DIVINE SCHOOL AND DIVINE LESSONS

     I had quoted earlier, “The greatest lessons in life are learnt, not in any classrooms or through books but through life itself”…in continuation to that I wish to add…”no matter what your education and qualification might be, it cannot equip you with lessons needed to lead your life well or for that matter, move on in life steadily in the face of challenges”…some of the lessons that we learn in the divine school called life  or the ‘ divine lessons’ as I would like to call them, are:

 

Discipline:     If you think you have learnt all the lessons in discipline during your school days, you may well be mistaken, wait till you come across a situation when you have no choice but to follow a regime that you thought you were not capable of following  or sticking to…one that would put a soldier to shame and you end up asking yourself, ‘Is that me, I never thought I was capable of such tight and strict routines?’Yes, you end up surprising your own self…the plus point is that it instills in you  a feeling of fulfillment and gratification…in addition to that it enhances your self confidence and self esteem…the task of getting used to discipline is scary in the beginning but once you adapt and get used to the idea, you end up realizing it was easier  than you had envisaged.

A strong will: One does not have to be an Einsten to know that one needs a strong will to face life’s simplest to the most difficult testing times. Time  and more importantly “tough times’ help you to develop a strong will which only grows stronger as you grow older. In moments when you are longing to take a break, you need an iron will to plunge headlong into completion of tasks and taking up additional responsibilities, needless to say that it does not come easily! Nobody is born with a strong will, one acquires it along the way while dealing with life situations, tougher the situation, more the strengthening of the will. This definitely helps you to surge ahead and find a way, no wonder , they say,  “where there is a will there is a way”.

Patience: It is so often said “Patience is the art of concealing your impatience”, nothing can be more closer  to truth than this  but concealing impatience does not come easy, especially in difficult and tricky situations. Here again the lessons we learn from life situations, about ‘ being patient’, are greater than those learnt from parents at home and teachers in school. Time, age and experience build up your patience and life situations teach you the art of concealing your impatience. It requires immense effort to be patient but it really pays and helps you restore peace with others and within yourself.

Empathy: Another virtue so vital for your existence, which also happens to be the greatest leveller of all times or situations, is ‘empathy’…empathy for fellow beings…empathy for your kith and kin…empathy for other living beings…empathy for the environment…empathy for the ‘not so fortunate ones’ and so on and so forth. We are very often asked to have sympathy rather than empathy for others around us but life teaches us that if we wish to progress spiritually and make peace with others and our selves, empathy is the need of the times. As an educator, that too from the science field I have experienced that all the lessons in moral and environmental sciences do not make you have enough empathy for fellow beings or mother nature but your close encounters with life definitely help you gain this virtue in good measure. The proof of this can be seen in great number of youngsters  getting associated with NGO’S and environmental causes inspite of not having the relevant educational backgrounds.

Faith:   Faith in self and also in God or a Super power is another great example of what can be learnt very well through the divine school. There is an increase in assertiveness, aggressiveness  and awareness with every  new generation that comes up and  therefore also an increase in  their need to voice their opinion. There cannot be a more debatable topic than ‘faith’ amongst the youngsters, whether it is ‘ in self or others ‘ or the more controversial one, that is,in the supernatural . As you grow older and get a brush  with some of the realities of life, resulting in a variety of learning experiences, your  understanding and  belief in all kinds of  faith only deepens .Eventually each one of us realizes that it is impossible to go on without having faith in self, others and in the Almighty, in fact it becomes your greatest driving force, helping you overcome hurdles and sprint along.

   There are many more significant and not so significant lessons that we learn in the divine school called life…we do have a choice to procrastinate or for that matter be unwilling to relent, but the truth is that we can skip schooling or go through our school lessons half heartedly but we cannot escape these divine lessons that the divine school called life teach us.