In any crisis the greatest benefit is the lesson it teaches you

Life’s beauty lies in knowing that the tougher the situation, the stronger you will emerge from it.

I met up with a four of my close friends from college, who were visiting Chennai, at a coffee shop last weekend. The conversation soon veered around to how my wife Vaani and I were coping with this seemingly endless bankruptcy of ours. One of my friends, who lives in Jakarta, complimented me and said: “You are remarkably resilient man. I don’t think any of us here would have got through what you and Vaani are facing.” The others at the table agreed with his view wholesomely. I explained to them that resilience is a quality that all of us are endowed with. We will never know it exists until we summon it in the wake of a crisis. “All smartphones these days have Bluetooth. But unless you activate your Bluetooth option you cannot use it,” I said, adding, “Resilience is like that. When the situation demands that you have to be tough, you will be. Anyone in that situation will be.”

Of course, one good way to remind yourself that you can survive, endure and get through a crisis is to look up to someone who has done something similar. In our case, Vaani and I looked up to Amitabh Bachchan and his wife, Jaya. Their company went bankrupt too. They had loans of Rs.90 crore, 55 legal cases and several creditors at their door for months and years on end. At one time, their house, “Prateeksha”, in Juhu was attached by a bank for a loan default. But despite being the celebrities they were, they overcame the embarrassment of being without money and faced their situation stoically. It is from seeing how they did it that we believed that we too were capable of being resilient.

Each of us is resilient. To be resilient is not rocket science. You must however believe that no matter what, there will always be a door that will open. So, when everything is dark, when there is absolutely no way out, breathe easy. Because when it is dark is when light can shine! Light cannot shine when it is bright. When what you see are only walls, and no road ahead, anchor within, with your deepest intent. If you have integrity of purpose, the walls will make way for doors to open, even mountains will move, to roll out a path in front of you!

Consider this: take your own Life. Make a list of all the crises you have faced so far. And make a list of learnings you gained and personal traits you see developed in yourself through those situations. Give yourself a score on 100! I bet you, you will score a full 100! Problems and challenges are Life’s way of humbling us. Of coaching us. What is the point of all this you may wonder? Why do I want to be taught anything? I just want to be left alone, you may protest. But such is Life. You can say what you want, think what you want, but Life will still do what it wants. So, the best thing to do in a situation, where you are not in control of the game, but are merely being played on, is to sit back and count your blessings. In a crisis, the greatest, and perhaps only, benefit is the lesson it teaches you. Celebrate that learning. Each new learning makes you wiser.

In India, we have a custom, a tradition, of touching the feet of those older to us, and seeking their blessings. Many do it mechanically, mindlessly. They do it thinking it is a sign of respect. It surely is. But what you are actually doing is telling the older person, “Boy! You have a wealth of experience with living Life and I salute you!” The older person was not born any wiser than you were. But Life taught her or him. They learned. Are you willing to? 

Slow down when Life slows you down

There are times in Life when the journey may become awfully slow. That's really the time that Life is offering us to enjoy the scenery. But we don't have the attitude to see it that way. Instead we are obsessed with the painful pace and miss the magic and beauty in our lives.

The problem lies with the way we have led our lives so far. Running from event to event, crisis to crisis, trying to make ends meet, earning a living, busy working harder than ever before, meeting targets, paying bills, raising children and doing everything else except living__mindfully. And then as often happens with Life, the game changes. We are put in a spot where we cannot move; we are check-mated, if you like. It could be a health issue, it could be a career stalemate, it could be a bankruptcy, it could be a relationship tangle or it could be a legal quagmire. In such times, there may be a tendency to worry and to wish__pray, plead, hope__that why can't Life fast-forward, why can't we get back to 'normalcy'? So, if you are bogged down in an ICU, you wish you could be back in the hustle-bustle of everyday Life. Or if you are caught in the midst of legalese, you just are hoping why don't you win all your claims and are free to be away from all this disputing and arguing. Interestingly, Life's not a handmaiden that will do what you please. It just may not move.

Know also that there is no fast-forward button on Life's remote. So, when you are pushed to a corner by the cosmic design, the best thing to do is to not worry about not moving or crib about being between a rock and a hard place. Be happy you can breathe. Because being able to sense your breathing is normal. Running so hard that you don't even have the time to notice you are breathing, is not normal. Imagine you are climbing a steep mountain in a vehicle. As it negotiates the sharp hair-pin bends, the engine is finding the going tough. So, the vehicle is down to an agonizing crawl. Now, you can worry about that pace and concentrate on the dreary drone of the engine, or you can look out the window and see what the scenery looks like. This is what enjoying the scenery is all about.

"Smile, breathe and go slowly," advises Thich Nhat Hanh (called 'Thay'), a Vietnamese Buddhist monk. "Sometimes your joy can be the cause for your smile, and sometimes, your smile can be the cause for your joy," he adds. Just being mindful of your being alive__to experiencing whatever you are going through, be it pain, be it joy__is what can make the slowdowns in Life more meaningful. Do all the things that you can joyfully in whatever state you find yourself. And don't worry about what you can't. If you are immobilized by a health issue enjoy the ‘grounding’ with a family member who is nursing you; pining to be able to run around will only cause agony. If you are cashless enjoy being able to live without money; hoping you had money will only aggravate your suffering. If you are caught in a relationship problem where there is much misunderstanding, enjoy practicing patience and forgiveness; craving for understanding from the other person may only accentuate your pain. Thay champions mindful living as a cure to all our ailments coming from merely existing. “Life is available only in the present moment. Even drink your tea, slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world, the earth revolves - slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future,” he says.

Slow down when Life slows you down. It is perhaps with ample reason that this message arrives on a Monday morning. To make a Manic Monday a Mindful Monday is your personal choice. It is only when you go with Life’s pace and flow, do you truly experience the magic in and live each moment!

Keep relating, keep celebrating

Even 'close' relationships need continuous celebration for them to thrive. If they are not celebrated, they wither away like plants that are devoid of water and sunlight.

Here we are not talking about acquaintances that we 'can't get along with' for professional or other reasons, but are referring to people who 'were so close once upon a time, but are no longer'! This is to explain why we grow distant from childhood friends, from spouses whom we dated, romanced and loved deeply once upon a time or from siblings that we grew up with. The distances between us and such people are not because of lack of mutual respect or admiration. These distances have come between us because we have stopped celebrating each other. Celebrating here means nurturing, providing the adequate sunshine and water, through continuous conversations, critiquing, supporting, challenging, caring and sometimes, just being available. Celebrating therefore means loving someone all the time___irrespective of time, space, behavior, responses, whatever.

In a recent issue of Mint, I was aghast to see an advisor suggest “5 tips to ensure a financial contract exists between two partners before they marry”. I come from a time when people just met each other and if they believed that they wanted to be together for the rest of their lives, they just married. That’s how Vaani and I decided to marry way back in 1988. Now, when I look back, the companionship between Vaani and me would still have remained sacred even without a marriage. I have come to understand that marriage is an unnecessary label, a worthless stamp of approval from a decadent society! The only tip to long-term companionship I can offer is – keep relating, keep celebrating!

Osho, the Master, offers a simple, do-able, immediately implementable formula for celebrating and nurturing relationships. His prescription: don’t call or label anything a relationship. Instead, he says, just keep relating. He reminds us: “LOVE IS NOT A RELATIONSHIP. Love relates, but it is not a relationship. A relationship is something finished. A relationship is a noun; the full stop has come, the honeymoon is over. Now there is no joy, no enthusiasm, now all is finished. You can carry it on, just to keep your promises. You can carry it on because it is comfortable, convenient, cozy. You can carry it on because there is nothing else to do. You can carry it on because if you disrupt it, it is going to create much trouble for you… Relationship means something complete, finished, closed. Love is never a relationship; love is relating. It is always a river, flowing, unending. Love knows no full stop; the honeymoon begins but never ends. It is not like a novel that starts at a certain point and ends at a certain point. It is an ongoing phenomenon. Lovers end, love continues– it is a continuum. It is a verb, not a noun. You are in love with a woman or a man and immediately you start thinking of getting married. Make it a legal contract. Why? How does the law come into love? The law comes into love because love is not there. It is only a fantasy, and you know the fantasy will disappear. Before it disappears, settle down; before it disappears, do something so it becomes impossible to separate.”

Instead of bringing law or definitions and labels into relationships, let’s focus on never-ending celebrations, on loving each person in our lives, and to keep on relating to the other __ lover, friend, parent, colleague, sibling, whoever __ without pausing to evaluate, analyze or justify. Try this. It works. Choose a relationship that you think has gone “cold” over the years. Ask yourself if you have grown distant because you have stopped relating to, stopped celebrating this person? Don’t focus on a ‘revival’. Don’t expect. Know that all you need to do is to continue loving without either the label or an expectation coming in the way. The other person may still be distant__physically and metaphorically. Don’t worry. Don’t stop the celebration, the loving, the relating. 

Because through the energies of your continuous celebration, the loving, the relating will happen__enriching both your souls, exponentially, infinitely. 

Zen and the art of never becoming disagreeable

It is perfectly possible and correct to differ with someone on an opinion or issue and still get along that person. This is not about being hypocritical or practicing double-standards. This is a mature way of learning to separate issues from people.

It is not easy definitely to start with. But when you view any situation closely, you will find that it is imminently possible to deal with it dispassionately, which is always the best way too! What happens though is when we have a difference of opinion with someone, we try to avoid that person. We start finding newer flaws with that person in order to magnify and justify our difference of opinion. So, for instance, say you disagree with your friend’s political views. And you get into a strong argument with that friend. Instead of shaking hands with that friend at the end of a stimulating discussion, you choose to just walk away. The next time you meet that friend, you are carrying the baggage of the last experience and you begin to wonder, for instance, why he or she is dressed the way they are. You start justifying your last opinion of this person with a fresh sentiment saying this person does not even know how to be properly groomed. And so this ruinous cycle of ‘building a case’ to isolate the person itself, not just the views, begins. It happens subconsciously. But it happens all the time in most relationships we have.

Pause for a moment now. Think of all the situations when you have disagreed with people in the last week. Just in the last 7 days. Review your sentiments, even the ones you may have not expressed but experienced in your mind, of these people. Objectively enlist the number of times you were on the ‘building a case’ mode with these people. To your surprise, in each of the instances when you disagreed on an issue, you have inadvertently, subconsciously, taken the route to justify and magnify the difference of opinion, often beyond the issue itself. You will be surprised how much you__and I__are habituated to this practice.

We must break free from this thinking though. Three simple steps may be helpful here: 1. Acknowledge that each one is entitled to their opinion 2. If you disagree remember always that the disagreement is with the issue, the behavior, the opinion, never with the person 3. Conclude each disagreement session with a smile and say clearly, passionately, that you hope to find a meeting ground sometime soon on this issue! Apply this to every relationship you have and to every episode where you have felt or expressed disagreement. Start with your list of last week and work back, ensuring also, that going forward you will not let any new disagreements assume demonic, irrevocable proportions.

Popular American radio host, Bernard Meltzer’s (1916~1998 show ‘What’s Your Problem?’ helped listeners calling in crack some of Life’s myriad puzzles. He once said, “If you have learned how to disagree without being disagreeable then you have discovered the secret of getting along — whether it be in business, family relations, or in Life itself.” When you learn the art of never becoming disagreeable, you too would have learnt to live intelligently!

The God you seek is in you, in me, among us …

Let’s stop seeking God, searching for God, hoping, in vain, to find God, outside of us. Know that we won’t find God there. Because the God we are looking for is within us__in you and in me.

There’s this parable of God calling his or her council of advisors, after creating humankind, and conferring with them on where God should be based, so that human beings may reach out in times of distress and need. There was a pre-condition that God stipulated though. That God must be within immediate reach and yet not so overtly visible. The first wise advisor said, “God, you must be behind the farthest star. There humankind will not find you.” “Not so,” said the second wise advisor, “One day human beings will learn to fly and then they will find you God. Hide yourself God, I say, on the floor of the sea and they will never find you.” “Not so,” said the third wise advisor, “One day the people will learn to swim and they will swim to the bottom of the ocean and then they will find you God. Rather, hide yourself God in the everyday lives of the people. No one will immediately know you are there. And yet, when they do need you, they can always find you within them, among them.” And so, God did precisely this. God hid among the people.

This is not so much a parable as it is a truth. But we don’t and won’t believe in this too easily. Because we have been fed an overdose of evidence of God being an external source of energy and creation, of God being an “outside presence” in our lives. We have been brought up to believe that God must be feared. And so we fear an external retribution rather than feel conscientiously the energy of all creation within us. God must not be feared. God must be understood as being you, as your true Self. It was the famous Polish-French physicist-chemist known for her pioneering work on radioactivity, Marie Curie (1867 ~ 1934) who said, “Nothing in Life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.” So it is true too about God. To know God, fear less and understand more.

Kamal Haasan, renowned Indian actor and a genius in thought and expression, captured his philosophy of the God in us, in his beautiful 2003 movie ‘Anbe Sivam’ (meaning ‘Love is God’). In the movie, Kamal Haasan, tells co-actor Madhavan, that the seed of compassion that intrinsically remains embedded in each of us, gets activated when we feel compassionate towards any form of creation. That sense of compassion, boundless love, which flows unhindered, even if it is for a brief while, makes each of us godly! Say, when you feel for a hungry child on the street, or when you say a silent prayer when an ambulance passes you by, or when you read of a natural disaster or accident that has claimed several lives in another part of the world and you feel the urge to reach out and help, these are the times, when you experience your own godliness. If you pay attention to it, if you give that feeling of compassion for another human being more energy, it will stay with you longer. Which is, if you let go of desires pertaining to yourself, and let your entire being relate to serving another form of creation__even if it is immediately unconnected to you__you will know, feel and find the God in you!

Living intelligently means to be able to live spiritually

To be spiritual does not mean you must not live well. Spirituality in fact makes no demands on you. There is no need to abstain from anything, no need to propitiate any Gods, no need to observe any rituals and no need to give up anything compulsorily.

Spirituality is the flowering of inner awareness. An awakening that teaches you how to live in this world and yet be above it. This awakening helps you make choices that work for you. You are the decision maker. You are in charge. And so, you can earn money, indulge in comforts, even have a few indulgences in moderation, and yet choose to serve __ touching lives, making a difference. A teacher who taught the world this simple way to live was Guru Nanak, the Sikh saint, who lived and taught between 1469 and 1539. A beautiful story highlights Nanak’s prescription for living intelligently.

Nanak once visited Lahore in present-day Pakistan. A very rich man, Dhuni Chand, invited Nanak to his house. It was a huge bungalow and had seven flags fluttering in the wind outside it. The saint asked Dhuni Chand why he had seven, and only seven, flags outside his house.

Dhuni Chand replied, “They show how much wealth I have. Each flag denotes ten million rupees that I have. So, in all, I have seventy million rupees.”

The Guru observed, "Then you are a very rich man. You must be very happy and contended with yourself?"

Dhuni Chand replied, "Holy Sir, I cannot lie to you. There are some people who are much richer than I am. This makes me sad and I desire to have more wealth. I would like to be the richest man in the city. I cannot feel completely happy and satisfied until my desire is fulfilled."

The Guru said, "But aren't the people who are richer than you also trying to become even more richer? It seems that there is a race between you and them to become the richest in this city. Perhaps, you may not be able to beat them in this race for the most wealth. In that case you may never be happy. Have you ever thought of that?"

Dhuni Chand said, "Holy Sir, I have no time to think such thoughts. I just work day and night to gather more and more wealth"

Guru Nanak smiled and said, "Will you have time to do a small thing for me?"

Dhuni Chand replied, "Most gladly, Holy Sir. What can I do for you?"

The Guru took out a needle, and said, "Please keep this safely with you. Give it to me, when I ask for it, in the next world."

Dhuni Chand took the needle from the Guru. Later, he took this needle to his wife. He gave it to her and said, "The Holy man wants us to keep the needle for him. He will take it back from us in the next world."

The wife was astonished. She said, "Are you mad? How can a needle go to the next world? How can we carry it with us to there? Go back, and return it to the Holy man."

Dhuni Chand went back to the Guru and said, "Holy Sir, please take back your needle. We cannot take this to the next world. We cannot carry it there. That is not possible"

The Guru smiled and said, "Dhuni Chand, this needle is small and light. You say that it cannot go with you to the next world. How can the seventy million rupees go there with you? What good will this wealth do to you there?"

Dhuni Chand realized his vanity and fell at the Guru’s feet and said, "Please Guruji, tell me how my wealth may go with me to the next world."

The Guru said, "Give it to the poor. Feed the hungry. Clothe the poor. Help the needy. When you spend your honestly earned wealth on righteous things, then it will go with you to the next world. Otherwise, it will be plundered here by others."

Dhuni Chand was awakened in that moment. And he soon became one of biggest champions of giving and serving, setting up various institutions in and around Lahore for the welfare of the common folk.

To be sure, there is a Dhuni Chand in each of us – who is amassing, toiling hard without doubt, subconsciously perhaps, beyond our needs, to satiate our wants; who is clinging on to material wealth out of fear and anxiety of losing it. Every once in a while a teacher like Nanak will appear, in the form of a friend, an event, a casual conversation, or a book or story, that will enlighten us. So that the Buddha within us is aroused. So that we may be reminded that while making money is important, putting it to use beyond ourselves is what is more meaningful. This is what, living in this world, and yet being above it truly means. This is the way to live intelligently. 

“You begin to value a journey only after you have walked the path yourself.”

It is easy to pass judgment on people or their Life journeys. But we can never value their journeys unless we have walked the path ourselves.

I read Bishwanath Ghosh’s weekly column, ‘Writer’s Block’, in The Hindu’s Melange section regularly. This past Saturday Bishwanath had written about how he has learnt to appreciate Amitav Ghosh’s writing much better now that he (Bishwanath) too is a writer. He reflects on owning Amitav Ghosh’s Dancing in Cambodia and other Essays for 16 years now but tells us how he ended up reading it only last week after meeting the author at the launch of the final book in his Ibis trilogy. Bishwanath concluded his column thus: “You begin to value a journey only after you have walked the path yourself.”

I can’t agree more with Bishwanath’s view. I have confessed to learning this lesson and respecting this perspective in my Book “Fall Like A Rose Petal – A father’s lessons on how to be happy and content while living without money” (Westland, August 2014) too.

The lead page of my Businessworld story in 1993

Way back in 1993, while working for Businessworld magazine as their Principal Correspondent in Bengaluru, I had written an elaborate story on how Vijay Mallya’s business empire was debt-ridden and that he was broke and cash-strapped. (Interestingly, even at this time, media reports suggest that Mallya’s business group’s present condition appears to be the same!) I remember waiting in Mallya’s UB Group headquarters (where the present day UB City is located) for 15 hours at a stretch because he was trying to avoid the interview. I even slept on the couch in his private lounge refusing to leave despite his EA’s insistence. This was to be the interview of my journalistic career and I was not going to give up! Finally, I managed to get Mallya’s time and his version of why his businesses were struggling. We ran the story, titling it ‘An Acquired Hangover’ and showing a completely sloshed Mallya at his Kunigal stud farm. Our photographer Deepak Pawar had counted the number of mugs of beer that Mallya had drunk in the three hours we spent interviewing him: 16! He had waited for the very end of the interview to get his shot to ‘fit’ the story’s central theme: that it was a series of reckless acquisitions that had landed Mallya in this mess.

I have nothing to say about Mallya’s business decisions then or now, about his cash problems then or now. Not anymore. All I feel is, irrespective of what caused his crisis, or mine, the pain is the same. Every single day through my Firm’s bankruptcy, and even now, I have regretted the way we led that story asking, critically, sarcastically, logically, pointedly, argumentatively, “Why is Vijay Mallya at a loss for cash?” I am not even saying the story was good or bad. All I am saying is I now know what it means to be strapped for cash. And I now know what it means when every aspect of your Life is scrutinized, dissected, opined upon and judged – only because you don’t have money and you have to repay people that you have borrowed from.

The last few years, that have been acutely financially-challenged for us, have taught me that we must respect everyone for who they are, the way they are. Their lives may not conform to ours, their stories may not be something we can relate to, their choices and decisions may not be what we can agree on, but we can at least not judge them. Even if we do so unwittingly, subconsciously. If you have been there, done that, offer a perspective – when asked for it. Else, don’t advice, don’t opine, don’t assume and surely, don’t judge!  

When you are hurting, take a 30,000ft view of your Life

Sometimes people mess around with you for no reason. Sometimes they do it intentionally. Whatever be their motives, the fact that you have been messed around with cannot be reversed. In either case, just shrug off the situation and move on. Even if you can’t forget what has happened, move on – and, if possible, forgive the people involved!

The other day, our client, an organization that we were conducting a workshop for, had provided us a car with a driver. It was a badly maintained car and the driver seemed particularly disinterested in his job. During the course of our ride, when we stopped at an eatery, we invited the driver to lunch with us. He politely declined saying he had “finished” his lunch. After our lunch, when we got into the car, we found it smelling of food. Apparently, he had had his lunch in the car; worse, to my dismay, he had used a document bag I had carried along as a prop for him to open his lunch box and set out the dishes. A lot of food had spilled on my bag and had stained it all over. When I confronted him, the driver mumbled a meek, remorseless, apology and volunteered half-heartedly to clean my bag for me.

Initially I was furious. The driver’s bad etiquette pissed me off no doubt. I was even more put off by his lack of empathy. He had messed up my bag – the least he could do was to genuinely feel sorry. But no, the driver was in no mood for this. For some time I was grumpy with him and the situation. He had no right or reason to do this to any guest/passenger, I thought. My wife, seeing my sense of exasperation, stepped in and urged me to move on. I had barely begun to reason with the driver, but I saw my wife’s point and soon dismissed the idea as a complete waste of time.

The next morning as I attempted to clean up my bag, I could not escape the learnings and perspectives the entire episode offered.

The driver and the food-spill are but metaphors for people and situations we find ourselves in. On many an occasion we are pissed on and passed over. It hurts more when there’s no provocation from our side. When you are focused on your work and someone comes to disrupt it or rides roughshod over you, you feel vulnerable. Not because you don’t know that you can retaliate but you feel so numb – why would anybody want to expect anyone to be insensitive and unkind to them? – that you don’t know what to do or how to respond. The best response, so that you protect your inner peace, is to forgive, even if you can’t forget, and simply move on. This applies as much in small, mundane, everyday skirmishes with rank strangers as it does with pre-meditated attempts to cause you anguish by people close to you. When you don’t move on, and instead demand justice or seek understanding from insensitive folks, you are only allowing yourself to be hurt more; to be trampled upon more. Because insensitive people are not bothered about how you are feeling. They may not have set out to hurt you but if you are hurt, it hardly bothers them. So, why waste your time with them and on them?

Also, people, events, situations are just the way they are meant to be in your Life. When I reflected, I concluded that the food-spill in the car was just meant to be. In the larger scheme of my Life, I reckoned, the food-spill and the irritation it caused should hardly matter. Because I am dealing with a far messier situation – I am in the throes of a bankruptcy, working harder each day to put our business and our Firm back on track. Besides, the driver’s insensitivity pales in significance in front of my mother’s – she called me a cheat because of my inability to return money I had borrowed from her. Similarly, when you reflect on your Life, you will find that the misery you feel over people’s actions and attitudes are hardly relevant in the context of your Life’s larger design. When something is hurting you and you are obsessed with that hurt, zoom out and look at the bigger picture. Take a 30,000ft view of your Life. You will realize soon that you can reason with someone when reason works. But you cannot reason with someone who doesn’t see reason. So, be smart. Protect your inner peace. In such situations, with such people, simply forgive and move on!

“The winds of grace are always blowing…”

“The winds of grace are always blowing. You must hoist your sails to catch them.” So said Swami Ramakrishna Paramahamsa (1836 ~ 1886).

Ustaad Anwar Khan Saab, Mansoor Khan and their troupe

I was, yet again, reminded of this beautiful perspective on Life last evening. A friend and his family had organized a concert by the Manganiyars – a community of folk singers from Rajasthan – on their rooftop. It was an unusual evening in Chennai – it was still very warm, but as the sun set, dark clouds gathered and very strong gusts of wind blew over the city. It didn’t rain. But it came menacingly close to raining. In this backdrop of the game of hide and seek that nature played, five Manganiyars performed at their soulful best. There were no additional lights on stage, no mics and no speakers. The artistes just jammed – led by the supremely talented Ustad Anwar Khan Saab on the vocals and the world-renowned Mansoor Khan on the Dholak. The other three artists played the Kartaal and the Sindhi Sarangi between them. As Anwar Khan Saab sang he lost himself to his music. And held all of us in the audience in a trance. His deep voice, the rhythmic beats of the Kartaals, the sublime strains of the Sindhi Sarangi and the unobtrusive yet unputdownable presence of the Dholak made the evening truly magical.  

I picked up a few learnings.

The first was humility. Anwar Khan Saab is one of the most feted Manganiyars. Yet, as he began the concert, he humbly looked at each of the other four artists in the troupe and asked them: “Izzazat ho, toh shuru karein…” Meaning: “May we have your permission to begin…” There’s an Urdu word called ‘tehzeeb’ which actually means ‘culture’ but combines the essence of being ‘humble and dignified in demeanor’. Khan Saab embodied that word ‘tehzeeb’ in the way he spoke, he sang and he conducted himself last evening – he personified humility.

Second, I re-learnt the value of respecting a senior. Mansoor Khan is younger, is more relevant and hugely famous across the world. Yet Mansoor let Khan Saab lead the whole concert last evening and do all the singing. It’s the kind of difference in appeal that would exist in the cricketing world between Sachin Tendulkar and Sunil Gavaskar that is there between Mansoor and Khan Saab. Even so, Mansoor was content with just being the Dholak player yesterday – happy to share stage presence with the Ustad and sing for the joy of singing alongside the maestro.

Third, I felt the grace – yet again – in my Life. Not that it is ever absent in any of our lives. It is always there. But we are so busy earning-a-living, running on our Life-treadmills, that we miss this grace. But I have realized that whenever I have let go, whenever I have just let a higher energy draw me in its direction, hold me in its sway and take me where it wants to, I have felt the grace. Last evening, I almost did not make it to this home concert of the Manganiyars. It had been a tiring Sunday at home. And all I wanted to do was have a drink and watch television. But our hosts are very, very special. And the Manganiyars are our favorites – particularly Mansoor Khan. So, despite my body protesting, I completely let go as Khan Saab began. For the next two hours it was a pure bliss and grace show! My wife Vaani concurs with me. How else do you explain such great weather in Chennai in the middle of June, such great artists jamming in front of you with no commercial trappings, such soulful music and us in the midst of all this – when we can never quite dream of buying tickets to a live performance of this class, given our fragile financial state?

As the concert ended, I took a swig of Kingfisher beer that my host graciously offered. And then I looked up at the sky and smiled in gratitude and joy. I was reminded of what the Buddha has said: “When you realize how perfect your Life is, you will look up at the sky and laugh!” Indeed, I don’t think that we will ever have a perfect Life – the way we want it. It is always what it is. And if you can accept what is, you will have raised your sails, you will then have felt the grace in your Life, you too will then perhaps look up at the sky and laugh….! 

Recognize the futility of fearing Life

Face Life. Don’t fear it!

Worry, anxiety, stress, depression, anger, hatred are all different incarnations, avatars, of fear. Your child is not studying well. You worry because you fear that the child’s future is in jeopardy. Your small business is not doing well and you are anxious to bag a new customer because you fear that if you don’t, you will have no money to run the family. You are angry with someone because you fear that their not meeting your requirements or expectations will affect your plans. You hate someone because you fear that your opinions, values, your freedom is violated. So, at the core of all destructive, debilitating emotions is fear. We fear everything: change, the unknown, risk and reality too!

Recognize the futility of fearing Life. Your fear is not going to help your child study better or get a customer to give you a contract or make someone work more efficiently or get anyone to love you, to appreciate you, to respect you. Look every Life situation in the eye. Face it. And deal with it. As children we were all scared of dark rooms. We would hesitate to enter them and require parental help in turning on the lights. So, how is it that we overcame that fear of dark rooms as we grew older? Simple. We learned to face that Fear. Because we learned that every room will have switches that would illuminate them. Learn, similarly, that in every situation in Life, a switch called trust can bring light and remove the darkness.

Here is a short story with a beautiful learning for us. A little girl and her father were crossing a bridge. The father was kind of scared so he asked his little daughter, “Sweetheart, please hold my hand so that you don't fall into the river.” The little girl said, “No, Dad. You hold my hand.” “What's the difference?” asked the puzzled father. “There's a big difference,” replied the little girl. “If I hold your hand and something happens to me, chances are that I may let your hand go. But if you hold my hand, I know for sure that no matter what happens, you will never let go of my hand.”

The essence of trust, as in the little girl’s story, is not in the bind, but in the bond. To quote Khalil Gibran, the Lebanese-American thinker and writer, you__and I__and all of humanity, are a creation of Life’s longing for itself. Believe in, bond with and trust Life to take care of you. This kind of trust can be transformational. And only such implicit trust in Life can extinguish fear and teach us how to face Life and live fully. 

Undivided attention minus judgment delivers love

Stop craving for attention. Start giving full, undivided attention. In this crucial shift in thought and action lies the secret to bliss.

Picture yourself at home. You have done something nice, maybe made a great meal. Your spouse comes in. Throws her belongings on the carpet, rushes into the kitchen, grabs a juice and some cookies, completely oblivious of the entire spread laid out on the kitchen counter. You are wondering why she is so uncaring. You crave for that “Hey, what’s all that for dinner tonight?” conversation. And then when it doesn’t happen, you sulk. You reply in monosyllables and say good night and go to sleep. What happened there? In your craving for attention, you missed out on giving complete undivided attention to your spouse: maybe she was fatigued after a long day at work or maybe she was unwell or maybe she’s too stressed out. How magical would it have been had you started by asking, “Is there something that I can do for you?” or “Would you like to taste your favorite pasta that I have whipped up with pesto sauce?” The same attitude and approach applies in all situations in Life. At a busy airline counter, you blow your top at an agent who has not looked up at you because she’s perhaps been busy, overworked, or is having a relationship crisis. But you craved for a ‘Good morning there, how can I help you?” and since that didn’t happen, you lost your cool. Another instance: In a meeting to discuss the strategy for your company’s new product, you are fourth in line to make a presentation. But because your CEO is applauding the previous presenter, you have lost your focus and are now worried if your work will be celebrated similarly. In your craving for attention, which breeds anxiety, you lose your flow, stumble through your slides and perhaps even evoke a reprimand from your CEO for poor preparation. And you go back home, behaving like that spouse who grabbed the juice and cookies, missing to notice the great meal spread out awaiting your arrival!

You see how one thing leads to another. The solution is to give complete undivided attention to whatever you are doing. Just that one thing. Nothing else must matter. When you do that, systematically, in each moment, you will become one of the greatest listeners in the world, and you will see only beauty, perfection and joy in everything. All the time. When we are craving for attention, we are really being judgmental. “Oh, he doesn’t care!” This really means you wished he cared. “No. I am not wanted here.” This means you are craving to be wanted. Undivided attention minus judgment, minus the craving, delivers love. And where there is uninterrupted love for whatever you are experiencing: a person, an object, a flow, a situation, you will feel bliss. You will be bliss.

Empty yourself and feel abundant

Life's an amazing paradox. When you fill yourself you feel an eerie emptiness. And when you empty yourself you feel a joyful fullness!

Think about your Life deeply. What are you filling it with? The more you fill yourself with fear, guilt, grief, ego, anxiety, greed and desires, the more empty you feel. You can’t just escape the emptiness. You may call it by any name: mid-life crisis, not enjoying your job, unhappy with your partner, feel lost with how to raise your children, whatever. But you do feel empty. The irony, however, is that to rid yourself of this emptiness, all you need to do is to empty yourself. When you empty yourself of all wasteful emotions, like those listed above, or many more, you are emptying yourself of your self. This is when you are enriched, filled with love and are full of peace. This fullness is what is called bliss. Emptying yourself of your self means to get rid of the ‘I’!

Several years ago, when my business started going horribly wrong, I sat in my hotel room in Bengaluru and shared my worries with a good friend, Deepak Pawar, a highly acclaimed media photographer in India. He’s much older to me and I have always valued his perspective. What was causing me immense grief was the way my team was behaving with me. There were resignations, a case of embezzlement and even blackmail from a colleague who threatened to share company data with competition if his salary was not paid. This was tragic for me. We had not only given this gentleman employment but had also supported his MBA program and his coaching in spoken English. As I shared my woes, describing my Life as being ‘empty, meaningless and thankless’, with Deepak, he said, “For your Life to be full and meaningful, you must shed yourself of your ego AVIS.” I was devastated by his remark. I shot back: “Sorry Sir, with due respect to you, I disagree. You are saying I have an ego. I don’t. I have worked hard to grow my business and I have done so with humility. My team is family to me. This colleague of mine who is today threatening me, I have groomed him. I have trained him. I have educated him. I have always sat with him and guided him on how to plan his career professionally. I have done so much for him and you are saying…” Deepak cut me short. He smiled and said, “Just see the number of times you have said ‘I’ in your defense just now AVIS….That ‘I’…that’s your ego speaking….that guy, the ‘I’ in you…you must empty yourself of that ‘I’…and you will find meaning and a Life full of peace and happiness!”

To me that moment, that nano-second, was the ‘CTRL+ALT+DEL’ moment of my Life. With that enlightening perspective, Deepak opened my eyes, helping me see clearly, why there was so much emptiness in my Life. Osho’s masterly perspective on this too helped me immensely: “Emptying oneself means emptying of all content – just as you empty a room of all the junk that has gathered there, over the years. When you have emptied the room of all the furniture and all the things, you have not destroyed the room, not at all; you have given it more roominess, more space. When all the furniture is gone, the room asserts itself, the room is.” What’s interesting is, as I discovered, when the ‘I’ goes out of you, all the parasites that thrive on it, off it__fear, guilt, grief, anxiety, greed and desires__run after it too. The feeling you get with emptying yourself, and therefore filling your Life with abundance and bliss, is truly liberating. It has to be experienced to be understood. It has to be lived! 

If you are walking around a puddle and not through it…well…the child within you is dead!

Awaken the child in you. You will never have a problem living__and you will never feel old!

While it may be a good idea to choose a successful adult to be a role model for our dreams, ambitions and professional aspirations, in terms of our attitude to Life__and to practice intelligent living__it may just be a great idea to make an infant our role model too! Children teach us innocence, to forgive and forget, to trust and to be joyful at all times!

British author, known most for his science fiction works, Brian Aldiss painted a bleak, but awakening picture of adulthood with the words: “When childhood dies, its corpses are called adults and they enter society, one of the politer names of hell. That is why we dread children, even if we love them; they show us the state of our decay.” This is indeed the truth. As adults we have stopped being innocent. There’s a lurking suspicion we hold on every encounter, judging motives and evaluating people all the time. We carry baggage of past hurts and often want to avenge insults and betrayals. We are never happy in whatever moment we are living through __ always choosing to wallow in the past or worry of the future.

Look at the children in your family, up until the age of 5 at least. Don’t they deal with people as they are? Never judging. Always trusting. Full of energy and enthusiasm. When you are child-like, and see the world with curiosity, with a raging quest for each new experience, you will find your creative juices flowing, your imagination soaring and you will find bliss in every moment! As the late historian Papiya Ghosh said, “In my soul, I am still that small child who did not care about anything else but the beautiful colors of a rainbow.”

So, if you are walking around a puddle and not through it, if you are worried about what people at the table will think if you dropped sauce on yourself, if you are conscious of people looking at you at an airport while you peer at and count the planes, if you are unable to sleep deeply, peacefully, instantaneously, it’s time for you to go back to your childhood. And do all those things now that you did then. There is still the child in you__rediscover your true Self!

Find peace by walking away from whatever holds you to ransom

The simplest way to peace is to walk away from things that imprison you, trouble you, anger you and tempt you.

This doesn't mean that you abdicate your stand or your responsibility of those things. It only means you don't react and seek time to think through the situation and act on it calmly. Consider what can possibly be imprisoning you. Your fears, insecurities, anxieties are all the metaphorical shackles that keep you nailed to the ground. Because you are not free, and a prisoner of your own thoughts, you are in despair. You are troubled. Continuously being in an agitated state can cause you to explode. Initially your tolerance levels are higher. But over a period of time you become a victim of your own reactions. You are angry first. But soon you are angry that you lost your cool. You are angry with yourself. Then you succumb to the temptation of pitying yourself and get into that ruinous depressive spiral. Your temptations can also come from your desires. From eating an extra piece of a Black Forest to having that smoke to compulsively wanting to control, everything is a temptation that you find hard to resist. When you are controlled by your desires, you are but a slave of your mind.

To be free, to be the Master of your mind, and therefore of your Life, you must first walk away. Don't think. Just walk away. From an argument, from a bar, from your desire to light up, from irrational behavior that provokes you. Walk away and ask yourself what will be lost if you don't succumb, if you don't indulge, if you don't get involved. Almost always, the answer will be that nothing will be lost. Though the mind would have been tempting you, creating often a sense of urgency, that without your immediate involvement, Life will go out of control. Resist that mind game with a physical response: walk away! Almost instantaneously, you will discover you are at peace with the moment. Just this awareness that walking away is not going to bring the world to an end, is inspiring. It is an action that demonstrates immense trust in Time's ability to heal and resolve. It never is borne out of cowardice and insecurity. But is an act of courage and delivered with a feeling of complete security.

Try it on anything that is troubling you or holding you in its vice-like grip (a habit or a relationship perhaps?). Try it on your own emotions, like your compulsive urge to get angry. Or on your inability to resist temptation. Try it once by walking away. You will find peace in a nano-second. And then, like Oliver Twist, you will want more!

Life is not trying to victimize you

Stay anticipating and welcoming the possibility of an exciting adventure and you will never be in grief in Life. On the other hand, you will be able to feel and be the bliss in each moment.

What is a sudden health diagnosis: a cancer or any other debilitating disease? It is an adventure. What is a job loss? An adventure. What is a broken relationship? It’s an adventure. You call something an adventure when it is an experience that you have not been through before. Almost all the time, since you and I were born, we have been encountering Life at its own terms. One surprise after another. But we see it in a linear fashion. We see our Life go through only these stages: from birth to starting school; starting school to finishing school (pre-school to high-school); starting an academic course to qualifying for a college degree; starting a job to starting a family; finishing actively raising a family and caring for children to retiring from a job, starting retirement to reaching death. So, while are essentially flowing with Life, we think we are in control. Surely, a lot of these stages apply to almost anyone who is capable of reading this post now. But if we look deeper, peeling off layer after layer in each stage, we will notice that there have been so many unforeseen events in each stage. The bigger news is also that we have been able to overcome each of them and get to where we are today. So, why this anxiety about Life’s next surprise or adventure? Why the fear of an ‘unknown’ future?

The other truth about these stages in Life is that each one begins and each one ends when it must. Much like Life itself. It has begun. So it will end. So, why this fear of death? When you understand that the two dimensions of Life that you worry about the most are the most predictable, you will be able to live intelligently. Consider both dimensions: a. Life will always surprise you in each moment and b. you and everyone you know will eventually die. Haven’t you dealt with both dimensions in some measure already? This means you are capable of living with acceptance of what is and living with insightful action.

Know that Life is not trying to victimize you. Life is doing its job. And you must do yours by meeting each situation sportingly. “Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable,” wrote Helen Keller (1880 ~ 1968), in 1940, in a poem called ‘Let us have Faith’.

Indeed. Don’t expect any more security from Life than what you already have __ which is the fact that you are alive, can read this and have most of your faculties intact. Have the faith that this roller coaster called Life is a non-stop adventure sport that you can enjoy only if you stay happy and stay in the now!

Thanksgiving must be a daily celebration

Gratitude is magical. But only when we look back and see how far we have come in Life. Only when we look at our now and see what we have despite whatever we don’t have. And only when we look at tomorrow with a sense of hope.

Remember that even the ability to hope is not stemming from our own abilities. It is coming because we are blessed with that sense of hope by creation. I remember this definition of blessing somewhere. It goes somewhat like this: “If you woke up this morning with more health than illness, you are more blessed than a million who will not survive the week. If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture or the pangs of starvation, you are ahead of five million people around the world. If you are able to walk around in your country without fear of harassment, arrest or torture of death, you are more blessed than several hundred million people in the world. If you have food in your refrigerator, clothes on your back, roof over your head and a place to sleep, you are richer than 75% of the people in this world. If you have money in the bank, in your wallet and spare change in a dish someplace, you are among the top 8% of the world’s wealthy. If your parents are still married and alive, you are very rare.”

How true. It is this spirit that being grateful celebrates. Thanksgiving does not mean waiting for the last weekend of November each year to say your thanks for all that you are blessed with. Thanksgiving must be a daily celebration. Much as we postpone happiness, we postpone gratitude as well. We have in fact made gratitude conditional to happiness. ‘I can be grateful if I am happy’ has become the excuse we subconsciously keep giving ourselves. Remember that Life acts in ways beyond our comprehension. Yet every now and then you will find people who are grateful to Life for the opportunity they have to serve humanity. These are folks who rise above their current realities and problems and look at themselves as solution providers, enablers, who serve because another’s need is more than their own. If Mother Teresa is an ultimate example of selflessness, let us also know that there is a serving saint dormant in each of us. That saint within us will become awakened only when we practice gratitude.

In the Bible, the disciple Paul instructs, “In everything we give thanks.” What he means is that it is impossible to know the outcome of each event in our Life. But if we remain grateful for each moment, each experience that we live through, we will see the larger cosmic design, our Life’s blueprint, emerge. There is a very old Chinese story about a man whose son captured a strong, beautiful, wild horse, and all the neighbors told the man how fortunate he was. The man patiently replied, "I am grateful. We will see." One day the horse threw the son who broke his leg, and all the neighbors told the man how cursed he was that the son had ever found the horse. Again the man answered, "I am grateful. We will see." Soon after the son broke his leg, soldiers came to the village and took away all the able-bodied young men, but the son was spared. When the man's friends told him how lucky the broken leg was, the man would only say, "I am grateful. We will see."

Gratitude is like this. It is the key for unlocking the mystery of Life. When you practice gratitude with mindfulness, continuously, you will feel its magic liberating you. You will fly free. Unburdened, unshackled, unaffected by whatever circumstance you are placed in. Don’t wait to thank Life. Keep giving always and be thankful for the opportunity to serve. That’s the way to truly be grateful for this Life and this experience!

Go where your music is taking you

Do what makes you come alive – and don’t bother about what the world has to say.

Many a time, we make choices cautiously wanting them to be correct and acceptable in a social context. So, while we may not be entirely happy doing what we have chosen to do, we end up doing it to maintain our status or wanting to “look good” among family, friends and peers. This kind of posturing may make us look socially appropriate but almost always leaves us totally unhappy. Happiness really is about being able to say and do what you really want to and what you love doing!

T.M.Krishna is in the news again. This time for his choice of not wanting to perform in the December Music Season in Chennai anymore. Obviously his fans are upset. But there are those too who think Krishna’s lost it, that he’s become arrogant and that all this “drama” is part of his “radical, sensational” marketing strategy. Some even term his recent choices and actions gimmickry.

T M Krishna - in "One with Music"
Photo Courtesy - Internet

I think everyone’s being judgmental here and in a sense some people are surely being unfair to Krishna. Undoubtedly Krishna is a public figure, an exceptionally talented singer with divinity oozing in his craft – so his fans do expect him to be a certain way. Historically, the Chennai Music Season is the Haj of Carnatic Music – people give an arm and a leg to perform here. So, it does seem so very strange and unusual that a singer who grew in acclaim, thanks to the performances at the Season over the years, should now choose to stay away from it. The best way to look at Krishna’s choice is to see it exactly the way it is – as an unusual one! Let’s not color it with any opinion. Also, excuse me, isn’t there a personal choice that we all have a right to make? Is it necessary that you must always be wedded to doing things a certain way and in ways in which everyone else is doing them? I personally feel Krishna’s choice is driven by his bliss – he is going wherever his music – the music within him – is taking him. And that is indeed the way to live Life. To be able to do what makes you come alive. To do what you love doing.

When we live for social gratification, when we live to “look good”, we are not living – we are merely existing. We suffer, we feel miserable and we eventually lead hollow lives. Is there a point in such living? All you have is this one lifetime. And if you can’t live it the way you want to, doing what you love, what is the point? As Frank Sinatra sang (‘This is all I Ask’, April 1965) so beautifully, “And let the music play as long as there’s a song to sing.” So, whoever you are, be inspired by Sinatra, be inspired by Krishna, go where your music is taking you, don’t bother about what the world is saying. Ultimately, it’s your Life!

Take that leap from ‘lasting’ to ‘living’!

Do you LAST or do you LIVE each day?

Thanks to all the pressures, pulls and stresses in Life these days, do you often catch yourself waking up thinking how to LAST today? Why haven’t you ever considered the possibility of waking up thinking how to LIVE today? Or perhaps, waking up thinking to LIVE today better than you did yesterday?

You can make that transition from LASTING to LIVING if you have conversations with yourself daily. Most people think talking to themselves is weird. Know that it is not. While intensely private, talking to yourself, gives you an opportunity to review your performance__as a living entity__in a brutally honest fashion. Swami Vivekananda (1863~1902) prescribes this therapy for individual wellbeing: “Talk to yourself at least once in a day else you may miss a meeting with the most EXCELLENT person in this world.” Think about it folks. We spend time reviewing our budgets, our children’s homeworks, our business performance, our shopping lists and even our laundry daily. Do we ever review how we LIVE daily?

Because we don’t do this is why we miss the opportunity to make a difference to ourselves and end up working harder than ever before, worrying more than ever before, and trying simply to just LAST each day. Most of your efforts to LAST the day, to survive, are controlled by the matters of the head. Your meetings, appointments, schedules, menus, bills, collections are all in your head. And your soul is empty. Because it is empty you are pining for a better Life. You don’t know how to express your aspiration for freedom. You don’t know how to liberate yourself from the pangs of your everyday existence. So you have crutches: habits like tobacco or alcohol or emotions like anger, hatred and jealousy. The leap from LASTING to LIVING can be made if you stop thinking with your head and start feeling from your soul. The soul operates on a timeless, limitless plane. What you may see as insecurity thinking from your head is actually an opportunity to LIVE with the beautiful uncertainty of Life __ moving in and with the unknown. Osho, the Master, explains this thus: “Life is dangerous, and only cowards can avoid the danger – but then, they are already dead.  A person who is alive, really alive, vitally alive, will always move into the unknown.”

So stop wishing you could just LAST today. Want, badly want, to LIVE today better than you ever did before. You will!