New Year Resolutions to Make and Keep
Sunanda
Dubai (U.A.E)
Hari Aum!
Humble Prostrations at the Holy Altar of Revered Sree Guru Parampara.
Since childhood, every new year I would make resolutions only to break them. Some were fulfilled, some just fizzled out; I stopped making resolutions.
The online Call Talk “Meeting the Year Prayerfully and Gracefully” has changed my understanding towards this New Year Resolution-making tradition completely.
Pujya Maa ji says, ask yourself the purpose of doing anything before doing it. This guidance has helped me a lot; yet it didn’t click that it applies even here. Ultimately everything boils down to ‘what is the basic purpose of Life?’ and to attain that purpose ‘what are our short-term goals?’ some very short; some long. All of it can be done only when one is peaceful within. My likes and dislikes determine my peace. But I want this peace anyhow! When I get something by wrong means, I get disturbed coming back to square one losing all the peace I had.
Why only the New Year to make resolutions? They can be made anytime. But the change of calendar year is a milestone defining the timeline to improve ourselves, achieve our goals, introspect! Whatever accomplished are my earnings and whatever remains unaccomplished is a waste! This assessment is very important, else making resolutions is a wasteful activity. Sadly, that is what I have been doing all these years. This wasted time is ‘Kaal’ which engulfs me. This thought is very scary, because I have wasted so many years in petty desires and worthless worry and anxiety. Do I have any more time? no one knows!
The only remedy is to be in Yog with the Divine through Scriptural study and practices to be prayerful & connected all the time, because the Divine is ‘Kaalaateet’ - beyond time. When in Yog, Kaal is destroyed and when not, Maya destroys us.
In management there is a concept called PDCA cycle (Plan, Do, Check, Act), a continual improvement process where 1st I fix a goal, then plan how I will achieve it. Once planning is done, I try out the steps I planned to achieve the goal, then I check whether it is working and giving the same results as I had estimated; if not, I go back and improve upon the steps I took. Once established in the process, I follow it again because I have to keep setting new standards as the earlier ones have now become my base standards and I need to further improve. We are trained to use this in our office work, but listening to the Call Talk, I thought that if we follow this PDCA cycle in our life to achieve our personal goals, then there is no question of not being able to keep up the resolutions taken and be fixed upon the final purpose of human life by the Grace of the Divine Reality.
This Year I have decided upon my New Year Resolution to keep!
Humble Pranaam at the Lotus Feet of Pujya Maaji,
Humble Pranaam and Dhanyawaad Manish ji.
Hari Aum!