Abandon all logic, see the magic around you!

Logic buries the magic in the Universe. It prevents us from seeing how beautiful each moment is.

To see the magic in you, in your Life, around you, you must stop being an adult, abandon all logic and just see everything with a child-like wonder.

While our logical temperament has been honed by years of schooling and social conditioning and while it has helped us grow our careers, it has really stunted our evolution as individuals. Consider your own Life. You, like me, have problems. And, logically, you want those problems resolved. So if the problem is financial, you may want your income to go up and your expenses to come down. Logical thinking. When your efforts at boosting your income come to a naught, you get depressed. Depression leads to scarcity and negative thinking. If your problem is a relationship, you will want to sit down and resolve it. But the other party is just not interested. You grieve. You suffer. If your problem is your health, logically, medication should work. But the doctors are wringing their hands in despair, because they say their efforts are not working. You think death. You believe it’s all over. In all this logical thinking, in all three contexts, you are tormented, you are anxious and you are not present in your every waking moment. You are living in your problems.

And this is where you are missing the magic of the present. Of the myriad opportunities that Life is still offering you. Remember that despite all the problems you are faced with and are seemingly drowning in, Life is going on and WILL go on. There’s magic everywhere. In the rising sun. In the chirping birds. In the smile of a child. In the few friends who are still standing by you. In the fact that you have a home, food to eat and someone to call family. When you are allowing yourself to be gripped in the stranglehold of your problems, you are missing all this magic. Your being wedded to your problems may appear to you to be very logical – after all, you want to solve your problems. But there are problems that you cannot solve. Only time and Life can heal and solve them. This is why being stuck with logic kills magic. American author Nora Roberts says, “Magic exists. Who can doubt it, when there are rainbows and wildflowers, the music of the wind and the silence of the stars? Anyone who has loved has been touched by magic. It is such a simple and such an extraordinary part of the lives we live.”

So, love this Life. Know that it won’t last forever. Abandon all logic. Then, and only then, will you see the magic – and beauty – in Life! 

There are no full stops in Life…

When your Life changes, do not resist that change. Realign, rebuild and learn to relate to your new reality – that is the key to being happy.

In today’s Chennai Times, Priya Gupta interviews actor Hrithik Roshan. She asks Roshan, who is going through a painful separation from his wife Sussanne, how he’s coping with this difficult time even as he has worked in his ambitious, forthcoming film, Bang Bang. Roshan replies: “There will be a point in Life when the model of your world may change and you may not be able to see the way forward. Because you have been looking at it in a way that you have been trained to look at it. You have grown up with a philosophy of work hard, gain success, have a family and that is equal to happiness. But the model breaks and you have to realize that you have to be happy first and all the other things will follow.”  

I totally agree with Roshan here. What he has understood about Life is at the same time simple and yet not-so-easy to grasp. The model he talks about is our own individual, personal, view of Life. Which means that there are as many models, as many personal views, as there are people in this world. Each of us imagines and expects that Life will be a linear progression. Life, we imagine in vain, will work like this: you study hard, get good grades, go to college, get good grades, land a job, start a family, buy an apartment, raise kids, grow in your career, save for retirement, put your kids through college, see them marry and “settle down”, while you retire and,  eventually, die. But Life does not happen this way, in a straight line, to any of us. Someone may have a hole in the heart, someone may have a career crisis, someone may have a learning disability, someone may get embroiled in a scandal, someone may just lose a close family member – something keeps happening to someone all the time. And crises happen with no apparent reason. Tragedy – and fortune – strikes irrespective of social standing or talent. The only thing you can be certain about Life is that whatever is – a tough time or a great time – will change. Your Life will change, often irrevocably. And, to be happy, you must too change with your Life.

Picture Courtesy: Times of India/Bombay Times/Internet

Getting to this level of acceptance is not easy. Initially, when your Life changes, you hate that change. For instance, in his interview to Gupta, Roshan says, “There was a point in time that I just didn't want to go ahead with anything in my Life. I think it's at that precipice that you decide what kind of a man you want to be and that is when I discovered myself. There was a point where I just wanted to put a full stop to my Life and I discovered a whole new world.” I am glad he found that whole new world while discovering himself, his real self! For, the truth is that there are no full stops in Life. Life simply goes on even if you are faced with what you think is a no-go situation.

My Life experiences have taught me that happiness is available and possible in any situation, in any context, in Life. Being grumpy with Life and resisting whatever’s happening to you is the only reason you are unable to be happy. Just accept, as Roshan says, the “new model of your world”, when your Life changes, and you will be the happiness that you seek! 

A lesson in living from the Jayalalithaa episode

Anything, absolutely anything, can happen in Life! You just have to be prepared to accept whatever comes your way and know that nothing is permanent – neither success nor defeat!

Picture Courtesy: Internet

Yesterday’s conviction of J.Jayalalithaa by a Bangalore Special Court in an 18-year-old “Disproportionate Assets” case, under the Prevention of Corruption Act, holds an important lesson in living for all of us. No, I am not going to comment on either the merits of the landmark judgment nor am I going to analyze the political future of Jayalalithaa, her AIADMK party and the state of Tamil Nadu. To me the singular takeaway is this: whoever you are, wherever – even if you are high, mighty and powerful or meek, written-off and in oblivion – you are, your Life will play out exactly per your cosmic design. One moment you can be an immensely popular and powerful – seemingly infallible – Chief Minister of a state and in another you can be prisoner number 7402 at the Parappana Agrahara Central Prison, lodged in VVIP Cell 23, disqualified as MLA and CM and barred from contesting elections for 10 years!

It is this understanding – that anything, absolutely anything, can happen in Life – that we all completely lack in our lives, caught as we are, in trying to make sense of our own individual, inscrutable, Life stories and designs. Even as I write this, news has come in that my wife’s classmate lost her young adult son in an accident earlier today. And next week, on the popular Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC) show, host Amitabh Bachchan will hand over the Rs.7 Crore bounty, for the first time ever, to brothers Achin and Sarthak Narula. The Narulas least expected to be on the show. But when they did get there, they thought they will get to the Rs.25 Lakh stage and then quit the game. Little did they imagine, or believe, that they would hit the Rs.7 Crore jackpot and create history! So, anything can happen in Life – an Emperor can become a pauper and a pauper can become an Emperor – at any time!

Which is why you – and I – must develop the attitude and temperament to accept Life for what it is. The truth is that beyond human comprehension, there’s a higher intelligence, a Higher Energy, at work. Different people see this differently. Some believe this Higher Energy is an unseen, invisible Creator, a God – whose works you can touch and feel though. Some, like Apple’s late Steve Jobs described, say that you cannot understand Life as it is happening to you – you can only infer that it all happened per a “larger cosmic design” by “connecting the dots backward”. I simply believe this Higher Energy to be Life itself. The same Life that keeps us alive. This Life is intelligent. As in, it has a mind of its own. Which means whatever has happened, whatever is happening and whatever will happen is per a Masterplan.

You and I can’t ever fathom what this Masterplan is all about – not even in the contexts of our own individual lives. The only thing we can be sure of, based on all that’s happening to us and around us, is the fact that this Masterplan has no flaws. Which is, we must understand and appreciate that everything that’s happening to us is happening only so that we learn, evolve and grow stronger from the experience. When we begin to understand that this is the way Life works, we will get better and better with living, and living intelligently, with each new experience we encounter!

The best way to live, I have learnt, is to know that you and I cause nothing – neither our successes nor our failures. Life is what keeps on happening to us – from birth to death. Some of what happens to us, makes us exult, some of it buries us under its fury. Whatever happens, it is best to stay humble and stay accepting of Life – knowing fully well that nothing is permanent, neither our successes, nor our falls!

Don’t postpone intelligent living anymore

What is yours? What is mine? Everything is so transient.

What is real, true, untouched, eternal is the soul. This concept is so simple and a part of every scripture. But this Truth is lost in the maze of religious brouhaha and communal theatrics. Another reason is that its espousers are all people who have renounced the world, and have taken to wearing orange or maroon or white or black robes, grown flowing beards or matted hair and sit in inaccessible, distant, lonely locales. That too is a way to attain the eternal and to encounter and internalize this Truth. But a simpler, easier, practical way, is TO LIVE IN THIS WORLD and yet BE ABOVE IT.

Enlightenment does not require you to be seated under a tree nor does it champion abstinence, renunciation and running away! Enlightenment requires awareness, it asks for you to open up your soul so that the light can illuminate your Life. And the soul is not some unseen metaphysical dimension to your Life. It is a presence. It is you. It is who you are. Have you seen air? But don’t you believe that there is air in this Universe? Similarly, you must believe that there is a soul, yours and everyone else’s. That everything, including this body of yours, will eventually perish. But the soul, like Life, will go on.

Subhashini Kaul, 43, a former IIM-A professor realized this when she was in her late thirties. So did her husband. Resultantly, both of them gave up their lucrative corporate careers. And decided to find meaning in their lives. While her husband roams railway stations across the country, preferring to be a fakir, Subhashini, has become a ‘sadhak’ (seeker). Her religious views are that the ‘Truth is One’! She’s on facebook and stays connected with like-minded people. “It's not because of any incident that I turned a sadhak... but I started feeling that all the effort one puts in the materialistic world to get ahead isn't worth it…God directed me to another way of Life. That was a monkey world where everyone was in the rat race to get ahead. But I blame no one for the happenings in my Life. I have pulled out from all relations. Now, I dance when I want to and sleep when I feel like it. An atheist earlier, now I feel closer to God,” she once told the Times of India.

The God she speaks of, to me, is the One within. The Truth. We don’t have to take such a dramatic step, as Subhashini and her husband took, to renounce the world. We can continue to have our Ferraris, our Single Malts, our First Class Seats….the only thing we must give up is all attachment to any of these. Because attachment brings grief. And detachment is bliss! What happened to Subhashini in her late thirties I believe, happened to me when I was 35. Over time, my awareness has helped me to accept whatever comes my way in Life - unconditionally. You too can get there if you don’t impose conditions on the Life you have.

But please don’t postpone intelligent living anymore. Because, as the Buddha reminds us, “The problem is that you think you have time!” 

Be smart: Live fully, than just ‘earn a living’!

Above all else, prioritize “quality time” with your family! Nothing will count more in the evening of your Life than the memories you have of the time you spent with your family – especially with your spouse and children.

I read a very interesting, heart-warming syndicated story in today’s Times of India. It talked about how a high-profile, globe-trotting finance executive, Mohamed El-Erian, 56, quit his $100m++ job at the California-based PIMCO Investment Fund last year because his daughter complained that he had never been with her for what she thought were important events in her Life. The list of 22 events El-Erian missed included the child’s first day at school, her first football match and a Halloween parade. El-Erian told The Independent’s Cahal Milmo: “I felt awful and got defensive. I had a good excuse for each missed event! Travel, important meetings, an urgent phone call, sudden to-dos. But it dawned on me that I was missing an infinitely more important point. As much as I could rationalize it ... my work-Life balance had gotten way out of whack, and the imbalance was hurting my relationship with my daughter. I was not making nearly enough time for her.”

Well, El-Erian was lucky that he heard the “wake up call” and actually “woke up”. There are many, many, many people out there who are too busy building their businesses and their careers at the cost of their families.

I too “woke up” to a “wake up call”. But I woke up only on the day that my son, then 18, took a flight out to Chicago, to join undergrad school. Until that day, back in September 2008, I too, like El-Erian was obsessed with work. The business came first. And business came second. Family, if at all, was treated by me as something that I had to merely “provide” for. But that day, at Chennai International Airport, when my son bid goodbye to all of us, who had gone with him to see him off, and took the escalator to the departure gates, it suddenly dawned on me that we were not just sending him to college, we were actually letting him be independent in this big, huge world. The bird had flown from the nest. That night when I fixed myself a drink and sat thinking of my son, I realized from here on…he would graduate, get himself a job, raise a family and be pretty much on his own. It struck me that he would never be home the way he had been with us for the past 18 years. And it dawned on me then that I had missed much of those 18 years – in fact, I had missed watching him grow. It wasn’t as if I was a reckless and irresponsible father. My son and I always bonded well – and we still are great friends. But that night I felt I could have done better being with him for some more of his birthdays and several more of his events in school and in his theatre group.

My awakening led me to conclude that it is only because we crave and “search” for work-Life balance that we never really find it. I have realized that we have to stop seeing work as different from Life. The truth is that there is just one Life that we all have. And our family is an important part of that Life. As important as work – as in a professional career or a business – is. We cannot claim that we are toiling for the family and kid ourselves that sometime, when we have saved enough for the family, we will enjoy, or invest in, quality time with them. It is because we kid ourselves with this flawed logic that we don’t ever find work-Life balance. Actually, living a well-balanced Life is indeed possible. What is required is that we define for ourselves what’s most important to us in Life. And invest our waking hours prudently among these few areas. It is important that we write for ourselves a list of “never miss” family events – which includes two week-long vacations annually – and stick to fulfilling this list at any cost. On an average, including vacation time, you may require 30 days of family time a year. Of course, this is doable. Especially if you consider the 80~100 work weeks that you end up clocking – often mindlessly – in any case!

As you grow in your career, and as your family grows too, you will do well to remember that no one is getting any younger. Each milestone of your career and family will just be a memory in some more years. There’s no point in arriving in the future to discover that you have no, or far too few, family-related memories because you were busy working your butt off earning a living! Living your Life fully, while earning, is what smart people do. Surely, you are smart. And like El-Erian, will “wake up” too!

Good parenting is all about leadership

Learn to trust your children. If you believe they need direction, give them your perspective, but also allow them to make their choices. Good parenting is all about leadership.

The other day we met a young teenager who is in her first year in college. When she lit a cigarette, I asked her if her parents knew that she smoked. She replied saying her parents were very conservative and did not trust her to be ‘able to take care of herself’. She then, perhaps in an effort to change the topic, said a boy in her class had bought her a dress for her birthday. She pulled out a shopping bag and proudly showed the dress, a designer label, to my wife and me. We asked her how she would account for the new dress to her parents. She said she would tell them that one of the girls in her class had gifted it to her! I encouraged her to stop covering up and urged her to be open with her parents. I then advised her to quit smoking and educated her on the perils of addiction – talking from my own experience of chewing tobacco; I shared how difficult it was for me to quit the habit. The young lady said she would consider my advice of quitting smoking seriously. But she said “open” conversations with her parents would simply not work. “They are not that sort who will ever understand my desire to experience everything in Life and make my own choices. They are over-protective and untrusting,” she declared.

I felt sorry for that young friend of ours. Her parents were clearly missing the opportunity to mold their daughter’s Life and career.

Teenage and adolescence through to young adulthood is when parents and children have the opportunity to really bond. And it is entirely the parents’ responsibility that this opportunity is fully utilized. Children at this stage of their lives – from 13 years to 24 years – are very curious and adventurous. On one side they are exploring and experiencing their own sexuality. On the other side, they are experiencing everything in the world for the first time. Be it smoking a cigarette, tasting alcohol or watching an adult movie. They begin to understand politics, money, business, social and environmental issues. They start questioning religion, faith and rituals. And even as they do all this, they want to genuinely change the way things are. They have this “Why Not?” attitude towards everything that they touch, feel, see and hear. Which is why a parent has to, at the same time, be a child’s best friend and coach.

It is natural, given the impact that social media and advertising have on young impressionable minds, that children, by the time they enter their teens, are very well-informed. It is therefore a logical human urge to want to light a cigarette or have a drink whenever the first opportunity arises. Or even to have a crush on someone. There’s nothing wrong either if your child wants to go out on a date. As a parent, you must learn to accept and appreciate that your child is growing up and has a right to experience Life afresh and first hand. You cannot insist or demand that your child experiences Life on your terms. If you do, please know, as in my young friend’s case, your child will still go ahead and experience Life while covering up those experiences with you! In fact, your relationship with your child is a good one if your child comes up to you and shares openly. You must champion and encourage this by initiating open conversations. Please know that there is nothing “untouchable” about subjects such as masturbation, menstruation, pre-marital sex or marriage, relationships, homosexuality, divorce and death. It is a parent’s principal responsibility to bring a teachable point of view into every such conversation.

Good parenting requires that you educate your child on what matters to the child. And, believe me, there’s a lot more than pure academics that matters to children in their teens leading up to young adulthood. Always share your experiences and perspectives with your child and leave the choice to her or him. Chances are, especially when they are trusted, children will not make wrong choices. And if they do, there’s nothing to panic – simply work on educating them one more time. If the choices they make turn out to be duds – blowing up on their face – help them understand what they can learn from the experience than tell them how right you were all along!

Remember that when you don’t trust your own children you are puncturing their self-worth. The unstated message you are giving your children is this: “You are incapable, so let me handle things for you.” Ask yourself if you would like to be treated that way? Parenting can truly be an enjoyable experience if you lead well. Good leadership demands that you tell your children what’s right, what’s wrong and then, simply, let go – allowing them to learn from their own experiences!

Approach Life, the ‘Chomolungma’ way!

A closed door, an impregnable situation, a no-go stalemate, does not mean it is The End. It only means PAUSE. It only means reflect. It only means TAKE A BREAK.

In Life closed doors come in several forms: an unsufferable relationship, a lost job, bankruptcy, a health crisis or the death of a dear one. And we think it is all over, we can go on no more. But wait! Like in cricket, so it is in Life, it is never over until the last ball is bowled! And since you don't know which one is the last ball, you really have no right to conclude that it is all over.

Why worry about anything? Because the worst thing that can happen to you, arguably, is that you can die! Which is why they say that anything’s possible when you are alive!! Besides, when you die, after you are gone, you are not even going to know it. Be sure: your last rites will be performed 'without' your knowing it!

So, use every challenge that Life is throwing at you as an opportunity to learn something from it. That situation, possibly even a Life-threatening crisis, is teaching you something. Ask for it, demand, and be sure that it will reveal its true purpose in your Life. Know with certainty that every closed door will open. Provided you approach it with complete faith, in total humility and remain patient.

The Tibetans call Mount Everest, which at 29,029 ft is the world's tallest peak, 'Chomolungma' or 'Goddess Mother of the World'. All climbers preparing for a conquest of the Everest, irrespective of their individual faiths, are advised to first kneel down at the Temple of Chomolungma at base camp before they begin their expedition. The prayer they are encouraged to offer is, "O! Goddess Mother, allow me the opportunity and ability to complete my mission of reaching your peak." ‘Chomolungma’ has now come to mean 'I submit in all humility to your might'.

So, approach Life, the ‘Chomolungma’ way. When you resist Life, you are demonstrating frustration, you are demanding the right to conquer, which is not something that Life likes. Instead employ empathy with Life. And you will be offered right of passage. You will find a crack in the door. You will find that door, and all closed doors thereafter, opening, magically!

There’s no conspiracy by Life to fix you!

Sometimes the way Life deals with you, can make you conclude that there is a conspiracy to fix you. Therefore, when you ask why something is happening to you, you have triggered off your suffering!

I was talking to a friend the other day. He reported that his business had slowed down, money due to him from various clients was not coming in and he had also lost a couple of contracts. Over and above all of this, his partner had turned cold and was refusing to take his calls and was not paying him his legitimate share of the business profits. “My monthly income has come down to a few thousands, from a few lakh of rupees, in just under a quarter. I don’t know why these things are happening to me. I am consumed by fear and insecurity. I don’t get sleep at nights. I am unable to bear all this suffering,” he lamented.

If you peel away the emotions from what my friend’s faced with, it is all pretty simple: his business is faring poorly and he is not getting enough money to run his Life. Asking why this is happening is irrelevant in the context of what is happening to him. The truth is that whatever is happening is his current reality. And he has to act on it. He must make efforts to both get new business and collect overdue amounts. Now, what happens if he makes those efforts and still does not succeed? Well, even then there’s no point in asking why. He has to try better ways and methods of doing the same thing – promoting his business and collecting his monies.

When you ask why, why me, why me now, in any context, you have invited suffering into your Life. This does not mean you must not examine and analyze any situation. By all means you must. Only an honest appraisal of any situation can lead to specific, pointed action to remedy it. But don’t make the analysis an emotional one. Don’t bring in self-pity, grief, remorse, anger and guilt into the analysis. Don’t bring in God and religion either. Don’t imagine conspiracy theories when there are none! No amount of pining, agonizing and wishing can change what is. If anything can change a situation, it is only sincere, concerted, timely and relevant action. In any situation, therefore, just do your best, and keep trying harder if you don’t succeed the first time. There is no other way.

Suffering arises when you expect things, people, events and circumstances to be different from what they are. Asking why some things happen the way they do or why some people behave the way they do is futile. Things happen so, people behave so, because that is the way it is. When you decide not to suffer and instead accept Life the way it is happening to you, you will appreciate that there is really no conspiracy to fix you. You will then realize that Life, from birth till death, is just series of events and experiences. Your task, in this lifetime, is to flow with Life while learning along the way. It’s really as simple – and choice-less – as that! 

Attend to your Life to see how perfect it is

Life is perfect. As it is, it is beautiful.

You don't notice how perfect your Life is, how beautiful it is, because you are not present in the moment, you are not attending to Life! Your body is here, but 'you' are lost in your own world. Think about it. A lot of your waking time is indeed spent worrying about what will happen or brooding over what has happened. From financial priorities to relationship issues to just a lot of anxiety over all the work that’s still to be done – you agonize over everyone and everything! And, therefore, your Life appears to you to be far from perfect. You imagine your Life to be imperfect because you want your Life to be different from what it is. This want holds you hostage – it prevents you from realizing this simple truth that your Life cannot be any other way. It is always what it is.

One way to participate in living and engage with Life it is to get up and walk. Every time that you find your thoughts are going astray, and dragging you into worry or anxiety, and are taking you away from the now, just get up and walk. Even if it is within your home or your office. Just walk. When you walk, you will find that your focus shifts from your current reality to your present environment. They may appear to be similar scenarios but they are two different things. Because you are so absorbed in your current reality, you don't pay attention to Life. When you pay attention, when you attend to Life, you notice its beauty and magic. You will notice the spider on the wall, you will notice the daylight streaming through the windows kicking up millions of dust particles, you will notice the dew drop on the leaf struggle to defeat the intensity of the rising sun, you will notice your child's scrawl on her desk, you will notice the fragrance of your beloved still hanging in your room long after she has gone to work… You will realize that Life is indeed beautiful – no matter what circumstances you are currently faced with.

The 19^th Century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844~1900) has so aptly said, "All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking". When you walk, and pay attention, the greatest thought that can arise in your mind is one of gratitude. Because, very simply, you can walk! There are so many, many people out there who can’t! Isn’t that enough evidence of how perfect your Life is? When you recognize how lucky you are__to be able to walk, see, touch, feel and hear, you will soak in gratitude. When you are grateful, you will discover that, after all, despite all that you don't have and so badly want, your Life is indeed perfect the way it is.

Give up your craving to be understood and you will live in peace

A lot of our suffering comes from our desire to be understood by others.

It is normal for communication to be misunderstood and misinterpreted by others at times. Just as a spelling mistake is possible in a simple word, so is a misunderstanding possible in relationships. And all of it is caused by how someone wants to interpret what is being said or imagine that something else, than what is being said, is being implied! In a situation when there is repeated breakdown of communication, or even aggravated, angry, violent expressions of communication, it is best to remain quiet. And, more importantly, it is best to give up the need to be understood.

This may also require remaining quiet for long periods of time. Maybe even for years at a stretch. This is true in all contexts__with parents, children, spouses, siblings, extended families, friends, neighbors, workplace teams and such. Time and the truth alone can heal such situations. On the other hand, when you try to force an understanding and try to get people to see you the way you want to be seen, you will undoubtedly suffer. But you have a choice not to suffer in the throes of the pain that such misunderstandings can cause. Just stop feeling pity for yourself, stop demanding that you are understood, and your suffering will cease. The pain may still be there, and so will the factors causing the pain, but you will not suffer.

Accept that this strained situation is the current reality that you have to live with. Give the situation love by practising forgiveness – forgive yourself and the others involved too. Who started it first is immaterial, just accept being a co-creator of the situation and forgive everyone. Slowly, surely, you will find yourself becoming peaceful. When one person is at peace, the entire circle of influence of that person, even if people are estranged, benefits from the peace. Be a peace champion. Begin with yourself.

Making peace with painful memories

When painful memories arise in you, don’t avoid them. Don’t fear them. Let them come, you revisit them and, after seeing their futility, just let them go.

Memories are funny things. They just crop up – often randomly. Without any ostensible trigger. When they are about painful situations that you have been through, such memories can weigh you down for days and weeks on end at times. Because they are difficult to deal with, you will want to shut them away. But they refuse to budge. This is why painful memories linger on and continue to haunt you.

But there is an effective way to deal with them though.

When I am confronted with a painful memory, I let the event replay in my mind completely. I allow all the characters and emotions – the anger, grief, guilt, or any other feeling associated with the event – to play out and examine everything, and everyone, clearly. In such times, I play the role of an observer, a fly on the wall, who is watching the entire proceedings dispassionately – just as someone watches a movie. Every time I do this, I find myself detached from whatever has happened, even if the event has affected me deeply in the past, and, perhaps therefore, I am able to forgive the way I have been treated by someone or even by Life itself.

Memories are just a way of your mind dragging you to live clinging on to the past. And as long as you are living in the past, you cannot enjoy the present. But you can neither ask your mind to shut up, nor can you shut out memories. The only way you can deal with debilitating, painful, draining memories is for you to be aware and understand the futility of revisiting them.

Of what use is a memory of someone having betrayed you? Can you go back and change things? Of what use is a memory of the death of a loved one? Can you bring back that person from the dead? Does feeling guilty over a mistake you committed – however grave it may have been – ever going to help you undo what you did?

I have struggled too, for a long time, over memories of being called a cheat by members of my own family (I have recounted my painful experience in my Book, “Fall Like A Rose Petal – A father’s lessons on how to be happy and content while living without money”; Westland Books, August 2014). For months and years I grieved over trying to understand why my family failed to understand me. Then one day, during my mouna (silence period) session, it suddenly occurred to me that my pining for understanding from my family members was making no sense to them. I owed them money. And until I repaid them, the label of “cheat” was unlikely to be ripped off me. That’s when I concluded that revisiting the memory itself was futile. Unless I gave my family what they wanted – money – there was going to be no closure to the episode from their side. And since malicious words once spilled, erroneous labels once stuck, baseless opinions once expressed, cannot really be taken back, it would never matter, not to me, not any more, what my family thought of me – even after I repaid the money! That’s really when I understood how futile it is to revisit painful memories.

You too can make peace with your painful memories. Just examine them with detachment. And you will, pretty soon, realize how meaningless it is to hold on to them. 

You and your mind – BFFs!!!

Your mind can be your best friend. So, don’t try to conquer it. Instead befriend it. Have conversations with it. Reason with it. Laugh with it! This is the only way you can get along with your mind, without it controlling you!

There’s an interesting story I remember reading. A sage was offering his prayers, when a very pretty lady walked past. He got distracted and kept thinking about her all day. The next morning he resolved that he would not get distracted by the beautiful woman. So, he closed his eyes tight. But when the lady walked past him, he was able to smell the jasmine flowers she wore in her hair and so he got distracted again. He was now angry with himself and vowed to close his eyes and nose the next morning. Yet, when the lady went past him, he was able to ‘feel’ her presence because he heard the sound of her anklets pass him by. Angry and completely lost, the sage vowed now to close his ears as well. But despite his intention being right and his making a valiant effort, he could still ‘feel’ her presence the next day, even when his eyes, nose and ears were closed. That’s when the sage concluded that it was ‘all in the mind’.

Indeed. It always was, is and will be so! But however hard you try, you can never control the mind. The mind is like a tennis-ball spewing machine that players use to perfect their strokes. The mind spews thoughts endlessly, like the machine spews tennis balls. On an average, a human mind spews 60,000 thoughts daily. These thoughts range from the bizarre to the fearful to the practical to the anxious to fantasy stuff, all at the same time. Which is, in most unevolved and untrained human beings, the mind is never in the present. It is clinging on to a past memory or dwelling in a future worry! The Buddha describes the human mind as being filled with drunken monkeys __ who never sit still and keep jumping from tree to tree, from banana to mango to orange, screeching and screaming all the time! And, says the Buddha, the only way to calm your drunken monkeys down is to have conversations with them. Which is, to talk to your own mind.

When you speak to your own mind, you can be very sure that you will not be interpreted but will be understood. That you can be candid, you can choose to disagree and still be on ‘talking terms’! Wouldn’t you say the same thing of speaking your heart (or mind!) to and sharing with a friend?

Los Angeles-based sociologist and author, BJ Gallagher, shares her secret for making your mind your best friend on her blog:

“I've found that engaging the monkeys in gentle conversation can sometimes calm them down. I'll give you an example: Fear seems to be an especially noisy monkey for people like me who own their own business. As the years go by, Fear Monkey shows up less often, but when he does, he's always very intense. So I take a little time out to talk to him.

"What's the worst that can happen?" I ask him.

"You'll go broke," Fear Monkey replies.

"OK, what will happen if I go broke?" I ask.

"You'll lose your home," the monkey answers.

"OK, will anybody die if I lose my home?"

"Hmmm, no, I guess not."

"Oh, well, it's just a house. I suppose there are other places to live, right?"

"Uh, yes, I guess so."

"OK then, can we live with it if we lose the house?"

"Yes, we can live with it," he concludes.

“And that usually does it. By the end of the conversation, Fear Monkey is still there, but he's calmed down. And I can get back to work, running my business and living my Life,” says Gallagher.

So, stop obsessing over your mind. There are NO mind-control methods. You can at best make your mind your best friend. Talk to your mind, to your drunken monkeys – to the Fear Monkey, the Anxiety Monkey, the Sorrow Monkey, the Jealous Monkey and any other, as the situation may demand. And calm them down. Once you have achieved that, you and your mind, the two of you, can be Best Friends Forever! 

A lesson in finding yourself from ‘Finding Fanny’!

There will be times in Life when you will find yourself lost. Don’t panic or feel frustrated at such times. Know that only when you are lost, can you find your way – and find yourself!

I recently watched this very cute Bollywood English film called Finding Fanny (2014, Homi Adajania, Naseeruddin Shah, Dimple Kapadia, Pankaj Kapur, Deepika Padukone and Arjun Kapoor). The story revolves around how Ferdie, an old postmaster, goes in search of his lady love, Fanny, who he had lost contact with 46 years ago. Ferdie is supported in his search by Angie, a widow who lost her husband on the day of their wedding six years ago. Tagging along with Angie is her mother-in-law, Rosie, who claims her husband is dead but the truth is he ran away with someone else and Rosie makes up his “lost in the sea” story so that she doesn’t lose face in the village. Then there’s the man who has loaned his car for the search journey, an artist, who has a fixation for “big women” – and Rosie is his latest muse. Driving the car is young Savio, whose inability to profess his love for Angie to her in the first place, led to her wedding and subsequent widowhood! As the story unfolds you discover that while finding Fanny is indeed the context, each of these characters is really searching for something they are missing in their own lives. Each of them has lost something – most importantly, precious years of their Life – and are seeking love and belonging in their own ways. That’s where, subconsciously Finding Fanny, connects to our own real, everyday, lives.

Each of us, at different times in Life, in different, often unique, contexts, will find ourselves lost. Either a job might have become listless or a relationship may have lost its very meaning. Or, sometimes, just raising a family – bringing up kids, attending to parents and in-laws, providing for the spouse – can take its toll. There may also be times when some decisions you took about your Life have misfired and you are swamped with guilt and self-pity. Or someone you deeply love someone who was you anchor, your everything, is suddenly gone – is felled by Life and is dead. Each of these situations – and many more – can happen to anybody. It can happen to you. It can happen to me.

The normal reaction in such times is to feel depressed. You will be deluged with a lot of questions in your mind. Questions for which you will have no immediate answers. What is the meaning of Life? Why am I having to face this problem situation? Why me, now? Is there really a God out there? If there is God, then why do good people like me have go through pain – and suffer? Why should I live any longer? Why is the world full of cynical, scheming, uncaring people? Where can I find love? Where can I find home? Just the vast range of questions, and the lack of answers, can weigh you down even more. And you will end up being more depressed than you already are.

But know and remember this: allowing depression to take over is not the way to respond to Life. In fact, when depression strikes and you sense a ‘lack of meaning’ in your Life, get up, even if you don’t feel like it, and push yourself to keep walking, even if you lack the energy or intent to even take the next step. As much as you may think that Life has been cruel to you by placing you in a certain situation – joblessness, a critical health challenge, a divorce, widowhood, death of a child, a business failure or whatever – the truth really is whatever it is now that you have is really your new Life. Being depressed means continuing to mourn the Life you once had. But think about it. What was once is gone. It is not going to come back. No matter how hard you pine for it. Feeling lost and  feeling depressed are convenient ways of saying you want to delay, you want to postpone living. Fine. But Life will go on. Just as the characters in Finding Fanny discover, your years will simply pass you by. There’s no point waking up later in Life and wailing that you lost such a lot of time just feeling depressed. Instead, when dealt with Life’s twists and turns, learning to accept what is, the way it is, taking it all in your stride and moving on – you will discover, is intelligent living!

You don’t feel lost in Life because Life has been unkind to you. You feel lost because you don’t understand, or often you don’t want to understand, that the Life you have is the only Life you have. When you realize that you must live this Life that you have – no matter what circumstances exist – to the fullest, relishing every moment of the experience, you will have found yourself!

Expunge the IFs and the WHENs – Be Happy!

The idea that you can worry today and someday in the future you will be happy is the one that induces all your suffering!

We have been conditioned to believe that happiness comes from all our external reference points and is subject to certain conditions being fulfilled. I will be happy IF I get a job. I will be happy IF I get money. I will be happy WHEN I get a good companion. I will be happy WHEN I get to sell my property. The IFs and WHENs in our Life are the ones that cause us unhappiness.

The very logic that we will be happy upon reaching a milestone means that if we don’t reach it, we will be unhappy. And the human mind is such a creation that when one want is met, one milestone is attained, it will want more, and want to conquer another milestone. So, there is a perpetual chase that we are on, and therefore, that’s precisely why we remain perpetually unhappy. As individuals, as families, as communities, as nations, as a world and as a race!

Bhutan, the tiny Himalayan kingdom, has made significant moves to change this thinking at a national level. It introduced, a couple of years ago, a measure called Gross National Happiness (GNH), in lieu of GDP, which focuses on what it believes are four contributors to a nation’s happiness levels: sustainable economic development, conservation of the environment, preservation of culture and good governance. But these four aspects prima facie may mislead. In reality, Bhutan’s GNH survey asks people simple questions like ‘How many people can you count on for help in case you get sick? How often do you talk about spirituality to your kids? When did you last spend time socializing with your neighbors?’. These are questions that apply to you and me too. And it’s high time we ask them and several more.

What Life will teach you, if it hasn’t taught you already, is that by choosing to save ‘being happy’ for another day, you are actually postponing living. Important too is the fact that you need nothing to be happy. You just must be willing to be happy. Happiness is not dependent on any circumstance. Nothing can really make you unhappy UNLESS you allow it to! So, please don’t put off being happy for another day. Because, you never know, tomorrow may never come!

Don’t make situations difficult by avoiding honest conversations

There may be times in Life when you may not want to have some conversations. You may, in fact, want to run away from such situations.

But please don’t do that. It is through simple, honest, conversations, however difficult they may be to have, that you can attempt to resolve tricky situations or at least get things off your chest, leading you to peace. The reason why you want to avoid talking to some people is because you experience them differently. You don’t see them as being open, having integrity or matching up to your standards of thinking. First, know that it is absolutely fine to think the way you are thinking about people. You are normal. Now, that you feel better, consider also the fact that people are different the world over. Just as you are entitled to your opinion others are too. And if their opinion does not match yours, so be it. There is nothing tragic about a difference of opinion or perspective. Don’t dramatize the way you feel about it.

Instead of conjuring up a non-existent emotional scenario in your mind, go out there and speak your mind. And if you don’t want to be the one starting off the conversation, please enjoin if the other party starts it. Don’t react. Just state what you feel. Don’t intellectualize, don’t sermonize. Speak from the heart, sincerely, without fearing how you will be interpreted. Give the situation, and the person you speak to, dignity. Know that even if you may not be able to arrive at a resolution immediately, you would have moved in the right direction. You will feel better. And that’s the first and most important step towards your inner peace and joy.

It is only from your inner joy that you can create joy in your circle of influence, which includes the person(s) that you are trying to avoid. Conversations are not difficult to have. You make situations difficult by not having honest conversations!  

“Tomorrow the birds will sing. Get up and face Life!”

In any tough situation, never ever give up!  

Last evening, I was watching Charlie Chaplin’s iconic City Lights (1931). In one scene, an eccentric millionaire wants to end his Life. And the Tramps tells him: “Tomorrow the birds will sing. Get up and face Life!”.

That is the way it is. Life is something which has to be faced – no matter what. Our entire expectation that we must not face difficult times or tough situations is wrong. The most important education we must all carry with us is the awareness that Life is just a series of experiences. Some of them may be easy to handle. And some will be tough. Just because the going gets tough, it doesn’t mean we must sulk, brood, feel depressed and eventually give up. What we must remember is that no matter how difficult a situation is, what doesn’t kill us, only makes us stronger!

Many of us are victims of flawed thinking. When faced with a challenge or confronted with tragedy, we imagine that everything about our world is wrong. We feel alone in the wake of Life’s challenges. So we bemoan our situations and lament that we are cursed and doomed. This thinking pushes us into a depressive spiral. Now we have two problems – one is the challenging situation itself and the second is the depression we have invited into our Life. But, with a little awareness and some support from friends or family, if we pause to look around we will be surprised – everybody around us is challenged. Someone’s dealing with a health setback, someone’s coping with the death of a loved one, someone’s struggling in business, another’s trying to salvage a sinking career and someone is trying in vain to rebuild a dead relationship. Everyone’s dealing with pain – only the degrees and the contexts vary, that’s all.

For all the challenges that people face, this then must be a very, very depressive world that we live in! But it is not. And that’s because not everyone who has been felled by Life, lies there ruing their fate. People get up, dust themselves and move on. You must do so too. The best way to pull yourself out of a rut is to accept that your Life is what it is, the way it is. And what you have to do in any given situation – no matter how daunting it may be – is to simply face it. No amount of your wishing that things were different from the way they are, no amount of your crying, no amount of your kicking around in anger and frustration, can change your current reality. Irrespective of how you feel about Life, every long, dark night will soon become a bright day, and as the Tramp said so wisely, tomorrow the birds will sing – again. So, you might as well get along and enjoy the beauty and magic of the Life that you still have than fret over what has happened to you. Whatever is – is what you were ordained to experience. What is not – was never meant to be. If you get these two perspectives deeply embedded in your understanding of Life, you too will live happily ever after!

Be mindful to rid yourself of all that which controls you

To get rid of habits that have taken over your Life, just become more aware, mindful and be conscious of the present.

Anything that controls your Life is not worth it. You have been created to be free. To live in absolute joy! But are you joyous when you are in the throes of a debilitating, ruinous habit?

Some weeks ago, a few of us got together for a few drinks. One of the friends smoked several cigarettes through the evening. We tried counseling him. But he dismissed our advice with defeatist logic: “Guys, let’s talk about something which can happen logically!” What he didn’t state but expressed with his refusal to consider our advice was: “This habit is something that I am unable to rid myself of.” Actually, quitting a ruinous habit is not difficult at all. All my friend needs to do is become more aware. If he starts focusing on each puff of his cigarette, and meditates as he inhales and exhales, he will become aware of the destruction he is causing himself; he will be conscious of the meaninglessness of his pursuit. What does smoking do to you? It doesn’t satisfy anything once it becomes a habit. Ask any smoker and she or he will say they loathe themselves. When it becomes a habit, smoking makes the smoker guilty, fearful and depressive. So, he or she will smoke more. And then more. That is how it becomes a suicidal cycle. The idea is not to cure a smoker because we can save that person from dying. All of us have to die someday. But the idea is to make the smoker live fully, blissfully, as long as she or he is alive!

I have been there, on that ruinous path and I know how it feels. I used to chew 20 packets of gutka (a chewable tobacco product) a day. It is now over 10 years since I quit that habit – so, consequentially, I also know that giving up a destructive habit is possible. My perspective comes from my own experience.

This perspective, interestingly, can be applied to any habit. Anger, sorrow, jealously, self-pity, depression, hatred, suspicion, all these negative emotions, are habits too, that we have developed over years of living mechanically, without awareness. They are as dangerous and destructive as smoking or drinking as habits are. Anger, for instance, cannot be avoided. Anyone can and will feel angry when expectations are not met. The difference between an awakened and aware person and an unaware one is that the aware will KNOW that anger has arisen within her or him. This awareness will help that person make a conscious choice to not allow the anger to control her or him. The awareness will replace the anger with tolerance or with forgiveness or with just letting go. Awareness, mindfulness can be learnt through continuous practice. All you need to do is to start LIVING in the now. That’s all. When you are here and in the now, you don’t look back, you don’t look forward. Do that in every single moment of your day today. And see the difference for yourself.

The same approach, the same logic works for any habit. Just don’t try to stop smoking or getting angry or feeling lousy. Because if you try to do that you will replace one ruinous habit with another. Instead start being in the moment. Start being aware. Being mindful. That, and that alone, will help you rid yourself of all that which controls you and keeps you nailed to the ground. 

To win, just don’t fight!

The best way to win a battle is not to fight at all.

This may seem so impractical. So defeatist. Yet, it is the most peaceful and, at the same time, most combative of all battle strategies. Many a time, people will scheme and check-mate you with their moves. In business, in relationships, in society and in politics. Life too will appear to be conspiring against you. In these times, you will want to rush to defend your position, clear your name and reclaim your credibility. You have been brought up to believe that you must employ the truth and take a stand on issues you believe in. So, you feel your choice of defending yourself and fighting your detractors is justified. Theoretically, yes. But in reality, just consider the amount of energy you will lose fighting those who use deception, guile and lack scruples. This doesn’t mean you should not make your point at all. Make it surely. Just don’t fight.

There’s so much value in defending yourself intelligently than aggressively. The problem with aggression, while it does get your adrenalin pumping, is that there’s too much negativity that it throws up: How dare he? Let me teach her a lesson. I will vanquish him. And so on. In a real, disputed situation, all this bravado is unnecessary. What is the issue? What is the other party saying? What are you saying? What is the way forward for both parties? In the end, it all boils down to these four points. Anything else, even an extra word, is a waste of time, effort and energy for all concerned.

Sun Tzu, the ancient Chinese military general, in The Art of War, writes, “For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.” While borrowing from his philosophy I will suggest that you don’t treat your detractor as an enemy. He or she is just an unevolved soul who is causing you pain, injury, anguish, only because he or she is suffering from much greater pain within. If it is just an insult, you can forgive and move on. But if it is something that is challenging you at your very core, that has trampled upon your self-esteem and that which questions your value systems, then, by all means, take a stand. Let that stand be grounded in a peaceful and principled rejoinder. And not be a loud, ugly statement or show of strength and fury! It is so elementary if you consider it. When you are at peace, you can think with greater clarity. And to win a battle, any battle, in Life, with Life, you don’t need much ammunition, as much as you need good quality thought and peace!