It’s never over until the last ball is bowled

Your biggest crisis is always your greatest opportunity.

There are times in Life when you conclude that it’s all over, you have hit rock bottom and you have nowhere to go, no reason to live and you simply want this lifetime to end. This is a natural, normal feeling. Each of us hits this “low point” in Life at some time or the other. But before you let this feeling grow within you, before you let your desperation exaggerate, before you quit, ask yourself what does rock bottom really mean?

Does it mean end of a phase in Life? Or does it mean the end of your Life? When you examine these two perspectives, in relation to your own Life situation, you will find that every crisis that has hit you, or perhaps the one you are going through just now, is always about a phase ending. It is never about Life ending. Because Life, simply, goes on and on. There are no dead-ends in Life – not as long as you are alive. Each phase ending signals a new beginning. And each new beginning will surely end.

The fickle human mind craves for a steady, stable Life. But Life itself is a roller-coaster. Every day is filled with as many new opportunities as there are challenges. You don’t see Life that way because all your focus is on securing stability. Which really means a good, well-paying job or source of income, a comfortable home, an affectionate family and – if possible, a hobby or an art form to pursue. For most people around the world, most of the time, this is how Life is. So, you don’t see Life events as upheavals. But almost each one of us has had our fair share of surprises or rude shocks. Someone may have lost a parent very early or may have made it through a Life-threatening health ailment, another may have struggled with a job search, or yet another may have never got a relationship right. Or someone may have lost a child or may have failed miserably with academics.

Each beating heart has a story to tell – of trial, tribulation and eventual triumph. You too have had your own share. Even so, why is it that you fear hitting rock bottom? Why do you fear loss? Why do you resist failure?

The answer lies in your definition of Life. You have, thanks to your upbringing and conditioning, concluded that your Life must be in a certain way. So, anything outside of your definition is something you label as bad and, so, don’t want in your Life. Having a job and a steady source of income, irrespective of whether you like the work you do or not, is good per your conditioning. Joblessness and incomelessness means a crisis is upon you. Being married to a person, who you don’t relate to, is stability. But having an intimate relationship, outside of your marriage, with someone you completely enjoy being with, is a sin! Smoking and drinking is fun. But to be diagnosed with a terminal illness, owing to your habit, is suffering! The key to opening the door of opportunity that is always there at every dead-end is to drop all definitions. Drop your own definition of Life. Drop all societal definitions. Just look at the Life that you have, even when you have hit a dead end, and ask yourself where do you go from here. Almost immediately, you will find a new world of opportunity opening up. From nowhere a door will appear where until then only a wall existed.

There was a time, about 20 years ago, when a project I led failed. The promoter who was backing the project did not honor his financial commitments to the project – to me and my team. He simply went missing. My son was only four and my daughter was a month old. Since my taking up this assignment had, unwittingly, made headlines, its collapse too was much talked about. I saw no way out. For weeks on end, I locked myself up in my bedroom, refusing to face the world or even talk to my mother-in-law, who was at that time staying with us, helping my wife with our just born. Life was embarrassing. Life was scary. I was consumed by depressive thoughts. There was an important cricket series going on at that time in India. And although my depressive state prevented me from watching TV or following the series, I heard a snatch of commentary that came in from the neighbor’s TV, one evening, at the close of a tight contest that India won. I was standing in the balcony in my apartment and I could hear the TV blaring at my neighbor’s. The commentator was animatedly describing the spectacular, surprise win that India had managed. He said: “In cricket, it is never over until the last ball is bowled.” That comment, indicating that India had snatched a victory from the jaws of defeat, made imminent sense to me as I sat brooding. I suddenly felt energized and rejuvenated. I used that moment of awakening to claw my way back in Life.

That learning has stayed with me ever since. I have faced, and continue to face, many a crisis since that one. But giving up has never been an option for me. Because, I have realized that, the unmistakeable truth about Life is that when you are dead, you are dead. Till then there’s no end. And you must simply go on…

“To Life!”….A Thanksgiving that never ends

If you must thank anyone, thank Life – for giving you this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to learn, unlearn and relearn….!

As Thanksgiving weekend begins, the energies are perfect to pause, to reflect and to feel grateful for all the blessings in your Life. It’s a great season – warm and compassionate, beautiful and soulful. Yet, gratitude must not be expressed seasonally. It has to be flowing perennially – oozing from your every pore, bubbling from the fountainhead within you. The reason we don’t always feel grateful all the time is because we take much of Life for granted. We have subconsciously come to believe that we have the right to demand, to seek deservance and to expect Life to be our hand maiden – pandering to our whims and desires. But just the opposite is true. Since you – or I – did not ask to be born, since this lifetime is a gift, all that you can and must do in Life is to accept whatever comes your way – and be eternally grateful for it.

I was at a south Indian Palaghattan (a community of Brahmins having its roots in Palakkad, Kerala) wedding this morning. The wedding feast is a must for all invitees. It is an elaborate multi-course meal served on a banana leaf. Today’s menu had over 24 items on it. But something appeared to have gone wrong in the kitchen this morning. Or was it with the service crew? Either we guests had arrived for the sadya, the feast, several minutes ahead of the kitchen being ready with the whole meal, or the service crew were short-staffed. Whatever may have been the reason – the food service was haphazard and woefully slow. The rasam arrived ahead of the sambar. And the thayir-pachadi (a curd-based vegetable side dish) came after the whole meal was over! Several guests did not even receive all the 24 items that were on the menu. Even as I felt sorry for one of the hosts, who was running around rallying the kitchen crew to fall into a systematic way of serving, I could not but help recall what Epictetus (55~135 AD), a Greek thinker and philosopher, had to say about Life: “Remember that you must behave in Life as you would at a banquet. A dish is handed round and comes to you; put out your hand and take it politely. If it passes you, do not stop it. If it has not reached you, do not be impatient to get it, but wait till your turn comes.” I would like to humbly suggest that when your turn does come, be grateful for whatever you get!

The wedding feast and Epictetus’ banquet metaphor perfectly sum up the spirit we need to nurture in Life! Not just around Thanksgiving but all the time. But in an instant-gratification, what’s-in-it-for-me world, where is the time to feel grateful for anyone or anything? Which is why we perhaps need a season to remind us of it.

One of the most inspiring examples of gratitude I have known is the way the inimitable Asha Bhosle, now 80, feels about Life. She’s had a roller-coaster 80 years! A bad marriage, being thrown out of home by her husband, struggling to get a toehold in Bollywood as a playback singer, a victim of her own sibling’s designs that prevented her from growing in her career, an eventful relationship with R.D.Burman before he suddenly died in 1994, the death of her only daughter who committed suicide recently. Such a Life, filled with pain and strife, could have numbed anyone. But not Ashaji! She was asked by Forbes Life a couple of years back what she thought of Life. She replied: “I am very grateful. If I had not married, I would not have had such wonderful children and grandchildren. If I had not married, I would not have left home. If I had not left home, I would not have started singing. If I had not met Bhosle (her estranged husband who ill-treated her), I would not have become Asha Bhosle!” What an inspiring take on Life? “If I had not met Bhosle, I would not have become Asha Bhosle.” How many of us can forgive someone who caused us immense pain and look at Life from this perspective – with absolute gratitude! Beautiful!!

Let us always remember that Life is a gift. The only way to live our lives is to celebrate Life in every moment! Every event we go through, each person we meet, is a teacher. Each experience is teaching us to live fully and happily – no matter what we have to face or endure. We are the ones who label each event as good or bad. From Life’s point of view, each event is simply a learning opportunity. It is for this continuous learning that we must be grateful – not just in this season, but all the time!

Make peace with an incomplete Life

No matter how hard you try, some part of your Life will remain unfulfilled, incomplete, sometimes, even irreparable….

This is true for each of us, for every Life.

Pandit Bhimsen Joshi: Worshipped by legions of fans
Picture: Raghu Rai Source: Internet

The latest issue of Open magazine has a poignant story of Raghavendra Bhimsen Joshi, 69, eldest son of Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, the late singer-genius. Raghavendra was born through Joshi’s first wife, Sunanda. Lhendup Bhutia, who wrote the Open piece, talks to Raghavendra about the latter’s just-released Marathi book (also translated in Kannada) titled Ganaaryache Por (Singer’s Son). In the book, and in the interview with Bhutia, Raghavendra tells, with both reverence to his father and with total honesty, the tale of how his mother, he and his siblings had to face neglect and abandonment after his father married a second time, a woman named Vatsala, and eloped with her. “When people wrote articles or books on my father and his personal Life, we would never be mentioned…It was extremely hurtful. Here was this star, a public figure growing in stature, and here we were, neglected and alone,” Raghavendra told Bhutia. Raghavendra believes that as the years went by and as the guilt of neglecting his first wife and children grew, Joshi, who already loved his drink, took to the bottle more. Raghavendra confesses that he never really mustered the courage to either ask his famous father why Sunanda and her children were neglected. And although Raghavendra wanted to be a singer himself, he could never bring himself up to ask his accomplished father to train him. Then, a few years before Bhimsen Joshi’s death, as Joshi lay in bed with a fractured leg, Raghavendra asked him: “You could so effortlessly move people to tears with your voice, how could you be so cruel to your own family?” Joshi did not reply but, recalls Raghavendra, instead cried. Even as Joshi cried some more, Raghavendra took his permission and sang him a song. Again Joshi said nothing. Raghavendra sang for Joshi, one more time, a few years later, as Joshi lay on his deathbed. At the end of the song, Joshi, too weak to speak, gestured to the lone nurse in attendance in the room, with his eyes, what a fine Raghavendra was!

Such a great singer. Someone that legions of fans adored and worshipped. A Bharat Ratna. Yet Joshi died unable to express his love and admiration, per Raghavendra’s version, for his eldest son and without being able to ever acknowledge his first wife and her children in public.

This is Bhimsen Joshi’s story. Gandhi too, per his oldest  Hariram’s point of view, failed miserably as a father – although he is revered and remembered as the Father of the Nation! But none of us is any different. Each of us do have some part of our Life remaining unfulfilled or incomplete. With someone it could be a relationship with a spouse, with someone else it could be with a child. Someone could have a huge health challenge or the loss of particular physical faculty. Another could never perhaps get his career in order. Or someone will have either no parent to look up to or may not have one that understands.

Life deals with each of us differently. Even so, a spot of sunshine is surely ordained in everyone’s lifetime. Just as a patch of pain is. Sometimes, the factor causing pain may end up being a permanent aspect of your Life! When you realize that you can’t do anything to remove that factor which is causing you pain, learn to either accept it or ignore it. Accepting or ignoring the pain will not make the pain go away. But it will surely help you deal with it better. And it may well help you not to suffer.

But the choice to accept or ignore, whatever’s causing you pain, can be made only when you understand that there are some aspects of your Life which will be unfixable. Acceptance is easier in a physical context. For instance, if you lose a limb in an accident, it is easier for you to accept this reality and not grieve over it or suffer. But if you lose a parent’s trust or understanding or don’t get her affection, you will struggle with both accepting or ignoring it.

Intelligent living, however, means to be able to see a pattern to your Life – with regard to your relationships or with regard to those aspects that don’t seem to have ever worked and to simply move on. That’s when you will be in complete peace even with an incomplete Life!

Make your doing, your being

Whatever you do, immerse yourself in it – and your will be one with it. That’s how you make doing, being!

This past Sunday, I read an article by the enfant terrible of Carnatic music, T.M.Krishna, in the Sunday Magazine of The Hindu. No, Krishna was not waxing eloquent on music. Instead he wrote, provoking thought in the bargain, about how “great sportsmen and artists share a transformational quality”. His piece, ‘Beyond the Boundary’ examined if Sachin Tendulkar’s technique is really an art form. Krishna wrote: “I have watched the phenomenal Sachin Tendulkar almost right through his career, especially in his Test innings… there have been phases in his great innings when he seemed to dissolve into cricket itself…. In this state, not just cricket or sport but Life itself seemed to be one uninterrupted flow…. The man and his bat became one; the ball was not an object that needed to be negotiated, caressed or decimated; the bowler, not an enemy; and his wicket, no point of reference…. What actually happened was that everything merged. Sachin became one with that existence and, as a beholder, I saw Life’s beauty in its most natural self, without any burden of names, identities, action or result…To me, at that instant, even the fact that it was Sachin batting was immaterial. This was an artist lost in his moment of Life, living it to its fullest.”

Krishna’s keen observation and perspective there has been simply, beautifully, explained by Osho, the Master, thus: “Forget the dancer, the center of the ego. Become the dance. Dance so deeply that you completely forget that you are dancing and begin to feel that you “are” the dance. Dance so totally…because the dancer-dance division can exist only when you are not total in it. The dancer must go until only the dance remains.”  

In the Sufi tradition, dervishes of the Mevlevi order, perform the ‘sama’, or dancing meditation, where they abandon their ‘nafs’ or egos or personal desires, by spinning in repetitive circles, symbolic of the planets in the solar system orbiting the sun. The dancer is merely a metaphor that Osho and the Sufis use. You could be a cook, a gardener, a writer, an orator, a clerk, a traffic policeman, a painter, a singer, a truck driver or a nurse. Who you are is immaterial. How you “are” (being) who you are is important. Of course, choosing to do what you absolutely love doing, is critical for losing yourself – for making your doing, your being! While it may be possible to even immerse yourself while loving what you are doing, your inner joy is always several notches higher when you have chosen to do only what you love!

But your Life may not always pan out that way. As it turned out to be with my father. He is an amazing Carnatic vocalist himself – having been trained for over two decades by an accomplished Guru. But way back in the ‘60s, the pressures of having to raise a family forced him to seek a career in the private sector textile industry, and later with the government. “Financial security and stability” were chosen over “what gave him joy”. I don’t understand the nuances of Carnatic music as much as I should. But over the early years of my growing up, and even now, when he is well past 75, I have found that my dad always lost himself to his singing whenever he was or is having a stressful time. In those times that I have watched him sing to himself at home, I found him immersed in the music. In fact, I believe, he always became the song. On the few occasions when he has performed concerts too, I have found the singer (in him) disappearing and only the song remaining. I cite his example here because you may not often get to make a Life – and living – out of what you love. Yet it is imminently possible that if you still do what you love, even if it is done infrequently, it can help you just be! And that just being is happiness!

As I grew older and my understanding of Life evolved, I have come to realize that when you don’t force yourself to do anything, Life flows through you. The cosmic energy then expresses itself through you. Your doing then becomes your being. That state, when you are in unison with the Universe, is what is also known as bliss! And as you can see, from the expressions of Krishna, Tendulkar, Osho and my dad, that state is imminently attainable!

Judgments and Opinions have no place in a Life that spares no one

As much as is possible, stay opinion-less and don’t judge anyone. For, anything can happen in Life to anyone – including you – at any time!  

As the Aarushi Talwar whodunit continues to flummox an entire nation, a CBI court, in perhaps a first of many sentences to follow in this case, holds the parents guilty and has awarded stringent punishment for them. This is a case where it’s common knowledge now that crucial evidence has been either lost or destroyed and where the investigators have evidently, consistently, bungled. The latest issue of Outlook magazine runs a cover story titled Everybody killed Aarushi! The story details how several gaps exist in the CBI theory, how, mysteriously, evidence has gone missing, how, curiously, the CBI court refuses to ask pertinent questions and how everyone – the media that has thrived on sensationalizing the case all the time, the inefficient UP Police and CBI teams and the public at large, who have been recklessly pronouncing judgment from day one – has contributed to the trial being driven more by popular opinion than by intelligent, evidence-based reasoning.

In the midst of all this, one can’t even imagine what the dentist couple, Rajesh and Nupur Talwar, must be going through. Whether the Talwars are guilty or not should have been ideally determined through an unimpeachable investigation and an unchallengeable judicial process. From all that is available in the public domain, it just appears, at least to many, that the Talwars did not get a fair trial. Yet, I am not going to invest myself in dissecting the case more than it already has been. Instead, I invite you to consider another opportunity here. This bizarre (ongoing) episode can teach us something about the nature of Life – if we care to pause, reflect and learn from it!

If we look at ourselves, we will realize that all of us have opinions about anything and everything under the sun. Further, we like to offer these opinions, freely, with complete abandon – often when they are never really solicited. Worse, we rush to judge people and events based on hearsay or on what we imagine or, as sadly is the case these days, on what the media has to conjecture! In an urban, educated, tech-driven world, ruled by nano-second social media virality, trial by the people, by popular and ill-informed perception, is as irresponsible as it is instantaneous. Really, of what use are opinions that don’t concern us? Why comment on someone or something, without knowing the truth, just because you want to make a statement, and, more important, be seen as making one?

All of us are a product of the time that we go through. What is happening to the Talwars can happen to anyone – not so much in terms of the specific context but in terms of being put in the dock with nowhere to go to or hide! Life can be totally unfair and can sock you again and again and again – without respite – leaving you no opportunity to even find your bearings or gather yourself. You can go on beating your chest and keep crying from rooftops saying you have been dealt with unfairly. But since Life never guaranteed anything, and most certainly does not promise any fair-play, it will simply go on. Life’s events and course have no logic or explanation. For instance, you can be in the wrong place at the wrong time and may be implicated in situations that you did not bargain for. Or you can invite a situation because of your actions. Either way, you have to endure what the cosmic design has ordained for you. You simply can’t escape it. People with a different perspective will refer to the cosmic design as destiny and explain it by way of Karmic theory. Without refuting such thinking just because we don’t necessarily understand it, let’s remember that Life’s just the same, inscrutable and unpredictable, for everyone – no matter what the packaging looks like with respect to each person’s lifetime and what the individual label reads.

Judgments and opinions have no place in a Life that spares no one! So, if you are the Talwars, you stand accused and, now convicted, for murdering your own daughter. Or someone can call you a cheat simply because your  business sank and you went bankrupt. Or someone can say your marriage failed because your spouse suspected you of infidelity. The stories are endless – as many as there are people on the planet. And each one will have a twist of its own, its own tale of Life’s vagaries and, often, injustice. Each and every one of us has to live the Life that’s already cast and is in store for us! Remember though that each Life event or encounter is not an accident. It is there by design – to teach us something new, while making us better, stronger and humbler.  

So, just because your Life-changing crisis hasn’t arrived yet, just because you think nothing dramatic will ever happen to you, it’s probably not a great idea to let your opinions and judgments about others run amok. A simpler, and definitely more peaceful, way to live will be to wish everyone well. Don’t judge anyone. Don’t offer an opinion for the sake of making one. Let people live their lives per their unique designs. While you live yours knowing fully well that the Master Plan has no flaws!

Draw a line, be candid…and your peace will never be violated

In every relationship draw your boundaries.

It is perfectly alright to outline what works for you and what does not. When you work towards pleasing someone in a relationship, at the cost of your own peace, you are actually suffering. And nothing ever__including a close relationship__is worth if it is born out of__or at the cost of__your suffering.

Most of us fail to draw up these contours and therefore end up in grief when there are moral, emotional or physical transgressions. Ideally, of course, if there is pure, undiluted love and sharing there is no need for such boundary-setting. The problem occurs when there is a transgression. At the first such instance, it is always advisable to place on the table candidly what works for you and what does not. When we fail to do that, we allow for a repeat of the same, irksome or unacceptable behavior. When we do that, we cross a temporary chasm of raw emotion, laced with pronounced discomfort, but enter into a perpetual state of peace and harmony. This applies in all relationships__spouses, parent-child, boss-subordinate, neighbors, siblings.

Candor's biggest contributions to Life are invaluable: trust, peace and joy! Try it. You will find that it works__wonders!

You will never awaken unless you are felled by hubris

Beware, as you ascend in Life, in career, in society, in name and fame, of the Master Feller – Hubris!

Tarun Tejpal

Much is being written and told of former Tehelka Editor-in-Chief, Tarun Tejpal’s rise and fall this past week. Almost everyone who knows him is sure that he was struck by hubris – excessive pride and a presumption that one is infallible! Because nothing else can explain why Tejpal, now 50, and one of India’s finest thinkers, editors and writers, would want to allegedly sexually outrage his much junior colleague, who not only is his daughter’s age, but is also her best friend? As one commentator, Vijay Simha, wrote yesterday: “His argument that it was a fleeting consensual encounter suggests that he may be in a state of denial. He may be having difficulty processing the consequences of his actions. Friendly or hostile is not the point. Tejpal simply shouldn’t have been there. A legal victory, which he seems to think he will have, is a mere footnote. The only real authority a human being has is moral. All other forms of authority are fugacious. Tejpal has ceded moral authority.”

Tejpal was once my senior colleague. Indeed I am saddened by what has happened. But I am not here to preach morality in Life. I may hardly qualify to be able to do that. But let me warn you about hubris. Because I too have been felled by hubris.

There was a time when everything about my Life was just the way I had wanted it to be. I come for a middle-class background. So, as I grew up, for various reasons, I developed this urge to want to succeed beyond even the wildest imaginations of my family. I wanted name, fame and money. To be sure, I got all of that. By the time I was 35, I had it all. I had built a very successful consulting Firm, I lived in a premium neighborhood, I was famous in the industry we worked in and I had money. Then I made mistakes with the way we chose to grow our business. I was warned that this was not the way to go about growth – by my soulmate and partner, my wife. I was warned by senior advisors who we had on our Firm’s management council. I was warned by my colleagues. But hubris always strikes stealthily. You will never know that you are thinking of yourself as infallible. On the contrary, hubris will wear the mask of humility and complete down-to-earthiness. It will make you believe that you can conquer the world. It will make you think that all those who are offering you sane counsel are wimps. And just when you believe that nothing ever can go wrong with your Life, everything really will! My decisions blew up on my face. My Firm’s fortunes came crashing. And in no time we were bankrupt! All that I had painstakingly built up - from my career to my Firm to my finances – went up in smoke. Everything that I was attached to was taken away from me.

It was very, very, very difficult to accept whatever was happening to me. I resisted. I fought. I cried. I sulked. But Life only got more difficult to face. It hurt me so much that I had failed and fallen. I desperately wanted to let go of the past and I wanted to know how I could be peaceful, happy and content.

That’s when, by sheer accident, actually cosmic design, I stumbled upon my Guru, Eknath Easwaran’s (1910~1999) book Gandhi The Man. Easwaran talks about the evolution of spirituality in the ordinary mortal – who was pretty much like you and me – M.K.Gandhi, eventually making him a Mahatma. Easwaran shares a verse, and I reproduce a relevant part of it below,  from the second chapter of the Bhagavad Gita that Gandhi meditated on each morning for over 50 years of his Life.

Arjuna asks Krishna: “What are the marks of the man who lives in wisdom, completely established in himself?” (Himself here means ‘his true, real, Self’). Krishna replies:

“….He lives in wisdom

Who sees himself in all and all in him,

Whose love for the Lord of Love has consumed

Every selfish desire and sense-craving

Tormenting the heart. Not agitated

By grief, nor hankering after pleasure,

He lives free from lust and fear and anger.

Fettered no more by selfish attachments,

He is not elated by good fortune

Nor depressed by bad. Such is the seer…”

I too have found great value in meditating on this verse. As I struggled to get over my fall, and my losses, Easwaran’s commentary on learnings from Gandhi’s Life and this verse helped me immensely. I soon discovered that what’s more valuable and enduring in Life are not what we acquire for ourselves in our lifetime but what we will leave behind – by way of a message, by way of creating something that will continue to be useful for generations to come, by way of leaving the world better than we found it!

To be wise, to live intelligently, is not difficult. It is a choice. All of us – you, me, everyone – will be struck by hubris at some time or the other, in our own unique ways. When you understand that Life is far more meaningful than satisfying your sensory pleasures and amassing wealth or seeking fame, you will have built the best armor around you to protect yourself from that wily predator – hubris. But the interesting irony about Life is that – in big or small measure – unless you are felled by hubris, you will never awaken!

“Being happy means simply being – no conditions can apply!”

You can only be happy in the present. Or to say it differently, you can only be happy if you are present!

A friend called yesterday to say that his world is falling apart. His business is doing badly and his marriage is on the rocks. “I am very, very unhappy! I hate being this way. But my worries and anxieties are pinning me down,” he lamented. Surely nobody loves being unhappy! I can totally empathize with my friend. But only he, neither his business doing better nor his marriage being saved, can pull him out of the rut he finds himself in.

It is the nature of worries and anxieties to debilitate. If they are holding you hostage, it only means that you have allowed them to be that way. The human mind plays tricks on you all the time. It consistently strives to take you away from what is and gets you to attend to what once was or what may possibly be. So, most of the time, you are not present in the now. And happiness is always in simply being – present, in the now! When you impose conditions on what is, unhappiness sets in.

There was a time when I did not know, or understand when I eventually got to know, this secret to living. I remember waking up in my air-conditioned bedroom in the nights, some years ago, sweating. Sleep evaded me for months on end. I would pace up and down a long hallway in my apartment each night – worrying, fearing, feeling angry, guilty, helpless. I knew what I was doing was stupid. It was crazy. But I just could not sleep. I could not focus on the present.

Once I went to a live concert of R.D.Burman hits (performed by a fantastic national-level orchestra). The hall was full. And the audience was hysterical. About an hour into the concert, I suddenly realized I had not even known which songs had played until then. I was there physically, I was hearing everything, I was watching everyone clap, shout, whistle and sway to the legend’s unputdownable music, but I was not “in” the concert. I was not present there. What finally woke me up from my worry-filled reverie, was one of my favorite R.D. numbers from the film Golmaal (1979, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Gulzar, Kishore Kumar). The song went like this: “Aane Wala Pal Jaane Wala Hai, Hosake To Isme Zindagi Guzaar Lo, Pal Yeh Jo Jaane Wala Hai…” The lyrics meant a lot to me that day: “The moment which is coming will go away, if you want to, live in this moment, for it will be gone soon too…” Not that I had not heard that song before. But that evening, that song stirred something within me.

Swami Sathya Sai Baba

As they often say, things happen in Life, when they must – never a moment earlier or later. The next time my inner consciousness was stirred was through an experience I had with Swami Sathya Sai Baba (whose birthday it is today), which happened within a week of the R.D. concert. I confessed to Swami that I was very worried and anxious about the future. I told him I saw no way out of the problems that we were faced with as a family. I said, I simply cannot go on like this. Swami asked me what would it take for me to be happy. I replied that if someone could assure me that my problems would be taken care of, I would be happy. Swami then told me that I would never be happy if I thought this way. “To imagine, to desire, to wish that you will not or you should not have any problems is the biggest problem. As long as you have this problem, you will be unhappy. Being happy means simply being – no conditions can apply!” explained Swami.

That conversation with Swami changed my entire approach to Life. I soon found a wonderful method called ‘shubha mouna yoga’, which is to essentially practise silence periods daily, that helped me discipline my mind. The human mind, I discovered, is like a dog. If you don’t train it, if you don’t discipline it, it will lead you. But if you coach it and teach it to “stay still”, and to obey you, it will never stray. Swami’s inspiration and his awakening message to me, and my practise of mouna, has taught me to be happy despite the circumstances I am faced with in Life.

We have to learn to accept that Life will have problems. And our entire lifetime has to be spent dealing with these problems. Now, we can grieve over the fact that we have problems, and wish, in vain, that we have none, and so be perpetually unhappy. Or we can expunge such an expectation and be happy – in the here and now!

(Disclaimer 1: The author, AVIS, does not that he is the be all, know-all and end-all of all that he shares based on experiences and learnings. AVIS has nothing against or for any religion. If the reader has a learning to share, most welcome. If the reader has claim a bone to pick or presents a view, which may affect the sentiments of other followers/readers, then this Page’s administrators may have to regrettably delete such a comment and even block such a follower. Disclaimer 2: No Thought expressed here is original though the experience of the learning shared may be unique. AVIS has little interest in either infringing upon or claiming copyright of any material published on this Page. The images/videos used on this Page/Post are purely for illustrative purposes. They belong to their original owners/creators. The author does not intend profiting from it nor is there any covert claim to copyright any of them.)

Life always gives you what you need

Life’s pretty amazing! It may not always give you what you want, but none of what you need is ever denied!  

This is true for each one of us. Irrespective of who we are and what we are going through.

A lot has been talked, in the past week, about Prithvi Shaw, the 15-year-old batting prodigy from Mumbai. There have been comparisons to Sachin Tendulkar’s brilliance and origins as Shaw amassed a mind-boggling 546 runs off 330 balls in the Harris Shield tournament. The media has gone ga-ga over this boy wonder. But one story in The New Indian Express yesterday, by sports writer Sandip G, caught my attention. It talked about Shaw’s background.

Sandip wrote about Prithvi Shaw: “His mother died when he was four. Soon, his father, Pankaj, a small-time readymade garment retailer, fell on hard times. By this time though, Prithvi was already regaling his neighbors with his batting. ‘Even when he was only six, he used to play better than bigger boys. Whenever he used to bat, neighbors used to flock to the maidan,’ recollected his father Pankaj, who still escorts him to and from Bandra. But the more Prithvi’s talent manifested, the tougher his father found it to sustain his son’s ambitions. ‘I was about to close down my business and I didn’t even have money to buy him a bat. I didn’t know what to do,’ Prithvi’s father said. Luckily though, former English county cricketer Julian Wood chanced upon him and convinced the (local) MIG Club to induct him. Three years later, former Indian spinner Nilesh Kulkarni spotted him and signed him up for his sports management firm for Rs 3 lakh a year. Another well-wisher gifted him an apartment in Santa Cruz.”

Shaw’s story reinforces a truism about Life. Not knowing what to do in Life, as Pankaj Shaw has confessed, is a great state to be in! That let-go is what Life requires from you in order for it to give you what you need. I have found this particularly true in my Life. Whenever I have reached a state of being clueless, and helpless, I have always found people walking into my Life, on their own at most times, and offering to support me and my family. One moment I would see no way ahead in a Life-and-death situation. My Life would be surrounded by total darkness. And in the next moment, I have found myself soaked in abundance and the milk of human kindness. This has happened again and again and again. When I connect the dots backward, as Steve Jobs famously said, I have found that Life gives you all that you need, when you let go! I have realized that miracles happen to you not because you pray hard or your faith is stronger but they happen because at one level you are a miracle yourself and, at another level, you need a miracle to move forward in Life!

It’s a beautiful Life really. You and I make it miserable by wanting it to be different from what it is. Drop all your wanting. It’s perfectly alright to not know what to do with your Life or in it! Let go! And, magically, you will find that Life manifests the right people, the right connections, the right situations, which will take you onward, giving you all that you need! You cannot live your entire lifetime in one nanosecond or moment. Life’s moves from moment to moment. Living Life, one moment at a time, savoring what you have, without question, without resistance, will always lead you to whatever you need.

Focussing on issues, not people, leads to solutions

Focus on the issue on hand. Never on the people connected or on the sentiments they express.

Life’s full of challenges. Some of them involve the interactions we have with people. There are some whom we can never escape. Like a short-tempered boss. Or a temperamental adolescent. Or a depressive spouse. Or an irritating neighbor. When we start wondering why is so-and-so behaving in such a manner, we lose the plot__and therefore the opportunity to seek a resolution or find a win-win platform for both parties. Know that people are different. And it is in people’s nature to be the way they are. Each of us is created differently. And so is the person you are having a challenge interacting with. So, if you look at the person and grieve saying she or he does not meet your expectation, it is an exercise in futility. For example, if you expect your boss to be polite and dignified with you__when he is incapable of such niceties__you will suffer. Instead the issue you have is with the way you are being treated. And if you don’t like it, you must find yourself a new boss! Meaning, a new job. Simple! Don’t grieve over the current one. Similarly, a teenager behaving irresponsibly at home is reflective of her adolescence and not a sign of any disrespect to you nor is this pointing to your failing in your duty to bring her up well.

There’s a saying in cricket: “Play the ball, not the bowler.” And we will all do well to remember this in all situations in Life. When we respect the issue, the situation, and give it all the attention it deserves, irrespective of who is causing it, we will always find solutions __ and inner peace!

You have nothing to lose – ever!

I recently saw someone wearing a T-shirt with a line that read: “When will we ever have nothing to lose?” The import of that line appeared to be that there’s so much at stake, most of the time for everyone, that there won’t ever be a time when someone will ever have nothing to lose!

I have a different perspective to offer. From the time we are born to the time we will die, none of us has anything to lose. Or, simply, all of us have nothing to lose, in any case! Because you came with nothing and you will go with nothing. Whatever you have got has been given here – in this lifetime. So, even if whatever you have got now – your assets, cash, family, lover, your reputation, whatever – is taken away from you, you don’t have to sweat over it. Because you will never be able to take them away with you when you die!

So, my answer to the question on the T-shirt is: You have nothing to lose – ever!

The Japanese martial art form of Karate, now also a major sport, has a deep, spiritual relevance to what we are discussing. The word Karate comes from a root that really means empty-hand. Gichin Funakoshi, founder of the Shotokan style of Karate, is widely credited with introducing and popularizing the discipline on the islands of Japan. Funakoshi changed the way the art form was called, from Karate-jutsu to Karate-do with the do suffix implying that it is a path to self-knowledge and not just a study of a technique of fighting. Karate soon came to mean “the way of the empty hand”. In Karate-Do Kyohan, Funakoshi quoted from the Heart Sutra, which is prominent in Shinghon Buddhism: “Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form itself.” Funakoshi interpreted the kara of Karate-do to mean: “To purge, empty, oneself of evil and selfish thoughts”. He championed that if a Karate practitioner could understand that “empty-handed I come, empty-handed I will go and empty-handed I am here – ready for combat”, then the practitioner has nothing to lose! Funakoshi says one can become a great warrior with this understanding. Then no one can defeat such a warrior, no one can rob him or her – because he or she is empty and has nothing to lose!

When you have nothing to lose, it logically means that you really have everything to gain. The essence of intelligent living is to understand, to appreciate and to live by the thinking that there’s really “nothing to lose” in Life! When you are willing to live fully, with no fear of losing anything – because there is nothing to lose really – then all you will do is to gain, to attain – happiness, inner peace, fulfilment and bliss!

Living in a “not-knowing-what-will-happen” mode

The very uncertainty that we fear can make Life magical and beautiful.

When I reconnected with a friend recently, after several months, I asked him how his work was. He replied that he was feeling very insecure in his current job. “A new CEO has taken over and he’s driving a lot of change in our organization. He’s demanding that every member of the team must contribute to either the top-line or the bottom-line. I am in a Sales support function. The new CEO feels all Support functions must go. So, I believe I will be laid off. There’s so much uncertainty. I live and work in fear daily – not knowing when I will be given a pink slip and asked to leave,” said my friend. At close to 50 years of age, my friend feels his chances of getting another well-paying job are low. Around this time of their lives, employees, like my friend, have a lot of limitations in pursuing career options. Their children are often in final years of school or college, or their parents are old and need support – so not many are ready, even if they are willing, to immediately move to a new city to enhance their employment prospects!

While I can relate to my friend’s anxiety – having gone through similar experiences myself – I am not quite sure that fearing uncertainty is necessarily the appropriate response.

Why are we running scared of uncertainty when the very nature of Life is impermanent, fragile, uncertain? In fact, there’s a certainty about death – if you are alive, you will die for sure some day. But just because you are born – and alive – does not mean you will go on living. There’s no certainty about Life! From the time you came out of your mother’s womb your entire Life has been a journey through the uncertain. It’s your upbringing, your education and your reference to economic parameters that makes you believe that you are secure and can be certain about the way your Life will pan out. Because you have been raised in a protected environment by your parents and family, because you have been progressing through your academic career in a linear fashion – moving from class to class in a predictable manner – because you got employed soon after you graduated from college, for all these reasons and more, you have come to believe that Life’s happening the way you envisioned it for yourself. You have almost concluded that Life is a straight line! That’s when Life socks you with a pink slip or with a heart attack or a break-up or a death! That’s when you wake up, shocked and dazed, and begin to “fear an uncertain future”.

When you live out of fear, resisting the uncertainty that surrounds you, you will not grow. You may grow older. But you will not grow up. Because fear debilitates. It limits. Every aspect of Life is uncertain, unsafe, dangerous – there are so many diseases you can contract and die or your house can be burgled and you can be murdered or you may meet with an accident on the road or your plane may crash mid-air or someone could hack your bank account and siphon off all your hard-earned money…Anything can happen if you actually consider what all can go wrong with your Life. But if you start letting the fear of uncertainty rule you, you can be sure to have ruined your Life.

There’s hope though! You can let go of all your fear and embrace uncertainty. Since uncertainty is the essence of Life, when you embrace it, you are actually uniting with the Universal Energy. That Energy empowers you and gives you the true sense of security – which no insurance scheme, no amount of money and no amount of physical protection ever can. Then a pink slip will not torment you. Then not-knowing-what-will-happen will be part of the game, of the adventure called Life. Uncertainty can be scary. But if you drop the fear, the same uncertainty becomes beautiful. This is the magical quality of Life. To experience this magic you must learn to live in the moment, soaking in whatever the moment has to offer, in a “not-knowing-what-will-happen” mode!

Hello…is it you who you are looking for?

Understand yourself. That’s more important than having others understand you. Believe in yourself. That’s more productive than insisting that others believe you.

But as humans we do just the opposite. We crave for being understood by others and lament the lack of faith others have in us. What use is anyone else’s understanding if you don’t know, don’t realize, don’t accept that you are special. That you are capable. That you have been created to enjoy this Lifetime and not suffer it? It is from awareness of your true Self that you will be introduced to the God within. Most of us just refuse to consider the argument that the energy that powers us, that keeps us alive, is the God who we so desperately seek.

Kabir, the 15^th Century weaver-poet, has explained this so remarkably:

Moko Kahan Dhundhere Bande Mein To Tere Paas Mein

Na Teerath Mein, Na Moorat Mein Na Ekant Niwas Mein Na Mandir Mein,

Na Masjid Mein Na Kabe Kailas Mein

Mein To Tere Paas Mein Bande Mein To Tere Paas Mein

Na Mein Jap Mein, Na Mein Tap Mein Na Mein Barat Upaas Mein

Na Mein Kiriya Karm Mein Rehta Nahin Jog Sanyas Mein

Nahin Pran Mein Nahin Pind Mein Na Brahmand Akas Mein Na Mein Prakuti Prawar Gufa Mein

Nahin Swasan Ki Swans Mein Khoji Hoye Turat Mil Jaoon Ik Pal Ki Talas Mein

Kahet Kabir Suno Bhai Sadho Mein To Hun Viswas Mein

Translated it means:

Where do you search me? I am with you

Not in pilgrimage, nor in icons, Neither in solitude

Not in temples, nor in mosques Neither in Kaba nor in Kailash

I am with you O man, I am with you

Not in prayers, nor in meditation, Neither in fasting Nor in yogic exercises,

Neither in renunciation Neither in the vital force nor in the body,

Not even in the ethereal space Neither in the womb of Nature,

Nor in the breath of the breath

Seek earnestly and discover, In but a moment of search

Says Kabir, Listen with care, Where your faith is, I am there.

When you awaken to the spirit of Kabir’s message, you will, with due respect to Lionel Richie, discover within you the one you are looking for!

The Inspiring Family Tendulkar

A loving, understanding and compassionate family is the greatest wealth anyone can have.

The Family Tendulkar (minus Savita): Clockwise from Top Left:
Ajit, Nitin, Ramesh, Sachin and Rajni

As Sachin Tendulkar bid an emotional adieu to his cricketing career yesterday, what struck me most was how his family had backed him all these past 29 (including his pre-international playing days) years. Sachin graciously acknowledged their role too in his farewell speech. Sachin’s father Ramesh Tendulkar married twice. From his first wife, Ramesh had three children – Nitin, Savita and Ajit. Sachin was born to Rajni, Ramesh’s second wife, and he is the couple’s only child. While Ramesh’s role in raising and inspiring Sachin, to be the champion that he eventually turned out to be, is well-known, I really admire how well his two half-brothers and his half-sister have nurtured him. Often in India, members of families where one parent has remarried, end up growing distant, if not always estranged. But Ramesh managed to keep the flock together. And his first three children have set a glorious example in the manner in which they helped their step-mother Rajni raise their precocious and precious half-brother. Sachin did talk eloquently yesterday about how Nitin has quietly contributed to his career and how Savita gifted him his first cricket bat. He also spoke about how Ajit, all through Sachin’s cricketing career, has stood by him – right from taking his prodigal brother to coach Ramakant Achrekar for the first time in 1984 to discussing Sachin’s dismissal at 74, in-depth, in his final, 200^th, Test at the Wankhede. Yet whether it was his half-siblings, or his wife Anjali or his late father or his mother Rajni, the Tendulkar family has stayed out of the limelight – preferring to do only what came to them naturally and what they were best at: which is, to totally back Sachin! That attitude is inspiring and speaks volumes about the family’s value systems – humility, mutual respect and togetherness.

I come from a fractured family that continues to confound me. My siblings and I live in the same city but fail to even speak with each other. We have always found, over the years, reasons and issues to remain divided and distant. With the passage of time, I realize, we don’t even perhaps relate to each other. Surely, I too have contributed to this situation in the past and have since apologized to my family for my actions. But mistrust and the urge to interpret__than understand__each other are so rampant amongst us that any effort we have made in the past to come together has always failed. To compound matters, when my wife, children and I encountered a Life-changing, near-death crisis, a bankruptcy, some years ago, my family felt we were “faking” the crisis. They had helped us financially and when we could not repay the money we owed them, we were not trusted for our word. The crisis did not hit me as hard as my family not trusting me did. But for my wife, who supported me, helping me anchor emotionally and brave that painful phase of my Life, I would have crumbled.

From my experience, I have discovered that love, understanding and compassion are the bonding glue in any family. These traits blossom and thrive only when the family thinks as one unit – like a cohesive, understanding team – and not as diverse individuals who are merely connected with each other by blood and birth (which is what defines a family!). Merely being related to each other does not a family make. Respect for each other’s opinions, actions and decisions, trust and companionship are critical for making a family come alive and stay together. Families cannot be built by possessing or controlling each other. They evolve only when space and time are given to its members – to experience Life in their own ways, to go out into the world, to try, to make mistakes, to fail and to still feel “welcome” at home. Members in a family cannot be separate from each other and expect the relationships in the family to grow stronger. It is simply not possible for separateness and bonding to co-exist! A family will stand up for its name only when each of its members stands up for each other. When people stop saying “I told you so” and instead say, irrespective of what has happened, “How can we make things better”.

Sachin is blessed to have been born into a family where they value and respect each other. The Family Tendulkar is surely an inspiration for all of us. We may not quite be able to raise another Sachin in our families without some cosmic benevolence perhaps, but we sure can create an environment in our families, on our own, where we trust, cherish and celebrate each other!

A lesson in detachment from a certain Mr.Brij

Nothing is yours. Nothing is mine. We own nothing. You get only what you deserve. And if you don’t get what you believe you deserve, well, that’s the way it was meant to be!

Last evening we were at a music concert. It was free seating for all classes in the audience. However, by paying an extra price you could reserve vantage seats in the hall. As we settled down into our seats that were available randomly, we noticed that the two seats immediately in front of us were labelled “Mr.Brij”. There was a couple seated in them, who, we presumed, were “Mrs. and Mr.Brij”. Soon the hall filled up. We were two minutes away from the start of the show, when two gentlemen walked up the aisle, to the seats labelled “Mr.Brij”.

One of them told the lady, who was seated closest to the aisle: “M’am, I think there’s been a mistake. You both are in our seats!”

The lady replied rather brusquely: “Perhaps we are. But we are going nowhere!”

The man was startled. Obviously, you don’t expect someone who is sitting in a seat you have reserved to be brazen about it. He politely requested the lady and her husband to get up. When they did not respond, the man went looking for one of the volunteers ushering in people. He came back with someone who seemed to be in a position of authority in the auditorium. The organizer-volunteer too appealed to the couple to get up and be seated elsewhere – among the free seats. But the couple were unrelenting.

As we watched this spectacle, dumbfounded as we were by the couple’s obstinate behavior, announcements were heard asking the audience to be seated quickly to enable the concert to begin.

The man, ostensibly the real Mr.Brij, pleaded one more time: “M’am, my name is up here on the seats. These seats are mine.”

The lady, continuing to be curt, replied nonchalantly: “We are not getting up!”

The announcer backstage had begun to introduce the artistes now. Mr.Brij and his friend looked at the couple disbelievingly. Helplessly. Then Mr.Brij leaned over and told them: “Enjoy the show with my compliments.” There was no sarcasm. No anger. Just a plain, calm wish. He then urged his friend to walk with him. My eyes followed them as they found seats that were vacant at the far end of the auditorium. From where they were seated now, the stage would not be as well visible as it would have been, had they got the seats they had reserved. It was a significant compromise Mr.Brij had made. I am not sure he made that compromise because etiquette demanded that he did not hold up the show. From the way the couple who were squatting in his seats were behaving, had Mr.Brij been persistent and insistent, the organizers would have had to forcibly evict them. This would have surely held up the start of the concert. Or perhaps, Mr.Brij is an evolved and mature human being. Who prefers not to cling on to his position and who practices detachment.

Whoever he is, Mr.Brij made me think. Would you or I have let go what – especially what is morally, ethically, legitimately – is ours? Would we have been able to practice detachment in this, or any similar, situation?

The lesson that Mr.Brij’s attitude teaches us is simple. Don’t let your possessions__and positions__ruin your inner peace.

The more we cling on to material assets – a premium reserved seat is certainly one of them – and/or to opinions, the more we will have to battle the world to keep our possessions secure. The world is full of people who, like that unreasonable couple in the auditorium, will encroach into your Life or will drag you into petty squabbles. They will provoke you with their brazenness. Each time you respond to their silly designs or each time you fight them to correct them or demand your due, you will squander your inner peace. Being detached in such situations is an intelligent response. Because attachments always bring misery. Being detached is the one sure way to experience joy!

However, detachment does not mean giving up your right or not standing up for justice. It only means that you should not let what has caused you to fight, and the fight itself, to ruin your peace of mind. Always evaluate each situation when you feel outraged by such devious behavior__like that of the couple in the auditorium__by asking yourself whether your clinging on to your position will affect your inner peace. If it will, and it surely will, simply let go. It’s simply not worth it. If you, on the other hand, feel it won’t and it will benefit all parties concerned, by all means fight for what is right and what is just!