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November 2008

Change

By Pradeep A. Shah, Chartered Accountant
Reading Time 4 mins
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Namaskaar

If there is anything constant in this universe, it is the phenomenon of change. Change is continuous, constant and persistent. Everything is changing all around us, whether perceptibly or imperceptibly, and whether we like it or not. It is truly said, “One cannot step in the same river twice”. The river appears to be the same, but the water is continuously flowing. When we step for a second time in the river, the water is different.

Time changes everything. It is said that in a period of seven years every single cell of our body changes ! What was once powerful and almighty can become weak and powerless with the passage of time. One is reminded of the famous lines :

This refers to the incident in Mahabharat when Arjun the mighty warrior who had vanquished many a great warriors in battles was bested by a robber named Kaba, though still Arjun had his famous bow Gandiv and his arrows.

In the modern times, the speed of change has increased beyond imagination. The changes taking place now are mind boggling. In early nineteen sixties Allwyn Toffler wrote in ‘The Future Shock’ that life on this planet could be estimated to be around 50,000 years, i.e., about 800 generations. The change seen by the world in the last generation itself is more than the sum total of changes seen in the earlier 799 generations ! We know that since then (1960s) the speed at which change is taking place has increased manifold.

It is said that the weekday edition of the New York Times contains more information than the average man was exposed to during his entire lifetime in the 7th Century England ! We then are living in times where things are changing at the speed of whirlwind all around us and we have to cope with the changes taking place. Bill Gates has written a book on the subject ‘Business at the speed of thought’. The title metaphorically represents the pace of ‘change’.

As I perceive, there are two distinct types of changes. One is the cyclic change which one observes in nature. The sun rises every morning, and travels through the day to set in the evening, and rises again the next day. The tide comes and ebbs away with regularity which is predictable. Winter is followed by spring, summer, and by autumn, once again to be followed by winter. This law of nature is relatively easy to understand and accept.

The other change is what we see in our life itself. A seed sprouts, becomes a tree, and one day it decays and falls. A baby is born; the baby becomes a child, and then a young person. The young becomes old and dies. Somehow we fail to understand and accept this that we are impermanent, and that we also have to go someday. Similarly when going is good, we tend to believe that the happy days will last forever and that no sorrow will ever cross our path . . . . When bad times hit us we feel that our miseries will never end. We fail to understand that the night will turn into day and that ‘this too shall pass’. It is very very imperative that we learn to adapt to ‘change’. Otherwise we too can be wiped out and become extinct like the mighty dinosaurs which once roamed freely over the surface of this earth.

We also have to accept that the gates of change are locked from within. Unless we decide to change ourselves, no outside agency will be able to change us.

At the same time, we have to learn to accept that old age, disease, and death are all inevitable. Bhagwan Buddha asks in ‘Anguttora Nikaya’ to the Bhikkhus to contemplate on the following :

  • Old age will come upon me someday and I cannot avoid it.

  • Disease can come upon me someday and I cannot avoid it.

  • Death will come upon me and I cannot avoid it.

  • All things that I hold dear are subject to change and decay and separation, and I cannot avoid it.

Buddha asks us to contemplate on the changes and accept them with grace.

Let us then take heed to the valuable words of Buddha, contemplate on the inevitability of change and be ready to meet whatever changes, life brings.

The issue is : how do we meet this challenge of change ? The answer is by ‘faith’. Faith in God and above all, faith in ourselves.

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