Stop postponing living

Time is relentlessly pursuing us. We are all, as a matter of fact, racing towards our deaths, albeit at different speeds! With this inevitable end in mind, and in sight, we must exercise our intelligence to LIVE this lifetime meaningfully, purposefully. 

Understand and appreciate the impermanence of money and material things. They are as transient as Life itself. Apple's late CEO Steve Jobs, even as he battled with cancer, memorably said,"Remembering that I would be dead soon is the most important tool I have encountered to help me make the right choices in Life." 

So, stop postponing living. Do what you have always wanted to, NOW. Be it writing a book, starting a new career, launching a business, acting in a movie or just saying that you love someone___whatever will give you joy, needs to be done NOW. In the end, what will count is not how many corporations you were on the boards of, not how much money you have in your bank, not how many hours you slogged each week, but how many lives you touched.

To be compassionate is being human

If there’s something you want to learn in Life, learn to be compassionate. Compassion is the purest form of love. When you have something to offer, something to give – out of a deep understanding of the other’s predicament or need, out of purely being human, without really worrying about what’s in it for you! When you pity someone, you don’t really understand that person’s situation. You merely feel an emotion that makes you feel superior than the one that you are pitying – which is, in a way, you feel subconsciously good within you that you are mercifully not in that person’s shoes. Compassion, on the other hand, helps you relate to the other person and gets you to see the world from that person’s situation and act from that reference point!

Devi, Sharma, Khan, Azmi - Being Human!
Pic Courtesy: The Indian Express

This morning’s papers in India have led with the story of two women who offered their kidneys to each other’s husbands in order to save their lives. These women are as disparate as you can find any two – age-wise, social-strata wise, education-wise, income-group-wise and religion-wise. Yet they reached out to each other and in the name of humanity offered to help each other. Fitraus Azmi, in her 20s, from Aurangabad, gave her kidney to save the Life of Uma Devi’s (in her 40s) husband, Devaki Nandan Sharma (52), who hails from Patna. And Devi, in turn, gave her kidney to Azmi’s husband, Mohammed Akhtar Khan, 29. The entire operation, in fact four of them, has been successful and has given the two men another lifeline from the acute renal failure situation that both were faced with. In a world where religion divides people, here compassion has brought them together. And how!

I am reminded of what Osho, the Master, has once said: “In compassion, you simply give. In love, you are thankful because the other has given something to you. In compassion, you are thankful because the other has taken something from you. You are thankful because the other has not rejected you. You had come with energy to give, you had come with many flowers to share, and the other allowed you, the other was receptive.”

Giving compassionately, contrary to popular sentiment, is not at all difficult. Though many will submit that getting rid of the what’s-in-it-for-me question is well impossible. To get over that limiting thought, to scale that hurdle, remember these (relevant) words from the Gita Saram (Essence of The Bhagavad Gita):

“…What did you bring with you, for you to lose it?

What did you create, for it to be wasted or destroyed?

Whatever you took, it was taken from here.

Whatever you gave, it was given from here.

Whatever is yours today, will belong to someone else tomorrow.

On another day, it will belong to yet another.

This change is the Law of the Universe.”

To be liberated, therefore, be compassionate, be human – give freely!

Don’t try to make sense of Life. You can’t!

The moment you think you have understood Life, that you have a handle on how it works, you are finished. You have then written your own warrant to live the rest of your Life – imprisoned by your suffering and depression.

There’s an old Hindi song, sung by the immortal Kishore Kumar, that goes: “Zindagi ka Safar….Hai yeh kaisa Safar….Koi samjha nahin, Koi jaana nahin…” (Safar – Journey; 1970, Kalyanji Anandji) It means that Life is a journey that is inscrutable – no one knows it, no one understands it! This syncs with what a Siddha Yogi, who I met some years back, told me: “Only a fool will try to understand Life! The intelligent will simply live it for whatever it is!” Two stories I read yesterday only reinforced this learning in me.

Vincent Van Gogh: Tragically not valued in his lifetime

The first one is of the celebrated painter Vincent Van Gogh (1853~1890). He lived and painted in abject poverty. He was so poor that he could eat only 3 days a week. Nobody understood him. Or his paintings. And so none of his paintings were sold in his lifetime. His brother would give him a weekly allowance to subsist. Because Van Gogh was passionate about his art, he would use some of this allowance to buy his canvases, brushes and paints. Which meant he could only eat three times a week. He looked haggard always and people around him thought he was mad. One day, his brother, unable to bear Van Gogh’s plight, set up a friend to go purchase a painting from him so that Van Gogh would find the motivation to bounce back in Life! The friend had no idea of art. And merely saw himself as a person sent to handover the money under the pretext of buying a painting. So, even as Van Gogh excitedly explained each of his works, the ‘buyer’ seemed disinterested and impatient. He merely wanted ANY painting. Van Gogh smelt a rat. He realized that his brother had set this man up. So he asked the man to leave with his money. He was so heart-broken that he committed suicide that day. It was a sad, premature end to a great talent that the world would later worship! Van Gogh, in his short Life is believed to have made over a 1000 paintings. Over 800 of them were lost because no one bothered about them. The remaining 200 are the precious possessions of museums and art collectors – with each of them worth over a few million dollars! Now, how do you explain this? One of the world’s greatest artists dies a pauper, and frustrated, because no one values his work? And the same work today is treated as priceless?

The second story I read was the cover story in India Today on Bollywood’s new super star, Ranbir Kapoor. He, when asked what he believes is the secret of his success, tells the magazine’s Kunal Pradhan: “I have realized that an actor needs to be constantly unsure about what he’s doing, and what’s going on around him. The moment you think you have nailed it, you’re dead.”

That’s so true about Life as well. And about each of us. In a way, we too are mere actors on this world stage. Here now. Gone tomorrow. During our lifetimes, we will have to play different roles. The script will keep changing. And the best way to stay grounded, stay anchored, stay peaceful is to enjoy the uncertainty. Don’t try to make sense of Life. You can’t. If you try, you will end up where Van Gogh did – depressed, frustrated. If you simply let Life happen to you, you will love the Life given to you and will forever be at peace – with Life, with the world, with yourself!

Just move on….

An intelligent response to Life is to move on, no matter what happens to you. It is when you cling on to what’s been taken away from you that you grieve and suffer.

Ajit Singh: "Diplomats must just move on!"
Pic: Hindu Business  Line

Last evening, we were at a dinner to bid farewell to the Consul General of Singapore Ajit Singh and his wonderful wife Balveer. Singh is moving to Mumbai after a 7-year stint in Chennai. As the evening progressed, a farewell toast was raised to the couple and Singh was invited to share his sentiments on his experience in Chennai and on this move. He spoke simply, from the heart, thanking all his friends, well-wishers, acquaintances, and the people of Chennai for having been so warm and caring to him and his wife. And then he said something very profound: “I am moving on to another city but carrying Chennai in my heart as I do. A diplomat must simply move on.”

Of course, Singh’s point was made from a professional point of view – diplomats like him, working with the foreign service of any country, are quite used to, and are always prepared, to move at a moment’s notice. Ask them, and they will say, that’s how their lives work.

But look at it differently. From a spiritual point of view. Isn’t that how (anyone’s) Life works? Diplomats find it easier to move on because they know it’s a part of their job, their career. We suffer dealing with change because we don’t have the attitude to move on. We don’t believe that moving on is an integral part of living itself! We are clinging on, often with our feet nailed to the ground, asking questions of Life when things that we don’t want and we didn’t expect happen to us:

1.     Why me?

2.     Why do I have to adjust, change, adapt, accommodate?

3.     Is there no way to restore status quo?

4.     Why are people doing this to me?

5.     Why is Life so unfair?

These and more questions may well be logical. And you may perhaps be justified in asking them. But you will soon discover that it is pointless to ask them. For, there are no answers in Life – there are only experiences. Whatever happens, you can only experience something. If it’s good, you say, “Wow! Aha!” and if it’s not what you want, you say, “Damn! Aiyyo!” Either way, soak in what’s happening to you, carry some of it in your heart as Ajit advises, and simply move on….If there’s something like Life’s simplest learning ever that you want to pick up – this is it!

Your circumstances don’t matter

Your circumstances don’t define you. They don’t matter to you really. What you are being called by others, or what you are experiencing right now, is not who you are. If you understand this, if you are able to look inward, and find your inner light, you will find tremendous beauty and a great peace within you!

King Janaka was once holding a contest to decide who’s the most intelligent of all the scholars in his kingdom. A prize of a thousand cows, with their horns studded with gold and diamonds, was announced for the winner. Five years in a row, a famous philosopher in the kingdom, Yagnavalkya had been winning the contest. As soon as he arrived, Yagnavalkya asked for the prize to be taken away to his home, because he was sure he would win. The contest had not even begun. But no one dared stop him. Because he had a track record. Not even Janaka had the slightest doubt that Yagnavalkya would win this year too. As the contest went on, an unknown scholar was seated there too. His wife sent her son Ashtavakra to fetch him back because she felt her husband was wasting his time at a contest which he was certain not to win. As Ashtavakra entered the court of Janaka, everyone was shocked. Here was a man, totally deformed, ugly to look at – one limb longer than the other, the face looking weird, the eyes popping out and the whole body was crooked. That’s why he was named so – Ashtavakra. The whole court started laughing at Ashtavakra. They were laughing at his appearance, at the sight of his deformed body. So, Ashtavakra too joined in. He too laughed. And he laughed loudly, above everyone’s laughter. So much so, that his laughter silenced everyone else’s. Janaka was surprised at what he was seeing.

He said: “I can understand why these people started laughing. They were seeing you this way, crooked and weird looking. And so they laughed. But why did you laugh? And how did they stop laughing when you laughed?”

Ashtavakra replied: “I thought this contest is for scholars. I did not realize it was for shoemakers. They are all laughing at my body, at my skin. They are obsessed with the outer. And they don’t see the inner.”

Janaka dissolved the contest. He ordered for the prize cows to be brought back. And started to inquire from Ashtavakra why he was able to say something so profound despite his despicable state.

Ashtavakra replied: “When people used to laugh at me for the way I look, I would enquire within me. And I would observe this body. That’s how I came to the realization that if I can observe this body, then I am not the body. So I developed the attitude to not let my looks or my situation define me.”

The deeper you look inward, the deeper your awareness grows. And the greater your ability is to stay detached from your circumstance or others’ opinion of you. So, don’t allow your situations to define you. Think of Ashtavakra every time people laugh at you or label you. You are as special and extraordinary a creation as there has ever been. Stay only with that awareness. And you will be forever in bliss.  

Remain unmoved to stay unscathed

Just as it is important not to get bogged down by failure, it is equally, perhaps more, critical not to get carried away by success.

M S Dhoni: Unmoved

At the presentation ceremony of the ICC Champions Trophy at Edgbaston, Birmingham, two nights ago, former England captain and Star Cricket’s anchor Nasser Hussain asked India captain M.S.Dhoni: “The T20 World Cup, the ICC World Cup and now the Champions Trophy….you have seen and got them all. What would you want next?”

Embarrassed and smiling, Dhoni, in his characteristic down-to-earth, grounded, style, replied: “I am not here to prove to anyone how good I am. My focus is on the game. We are off to the West Indies from here and we will be keen to put in our best there and work as a team.”

Many observers and commentators have been amazed with Dhoni’s unflappable leadership and his ability to remain calm in a crisis. I feel the biggest reason why he continues to be successful is the because he doesn’t get all that he’s achieved go to his head. He doesn’t let defeat affect him either. And that’s a remarkable quality. An ability. Something each of us can consider, reflect upon and try internalizing.

Think about it. In this lifetime, which has been given to us without our asking for it, there are many things that will happen to us. There are many experiences that we will go through. Some of them will work to a plan. And we will start imagining we caused or created them. Some will happen to us without any effort from us. And sometimes things will simply happen – causing us pain, joy, grief, suffering and often leaving us numbed, shocked, defeated, delighted or humbled. Osho, the Master, invites us to consider the example of the wheel. He says a wheel moves. While its center remains unmoved. So, if your Life were a wheel, with its own fair share of ups and downs, you, the real you, your center, your soul, must remain unmoved. Only this state of staying unmoved, despite whatever is happening to you, can keep you perpetually blissful! The best way to respond to Life is to remain unmoved – by joy or by sorrow, by victory or by defeat. Then, and only then, can you hope to get through this lifetime, unscathed!

Love what you get

Sometime long ago, I learnt these two definitions.

# Success is getting what you want.

# Happiness is wanting what you get.

Over the years, from experiencing the inscrutable nature of Life, I have come to understand that Life just happens. It has no agenda or desire to cause us any suffering. Yet we suffer all the time because we have this expectation that our Life must be different from what it is. Our suffering pushes us into the dark recesses of unhappiness and we languish there hoping someday that we will be happy when things get better. And when things get better, as they always do, you soon find that you don’t have much time. And that makes you unhappy for a different reason, all over again – you wish that you have not postponed happiness. You wish you had lived a more complete and fulfilling Life!

Here’s an old Zen story that illustrates this point beautifully:

Traveler: "What kind of weather are we going to have today?"

Shepherd: "The kind of weather I like."

Traveler: "How do you know it will be the kind of weather you like?"

Shepherd: "Having found out, sir, that I cannot always get what I like, I have learned to always like what I

get. So I am quite sure we will have the kind of weather I like."

So journey through Life wanting what you get. Because if you postpone happiness while waiting too long to get what you want, you may well end up not having enough time to enjoy what you finally, eventually, get!

To be free of guilt, be free of yourself

To be free of guilt, be free of yourself. Your guilt is not going to make things any better. Cognitive action will. We all feel guilty of our actions at times. We feel remorseful. And we seek forgiveness. When we are not forgiven, we feel even more guilty. Guilt is a debilitating force. It can make you feel depressed, pity for yourself and wasted. Guilt thrives in you because of your ego.

There's no use allowing your conscience to be ridden by guilt. The awakening that you have made a mistake is the first step to offload your guilt. When you are awake to your misdemeanor or impropriety, you will want to seek forgiveness. That's the right step forward. However, when you are not forgiven by the other party, don't let your guilt and self-pity consume you. Feel good that YOU recognize your mistake. Heal yourself by loving yourself. Use that love as energy to propel you to affirmative action. Unless you act on your resolve not to repeat the mistake or make good a situation, you will not transform. The process of transformation requires you to not only focus on what you WILL do but also on what you WILL NEVER do. Remember, you can't build a reputation on what you are going to do. You HAVE to do it. And you can't do it if you continue to feel guilty of your past actions. So, be free, awake, arise and act!

Because the truth involves you

About 25 years ago, when I used to work for The Indian Express, the newspaper had a tagline – ‘Because the truth involves us all’. Those were the days when Arun Shourie, the paper’s firebrand editor and his boss, the irrepressible Ramnath Goenka, were taking on the then Government  on the Bofors scandal exposing the corruption and rot within. That positioning statement then meant to me, as a young, impressionable journalist, that one had to take on the establishment and bring the truth, with honest reportage, no matter what.

Over the years, I have carried this spirit in me, though I have mellowed down, or matured perhaps, to understand and appreciate that while the truth does not need to be advertised, it surely needs to be always, and surely, spoken at the right time, with the right person, at the right place!

As long as you know it is the truth, always speak it. Because the truth can and must never be hidden. And because the truth involves you! But the most baffling thing about humankind is that we find it very easy to lie, to cover up, to say what immediately comforts us and the listener, than to speak the truth. Having spoken what’s easy, what came easy, the ideal situation must be to not suffer any more. Yet, most of the time, the person who has chosen NOT to speak the truth, grieves and suffers. This is what is most tragic.

Let’s say you have a tyrant for a boss. And you wish you could tell him what he was doing was wrong. Instead you keep praising him or approving of all his nonsensical behavior because you feel it is easier to pamper him than provide him with constructive feedback. Now, as long as you are living peacefully having deceived yourself and falsely pumped up the boss’ ego, there will really be no problem. But if you continue to feel miserable because you have been saying what you don’t believe in, then you have a problem. And the only solution then is to speak the truth about your boss, to him!

Contrary to most opinions, the truth is always respected. Both by the one saying it and by the one listening to it. But always say it to the one who is directly concerned with the truth. If you don’t, and choose to speak to a third party, you are actually promoting gossip. That’s when you are vitiating the atmosphere. For you, and for the person to whom you intend to speak the truth. Truth does not require any crutches. It can stand on its own. And you too can say it without any fear. But you believe just the opposite is true, in any relationship, because YOU don’t want to be the person saying it. You prefer that someone else bell the cat. Or that a kid, than you, tell that the emperor is wearing no clothes! That’s fantastic. If you are comfortable being someone who continues to thrive while pleasing everyone around, that’s just fine. Then, why are you grieving? Please don’t. If you are grieving over the state of any of your affairs, and if the people connected with your Life, need to be shaken awake, then throw the truth at them. Let them deal with it than you suffer with it! That’s the way to intelligent living. That’s the way to inner peace.

A part of your Life’s gone with the moment

No matter what, the moment that you miss will never come back. In all your years here on this planet, if you can recall only a few moments of your Life as memorable, then the truth is that you probably lived ONLY in those moments. All the other time, you may have merely been existing.

The reason why most days of our lives are not memorable is because we are caught up with our worries, fears, insecurities and anxieties. We fail to see the mystical beauty of Life in our weary, dreary, troubled moments. We have somehow got conditioned to this thinking, and therefore have an expectation, that Life must go the way we have planned for it.. Despite ample evidence and our own individual experiences pointing to the opposite, we still secretly hope and fervently believe that our lives will ride smoothly. And then, when it doesn’t happen that way, we brood and agonize over the way our Life is. Or we become zombies – mechanically running from home to work, and from work to home, without pausing to even think why we are doing what we are doing!

I recall a simple Zen story. A minister asked Takuan, a Zen teacher, to suggest how he might pass the time. He felt his days very long attending his office and sitting stiffly to receive the homage of others.

Takuan wrote eight Chinese characters and gave them to the man:

Not twice this day

Inch time foot gem.

This day will not come again.

Each minute is worth a priceless gem.

No moment will come back again. Irrespective of what’s happening. Sometimes, when you observe your grief (based on what people, events, circumstances have done to you) closely, intensely, you will discover a rare beauty in it. And that beauty is there because your grief is real. It is a pointer to how alive you are. Happiness, beauty and living in the moment are not concepts that follow your evolution and growth as a person. You grow and evolve only because you embrace these concepts, imbibe their lessons and live your Life based on them.

The nature of Life is to be ever-straddling the two worlds of joy and sorrow. And you can do that, finding joy even in your sorrow, if you learn to cherish each moment __and live it, love it intimately, because no moment is ever going to come back.

Believing, while living in the dark

People often report that they find it difficult to stay positive in the face of intense negativity. And though they are not wrong in facing a struggle,  it is possible that they may not be approaching the negative in their lives the right way.

Let’s understand first that negativity__in people, in situations, in events__cannot be ignored. It is real. To look, as some would suggest, only at the brighter side of Life when things are on fire on another side, is to look away, to ignore the reality. No one who has ignored what is has ever been able to deal with it, forget overcoming it. Leadership is the ability to see reality and mobilize the appropriate response, taught management thinker, Noel Tichy. And I agree with him. So, when things are out of control, when everything’s broken, staying positive does not mean ignoring that reality. You can stay positive though while accepting the reality. It is when you want to wish away the negative that it insists on showing up, again and again, and terrorizing you. Instead if you accept it, and choose to stay positive despite your circumstances, you would have learnt the art of intelligent living.

The positivity in us cannot and must not be pretentious. Nothing succeeds against Life. You cannot be in the throes of a crisis and imagine it does not exist. And simply say it will all be fine soon. What happens when, after a period of time, the ‘soon’, does not happen – say after a month, a year, a decade?! Such flaky positivity, such vain optimism will evaporate at some point, leaving you devastated. Instead, first accept your situation. Understand it. Be conscious of it. Stay aware. And then look for the blessings, the abundance, the silver lining and live each day believing things will change. Until they change, recognize and appreciate, that you will have to live with the reality, whatever it is, without wishing it weren’t so. The crucial difference is that your acceptance and awareness will ensure that you stay anchored in faith. That faith will give you the patience. To be sure, your problems or your situation will not change overnight, or dramatically, but your ability to face them stands phenomenally enhanced.  

Understand that it takes the dark nights along with the bright days to make up Life. Without darkness, we will never appreciate the value of light. Staying positive does not mean wishing the darkness away or hoping it doesn’t exist. It means accepting the darkness for being what it is – intense, gripping, fearful – and believing that if it is night now, a dawn will surely follow.

A red LAMY and THE Truth

In the end, you will have nothing.  You will depart alone, empty-handed. This is the truth of Life. As long as you don’t recognize this truth and understand it, you will continue fighting with Life. You will continue to desire and want. And you will continue to lament and grieve over anything that you lose. Or over everything that you don’t get!

I love LAMY (German-crafted) pens. I simply love the way they are designed and the way they write. Over years, I have collected most variants of a particular model in several colors. And I carry a Lamy most of the time while on business. One day, on a domestic flight, I lost my favorite red LAMY. When I discovered this loss, I was well out of the airport, driving towards downtown. I simply did not see a point in going back in search of my pen! But I could not get over the loss. For days on end I searched for the pen in every major Indian city. Those were times when LAMY products were not available in India and online shopping had not been invented! Whatever I did to get over the loss, my mind went back to grieving over the red LAMY. Several years after this incident, one day, I sat at a coffee shop with my wife to take stock of our lives. We had lost everything material in Life. And were hanging on to a thin ray of hope. We did not know what to do. Or whom to turn to for work, for help, for a solution, or for advice. We decided to make a list of options so that we could select from among them. I volunteered to take notes of our choices/options. I pulled out my pen – it turned out to be a red LAMY, which I had subsequently purchased from Kuala Lumpur International Airport while on a trip, subsequent to losing the one I originally had.

I saw that red LAMY in my hand and burst out laughing! Here I was, having lost everything material, and was contemplating calmly how to reinvent ourselves, how to keep our focus and how to find a solution to the unimaginable crisis that we found ourselves in. There was no grief. No sorrow. Just an indescribable resoluteness to deal with the challenge. Over and above that, I was laughing at the irony in my learning! I wondered what had changed in me between my losing a pen to losing everything material in Life. I am not sure I know even now what has changed in me – but I sure know how that change has come about. Over time, Life has taught me lessons through my experience of losing everything that I once dearly held on to – money, assets, the Firm we built, our unique business model and our reputation. I have learned through all this loss that everything is transient. That nothing is permanent. That we will all go the same way as we came – with nothing! Perhaps, this awareness has led to a great acceptance of Life as it is. And to an incomparable, matchless, inner peace.

Your story may be different. But you too may have lost in Life. Or are struggling with a loss just now. Whether you have lost something, or someone, reflect on this, the ONLY, truth. That is the only way not to lose your peace of mind and to remain anchored and blissful.

Be adamant about your faith, not about worrying!

The human mind feeds on worries. It simply has no other work to do than throw up newer worries when either old ones get resolved or become irrelevant. And because we have not learned to train and tame the mind, we have become obsessed with worrying. In a weird way, worrying is comforting. Because it keeps the mind engaged. But such engagement is ruinous because it takes us away from living fully, because it is not focused on the now. All worries pertain to guilt and baggage from the past or to anxiety about the future. So, while you may be anywhere physically, you are simply not present.

A man had problems in every aspect of his Life. From his finances to his health to his relationships, every part of his Life was in disarray. He was a great believer though and said his prayers without fail twice daily. Yet he worried a lot. All day he would walk around like a zombie – beaten, broken, bruised, hassled, harried and worried. One day God appeared in front of him. And this is how their conversation went.

The man: God, I am blessed you have appeared before me. I knew my faith in you will pay off one day. Now, please solve all the problems I am faced with.

God: I am afraid I can’t do that immediately.

The man: But why? I am your faithful devotee and pray to you daily.

God: But you also worry a lot. To me your worries seem more sincere than your prayers. So, I am confused.

The man: I don’t understand. How do I not worry when it is my problem?

God: When you have come to me, hasn’t it ceased to be your problem? If you knew you could solve it, would you have come to me? So, since you are in front of me and claim you have faith in me, then why do you worry? I would much rather solve the problems of those who are adamant with their faith and dither with their worries instead of helping those who are adamant about worrying and dither with their faith.

Think about it. This story applies to each one of us in our own unique ways. I am not sure if there is a God somewhere that runs the affairs of the Universe. Possibly there is. Maybe there isn’t. But one thing is for sure that worrying isn’t going to get any of us anywhere in Life. Look around. The same energy that powers and cares for all Life in the Universe, of which we are just a mere speck, possesses both the intelligence and capability to take care of us and our problems too. If we believe we have faith in that energy, the one that created us, then must we not be adamant, fanatic about that faith? We cannot claim we have faith and continue to worry. They simply can’t coexist. It is because we continue to worry that we miss the magical moments in our daily lives.

Each moment, irrespective of what you are faced with or are going through, is a miracle. To witness that miracle you need to be present in that moment. Worrying takes you away from living! Each moment that you worry is a moment that you have not lived!

Everything’s as it should be and all is well

Everything happens at the right time. In Life, there’s really no concept of a good time or a bad one. Good or bad are labels that we human beings place. Life’s happening at its own pace, of its own accord and in the way it must happen.

We agonize over things, events and people because we seek instant gratification. In an SMS generation, this is even more starkly evident. Everyone wants everything now and fast.

Practicing mindfulness, enjoying every breath we take, every morsel we eat, every sight we behold, is the best way to live. This doesn’t mean you must not be ambitious or aggressive. This means don’t rush through Life as if it were a 100-meter race. It is not. Learn to be patient. Everything happens to a plan, and just because we are not aware of that plan it doesn’t mean there isn’t one! What we may like to accept and keep in mind always is that, this Master Plan has no flaws.

Kabir, the 15^th Century weaver-poet, has said this so beautifully:

Dheere Dheere Re Mana, Dheere Sub Kuch Hoye

Maali Seenche Sau Ghara, Ritu Aye Phal Hoye

It means:

Slowly, slowly O! Mind….everything happens at its own pace…

The gardener may water with a hundred buckets, but the fruit arrives only in its season….

So as you rush through another Monday, breathe easy, slow down, be mindful. Don’t let the traffic affect your mood. Don’t let your meaningless meetings drain you. Don’t let any no disappoint you. Know that everything is fine. And as that memorable line in the classic Hindi movie ‘3 Idiots’, which I was watching on TV last night, goes, ‘All EEZ WELL’. In fact, everything is as it should be and all is well!

Allow yourself to be shaped by Life….!

Some years back, my good friend Rajmohan Pillai, seeing me in the throes of my Firm’s collapse and insolvency, gave me a profound piece of advice. He said: “Life will be full of problems. Don’t try to solve all your problems at the same time. Take each day as it comes and attempt solutions to the best of your ability. For the rest, just go with the flow.” When I first heard this advice, I was stumped by its simplicity. Is it that simple to deal with Life, I wondered. But, over these years, I have learned from experience that Rajmohan was on the ball. There indeed is no other way to live Life and to deal with the myriad situations that present themselves on a daily basis.

No one loves a problem. We all want to be problem-free. But that’s not how Life works. Life’s nature is to present you with a problem and get you to attempt solutions. In a way, Life’s playing with you and with each of us! As you progressively solve problems, newer ones will appear. And you will notice that the level of difficulty increases with each new problem __ pretty similar to the way our academic examinations are designed with an ascending level of difficulty through school and college. Now, there are some problems that you can solve. And there are those you can’t.. These ones, they sort themselves out over time. What’s interesting about the School of Life is that whether or not you solve problems, you will always learn. In a way, therefore, with each learning, you will continue to grow and evolve!

There’s a Taoist Zen story I remember reading: An old man accidentally fell into a river that had raging rapids leading to a high and dangerous waterfall. Onlookers feared for his Life. Miraculously, he came out alive and unharmed downstream – at the bottom of the falls. People asked him how he managed to survive. “I adjusted myself to the water and did not expect the water to accommodate and molly-cuddle me. Without thinking, I allowed myself to be shaped by it. Plunging into the swirl, I came out with the swirl. This is how I survived!”

Don’t always expect what you want to happen in Life. Know also that your Life will never be free of problems. But you can be free from them if you allow yourself to be shaped by Life. Be prepared to and learn to adjust to what’s happening to you. This is the only way to a lifetime of peace, learning and bliss!

Approach Life with open arms, in all humility…

Awaken each day with total humility, stretch your arms wide open and be sure that Life will provide you all that you need. Our grief comes from our wants. Wants always have an element of ego, a demand, in them. But when you approach Life with humility, saying, fill my Life with what you believe I need, not only will everything be taken care of__as has always been__but you will never ever be in grief.  

This morning I read a beautiful interview that Times of India has done with A R Rahman. He tells Priya Gupta: “Every time I sit for a song, I feel I am finished. It's like a beggar sitting waiting for God to fill your bowl with the right thought. In every song, I ask help from Him. Everybody around is so good, so to create music that will connect with so many people is not humanly possible without inspiration.”

This is the humility I am referring to. Caught in the trap of the mindless rat race we run, our wants have increased manifold. And so have our insecurities and anxieties. When things don’t go as per our wishes, when what we want doesn’t happen, we agonize and blame an external God for our misfortunes. We have ended up becoming so full of ourselves__our grief, our problems, our wants. This is the only reason why our lives are not complete and yet we feel spent! This is why we are unable to create value in whatever we do daily. To feel enriched and live fully, we must empty ourselves daily. When we approach Life with a sense of nothingness, nobody-ness, in total surrender, we will be able to see and experience the Life that is ordained for us. Most important, we will feel peaceful and blissful within!

Our wanting anything is of no consequence really. There’s an old Arabic proverb that goes like this: “What is destined will reach you even if it be beneath two mountains. What is not destined will not reach you even if it be between your two lips.” Let’s remember that this Life has been given to each one of us. We didn’t ask for it. So, logically, if something has come free, without your asking for it, you don’t impose your wants on it. You accept what’s being given and use it intelligently, fully! That fullness can only come from respecting Life and being responsible for your own lifetime. When you impose your wants on Life you are being both ungrateful and irresponsible. Your wants must cease for the God within you to find expression.

This is why people like Rahman, or any successful or creative person, is able to live in this same, cold, dog-eat-dog, world that we live in and are able to produce a matchless, beautiful, work of art each day. I am not talking of celebrity achievements here. You and I too can achieve those levels of creative expression, leading to phenomenal success, if we learn to empty ourselves and let Life take care of us. That then would be a true celebration of our lives and making them meaningful – leading us to bliss and peace.

A crisis is your golden moment: Seize it!

When in a crisis situation, after all the initial fear and anxiety has left you crippled, when you are with yourself, and are grudgingly begin to accept your reality, take stock, dispassionately, calmly of whatever’s going on. Ask yourself what can you do about the situation you are faced with? There are only two ways to deal with any challenging situation: either you can do something to solve it or simply accept it. Most often we are able to see that, in some situations, we can’t do much to solve it. Even so, we simply refuse to accept the crisis, the situation, the reality. We wish things were not the way they are. This is what leads to suffering. Acceptance, on the other hand, ensures freedom from suffering, even if the source of pain, the crisis, doesn’t go away. When you are free from suffering, your inner peace will guide you to learn from the crisis and help you avoid feeling burdened by it.  

Every crisis we are faced with, without fail, is a precursor to a blessing, an opportunity. Extra-ordinary pain is not some cosmic ordinance for all the sins you have committed in this lifetime, or another one (as most religions will have you believe and, perhaps, fear), but is always a prelude to extra-ordinary grace that is due to drench you in its brilliance! In the Chinese language (although academic purists and linguistic experts do argue otherwise) the word for “crisis” is made up of the amalgamation of the Chinese words for “danger” and “opportunity”. Even if the purists’ view is considered, they concur that ‘weiji’, the Chinese word for crisis, does mean ‘dangerous or precarious or critical or crucial point’. And that’s what a crisis really is – it is a critical inflection point of your Life, from one orbit to another!

It is the duration of the inflection that kills any of us, and never the crisis itself. And this is where acceptance has a big role to play. To fight Life is being foolish. To accept it is intelligence. Whatever be your crisis, whatever it is that defines your circumstance right now, accept it. Some situations may bring you to the brink, may threaten to annihilate you, but your acceptance can miraculously give you the inner strength to cope with them. Life loves those that are prepared to go with it, all the way, down to the wire. So, it is that you will observe, that those who have been through excruciatingly painful times, have always emerged humbler, stronger, peaceful and more brilliant than they ever were. You will see such people in your family or among your friends itself. Be sure to be inspired by them than simply opinionate on them!

A crisis is a golden moment. It teaches you acceptance. If you learn that lesson, it means you have got yourself the most profound qualification (higher than any other degree that the world’s most scholarly university can award you) in Life – to lead a Life of true meaning, love, peace and joy!

Dear Parent, Trust, Lead, Inspire…

The primary role of parents is to instil good values in their children and give them the freedom to choose a Life they want to live. And then let them just be. More often than not, children will, with their sense of adventure, make mistakes with their choices, stumble and fall, then they will wake up and smell the coffee, find their way in Life and learn their lessons, even while licking their wounds. After all, isn’t this how we have all grown up? Even so, irrespective of what your child ends up doing with her or his Life, at whatever age, it is your duty as a parent to reiterate to your child that you still trust her or him and that she or he is always welcome to come back home!

Mother and Sreesanth: That hug matters a lot

In the latest Bollywood hit, Yeh Jawaani Hai Dewaani, the relationship between the main protagonist Bunny (Ranbir Kapoor) and his dad (Farooq Sheikh) is under some stress owing to the father’s second marriage. But when Bunny is leaving home for studying in Chicago, his dad tells him, while giving him a tight hug: “No matter what happens, I will trust you. And this will always be your home.” This is not filmi alone. This morning’s papers in India carry pictures of cricketer Sreesanth’s mother hugging and kissing him when he got back home to Kochi after 27 days in jail. Sreesanth’s fall from grace has been in the headlines the last few weeks. No one would touch him professionally (or personally too) with a barge pole. But to his parents’, despite the seriousness of his alleged offences, he is still their child who has come back home after a tumultuous season in Life.

No matter how old you are, to your parents, you will still be a child. And what one needs, especially in the face of a crisis, whether self-inflicted or per Life’s plan, or in a way both, is a warm hug that says ‘Everything’s gonna be okay. We love you and trust you.’ People make mistakes. To err is human. Who hasn’t made a mistake? Sometimes, the mistake may affect only the person who has committed it. Or her or his immediate family. At other times, a whole lot of people may be affected. Making mistakes is a part of Life, integral to growing up. Analyzing, dissecting, learning from a mistake is the key. But far more significant is the role of parents who must continue to reassure their child, even if that child now is grown up and has children, and should not have done what she or he did, that whatever’s happening all part of Life’s ways to test you and teach you.

To be sure, there are no guarantees that children who have been taught the right values by their parents will live by them all their lives. Normally they do. And logically they must. But people do go astray. They are adventurous. Or they are simply seduced and blinded by the circumstances that Life places them in. There’s an old saying in Hindi: “jab subah ka bhula hua sham ko ghar laut aata hai, usse bhula nahin kehte”. It means: When the one who went astray comes back home pining, embrace him. Don’t ostracize him.

Good parenting is perhaps a responsibility that never ends. Obviously, what appears to children to be a generation gap, is actually years of experience of having lived and faced Life, stumbled, fallen, gathered and stood up to walk again, coming into play to counsel, to suggest, to guide, to lead. Of course, an integral part of that responsibility, is to teach children who have ended up creating or getting into serious situations, to face the consequences of their actions. Or if they haven’t done wrong, but have been victims of circumstance, to teach them to fight to clear their name. A parent is any child’s first hero (or heroine). And no matter what happens, a reassuring parent stands a better chance of counselling and guiding a person in distress. I write this from experience. In the face of inscrutable circumstances, with no way out in sight, when it seemed like all was over, and the whole world (including my immediate family) had written me and my wife off, my dad, held my shoulders, and told me and my wife: “You both will come out of this. Keep the faith. You are winners!” Those were compassionate words. But more than that they were trusting. And that trust mattered, when in every material sense, we were losers!

Hopefully, your children will not lead you to situations like the one Sreesanth led his parents to, or I led my parents to, but if they do, remember, you have a bigger role to play than just grieve over your children’s fate. And that role is to be a true parent – a hero, an inspiration, a friend who continues to trust despite the evidence, the circumstances and the odds, and the one sage counsel who guides the person in the dock to do, from hereon, what’s right than what appears to be right!

Get out of your own way!

There are times in Life when nothing will go your way. There will be so much unsaid, so much unresolved. And it may just seem like everything is wrong about your Life. Every effort you make, each step you take, you will be stonewalled, tripped or pushed to a corner. The mind will invite you to despair. Decline that invitation artfully and let Life lead you. You get out of your own way!

Relax. Get yourself a cup of tea or grab a drink if you can. The mind is like a tennis-ball practice machine. It keeps spewing out worries and fears endlessly. These debilitating thoughts will tell you that you can and must solve the problems that face you just now. But what if you have already tried all that you can think up of. And failed. And the problems persist. The very thought that there’s no way forward may force you to allow your fears to take hold of you. Please don’t let them. Your fearing something is not going to take that something away. Life is to be faced. Not feared. So, let Life happen as it has been and as it is happening. These are times when accepting that there’s no choice is an intelligent choice in itself.  Exercise it.

I recently met the CEO of one of India’s leading retail brands. He shared with me how, about 15 years ago, a vindictive police officer, illegitimately and extra-constitutionally shut down all his stores and threw him in jail, where he had to spend 89 days. “There seemed no way out. This man had cases foisted against me under every provision of the law. It was a legal maze. And with our business shut down, cash was just not available. My family tried to mobilize something, both financially and legally, but it took three months. I was very clear that he could take away everything from me. But he couldn’t take away my spirit. I refused to give up because my conscience was clean. We had not done anything wrong and were simply a victim of circumstance and time,” he said. After a protracted legal battle that took a few years, this CEO was acquitted with a clean chit, has since rebuilt his business and his brand is one of India’s most admired. He told me, as I took leave of him, “Some nights are long and dark. But if it is night, know for sure that a dawn will follow!”

When we try to solve some of our problems and don’t meet with much success, intelligence lies in letting go, letting Life take over, and getting out of our own way. The truth is that Life has always been flowing on its own. You and I have done precious little to make our lives happen. Getting out of your own way is not inaction. In fact, it is a more sensible action than to be perpetually frustrated and fearful! When you get out of your own way, you can see the way that Life has laid out for you clearly! And that way, always, takes you to where you must eventually arrive!

Don’t fight your desires. Understand them!

Every scripture in the world will tell you that desire is at the root of all our unhappiness. But it is also intrinsic to human nature that we desire. The way to deal with desire then is to not resist it but to understand it, appreciate it and make an intelligent choice. Desire cannot be dropped. Because desire is an energy. And energy cannot be destroyed. When the energy, the desire arises, go it its root and understand it. Do you need what you desire or do you want it? If you need it, go for it. If you want it, you can still go for it, but absolve yourself of all guilt. Make a free choice by remaining alert, being awake and by practicing awareness.

The latest issue of India Today runs a cover story on ‘The Untold Story’ of Mahatma Gandhi’s experiments with practicing celibacy based on now available excerpts from the personal diaries of Manuben, who was his personal attendant for many years and was with him at the time that he was assassinated. It is common knowledge that Gandhi’s experiments with celibacy involved sleeping naked with female companions. People then, and now, see it as an eccentric side of a Mahatma, Great Soul. Others find it condemnable and questionable. We will never know why Gandhi used this method to deal with, in an attempt to perhaps conquer, his sexual desires. It is believed that Gandhi looked to conquer this enormous energy within, which would have only helped satiate his selfish and intensely personal desire, his lust, and direct that energy in the pursuit and practice of ahimsa, to help his country and its citizens. It was Gandhi’s personal choice and something he had the honesty, as Manuben’s diary jottings reveal amply now, to make no bones about what he did as part of this practice.

While the India Today story will be lapped up by its readers for the sheer expose it offers into the private Life of one of the most revered Indians, it helps us, on another plane, to reflect deeply about our own ability to deal with desire. I lean to Osho, the Master, for a better understanding of the anatomy of desire. Osho says the energy behind desire and the energy behind creation, existence, are one and the same. He quotes from the Eastern scriptures where legend has it that God had a great desire. To expand beyond himself. And so, in order to grow from one to many, he let his desire create us__humans. So, fundamentally, all desire is about expanding oneself because we are all an offshoot of the same creative energy. Fighting desire, therefore, means fighting with ourselves. No desire is bad unless you succumb to it and it starts to enslave you. And nothing must be succumbed to. We must not capitulate but we must choose freely. When a desire, let us say to smoke, to drink, to eat an additional gulab jamun, to have sex, to get angry, to feel frustrated, to be jealous, whatever, arises, look at the desire not as if you are desiring it but as a third person. As an observer. Understand the desire with your awareness. Where there is awareness, there will be prudence. It is only when we are blinded that we succumb mindlessly to our desires. When we stay alert, we will always be able to deal with the desire intelligently, effortlessly __ perhaps, overcome it by letting go of it, perhaps, choosing it consciously.