Being Calm means living in the present moment and doing your karma fearlessly without being reactive and judgmental about yourself or others no matter what the situation is. If we judge ourselves or others for our or others’ actions, then we are not calm but pretending to be calm. If calmness is to be understood deeply, then we must understand how Lord Krishna lived his life.
The number of difficulties in his life would have been unusual in anyone’s life. There were many such situations in his life, such as being separated from his parents shortly after birth, killing his own maternal uncle, being separated from Radha despite being in love, fleeing war many times, and killing the enemy by deception. However, he never judged himself. People who are not calm in such situations will make these situations their ego issue and lose their lives. Such people believe that if we flee the war, what will society say? But Lord Krishna accepted the name Ranchhordas (one who flees the battlefield) without regard for anyone. This is referred to as living in harmony with nature and, ultimately, living a peaceful life. Actually, we can only feel calm when we simply flow with whatever is happening to us, without judging or expecting anything from life or others.
Returning to the original question, how can we tell if we are truly living a calm life or just pretending to? A very simple experiment that any of us can perform is to take a metro ride or go to any public place and spend some time, say 40 minutes, watching the people around you and observing what they are doing. If you happen to see some people fighting or arguing and you get angry or upset seeing it, or if you happen to see some people enjoying it and you feel happy to see them enjoying it, know that you are not living a calm life yet. Remember that any emotion that you feel inside but is influenced by outside events indicates that you are not calm. Calmness is the absence of external influences
Calmness is your natural state of being. If you go to a Marghat, you will see many dead bodies burning around, but the nature there remains calm. Some people are crying, some people are helping each other, some workers helping in burning bodies, dogs and birds around are just waiting for their food, but the person whose body is burning is actually in the state of his natural being which is calmness. Imagine a life, where you are actually living like this. You are going through many troubles, some people are crying for you, some people are happy that you are going through these problems and then there are animals around who are just waiting to have some food, and you are calm from every reaction and doing whatever is the need of the hour. Wouldn’t it be the feeling of oneness with Mother Nature – acknowledging whatever is without any judgment.
The question now is, if calmness is our natural state of being, why are we unable to live a calm life? Why is it so difficult to maintain your cool? The main reason for this is that as society has evolved over time, we have become more materialistic, with new words like famous, rich, poor, middle class, higher class, lower class, global elite, consumers, and finally follower of a particular religion becoming measurements of our natural state of being. Society has divided us into so many identities, while our natural identity is simply that of a human being. If you understand how we evolved over time, you will notice that we moved far away from our natural state of being.
Because of this pressure of becoming part of something and to be successful in life our mind is always dwelling either in the past or future. And that is why we cannot live in the present even if we want to. But even this is not the fault of the mind. This is the fault of the society we live in. Society has made a man materialistic. Success in society means to become rich or famous or even becoming enlightened, while the purpose of life is to just be. Due to this thinking, a child who does not even learnt to walk, starts working towards preparing for his future. How can we expect such children to enjoy the present moment? Then when they grow up it is almost impossible for them to lead a calm life.
This materialism of society is hollowing out every human being. This life is given by nature for celebrating it while we are here. And celebration can only happen when we are calm from within. But what we are from within we are not able to know because to know this we need to be fully present here and now. Due to the materialistic base of the society, discrimination comes in our mind and feelings like jealousy, hatred develops within us. That’s why we often get jealous when we see others moving ahead in life. The hatred within us takes such a dangerous form that even after seeing the success of people with whom we have no relation, we start feeling jealous about them and conspire about them. The definition of success needs to be changed. Materialism is a conspiracy to distance us from the very truth of life. The only truth of life is that no one can remain permanent on this earth. We are all here just for some time and then we disappear. There is no way of coming back to this planet again. Therefore successful is the one who celebrates life, remains calm and flows continuously with the flow of life just like the streams of Mother Ganges moving forward without judging herself or others and finally merges with the source – Mother Nature. Hare Krishna.