AVIS Viswanathan's Blog, page 26

Stay with the truth, sleep well, stay blessed!

In any situation, stay with the truth.
In a workshop session I led yesterday, a young manager asked me if speaking the truth was worth it at all. He said, “I feel most comfortable saying things as they are. I prefer being in-the-face. But I am soon discovering that people don’t like it. I am losing friends and relationships.”
The manager raises an interesting question. We too have been told, or have sometimes experienced, that staying with the truth can be a competitive disadvantage. Sometimes, we wonder if speaking our mind will make others uncomfortable or even hurt them. We desist from speaking the truth also because we want to cover-up. But let me tell you, from my experience, that truth is a liberator. It is a healer. It is a very deadly weapon, a brahmastra, in our arsenal. I believe we fight shy of using it because we are worried about becoming vulnerable in this ‘big, bad, cold and merciless’ world.

Fundamentally, our world view has to change. The world is not made up of hypocrites, cynics, facists, rapists and terrorists alone. They are but a small population from all of humanity. Just like shadows in the dark are amplified by our fears, so are the deeds of a few men and women in the darkness of our minds and hearts. Arise and awaken to the glorious sunshine of the rest of humanity. Making yourself vulnerable by clinging on to the truth, irrespective of the circumstance, alone will fetch you the love, compassion and warmth of like-minded people around you. If someone deserts you because you spoke the truth, then they really were not worth being in your Life. Period. Besides, when you stay with the truth you don’t have to remember what you said! Most importantly, having embraced the truth, you will sleep well. When you can sleep in peace, you are truly blessed. Nothing else, believe me, matters! 

When you flow with Life, you will find peace and joy ‘in’ you

Learn to flow with Life.
Life is like a river. It has a mind of its own. It does not worry about precipice or a fall, nor is it perturbed by the boulders on the path. A crevice is all it needs, to make progress and find its way. The best we can do, as people who have been created without our asking to be born, is to enjoy the scenery as Life flows. When we don't like what we see or experience, we can rave, rant, kick our feet, bury our heads in despair, but Life goes on – the way it wants to, not the way we wish it would! Such is the nature of Life. The only sensible option is to learn to appreciate the reality, accept it and to live with it.
Living is important. When you worry, you stop living. Even those who choose to go to mind-body-soul rejuvenation programs, are worrying. They are worrying about how the world will cope without them. They worry about their ability to 'endure' and 'survive' the program. Look at those words__endure and survive__they too are reflective of an inherent concern. So, when you worry, you have lost yet another moment of peace that was possible. And you begin to hunt for places where you will be peaceful. Temples, churches, mosques, gurudwaras, synagogues...a bar for some perhaps, a joint for others…you are forever seeking a place where you will find peace and joy! The best-kept secret is that when you start living, you will find these in you! The fifteenth century weaver, mystic and Master, Kabir (1440 ~ 1518) says it perfectly: "Do not go to the garden of flowers! O Friend! go not there; In your body is the garden of flowers. Take your seat on the thousand petals of the lotus, and there gaze on the Infinite Beauty."

Flow with Life. And you will find peace and joy overflowing from within you!

Break free from the tyranny of "I can't"

The biggest impediment to living your dreams is the view that whatever you want to do hasn't been done before and/or that you can't do it.
This is what I call 'starting trouble'. In the good old days here in India, we used to have Ambassador cars (we still have some of them on the roads). My family too had one. It was already a pretty old car by the time we bought it. And every once in a while, its ignition switch would fail and so we used to bring out a metal 'handle' from the boot and literally, physically crank the engine up. Or, if there was help available, we would push the vehicle in neutral gear for a while in a bid to start the engine with a jerk as the gears were switched! Almost all of us are like that old Ambassador car. We have trouble getting started on our journeys. We are willing to die, unknown to us, a million times in the few years that we are alive, doing things we don't like or love doing, than live the time we have on this planet fully! To live we need to awaken to the possibility that we too can achieve anything, absolutely anything, that we want.
So, to get started this morning on what can be a turning point in your Life, just consider what Mahatma Gandhi did. His greatest struggle was not about overthrowing the British. It was about 'How do you make an enslaved race think and feel equal to others when all around there is compelling evidence of the enslaving race's 'superiority'?' Porus Munshi, an innovator, thinker and author, says Gandhi found a way, by showing people the power of satyagraha and ahimsa. When people realized that they too could contribute to the freedom movement, they felt equal!

There’s a parallel here for us to delve into. We are all enslaved by our beliefs, our insecurities, our self-doubts. We must change the orbit of our thinking. The 'handle' we must use to crank up our engines is to awaken to the reality that we are all created equal. If you love painting, know that you too can become successful like M F Hussain, if you love writing fiction, you too can be insanely great like J K Rowling, if you love planes and flying, you too can own an airline like Air Asia's Tony Fernandez, if you want to change the world and serve, you too can become the next Gandhi or Mother Teresa. The key operative word here is love. And that love must be present and continuous – as in a verb! You must love whatever you do and your love for it must make you want to do it again, and again, and again – no matter what the impediments are. So, awaken. Break free from the tyranny of "I can't". Know that nothing can come in between you and your dream, unless you allow it to! Take flight, if you love something, go live it! 

In which Nithyanand, a Buddha, teaches me to live with ‘anand’ (inner joy) ‘nithya’ (daily)!!!

When you look for things that you don’t have, you remain incomplete. When you look at what you have, including who you have in your Life, you are complete!
Nithyanand - The BuddhaYesterday, I spent a transformational hour with a young man called Nithyanand, in his 20s, who is visually special (I hate to call him visually impaired). He lives in Korrukkupet (a Chennai suburb). He commutes every day to Express Avenue Mall, where he works at an exhibition tour company called “Dialogue in the Dark” (Google them – go check them out). Nithya, as he prefers being called, says he doesn’t have any problem when I ask him how he “manages with Life on a day-to-day basis”: “Sir, we work on getting oriented to spaces and with basing all our responses to the velocity of sound around us. I take bus # 18 and get to work pretty much without a hitch. When I do have to cross the road, I just wait for a good, helpful soul. The Universe always has such people around. There are so many good people in this world. Someone always comes by to help me.” There’s a joie de vivre about the way Nithya is . He is happy, content and peaceful with the way he is . Actually he truly, simply is . There is no self-pity. There’s no lament. In fact, there’s so much dignity with which he conducts himself – even you don’t feel pity for the young man. You come away inspired. Now, how many times will you come away inspired after meeting a rank stranger for barely an hour?
Much of our grief and suffering comes from lamenting over what we don't have. This pushes us into a, often subconscious, depressive spiral out of which we rarely climb out. But always, when the focus shifts to what is, the result is magical. The reason why we struggle with making this shift from what isn't to what is, is that the negative is always seductive. Its reasoning power is far more logical. The good in us rarely speaks. It merely states. It does not profess, it doesn't argue, it doesn't convince. Nett Nett, we succumb to the wily designs of scarcity__what we don't have, what isn't__thinking. This results in incompleteness. Whereas, with all our quirks, defects, chinks, blemishes, scars and handicaps, we are complete. There’s so much abundance in our lives. Such is the way we have been created. To recognize this complete state of ours, we need to be in a state of total acceptance, we need to be peaceful.

My learning from Nithyanand: when there is peace within, when there is acceptance of the Life you have, the focus will shift to what is. And then the wholesomeness of your Life will become clear to you! This the way, we__you and me__too, just like Nithya, can become a Buddha – and experience ‘anand’ (inner joy) ‘nithya’ (daily)!

Be your own Master, make your Life count

Don't be a slave of your Life__of this lifetime. Be a Master.
Last week I met a senior manager at a large company, who had given 38 years of his Life to the company, and is serving a post-retirement contract extension presently. He said, “I have been consumed and cooked by my professional focus. It was a journey I did not regret so far. But, suddenly, at 64, I wonder how many more active years I have for me to go see and explore the world; to just stop being a manager and just be myself.”
His “awakening” perspective delivers a big lesson to all of us. This Life has been gifted to us for us to lead it, to live it! Not for us to be enslaved by it. Yet, don't we run this Life as if it were some kind of a race? Some even call it a rat race. When you reach a point, like the manager here has, you will wonder why did you run the race in the first place? What did you race for or against? Liberate yourself. The biggest freedom movement must be taking place within you, not just in some dictatorial regime in the world. So stop running. Pause, introspect and initiate immediate action.

One way to set yourself free is to break away from your routine and look beyond the predictable. This morning, even though it was a Monday, we took a bunch of managers, who we are coaching, through a Life-changing experience called “Dialogue in the Dark”. It is a personalized exhibition tour in which you experience Life for about an hour in total darkness. The experience humbles you, wanting you to count your blessings. It makes you realize that your other senses are as strong as your ability to see, which you believe naively to be your most indispensable sense. It teaches you that you can and will survive when you are put in a situation. And most importantly, doing it on a Monday morning, helps you to break away from the monotony of your pressure-cooker schedule. Mondays need not be manic, need not mean bad traffic and need not end up leaving you imprisoned in meaningless meetings. They can mean something magical and liberating – if you step off the beaten path! Our guide through the entire “Dialogue in the Dark” experience, Nithyanand, a visually special (I hate to say impaired) person, had this to say, “I can’t see. And I manage pretty well using my other senses.” The way he said this, with total acceptance and with ease, made me wonder if we are indeed living our lives to our fullest. With one sense down, he is. But are we? I came away realizing, yet again, that when you know you can be your own Master, you can and will make your Life count!

Don't compare. Just co-live.

Comparisons always ruin our inner peace. You look at someone and say, 'How is she so successful? She's not even as qualified or ethical as I am?' You may not be jealous of this person, but you are pining for her success. You see someone with a nice car, a beautiful spouse, the latest smartphone and a lustful thought__a pining__crosses your mind. That's comparison sowing the seed of jealousy in you. Slowly jealousy leads you to want to outdo that person. To live like that person. Your entire effort has shifted from living, being yourself to becoming like that person. And when you encounter difficulties on the path, which you surely will, frustration sets in. Eventually, you are consumed by this urge to become rather than just be.
An organization that we used to consult for was once faced with a peculiar situation. One of their best performers and a senior team member put in her papers. She had been recently feted by the company’s Board and had received a generous pay hike and a promotion. Her issue was that she felt that her colleague, who according to the Board was as capable and as senior as she is, must not be given the same remuneration that she was receiving. Obviously, when logic and counsel failed to make her see reason, the organization simply let her go. It was sad. This lady was one of the most efficient business leaders we had come across in our consulting career. But her ruinous urge to compare herself with another made her lose the plot. Completely. In a matter of a week this lady had sunk into an abyss of depression at a time when she really ought to have been celebrating.
This is not to say that you should not be ambitious or that you should not put in an extra effort in a competitive environment. This only means do it with the may-the-best-person-win attitude and not with the 'wotsubusu' attitude. 'Wotsubusu' is Japanese for 'annihilate, crush or destroy'. When you live Life to collaborate, to enable, you will win. When you try to win at another's expense, you will eventually lose (in) the game of Life.

Simply, co-live. Life has a big heart, a bigger canvas, for all us to paint our masterpieces.

Everything is in your control when you realize that nothing’s in your control.

Let’s try and accept a simple truth that we can never be in control of what happens to us or of what people around us do. Much of our frustration with Life comes from trying to control everything and everyone around us. What we have control over is how we respond to situations and not really in the way the situations themselves occur! When we live our lives as if we are just witnesses, observers, we will be perpetually happy.
Osho, the Master, tells the story of the Buddha. The Buddha was passing through a village. The people of that village were against him, against his philosophy, so they gathered around him to insult him. They used ugly words, vulgar words. The Buddha listened. Ananda, the Buddha’s disciple, who was with him, got very angry, but he couldn’t say anything because the Buddha was listening so silently, so patiently, rather as if he was enjoying the whole thing. Then even the crowd became a little frustrated because he was not getting irritated and it seemed as if he was enjoying. The Buddha said, "Now, if you are finished, I should move – because I have to reach the other village soon. They must be waiting just as you were waiting for me. If you have not told me all the things that you thought to tell me, I will be coming back within a few days, then you can finish it.” Somebody from the crowd said, "But we have been insulting you, we have insulted you. Won’t you react? Won’t you say something?” The Buddha said, "That is difficult. If you want a reaction from me, then you are too late. You should have come at least ten years ago, because then I used to react. But I am now no longer so foolish. I see that you are angry, that’s why you are insulting me. I see your anger, the fire burning in your mind. I feel compassion for you. This is my response – I feel compassion for you. Unnecessarily you are troubled."

So beautiful, isn't it? Another's thoughts and actions are not in your control. What happens to you in Life is not in your control. When you awaken to this reality, you discover that you are in control ONLY of yourself! From that clarity, bliss is born! Then everything that matters fills your Life__love, peace, good health and joy!

“Bahut Mazaa Ayega!”

Lear n to have fun in Life, enjoying it every moment! Because the challenges that Life throws at us, and which we invariably overcome and conquer, in retrospect are indeed laughable!
In school, when we couldn't get Math right, we would often feel defeated. Now, when you look back, don't you joke about it? Similarly, when a relationship in the adolescent years didn't work out, it seemed like the end of the world. Now, upon reflection, it gets you chuckling doesn't it? When you lose your job, you think you have lost in Life. But when you review that period, you smile appreciatively because what you thought was lost really was a new opportunity gained__because you wouldn't be where you are today without that loss!
Gabbar Singh in "Sholay"In the iconic Bollywood movie "Sholay" (1975, Ramesh Sippy), the ferocious Gabbar Singh, often says, in a wicked drawl, "Bahut Mazaa Ayega!", meaning "It will be so much fun!". Just repeating this line in the same tone to yourself whenever confronted with a challenge is a great way to remind yourself that Life's, after all, a game and you must keep playing, no matter what!

Michael Jordan, the celebrated basketball legend has this to say about his Life: "I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my Life. And that is why I succeed." So, just play. Have fun. Enjoy the game of Life. Trust me, "Bahut Mazaa Ayega!"

Remember: you too have come with an expiry date. So, live, don’t exist!

“The wine of Life keeps oozing drop by drop, the leaves of Life keep falling one by one!” – wrote Omar Khayyam, (1048~1131), the Persian poet, in his classic ‘The Rubaiyat’.
Today our son Aashirwad turns 25. Suddenly a quarter of a century seems to have flown past. A quarter of a century!!?!! That’s a third of a lifetime, if you can hope to be at least 75! These are the 25 years that I have grown up from being a boy to a young adult to being a lover, a husband and a father, to being an entrepreneur to going bankrupt – and resultantly penniless – to being a student of Life. It is when I was ready and willing, as any good student should be, to learn,  that Life, the teacher, appeared before me and taught me this invaluable lesson – that we are all perishable. Each moment is perishing even as we are going through it. Everything around us is perishing and everything – and everyone – we knew has perished. You, me, all of us will perish too. The learning I have from Life is that the opportunity of this lifetime must be utilized within the lifetime of the opportunity. Life is a limited period offer. Period. Enjoy it as long as it lasts! Indeed, sometimes, you may only be in a position to endure Life. But if you understand Life and its impermanence, you will learn to accept, and therefore even enjoy, what you are enduring! So, as the famous song from the Hindi film, Golmaal(1979, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, R.D.Burman, Gulzar, Kishore Kumar) goes: “Aane Wala Pal, Jaane Wala Hai, Ho Sake To Isme Zindagi Bita Do, Pal Yeh Jo Jaane Wala Hai…”It means exactly what Omar Khayyam wants us to realize: “Each moment – and Life – is passing us by. If possible, seize the lifetime in the moment, because it too will be gone soon.”
Realize the value of each moment. At least from now on, go do what you love doing. Don’t think. Don’t analyze. Just do it! Also, please make time for your family and children today. Because even before you realize it, time would have flown, the birds too would have flown, leaving your nest empty. What you will be left with are just memories. Those are funny things, these memories. The stuff you laughed about will make you cry and what you cried over, you will laugh about when you look back! Work hard without doubt. Earn money, that’s important. But with advancing age, decreasing efficiency, and limited time left on this planet, what you will be left holding are only memories. Make sure they are happy ones, of happy times, of memorable moments that you want to relive. Not of times of which you have no memories because you merely existed back then! Someone wisely said, we don’t remember days, we remember moments. Ensure each of yours from now on are worth living for and remembering happily later!
We all have come with an expiry date. Except we don’t know what that date is. So, when you don’t know how much time you have left here, won’t you want to make each day, each moment, count?

Spirituality is about being who you are

There is no sin. There is no right and no wrong. There's just this one Life and if there's something you want to do, go do it. If there’s someone you love, simply carry on loving! You don't need either societal or religious or legal approval to make a personal choice of loving someone.
There has been a fair amount of debate on whether the US Supreme Court’s ruling allowing gay marriage in all 50 states is religiously tenable or not. There’s also a question being discussed on whether democracies like India will be as accepting of same-sex relationships. Those who are religious are “fearing that being gay is a sin”. And those who are liberal are finding “gay relationships unusual”.
So, here’s a perspective that can perhaps help in clarifying if you would like to consider it. If someone feels more comfortable with someone of the same sex, why does God, religion, law and society have to get involved? To love another aspect of creation is not a crime. What this world needs urgently is global heart-warming. If people loving each other can help that cause, we must celebrate – not admonish, not shun, not ridicule.

And finally, just because you don’t like something, just because you are scared of something, it need not be necessary that others have to feel the same way as you do. You may not appreciate homosexuality – fine! But you have to respect someone’s choice to be homosexual. Spirituality is about being who you are. So, in that context, homosexuals are as human and as spiritual as heterosexuals are!