It all started with my little one saying how she felt like she had arrived at her grandparents’ home every time she went to one of the rooms in our home. At a loss to describe beyond this, she tried with her own limited vocabulary to share the feeling that stayed in her memory of her last visit to their place. It was relaxed, warm and caring… no surprise… it was everything she felt in their company. Well, most children I know would feel the same in the presence of their grandparents. Perhaps, its one of the reasons we all have such fond memories of visiting them during our summer vacations.
I often think on what it is that made her say so. We were thousands of kilometres away from the place she was reminiscing… and had not even visited for almost a year. Yet, the feeling stayed with her and its what she associated with how she felt when she walked into that particular room.
Its similar to when a friend walked into my home for the first time and after a few minutes with wondrous amazement shared that the house had a “zen” kind of a feeling. She went onto describe that it seemed the place was sorted and content, exuding a sense of calm. One would wonder how adjectives used to describe people were so connected with places.
In fact, why just rooms or homes, its cities as a whole that have a life to them, a character as often spoken- their vibe. Sometimes the hustle bustle of an active metropolis and sometimes the laid back tranquillity of a small town on a sultry summer afternoon. Sometimes the laziness of a hill town in the peak of winters and sometimes the quiet life of a small hamlet.
Rooms, homes, places, all with vibes which are nothing but the energy of the people who stay there or sometimes lived there even a long time ago. Its this energy one feels as one stays amidst the ruins of an old haveli, long unused or the small hilltop temple attended to by its priest and the very occasional devotee.
Each of us humans have our vibes- being sources of energy from that one single source. It is this energy that we exude that makes people feel the way they do in our company. The stronger the energy, the longer it lasts, the deeper its impact.
Think about the time you walked into a room full of seniors at work and felt intimidated- or another when a room buzzing with peers made you feel energized. Even if one was to consciously not draw the correlation to the hierarchies involved, one would feel the difference. Its the way people think of you, it’s the way they feel about you – at times looking down upon you as someone they are assessing or scrutinizing and at another looking forward to the meeting.
Its like the comparison between a welcome and an unwelcome guest. We may mete out the same treatment to both in terms of the courtesies extended and the hospitality at their disposal, but one can always feel the difference. Its because several of us don’t always give the same vibes to different people. Our feelings towards a person may not be apparent in our behaviours, conditioned as we may have been to not make them overtly known; but there is no hiding the fact that what one feels in our deepest corners of the heart is what is always known to the other person.
Several of us struggle to put our fingers on it. Some of us may describe it as “something didn’t seem right”, expressing an inability to pin-point what it was that didn’t seem ok. Some of us in fact try and justify the feeling based on the tangible experiences – say of how a person may have sat, or talked in a specific tone or chosen to ignore a specific point of discussion. It’s our way of explaining the unexplicable. Positive or negative, the vibes one gives touch each life we encounter, and sometimes even beyond.
In fact, why just with different people, we may be giving different vibes towards the same person at different times. Sometimes changing over a period of time, and sometimes the very instant, our vibes are what determines the dynamics of our relationships. It is what provides energy to people or at times drains those around us. Perhaps knowingly or unknowingly, we have an impact of people who we may care about, hence its always important to be able to control your mind and feelings.
I tend to believe that all of us have the ability to feel the vibes. In fact, children more than any others have the knack of sensing them. Perhaps as we grow older, our trained mind prefers looking for objective, tangible clues. It’s our way to deal with the inability of handling the unknown. Its children who have the most wondrous amazement at things they don’t fully understand, an ability we as adults lose out on unless we develop it under the guidance of a guru or a teacher. Those who have not let go of it perhaps have a head start- in developing and using it to the advantage of all lives they touch. Perhaps it is time for every one of us to pay attention to that which we cannot experience with our senses, because it is only then that we can explain and control, that which the senses find impossible to.
