ACHIEVING-INNER-PEACE

“Po (The Panda):       Maybe I should just quit and go back to making noodles.

Oogway (The Turtle master): Quit, don't quit... Noodles, don't noodles... You are too concerned about what was and what will be. There is a saying: yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the present.”

The above few sentences are some of the legendary lines from one of the best Hollywood movies ever, The Kung Fu Panda.

Why did I take these dialogues? Yes, primarily because I am an ardent Hollywood movie follower and more specific reason is for the intent these dialogues have in them.  With a hope that all of you have watched this movie (If not, please do it immediately), I would like to put forth the following percepts with respect to two great human beings, one, Father of the nation, M. K. Gandhi and the second, Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, idol for the modern man.

Not to sound boring, I would like not to re present the thoughts of these two great men, like a copy cat but would like to interpret them as a young Indian, as a youth who has a lot to do for his self, his family, his society and on a whole, his nation at large.

The best part of few of the sayings which are common in both these men zero down to what I found in the movie, The Kung Fu Panda, is the Inner Peace. Inner peace is something that not all can attain. It is something that is not a piece of confectionary, just to buy it from the stores. It has to be won, achieved and mastered.

It is the process of winning the fiercest of battles ever, the battle with one’s self and attaining the unidirectional thought of mind, body and soul together. Taking yet another dialogue of Oogway (The Turtle Master), “One often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it”, it can be proved that we all tend to go into the path much travelled rather than taking that very path, virgin in its core, untouched and untapped.

What we all fall into is the “PARISTHITHI” which is the social situation, and, start acting according to the will and wish of the society. Just remember, possibly the act you made yesterday, or wait, just before reading this line is not what you wanted to do but is because the society wanted it.

What we actually need to have is the “MANOSTITHI”, which is the positive condition or state of the mind. The time when you overcome all the flitters and flatters, finally be true to our self, this kind of situation I need not explain, for I know when each one of us would feel so. This is the time for introspection, and introspection makes you realize and influence Manostithi.

When Manostithi overcomes the happenings of Paristhithi, an unparalleled phenomenon arises, the “AATMASTITHI”.  This situation is when we live by our soul and heart but not merely by our mind. But, when the contrary happens, we fall into a chaotic, unmannered and untamed situation called the “DUSTITHI”. Remember, Dustithi is also a part of paristithi. But, Aatmastithi is beyond paristithi, it is evolved.

Taking another fiction character as an example, Ultron, from the movie Avengers. Ultron, says, “we are all puppets, tangled in strings”, strings of social bugaboos, taboos, conceptions and belief systems, I say. We need to get these strings away from us, unfettered is what we should be.

My dear friends, what we have to start doing is to observe those animal instincts (ego, anger, jealousy, frustration)in ourselves and start taming them so well that, we finally would attain the inner peace. At the end of the day, all that matters is SUKHA NIDRA, a peaceful death. 


Mr. Avinash Duvvuri (MBA Final)