China's gifts to the world

Why does love pass me by?

Everyone seems to be looking for love but most of us can't seem to find it. 
Could it be that we look for it in the wrong place? Or our approach is not correct, or maybe what we seek something else but we mistakenly call it love?
Even when love is within our grasp we are afraid to love, because we are scared of getting hurt. 

Love can never hurt, but unfulfilled expectations can cause much unhappiness and hurt.

Love is a giving, an unconditional giving. You do not know why, but you simply give. A good example would be, a mother's love for her child.

Any explanation of love is futile. Love is a matter of the heart and not a subject for the mind to analyse, love therefore defies explanation. 
Love is not logical, it cannot be. That is why normal people rarely experience love. You have to be a bit foolish and even more innocent to experience love.

Our disappointment with 'Love' arises out of two reasons, trading and possessiveness.


We humans are clever, very clever, we want to take and rarely give. Sometimes we give, but only with an eye on getting something back in return. When we do this it could be called trading. We give affection and 'love' wanting something we call 'love' in return. This is not love it is a deal. Deals are transactional and generally unsatisfying.

Love is probably the greatest feeling one can experience, it is beautiful, in truth it's exhilarating. 

The other thing that ruins love is our possessiveness. The greatest disappointment in life appears to be unreciprocated affection or our inability to possess the object or person of our love.

"I love you so you have got to love me. You cannot love anyone else."

This possessiveness leads us to do strange things and demand impossible loyalties. Placing absurd and unnatural expectations on the person of our love, we make them actually dull and ugly making them undesirable and therefore unlovable.

Anyone worth possessing, simply cannot be possessed.



What would happen if you took a beautiful flower and closed it into a box? The flower would wither and die very quickly. 
What would happen if you took the sweet water from a spring and put it into a bottle for a long time? The water would become stale and smell foul. 
What would happen if you captured a beautiful bird and put it into a cage? It would neither have beautiful flight, nor spread its glorious wings nor will it sing beautifully as it did when it was free.




Love is a gift, and if it is true, seeks nothing in return.

If you want to love then do so unconditionally and with your heart and not your mind. Be like the sun radiate, give energy and bring life to all you see and meet and expect nothing in return and you shall transcend from a planet to a star and from man to God.

I thought they were poor.

6th December 1993. It was my noble Father in law Major Mohinder Singh ji's 7th death anniversary. 

Mohini, my gentle hearted wife wanted to do something thoughtful as a tribute to her father. We agreed that it would be nice to provide warm shawls to the poor. So we bought a 100 woolen shawls and distributed some to the cook, maid chauffeur and the watchmen and some underprivileged people in the immediate neighbourhood. 

The problem with the Sikh people is they are a hardworking and therefore a prosperous community.  We therefore had no clue where we would find poor people in Pune so we decided to drive around at night and find homeless people and gift them the remaining 85 shawls. Better still we would take our young sons Mohit (10) and Pavit (8) to accompany us to learn about charity.

We were amazed that we could not find any homeless person. Damn! You can't find beggars when you want them. After about 20 min of cruising around in the cold we eventually saw a man sitting cross legged under a tree wearing only a loin cloth.

Mohini asked the boys to gift the shawls with their own hands. So the boys eagerly grabbed one shawl and ran up to him and said "Namaste! it is very cold, we would like you to have this shawl to keep you warm." The boys were shocked when the man snatched the shawl and flung it in the other direction. He scowled at the boys and they fled back to the car.

We drove towards the railway station, there would certainly be some poor people there. After about half an hour, we finally spotted a man sitting on the pavement with two medium sized plastic shopping bags. He appeared lost in thought. Our sons cautiously walked up to him and handed him a shawl.

He was taken aback. He returned the shawl saying, "I don't need this shawl." The boys pressed him to keep it saying that "Don't worry you don't have to pay for it. It's a gift and it will keep you warm during these cold winter nights."

He replied in a strange tone, "I am already struggling to cope with so many possessions" and he pointed to the two plastic bags. "Please take your shawl back as I have no place to keep it. Thank you for your kindness but I am quite comfortable."

Confused and dejected the boys returned back to the car. They refused to proceed with the charity effort that night.

Mohit said "Really strange, we thought these guys were poor, but they behave like they are very wealthy,  mom do you think they are crazy? He is content with his meagre possessions and no roof over his head." He asked "Dad, mom, how can that be possible?"

We had no answer as we drove back home silently, each of us lost in our thoughts, mulling over what had just transpired. It has been 22 years since that incident but none of us speaks about charity in the same arrogant patronising manner anymore. Much, much later we finally came to realise the meaning of that evening.

• The rich are not those who have much but those that have stopped desiring more.
• By accepting the donation the recipient defines the donor.                                                        

The next day we handed the remaining shawls to the Gurudwara* for distribution to the needy.

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A Gurudwara - is a place of congregation for Sikhs to hold religious discourses. They also feed the needy.