Remember that life is a gift

I was reading the news about terrorist attacks all around the world. The one in Kenya struck me specially. Seeing the number of lives lost in such an attack was heartbreaking to say the least. But, there was a positive lesson that I learned from it. Realising that there are some who are called to Lord Krishna early made me want to make my life here on earth even more meaningful. How can we make our lives meaningful? You may ask this question, as have I on many occasions. Life itself is a gift. Every morning that we wake up, every moment that we are alive is a gift to us from God. We should spend our time here doing things that will please him. What might that be? We should use our talent, our skills, our strengths, our blessings to help others. I remember once explaining to someone that things are not as important as people. You may think that this is obvious but let me tell you the circumstances under which I had to remind that person of this. One friend, let's call her Naina, was at another friend's house. Let's call the friend whose house it was Meera. So Meera invited Naina over to spend the night. They were having a grand time watching movies, baking cookies and just enjoying their slumber party. After a while Naina and Meera were painting their nails and Naina, even after being warned by Meera, did not move from the carpeted area and spilled her lime green nailpolish all over Meera's pure white carpet. Meera was in fact furious. She shouted at Naina and called her terrible names. Naina was very apologetic but also terribly hurt. She burst into tears and left Meera's home. Meera, at first felt no remorse for this and called me on the phone to complain about the incident. I was upset about hearing Meera's reaction. You see, Meera is my cousin and I felt that she had treated Naina badly. I explained to her that the right thing to do would have been to make Naina feel welcome and that it was a simple accident which, even if could not be rectified, could be hidden by perhaps a rug or a piece of furniture being placed over the stain. Meera settled down from her high temper and felt incredible remorse for the fact that she had driven her own best friend from her home. She called Naina but as you might imagine, Naina was still hurt and refused to answer the phone. The positive side of the story is that eventually they were able to reconcile their friendship but Naina confided in me that she will not be able to forget the incident and that she feels that I am responsible for Meera apologising and she was hurt that Meera did not do so on her own. I assured her of Meera's remorse but Naina said she cannot ever forget the incident. I took that as a lesson to myself also, you may apologise to someone you have hurt but the person is not likely to forget what happened. They may forgive you but forgetting is quite difficult. I know that my initial topic has been strayed from a a little in this retelling of the story but the underlying thing that I would like to say and emphasise is that helping others and caring for others is the most important thing. We were all put on this earth to make it a better place than when we first came. I think that we all need to be reminded of that and to try every single day to help others, to be a good person and to live the life that Lord Krishna would want us to live. The picture I chose is one that I love - it shows Baby Krishna looking at us in a way that makes me think that he is seeing into our every thought. I just want us all to remember that He does see our every thought all the time. Jai Shree Krishna!