Letters

The worship of the Banyan Tree is an interesting ritual which the ladies had been doing at the ancient Banyan tree in the British Embassy premises since almost the early 1900s. 

Subsequently, due to security reasons the ladies started worshiping at the Peepul tree in the Hindu Temple premises.

Three years ago, British ambassador Simon Martin invited us to revive the practice at the embassy and since then we have been arranging the trip ever since.

For people that don’t know much about the ritual, the worship of the tree holds great significance in the Hindu religion. The roots of the tree represent Brahma, the stem of the Vat Vriksh represents Vishnu and the branches represents Shiva. 

Vat Purnima, or Vat Savitri, is a festival observed by fasting married women in the month of Jyeshtha.  Married women fast for the long and healthy life of their husbands and worship the Banyan tree by circling around it and tying a sacred thread around the trunk of the tree.

Hina of the Thattai (Bhatia) Hindu Community Bahrain.

Our life is a reflection of our attitudes and the age –old half – empty glass question may reflect our optimistic or pessimistic outlook towards our surroundings and ourselves. It is easy to have a negative outlook as we continuously are exposed to suffering and injustice; reflecting heartache and distress but by thinking negatively over and over again, these bad thoughts become a part of our subconscious and our personality in the end. They become habitual promoting fear and narrowing the focus and the mind.

A positive attitude is something that goes deep and has an effect beyond a plastic smile or a faking cheer. Having a true positive attitude makes our view of life seem broad, full of possibilities. That view leads to actually living our life in a way that makes it natural to be exposed to and acquire new skills.

A Mexican Parable about a farmer and his mule was always a good example for a positive outlook inspiration sticking in my mind since schooldays

One-day a farmer’s mule fell down into a well. The animal cried piteously for hours as the farmer tried to figure out what to do. Finally, he decided the animal was old and the well needed to be covered up anyway, it just was not worth it to retrieve the mule.

He invited all his neighbours to come over and help him. They all grabbed their shovels and began to shovel dirt into the well. At first, the mule realized what was happening and cried horribly. Then, to everyone’s amazement, he quieted down.

A few shovel loads later, the farmer finally looked down the well and was astonished at what he saw. With every shovel of dirt that hit his back, the mule was doing something amazing. He would shake it off and take a step up.   

As the farmer’s neighbours continued to shovel dirt on top of the animal, he would shake it off and take a step up. Soon, everyone was amazed as the mule stepped up over the edge of the well and trotted off!

So how do we go about getting a positive attitude, shaking our problems off and taking a step up?

Here comes our choice of action – as limited – as it is, still our choices regarding our attitudes are not. Having a positive outlook has a direct connection with happiness and success. It is up to us to make positivity a habit making us more resilient, improving our relations and increasing our chances of success.

Life is going to shovel dirt on us, all kinds of dirt but only by our positive thinking, we will get out of the well shaking the dirt off and taking a step up. Each of our troubles is a stepping-stone. We can get out of the deepest wells just by not stopping and never giving up.

Believing in ourselves, avoiding the powerless role of a victim acted upon by outside forces, looking positively upon life regardless of our circumstances and conditions, is the challenge.

It can take a little time and effort to create the habit of a positive attitude and one way is to catch ourselves when we are having a negative attitude thought and form a new positive script in response. Learning this power of a positive attitude can make our life more manageable and fulfilling.

It takes work, but creating anything of value takes work and in order to have a new attitude, we have to change our subconscious thinking by analysing every thought we have until positive thinking becomes a habit. We are merely replacing an old habit with a healthy new one and learning to monitor our attitude and its impact on our work performance, relationships and everyone around us.

It is shifting our thoughts towards a positive outlook and a positive attitude, if the thoughts that run through our heads are mostly negative, our look on life is more likely pessimistic, if our thoughts are mostly positive, we are likely optimists.

We are not saying that we should deny life’s darker side or interpret every calamity as a blessing. Everyone can have a down day but not every day, we must try not to give in to despair or fatalism. Concluding that we have been singled out for suffering, refusing to see any silver lining and abandoning all hope may not only be a recipe for illness. Such attitudes are also not such great ways to go through life recognising that our grief and pain, however real and deep, are only part of a larger picture.

Being grateful and recognising the things we have in our life will help us improve our attitude and positive outlook.

 
Najla M. Shahwan, a Palestinian author, researcher and freelance journalist from Jerusalem.