Srikumar Rao's Blog, page 15

Nothing is Written!

I am going to stir up some controversy here. Do you believe that all the success you enjoy has been due to your effort? And, correspondingly, all the goals you have not met is because you did not work hard enough or smart enough? Or perhaps because you did not have the ‘right’ background, or…

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Can Using a Bucket Help Save the Planet?

Mahatma Gandhi reportedly said that there is enough of everything to satisfy each man’s need. But not enough to satisfy every man’s greed. So – would you be willing to make a slight change in your habits if it will make a material positive difference in the world? I was in India recently and thought…

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Me! Me! – It’s All About Me!

I was at a party recently when a friend mentioned that he was recovering from kidney stones. A woman in the group immediately chimed in saying how terrible it must have been and, gosh, how painful. And then, for fifteen minutes, she narrated the tale of how she had kidney stones two years ago and…

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Protected: Journey of Awakening: Webcast Replay

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

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The Solution is “Pray Without Ceasing!”

In my last blog I pointed out that decades of unchecked mental chatter have caused our minds to whirl with incredible momentum. Our unchecked thoughts force us to live in a cacophony of wild conjectures, frustrated desires, unmet ambitions, unrequited love and constantly changing likes and dislikes. You cannot slow down this torrent by a…

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No – Twenty Minutes are Not Enough. Nor are Ten Days …

I just got back from a visit to India and a highlight was the three days I spent at the Ramanashram in Tiruvannamalai. I felt the presence of Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi everywhere. And I also felt viscerally what I am about to share with you. I love war movies and my favorites are the oldies…

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You Are the Only Person Who Knows!

I have long held that philanthropy in the West is imbued with a healthy dose of self-interest and lot of self-aggrandizement. The tax code favors huge donations and worthy institutions cater to your every whim if they sense that they can peel away some of your moolah. There was an entire wing of the Metropolitan…

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Whatever You Like Will Become a Memory!

Has it ever occurred to you that there will be a ‘last time’ you do anything you enjoy? There will be a last time you hug your child, a last time you smoke your favorite pipe, a last time you drink your single malt at night. Many such ‘last times’ have already happened in your…

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A Lesson From a Horror Movie!

In my younger days I greatly enjoyed going to horror movies. Friday the 13th, Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street and many of their ilk and their spinoffs and sequels were all grist for the mill. I recognized that they were not really ‘horror’ movies. They were merely grisly productions with lots of gore. But I…

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A Myth to Debunk: You Can’t Control Everything — But You Can Control How You Respond.

There are some things you are told repeatedly. You are told them so often that you don’t question them anymore. They are almost ‘revealed truth’. You are told to see the glass as half full, not as half empty. You are told that every problem is an opportunity in disguise. You are told that you…

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