Everything is where it should be, the way it must be!

Things have happened, are happening and will continue to happen on their own in Life. All you have to do is just flow with Life – without resisting it. That’s really how  all our lifetimes happen.

I am often asked by people why I have named my Book, which releases tomorrow, “Fall Like A Rose Petal”. The title of my Book is inspired by a story that Osho, the Master, used to say of a Sufi Master. The Sufi Master used to say to his disciples: “A rose petal, so delicate, but so strong, doesn’t hesitate about where it is falling, where it is going, whether there is any earth to find, to rest, to go to sleep, to die… Simply Trust. Do not the petals flutter down just like that?”

The essence of this story is to accept Life for the way it is, for what it is, to have trust in Life’s larger design for you, and to flow with Life. My Book, “Fall Like A Rose Petal – A father’s lessons on how to be happy and content while living without money”, shares lessons that my wife and I have learnt through our experience of a bankruptcy in our Life. It deals with my initial struggle with acceptance and how, eventually, magically, all my suffering disappeared when I embraced my problem situation and accepted it.

How I came about this title is an interesting story.

Sometime in the winter of 2010, when we had a few hours to kill before we took a flight out of Pune, my wife and I, on a lark, decided to visit the Osho Ashram, a commune, in Koregaon Park, Pune. I had heard of the Ashram being open to visitors at no fee. But when we arrived at the gate, we were informed that a recent rule – following the February 2010 bombing of the German Bakery in the Ashram’s neighborhood – mandated that visitors enrol as members for a fee of Rs.800/-+ per head to enter the premises. Now, we didn’t have that kind of money. I did have some cash. But an unplanned expenditure of Rs.1600/-+ for both of us was something we just could not afford. So, I asked the gatekeeper, an Ashram volunteer, what’s it that we could do in the time we had before our flight and which did not cost money. He directed us to the Ashram’s book store which had a street entrance and also advised us to visit Osho Teerth, commonly known as the Nalla Park, which has been transformed from a sewage canal into a beautiful Zen garden by Osho, in his time.

The book store was to the left of the Ashram gate. And it was open. As we entered, I was drawn to a shelf on my left almost involuntarily. My eyes fell upon a book by Osho titled ‘Just Like That’. It was the only copy of that book in that store that day! Like most people, I too like to read the blurbs and testimonials at the back of any book that I pick up. When I flipped the book, on its back cover, I read the Sufi Master’s rose petal story for the first time. I read it at least three times. And soaked in its essence, its simplicity, its beauty. My wife was some distance away from me. She was at a huge window that offered a view of the beautiful garden inside the Ashram. I rushed to her and told her that if I ever wrote a book, I would call it “Fall Like A Rose Petal”. I must confess there was not even a germ of an idea in my head that I wanted to write a book – definitely I had not thought of it happening so soon, not in the manner in which it has been written now.

On the flight back to Chennai, later that evening, I thought to myself – What were the chances that we had not gone to the Osho Ashram that day? What were the chances that the book store was closed when we arrived there? What were the chances that there were no copies of ‘Just Like That’ available in stock at the store? What were the chances that I too, like my wife, was drawn to drinking in the views from the large store windows of the beautiful Ashram – and so I missed looking at the books? Well, for each of those situations that happened the way they did, there was an equal chance of them not happening. And yet they all happened.

Today, when I hold my Book in my hand, I am convinced, more than ever before, that there’s a Higher Energy that shapes our ends. Our lifetimes are just a series of events, and experiences, of one thing leading to another and, eventually, bringing us to where we are. Nothing can take you to where you are not meant to be. And nothing can stop you from getting to where you must be. So, everything is where it must be, the way it must be – and that includes you and your Life! The only way to live Life is to accept each event – even if we don’t like it, even if we don’t want it – as part of the inscrutable cosmic design, and live Life fully – doing what you can do best in every situation. Knowing that, in the end, as Steve Jobs famously said, the dots will always connect – backwards.

If you are mindful, you can see beauty in everything you do

Life's beauty is not in the big events alone. Life unfolds beautifully in the normal, mundane, humdrum of everyday living.

Indeed a wedding, the birth of your child, the success at a job, a windfall – all of these call for celebrations. But even an everyday chore like putting washed clothes away or doing the dishes is beautiful. For the last several days, we have had to cope without the support of a maid. My wife and I have divided the chores between us, with our daughter chipping in here and there. Though initially it seemed strange doing stuff that we normally get done, I soon realized that here was a beautiful opportunity to practice mindfulness. The key about practising mindfulness is to be aware of what you are doing. When you fold clothes to put them away, watch your fingers do such precise work. See the beauty of technology that has allowed you to have your clothes washed reasonably painlessly. Or count your blessings, if you have a maid, who has washed them for you and even folded them__and that all you need to do is to put them away. Every time I have had to step in and help with household chores, I have felt compassionate for the people who collaborate, with reasonable precision, to make our everyday lives painless and seamless – the newspaper delivery person, the milkman, the flower seller lady who drops off the flowers for my wife for the daily pooja, the mineral water supplier, the launderer, the maid, the neighborhood grocer and the person who delivers our cooking gas each month…the list could still go on. I often think how crazy our Life would be without the contributions of these nameless, often faceless, foot soldiers. Whenever I think of them, I pause to send them my positive energy.

There's beauty in every moment if we are aware. Thich Nhat Hanh (a.k.a Thay), the Vietnamese Buddhist Monk says, there is beauty even in the way we open or close a door. To whatever action, says Thay, if we apply the desire to be aware and mindful, it becomes a way of making peace. In the 2010 Hollywood movie 'Barney's Version' (Richard J Lewis, Paul Giannati, Rosamund Pike, Dustin Hoffman), the main protagonist Mariam, tells the lead character Barney, "Life's real. It's made of little things. Minutes, hours, naps, errands, routine__and it has to be enough!"

So, wherever you are, whatever you are doing, do it mindfully. Then, and only then, will you see the beauty in everything__whether you are doing some spring cleaning at home or dropping your kids off at their play dates. If you can make each day mindful and meaningful, you will be soaked in peace and you Life will be ever so beautiful!

Friendship and Relating – the twin factors that make great relationships!

No one is inferior or superior. In a relationship, it is the relating which is important. Not who’s more powerful or articulate or successful.

The Airtel "Priya -Boss" Ad

A TV commercial for Airtel is making news in India for the wrong reasons. It shows a man taking orders from his boss, who is also his wife; while at the same time, she,  as his wife, offers to cook dinner and invites him to come home soon. The debate on social media is on, as one analysis on IBN Live argued, “whether the campaign enforces stereotypes, breaks established family roles, is a modern twist to same old misogynist propaganda or just neo-feminism riding on compromise.”

Watch the ad here. 

Honestly, I don’t see why there must be a debate in the first place. Why can’t a woman be a man’s boss at work while still offering to cook a meal for them at home? Why do we typecast people in specific roles – that a man should be the boss or should be the bread-winner or that a woman must primarily be a home-maker and not have a career of her own? When I got married, my wife used to earn a salary higher than I did – she worked in the computer education field while I was a journalist, earning a measly income that was determined by a government-regulated wage board! But this never really affected either of us. And then she gave up her flourishing career to stay back at home and help us raise a family. Again this decision never affected our love or respect for each other. I know a couple, both of whom have IIM-A degrees, where the wife is a high-flying software professional with India’s # 1 IT company, while the husband keeps the home and helps their young teenaged daughter cope with high school and now, recently, college. For years now, they both have kept these roles and continue to have a very happy marriage.

So, I don’t think a reversal of roles affects a marriage. Whatever be the role, as long as the friendship between two people is intact, they will continue to relate to each other. I, in fact, salute the Aritel commercial’s director, Vinil Mathew, for choosing to make such a sensitive film. To me, the ad celebrates friendship and relating. And these two are above everything else – even above the label of a “respectable relationship”. There’s no meaning in a relationship if people in it can’t relate to each other or enjoy each other’s companionship. What’s the point in strutting around trying hard to prove that everything’s normal, when nothing really is, to please a decadent society? It doesn’t matter who earns, who cooks, who does the dishes or who fetches the groceries – as long as the two people in the relationship continue to love each other and are willing to grow and evolve through Life – together!

How to dissolve in prayer

Prayer is not sitting in front of an idol or reciting verses or visiting a place of worship. Prayer is simply living Life fully – being content with what you have and being happy, caring and loving!

A Sufi mystic was so full of love, and so full of joy — his whole Life was laughter, music and dancing. And the story goes that God became very interested in him because he never asked God for anything; he never prayed. He felt his whole Life was a prayer, there was therefore no need to pray. He never went to the mosque, he never even uttered the name of God; his whole existence was the argument for the presence of God. If anybody asked him whether God exists or not he simply laughed — but his laughter was neither a yes nor a no.

God himself became so intrigued that he decided to pay the mystic a visit. When he met the man, God said, “I am immensely happy because that’s how I want people to be — not that they should pray for one hour and do everything against it for twenty-three hours. Not that they should become very pious when they enter the mosque, and when they go out they leave their piety in the mosque and they are just their old selves: angry, jealous, full of anxiety, hatred and violence. I have watched you and I have loved you. This is the way: you have become the prayer. You are, right now, my only argument in the world that something more than man exists — although you have never argued or vouched for my existence, you have not even uttered my name. Those are superfluous things… but you live, you love, you are so full of joy that there is no need for any language; your very presence becomes the argument for my existence. I want to give you a blessing. You can ask for anything.”

The mystic thought deeply and said, “But I don’t need anything. I am so joyous, and I cannot conceive there can be anything more. Forgive me, I cannot ask because I really don’t need anything. You are generous, you are loving, you are compassionate; but I am so over-full, there is no space within me for anything else. You will have to forgive me, I cannot ask.”

Osho, the Master, would tell this story to his followers and explain that true prayer is not an action. It is a state of being. In that state you are everything that Life is about – joyous, peaceful, abundant, loving, forgiving and giving. In that state, you don’t need an external God to pray to. You become the prayer. When you reach this stage of evolution, you even learn to wish your detractor, or someone that you can't relate to, all success, good health and joy. Selflessly. The selfless seeking of another's joy, success and bliss is true prayer.

It is very easy to love someone you like. But it is very difficult to love someone you don't agree with, relate to, or even, at times, hate or have hated. Our normal tendency is to distance ourselves from people we don't agree with or get along with. But if we make an effort, we may still be able to do our duty in a situation where such differences arise and exist, and more importantly, do that duty in peace. Prayer is about practicing to do this. Day after day after day. And include in the circle of influence of such prayer, every person we know on this planet. Slowly, our world becomes the world we always wanted to be in. Full of peace and calm. This is when, as they say, you dissolve in prayer and you realize God or discover Godliness in you!!

Only when you are ready and willing, will you experience Life’s beauty and magic

For you to see Life’s beauty, for you to experience the miracle of Life, you must be both ready and willing!

There is a famous Sufi story I remember reading.

A young man went in search of a Master. He was ready to go around the world, for he was determined to find the Master, the true Master, the Perfect Master.

Just outside his village he met an old man, a nice fellow, sitting under a tree. He asked the old man, “You look like a wanderer…”

The old man said, “Yes, I am a wanderer. I have wandered all over the earth.”

The man said, “That is the kind of person I was hoping to meet who can guide me. Can you suggest to me where and to whom I should go? I want to be the disciple of a Perfect Master.”

The old man suggested a few addresses to him, and the young man thanked him and went on.

After thirty years of wandering around the earth and finding nobody who was exactly fulfilling his expectations, he came back to his village, dejected and depressed. When he was entering his village he saw the old man again, who had become very old now, sitting under the tree. And suddenly he realized that this old man was the Master he had all along been searching for! He fell at his feet and he said, “Why didn’t you say it to me, that you are the Master?”

The old man said, “But that was not the time for you. You could not recognize me. You needed some experience. Wandering around the earth has given you a certain maturity, a certain understanding. Now you can see. Last time you had met me, but you had not seen me. You had missed. You were asking me about some Master. That was enough proof that you could not see me, you could not feel my presence. You were utterly blind; hence I gave you some bogus addresses so you could go. But even to be with wrong people is good, because that is how one learns. For thirty years I have been waiting for you here, I have not left this tree.”

In fact the man, who was not young anymore, looked at the tree and was even more surprised. Because in his dreams, in his visions, he was always seeing that tree and there was always a feeling that he would find the Perfect Master sitting under this tree. Last time he had not seen the tree at all. The tree was there, the Master was there, everything was ready for him, but he was not willing, even if he was ready.

This is why we don’t often find what we are seeking. Inner peace and happiness. Because even if we are ready to seek it, we are not willing to let it enter our lives. Only when we are ready and willing, both, can we experience Life’s beauty and magic!

When you flow with Life, you will be soaked in abundance

Only those who have experienced abundance in their lives will know how to attract it and the value it creates.

Abundance is not about having money and material riches. It is the ability to laugh, smile and be happy even when you have nothing material with you. It is the inner peace that helps you sleep well – no matter what circumstances confront and confound you. This abundance is attracted when you let go and simply flow with Life. Letting go here means not worrying – about a still unborn future – and ridding yourself of grief and guilt – about a dead past. When you live your Life, flowing with Life, you will be soaked in abundance!

A few days ago, we were invited to a Page 3 event at a five-star hotel. The event was being organized by a good friend. And although we are not the Page 3 sort – we had never attended a Page 3 event before this – we decided to go check out what it was all about. The event got over in good time and as we were exiting the hotel, we bumped into a friend who was staying there. He invited us to his room, where a few of his other friends joined us. Soon the get together turned into an impromptu party. Someone sang a song. And then others followed. It was so much fun. Finally, well past midnight, we wound up.

As we were taking the elevator down, one of the guests who was aware of our problems and my forthcoming book , asked me: “AVIS, how is it that you are able to be so happy despite all that you are going through?”

I replied: “I am not sure I know the answer to your question. But I do know that being unhappy and brooding over my problems can certainly not help me solve them.”

To be sure, letting go – dropping the worry and the grief – did not come easily. It was difficult. In almost all situations the human mind strives to make you believe that you control your Life. But what do you do when you make all efforts to put things back in order, turn things around and yet the threads of your Life are snatched away from you, knotted up like a ball of wool would be, and are discarded far and beyond – again and again and again? Letting go does not mean not picking up those threads again. It means not feeling defeated when they are taken and cast away from you one more time. Letting go therefore does not mean being complacent or irresponsible or reckless. It simply means being in a calm, stoic acceptance of your current reality, while working patiently to change it. When you are this way, calm and accepting, you are peaceful and happy.

Now, inner peace and happiness are deeply personal. So, it is possible that someone looking at your Life from outside will conclude that you cannot be happy when you are placed in grievous or challenging circumstances. Or, if such a person had a narrow view of Life, they would be quick to judge and conclude that being happy is a sin. I have learnt to let people say or think whatever they want to. In my choosing to let go and be happy, I have been able to attract abundance in my Life. This abundance, I have realized, is critical to be able to face Life’s challenges and to live each day meaningfully. In the end, it’s not how long you live that matters. What counts is how well you lived – enjoying the Life that you have been given!

For every seed of hatred sown, plant a grove for humanity

The more we allow parochial thinking to lead us, the more divided our world will be.

Shoaib Malik and Sania Mirza
Picture Courtesy: Internet 

The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) yesterday opposed tennis star Sania Mirza’s appointment as Ambassador of the newly-formed state of Telangana. Subramaniam Swamy, the redoubtable BJP leader, was quoted in the papers as saying: “I agree with the BJP leaders that when people have divided loyalties, we cannot expect them to represent the country or any part of the country faithfully. So, the BJP stand is well taken.” Sania came under attack from VHP and BJP because she is married to Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Malik. In fact, Telangana BJP leader K.Laxman called Sania “Pakistan’s daughter-in-law”.

Such thinking is gut-wrenching and numbing. Sania is a successful sportsperson. And Malik is another successful sportsperson. The two decide to marry. Where does, and why should, nationality play any role in this? Mercifully, both belong to the same religion. Else the self-styled mandarins may have had added more logs to the fire.

Interestingly, in October 2009, when former Pakistani pacer Wasim Akram’s wife, Huma, was being flown from Lahore to Singapore in an air ambulance for treatment for renal failure, she developed complications when they were overflying Chennai. An emergency landing was mandated. And doctors at Apollo Hospitals, Chennai, treated her for a few days, before she passed away on October 25, 2009. Dr.Venkataraman, the doctor who treated Huma, is a Hindu. As are several of the fans who gathered outside Apollo Hospitals that morning to show their support for Akram and condole his loss. About a decade earlier, fans at the M.A.Chidambaram Stadium in Chepauk, in Chennai, had given Akram a standing ovation, after he led Pakistan to a memorable win in a closely-fought Test Match.

So, in reality, the common folks, people like you and me, don’t ever get swayed by religion or by partisan thinking. Humanity and the spirit of sport – of letting the best team or player win – rules higher in our minds than anything else. Even so, the games politicians play, often for petty gains or even for demonstrating one-upmanship, are divisive. Not only should we be wary of them, we must express our secular and objective views on all such occasions.

There’s an ad playing on TV promoting the 2014 season of KBC. It shows how a boy from a Hindu family, calls his Muslim neighbor, with whom his family has been having a rift, to ask for the meaning of “as-salaam-alay-kum” using the phone-a-friend option. He gets the right answer and wins the prize money. The jingle in the background goes somewhat like this: “Jab Lahu Ek Ho, To Rang Kaise Do?” meaning, “When the blood is the same, how can it have two colors?”. I believe that the ad’s, and the jingle’s, message is something we must all hold dear in all contexts. We are just one world, one people. We have the same blood in us. The color of our skin may be different, as may be our national flags, or our religious affiliations. Even so, we have the same feelings as another in any given situation – all of us have the ability to love and be compassionate; and all of us feel pain when we lose someone we love. So, for every seed of hatred and divisiveness that is sown, let’s plant a grove for humanity. As Bob Marley (1945~1981), the Jamaican reggae singer, famously said, “The people who were trying to make this world worse are not taking the day off. Why should I?”

Live by your principles, don’t just flaunt them

Personal integrity is not about flaunting the principles that you claim you stand by. It is how you live by them, even through small, seemingly inconsequential, everyday acts – especially when no one’s watching!

Last evening I was visiting a friend. A visitor arrived at his door when we were there. He was a vendor, as I soon discovered, of pirated movies. My friend, quite nonplussed by my consternation (I don’t think he was even aware of, or cared to know, what I felt about what he was doing), bought several of them – new movies (some of whom were still playing in cinemas currently) in English, Hindi, Tamil and Malayalam. I was, honestly, appalled. My friend is a young, talented, hard-working professional. That he would indulge in an illegal act, buying and watching pirated movies, disturbed me. I politely communicated my disapproval of his action and left his place soon after.

But indulging in such an act is not something that is unique to my friend. Most of us Indians prefer choosing the ‘easy way out’ in most situations – be it watching pirated movies or bribing a traffic cop who has issued a ticket or getting a ticket examiner on an overbooked train to confirm a berth out of turn. And yet, rather hypocritically, we participate in protests seeking an end to corruption in the country. The stand we, often subconsciously, take is that everyone and the system is corrupt; let everyone and the system come clean; then, and only then, will I believe that things will change and be part of that change. And so no one changes and the system thrives – on the self-centeredness and holier-than-thou attitude of a people!

There are several thousand ways in which as a nation, a culture, we are corrupt. But we must realize that we are really sowing the seeds of such a culture in the minds of impressionable young people in the manner in which behave in our homes. The most rampant form of our “corrupt” thinking is when we watch pirated movies at home – either by buying pirated DVDs or streaming pirated content online. And worse, we think there’s nothing “wrong” in what we are doing. We brazenly brag that we do so on social media and in public. Now, let’s understand that movie piracy is stealing someone else’s intellectual property. Would we steal someone’s handbag or wallet? Would we encourage our children to steal from store shelves? Then why are we stealing in this fashion – movies or such entertainment content? Let’s remember that each time we watch a pirated movie we are telling our family and our children that it is “okay” to be dishonest and it is “fine” to steal. When we bribe a traffic cop for a ticket he has legitimately issued we are contributing to corruption staying deep-rooted in Indian society. These may appear to be inconsequential acts to us, but consistently indulging in them is ruining our nation’s social and moral fabric in more ways than we can even imagine.

I must confess that I used to watch pirated movies too. Until Lagaan (2001, Aashutosh Gowariker, Aamir Khan) was released. I first saw it in the theatre. And then, within days of its release – when the film was still playing in cinemas, a friend offered me a pirated VCD. I was shocked. I had read about the hardships the film’s crew had gone through to complete the film and release it. I was appalled that we could be so blatant and heartless about simply paying Rs.35/- for watching a cheap, pirated version of the film at home, instead of spending Rs.300/- ~ Rs.400/- for a family of four (at that time – now an in-theatre movie experience costs Rs.1000/-) to watch it in the theatre. That day I refused to watch the pirated version of Lagaan. And I have since then stayed away from watching pirated movie content or using pirated software. The way I looked at Lagaan has also changed my thinking about personal integrity completely. I have bribed people in the past for services and favors – because it was easy, it was convenient and everyone was doing it. Over the last 14+ years though, I have made a conscious effort not to. Even so, I must quickly admit, I am no activist. I don’t fight for any cause. Not even for a corruption-free India – let it happen, when it happens and when it must happen! I have taken these stances of personal integrity because I just want to be at peace with myself. So, whenever I am placed in a situation when I must be corrupt, I reason with the other party and encourage him or her to follow the rulebook while trying to explain my point of view. And, always, my experience has been that when you are honest, people are willing to be honest too. I have shared some of my experiences in my forthcoming book (Westland, August 2014) ‘Fall Like A Rose Petal – A father’s lessons on how to be happy and content while living without money’.

I have not shared my thoughts here because I want you to follow them. Or endorse them or accept them. I am not saying this is the only way to practise personal integrity. All I am sharing here is that let there be some consistency in what you say you believe in – which is, integrity and principle-based living – and what you do and how you live. For, only when, as Gandhi taught us, what you think, what you say and what you do are in sync, will there be inner peace and happiness!

Be smarter than your smartphone – use all your features!

We are all endowed with equal potential at the time of our creation. But most of us lead our lives completely ignorant of this endowment.

Just knowing you have potential unlocks it for you. You are like the smartest of smartphones in the market that has several, unique in-built features. But if you instead choose to remain technology phobic or even technology agnostic, you will end up merely using the smartphone for voice__which is its commonest use. And so you will be deprived of benefiting from its various other value-added features like internet access, blue-tooth and video-conferencing! Who is to blame for your inability to use the smartphone efficiently? Are you to blame or is it the manufacturer who is to blame? Now, step back and think about your Life. You spend so much time worrying and complaining that you don't have the ability to do things that you want to do, and often end up blaming the Creator, your manufacturer!!! This is the reason why you don't make progress and find yourself in a rut!

Liberate yourself. Know that you are just as endowed as anybody else. Just as the most successful, the most wise and the most caring, most peaceful people you know of in the world: If you think Mark Zuckerberg is endowed, so are you; If you think Indra Nooyi is endowed, so are you; If you think the Dalai Lama is endowed, so are you; If you think Rajnikanth is endowed, so are you. Know that everything that you need is already with you and everything that you seek is within you. Go, discover your true potential. Be smart. Smarter than your smartphone – use all the features that you are endowed with! That's when you will create your own world in this same world that you think you have to live in!

Let your child live and learn from Life's experiences

Our children have lives of their own. No matter how much we worry for them, they still have to live out their lives.

A friend recently shared that though her young adult daughter was greatly interested in theatre, she was not letting her join her college’s theatre group because she felt one of her daughter’s classmates was making passes at her (the daughter). The mother confessed that she was worried stiff for the “future” of her daughter.

I believe worrying for our children comes naturally to us parents. But we have to learn to let go.

In our friend’s case, she must appreciate the fact that, naturally, a grown-up, young adult, woman will attract the attention of class-fellows. And that she must trust her daughter to be able to handle any advances, that she may or may not be interested in, appropriately. She can’t forsake her daughter’s interest in something she’s passionate about for the sake of her (the mother’s) perceived peace of mind. Honestly, for how long, and from how many people and things, can we protect our children? When they are in their early teens or younger, we can direct them and have them follow us. But, as they grow older, they will have to be allowed to touch and feel Life, they will want to make choices – some of which will not be acceptable or may not seem correct to us as parents – and they will want to experience Life at their own terms. I strongly believe we must not interfere with the learning curve of our children. While we must always champion what’s the right way to do something, we cannot and must not expect them to accept our view immediately. We must have faith that they will see our point (if we have an objective one, that is) – when they have tried, tested, fallen, failed and learnt from their experience.  

Our children are born through us. And not for us. This is not an original thought – this is what the venerable Lebanese-American poet and writer Khalil Gibran (1883~1931) has said over a century ago. And this is so true now, as it was then. The lives of our children are distinctly different from our own. We imagine that they are intertwined because in the first 15 years of a child’s Life, as parents, we are providers, protectors, planners and directors. So, by force of habit, we get into the control mode as soon as our children want to go out and explore the world. Two forms of worry are intrinsically seeded in us parents – one is that we don’t want our children to make the same mistakes that we made or live the hard lives we have had to live; and the other is that we don’t want them to suffer at all. Now, both worries may be justified, but try explaining these to your child, especially if he or she is over 15, and see what happens. This doesn’t mean you must not counsel or that you must not share an experiential point of view. This just means don’t expect an immediate buy-in. It is this expectation that distances your child from you and that distance is famously touted as a “generation gap”.

Whether you believe in this or not, this is the way it is. Each of our lives is designed in a unique way. Whatever is happening to us has been ordained, most definitely in a cosmic sense, to help us grow and evolve, even as we biologically age. This is exactly the way the lives of our children too are designed. No amount of forethought by you could have changed the course of your Life. Similarly, no amount of worrying by you can change the course of your child’s Life.

Sit back and re-examine your relationship with your child. Especially if you have a teenager or a young adult at home. Reboot your perspective and role – both. Choose to be a good friend who suggests, but does not demand; who shares, but does not control; who is honest, but does not insist; and who is forgiving, but does not say ‘I told you so’ when things don’t go per your child’s plans. None of us can ever claim to be perfect, understanding parents. We are all works-in-progress. And so are our children. If we understand and appreciate this truth, we will stop worrying and let our children live their lives – and learn from their experiences!

A learning from the “L” tag

Each moment in Life is teaching us something. Only if we are willing, as students, to look for the learning in it.

Even a frustrating drive through traffic can be a learning experience. For instance, the alphabet 'L', in red, on a vehicle ahead of you, on a day when you are behind schedule and are rushing to your destination, is the last thing anyone wants to see. Instead of getting irritated and showing our angst on the vehicle or on the road or on fellow road users, we will do well to reflect on what the 'L' sign can mean to us. Very simply, 'L' on a car indicates that the driver ahead of us is still learning. Our impatience with this person is because we believe we know driving well and don't need to be tailing a learner driver. On a spiritual plane, consider the way we journey through Life. Aren't we still learners; still learning (read struggling) to live!? The only difference is that the learner driver has the humility__apart from having to meet a legal requirement__to acknowledge that she/he is still learning. On the other hand, we don't ever want to acknowledge that we are learners, because we think we know it all or imagine that it would be below our dignity to wear a learner tag.

When we get down to being humble, we will discover that the learner tag is not a liability but an asset. When we accept we are still learning, and don't know it all, people make way and time for us. We move faster – onward, higher and wiser....in Life!

Let’s learn to respond to relationship issues with maturity

Loving someone or having sex is not a sin. It is just a natural way for us, humans, to express ourselves.  

I recently read in the papers that the Indian Navy had sacked an officer of the rank of Commodore for having an affair with the wife of a fellow officer, also a Commodore. Both officers were at that time based in the Southern Naval Command in Kochi. And both had college-going kids. “Stealing the affection of his brother officer's wife is simply unacceptable and the Navy has a clear zero tolerance policy towards the same,” a Ministry of Defence official was quoted by one of the papers I read.

Now, I have nothing to say about the Indian Navy’s protocols, rules and regulations. But conceptually I have a problem with the phrase “stealing the affection of someone”. How do anyone steal anyone’s affection? Yes, poets and lyricists have for the longest time romanticized the concept of “stealing someone’s heart”. But in reality affection and love are given – wilfully. They can never be stolen or forcibly taken away. So, if someone, as in this case, is married and is drawn to someone else outside the marriage, it really means the marriage, the relationship, did not fulfil that person’s emotional or physical needs. It means that there was no more relating in the relationship. And that this person related to another one, and not to his or her spouse. There’s nothing sinful, nothing wrong if such a situation arises. If anyone has a problem in a marriage, the best way to deal with it, after making sufficient attempts to resolve the issues, is to move on. There’s no point feeling suffocated, vegetated and listless in a relationship where there’s no more relating between the two parties.

However, the way people discover that their relationship with someone is over is through the way they start relating to someone else. Either they are drawn to someone because this new person is fulfilling an emotional need. Or maybe this person is fulfilling a physical need – which is about simply having sex. Or maybe there’s a strong bond, a special friendship that draws someone to another person. All these or more are indicative of the fact whatever one does not get in a relationship, one seeks in another. And there’s nothing wrong with this. As humans, we need affection, we need to be cared for, we need physical intimacy – and if we can’t get these with one person, we will naturally be drawn to someone who has these to offer us.

I believe that as individuals, and as a society, we must learn to respond to relationship issues with maturity. We cannot continue to dub a human need as a sin. Of course, people who seek love, affection and sex, outside of a relationship, must also be responsible about how they communicate their choices to their families. Especially when children are involved – the communication must be timed well and must be honest. There’s no point fearing social stigma or family pressure and therefore continue to keep the choice under wraps. When something natural is pursued clandestinely, it will be viewed scandalously. And that can hurt everyone involved. However, if the same choice is made openly, while it may shock and surprise initially, over time, everyone impacted by the choice will feel liberated. After all, who wants to be stuck in a relationship which had been dead for a long, long time!?

You will not suffer only when you choose not to suffer!

Don’t worry about the thoughts that arise in your mind. Don’t try to stop them. You can’t. Just learn to deal with them better.

Yesterday I delivered my “Fall Like A Rose Petal” Talk to a group of 75 Chartered Accountants and finance professionals. One of the young ladies in the audience sought a clarification on a famous quote of the Buddha that I used in my Talk – “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.” The lady wanted to know what to do when a suffering-related or suffering-inducing thought arises? “I understand completely that a headache is the one causing the pain, while my wishing there was no headache is what’s causing my suffering. I understand this completely. But what I can’t understand is how do I get rid of the wish that there was no headache in the first place? How do I get rid of the suffering-inducing wish,” she asked.

Well, the truth is you can’t get rid of your thoughts. The human mind thinks – research has proven this – 60,000 thoughts a day. A substantial number of these thoughts are about worry, anxiety, grief, guilt, anger, remorse, hatred, fear, jealousy and some of them are plain wishes that do not want certain realities about your Life to be there just now. So, you can’t avoid thoughts. The human mind is like a tennis-ball spewing machine – the sort that helps players train. It just keeps on generating thoughts. There’s no method. There’s no rationale. There’s no way you can switch off the mind. But what you can do is you can train yourself to ignore the negative or depressing or debilitating or suffering-inducing thoughts that arise. And you can, over time and consistent practice, train your mind to be present in the now. In the present moment. Suffering arises only when you wish that your current reality is not what it is. That’s when the mind revels in making you suffer – wish I did not have this headache, wish I did not have a relationship problem, wish I did not have to keep this job, wish I did not have to lose someone I loved. But when you say I have a headache, and let me live with it, then the mind is in the present moment, with the headache and with all the pain it brings along with it. In the present moment, the mind is powerless. And because there is no wishing, and total acceptance of what is, there is no suffering.

So, you can’t prevent a thought from arising in your mind. You just have to learn to deal with each thought. And learn to avoid those that depress you and cause your suffering. That’s why the Buddha says “suffering is optional”. Which is, you have the choice not to engage with such a thought that will cause your suffering. Exercise that choice. When you do that you will realize you can live with the pain, live with the thought that is intent on causing you to suffer and yet you will not suffer. Because you have chosen not to!

Don’t search for happiness, just choose to be happy!

You are the happiness that you seek!  

Yesterday at a grocery store in Chennai, I saw my former boss’ wife. My former boss is one of India’s wealthiest people. A takeover tycoon and deal maker par excellence. Although I knew the lady well, I did not walk up to strike a conversation with her. I had quit that job over 18 years ago and, ever since, we had never been in touch. But seeing her took me back to a time at London’s Heathrow airport in 1995. I had accompanied my boss and her to the airport from our hotel in Knightsbridge (where we were staying). We had engaged a Merc for ferrying us to the airport and back. My boss was flying out to Hong Kong and his wife was due to leave for India the next morning. There was some unfinished business that my boss and I had to review and we decided to do it on the car ride to Heathrow. Soon, my boss checked-in and bade us good bye. As we started to walk to the terminal’s exit to find the Merc, my boss’ wife asked me if we could take the Tube to Knightsbridge. I was surprised. I reminded her that we had a Merc waiting for us. But she insisted we pay off the Merc and instead take the Tube. She said, “I have all the money in the world. My husband provides for all luxuries and comforts. But I miss being a commoner. I have never been on the Tube in London. And I want to really have the experience.” I did not protest. We paid off the Merc and took the Tube. The lady elicited a promise from me that I would not tell her husband that she had taken the Tube to ride to Knightsbridge. At the end of the ride, when we reached our hotel, she told me, “I often feel like a bird in a golden cage. Today is the happiest day of my Life!”

As I recollected this incident yesterday, my thoughts went to a story I had read somewhere.

This story is about a beautiful, rich, lady who complained to her psychiatrist that she felt her whole Life was empty and worthless; it had no meaning, especially after her husband had passed away. She became all alone in her big house. All the German cars, the palatial house, expensive furniture, British cutlery, French perfume, Persian carpets, the imported piano, the Beethoven collection – they all just became useless objects to her. She said her Life was listless and meaningless. So she asked the psychiatrist how she could find happiness in Life.

The psychiatrist called out for the lady who cleaned his office daily. She came in, even as the rich lady was wondering what was going on. The psychiatrist then said to the rich lady, “I'm going to ask Mary here to tell you how she found happiness. All I want you to do, is listen to her.” So the old cleaning lady put down her broom and sat on a chair and told her story: “Well, my husband died of malaria and three months later my only son was killed in a car accident. I had nobody... I had nothing left. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat, I never smiled at anyone, I even thought of taking my own Life. Then one evening, a little kitten followed me home from work. Somehow I felt sorry for that kitten. It was cold outside, so I decided to let the kitten in. I got it some milk and the kitten licked the plate clean. Then it purred and rubbed against my leg and for the first time, in months, I smiled. Then I stopped to think, if helping a little kitten could make me smile, may be doing something for people could make me happier. So the next day I baked some biscuits and took them to a neighbor who was sick in bed. I felt happy to see him enjoy those biscuits. That’s how I really started to do something nice for someone every day. It made me so happy to see them happy. Today, I don't know of anybody who sleeps and eats better than I do. I've found happiness, by giving it to others.”

I am not sure my ex-boss’ wife has found this simple secret to being happy. But I sure can relate to Mary’s experience and wisdom.

In fact, my learning and understanding from Life is that happiness is a state we are born with. We intrinsically are happy people with the ability to laugh at and enjoy Life. We don’t have to go seeking it. Happiness is who we are. All we must do is to remove all those factors in us, around us, that inhibit our being happy. If riding a Merc all the time is making you unhappy, sure, go take the Tube. At every step, in every moment, make that intelligent choice to be happy. Or simply, do away with all that makes you unhappy and you will be happy.

How I learnt to live with insecurity

All our insecurity is a direct outcome of our conditioning. If we drop our conditioning and accept the Life we have, we will at peace with the insecurity that abounds!

A friend called me this morning to congratulate me on my forthcoming Book – “Fall Like A Rose Petal – A father’s lessons on how to be happy and content while living without money” (Westland, August 2014). After he wished my book all success, he remarked, “AVIS, you have learnt to live without money. But don’t you ever feel insecure?”

I found my friend’s question very pertinent. Here’s what I told him.

To be sure, I too felt insecure when I first came face to face, eight years ago, with the reality that we were insolvent and our Firm was bankrupt. Of course, I was devastated by the gravity of our crisis and was very, very scared of where we would end up in Life. But resisting the insecurity, wishing that things were different, only made me suffer. And in my suffering I could not focus. I was always unhappy. When you don’t focus or are unhappy, how can you function? How can you think of even attempting to solve your problems? While I could make sense of the futility of my suffering, I didn’t know where to start or what to do. What do you do when you don’t know what to do?

That’s when I came across Osho’s, the Master’s, view of insecurity. He has said: “We are all trained in the wrong way. Otherwise, security is something to be afraid of, and insecurity is something to be rejoiced. What exactly is insecurity? It means tomorrow is not going to repeat today. It means tomorrow you may not even be alive. It means that one has to live each moment as if it is the last moment. A Life of security will be simply boring. It will be like seeing the same movie again and again and again -- knowing every detail of what is going to happen. Insecurity is the very fabric of Life. If you don't understand insecurity, you can never understand Life. Everything will go on changing, nothing can be taken for granted; this is insecurity. You want everything to be certain, permanent. But have you ever thought what will be the outcome of it if everything is permanent? You eat the same food every day, you say the same things every day, you listen to the same things every day. Insecurity keeps people fresh, alive, adventurous -- knowing that things can be changed. Even without their changing them, they are going to be changed. So there is great scope for change, for transformation.”

Osho’s perspective indeed changed my entire outlook to Life. I decided to play the game of Life – rather than see it as a complex problem that I didn’t know how to fix. Soon, the game became an adventure. I saw that each day held something new – a legal twist here, an irate creditor who had lost patience with our situation there, bills to be paid for essential services like electricity and telephones when there was no money to even buy groceries, a health situation to be urgently addressed; yet each time we thought it was all over, help arrived from some unexpected quarter. No day, I discovered, was the same. Honestly, not all the stuff that came our way on a daily basis, however new or fresh it was, was appetizing. But however much I felt wasted at the end of each day, I woke up afresh and anew the next day. And took that day’s challenges head-on. Over time, it became clear to me that Life has all along been, and will continue to be, insecure. Now, I didn’t have that sense of security that a steady income could provide, yet when I stopped feeling insecure about it, and let go, and let Life take over, things happened on their own. I have learnt that my duty is to make my daily efforts and let the results take care of themselves. Even so, I don’t deserve, nor do I claim, any credit for the way I have learnt to live my Life. I just chose to accept the Life I got and I have. Why would anyone want a crisis, and as in my case, a state of acute cashlessness and worklessness – especially over the last 24 months?

This numbing phase of my Life has taught me to live with insecurity. There are days, several times in a month, when we really don’t know what will happen or how we will be able to provide for basics like groceries or public transport?  But we know fully well that we will be taken care of. Maybe this is what they call faith. Not in an external God. But in Life itself – that if you have been created and you are in whatever situation you are placed in, you will be cared for, provided for and looked after. This faith makes me – and my wife – last one day more, sleep well, and wake up the next day hopeful and ready to work harder at turning our situation around. This faith helps me be at peace with myself despite all that the insecurity that surrounds me.

A gentle reminder to make the world a better place

If you make an effort, you can practise simple acts of kindness, to touch a Life daily – and make a difference!

Over last weekend, I lunched with Rajan, my dear friend, who, at 70, continues to be young with his thinking and in spirit. A consummate adman, an expert in Rural Marketing, a man with a big heart and a great sense of humor, Rajan is all this and more. And that’s why he’s simply unputdownable! Post his retirement, some years ago, he took to writing seriously and has written three books already – including his autobiography. Despite a few upheavals with his health in the past few months, Rajan plows on – his energy levels undiminished,  with an insatiable zest for Life! His wife passed away about a year ago and he’s coped well. He prefers cooking most of his meals himself, although his son’s family lives in the same building, and was, in fact, asking my wife if she could share some interesting Gujarati recipes! But what excited me most was Rajan’s new mission. “I make it a point to see how I can help people with my time, ideas, resources and experience. I want to touch someone’s Life daily. It gives me great joy to serve someone, to make a difference, however small. I wish I had dedicated my whole lifetime to doing this. But I am happy that I am able to do this at least now! It is never late,” he declared. That morning, he had made it simpler for four other friends to join the lunch we were at, by driving them up and offering to drop them back.

Rajan’s missionary zeal to touch lives daily, through small, even if mundane, acts appeals to me. Most important, it helps us shift the attention and focus from ourselves to others around us. Given the quality of Life we all lead, with too much to be done in too little time, we end up thinking and working for the welfare of only our families. We don’t lack the intent to be useful or to serve, but we simply don’t have the time. Which is when a perspective such as Rajan’s is most helpful. My takeaway is that if we can, during the course of our everyday schedules, do something to help another person live their Life better, we would have made a small difference. Our acts can be random and small – helping an elderly person with getting her shopping bags to her car, making way for a lady to sit on the bus, calling a friend who’s going through a crisis or feeding someone on the street by buying him or her a hot meal. We don’t even need to make a special effort. Just look around, in our own circles of immediate influence, we will find people who need help but are not asking for it. They don’t fall into any specific income or social brackets – they are just there, fellow voyagers, like you and me, who are struggling with their own daily challenges through Life.

Mother Teresa (1910~1997) has said this so beautifully: “If you can’t feed a hundred people, feed one.” Rajan left me inspired and I am grateful to him for this, if I can call it, gentle reminder. And I am sharing this here in the hope that if any of you feels equally inspired, you too can join in the mission. When more of us come together, over time, with consistent effort, we can make our world a better place!