially understands love. That is a time when he is not bothered about the gains or returns and never minds ‘losing’. This is followed by a stage in life where he enters adulthood. This is where he loses his virginity (in all good senses). This is a remarkable and never before experience of his life. Of course, the pleasure derived varies for individuals but the experience indeed is liked by all and is cherished for lifetime through one’s sweet memories.

As a father, losing to one’s child comes naturally. Every father takes pride in seeing his children outperforming him. And why only a father, how many of us have not lost to a child for a single innocent smile? It’s wonderful, natural and full of love. In such cases we don’t even mind losing for such innocent, sweet and blissful smile that reaches directly our hearts.

Having catered to all the responsibilities in life the man goes to God realized saints for the ultimate wisdom. To understand the pure love, to understand who he is, to know God, he loses his ego on the feet of God realized saints. He loses himself completely to feel the oneness with God, to be with God… Ultimately he loses everything and becomes everything. He, who enjoyed life without much botheration for winning gives up his body happily at the appointed time. He may not have lived the winning way but has surely experienced love even while losing. Losing the life is a child’s play for him as he has already lost everything to God and has become everything himself.

The thought here does not encourage us to run away from our duties and difficult times but only leads us to a higher platform of thoughts where we do not miss the enjoyment and pleasures of life in any situation. It is advised to one and all, to look back in life at all the instances where we have lost. We will only find that we have bounced back with more energy, with more enthusiasm and have got real friends in such times. The true love is experienced only by means of losing everything at God’s feet. As soon as we realize His oneness, we will not play for winning only and then we will enjoy the true spirit of the game called ‘LIFE’.

Happy Losing…