Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Niyat and Niyati

"There is a difference between Niyat and Niyati. Listen to this." Said my friend and went on to narrate a story. It goes like this:

Once a rich man was travelling in a bus. Bus suddenly stopped with a jerk and few dacoits entered inside weilding sharp knives and lathis. This rich man hid his money some where( i forgot where. Need to ask her again ). After the dacoits collected all the money and jewellery from the helpless passengers, they started to get down. Meanwhile the leader of the dacoit gang asked "Is any money still left with anybody?" This rich man raised his hand. (Not to mention got looted)


I have been thinking about this story. If you remove the rich man and place a sardar or a bihari or a blond this will be a good joke. But sir this is not a joke. This was never intended to be a joke about some guy who is making fool of himself. This story has something very important hidden. (I am impressed by the way she told me the story. Anybody else would have turned this into a joke and all the meaning would have been lost. )

The context in which this story was narrated is different. Its a story worth another blog. Was the man in question here really fool? When he raised his hand , wasnt he just being frank? Was not he talking truth? He was.

As my friend put it, He had niyat but was lacking in niyati. Niyati as i understood is knowing when to speak truth. Niyati is knowing when to stop being Mr. Nice or do-gooder. Eventhough i will not raise my hands like that poor guy, i am one of those guys who suffer from very little presence of niyati.

After lot of thought i have realised i need to increase the content of niyati. Have been trusting people and being frank for long now. Though suffered a lot due to that i never stopped trusting people. Infact most people start a realtionship with distrust and then search for reasons to trust. I am very much contrary to that.

But if we start not trusting anybody untill proven isnt it not like guilty untill proven not. Thats not fair. At the same time prevention is better than cure.There is something else that makes me uncomfortable. Isnt having loads of niyati being opportunistic. Its like saying "Boss if i can gain from helping you i will". Most often we help others only because it we expect something back. I am a firm beleiver in Law of Karma. I try to convince myself that i am not opportunistic. But when i help someone i truly beleive some day , some where, this will come back to me. So i am also opportunistic. May be less may be more.

Now that disturbs me. I am confused like hell. Another unsolved question for me.