On making this ‘absurd’ Life worthwhile!

Despite the absolute meaninglessness of Life itself, its absurdity, you have to make it worth living.  

Abbott cradles Hughes after the bouncer felled him
Picture Courtesy: Agencies/Internet

In today’s Hindu, noted sports writer and columnist, Nirmal Shekar, writes an open letter to New South Wales’ fast-medium bowler Sean Abbott, whose freak bouncer critically injured Phil Hughes last Tuesday  – an accident that claimed Hughes’ Life a few days later. Shekar’s letter is poignant and is an essay on Life itself. Urging Abbott to treat the incident only as an accident, Shekar talks about the absurd nature of Life. He writes: “…If the ball had climbed an inch higher or moved a shade wider, the world would be a different place for you (Abbott) today — as it would be for all of us, as cricket lovers. It was the rarest of rare accidents that cost Hughes his Life and you just happened to be at the wrong end of one of Life’s devilish deals…How can a person make sense of something that lies beyond all conventional powers of explanation, you might ask. After all, you chose to play a sport — and one of the most culturally sophisticated ones at that. And you might not have killed a fly in your Life…Why me, you might ask…But that’s Life Sean. There are no answers for certain questions, except that much of Life is down to sheer chance. And viewed from this standpoint, Life does indeed seem absurd…”

Shekar’s writing is simple and the wisdom he offers Abbott is profound. There is indeed no point in asking ‘Why me?’ in Life. People, events, situations, moods, attitudes, opportunities and challenges – most of them beyond your comprehension or control when they happen – conspire to take your Life forward. Your Life’s path is never your own doing alone. Some believe it is preordained. Others try to disagree, intellectualizing their argument with rational thinking and evidence. But whatever happens in Life, simply happens. Abbott’s and Hughes’ case is just another one in point. Two young cricketers, both of them in their prime, readying to play a big role for their national team in the upcoming World Cup – and suddenly one of them dies and the other is buried in grief and guilt; all this while playing a game that was their raison d’etre!. What did they do wrong? Nothing! They were simply playing a game! Therein lies the answer to the various contexts and situations, where we find ourselves entangled, in Life. We must recognize that we are just playing this game called Life. The only right we have is to keep playing this game well, being true to ourselves and the spirit of the game, no matter what happens to us.

And everything that happens to us will be – and is – meaningless. We came with nothing. And we will go with nothing. So, why then go through the travails of an academic education, why earn, why raise families, why create assets and why work? If none of what we acquire – degrees, wealth, name, fame and experience – is ever going to matter, why go through the grind of ‘earning-a-living’? So, evidently, everything’s meaningless.

But the purpose of Life is not to make meaning out it. It is never about you alone. And which is why you must often pause to reflect on what you are doing. Your upbringing teaches you that you must be self-obsessed with your grades, your money, your family and your career. But Life’s beauty lies in going through the unknown – called this lifetime – while being useful to others, to humanity. Life’s essence lies in being able to serve before you say you deserve! Only this attitude can make Life meaningful for you. Without this understanding, you will remain self-centered forever. And the more self-centered you are, the more you will resist the Life that is happening – and will happen – to you. That how you end up suffering and agonizing so much.

Life is just a series of events and experiences. The only way to live it well is to go through each of them with a child-like innocence and a student-like curiosity, serving humanity selflessly at every opportunity. Along the way you will learn to live your Life better and better. Every bouncer from Life will then not torment you and every fall will then not finish you. Because you will have learnt to get up, dust yourself and move on … playing on, and making a difference, until the last ball is bowled!

Learn to accept and celebrate the non-negotiable, inevitable, part of Life – Death!

Accepting and celebrating death is an important aspect of learning to live intelligently.  

Picture Courtesy: Internet

Cricketer Phil Hughes’ tragic accident on the field, and his passing away so suddenly, has shocked the entire world. Cricket Australia (CA) has confirmed that the first Commonwealth Bank Test Match between Australia and India, scheduled to begin on Thursday, December 4, 2014, will now be rescheduled. CA says three of its senior players, Shane Watson, David Warner and Brad Haddin, are among those who have said that they are not in the perfect state of mind to return to competitive cricket. Now, contrast this view with those expressed by two former Australian captains, Ian Chappell and Mark Taylor. They feel next week's first Test in Brisbane should go ahead as it would help the cricketers and the fans to come out and share the loss of Phillip Hughes. Taylor feels it will be difficult for the players to deal with the massive loss but “cricket is probably the best medicine to heal the pain”. Chappell, too, echoed Taylor's views, saying going back to the game is the best way to deal with the loss. "In a strange way I think it'll be best for the players if they play the first Test," Chappell was quoted in an agency report. I tend to agree with Taylor and Chappell. When someone dies, the best way is to celebrate the person’s Life – and what she or he stood for. To Hughes, cricket was his Life. And what better way to celebrate his Life than play a fascinating game of cricket?

I remember how Carnatic musician Nithyashree Mahadevan returned to singing within a couple of months after her husband committed suicide in 2012. The famous Chennai music season was on then and Nithyashree was booked to sing various concerts through most of December 2012.This sudden development shocked everyone and most definitely Nithyashree. The pictures that appeared in the media made everyone’s heart go out to her. They showed a forlorn, distraught Nithyashree and most people, while sympathizing with her, wondered how she would cope. But just two months after her tragedy, Nithyashree was back on the concert circuit. She was singing better than she had ever been. And, most importantly, she was not in grief. She presented a picture of complete acceptance and inner peace. I remember The Times of India carried a picture of her singing at that concert. The picture was captioned ‘Like A Song’. Indeed Life’s like a song. It has to be sung, and sung well, no matter what’s going on! What Nithyashree has done is truly inspiring. She has shown all of us the way that we must continue to live our lives, doing what we love doing, irrespective of what happens to us.

I believe that the human ability to cope with death is hugely crippled by the way society treats death. Death is not some gory end that society makes it out to be. It is the only thing that you can be certain of in Life. If you are born, and are alive, as you are, you will die. Period. So, you must learn to accept and appreciate death. Every one of us will die. In fact, we are all speeding towards our death, albeit at different speeds. So, death must be accepted as a logical end, and, as some would believe, as a new beginning, of yet another journey through another unknown. But let’s not lose our focus in over-intellectualizing death either. Simply accept death as a reality. And do everything that you can to celebrate the Life of the person who has died in your midst. Do not grieve. Do not mourn beyond a point. Recognize that death is inevitable. Take inspiration from those who live in the slums of Chennai.These people get drunk and dance as they go to cremate their dead. Reason, as one rickshaw-puller once told me, “The dead have been liberated from living on this planet! And that calls for a celebration!”

Wise words those are. And we will do well to learn from them. For, only when we accept that death is a constant, an unavoidable, non-negotiable part of our Life, that we will actually begin to live fully! And only then will we learn to celebrate the lives of those who are no longer with us! 

Get better, not bitter, from Life’s experiences

Each moment in Life has a reason for it being there__to make you complete and to help you reach and realize your ordained potential.

Of course, some of those moments are challenging, and at times, the aggregation of such moments can become a phase lasting several years. If you see it as Life's conspiracy to torture and beat you to pulp, that's how you will feel__trampled upon, betrayed, despondent and bitter. But if you treat it as a part of a larger Cosmic Design to make you stronger, skilled and resourceful, you will feel better, liberated and energized each day.

Two days ago I was at an event where my teacher from Junior and High School (Padma Seshadri Bala Bhavan), Chandra Srinivasan, was being given a Lifetime Achievement Award for completing 51 years as a teacher. It was a special moment for me. Way back in 1978~80, when I was her student, my parents had to move from Chennai to Gulbarga, Karnataka, on account of my dad taking up a job there. They decided to leave me with my grandparents so that my academic career doesn’t get disrupted. But I didn’t cope with this separation well. Always an outstanding or above average performer until then, I started doing badly in most subjects. It was Chandra who noticed that I was perhaps homesick and she summoned my parents to take me out of school – and with them. My mother did not take kindly to my teacher’s perspective. She felt that my teacher had dumped me because of my poor grades and that I had failed the family by being a bad student. This led me to rebel as a teenager – I just did not focus on my academics from then on. This, naturally, caused a lot of anxiety for my parents and I often felt humiliated at school and at home. To escape all of this, I began immersing myself in reading and writing. Over the next seven years, I evolved to be a writer – a self-taught trait that helped me start a career in journalism. At the event to recognize Chandra, I was called upon to felicitate her. I was honored. And I thanked her profusely for her wisdom and insight. Without her (rightly) advising that my parents take me out of school, I may have perhaps never become a writer – it is not relevant anymore the journey I had to take to become one! I feel if I am author today, of “Fall Like A Rose Petal – A father’s lessons on how to be happy and content while living without money” (Westland, August 2014), it is because of what happened in my Life around 1980, 34 years ago!

I remember reading an amazing story in Forbes magazine on the 81-year-old, unputdownable, pop Diva, Asha Bhosle. Asha 'tai' opens up in that story on the tumultuous years of her first marriage with Bhosle, when he used to often beat her and made her feel worthless and unwanted. She eventually left him and her home. However, looking back on that phase in her Life she says, with no rancor or ill-feeling,"If I hadn't gotten married, I wouldn't have left home. I wouldn't have become a singer. If I had not met Bhosle (and married him), I wouldn't have become Asha Bhosle!!!"

Think about your Life. You__and I__are the sum of the experiences we have been through. To be bitter from them or better from them is a personal choice we must exercise. We will do well seeing each moment__with its opportunity or challenge__as one that is designed exclusively for our learning and evolution. That's when we will discover joy in the now and our lives will overflow with happiness.

A Life lesson from the humble bitter gourd

If you want to change anything about your Life, change yourself first – from within!

Here's a fable to illustrate this point.  A bunch of disciples invited their Guru to join them on a pilgrimage to take a holy dip in the Ganges at Haridwar. The Guru politely declines. But the disciples insist saying they have gleaned from the scriptures that such a dip in the holy river will cleanse and transform each of them. They believe that if their Guru would bless them and be by their side during this transformational ritual they would be doubly blessed. The Guru counsels them but to no avail. Finally, he advises them to take a bitter gourd as his mascot with them. He advises them to also dip the bitter gourd in the holy river when they bathe. The disciples grudgingly agree and set off on their pilgrimage. A few weeks later they come back and report to their Guru saying how good their journey and experience was. The Guru calls for the bitter gourd. One of the disciples promptly pulls it out and presents it respectfully. The Guru demands that the vegetable be sliced and each disciple taste it. With much difficulty the disciples taste the bitter vegetable, their contorted faces exclaiming with anguish as the vegetable's juices enter their system. "Did you not dip the vegetable in the Ganges, the Holy River," asks the Guru, demanding "Why then is it so bitter?" "We did Guruji. But how can bitter gourd stop being bitter because it was dipped in a river, however holy it may be," reasons a disciple. No sooner had the disciple finished saying the, the moral of the guru's abstinence from the “pilgrimage” dawns on all his disciplines.

Transformation in you cannot happen by changing the environment or by being ritualistic. Transformation has to happen from within. A holy gip or 'Ganga Snan' cannot change who you are unless you choose to change yourself. Only when you change from within will your Life change!

#PainTeachesYouPatience

The biggest role that pain plays in our lives is that it teaches us patience and acceptance.

A post on facebook by Chennai Live 104.8 FM RJ Jane Jeyakumar, that I saw this morning, got me thinking. Jane, it appears, has injured her left thumb (hope she gets well soon!). She hash-tagged her post reporting the injury saying #PainTeachesYouPatience. She said it – and has said it so well!

We often think that Life is conspiring against us when we are confronted with pain. It might be through an injury like Jane’s or it can be a graver health challenge or a relationship issue or death of loved one. Through any of these or similar situations, what we must recognize is that Life has no agenda. It just keeps on happening. Sometimes what happens to us meets our expectations. And sometimes it does not meet our expectations. Often, in fact, we are neither ready for nor are we wanting what happens to us. That’s when we experience pain. Who wants a cancer or a pink slip or the death of child or separation from a loved one? But chances of pain happening to us exist as long as Life is happening to us. As long as we are alive. And the only reason, this is my personal, experiential view, pain exists is to make us all better human beings – to make us more patient with and more accepting of Life.

I remember in the hey days of our business, when as a start-up consulting Firm, we were clocking revenues of Rs.2 Crore+, I used to be so impatient. I would jump at every situation that did not meet my expectations – a delayed client inflow, a poorly groomed team member, my children waking up late for school or a comma or a full-stop missing in an email. I was nicknamed chiefscreamer (my business title is chiefdreamer) by my team members at work. And then when my Firm went bust and we had to shut down our offices, I learnt acceptance of our new, painful reality – the hard way. I remember sitting in our office one afternoon, as we were winding down operations, tearing up posters of our Firm’s Vision and Mission. We had no place to put up these posters elsewhere or even store them. So they had to be shredded lest they end up in a garbage dump somewhere. It was such a painful exercise. Heart-wrenching for someone like me who loved my Firm so much. But I went through that entire exercise patiently that day – physically letting go of everything that my Firm once stood for and looked like. That’s when it struck me that, over the years of our tumultuous bankruptcy, I had learnt to be patient. I had become stronger in being able to do what had to be done without being emotional about it. Indeed, all my pain had helped me grow and evolve both as a manager and as a human being.

The lesson here for all of us is that pain is not a choice. It is inevitable. But when you accept and embrace pain, you have the opportunity to learn and evolve from it. If you resist it, on the other hand, questioning its presence and wishing it away, you will suffer. Respect pain as you would respect a teacher. And it will teach you to be patient in and with Life!  

Anger drains the spiritual energy in you

Have you ever wondered what makes you angry? Is it the object or circumstance or outcome you desire that makes you fret, fume and lose control over yourself or is it your desire itself?

All the time, you will discover when you think through this, it is your desire that gets you all keyed up. Consider these situations: 1. You order a coffee and it arrives lukewarm. You get angry. Is the coffee to be blamed for your anger? Or is the waiter responsible for it? Or is your desire that the coffee be warm fuelling your anger? 2. You see a passenger cutting across an airline check-in queue. Who is responsible for your anger: your desire for decorum among public or the insensitive passenger? 3. Your boss doesn't give you an opportunity you truly deserve. Is your irrational boss to be blamed for your anger or is your perfectly rational expectation making you angry? Remember that the discussion here is on what makes you angry and not whether the circumstance or person in question is right or wrong.

The only way to deal with anger is to understand that it is your unfulfilled desire/expectation that causes you to get angry over any situation. And so start with yourself first on this journey to know how to manage your anger. All your efforts to change the environment and people around you will produce zero results. However, you can cover major ground when you seek within. When you go within, tempering your expectations, you end up learning to control your emotional outbursts, conserving oodles of energy, and, invariably, you will find more peaceful, purposeful, productive methods to change the environment, people and circumstances that angered you in the first place. Change every 'Damn!' or 'How dare you?' that arises in your mind, with, 'Interesting!' or 'How can I stay calm and help myself?' statements.

This is not as difficult as it seems. Most of the time we miss the opportunity to be calm in a challenging situation because we take a person or an event very seriously. Instead take everyone and everything lightly. If something happens the way you wanted it, great! If it falls short of your expectations – try to get it to your standards. If you can’t still get it to be the way you want it, shrug your shoulders and move on. Getting angry is only going to make you feel more miserable. Your anger may be directed at someone or something else. But remember it arises from within you. It has to first harm you, vanquish you, before it even strikes the other person or thing at whom it is directed.

I have read Osho, the Master, tell the story of a great Sufi mystic, Junnaid. Every evening, in his prayers, Junnaid  used to thank creation for its compassion, for its love, for its care.

Once it happened that for three days Junnaid and his disciples were traveling and they came across villages where people were very anti-Junnaid, because they thought his teachings were not exactly the teachings of Mohammed. His teachings seemed to be his own and people thought that he was corrupting them.

So from the three villages they had not got any food, not even water. On the third day they were really in a bad shape. His disciples were thinking, “Now let us see what happens in the prayer. How can he now say to creation:‘You are compassionate to us; your love is there. You care about us, and we are grateful to you.’?”

But when the time to pray came, Junnaid prayed the same way. After the prayer one of his followers said, “This is too much. For three days we have suffered hunger and thirst. We are tired, we have not slept, and still you are saying to creation:‘You are compassionate, your love towards us is great, and you take so much care that we are grateful to you.’”

Junnaid replied: “My prayer does not depend on any condition; those things are ordinary. Whether I get food or not I don’t want to bother creation about it — such a small thing in such a big Universe. If I don’t get water…even if I die, it does not matter, my prayer will remain the same. Because in this vast Universe…it makes no difference whether Junnaid is alive or dead.”

That is a big learning for us. Don’t take yourself or anyone else or anything seriously. Be easy. Take it easy. Anger is one of the biggest source of draining the cosmic, spiritual, energy in you. If you can learn to productively channelize all the energy that you expend when you are angry, you will have scaled one of the highest peaks of self-realization.

Let your sadness make way for joy!

Don't approach anything that happens in your Life from sadness.

A loss. Pain. A heart-break. An insult. All of them are not what we expect. And so we respond with shock, anger and sorrow. But after we get over the initial response, we must develop the attitude to shift the attention to joy. Exult in the opportunity that each of those surprising, often times even shocking, events has thrown up. A loss always points to a gain in the future. A loss also teaches you, through your grief, what is more valuable to you in your Life. You grieve a loss because you attach a value to it. This awakening to the realization of what's important to you must call for celebration. And joy, not grief and sorrow!

If someone insults you, you must celebrate because you have now the opportunity to learn to live with an insult. A capability that you never thought existed in you. Your spouse tells you that she or he can't carry on in the relationship with you anymore. Beneath the obvious layer of shock and tears, it actually opens so many more opportunities to start afresh in Life. To explore newer horizons rather than be stuck in a bad relationship in grief, in sorrow, in pain. Joy here means the suffering for both of you has come to an end. Yes the pain of going through the process of separation will have to be dealt with. But eventually it too will lead to joy!

So, in effect, there are no sad endings in Life. Why then be sad about the interludes over which we have no control? A beautiful song from the John Abraham movie 'Jhoota Hi Sahi' (2010, Abbas Tyrewala, A R Rahman, Javed Ali, Chinmayi) comes to mind. It is among the most spiritual songs to emerge from Bollywood recently. The message is simple: Why Cry! Life's too short to be spent in sadness and worrying! 

Be alive in each moment by being present in it

Every once in a while step aside from your Life and observe yourself. As a third party. You will then discover how much you have to change for your Life to change!

We met a young lady recently who is obese, has hypertension and complained of her inability to stay focused. She said she is simply not able to prioritize and manage her time and tasks effectively. Many people are in this young lady’s situation – grappling with their home and work schedules, unable to find time for themselves, coping with lifestyle-related challenges like diabetes and hypertension and, overall, just going through the paces of Life, never really being able to live it fully! There’s only one way such people can “re-engineer” and “reinvent” themselves. They have to learn to be mindful. It’s an art – and it can be mastered with understanding and practice.

Mindfulness is the ability to be, to stay in the present moment. Many a time, we keep doing stuff – cooking, cleaning, driving, smoking or eating. We don’t concentrate on what we are doing. Our mind is elsewhere. Our activities then are just chores. Which is why we are unable to “see” that what we could be doing is “ruinous”. We know, for instance, that smoking is ruinous, over-eating is ruinous, not exercising is ruinous. But we go on doing these things. Mindlessly. Which is why observing your own Life, and viewing it dispassionately as a third party, helps. When you observe yourself you will realize how mindlessly you go through your days. You simply are going through hurried motions. You are not present in any of your actions. You are merely activity-driven. You are never in the moment. For instance, you are working overtime to send your kids to school – but never pausing to celebrate and enjoy their innocence. You are rushing to finish your bath – but are never enjoying your body. You are eating in a rush – but are not tasting and relishing your food. You are texting away madly – but are never celebrating how much smaller the world has become thanks to facebook and WhatsApp. It is only by being mindful in each moment that you can really understand what about you needs to change.

Try a simple exercise in mindfulness. Make yourself a cup of green tea. And drink it patiently enjoying every sip. Feel the tea energize you as it enters your body. Don’t let your thoughts wander. Be focused on the experience of drinking that tea. Examine how you felt while drinking it. This experience of being one with the tea, this feeling, is what mindfulness is all about. Follow this method in everything that you do. When cooking, focus on the recipe and its preparation. When driving focus on the road and the joy of navigation. When on facebook, celebrate the opportunity to connect with the world, your world. Every time your mind wanders, to a past event and makes you feel guilty or to a future event and makes you anxious, bring it back to attend on whatever you are doing now. Remember the human mind is like the human body. It will resist any change first. But repeatedly bringing the mind back to focus on the present, you can train it to let go of the past and to not indulge in the future.

When you are fully present in each moment, you are alive in it. It is only then that you are living the moment fully. When you live each moment fully, you will realize its value. And through this realization, you will be able to transform yourself – your work, your schedules, your health and your Life!

Understanding the meaning and power of ‘surrendering to Life’

Surrendering to Life does not mean inaction. It means acting duly but without any attachment to the outcome.

Someone who read my blogpost of yesterday pinged me wanting to know if ‘surrendering to Life’ was ‘accepting defeat’ or ‘giving up’. He said, “All our early Life, through being raised at home, through teachers and peers at school and college, through seeing the way the world behaves, we have been taught the theory of ‘survival of the fittest’. We have been encouraged never ever to give up and keep competing. Isn’t then the concept of ‘surrendering to Life’ a sign of weakness, a sign of ‘accepting that Life has defeated you’?” This reader’s perspective merits a discussion.

First, let’s understand that Life is not a competition. It is not a race either. And nor can you compete with Life. It is perfectly fine for you to have goals, ambitions and aspirations. It is absolutely fine for you to go after them with passion and focus. But, as you may have well realized through your own experiences, you may not always get what you want in Life – despite your best efforts. Or sometimes Life may act in such a way that, without any immediately evident cause or reason, your Life will change. And because your Life has changed, your aspirations will have to change. You will have to accept and live with your new reality – knowing and understanding that some things you planned may never be possible any more.

Let me give you an example. I know of a young lady called Preethi Srinivasan. Had Life not literally felled her in 1998, and left her a quadriplegic, Preethi would have played for the Indian Women’s Cricket team. She overcame shock, grief and agony, accepted her new reality and is now a motivational speaker who also runs this wonderful organization called SoulFree (http://www.soulfree.org/who-is-soulfree/) which she set up in 2013 to help people like her who are dealing with spinal cord injuries. Now, can someone like Preethi, just wallow in self-pity and will such wallowing restore her physical condition? What she can do is to live each day fully – celebrating the Life she has. And she’s doing this remarkably well. In fact, her Life is an inspiration to so many people – including me.

Now, if someone feels that Preethi has been defeated by Life, they are sadly mistaken! And if someone feels that she should be competing ‘better’ with Life, they must go live her Life before making that comment! To me Preethi has embraced the Life she has with total acceptance and this is the reason why she is a personification of the indefatigable human spirit.

Labels like ‘defeat’, ‘failure’, ‘loss’, ‘success’, ‘victory’ – all these are irrelevant in the context of Life. People who are labeling themselves or others are “armchair theorists” – they keep rocking away with their opinions but never really get going in Life!

There’s only one way you can respond to Life. Which is to accept whatever comes your way, whatever happens to you, and live your Life one day at a time. The action I talk about is doing whatever you can do each day, doing it well, and leaving the outcome to Life. You just be sincere with your living – and your doing. Leave what you are given at the end of each day up to Life. Not doing what you can do in any context – well, that’s inaction. Therefore, ‘surrendering to Life’ is not inaction. In fact, if you truly understand the power of ‘surrendering to Life’, you will value a ‘good night’s sleep’ as your biggest blessing, your greatest wealth at the end of each day – and never the money you have made or the money that you are pining for!

The best principle, as I told my reader friend, is to not think too much about Life. Just do your best daily – and live with what you have been given, fully!

Drop your grief, let go and surrender to Life

Intelligent living is all about letting go and living in complete surrender to Life!

Know that we are all custodians of this opportunity and energy called Life. We didn't ask to be born. This Life is a gift we got. So, if we were given the gift of Life without our asking for it, please understand that we will also get all that we need to live it fully.

This is the truth, the reality of Life. When we seek material things__money, power, position, fame__we are looking a gift horse in the mouth. We have been given a Merc but we are asking why is the upholstery not of a pastel shade, why is there no bar inside, why is a DVD player not fixed in the rear side of the car? By wanting, we are being ungrateful beneficiaries. Instead, surrender to Life. Be the way you were before you were born. You__and I__may not remember it, but we were totally at the mercy of Life before and when we were born. For the first few years of our Life, we stayed that way. But as we started getting educated, we started wanting. When each want was initially fulfilled by our parents, we started wanting more. There, the miracles stopped. And our challenges began. So, to attract miracles into your Life, just surrender. Just tell Life that you are in command and I am a humble follower. That I will accept and enjoy anything that you will give me.

Those of us who have surrendered and seen the miracles in our lives will appreciate this perspective from experience. Those who find this logic difficult to understand, need to just observe Life around them closely and they will see that everything__everything__in this Universe is created only on this principle. When we lose something and we grieve its loss, it’s because of this wanting in us. In fact, grief itself is a sign that we are out of the surrender mode and are in the want mode. Jalaluddin Rumi, the Persian mystic says,"Don't grieve over anything that you have lost. It will come back in another form." That coming back, the miracle, can be created by you, when you drop your grief and surrender to Life!

Choose happiness over worry or sorrow in each moment

Don't try to make meaning out of Life. Make your Life meaningful.

Don't dismiss Life as a game of Snakes and Ladders where you will always be getting the Snakes. Nor is it a game of Chess where you are a mere pawn. Life is such an inscrutable experience that it has a mind of its own, an agenda of its own and has a pace of its own. So, you will find it dealing you a hard blow when you least expect it or it will give you a bounty when you have completely lost all hope. When we label Life as "terrible, a pain, agonizing" in the first instance, or, when we call it, "benevolent, fortunate, gracious" in the second one, we are trying to make meaning out of it. Either meaning will disappoint.

Life is like water in your palm. It is not going to be there forever, and definitely not in the same way that it once was. So, the only way to make Life meaningful is to do something that makes you happy each day. Choose happiness over worry or sorrow in each moment. In the toughest of situations, you will find a reason to smile. Choose that moment to cling on and claw your way back. Once you have learnt this method, you can then start making Life meaningful in more ways__by touching other lives. Be there for people. Offer your time, your shoulder and your helping hand. Know that only you can make your Life meaningful. Because it's your Life. If you don't find any meaning in your Life, to your Life, it's only because you have not exercised the option to be happy or you have not reached out to touch another Life. Think about it. It will make a lot of sense!

Intelligent living is all about living worry-free

Keep Life simple – in any situation, be prepared for the worst and hope for the best. You will then be free from worry!

I simply love a joke that Osho, the Master, used to narrate. A doctor calls his patient to give him the results of a crucial medical test. “I have some bad news and some worse news,” says the doctor. “The bad news is that you only have 24 hours to live.” “Oh no,” says the patient. “What could possibly be worse than that?” The doctor replies, “I have been trying to reach you since yesterday.” Osho says the best way to live is to accept that, often times, even the worst can – and perhaps will – happen to us!

It is a lack of this acceptance that causes us to cower in fear, insecurity, anxiety and worry. The human mind is very intelligent. It will paint all possible scenarios and outcomes in any event which is governed by the possibility of uncertain outcomes. Some of these outcomes may cause you to feel insecure and fearful. For instance, when someone is in hospital and the prognosis is hardly encouraging, your mind will project outcomes varying from a miraculous recovery to an inevitable loss. Every time you want to believe in a miraculous recovery, dark possibilities of prolonged hospitalization, perhaps a comatose state and even death will arise within you. When you fear those possibilities that you don’t want to accept, or even consider, you are allowing worry to consume you. You are feeding your fears. The best way to deal with this situation is to be stoic about it – be prepared for whatever you fear the most, in this case, possibly, death. And yet, hope – and if you like to, pray – for a miraculous recovery. This way you will be free from fear, anxiety and worry. And that freedom will give you the opportunity to focus on providing your patient the best possible care.

Remember some problems in Life cannot be solved. There’s no point worrying about them. And there’s no point worrying about those problems which you can solve either. So, intelligent living is all about living worry-free. Think about it: if worry can solve problems, or if it can heal cancers, or if it can get people jobs, or if it can prevent break-ups or if it can eliminate death from our lives – then wouldn’t the world be a much happier place than it is? Because, aren’t a huge majority of people on the planet investing their every waking moment in worrying? The truth is that worrying gets us nowhere. Quit worrying. Be ready to face the worst in Life and yet believe that the best will happen to you. There’s no other way to live happily! 

Move from the mind into the moment

Where there is uncertainty, there will be creativity and progress. Where you seek certainty, you will be held hostage by fear, anxiety, stress and suffering.

Not knowing what comes next is what makes Life a wonderful adventure sport. Just like you wouldn't want to spoil the fun by knowing the plot of a movie in advance from friends or by reading a review, don't try to pre-suppose or find out what Life will deal you next. Just dive into each moment, each day, with total readiness to meet__head-on__whatever comes next.

Erich Fromm, German-born American philosopher (1900-1980), says, “The quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning. Uncertainty is the very condition to impel man to unfold his powers.”

Where there is acceptance of uncertainty, there will be a paradoxical sense of security and peace within. So, the best attitude to take into each moment of Life is innocence, a child-like view of seeing the Universe with amazement, surprise and being accepting of whatever happens. Allow the uncertain future, which will nonetheless unfold, to take you into its embrace and to soak your soul in adventure. Enjoy uncertainty. Welcome whatever happens gleefully. Move from the mind__so stop rationalizing and analyzing each development__into the moment__simply living each one fully, blissfully!

Stop seeking an easy Life, work towards a better Life

If you look beyond ‘earning a living’, you will realize that you have the opportunity in this lifetime to touch lives and make a difference.

When alive do something, whatever, in such a manner that it impacts a whole lot of humanity positively. Live an inspired Life such that you will be remembered as an inspiration much after you have passed on. This opportunity is available to each of us in this one lifetime that we have. To make productive use of this lifetime all we need to do is to dream the unthinkable, do the unimaginable and pave our own trails.

One man who exemplified this thinking in our lifetime, just like several others had before him, was Steve Jobs. He said this once, “Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things… they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

So, stop being cautious about Life. Stop being half-hearted. Be crazy. Stop working towards an easy Life. Work towards a better Life. Live like a King. Lead Life King-size. And when your time is up, you would have passed on the baton, by being an inspiration, the flame, the energy to someone who will continue to inspire, to touch lives, see things differently, and as Jobs would famously say, "make a dent in the Universe"!

Touch lives. There are so many waiting, wanting to be touched, to be led, to be inspired. They are waiting for you. What are you waiting for?

Don’t complain about the unsolvable; just deal with it in acceptance!

Not all of Life's problems can be solved. Because they are not meant to be solved. They are meant to be dealt with.

Dealing with Life, while accepting it for what it is, is a much better approach than trying to solve the unsolvable. How do you solve the death of a dear one? How do you solve the inability to relate with someone? How do you solve a rare form of pancreatic cancer? How do you solve the agony of a family of three, whose 40-year-old son is going through a severe depression, the father is on a catheter and the mother is immobile because of a nervous disorder? The truth is: everyone really gets what's their share in Life. And some of what may be given in Life, by Life, may be the unsolvable. And dealing with the situation, by the moment, by the day, is always better that grieving about it endlessly. Because the unsolvable will not be amenable to reason, solution and resolution. It is ALWAYS what it is.

Jalaluddin Rumi, the 13th Century Persian poet's collection of spiritual discourses is called "Fihi Ma Fihi" (It is what it is!). In one of his discourses, he asks,"If you are irritated by every rub, how will your mirror be polished?" The import is that it is Life's nature to throw us into the deep end, untethered, and it is in our spirit, and best interests, to deal with Life, with forbearance, with stoicism, with acceptance. And when we emerge from each ordeal, we come radiant, shining from the inner recesses of our soul! Deal, therefore, with Life in acceptance and don't try to solve the unsolvable. That's living intelligently!

Do such work that you don’t ever have to leave your heart behind!

Is your enjoyment better than your effort or is your effort more than the joy you derive?

Ask this question at the end of each activity and you will discover what gives you joy and what you are having to struggle with. Just this simple realization is liberating. It does not immediately mean that you can do away with or that you must stop doing all things that you struggle with. But with some review, introspection and iteration you may be able get out of doing or delegate stuff that you struggle with.

This simple question on what gives you joy can change your Life forever. Aristotle (384 BC ~ 322 BC), way back, had simultaneously simplified the definition of a career and offered a perspective on excellence. He said, "All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind. Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work." In the absence of joy, any activity__whether it is mowing your lawn or doing the dishes to drawing up strategy to dentistry to leading an organization__will be a drag, a burden, and will eventually peter down to becoming a chore. But when you derive joy even the most arduous task will be light, easy and you will be able to accomplish it with amazing quality.

Joy, therefore, is more than a sentiment. It is a catalyst that makes living easy, wholesome, enriching, fulfilling and, simply, worth it. So, make an important choice today. To choose work that has you immersed in it, soaked in joy, drenched in bliss! Choose work such that in going out for or about doing it, you don't ever have to leave your heart behind!

Always say ‘no’ when you have to say ‘no’!

Being decisive about what you don’t want to do, or what you don’t want, in Life, is far more important than knowing what you want or may want to do.  

A young friend, who is barely 20, and is an adopted child of her foster parents, recently reminded me of this opportunity in staying decisive. She said her foster mother asked her, when she was seven years old, if she wanted to meet her biological mother. My friend says she decided back then that she did not want to meet her biological parents. Reflecting back on her choice, my friend says that her decision remains unchanged. “Why would I want to visit my biological parents? This is my family and I have the best parents in the world,” she declares without a trace of dilemma.

That clarity in thinking is as infectious as it is inspiring. Many of our relationship issues exist in the first place because of our inability to say ‘no’ to people over what they say or do to us. Worse, we end up saying ‘yes’ when we need to be saying ‘no’ – and we often say ‘no’ when want to say ‘yes’!

Why do we struggle to say ‘no’ to people who are being unreasonable with us? One of the primary, often subconscious, considerations is that we don’t want to ‘hurt’ them. Also to speak your mind to someone is often a disconcerting thought. Nobody wants to be seen as cold, in-the-face and inflexible. So, at the cost of our own discomfort, we end up trying to nice to people. Which is why we never say ‘no’ to people who end up being rude to us, to people who are opportunistic with us and to people who take us for granted.

Sometimes, in close family relationships, we end up having to face emotional blackmail – played out willfully or subconsciously. A mother, who is congenitally manipulative, may insist that her children overlook her divisive nature because she has toiled hard to deliver and raise them. Or a sibling may say that he deserves to be treated better – and may even seek material benefits – because he was deprived of them when he was growing up. A spouse may say that she has sacrificed more for the family than her partner has and so she will demand that her partner recognize – and reward – her in a more demonstrative way than is being done.

We can go on analyzing why we don’t say ‘no’ – and, honestly, we will go on discovering and inventing newer reasons to justify ourselves. But the way to look at this opportunity is to actually consider the value that saying ‘no’ to certain people can bring to our lives.

First, saying 'no' to someone means you are defining who you are and are setting out a framework – a code of conduct, if you like – for the way you wish to be treated. Second, this clarity, combined with you not having to forsake your real self, spares you the suffering. For, when you are living Life under restraint, not being who you truly are, behind all the glossy and “accommodative” exterior, you are suffering deep within. Third, when you are not suffering, you are free and happy! It is as simple as that. I am not sure my young friend employed these criteria, in such a structured manner, in making her choice not to see biological mother. But, from what she is feeling now – at being loved for and cared for by her foster family – her choice is indeed governed by what’s making her happy! That’s where the nub lies for you too – if saying ‘no’ will make you happy in any situation, with any person, simply say ‘no’. Don’t think. Just say ‘no’. Because, happiness also comes from being able to not do what you don’t want to do! 

Stop whining, start living!

The amount of time we spend complaining about Life can actually be spent living it fully, spiritedly!

Justin Vijay Yesudas
Picture Courtesy: The New Indian Express

I read an inspiring story in this morning’s New Indian Express (NIE). Archita Suryanarayanan profiles 34-year-old Justin Vijay Yesudas who has recently won three gold medals at the National Paralympic Swimming Championship at Indore. An accident in 2004 left Justin paralyzed. Save his shoulder and elbow, Justin cannot feel or move any other part of his body below his neck. Yet he took to swimming and has managed to get this far. He tells NIE’s Archita that he’s now ready to aim for the Asian championships. Justin is not just a swimmer. He also has a corporate job as a Deputy General Manager at Cognizant Technology Solutions. He accepts his special condition as part of his Life’s design. He does not complain about it. In fact, he keeps a tight schedule daily – swimming, weight training and his regular corporate work. I simply loved this quote that he gave NIE: “Everyone tries to walk, but I know that I can’t. So, I continue doing what I used to (before the accident) instead of trying what I can’t. I see many able people who find excuses not to do things. What I do is find reasons to do things, Life can be beautiful even after paralysis.”

Reading this and seeing his million watt smile in the paper today lit up my morning! I just thought to myself – Isn’t it a shame that we, well-endowed folks, succumb to negativity and depression so often? Don’t we always end up complaining about what we don’t have? And aren’t we quick to cite constraints for not being able to do several things in Life? People like Justin invite us to re-examine our attitude to living and encourage us to live more spirited lives!

If you reflect on the way you approach your Life, you will find that complaining about what you don’t have comes naturally. To complain about lack of resources, lack of time, lack of money or lack of understanding is comfortable. You don’t have to do anything to complain. You just have to state what isn’t there and sit back and pine for it. We miss the whole point of intelligent living this way. We don’t realize that it is part of our Life’s work to work around constraints – whatever they may be. When we complain the lack of something in Life and feel deprived, we are actually beginning to suffer. Over time, this suffering holds us hostage and keeps us depressed. That’s really how you lose the yen to live and be happy. But if you work around your constraints – either by getting what you don’t have or by learning to live without what you don’t have – you may surely feel the pain, but you will not suffer. Justin surely feels the pain of being paralyzed. He will feel it all his Life. But clearly he is not suffering.

It is only when you end your suffering that you can actually live fully and spiritedly. That’s when you feel inner peace and happiness. But it all begins first with stopping to complain. Inject yourself with Justin’s spirit today – stop whining, start living! 

A frustration is a clear sign that you are resisting Life

When you feel frustrated about something or someone, stop wanting to control the situation or person, and simply let it – the frustration, the situation or the person – go!

I spent much of yesterday battling with my laptop. My laptop was gifted to me by someone last year. For some vague reason, in today’s age and time, it has only an Intel Pentium processor. For that reason, it is an awfully slow machine. I also have a Norton anti-virus software installed on my laptop which further inhibits its speed. Yesterday, I discovered that the Norton anti-virus program had crashed and when I tried to trouble-shoot and fix it, it made my machine even more slow. Now, I am not a tech geek. I just know how to use my machine and that’s it. So, while I battled with my laptop and agonized over every click of the mouse, my frustration mounted. I realized that I was letting my frustrations get the better of me, when I took it out on someone who rang the door-bell mistakenly. Soon, I was also hopping mad at the maid and beginning to sound irritable with a business associate who had called up proposing something impractical. That’s when I decided to let it all go! I said to myself that if this is the way my machine is going to be, so be it. If this is the way the Norton anti-virus program is going to behave, so be it. If this is the way people – my maid, the person who rang the door-bell and the unreasonable business associate – are going to be, let them be. I shut down my machine and went for a long walk with my wife.

I was healed at the end of that walk. I then returned to my desk and observed 20 minutes of silence. I forgave myself for letting my frustrations control me. I simply surrendered to the situation. I decided to live with the machine that I have – than lament about its idiosyncrasies or its slow speed or pine for a better, faster laptop.

I am sharing my experience – and learning – here just so that you too realize that it is perfectly normal for frustrations to happen in everyday Life. But to allow them to govern and control your moods is to push yourself into a depressive spiral. You feel frustrated only when you dislike whatever is happening to you. A frustration is a clear sign that you are resisting Life. You can’t avoid frustrations from arising though – a flat tyre, a computer that hangs, a phone that loses its display, an unreasonable fellow passenger on a plane, a delayed paycheck – anything, or anyone, can cause you to feel frustrated. But if you refuse to get dragged by that frustration into depression and instead are aware that your frustration is an early warning sign of your resisting Life, then you can overcome the situation and heal yourself. On the other hand, if you let the frustration take over and control you for more than a day, chances are you will let anger consume you soon, and before you know it, you will be depressed. Funnily enough, if you watch your thoughts and behavior patterns when you are frustrated, you will realize that you often end up feeling frustrated about everything around you – and not just with the one thing or person that ticked you off in the first place.

So, at the first sign of a frustration arise, pause, take a deep breath and let it go. Let go of the situation or the person who is frustrating you. Awaken to the realization that your being frustrated with a situation is not going to make it any better. On the contrary, it is surely going to make you feel worse!

Being healthy is a responsibility we must not abdicate

We think and worry about all things replaceable in Life, while never even pausing to think of the most important, irreplaceable, asset we have, our health.

Think of all the things that we worry about. We worry about money. We worry about careers. We worry about relationships. We worry about passports and visas. We worry about our cars and computers and smartphones. When we worry about these things, we rue their loss or fear their absence or their breaking down. Almost all these things can be regained. Almost all the time. What we don't or rarely worry about ever is the most important, irreplaceable aspect of our lives, which is our health. How often do we even think of the loss of our health? We don't think of it, so we don't talk about it and therefore we don't worry about it!

The call here is not to start worrying about one more dimension in your Life but to consider the banality in worrying about less important stuff and to not even focus on the most important one! Phil Crosby, the Quality Guru, said this famously: "Health is Wealth. And it is absolutely tax free!" Jonathan Swift, the immortal author of Gulliver's Travels, says, "Live all the days of your Life!" Read that line again. Living means to focus on what's important. And the most important tool you have to experience this lifetime is your health. This body will wither away with age. No doubt. But to be able to keep it in good condition till it finally stops functioning is a responsibility that you and I must not abdicate.

When we are illuminated from within, we are enlightened

The ability to see Life clearly is what leads us to be illuminated from within, to be enlightened.

A holy Hindu scripture, Brihadanyaka Upanishad, has a prayer with the line that goes “Tamasoma Jyotirgamaya”, imploring the Almighty to lead the prayerful from ‘darkness unto light’. From a state of existing to awakening. From being unenlightened to enlightened. This state, while salubrious to the soul when in prayer, is often, in all practicality, seen as unattainable. And this is why humankind fail to see the huge opportunity to evolve and awaken to this simple truism.

We think enlightenment is for the Buddha, for the fakirs, for the Himalayan Masters. And that those of us who are caught in the worldly web of action, emotion and desires, have to be content with just prayer which sounds pious on the lips but is listless in the heart! And so, we have concluded that several of us will suffer in the dark recesses of our existence. This need not be so. There is a way out. Interestingly, simply, practically, it is possible to lift ourselves from darkness to light. Instantaneously. All we need to do is to see Life with clarity.

Legend has it that when the Buddha was dying, and was about to embark on his ultimate journey, his disciple Anand, was distraught and was crying. He asked the Buddha, "What will happen to me?  Who will guide me now?  Who will show me the light?"  Buddha opened his eyes and uttered his last famous words, "Appo Deepo Bhava”. (Be a light unto yourself!)  “There is no one else on this inner journey.  We are all alone.  We need our own light to show the way,” was the advice the Buddha gave Anand.

Indeed, to find enlightenment, you don’t need anyone, you don’t need a venue, a tree or a religion. You only need yourself. You are the One! You are the only one who can be your own light. What is this light? This light is nothing but clarity in and about Life. To see things as they are. And not to interpret them or try to choose between them. There is always clarity in each moment. And you need not do anything other than just see it. For example, if there is death of a dear one, see it that way. Don’t avoid it or lament it. If there is loss in business, in love, see it as a loss. If there is birth of a child, see the new Life. Don’t reason, don’t justify, don’t exult, don’t gloat. When you see Life for what it is, as it is, choice disappears.

J.Krishnamurthi (1895~1986), the renowned philosopher, calls this choicelessness. This ability to see things as they are. When we have the clarity of this insight, it brings us freedom. Because we are no longer fearful of a choice that may lead to grief or are desiring success and witnessing the bloating of our egos because we chose right. This clarity, this freedom, is the light that can illuminate our souls. When we are illuminated from within, we are enlightened. We would then have passed from darkness to eternal light.