AVIS Viswanathan's Blog, page 53

Life’s beauty and magic lie in its uncertainty and unpredictability

In Life, you must always ask yourself, "Am I ready for everything?" instead of asking, "Is everything ready for me?"
The way we are brought up is however that, everything, always, has been ready for us. When we were born, we have been pampered, looked after and cared for. When we went to school, the teachers tended to us. Our daily wants and needs were always kept in readiness by our custodians, guardians and parents. Resultantly, we have got used to things being ready for us at all times. When we start our working lives too, in our first jobs most certainly, things are kept ready, at least in the beginning. So, when the honeymoon in Life is over__really, past 20, when early adulthood arrives__we face the true colors of and adventures in Life. This is where, we must really be ready for everything. But because we continue to be in the "Is everything ready for me?"-mode, we stumble, struggle and suffer through Life.
Let go! Stop expecting things to be ready or a red carpet to be rolled out and Life to mollycoddle you. Instead, embrace the uncertainty, the unknown in every moment. Meet Life with that spirit of adventure, a daring, in every moment. And liberate yourself from your daily strife and struggle. When you are ready for everything that Life throws at you or for everything that Life pushes you into, there's an 'aha' in every moment. Life is a seductress that is drawing you into the unknown in every moment, promising you instant bliss, and you are stuck here__with logic and rational questioning__asking why isn't everything ready for you anymore?

Trust Life fully and willfully get seduced. Only when you surrender to Life, being ready for everything, will you see how beautiful the Life really is. It is in its uncertainty, in its unpredictability that Life’s beauty and magic lies! As Jalaluddin Rumi, the 13thCentury Persian poet says,"I didn't come here of my own accord, and I can't leave that way. Whoever brought me here will have to take me home." Be ready for everything, then any road you take will take you home!

“Demanding faithfulness is like demanding slavery”

The best way to have wonderful relationships is to do two things: never expect anything from it or from someone and always respect the other person.
When we expect someone to be what we want them to be, we are not respecting the person as a special, unique individual. Wherever expectation rises, respect often goes out. Much of the problem in marital or personal relationships is because there is an expectation of faithfulness. While it is important that deceit or cheating must be avoided in any relationship, the nature of the expectation of faithfulness is an indicator that we have stopped respecting the other person. To be faithful cannot mean living someone else's Life. Or you cannot insist that someone live their Life as you want them to for you to be able to call them faithful. To be faithful means to be true to yourself, first doing what you want to do as long as it will not hurt or harm anyone else. When all people in a relationship are true to themselves, and don't harm each other, a harmonious environment is born that respects each individual in it. That's when relationships become meaningful and stand the test of time.
Osho, the Master, argues this perspective immensely well: "Who are you to demand faithfulness from anyone else? Demanding faithfulness is like demanding slavery. There's a misconception in people that love must be permanent. Only stones are permanent. To ask for faithfulness is wrong. There was a season__the spring, the faith, the love arose in you. You did not create it. It was just a happening. Just like a breeze it comes and just like a breeze it goes. When it comes, rejoice. And when it goes, say good-bye. Millions of couples in the world know there's no love between them anymore. But for the sake of society, reputation, for respectability, they go on pretending they love each other. This pretention is the real sin, the real crime."

This is not to conclude however that love cannot be eternal between people. It can be eternal. As long as there is respect for the other person and you have no expectations of that person, while being true to yourself first in the relationship.

Live worshipping each moment

Worship each moment. 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 later!

Live simply: don’t try to control the uncontrollable and don’t ignore the controllable

Life really is so simple. It is a whole of two parts: one that is beyond your control and the other that is within your control.
This is the truth of Life. Intelligent Living is about knowing this truth and practicing it, knowing what is beyond and what is within your control. When you try to control what is uncontrollable or when you don't act on things that are within your control, in both these instances, you experience suffering.
Epictetus, the Greek sage and philosopher who lived between 55 AD and 135 AD, was a great champion of this thinking. His life epitomized this perspective too. Born a slave (something beyond his control), he was able to convince (something within his control) his Master to allow himself education while staying bonded to slavery and loyal to his Master. According to Epictetus, all external events are determined by fate, and are thus beyond our control, but we can accept whatever happens to us calmly and dispassionately. Individuals, however, are responsible for their own actions, which they can examine and control through rigorous self-discipline. Suffering arises from trying to control what is uncontrollable, or from neglecting what is within our power. As Universal beings, each of us has a duty to care for all fellow humans, he taught. The person who follows these tenets, preached Epictetus, would achieve happiness and peace of mind. It is said that Epictetus' Master broke his leg deliberately (something which he couldn't control) but Epictetus responded with forgiveness and labored on, working and sharing his learnings (something that he could control), perhaps, earning his freedom that way. Epictetus says knowing, understanding and living this truth is the key to success in this lifetime: "If you seek truth you will not seek victory by dishonorable means, and if you find truth you will become invincible."

Soak in this simple philosophy. Don't try to control Life. But you can choose to respond by living intelligently though__accepting whatever happens, calmly, dispassionately!

Focus on issues, than on people – and always say it as it is!

When you must, simply speak your mind. Keeping your views to yourself is a good idea if you have learnt not to grieve. But if you are the sort who simmers when you are unable to express yourself, it’s best to say what you want to – openly, candidly.
Tharoor and Modi: Picture Courtesy/InternetThe papers are full of stories of the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) wanting the Congress High Command to reprimand Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor for “praising” Prime Minister Modi over Modi’s pet project - the Swach Bharat campaign. Clarifying that he wasn’t pro-BJP, Tharoor has said this in his defence: “The Prime Minister pitched his appeal as a non-political one and I received it in that spirit. I am a proud Congressman and a proud Indian. In short: not pro-BJP, just pro-India.” But the KPCC mandarins would hear none of this and is seeking that Tharoor be chastisized.
I am not bringing this up here to talk about the inner-party discipline of the Congress or even comment for or against Tharoor’s sense of political propriety. I believe the incident, if you peel away the political affiliations, the overtones and the personalities, gives us an opportunity to understand how we can be focused on issues than on people. The issue here is not Tharoor or Modi, or Congress or BJP – it is about a clean India.
The tragedy though is that almost always we focus on people and miss the issue – How can I say this to him? How dare she speak to me like that? How can I bring this subject up – what will happen if my intention is misunderstood? We fear the repercussions of our being open with family, friends, in social circles, at work and often even in issues that concern our nation or the world. The reason this happens is because of a subconscious tendency that all of us humans have – which is, to be nice to people and to be seen as being nice. So, whenever there’s an opportunity to flag an issue – and debate it, we let it go saying “it” won’t be taken well or that this is not the “right” time. Resultantly, we end up grieving without having been able to express ourselves. Honestly, all of us have felt this way at some time or the other in our lives.
I have learnt it the hard way too. For several years, I tried to be content being tactful than being truthful. But I was very uncomfortable in all those situations when I was unable or I had chosen not to express myself. Over time, I have learnt that if I have an opinion on an issue, I will express myself – saying it as it is, without sugar-coating things, no matter what the issue is or what the context is. And in situations when I choose not to express myself, I also decide not to grieve or complain about the situation. I simply accept things the way they are, I accept my inability to speak about it and I move on.
Recently, we had some maintenance work being undertaken by the owner of the apartment above ours. The owner lives in Dubai and had entrusted the work to a contractor. The contractor did not bother to follow certain procedures laid out for maintenance work by our building’s management. So, for weeks on end work went on, literally above our heads, noisily, for over 18 hours daily. Towards the end of the maintenance project, the owner came from Dubai to review arrangements for a house-warming that he planned to conduct at his “new, improved” apartment. He visited us too. He apologized for the “inconvenience” that we had to put up for over four months. And invited us for the house-warming event. I told him that I could not accept his apology because he was merely saying it for the sake of saying it. I pointed out to him that he could not be “genuinely” apologetic because he has not felt our pain or understood what it means to have someone banging away at the floor above your head for weeks on end. However, I did tell him that if our schedules permitted, we will join in their house-warming ceremony.

This is what I mean when I say focus on the issue. And never on the people. When you focus on the issue, you can express yourself clearly. And candidly. It is when you bring in people and relationships (could be with anyone – between friends, in a family, with a boss, or an organization) that you become emotional and wary of expressing yourself. At the end of the day, it is always better to speak your mind and get it out of you. Or if you choose not to express yourself, also choose not to grieve. Bottomline: Don’t grieve over anything. Definitely not over your inability to say what’s on your mind!  

Own up your mistake, drop the guilt, be happy

Beware of the one you see in the mirror. Because you can never hide the truth from those eyes.
When you feel naked in front of those eyes, humbly accept your mistake and reform yourself. To make mistakes is human. It is but natural and an integral part of growing up. But never allow yourself to get carried away by the power of your own arguments that make you justify your mistakes. To try to justify them to others is bad enough, but don't try to kid yourself with your own misplaced logic. A mistake is a mistake. It has happened and it is over. And it ceases to hurt or come in the way of progress and inner peace when you fundamentally accept it as one. That's when it becomes a learning opportunity. All transformation__within or otherwise__happens when you recognize the transgression you have made, accept its outcome, and are willing to move on.
However, when you accept the truth to yourself, you cannot escape feeling guilty about what you have done. But with acceptance and introspection you can overcome guilt. Undoubtedly, guilt is a way of being truthful. But holding on to guilt can be debilitating. Feeling constantly guilty for what you have done means that you are living in the past. When you are in the past, you are not present in the now. But Life is happening in the now. Which is why, guilt often holds you to ransom and prevents you from enjoying what you have. When there's no guilt, happiness follows.

To find your peace, look at yourself in the mirror and accept, acknowledge, own up humbly before those eyes. Drop the guilt when it surfaces. This is the way to happiness.

Stop “searching” for happiness, simply learn to “be” happy!

To be in pursuit of happiness will actually lead you to despair. But to “be” happy in the now, with “what is”, you only need to make a simple decision: which is to accept whatever you have and learn to love it.
Let's consider what are the common factors that make you unhappy: 1. Not getting what you want. 2. Not finding someone agreeing to your point of view. 3. Having someone work against your interest 4. Losing something or someone you love most 5. Fear, worry, anxiety of the unknown future 6. A memory of a past that you desperately want to relive. Now, look at these six factors once again. Ask yourself: 1. Do I really need what I want? 2. Is it necessary for someone to agree with me on everything for me to live with that person? 3. Is a detractor's scheming design more powerful than my integrity of purpose? 4. Can my yearning for someone or something bring back what I have lost, what is over? 5. Can I not replace Fear with Faith? 6. Can I really go back in time? When you ask yourself these sensible, practical questions, you begin to realize the futility of your search for happiness. You will then simply learn to be happy!
Happiness is not something that you can order. It is not something that you can dictate or demand be delivered to you subject to certain pre-conditions that you set. Happiness is what will dawn on you, that which will drench you, when you accept Life's pre-condition which is to decide not to set any pre-conditions! (If you don’t get it the first time, there’s no harm in re-reading the previous sentence.) Happiness, therefore, is a decision. Haven't you often caught yourself or someone you know searching for their reading glasses all over the place, while it is all along resting on their forehead? That's how absurd or banal our pursuit of happiness really is. It is who you__and I__are. It is in us and we keep searching for it, pining for it? How will we ever find it this way?

When you decide not to look for it and be it, you will find it – in the here and now. Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get. That decision to want what you are getting from Life, in Life, is the only one you need to make to be happy. So decide. Make an intelligent choice. And live happily ever after.

Comparisons get no one anywhere

Learn not to compare people or yourself with others. Know that everyone’s Life design, including yours, is unique.
The other day we were at dinner at a friend’s place. The conversation veered around the new Indian Super League that features football clubs from across the country competing in a never-before format. Someone wanted to know who owned the club from Chennai – Chennaiyin FC. When she was told that it was co-owned by the Bollywood star Abhishek Bachchan (AB Jr) she remarked sarcastically, “Now that he’s not doing well in films, he has taken to sports, is it?”
She then went on to berate AB Jr: “He’s not a patch on his legendary father. His father is such an iconic star. This guy pales in comparison.”

I am not going to defend AB Jr, though I must confess that I like him. People do have mixed views about him and his work – just as they do of any film actor. I believe, for instance, in Mani Ratnam’s Yuva (2004) and Guru (2007), AB Jr was exceptional. And he has been consistently good in several other films – although many of them have not been very successful at the Box Office. I haven’t met him personally but I know several people who have worked with him – and all of them uniformly attest that he is an exceptionally warm, friendly person, a livewire on the sets and a thorough professional. Indeed, AB Sr, the venerable Amitabh Bachchan, is a Super Star. And he is light years ahead in the business – not just ahead of his son, but of almost everyone else! So I wonder why we must compare father and son – and, therefore, constantly judge AB Jr with a clear, unavoidable bias toward his father?
All of us have this urge to compare ourselves with others and others with still others. Comparisons lead us to one of two outcomes – a superiority complex or an inferiority complex. Both outcomes are manifestations of the ego. The truth is that you compare yourself with others because you are egoistic. So, if you stop comparing, you will have effectively dropped the ego.
Osho, the Master, asks us to learn from nature. He cites the example of a man standing in front of a tall tree and saying that he feels small. There are so many small trees and shrubs around this tall tree – but they don’t express their “smallness”. They simply go on living, swaying in the wind and co-existing in the presence of the tall tree. Why does this man alone feel small in front of the tall tree? Osho tells us that only we, humans, compare. And that’s because we allow our egos to lead us. Similarly, we are the only species who judge others. A is better than B. B is inferior to C. AB Jr is not as good as his father. NaMo is better than Manmohan Singh. Shoba De is better than Arundhati Roy. And on and on we go. Passing judgment. Comparing people. And presiding over our ill-informed, half-baked opinions – reassuring ourselves that we are the most important specimen in our species.
Comparing yourself with others and feeling superior leads you to insecurity, and through that to suffering – because you never want to lose that social (superior) status. Comparing yourself with others and feeling inferior leads you to suffering because you are constantly pining to become something or someone that you are not. Bottomline – in either case, you are inviting suffering into your Life. You must realize that no matter how hard you compare yourself with others or judge others in comparison with others, comparisons have absolutely no use. You will be who you are. And people you compare yourself – or others – with will be who they are. Comparisons, therefore, are a total waste of time and precious personal energy. They get no one anywhere.

The intelligent way to live is to know who you are and simply be at peace with yourself. And even if you don’t know who you are, just being at peace with the way you are, avoiding comparing yourself with others, is the way to be! 

Don’t flee from Life, face it!

Have the audacity to face Life. Look your most difficult moments in the eye.
Last evening, we were visited by a family which has got mired in a web of circumstances. The father, who is a Director in a firm, had signed several personal guarantees for financial transactions on behalf the firm. The promoters of the firm embezzled the money and vanished. This gentleman now is having to face the consequences of the firm’s transactions and is accountable to the firm’s creditors for monies owed to them. His wife and two daughters brought him to us – so that he can get some direction on how to deal with creditors in a situation like this. The gentleman, with his limited wisdom and experience, and also fearful of the ire of his firm’s creditors, asked me if he too must “vanish” from the scene. I told him that I wouldn’t advise that he takes such a step. I said that he cannot disrupt the lives and education of his daughters and make them pay for his wrong choice of associating with that firm and for the firm’s questionable dealings. I advised him to seek legal opinion and figure out a way where he could disassociate physically from the firm. In the meantime, I advised him to meet all the creditors, individually, and explain to them why he too is a victim of the circumstances and why he doesn’t have the means to pay any of their dues.
“But taking that route means I will have to face the anger of the creditors. They won’t believe me. They will deal with me very harshly,” feared the gentleman.
“You don’t have a choice Sir. While they will be belligerent at first, they will also appreciate your proactive and responsible behavior. You will have to convince them of your sincerity and genuineness. This is your singular option right now and the only way you can, over time, get out of this mess,” I explained.
The gentleman and his family went away promising to act on my advice. Whether they do that or not is entirely up to them. I hope they will. Because running away from a problem does not make the problem go away. Facing a problem too does not make the problem go away. But when you face a problem, there’s no chasing, there’s no expending of precious energy wastefully. That energy can be employed in solving the problem instead.
But the normal tendency we all have is to run __ from challenges, responsibilities and consequences __ away from Life. Instead stand up and face it. Look at tough situations and say that you are going nowhere and you intend lasting the journey. When you do that, you will find no peak difficult to scale, no challenge impossible to overcome and no trouble that obstructs your path forward.
How do you get this quality called courage in you? By knowing that what you are going through is a test and that the lesson will appear only when you face the test and survive it. By knowing also that nothing is permanent __ not money, not Life, not troubles, not opportunities. When you face Life with such clarity and equanimity, you will be unshakeable. You will have what the world calls courage. And with courage you can last any journey, however impossible and treacherous it may be. Swami Vivekananda couldn’t have said it more appropriately: “Face the brutes. That is a lesson for all Life—face the terrible, face it boldly. Like the monkeys, the hardships of Life fall back when we cease to flee before them.”

Servant-mindedness makes living beautiful!

Self-Awareness, understanding the true nature and purpose of your creation, is not just a spiritual pursuit, it is a key ingredient for intelligent, daily living.

And Self-Awareness is not something that you acquire by abstinence. It is something that you attain by refusing to get tempted by Life’s myriad choices __ some of them ruinous, others plain distractions. Self-Awareness begins by just being aware. Of your breathing. Of the smallest detail in your surroundings. Of every nuance of your everyday Life. It is about learning to smile at yourself in the mirror as you brush every morning. It is about savoring every morsel of your breakfast. It is about noticing the color of the sky as you commute to work. It is about greeting a stranger with a smile today. It is about remembering what time your kids will get back home from school. It is about thanking Life for another day before retiring. These are just a sampling of everyday moments __ that all of us uniformly go through __ and yet don’t remember having gone through. Awareness begins with remembering these daily . That is when you start appreciating the beauty and equality in all creation.

You will then realize that you are better endowed by Life’s blessings __ a better education, a better income and a better intelligence. The reality is that most of the time, you are unaware of your blessings and, besides, even if you are aware, you don’t use them for the welfare of others almost all the time. When you awaken, when you reach this stage of awareness of your true Self, you will find greater meaning to your everyday actions. Your Self-Awareness will lead you to understanding why you are here, on the planet, in the first place! You will then either stop doing all things that benefit only you or you will begin to take an active interest in serving others.
When you lead Life with such clarity, such servant-mindedness, you will find that every day is beautiful. You will then stop cribbing and start living!