Lessons my baby taught me ....

On the 25th of July 2014 I became a father. It is and will remain the first emotionally profound experience in my life, beating even the hormonal giddiness of first love. I realised how fragile life is when I first held my son. He was all of 2 hours old and all he could do by himself was breathe !!! Even suckling milk effectively had to be learnt over a period of an agonising 5 - 6 tries spanning 18 hours or so.

I had held the view that those who say ' life is a struggle' were just being morbid and a little foolish. But now I realise that successful survival is only achieved with effort. I do not think it to be a sad state of affairs, that it has to be so. In fact our whole body and possibly some aspects of our mind are designed to do this effort. But on the whole it was very gratifying when he started suckling enough to burp everytime and when he started pooping and peeing enough. The point I want to make is that I am usually coldly objective about many things including personal stuff ( much to the chagrin of my loved ones at times ). However in the case of my son I find it hard to be objective. For ex. If the need arose I would gladly murder someone to save my son and it would be a decision made without pangs from my conscience. Why does this happen ? It is not my instincts alone that will cause such a huge change in me. This does bear thinking about. So is this what the yogis call attachment ? This irrational preferrence to the whims of someone/something separate from you, is this what makes me a human being ? Then would it not be better to feel this way about the whole universe ?