DANCE IT OUT

We live with strong walls around us. Walls of responsibilities, etiquette s, discipline that make us conscious of our every step, our every action. We are bound to live in a particular way to be a part of our social circle and all our life we try living by those rules. Many of us know that secretly we want to and we do practice the other way of living (our way of living) while some have accepted every said and written word and given up the struggle of keeping that secret identity intact.

This difference in attitude shows up while dancing. Those who are forced into the rigid social traditions, with no second thought get onto their toes than those who be religious to the tradition. We are trained to follow our minds and so the walls seem to restrict our steps while dancing but as we proceed we start listening to our hearts and puncturing the walls. Those who started with the shy gesture minding their steps and apologizing pushes, now grow congenial and widen the smile and those who were forced into the dance give up the rigidness and have an ice breaking session with their own soul.

When the wall goes down completely, we enter a different world where body is just a means through which senses flow, energies flow. The smile grows into laughter, apologies turn into friendly encounters and we are guided by some unknown force. We attain a state of pure happiness. Happiness that is not through any reason, any material means but just by feeling the aliveness within by feeling the life flowing through every cell in the body. All worries, all rules-everything vanishes and we be there with the long lost inner self.

Dance is a kind of meditation that concentrates our universe at one point and with exhaustion rejuvenates us for life's upcoming events.

not HAPPINESS but JOY

Everything at once seems so simple and so complicated.

It's simple because all it takes is a change of attitude : I'm not going to look for happiness anymore. From now on, I'm independent, I see life through my eyes and not through other people's. I'm going in search of the adventure of being alive.

And its complicated : Why am I not looking for happiness when I am taught that happiness is the only goal worth pursuing? Why am I going to risk taking a path that no one else is taking?

After all, what is happiness?

Love, they tell me. But love doesn't bring and has never brought happiness. On the contrary, it's a constant state of anxiety, a battlefield, it's sleepless nights, asking ourselves all the time if we're doing the right thing. Real love is composed of ecstasy and agony.

Then Peace, may be. If we look at the Mother Nature, she's never at peace. The winter does battle with the summer, the sun and the moon never meet, the tiger chases the man, who's afraid of the dog, who chases the cat, who chases the mouse, who frightens the man.

Money brings happiness. Fine. In that case, everyone who earns enough to have a high standard of living would be able to stop work. But then they're more troubled than ever, as if they were afraid of losing everything. Money attracts money, that's true. Poverty might bring unhappiness, but money won't necessarily bring happiness.

All that I look for in life, is not happiness but joy. Joy of being in a place at that particular moment, joy of involving in an activity at that particular moment, joy of being with a person at that particular moment; because life is meant to be alive in every moment than living every moment to make a single one look alive

The above article is an extract from the book "The Witch of Portobello" with the concluding paragraph from my desk.