Stand up for yourself – for no one else may!!

Never confuse your right to be firm with your need to be forgiving in relationships. In fact, you can be both – firm and forgiving.

There’s a warm and compassionate side to each of us. We are, by nature, willing to forgive people for their transgressions. But often times our softer side is viewed and interpreted as our weakness by people who trample upon our emotions or deny us our freedom or even basic, fundamental, human courtesies. In such situations, it is absolutely fine to stand up for yourself, look the someone who is bullying or harassing you in the eye, and say that you will not take this treatment anymore.

I have learned this from Swami Sathya Sai Baba: “In any relationship between two people, one may well be a cow and the other, a bull. There’s nothing wrong in being either. Each has a role to fulfil and each has something to offer the other. But at any time that the bulls starts taking advantage of the cow’s benevolence, mistaking it for meekness, the cow will be well within its rights to assume the ‘avatar’ of the bull. In taking a stance, in your own interest, there is no right or wrong. Just be righteous. The cow need not perpetrate any acrimony, aggression or animosity. But the cow shouldn’t suffer any of these either.”

In essence, while to make a mistake is human, and to forgive such a mistake too is human, to suffer in silence and sorrow is both unjust and inhuman. It is the biggest hurdle to inner peace and joy. So, don’t confuse being compassionate and being firm. They need not be exclusive. Simply, no matter who it is, don’t let anyone take you for granted or play with your self-esteem. Remember: if you don’t stand up for yourself – chances are, perhaps, nobody else will!

Live – ‘knowing’ you will die!

To understand Life, understand the certainty of death. It is the only thing you can be sure of in this lifetime – that you will die! Once you understand death, you will live fully, intensely, celebrating each moment that you are alive!

The conditioning, however, that all of us have had has led us to fearing death than accepting it. Death is presented to us as something that’s horrible, grave and sorrowful. So, we grown up fearing it. And therefore we don’t really live – for how can you live, forever cowering with fear, of a death that you certainly can’t avoid?

There’s an insane political drama playing out in Tamil Nadu politics where Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) patriarch M.Karunanidhi has expelled his older son M.K.Alagiri from the party ostensibly because the latter wished for the death (a charge that Alagiri has denied) of the former’s younger son, M.K.Stalin. The brothers have been sparring publicly for a long time now – to the extent that, especially with the ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) firmly in power, the public at large hardly bothers about this sibling rivalry or the internal challenges that grip the DMK. But a charge from Karunanidhi saying Alagiri was “wishing Stalin’s death” certainly made Page 1 headlines. What I found interesting was not what the father and the older son were saying, but how calmly Stalin reacted. He said: “Everybody who is born has to die someday.” Political analysts don’t see Stalin’s retort as a study in profundity. Nor do I. I see it simply as the truth – stated aptly, appropriately.

Gandhi before his final journey
Picture Source: Internet

Today is also the day, 66 years ago, when Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated by Nathuram Godse. In a book being published shortly by Roli Books, titled, “My Experiment with Gandhi”, author Pramod Kapoor says that “Gandhi would often say – ‘Death is a celebration…the body falls and the bird within it flies away. So long as the bird doesn’t die, the question of grief should not arise.’” I believe this is the most profound understanding of, and a very beautiful explanation for, death.

So stop fearing death. Rejoice in the awareness that you have of what the end-game is all about. Celebrate that your soul, your true Self, is non-perishable and that it will soon be free – when death consumes your body and ends your current lifetime. If we can understand this truth about death – and Life – you will live, than merely exist!

Of Krishna the Lord, Krishna the seeker – and bliss!

Whatever you do, do it as an offering to the Universe – from your soul to the cosmos. And you will be at peace with yourself!

T.M.Krishna
Picture Source: Internet

T.M.Krishna continues to amaze me. In a recent interview to Sumana Ramanan of the Open magazine, titled The Argumentative Musician, Krishna has laid bare what he believes in and why he often ends up doing what he does. For instance, at a concert last December, during the famed Chennai music season, Krishna stopped singing an hour ahead of schedule and drove away, much to the chagrin of the organizers and his own rasikas and fans! Opinions flooded the music scene – ranging from how arrogant Krishna had become to his hitting a creative block to the premise that he did so only because it was a free kutcheri (concert). But Krishna told Ramanan: “I had actually reached a point of fulfilment. In that state of repleteness, I felt there was nothing left for me to sing. I may have been able to sing for another hour, but would that have been music…it had nothing to do with the fact that the concert was free…Music is not about delivering a fixed number of hours’ worth of singing, but (it is) about transcending the earthiness of being.” Krishna elaborated further on what drives him: “…I am not doing this (whatever I am doing) for reasons that have anything to do with T.M.Krishna, the performer. I do not even like the title ‘performer’. I am in this because I passionately and insanely believe that music has given me a window into Life that is taking me somewhere…I am not afraid of disappearing from the popular stage.”

For those of you who do not know Krishna well, he, at 38, is regarded as one of Carnatic music’s most outstanding young proponents. His talent is regarded as prodigious and many expected him to walk the predictable path to “glory” in the highly templated Carnatic music industry that thrives on overflowing kutcheris, raving, nodding rasikas and awards and titles being accumulated annually. Perhaps it was Krishna’s personal quest (his seeking the ‘earthiness of his being’), influenced by his schooling with the KrishnamurtBi Foundation of India (founded by renowned philosopher J.Krishnamurti), for finding a deeper meaning to Life, that led him to stop running the “Carnatic rat race”. He stopped playing to the rules long back and has done “crazy” stuff like refusing to sing at paid-for concerts. To many, he’s the enfant terrible of Carnatic music.

I don’t know much about Carnatic music for me to be able to comment on Krishna’s genius. But I firmly believe he’s not being argumentative ever. If anything, he’s spiritually evolved.

Consider what we can learn from him. For one, we are all so conditioned to chasing success – recognition, fame, wealth – in whatever we do, that even if we don’t enjoy what we are doing anymore, we continue to do them because we want to protect our trappings of success, the “fringe benefits” of earning-a-living! In choosing to sing for himself, for his inner joy, not fearing a loss of popularity or demand, Krishna is highlighting the importance of following your bliss. Second, although he hasn’t said so in his interview to Ramanan, Krishna reminds me of what Lord Krishna tells Arjuna in the concluding verses of Chapter 9 of the Bhagavad Gita. Here’s my guru Eknath Easwaran’s translation of the relevant verse:

A leaf, a flower, a fruit, or even

Water, offered to me in devotion,

I will accept as the loving gift

Of a dedicated heart. Whatever you do,

Make it an offering to me –

The food you eat or worship you perform,

The help you give, even your suffering.

Thus will you be free from karma's bondage,

From the results of action, good and bad.

I don’t want to get into the merits or demerits of Karmic theory or the existence or non-existence of God here. The point is very simple. You and I, and Krishna, have been created without our asking for this lifetime. We have been endowed with our own special talent. In Krishna’s case, it is proficiency in Carnatic music (and in writing, as I have come to discover; his book ‘A Southern Music – The Karnatik Story’ by Harper Collins was released by Nobel laureate Amartya Sen last month). This Life, therefore is a gift. The talent each of us possesses too is a gift. So, the best way to live the Life given to us is to offer whatever we do to the Universe – freely, without seeking anything in return. When there are no expectations from whatever you do, there can be no agony. And when there is no agony or suffering, you will thrive in your native state of inner peace, joy and bliss! That’s what Krishna of the Bhagavad Gita professed and that’s what T.M.Krishna believes in – and is championing!

Let Go and be Fearless

There is nothing to fear in Life. And, in fact, no one to fear. All you have to ask is – “What am I afraid of?” – and you will be fearless.

Fearlessness comes from a deeper understanding of the Self. Of knowing that everything is transient. Impermanent. This Life, your name, your acquisitions, your fame, your wealth, your relationships and your memories of the Life you have lived – everything, absolutely everything, will become irrelevant, when you die. So, all the feelings of insecurity, anxiety and fear that grip you in everyday Life situations are meaningless. Just let go and accept Life’s transient nature. You too will discover that there’s nothing to be afraid of – and no point in being afraid of anything!

Here’s a popular Zen story on fear that Osho, the Master, used to narrate. A man walking in the night slipped and fell from a rocky path, at the edge of a precipice. Afraid he would fall down thousands of feet, because he knew that just at the edge of the path was a very deep valley, he grabbed hold of a branch of a tree that was growing out of the edge of the precipice. In the darkness of the night all he could see below him was a bottomless abyss. He shouted for help and his own shouts echoed back – there was nobody to hear him or come to his rescue. You can imagine that man, and his night of torture. Every moment there was death below, his hands were becoming cold, he was losing his grip…but he managed to hold on, and as the sun came out he looked down…and he laughed! There was no abyss. Just six inches below his feet there was a rock ledge. He could have rested the whole night and slept well. The ledge was big enough – but instead, because he was afraid of the imaginary abyss and the whole night had been a nightmare.  

Osho says it is entirely up to you whether you want to, metaphorically, cling on to “your branches and spend whole nights in fear” or if you really want to “let go and land on your own feet”. The import here is not to say that you must foolishly plunge into an unknown abyss. What is being said here is that when you can address Life deeply and know that everything that you are afraid of losing, including your Life, will at some point be taken away from you, then you turn fearless and live your Life freely – and fully!

To be sure, fearlessness is not being without fear. In fact, everyone – anyone – will have fear. Fearlessness comes when you can face your fears, and through your understanding of Life, reason with your fears and realize that being fearful is pointless. This understanding will lead you to appreciate Life better – that all that you fear losing will perish including your body, but the real you, your true Self, who you don’t quite think about or relate to, will carry on, as it is immortal and, therefore, fearless!  

Stay engaged with the present when facing Life’s storms

A great way to face any challenge in your Life is to find your center and drop anchor! In other words, it simply means, do not allow the mind to wander into the future with worry or go back to the past in grief or with guilt.

Sometime ago I found myself in a courtroom. I was in the dock, accused of cheating someone. The judge was a very fine man, very methodical, very disciplined. He had a great sense of humor too. His one-liners had everyone in splits – even rival parties presenting their cases in court enjoyed a good laugh. My situation was hardly laughable though. I had no money to repay the creditor who had filed the complaint against me. And it had become apparent that I had to face the consequences of what the law prescribed in such matters. If my petition was dismissed, I was likely to be arrested. And I had nobody in that city who could stand guarantee for my bail application. Even so, I remain engaged with the court proceedings – and heartily enjoyed the laughs that the judge’s comments generated! I sat by the window. It was raining heavily and it was windy too. The rain sprayed on my face and my shoulder, driven by the winds, after landing on the court’s balcony railing. Interestingly, I felt very peaceful as I sat there in that courtroom. The rain peppering my face, the judge’s humorous one-liners, the method to the madness of one judge having to deal with hundreds of cases in a day – all of this left me feeling remarkable and inspired - even if it was ironical I was feeling so, given my predicament!

Metaphorically, and in reality, a storm raged outside of me. But deep within, I felt good, at peace with myself, and engaged in the moment. In that moment, in the now, there was no fear, no anxiety, no worry and no guilt or grief. It was surreal. It was magical.

That’s when I understood the meaning of the phrase, “It is always peaceful in the eye of the storm.” The storms that ravage our lives – a debilitating health condition, a torturous relationship break-up, a business going bust, losing a reputation that’s painstakingly built, the sudden death of someone you love deeply – fill us with worry, grief and suffering. It may seem almost impossible not to worry or to grieve or to suffer. But there lies the best kept secret about intelligent living. In the now, when you are present, and engaged in the moment, there can be no worry. There is no cause for grief. And there isn’t any suffering.

You may wonder how this works. And if this really is true. Let me explain.

The way Life operates is that none of us can control what is happening to us. Life goes on happening. And all we can do is to respond to Life as it happens. Some of the happenings in your Life may shock you and sock you. You can find a million people to blame for your situation or you can even berate yourself for your plight. You can argue with reality – asking why things have happened to you! But be sure that all your fighting, all your resisting, will be completely futile. What I have learned is that Life’s crises are there only to help us find strength from within. That is the only place which is untouched by what goes on outside and that’s where you will be in total peace and feel infinitely secure! The human mind is like a large ship in the ocean of Life. When a storm hits the high seas, an ordinary vessel will be tossed around and may even drown. But modern day ships have stabilizers. They help the ship navigate deftly through rough waters. Similarly, the human mind too can be stabilized by training it to be present in the moment. When it is present in the now, the mind is powerless. The mind works and thrives only in a yet-to-be-born future or in a dead-and-gone past! That’s why worry, grief and suffering don’t affect you in the present moment! And that’s how you, your true Self, can be peaceful, despite the circumstances that you are placed in and despite the storms that will often rip apart your material Life! Finding strength in a crisis situation in Life really means letting go of the past and not worrying about the future – while being aware that everything in Life is impermanent – including Life’s storms!

Accept people for who they are – don’t judge them for what they say!

Change the way you look at people and Life. Fundamentally, it is NOT necessary that all people should understand you.

Don’t expect people to understand you, appreciate you or accept you. Chances are they won’t. And know that it is perfectly fine for them to be that way. A large part of our emotional stress comes when we crave for understanding, appreciation and acceptance. When we offer an opinion or perspective, at home, at work, wherever, we believe it to be a given that our point of view must be understood. In fact, we demand it. We also expect it and feel good when people appreciate our efforts__from something as immaterial as plain praise to a sense of gratitude that people display for actions we may have taken in their interest. And, of course, everyone wants to be recognized and treated with respect and dignity__a social acceptance of sorts__by everyone else. When these expectations are not met, we feel let down. We grieve. And we carry the heavy burden of a certain longing, a sorrow, of a misplaced craving.

There’s a way to set down this burden. Approach people with the awareness that just as you are entitled to your opinion, others are too. Second, have NO expectations from people. You do your part in a relationship well and live with that satisfaction. Don’t expect appreciation or acceptance. Simple. This attitude helps in keeping everyday living uncomplicated and peaceful. Because peace in daily Life is the biggest casualty in the wake of such expectation.

There’s a story from the Life of Adi Sankara (788 CE ~ 820 CE) that I remember. Adi Sankara was always clad in a loin cloth or a dhoti at best. One day a few urchins on the street that he was passing through, who did not know who he was, pelted stones at him and chided him for being “poor” and “robe-less”. Adi Sankara’s disciples were angry and set out to admonish the young boys on the street. But Sankara stopped them and asked them to carry on. One of the disciples was furious that his Master be abused like this and secondly he simply could not comprehend why his Master advocated restraint when all that the boys needed was a sound thrashing. So he asked his Master to explain why he choose to ignore the barbs and the stones. Sankara replied: “To pelt stones at anyone and call people names is the privilege of those young boys and they have exercised it. To accept their stones and barbs or not is our privilege. I have exercised our right not to accept that privilege by choosing not to react and to simply move on!”

Beautiful isn’t it? If we can cultivate this attitude and embed it in the way we approach everyday Life, our inner peace will never get disturbed. This attitude also comes in handy when people accuse you of being hypocritical. I am sometimes asked if I ‘really practice all that I preach’? And at some other times I am told that what ‘I preach’ is NOT ‘applicable in practical everyday Life’. I don’t react. I simply smile and move on. Because I have learnt to have no expectations of understanding, appreciation and acceptance from people. Also, in reality, what I do here, through my daily posts, is to share my learnings from my experiments and experiences with everyday living. I don’t preach. I share in the belief that what worked for me, may help validate someone else’s experience or clarify a point of view in them or, if they choose to disagree with my view, will at least help them be clear about what they don’t want to or must not do in Life! So, what’s the point countering a charge of hypocrisy? People believe people are hypocritical because they don’t believe people in the first place. This is particularly true when people are being judgmental and call someone a hypocrite without wanting to know the full story. And that brings us back to the subject of understanding – or the lack of it in everyday Life! So, the best way to live in peace is to appreciate and accept people for who they are – than for what they say – and to not expect anything from anyone.

Learn to give your Life, Time!

All of us wish we had 28 hour days and 3-day weekends. The truth is, surprisingly, this is possible. Provided we are willing to invest ‘time’ in this wish.

Fundamentally, to achieve this, we must learn to drink from Life’s cup, one sip at a time. And not rush through Life. Agreed that despite our earnings having gone up, and technology having simplified much of our lives, we continue to be faced with a deficit of time. We live in a world where traffic’s getting worse, the home-work-home commute is therefore only getting longer and is a drudgery, meetings are both meaningless and never-ending, targets seem even more unreasonable than they used to, the children are demanding more attention despite their having ‘grown older’ and overall, a sense of racing__from event to event, from crisis to crisis, from chore to chore__ prevails over living! And, of course, weekday mornings are still dreadful.

This, however, is the time to pause, to take a deep breath and go through your morning, day and week, mindfully. This may seem like a stupid, impractical suggestion. But consider it. By running faster and faster, by rushing, you are only going to exhaust yourself. Your energy will remain depleted all day and perhaps all week. Which is all the more reason why you need to practice mindfulness. Mindfulness means to focus your attention on whatever you are doing, unmindful of a previous task or an upcoming one. We do just the opposite. While packing the kids away to school, your focus is on your own commute. While on the ride to work, you are already thinking of the 3.30 pm meeting for which you are underprepared. And worry if it will get over in time for you to leave work and get home, because there’s the carpenter coming over at 6.30 pm to fix the wardrobe lock! This prescription, to slow down and yet proceed with focus, isn’t an original one, is definitely not invented by me, nor is it a “cure for our times”. The 12^th century Tibetan Buddhist monk, Jetsun Milarepa (1052~1135) had advised thus: “Hasten slowly and ye shall soon arrive.” He championed nimbleness and un-distractedness over rushing, even in those times.

The simple truth about time is that you can have as much time as you want, available to you, provided you are ready to work for and on it. Many of us are armchair wish-makers. We want more time, but we don’t want to make changes to our lifestyles and schedules. We don’t want to analyze our workdays and weeks and decide what’s core and what’s non-core. Without investing time in understanding what’s important and worthy of our time, we can’t expect to find more time in our daily lives!

Get this straight. And know that this aspect about managing your time is non-negotiable. When you do work on time diligently, your Life will become meaningful and an endless experience of ‘leisure’. It was the super-tramp poet William Henry Davies (1871-1940) who wrote in his 1911 poem, ‘Leisure’: “What is this Life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare!” Imagine, if in a packed week, on a crazy  morning, you could just ‘stand and stare’ at people rushing to work! It really is possible. All you have to do is to understand that if you want to have the time of your Life, you must be willing to give your Life, time!

A Life lesson from a blade of grass

Being humble, yielding, in times of adversity, is being courageous. That’s when you emerge “cleansed” and “stronger”!

There’s an ancient Chinese analogy for understanding courage, for demystifying the popular perceptions we have of this magical quality which we all possess but don’t summon, don’t use. Imagine a 3000-year-old ancient tree, 300-feet high. The very sight, the presence of this tree gives strength, denotes power. But a huge storm, like Nilam, can__and often will__ uproot this tree. When the storm blows over, the tree which, obviously logically aware of its might and power, fought and refused to surrender, lies defeated, uprooted and felled. Whereas the blades of grass at the foot of the tree and around it, remain un-uprooted. Imagine the meek, easy-to-yank-out blades of grass, being able to withstand a whole night of fury. And after yielding to the storm, allowing the storm to ‘cleanse’ them, the blades of grass are again looking fresh and dancing in the early morning sunlight, with little drops of dew adorning their tips like crown jewels. That’s illogical, right? The mighty tree has been felled and the meek grass lives on, happy, blissful! And yet, this is what happens. This is what courage is all about. The tree showed logic and operated from its head__its knowledge of its strength and its ‘unyielding nature’ is what felled it, not the storm really. On the other hand, the grass showed tremendous mindfulness, ‘yielding’ happily when the storm raged and finding the song in its heart back the next morning! Between the two, the grass showed courage.

Courage is not fearlessness. Courage means going all the way despite the fear, in spite of the unknown. The storm represents the phase that sometimes we encounter in Life. And the tree represents those who operate from too much logic, too much ego, too much unwillingness to change. And the grass is the inspiration for all of us__to be willing to let go, surrender, yield, so that our inner equilibrium remains undisturbed despite the huge storm raging outside. Courage is therefore choosing the way of the grass__to NOT treat Life as something to be conquered, defeated, but to yield humbly, intelligently, and to go with the flow!

Let’s learn to let our children be who they are

The biggest support that you can offer to your children is to never compare them with others.  

Each child is unique. Each child is independent. And each child has a different way of experiencing and making sense of Life. We must learn to appreciate this difference, this uniqueness, and to allow our children to grow up – and evolve – into being good human beings. This is our “only” responsibility with regard to our children.

But most of the time your parental concern for protecting your child from Life’s truant ways comes between you and your child’s journey to explore – to touch and feel – Life. From taking time, or even being unable, to appreciate a child’s dyslexic condition to forcing a science curriculum on a child who is interested in arts to forcing a young adult into a software career, when all he wants is to create music, to insisting that your daughter marry someone from within the community than someone who loves her deeply – there are a million ways in which you – and I – often fail to support our children. Or, for that matter, even understand them.

Therefore, I was very encouraged to read renowned theatre actor and film director, Chitra Palekar’s (who is divorced from Amol Palekar) views on a “different” choice her daughter made many years ago. Chitra shared her personal story with The Times of India (TOI) yesterday saying how her daughter walked up to her one day in the early ‘90s and reported that she was a homosexual.

Chitra Palekar (right) with her daughter
Pic Source: Internet

“Would you love your child less if he is left-handed? Would you hate her if she is dark? You don't. It is the same case here. Nothing changes because she has a different sexual orientation. Science has proved it's not a disease, it is merely a difference. She is your child. And you want her to flower,” Chitra told TOI. She added: “She told me: 'Amma, I'm a lesbian'. I wasn't shocked. I was just surprised, taken aback. Heterosexuality is what we've all grown up with. My only knowledge about homosexuality was through films and some literature. But I immediately accepted her. Because she was the same that she was till two minutes ago. Nothing about her had changed for me.” Chitra says she was only hurt that her daughter had not shared this ‘difference’ in her with Chitra any earlier. But being the mother that she is, Chitra forgave her daughter and moved on. Her daughter, now 41, teaches at the University of Western Australia, and lives with her partner of 14 years.

When it comes to our children, not all of us have to always deal with situations as difficult as the one Chitra had to. But her maturity and her understanding are indeed an inspiration. Comparing our children with other children and pining for them to “not be different” is ruining our own happiness and that of our children. What we can learn is to just let our children be who they are. We can teach them good values, we can invite them to learn from our experiences by sharing with them openly – but beyond these we must cease to have any expectations from them. They have been created to experience Life in their own unique way. That way may not be the one we know or understand. I believe the only blessing we can ask for, is for our children to be happy doing whatever they choose to do in Life – whoever they choose to do it with!

Come Alive. Stay Alive. Be Purposeful!

If you do something that makes you come alive, every single day, your purpose will soon find you. And when it does, Life becomes meaningful!

Preethi Sukumaran and Srinivas Krishnaswamy
Pic Source: Internet

I learned a lot listening to a wonderful young lady, Preethi Sukumaran, co-founder of the “sustainable goodies” venture, Kyra (www.krya.in), yesterday. Preethi and her husband, Srinivas Krishnaswamy, founded Krya in May 2010 with the idea of creating the best plant-based products for helping urban folks, like you and me, make an easy transition to a more sustainable Life. So, the entire  Krya “sustainable goodies” range today, which includes a popular detergent and dish-wash, is made on five principles – it is recyclable or re-useable, it has a minimum ecological footprint, it is made only from natural ingredients, it is entirely vegan and it is easy to adopt and embrace. What drove Preethi and Srini, who had spent the first 15 years of their careers with MNCs, leading popular global brands, to embark on this “creative partnership” called Krya is, as Preethi shared, this: “We wanted to leave the planet a better place.” So, apart from being cruelty-free (very unlike many leading brands in the detergents and personal care space) and staunchly vegan, the Krya team thinks about each product from the sourcing to the manufacture to the disposal stage – incorporating sustainability into every part of its lifecycle. Preethi is, as she confesses, fanatical about this focus. She envisions that Kyra will soon be an institution that champions sustainability and leads by example – living on even after both of them, the founders, are gone!

Running an enterprise with that kind of monomaniacal focus – “where you are clear and principled about what you will never do” – is not easy. For one, scalability is an issue. Second, consumer preferences, which are currently steeped in self-gratification and are not necessarily sustainability-driven, are unlikely to change significantly even in the next 50 years – at least not in the lifetime of pioneers like Preethi and Srini. Third, should sluggish market trends impact profitability in any manner, then sustaining the business venture itself becomes a challenge. But people who come “alive” in every moment that they are living, are ready to face whatever comes in their way! That’s because their “purpose” has found them. Jim Collins, the management guru, and author of Good to Great and Built to Last, theorized (through research spread over 25 years) that organizations (led by people) with a core purpose – which is the reason why they are in business apart from making money – were far more likely to survive in the long run, despite market upheavals. These are the ones that will go on to become institutions, Collins has postulated.

Similarly, individuals too, who are driven by a sense of purpose – a deeper reason for being – do end up leaving behind a lasting legacy. Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela are classic examples of people who led a Life of meaning, because their purpose had found them. And that’s the other point. Your purpose will always find you if you are open to and are aware of the idea that there’s a larger reason why you have been created. That your Life has a meaning – which goes beyond meeting your selfish desires and your obsession to provide for yourself and your family alone. When you start asking how you can be useful – than be merely successful – then you are, in every sense, purpose-ready. Of course, when you choose to do something that makes you come alive every day, then your purpose will surely find you.

Preethi’s and Srini’s journey, and the Krya story, reminds me of the value that being purposeful creates. It drives you to make each day count even when you are faced with a zillion challenges. It makes you come alive and stay alive! As Howard Thurman, (1899~1981), the African-American author and philosopher has said: “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

So, when are you coming alive?

Sharing when you are feeling low and lost is not a bad thing

Don’t ever feel embarrassed to admit that you are sad. If you are feeling low and lost, accept it, express it!

There are times in Life when you feel lost, tired, worn out and vulnerable. It happens to all of us. And when it does feel that way, the best thing to do is to share what you are feeling like. You will then find that the whole world around you comes together to make you feel warm and wanted. Truly, there’s more compassion in the world than you can even fathom – though, most often, it just doesn’t appear that way at all!

Most of the time we fight shy of sharing what we are going through with others because we wonder what they will think of us. Or we don’t want to “burden” others with our “sob stories”. Or perhaps, we don’t want to take any help from anyone should any be forthcoming after we share openly. There could be several other reasons. But all such justification does no good – neither to our morale nor to the situation. And, of course, many of us like to blame God for our trials, tribulations and fate!

A man was once sitting forlorn on the steps of a temple that he used to visit every day. His wife had deserted him. As had his young adult children. Because he was always grumpy, he had even become a social outcast. No one wanted to even call him to find out if he was alive or dead. That day, the man was very lonely and was feeling miserable. At the temple, where he meditated daily for an hour, the man had prayed for someone to whom he could tell his woes and cry his heart out. He asked God, in his prayer, if God could appear before him. After meditating, as he sat on the temple steps, a middle-aged woman approached him. She wore tattered clothes. But she looked very beautiful. There was twinkle in her eye. She approached the man for alms. When he looked away, the lady asked him if he needed help. She said, “You look lost and sad. If you want to share your grief, I can offer you a patient hearing.” The man simply continued to look away. She waited around for about an hour. And then she walked away. The next day, the man sat down for meditation again, at the temple. He asked God why God had not heard his prayer. Suddenly God spoke in his ear: “I heard you loud and clear. I even came up to you and asked you if you needed to share. I was willing to listen. But you looked away.” The man realized his folly and vowed never to take a prayer lightly again!

That’s pretty much the way many of us are. We don’t want to accept that we are feel low, weak and lost. We don’t want to share our grief when someone reaches out. We don’t want to express what we feel about ourselves, about Life. Indeed, to wear your Life on your sleeve or not, is a personal choice. But if you choose not to, don’t pine anymore about your situation. Don’t wallow in self-pity and grief. It doesn’t get you anywhere. People are so busy with their own lives, they have no time to “surmise” that you may be having a problem and that you need help. But if you bring it up, and share it openly, people will pause to listen and help. Or connect you with someone that can help. Or perhaps they will give you a hug – which will make you feel warm and wanted. Or, surely, they will pray for you!

At the end of the day, it’s your acceptance of your feeling low and lost and your humbly seeking help that leads people to shower compassion on you! 

“If there ever is a good time – it is now!”

This is the only Life you have! So, live it fully, doing whatever you love doing!

Yesterday, we met a young (in their late 20s) and very inspiring couple – Resham Gellatly and Zach Marks. They both are from the United States of America and are currently traveling in India – researching on the chaiwallahs of India for a forthcoming book they are writing. To do this project, they have kicked stable, well-paying jobs in the US and have simply taking the “plunge” and “dived deep” into India. They have already met with thousands of chaiwallahs, having covered 15 Indian states in the last four months and propose to meet several thousand more, covering the rest of India, including the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, by April 2014. Zach’s given up his consulting career (for now) with McKinsey & Co, while Resham’s paused her psychiatry research, in order for them to do this very offbeat, very, very demanding project! They are funding their project themselves – so they are walking a tightrope with their budgets all the time. This means they have to depend on people connecting them to people who are willing to host them as they move from place to place, hopping on to buses and trains. The key for them is to meet as many chaiwallahs as possible – and to understand their stories and lives, and through them, discover India!

Why chaiwallahs? “In a country with tremendous diversity, chaiwallahs are a constant presence, from the deserts of Rajasthan to the seaside megacity of Mumbai, everywhere bringing together people from different backgrounds at their stands. The same way that cab drivers tell the story of New York, we think chaiwallahs can tell the story of India. We have met some incredibly compelling characters – from a Delhi chaiwallah who sells books he has written and self-published at his stall, to a Bollywood spot boy who has been serving chai to the stars for 40 years, to a local politician in rural Odisha who uses the tea kettle as her party symbol,” explains Zach.

A chaiwallah, Zach and Resham
Picture Courtesy: Internet/DNA India

And Resham reveals that the decision to “take on this project and actually get down to doing it” was not very difficult: “We live only once. We realized that Zach’s McKinsey job, or for that matter any other corporate opportunity, would always be there. As would my psychiatry research. We reckoned that if we waited for longer to do what we believed in, and were excited about doing, we will have more responsibilities to deal with. Like a family, kids, demanding careers and such. We said if there ever is a good time, it is now – and that was it!”

There is this very positive aura around Resham and Zach. It is the kind of feeling that you get when you meet people who are genuinely happy with their lives. And that energy, while it’s rare, is infectious. Resham (she has an India connection – her mother is from Punjab) is from Hawaii and Zach’s from Philadelphia. But they didn’t meet in the US. They met, in fact, in New Delhi in 2010-11, while on Fullbright-Nehru Fellowships. Even as their love for each other blossomed, their fascination for Indian chaiwallahs grew. Important, they decided to go wherever their inner joy, their bliss, takes them – together! Listening to them, I was reminded about what Joseph Campbell (1904~1987), the American mythologist and author, had profoundly said: “Follow your bliss and doors will open where only walls existed – and you alone will be able to see those doors.” Resham and Zach are truly following their bliss. And, indeed, doors are opening for them! Resham sums it up beautifully: “We have discovered how kind and caring people in India are. They have opened their homes and hearts to us. Many of our hosts are rank strangers and yet without their generous support our project will not be possible!” Ask Zach, what next, when they eventually get back to picking up their American Life and careers in New York, and he replies: “We honestly don’t know. We are waiting to explore whatever awaits us or comes our way!”

The Zach and Resham story is a beautiful inspiration. It is also a gentle reminder to you and me to never postpone living the Life that you really want to live! Even as you finish reading this, your Life clock has ticked away some of your precious seconds. And you have just so much less time left. If you think too much about a bucket list, it just may become too long and the bucket heavy! So, the best way is to live is start doing whatever you love doing right away! As Resham said – “if there ever is a good time, it is now”!

You can look up Resham and Zach on www.chaiwallahsofindia.com 

The password to Acceptance: ‘Well, this IS it!’

The best way to accept reality is to sit quietly and reflect on it!

Everyone understands that there is great value – and inner peace – in accepting what IS. Yet, almost everyone struggles with acceptance. The human mind plays dirty almost all the time – dragging your thoughts to what once was, what could have been and what may be. Resultantly you grieve, you pine and you worry incessantly. As long as you are doing all this, chances are that you will never get down to accepting your Life for what it IS.

A good way to learn to accept reality is to sit down and think about whatever has happened quietly. Do not try to quieten the environment if you can’t find a quiet nook to pause and reflect. Sit down wherever you are comfortable. But you must remain silent for an hour, to begin with. As you “soak into” your own silence, you may even be angry or guilty over the past. Allow that anger and guilt to surface. Cry if it makes you better. Write down your innermost feelings if that makes you better. After your anger subsides and your guilt becomes lighter, you will find that you will be seeing reality – as it IS. That is the time you must accept the reality. Just tell yourself, “Well, this IS it!” Then think of ways to live with the reality. Your mind will fight you – every step of the way. It will try to tell you that you can’t live with the reality. It will give you 100 justifications. It will throw up worry after worry after – scaring you, making you anxious about the uncertain future. All the worries and justifications to float around a bit. Don’t suppress them. For each justification and worry, simply repeat your “acceptance speech” – “Well, this IS it!”. Slowly, the mind will give up justifying. It will stop worrying too! It too will learn to accept the fact that you have accepted your reality. You may not be able to reach this level of acceptance in one session of solitude. It may take you several sittings, often spread over days and weeks. But there’s no better way to accept what IS than to reason it threadbare within yourself.

There’s an Irish proverb, "Nil aon tin tan mar do thin tan fein". It means that “there’s no fireside like your own”. Only through accepting your Life, in the warm glow of your inner fire, with all your love, can you open the doors to inner peace and bliss. Acceptance, while being simple to understand conceptually, doesn’t come easy. But when it does arrive, it makes Life simple – and easy!

To be permanently happy, choose to live a different Life

Asking yourself a fundamental question – “What will make me permanently happy?” – can change your Life!

The Times of India (TOI) yesterday had a very profound story, tucked away obscurely, in one of the inside pages. It is the story of a Wall Street finance whiz, Sree Patel. Patel, 35, has decided to dedicate his entire Life and a good part of his $800,000 annual pay package to social causes. He works closely with the Anoopam Mission, an offshoot of the Swami Narayan movement in Mogri, near Anand, in Gujarat. Patel leads the Anoopam Mission in the USA where he continues to keep his day job at Wall Street and spends all his other time in social service. Patel told TOI’s Bharat Yagnik that a hefty bonus of Rs.1.5 crore that he received 10 years ago changed his Life. He wanted to buy himself a Ferrari with that money and he thought that at 25, he had “arrived”. But something, says Patel, made him pause and reflect. “The sports car will give me momentary joy. (But) if someone bumps into it, it will pain me. So what will give me permanent happiness?” – Patel tells Yagnik that this thinking forced him to drop the Ferrari idea. His quest brought him to the Anoopam Mission where his mother had been serving for years. And in serving others, with no expectation of any return, Patel says, he found permanent happiness.

Each of us has the same opportunity as Patel. To seize that opportunity, we must look up from whatever we are obsessed with doing – day in and day out! Running the rat race is not the real problem. Running it mindlessly is. Earning a living, raising a family, paying bills, growing your asset portfolio, planning for retirement and providing for heathcare costs – all of this, and more, is a full time job. No doubt. Ask anyone on the planet and you will find that in the midst of all this chaotic activity, each one, in his or her own special, unique way, is searching for happiness. Over time, and thanks to some unfortunate conditioning, people have come to believe that happiness lies in acquiring things. So, they go after things – cars, villas, fat bank balances, exotic luxury vacations, gadgets – only to find that after acquiring what they wanted to, they still feel incomplete – and unhappy! The cause of all unhappiness is in the way we define happiness. Happiness is not getting what we want. That is success. Happiness is, simply, wanting what we get. Happiness is also in touching a Life, making a difference and in pursuing something meaningful – and not just materialistic.

The Dalai Lama says this very beautifully. Someone asked him what surprised him most about humanity. And the Dalai Lama replied: “Man. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices his money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present. The result being that he is neither in the present nor in the future. He lives as if he is never going to die. And then he dies never having really lived!”  

The true meaning of living is to have lived happily and to leave the world a better place than you found it. And to live that way, ask yourself what will make you permanently happy. Then, go ahead and do whatever it takes, to enable and ensure that you are happy. You will never regret having made that choice to live your Life differently!

“I am 17 short of a century”

Someone has wisely remarked: “How old would you be if you did not know how old you are?”

Today is my father-in-law’s 83^rd birthday! He’s been telling everyone who’s been calling to wish him: “Today is the 17^th and I am 17 short of a century!” There’s a rare zest in his voice. To me, he is equanimity personified. He goes about his daily schedules – peacefully, undeterred, unperturbed with his surroundings. People call on him to seek his blessings or advice or sometimes just to chat up. He greets all of them with warmth and affection – he has never once been grumpy that he has been disturbed. He loves to watch the Indian cricket team and Chennai Super Kings play – and win! The only times I have seen him flustered, that too momentarily, is when the “boys” throw away their wickets or give away too many runs!! It is not that he doesn’t have age-related health complications. He has. For reasons of protecting his privacy, I will refrain from detailing those. But he has never once complained. Over these years, it has been as if, his physical condition and his spiritual state have happily co-existed – for they have never been in conflict with each other. It has been over 12 years since he lost his wife (my mother-in-law). While I know he misses her greatly, I also know he always feels her presence. It is a beautiful spirit of companionship, I believe, he nurtures within himself which makes him deal with worldly feelings like ‘loneliness’ and ‘boredom’ very spiritually. Truly, he never fails to amaze me with his wit and disciplined lifestyle!

My dad too, at 75, is a very inspiring man. A chronic diabetic, he simply manages to set his age, and his condition’s complications, aside and keeps moving on. An accomplished singer himself, he coaches young children in the art of Carnatic music – keeping himself busy and active all the time. He often tells me that he is grateful for this “bonus” Life and for being able to move around rather than be confined to a bed. Recently he regaled a full house in his condominium – singing hits of legendary Tamil actor-singer Chandrababu on karaoke for the New Year celebration! He has this phenomenal ability, thanks to his music and his prayer routine, to always rise above the fractured fabric of a very complicated family situation. I may have found him often stirred by circumstances, but never once shaken.

I am sure you have such inspiring icons in your family as well. If we observe them carefully, there is a lot we can learn from them.

First, is the art of forgetting your age.  I guess the ability to treat age as a mere number, a data point, helps immensely in learning to continue to live a full Life. Second, I feel, in your own unique way, learning to be detached from “worldliness” helps. This simply means that you must accept the impermanence of everything – including your own Life. Next, if you can drop all expectations from everyone around you, you can be blissful. Always, expectations that people – children and grandchildren – must be this way or that surely brings agony. After all, people have their own lives to lead. So letting them be and you too simply being is a great way to creating a peaceful ecosystem. Then, realizing that the idea, that happiness must be pursued is a myth, is a great eye-opener. When you realize that you are the happiness you seek, Life becomes simple, no matter what situation you are in. And finally, learning to respect the body as the temple that houses your God, your soul – and therefore treating both the body and the soul with dignity is the clincher, the Killer App, that delivers inner peace unto you!

So, the next time you have a painful joint or an aching muscle, the next time you catch yourself hopelessly worrying or woefully lonely, the next time you think you cannot plough on in Life, spare a thought for the senior citizen in your immediate family or circle of influence – the one who continues to live Life fully despite the odds! You will then immediately awaken to the futility of your crib. If you are smart and intelligent, which you indeed are, you will quickly expunge your wasted feelings and step up – to keep playing on, until the last ball is bowled!   

Live and savor the experience of this lifetime

Learn to love whatever is happening to you.

Live for the experience. Don’t live for comfort or for an easy Life. Don’t live hoping for no problems. Don’t live expecting something or the other. Expectations always bring agony when they are not met! Just live for the experience. And you will always live happy!

If you examine the source of all your unhappiness, it always boils down to one thing. Your Life is not what you had expected it to be, therefore, you are not happy! Now, where does this thinking come from? Perhaps, from a naïve perspective – from a futile expectation that you were created to live in comfort, in the security of a good job, an assured income, an ever-present and ever-caring family, meaningful relationships and to be in perpetual good health. Nothing can be farther from the truth and you cannot be more ill-informed. When did Life guarantee any of these ‘ideal’ conditions or anything that you want? Life guarantees only the experience of this one lifetime. And it is within this experience that we must find happiness.

So, the simplest way to live will be to experience and savor each moment, each phase, each episode in your Life. Some of it to your liking. Some of it not to your liking. But whatever it is, know that it is always what it is!

Drop the “Why?” and “Why Me?” questions

When you can’t solve a Life situation, allow Life to sort it out on its own! Don’t persist with asking “Why?” or “Why Me?”. They don’t help with solving any situation or problem!

There are only two kinds of problems. Problems which you can solve. And those that you can’t. When you can’t solve a problem or a Life situation, your frustration – your cluelessness, your helplessness – leads you to ask why something is happening or has happened only to you? Such frustration is natural and understandable. But is of no use. Recognize that it is perfectly fine to be clueless about a given situation in Life. That is really how Life works – you or I have no say in it. It has been always this way. Just because you have been living under the impression that you have been controlling it, it does not mean that you (can) control Life!

My daughter’s junior met with an accident. I believe it was a hit-and-run case. The accident plunged the boy into coma for a few weeks and even as he is coming out of it, the doctors have reported that he is paralyzed neck downward and has lost his power of speech. I am sure the boy’s parents and siblings must be distraught, angry, devastated, clueless and helpless. Such a fine lad – full of dreams and enthusiastic about Life until recently, now consigned to a bed for the rest of his Life!

This boy’s story is of a paralyzing accident. Yours may be different. And mine is different. Even so, all of us, at some time or the other, have been placed by Life in situations that we didn’t ask for and that we disliked intensely.

There are only two ways to deal with Life. Either go with it, flowing with what comes your way. Or fight it. But fighting Life is pointless because Life will still happen the way it wants to. Your fighting will drain you of your energy, will make you cynical and unhappy. Eventually you will realize that fighting Life was a waste of time. When you do wake up to accept your Life for what it is, it will be too late – very little of your own Life may be left! The other way is to flow with Life. Life will continue to happen in its own way – your cooperating with Life will not make any difference to Life’s Master Plan for you. What flowing with Life, however, does is, it helps you anchor in peace. There is no conflict in you. The “Why?” or “Why Me?” questions do not arise. Or even if they do, your choosing to accept the Life you have been given, renders those questions powerless. All your inner conflict comes from these two questions. When you don’t give them any attention, when you accept Life for what it is, you will be at peace in any situation that you are placed in.

So, the best way to deal with Life, when you can’t solve a situation you are placed in, is to drop the “Why?” and “Why Me?” questions, accept your Life the way it is and just flow with whatever is happening to you! You will then be at great peace with yourself and your Life. And your inner peace alone matters above all else!