Driving lessons

If you have not done so already, please read the following posts in order before you read this one.

• What are you looking at? 
• The road and the map are your guides.

If you have been driving for a while, it is probably an almost automatic task for you. But do you remember when you learned driving?

I have not heard of many people who learned to drive by just watching their parents or other people drive and not have anybody to guide them when they get behind the wheel, but I suppose it is possible. Can you imagine what that person's driving experience would be when they get behind the wheel on their own?

Most people I know, including me, learned driving either from their parents, somebody they know, or from a driving school. If you learned from parents or somebody you know, but never had a driver's education course, then chances are there are still many aspects of driving you figure out on the road, which is probably not a good place to learn. If you go to a driving school and also get a driver's education course, and followed the advice given there, then the chances are that you became a much better driver. There are still things you learn from situations on the road, but the surprises are much lesser.

Still after all that you have to get a license to drive. You take a test and somebody makes sure that you are qualified to drive.

Driving, once you learn it and gain experience, seems like a simple task. However, you had to go through lessons, education, tests, and a license before you could start driving on your own.

The road and the map are your guides

Please read the post "What are you looking at?" before reading this post if you have not done so already.


What do you really do when you drive into unfamiliar territory? You make sure you get the directions to your destination before you leave. In this age of technology, you might even get yourself a GPS, so you can set the destination and let the GPS do the navigating for you. You might even set a goal for yourself as to how you are going to drive - maybe, you tell yourself that you are going to be defensive. However, you cannot really plan every action you are going to take along the way.

The way you really drive, hopefully, is with your eyes on the road ahead.  You let the road tell you what you need to do. You respond to things as they unfold ahead of you. You can also take in some of the scenery, at least what is ahead of you. If you use the old fashioned directions on a paper or in your head mechanism, you either listen to your navigator if you have one or you pay attention to road signs to tell you where to go. If you use a GPS, you let the GPS do the navigating and then respond to instructions from the GPS. But again you only respond to course changes as they are necessitated by your current location.

In this mode of driving, you are in the present moment, responding to the road and the directions as they occur. You are neither stuck to looking back at what you have passed already nor are you constantly thinking about the destination.

What are you looking at?

Imagine that you are on a sightseeing trip that takes you through some beautiful scenery in the mountains. There are gorgeous views everywhere on the winding road.

Now, imagine how it would be if you were driving with your eyes always on the rear-view mirrors.

On the other hand, imagine that you are so afraid that you are going to get lost that you drive with your eyes glued to a map.

Would you be able to respond to what is happening now on the road? Would you not miss out on the beautiful scenery unfolding ahead of you and around you?

Expectation creates judgement

Judgement owes its existence to expectation.

Consider this story of two people who take an examination. One person at the end of the exam is very confident that he did all the questions correctly and expects a 100% result. The other person expects only a 80% result in the exam. After some time the results are announced. Both of them scored a 90% on the exam. The person who expected a 100% is now extremely disappointed and judges the result as a bad one. The other person who expected 80% is ecstatic with the results and judges the result as a good one. The score is the same but the judgement of the score and the emotion associated with it is different based on the expectation each person had.

Announcement : Links

If you have not already noticed it, I added a Links page (currently under the Pages section to the right of the posts).

I have not yet figured out how to make blogger automatically notify all the followers when I update that page (or any other non-post page for that matter). For now, I will periodically make Announcement posts when I update my pages.

PS: If somebody knows how to get blogger to automatically send notifications/announcements for things other than the blog posts themselves, I would really appreciate it if you could please share that information with me.

Anger

When you get angry, it is not because of what is happening at the moment of the anger. It is a result of impressions that you have accumulated from the past and is being released right now. It is like a balloon filled with air. It will burst either if you fill it too much or it is filled until it is taut and it hits something sharp. You cannot blame the air or the the thing that pricked it for the bursting of the balloon. Also neither the air nor the thing that pricked gets destroyed when the balloon burst. Therefore, do not blame the person or thing that seems to be the object of your anger. Also, just like the balloon gets "hurt" when it bursts, you are the one that gets hurt the most when you get angry.

Just like the balloon would not burst if you release the air from it, find a way to release your pent up impressions so they don't burst in the form of anger.

How do you control your desires?

By giving them up. When you don't let desire enter you, there is nothing to control.

Here is a beautiful article on the subject of desire : Nature of Renunciation

Smile

A smile is a perfect response. It says a million things without a single word.

Why don't you want to have a relationship with expectations?

Expectation exists only when you want somebody to change. I know that you are already perfect. When something is perfect, there is no room for improvement. How can I have expectations when there is nothing more to expect?

You say you practice detachment. Does that mean you are detached from your wife?

The simple answer - Yes.

Attachment is relationship with expectations. Expectations are the strings "attached" to the relationship. Love has no strings attached. Detachment, or more precisely non-attachment, is love.

PS: While the question used the word wife, you can replace it with child, significant other, friend, or any other relationship, close or otherwise.