AVIS Viswanathan's Blog, page 28
June 21, 2015
Recognize the futility of fearing Life
Face Life. Don’t fear it!
Worry, anxiety, stress, depression, anger, hatred are all different incarnations, avatars, of fear. Your child is not studying well. You worry because you fear that the child’s future is in jeopardy. Your small business is not doing well and you are anxious to bag a new customer because you fear that if you don’t, you will have no money to run the family. You are angry with someone because you fear that their not meeting your requirements or expectations will affect your plans. You hate someone because you fear that your opinions, values, your freedom is violated. So, at the core of all destructive, debilitating emotions is fear. We fear everything: change, the unknown, risk and reality too!
Recognize the futility of fearing Life. Your fear is not going to help your child study better or get a customer to give you a contract or make someone work more efficiently or get anyone to love you, to appreciate you, to respect you. Look every Life situation in the eye. Face it. And deal with it. As children we were all scared of dark rooms. We would hesitate to enter them and require parental help in turning on the lights. So, how is it that we overcame that fear of dark rooms as we grew older? Simple. We learned to face that Fear. Because we learned that every room will have switches that would illuminate them. Learn, similarly, that in every situation in Life, a switch called trust can bring light and remove the darkness.
Here is a short story with a beautiful learning for us. A little girl and her father were crossing a bridge. The father was kind of scared so he asked his little daughter, “Sweetheart, please hold my hand so that you don't fall into the river.” The little girl said, “No, Dad. You hold my hand.” “What's the difference?” asked the puzzled father. “There's a big difference,” replied the little girl. “If I hold your hand and something happens to me, chances are that I may let your hand go. But if you hold my hand, I know for sure that no matter what happens, you will never let go of my hand.”
The essence of trust, as in the little girl’s story, is not in the bind, but in the bond. To quote Khalil Gibran, the Lebanese-American thinker and writer, you__and I__and all of humanity, are a creation of Life’s longing for itself. Believe in, bond with and trust Life to take care of you. This kind of trust can be transformational. And only such implicit trust in Life can extinguish fear and teach us how to face Life and live fully.
Worry, anxiety, stress, depression, anger, hatred are all different incarnations, avatars, of fear. Your child is not studying well. You worry because you fear that the child’s future is in jeopardy. Your small business is not doing well and you are anxious to bag a new customer because you fear that if you don’t, you will have no money to run the family. You are angry with someone because you fear that their not meeting your requirements or expectations will affect your plans. You hate someone because you fear that your opinions, values, your freedom is violated. So, at the core of all destructive, debilitating emotions is fear. We fear everything: change, the unknown, risk and reality too!
Recognize the futility of fearing Life. Your fear is not going to help your child study better or get a customer to give you a contract or make someone work more efficiently or get anyone to love you, to appreciate you, to respect you. Look every Life situation in the eye. Face it. And deal with it. As children we were all scared of dark rooms. We would hesitate to enter them and require parental help in turning on the lights. So, how is it that we overcame that fear of dark rooms as we grew older? Simple. We learned to face that Fear. Because we learned that every room will have switches that would illuminate them. Learn, similarly, that in every situation in Life, a switch called trust can bring light and remove the darkness. Here is a short story with a beautiful learning for us. A little girl and her father were crossing a bridge. The father was kind of scared so he asked his little daughter, “Sweetheart, please hold my hand so that you don't fall into the river.” The little girl said, “No, Dad. You hold my hand.” “What's the difference?” asked the puzzled father. “There's a big difference,” replied the little girl. “If I hold your hand and something happens to me, chances are that I may let your hand go. But if you hold my hand, I know for sure that no matter what happens, you will never let go of my hand.”
The essence of trust, as in the little girl’s story, is not in the bind, but in the bond. To quote Khalil Gibran, the Lebanese-American thinker and writer, you__and I__and all of humanity, are a creation of Life’s longing for itself. Believe in, bond with and trust Life to take care of you. This kind of trust can be transformational. And only such implicit trust in Life can extinguish fear and teach us how to face Life and live fully.
June 19, 2015
Undivided attention minus judgment delivers love
Stop craving for attention. Start giving full, undivided attention. In this crucial shift in thought and action lies the secret to bliss.
Picture yourself at home. You have done something nice, maybe made a great meal. Your spouse comes in. Throws her belongings on the carpet, rushes into the kitchen, grabs a juice and some cookies, completely oblivious of the entire spread laid out on the kitchen counter. You are wondering why she is so uncaring. You crave for that “Hey, what’s all that for dinner tonight?” conversation. And then when it doesn’t happen, you sulk. You reply in monosyllables and say good night and go to sleep. What happened there? In your craving for attention, you missed out on giving complete undivided attention to your spouse: maybe she was fatigued after a long day at work or maybe she was unwell or maybe she’s too stressed out. How magical would it have been had you started by asking, “Is there something that I can do for you?” or “Would you like to taste your favorite pasta that I have whipped up with pesto sauce?” The same attitude and approach applies in all situations in Life. At a busy airline counter, you blow your top at an agent who has not looked up at you because she’s perhaps been busy, overworked, or is having a relationship crisis. But you craved for a ‘Good morning there, how can I help you?” and since that didn’t happen, you lost your cool. Another instance: In a meeting to discuss the strategy for your company’s new product, you are fourth in line to make a presentation. But because your CEO is applauding the previous presenter, you have lost your focus and are now worried if your work will be celebrated similarly. In your craving for attention, which breeds anxiety, you lose your flow, stumble through your slides and perhaps even evoke a reprimand from your CEO for poor preparation. And you go back home, behaving like that spouse who grabbed the juice and cookies, missing to notice the great meal spread out awaiting your arrival!
You see how one thing leads to another. The solution is to give complete undivided attention to whatever you are doing. Just that one thing. Nothing else must matter. When you do that, systematically, in each moment, you will become one of the greatest listeners in the world, and you will see only beauty, perfection and joy in everything. All the time. When we are craving for attention, we are really being judgmental. “Oh, he doesn’t care!” This really means you wished he cared. “No. I am not wanted here.” This means you are craving to be wanted. Undivided attention minus judgment, minus the craving, delivers love. And where there is uninterrupted love for whatever you are experiencing: a person, an object, a flow, a situation, you will feel bliss. You will be bliss.
Picture yourself at home. You have done something nice, maybe made a great meal. Your spouse comes in. Throws her belongings on the carpet, rushes into the kitchen, grabs a juice and some cookies, completely oblivious of the entire spread laid out on the kitchen counter. You are wondering why she is so uncaring. You crave for that “Hey, what’s all that for dinner tonight?” conversation. And then when it doesn’t happen, you sulk. You reply in monosyllables and say good night and go to sleep. What happened there? In your craving for attention, you missed out on giving complete undivided attention to your spouse: maybe she was fatigued after a long day at work or maybe she was unwell or maybe she’s too stressed out. How magical would it have been had you started by asking, “Is there something that I can do for you?” or “Would you like to taste your favorite pasta that I have whipped up with pesto sauce?” The same attitude and approach applies in all situations in Life. At a busy airline counter, you blow your top at an agent who has not looked up at you because she’s perhaps been busy, overworked, or is having a relationship crisis. But you craved for a ‘Good morning there, how can I help you?” and since that didn’t happen, you lost your cool. Another instance: In a meeting to discuss the strategy for your company’s new product, you are fourth in line to make a presentation. But because your CEO is applauding the previous presenter, you have lost your focus and are now worried if your work will be celebrated similarly. In your craving for attention, which breeds anxiety, you lose your flow, stumble through your slides and perhaps even evoke a reprimand from your CEO for poor preparation. And you go back home, behaving like that spouse who grabbed the juice and cookies, missing to notice the great meal spread out awaiting your arrival! You see how one thing leads to another. The solution is to give complete undivided attention to whatever you are doing. Just that one thing. Nothing else must matter. When you do that, systematically, in each moment, you will become one of the greatest listeners in the world, and you will see only beauty, perfection and joy in everything. All the time. When we are craving for attention, we are really being judgmental. “Oh, he doesn’t care!” This really means you wished he cared. “No. I am not wanted here.” This means you are craving to be wanted. Undivided attention minus judgment, minus the craving, delivers love. And where there is uninterrupted love for whatever you are experiencing: a person, an object, a flow, a situation, you will feel bliss. You will be bliss.
June 18, 2015
Empty yourself and feel abundant
Life's an amazing paradox. When you fill yourself you feel an eerie emptiness. And when you empty yourself you feel a joyful fullness!
Think about your Life deeply. What are you filling it with? The more you fill yourself with fear, guilt, grief, ego, anxiety, greed and desires, the more empty you feel. You can’t just escape the emptiness. You may call it by any name: mid-life crisis, not enjoying your job, unhappy with your partner, feel lost with how to raise your children, whatever. But you do feel empty. The irony, however, is that to rid yourself of this emptiness, all you need to do is to empty yourself. When you empty yourself of all wasteful emotions, like those listed above, or many more, you are emptying yourself of your self. This is when you are enriched, filled with love and are full of peace. This fullness is what is called bliss. Emptying yourself of your self means to get rid of the ‘I’!
Several years ago, when my business started going horribly wrong, I sat in my hotel room in Bengaluru and shared my worries with a good friend, Deepak Pawar, a highly acclaimed media photographer in India. He’s much older to me and I have always valued his perspective. What was causing me immense grief was the way my team was behaving with me. There were resignations, a case of embezzlement and even blackmail from a colleague who threatened to share company data with competition if his salary was not paid. This was tragic for me. We had not only given this gentleman employment but had also supported his MBA program and his coaching in spoken English. As I shared my woes, describing my Life as being ‘empty, meaningless and thankless’, with Deepak, he said, “For your Life to be full and meaningful, you must shed yourself of your ego AVIS.” I was devastated by his remark. I shot back: “Sorry Sir, with due respect to you, I disagree. You are saying I have an ego. I don’t. I have worked hard to grow my business and I have done so with humility. My team is family to me. This colleague of mine who is today threatening me, I have groomed him. I have trained him. I have educated him. I have always sat with him and guided him on how to plan his career professionally. I have done so much for him and you are saying…” Deepak cut me short. He smiled and said, “Just see the number of times you have said ‘I’ in your defense just now AVIS….That ‘I’…that’s your ego speaking….that guy, the ‘I’ in you…you must empty yourself of that ‘I’…and you will find meaning and a Life full of peace and happiness!”
To me that moment, that nano-second, was the ‘CTRL+ALT+DEL’ moment of my Life. With that enlightening perspective, Deepak opened my eyes, helping me see clearly, why there was so much emptiness in my Life. Osho’s masterly perspective on this too helped me immensely: “Emptying oneself means emptying of all content – just as you empty a room of all the junk that has gathered there, over the years. When you have emptied the room of all the furniture and all the things, you have not destroyed the room, not at all; you have given it more roominess, more space. When all the furniture is gone, the room asserts itself, the room is.” What’s interesting is, as I discovered, when the ‘I’ goes out of you, all the parasites that thrive on it, off it__fear, guilt, grief, anxiety, greed and desires__run after it too. The feeling you get with emptying yourself, and therefore filling your Life with abundance and bliss, is truly liberating. It has to be experienced to be understood. It has to be lived!
Think about your Life deeply. What are you filling it with? The more you fill yourself with fear, guilt, grief, ego, anxiety, greed and desires, the more empty you feel. You can’t just escape the emptiness. You may call it by any name: mid-life crisis, not enjoying your job, unhappy with your partner, feel lost with how to raise your children, whatever. But you do feel empty. The irony, however, is that to rid yourself of this emptiness, all you need to do is to empty yourself. When you empty yourself of all wasteful emotions, like those listed above, or many more, you are emptying yourself of your self. This is when you are enriched, filled with love and are full of peace. This fullness is what is called bliss. Emptying yourself of your self means to get rid of the ‘I’!
Several years ago, when my business started going horribly wrong, I sat in my hotel room in Bengaluru and shared my worries with a good friend, Deepak Pawar, a highly acclaimed media photographer in India. He’s much older to me and I have always valued his perspective. What was causing me immense grief was the way my team was behaving with me. There were resignations, a case of embezzlement and even blackmail from a colleague who threatened to share company data with competition if his salary was not paid. This was tragic for me. We had not only given this gentleman employment but had also supported his MBA program and his coaching in spoken English. As I shared my woes, describing my Life as being ‘empty, meaningless and thankless’, with Deepak, he said, “For your Life to be full and meaningful, you must shed yourself of your ego AVIS.” I was devastated by his remark. I shot back: “Sorry Sir, with due respect to you, I disagree. You are saying I have an ego. I don’t. I have worked hard to grow my business and I have done so with humility. My team is family to me. This colleague of mine who is today threatening me, I have groomed him. I have trained him. I have educated him. I have always sat with him and guided him on how to plan his career professionally. I have done so much for him and you are saying…” Deepak cut me short. He smiled and said, “Just see the number of times you have said ‘I’ in your defense just now AVIS….That ‘I’…that’s your ego speaking….that guy, the ‘I’ in you…you must empty yourself of that ‘I’…and you will find meaning and a Life full of peace and happiness!” To me that moment, that nano-second, was the ‘CTRL+ALT+DEL’ moment of my Life. With that enlightening perspective, Deepak opened my eyes, helping me see clearly, why there was so much emptiness in my Life. Osho’s masterly perspective on this too helped me immensely: “Emptying oneself means emptying of all content – just as you empty a room of all the junk that has gathered there, over the years. When you have emptied the room of all the furniture and all the things, you have not destroyed the room, not at all; you have given it more roominess, more space. When all the furniture is gone, the room asserts itself, the room is.” What’s interesting is, as I discovered, when the ‘I’ goes out of you, all the parasites that thrive on it, off it__fear, guilt, grief, anxiety, greed and desires__run after it too. The feeling you get with emptying yourself, and therefore filling your Life with abundance and bliss, is truly liberating. It has to be experienced to be understood. It has to be lived!
June 17, 2015
If you are walking around a puddle and not through it…well…the child within you is dead!
Awaken the child in you. You will never have a problem living__and you will never feel old!
While it may be a good idea to choose a successful adult to be a role model for our dreams, ambitions and professional aspirations, in terms of our attitude to Life__and to practice intelligent living__it may just be a great idea to make an infant our role model too! Children teach us innocence, to forgive and forget, to trust and to be joyful at all times!
British author, known most for his science fiction works, Brian Aldiss painted a bleak, but awakening picture of adulthood with the words: “When childhood dies, its corpses are called adults and they enter society, one of the politer names of hell. That is why we dread children, even if we love them; they show us the state of our decay.” This is indeed the truth. As adults we have stopped being innocent. There’s a lurking suspicion we hold on every encounter, judging motives and evaluating people all the time. We carry baggage of past hurts and often want to avenge insults and betrayals. We are never happy in whatever moment we are living through __ always choosing to wallow in the past or worry of the future.
Look at the children in your family, up until the age of 5 at least. Don’t they deal with people as they are? Never judging. Always trusting. Full of energy and enthusiasm. When you are child-like, and see the world with curiosity, with a raging quest for each new experience, you will find your creative juices flowing, your imagination soaring and you will find bliss in every moment! As the late historian Papiya Ghosh said, “In my soul, I am still that small child who did not care about anything else but the beautiful colors of a rainbow.”
So, if you are walking around a puddle and not through it, if you are worried about what people at the table will think if you dropped sauce on yourself, if you are conscious of people looking at you at an airport while you peer at and count the planes, if you are unable to sleep deeply, peacefully, instantaneously, it’s time for you to go back to your childhood. And do all those things now that you did then. There is still the child in you__rediscover your true Self!
While it may be a good idea to choose a successful adult to be a role model for our dreams, ambitions and professional aspirations, in terms of our attitude to Life__and to practice intelligent living__it may just be a great idea to make an infant our role model too! Children teach us innocence, to forgive and forget, to trust and to be joyful at all times!
British author, known most for his science fiction works, Brian Aldiss painted a bleak, but awakening picture of adulthood with the words: “When childhood dies, its corpses are called adults and they enter society, one of the politer names of hell. That is why we dread children, even if we love them; they show us the state of our decay.” This is indeed the truth. As adults we have stopped being innocent. There’s a lurking suspicion we hold on every encounter, judging motives and evaluating people all the time. We carry baggage of past hurts and often want to avenge insults and betrayals. We are never happy in whatever moment we are living through __ always choosing to wallow in the past or worry of the future. Look at the children in your family, up until the age of 5 at least. Don’t they deal with people as they are? Never judging. Always trusting. Full of energy and enthusiasm. When you are child-like, and see the world with curiosity, with a raging quest for each new experience, you will find your creative juices flowing, your imagination soaring and you will find bliss in every moment! As the late historian Papiya Ghosh said, “In my soul, I am still that small child who did not care about anything else but the beautiful colors of a rainbow.”
So, if you are walking around a puddle and not through it, if you are worried about what people at the table will think if you dropped sauce on yourself, if you are conscious of people looking at you at an airport while you peer at and count the planes, if you are unable to sleep deeply, peacefully, instantaneously, it’s time for you to go back to your childhood. And do all those things now that you did then. There is still the child in you__rediscover your true Self!
June 16, 2015
Find peace by walking away from whatever holds you to ransom
The simplest way to peace is to walk away from things that imprison you, trouble you, anger you and tempt you.
This doesn't mean that you abdicate your stand or your responsibility of those things. It only means you don't react and seek time to think through the situation and act on it calmly. Consider what can possibly be imprisoning you. Your fears, insecurities, anxieties are all the metaphorical shackles that keep you nailed to the ground. Because you are not free, and a prisoner of your own thoughts, you are in despair. You are troubled. Continuously being in an agitated state can cause you to explode. Initially your tolerance levels are higher. But over a period of time you become a victim of your own reactions. You are angry first. But soon you are angry that you lost your cool. You are angry with yourself. Then you succumb to the temptation of pitying yourself and get into that ruinous depressive spiral. Your temptations can also come from your desires. From eating an extra piece of a Black Forest to having that smoke to compulsively wanting to control, everything is a temptation that you find hard to resist. When you are controlled by your desires, you are but a slave of your mind.
To be free, to be the Master of your mind, and therefore of your Life, you must first walk away. Don't think. Just walk away. From an argument, from a bar, from your desire to light up, from irrational behavior that provokes you. Walk away and ask yourself what will be lost if you don't succumb, if you don't indulge, if you don't get involved. Almost always, the answer will be that nothing will be lost. Though the mind would have been tempting you, creating often a sense of urgency, that without your immediate involvement, Life will go out of control. Resist that mind game with a physical response: walk away! Almost instantaneously, you will discover you are at peace with the moment. Just this awareness that walking away is not going to bring the world to an end, is inspiring. It is an action that demonstrates immense trust in Time's ability to heal and resolve. It never is borne out of cowardice and insecurity. But is an act of courage and delivered with a feeling of complete security.
Try it on anything that is troubling you or holding you in its vice-like grip (a habit or a relationship perhaps?). Try it on your own emotions, like your compulsive urge to get angry. Or on your inability to resist temptation. Try it once by walking away. You will find peace in a nano-second. And then, like Oliver Twist, you will want more!
This doesn't mean that you abdicate your stand or your responsibility of those things. It only means you don't react and seek time to think through the situation and act on it calmly. Consider what can possibly be imprisoning you. Your fears, insecurities, anxieties are all the metaphorical shackles that keep you nailed to the ground. Because you are not free, and a prisoner of your own thoughts, you are in despair. You are troubled. Continuously being in an agitated state can cause you to explode. Initially your tolerance levels are higher. But over a period of time you become a victim of your own reactions. You are angry first. But soon you are angry that you lost your cool. You are angry with yourself. Then you succumb to the temptation of pitying yourself and get into that ruinous depressive spiral. Your temptations can also come from your desires. From eating an extra piece of a Black Forest to having that smoke to compulsively wanting to control, everything is a temptation that you find hard to resist. When you are controlled by your desires, you are but a slave of your mind. To be free, to be the Master of your mind, and therefore of your Life, you must first walk away. Don't think. Just walk away. From an argument, from a bar, from your desire to light up, from irrational behavior that provokes you. Walk away and ask yourself what will be lost if you don't succumb, if you don't indulge, if you don't get involved. Almost always, the answer will be that nothing will be lost. Though the mind would have been tempting you, creating often a sense of urgency, that without your immediate involvement, Life will go out of control. Resist that mind game with a physical response: walk away! Almost instantaneously, you will discover you are at peace with the moment. Just this awareness that walking away is not going to bring the world to an end, is inspiring. It is an action that demonstrates immense trust in Time's ability to heal and resolve. It never is borne out of cowardice and insecurity. But is an act of courage and delivered with a feeling of complete security.
Try it on anything that is troubling you or holding you in its vice-like grip (a habit or a relationship perhaps?). Try it on your own emotions, like your compulsive urge to get angry. Or on your inability to resist temptation. Try it once by walking away. You will find peace in a nano-second. And then, like Oliver Twist, you will want more!
June 15, 2015
Life is not trying to victimize you
Stay anticipating and welcoming the possibility of an exciting adventure and you will never be in grief in Life. On the other hand, you will be able to feel and be the bliss in each moment.
What is a sudden health diagnosis: a cancer or any other debilitating disease? It is an adventure. What is a job loss? An adventure. What is a broken relationship? It’s an adventure. You call something an adventure when it is an experience that you have not been through before. Almost all the time, since you and I were born, we have been encountering Life at its own terms. One surprise after another. But we see it in a linear fashion. We see our Life go through only these stages: from birth to starting school; starting school to finishing school (pre-school to high-school); starting an academic course to qualifying for a college degree; starting a job to starting a family; finishing actively raising a family and caring for children to retiring from a job, starting retirement to reaching death. So, while are essentially flowing with Life, we think we are in control. Surely, a lot of these stages apply to almost anyone who is capable of reading this post now. But if we look deeper, peeling off layer after layer in each stage, we will notice that there have been so many unforeseen events in each stage. The bigger news is also that we have been able to overcome each of them and get to where we are today. So, why this anxiety about Life’s next surprise or adventure? Why the fear of an ‘unknown’ future?
The other truth about these stages in Life is that each one begins and each one ends when it must. Much like Life itself. It has begun. So it will end. So, why this fear of death? When you understand that the two dimensions of Life that you worry about the most are the most predictable, you will be able to live intelligently. Consider both dimensions: a. Life will always surprise you in each moment and b. you and everyone you know will eventually die. Haven’t you dealt with both dimensions in some measure already? This means you are capable of living with acceptance of what is and living with insightful action.
Know that Life is not trying to victimize you. Life is doing its job. And you must do yours by meeting each situation sportingly. “Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable,” wrote Helen Keller (1880 ~ 1968), in 1940, in a poem called ‘Let us have Faith’.
Indeed. Don’t expect any more security from Life than what you already have __ which is the fact that you are alive, can read this and have most of your faculties intact. Have the faith that this roller coaster called Life is a non-stop adventure sport that you can enjoy only if you stay happy and stay in the now!
What is a sudden health diagnosis: a cancer or any other debilitating disease? It is an adventure. What is a job loss? An adventure. What is a broken relationship? It’s an adventure. You call something an adventure when it is an experience that you have not been through before. Almost all the time, since you and I were born, we have been encountering Life at its own terms. One surprise after another. But we see it in a linear fashion. We see our Life go through only these stages: from birth to starting school; starting school to finishing school (pre-school to high-school); starting an academic course to qualifying for a college degree; starting a job to starting a family; finishing actively raising a family and caring for children to retiring from a job, starting retirement to reaching death. So, while are essentially flowing with Life, we think we are in control. Surely, a lot of these stages apply to almost anyone who is capable of reading this post now. But if we look deeper, peeling off layer after layer in each stage, we will notice that there have been so many unforeseen events in each stage. The bigger news is also that we have been able to overcome each of them and get to where we are today. So, why this anxiety about Life’s next surprise or adventure? Why the fear of an ‘unknown’ future? The other truth about these stages in Life is that each one begins and each one ends when it must. Much like Life itself. It has begun. So it will end. So, why this fear of death? When you understand that the two dimensions of Life that you worry about the most are the most predictable, you will be able to live intelligently. Consider both dimensions: a. Life will always surprise you in each moment and b. you and everyone you know will eventually die. Haven’t you dealt with both dimensions in some measure already? This means you are capable of living with acceptance of what is and living with insightful action.
Know that Life is not trying to victimize you. Life is doing its job. And you must do yours by meeting each situation sportingly. “Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable,” wrote Helen Keller (1880 ~ 1968), in 1940, in a poem called ‘Let us have Faith’.
Indeed. Don’t expect any more security from Life than what you already have __ which is the fact that you are alive, can read this and have most of your faculties intact. Have the faith that this roller coaster called Life is a non-stop adventure sport that you can enjoy only if you stay happy and stay in the now!
Thanksgiving must be a daily celebration
Gratitude is magical.
But only when we look back and see how far we have come in Life. Only when we look at our
now
and see what we have despite whatever we don’t have. And only when we look at tomorrow with a sense of hope.
Remember that even the ability to hope is not stemming from our own abilities. It is coming because we are blessed with that sense of hope by creation. I remember this definition of blessing somewhere. It goes somewhat like this: “If you woke up this morning with more health than illness, you are more blessed than a million who will not survive the week. If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture or the pangs of starvation, you are ahead of five million people around the world. If you are able to walk around in your country without fear of harassment, arrest or torture of death, you are more blessed than several hundred million people in the world. If you have food in your refrigerator, clothes on your back, roof over your head and a place to sleep, you are richer than 75% of the people in this world. If you have money in the bank, in your wallet and spare change in a dish someplace, you are among the top 8% of the world’s wealthy. If your parents are still married and alive, you are very rare.”
How true. It is this spirit that being grateful celebrates. Thanksgiving does not mean waiting for the last weekend of November each year to say your thanks for all that you are blessed with. Thanksgiving must be a daily celebration. Much as we postpone happiness, we postpone gratitude as well. We have in fact made gratitude conditional to happiness. ‘I can be grateful if I am happy’ has become the excuse we subconsciously keep giving ourselves. Remember that Life acts in ways beyond our comprehension. Yet every now and then you will find people who are grateful to Life for the opportunity they have to serve humanity. These are folks who rise above their current realities and problems and look at themselves as solution providers, enablers, who serve because another’s need is more than their own. If Mother Teresa is an ultimate example of selflessness, let us also know that there is a serving saint dormant in each of us. That saint within us will become awakened only when we practice gratitude.
In the Bible, the disciple Paul instructs, “In everything we give thanks.” What he means is that it is impossible to know the outcome of each event in our Life. But if we remain grateful for each moment, each experience that we live through, we will see the larger cosmic design, our Life’s blueprint, emerge. There is a very old Chinese story about a man whose son captured a strong, beautiful, wild horse, and all the neighbors told the man how fortunate he was. The man patiently replied, "I am grateful. We will see." One day the horse threw the son who broke his leg, and all the neighbors told the man how cursed he was that the son had ever found the horse. Again the man answered, "I am grateful. We will see." Soon after the son broke his leg, soldiers came to the village and took away all the able-bodied young men, but the son was spared. When the man's friends told him how lucky the broken leg was, the man would only say, "I am grateful. We will see."
Gratitude is like this. It is the key for unlocking the mystery of Life. When you practice gratitude with mindfulness, continuously, you will feel its magic liberating you. You will fly free. Unburdened, unshackled, unaffected by whatever circumstance you are placed in. Don’t wait to thank Life. Keep giving always and be thankful for the opportunity to serve. That’s the way to truly be grateful for this Life and this experience!
Remember that even the ability to hope is not stemming from our own abilities. It is coming because we are blessed with that sense of hope by creation. I remember this definition of blessing somewhere. It goes somewhat like this: “If you woke up this morning with more health than illness, you are more blessed than a million who will not survive the week. If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture or the pangs of starvation, you are ahead of five million people around the world. If you are able to walk around in your country without fear of harassment, arrest or torture of death, you are more blessed than several hundred million people in the world. If you have food in your refrigerator, clothes on your back, roof over your head and a place to sleep, you are richer than 75% of the people in this world. If you have money in the bank, in your wallet and spare change in a dish someplace, you are among the top 8% of the world’s wealthy. If your parents are still married and alive, you are very rare.” How true. It is this spirit that being grateful celebrates. Thanksgiving does not mean waiting for the last weekend of November each year to say your thanks for all that you are blessed with. Thanksgiving must be a daily celebration. Much as we postpone happiness, we postpone gratitude as well. We have in fact made gratitude conditional to happiness. ‘I can be grateful if I am happy’ has become the excuse we subconsciously keep giving ourselves. Remember that Life acts in ways beyond our comprehension. Yet every now and then you will find people who are grateful to Life for the opportunity they have to serve humanity. These are folks who rise above their current realities and problems and look at themselves as solution providers, enablers, who serve because another’s need is more than their own. If Mother Teresa is an ultimate example of selflessness, let us also know that there is a serving saint dormant in each of us. That saint within us will become awakened only when we practice gratitude.
In the Bible, the disciple Paul instructs, “In everything we give thanks.” What he means is that it is impossible to know the outcome of each event in our Life. But if we remain grateful for each moment, each experience that we live through, we will see the larger cosmic design, our Life’s blueprint, emerge. There is a very old Chinese story about a man whose son captured a strong, beautiful, wild horse, and all the neighbors told the man how fortunate he was. The man patiently replied, "I am grateful. We will see." One day the horse threw the son who broke his leg, and all the neighbors told the man how cursed he was that the son had ever found the horse. Again the man answered, "I am grateful. We will see." Soon after the son broke his leg, soldiers came to the village and took away all the able-bodied young men, but the son was spared. When the man's friends told him how lucky the broken leg was, the man would only say, "I am grateful. We will see."
Gratitude is like this. It is the key for unlocking the mystery of Life. When you practice gratitude with mindfulness, continuously, you will feel its magic liberating you. You will fly free. Unburdened, unshackled, unaffected by whatever circumstance you are placed in. Don’t wait to thank Life. Keep giving always and be thankful for the opportunity to serve. That’s the way to truly be grateful for this Life and this experience!
June 14, 2015
Go where your music is taking you
Do what makes you come alive – and don’t bother about what the world has to say.
Many a time, we make choices cautiously wanting them to be correct and acceptable in a social context. So, while we may not be entirely happy doing what we have chosen to do, we end up doing it to maintain our status or wanting to “look good” among family, friends and peers. This kind of posturing may make us look socially appropriate but almost always leaves us totally unhappy. Happiness really is about being able to say and do what you really want to and what you love doing!
T.M.Krishna is in the news again. This time for his choice of not wanting to perform in the December Music Season in Chennai anymore. Obviously his fans are upset. But there are those too who think Krishna’s lost it, that he’s become arrogant and that all this “drama” is part of his “radical, sensational” marketing strategy. Some even term his recent choices and actions gimmickry.
T M Krishna - in "One with Music"
Photo Courtesy - InternetI think everyone’s being judgmental here and in a sense some people are surely being unfair to Krishna. Undoubtedly Krishna is a public figure, an exceptionally talented singer with divinity oozing in his craft – so his fans do expect him to be a certain way. Historically, the Chennai Music Season is the Haj of Carnatic Music – people give an arm and a leg to perform here. So, it does seem so very strange and unusual that a singer who grew in acclaim, thanks to the performances at the Season over the years, should now choose to stay away from it. The best way to look at Krishna’s choice is to see it exactly the way it is – as an unusual one! Let’s not color it with any opinion. Also, excuse me, isn’t there a personal choice that we all have a right to make? Is it necessary that you must always be wedded to doing things a certain way and in ways in which everyone else is doing them? I personally feel Krishna’s choice is driven by his bliss – he is going wherever his music – the music within him – is taking him. And that is indeed the way to live Life. To be able to do what makes you come alive. To do what you love doing.
When we live for social gratification, when we live to “look good”, we are not living – we are merely existing. We suffer, we feel miserable and we eventually lead hollow lives. Is there a point in such living? All you have is this one lifetime. And if you can’t live it the way you want to, doing what you love, what is the point? As Frank Sinatra sang (‘This is all I Ask’, April 1965) so beautifully, “And let the music play as long as there’s a song to sing.” So, whoever you are, be inspired by Sinatra, be inspired by Krishna, go where your music is taking you, don’t bother about what the world is saying. Ultimately, it’s your Life!
Many a time, we make choices cautiously wanting them to be correct and acceptable in a social context. So, while we may not be entirely happy doing what we have chosen to do, we end up doing it to maintain our status or wanting to “look good” among family, friends and peers. This kind of posturing may make us look socially appropriate but almost always leaves us totally unhappy. Happiness really is about being able to say and do what you really want to and what you love doing!
T.M.Krishna is in the news again. This time for his choice of not wanting to perform in the December Music Season in Chennai anymore. Obviously his fans are upset. But there are those too who think Krishna’s lost it, that he’s become arrogant and that all this “drama” is part of his “radical, sensational” marketing strategy. Some even term his recent choices and actions gimmickry.
T M Krishna - in "One with Music"Photo Courtesy - InternetI think everyone’s being judgmental here and in a sense some people are surely being unfair to Krishna. Undoubtedly Krishna is a public figure, an exceptionally talented singer with divinity oozing in his craft – so his fans do expect him to be a certain way. Historically, the Chennai Music Season is the Haj of Carnatic Music – people give an arm and a leg to perform here. So, it does seem so very strange and unusual that a singer who grew in acclaim, thanks to the performances at the Season over the years, should now choose to stay away from it. The best way to look at Krishna’s choice is to see it exactly the way it is – as an unusual one! Let’s not color it with any opinion. Also, excuse me, isn’t there a personal choice that we all have a right to make? Is it necessary that you must always be wedded to doing things a certain way and in ways in which everyone else is doing them? I personally feel Krishna’s choice is driven by his bliss – he is going wherever his music – the music within him – is taking him. And that is indeed the way to live Life. To be able to do what makes you come alive. To do what you love doing.
When we live for social gratification, when we live to “look good”, we are not living – we are merely existing. We suffer, we feel miserable and we eventually lead hollow lives. Is there a point in such living? All you have is this one lifetime. And if you can’t live it the way you want to, doing what you love, what is the point? As Frank Sinatra sang (‘This is all I Ask’, April 1965) so beautifully, “And let the music play as long as there’s a song to sing.” So, whoever you are, be inspired by Sinatra, be inspired by Krishna, go where your music is taking you, don’t bother about what the world is saying. Ultimately, it’s your Life!
June 13, 2015
Take that leap from ‘lasting’ to ‘living’!
Do you LAST or do you LIVE each day?
Thanks to all the pressures, pulls and stresses in Life these days, do you often catch yourself waking up thinking how to LAST today? Why haven’t you ever considered the possibility of waking up thinking how to LIVE today? Or perhaps, waking up thinking to LIVE today better than you did yesterday?
You can make that transition from LASTING to LIVING if you have conversations with yourself daily. Most people think talking to themselves is weird. Know that it is not. While intensely private, talking to yourself, gives you an opportunity to review your performance__as a living entity__in a brutally honest fashion. Swami Vivekananda (1863~1902) prescribes this therapy for individual wellbeing: “Talk to yourself at least once in a day else you may miss a meetingwith the most EXCELLENT person in this world.” Think about it folks. We spend time reviewing our budgets, our children’s homeworks, our business performance, our shopping lists and even our laundry daily. Do we ever review how we LIVE daily?
Because we don’t do this is why we miss the opportunity to make a difference to ourselves and end up working harder than ever before, worrying more than ever before, and trying simply to just LAST each day. Most of your efforts to LAST the day, to survive, are controlled by the matters of the head. Your meetings, appointments, schedules, menus, bills, collections are all in your head. And your soul is empty. Because it is empty you are pining for a better Life. You don’t know how to express your aspiration for freedom. You don’t know how to liberate yourself from the pangs of your everyday existence. So you have crutches: habits like tobacco or alcohol or emotions like anger, hatred and jealousy. The leap from LASTING to LIVING can be made if you stop thinking with your head and start feeling from your soul. The soul operates on a timeless, limitless plane. What you may see as insecurity thinking from your head is actually an opportunity to LIVE with the beautiful uncertainty of Life __ moving in and with the unknown. Osho, the Master, explains this thus: “Life is dangerous, and only cowards can avoid the danger – but then, they are already dead. A person who is alive, really alive, vitally alive, will always move into the unknown.”
So stop wishing you could just LAST today. Want, badly want, to LIVE today better than you ever did before. You will!
Thanks to all the pressures, pulls and stresses in Life these days, do you often catch yourself waking up thinking how to LAST today? Why haven’t you ever considered the possibility of waking up thinking how to LIVE today? Or perhaps, waking up thinking to LIVE today better than you did yesterday?
You can make that transition from LASTING to LIVING if you have conversations with yourself daily. Most people think talking to themselves is weird. Know that it is not. While intensely private, talking to yourself, gives you an opportunity to review your performance__as a living entity__in a brutally honest fashion. Swami Vivekananda (1863~1902) prescribes this therapy for individual wellbeing: “Talk to yourself at least once in a day else you may miss a meetingwith the most EXCELLENT person in this world.” Think about it folks. We spend time reviewing our budgets, our children’s homeworks, our business performance, our shopping lists and even our laundry daily. Do we ever review how we LIVE daily?
Because we don’t do this is why we miss the opportunity to make a difference to ourselves and end up working harder than ever before, worrying more than ever before, and trying simply to just LAST each day. Most of your efforts to LAST the day, to survive, are controlled by the matters of the head. Your meetings, appointments, schedules, menus, bills, collections are all in your head. And your soul is empty. Because it is empty you are pining for a better Life. You don’t know how to express your aspiration for freedom. You don’t know how to liberate yourself from the pangs of your everyday existence. So you have crutches: habits like tobacco or alcohol or emotions like anger, hatred and jealousy. The leap from LASTING to LIVING can be made if you stop thinking with your head and start feeling from your soul. The soul operates on a timeless, limitless plane. What you may see as insecurity thinking from your head is actually an opportunity to LIVE with the beautiful uncertainty of Life __ moving in and with the unknown. Osho, the Master, explains this thus: “Life is dangerous, and only cowards can avoid the danger – but then, they are already dead. A person who is alive, really alive, vitally alive, will always move into the unknown.” So stop wishing you could just LAST today. Want, badly want, to LIVE today better than you ever did before. You will!
June 11, 2015
There’s no point in carrying issues, injuries, insults in Life
No insult or injury is worth carrying in Life, let alone to the grave.
While all of humanity understands this simple truth and knows how vain it is to cling on to such sentiments, everyone struggles with letting go of insults, barbs and forgettable memories. The struggle is because of the ego within us speaking up, louder than our hearts: the “How dare he?” scream drowns the “It’s OK!” whisper.
Joe Frazier (1944 ~ 2011), the boxing heavyweight, was one who took his sporting rivalry with the great Muhammad Ali too personally, and carried it literally to his grave. For years, Frazier had voiced his bitterness over the way Ali had insulted him, over how Ali had called him "ugly," "a gorilla," and an "Uncle Tom." His anger was never in fuller view than when Ali, stricken with Parkinson's disease, lit the Olympic flame at the 1996 Games in Atlanta, and Frazier said he would have liked to have "pushed him in." To be sure, Ali had said this of Frazier: “Joe Frazier is so ugly that when he cries, the tears turn around and go down the back of his head.” ESPN commentator and writer Mike Sielski opines, “The two are forever linked, thanks to their three timeless bouts -- Frazier won only the first, and the third was a near-death experience for both of them -- the contrasting styles with which they fought, and the vitriol they hurled at each other for so long.” Yet their rivalry was both meaningless and childish for all their greatness __ because in reality they complimented each other. “Technically the loser of two of the three fights, [Frazier] seems not to understand that they ennobled him as much as they did Ali," wrote Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Halberstam, "that the only way we know of Ali's greatness is because of Frazier's equivalent greatness, that in the end there was no real difference between the two of them as fighters, and when sports fans and historians think back, they will think of the fights as classics, with no identifiable winner or loser. These are men who, like it or not, have become prisoners of each other and those three nights.” They did come close more than a few times to make up and get over their sentiments. Frazier and his nemesis have alternated between public apologies and public insults. One exchange came in 2001, says ESPN, after Ali told The New York Times he was sorry for what he said about Frazier before their first fight. At first, Frazier accepted the apology, but then … “He didn't apologize to me -- he apologized to the paper,” Frazier said in an issue of TV Guide. “I'm still waiting [for him] to say it to me.” Ali's response: “If you see Frazier, you tell him he's still a gorilla.” Joe Frazier died in November 2011, beaten, a financially and emotionally broken man, by liver cancer. Ali graciously attended his funeral, realizing, perhaps, when he said, “The world has lost a great champion. I will always remember Joe with respect and admiration,” that he had said too little, too late.
There’s a lot of Frazier and Ali in each of us. We are prisoners of our experiences and emotions. We cling on to positions we have taken, opinions we have formed and events we have been through. We hurt within but are too proud to accept that we are hurting. Review your Life. What are you hurting from, hurting with? Let go. Go say sorry to someone that you had hurt in the past, today. Write a note to someone saying you forgave them. If you don’t want to do either, just say it to yourself. And the next time you meet that person, look her or him in the eye, smile and give that person a hug. Life’s not a boxing ring. Remember: all the greatness of our professional successes will be pale and insignificant in the face of advancing age, failing health and the certain death that awaits us all.
While all of humanity understands this simple truth and knows how vain it is to cling on to such sentiments, everyone struggles with letting go of insults, barbs and forgettable memories. The struggle is because of the ego within us speaking up, louder than our hearts: the “How dare he?” scream drowns the “It’s OK!” whisper. Joe Frazier (1944 ~ 2011), the boxing heavyweight, was one who took his sporting rivalry with the great Muhammad Ali too personally, and carried it literally to his grave. For years, Frazier had voiced his bitterness over the way Ali had insulted him, over how Ali had called him "ugly," "a gorilla," and an "Uncle Tom." His anger was never in fuller view than when Ali, stricken with Parkinson's disease, lit the Olympic flame at the 1996 Games in Atlanta, and Frazier said he would have liked to have "pushed him in." To be sure, Ali had said this of Frazier: “Joe Frazier is so ugly that when he cries, the tears turn around and go down the back of his head.” ESPN commentator and writer Mike Sielski opines, “The two are forever linked, thanks to their three timeless bouts -- Frazier won only the first, and the third was a near-death experience for both of them -- the contrasting styles with which they fought, and the vitriol they hurled at each other for so long.” Yet their rivalry was both meaningless and childish for all their greatness __ because in reality they complimented each other. “Technically the loser of two of the three fights, [Frazier] seems not to understand that they ennobled him as much as they did Ali," wrote Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Halberstam, "that the only way we know of Ali's greatness is because of Frazier's equivalent greatness, that in the end there was no real difference between the two of them as fighters, and when sports fans and historians think back, they will think of the fights as classics, with no identifiable winner or loser. These are men who, like it or not, have become prisoners of each other and those three nights.” They did come close more than a few times to make up and get over their sentiments. Frazier and his nemesis have alternated between public apologies and public insults. One exchange came in 2001, says ESPN, after Ali told The New York Times he was sorry for what he said about Frazier before their first fight. At first, Frazier accepted the apology, but then … “He didn't apologize to me -- he apologized to the paper,” Frazier said in an issue of TV Guide. “I'm still waiting [for him] to say it to me.” Ali's response: “If you see Frazier, you tell him he's still a gorilla.” Joe Frazier died in November 2011, beaten, a financially and emotionally broken man, by liver cancer. Ali graciously attended his funeral, realizing, perhaps, when he said, “The world has lost a great champion. I will always remember Joe with respect and admiration,” that he had said too little, too late.
There’s a lot of Frazier and Ali in each of us. We are prisoners of our experiences and emotions. We cling on to positions we have taken, opinions we have formed and events we have been through. We hurt within but are too proud to accept that we are hurting. Review your Life. What are you hurting from, hurting with? Let go. Go say sorry to someone that you had hurt in the past, today. Write a note to someone saying you forgave them. If you don’t want to do either, just say it to yourself. And the next time you meet that person, look her or him in the eye, smile and give that person a hug. Life’s not a boxing ring. Remember: all the greatness of our professional successes will be pale and insignificant in the face of advancing age, failing health and the certain death that awaits us all.
