The one who is angry is often helpless

Being angry with a situation and expressing your anger on everyone and everything around you is never an intelligent response.

I watched a beautiful Malayalam film the other day called Manjadikuru. Made by Anjali Menon (of Bangalore Days fame), the film tells the story of a family as seen through the eyes of an 11-year-old boy, Vicky. One of the protagonists of the film is a man called Raghu (played by Rahman). And Raghu is forever angry with his family – with his brother and his sisters. Raghu’s anger seems often irrational and habituated. As in one moment he could be complaining about his brother’s decision to turn a Naxalite, abdicating his family responsibilities, and the other moment he could be ranting about his sisters flocking together only to seek a share in the family wealth. So, Vicky, while narrating the story, concludes that his big learning watching Raghu’s bouts of anger is that those who are angry are often helpless.

Anjali Menon (who is also the writer of the film) shares a phenomenal spiritual insight there. Something that I can totally relate to. I used to be prone to senseless bouts of anger too. I once remember, as a 20-year-old, flinging my shaving razor at our television – which left it cracked – because I could not have a reasonable, logical conversation with my parents. Years later, when these anger spells had become far too frequent and had begun to ruin my professional stature, I discovered that each time I lost it, I was choosing to express myself in a violent sort of way only because I was unable to control what was going on or what others were saying or doing or because I was unable to convince someone. Bottomline: my helplessness was manifesting as anger.

Through diligent practice of mouna (daily silence periods), I learnt that your helplessness is nothing but a ego-based position. Why do you need to convince anybody? You have a right to your opinion. And they have a right to theirs. It is only when you try to force your view on someone and you fail, it is only when you try to control a situation and you fail, that you get angry. But the truth is that you never were in control of anything or anyone. Things just happen. People just behave the way they want to. So, just go with the flow. There is no need to be angry. And even if you do experience anger, channelize it constructively. Anger is nothing but the energy within you. Don’t squander it through violent thought, expression or action. Simply use it to drive change in a logical, legitimate fashion. This is what Gandhi did to practise ahimsa and help secure India her independence. This is what anger, when used constructively, can eventually yield.

So, if you are experiencing too much anger within you, pause and ask yourself if you are responding so only because you are helpless? In asking that question, you may well unlock the way to a lifetime of inner peace.

Refuse to hate whatever or whoever you don’t like

At the core of all our suffering is hatred.

Whenever we hate something or someone, we suffer. Consider this. You are in a relationship. And then you break up. Till the break-up happened, you did not suffer. But now you do because you hate the sight, even thought, of that person for all the reasons you ascribe to the break-up. Or you go to a restaurant and order food, let us say a paneer tikka sizzler. And what you get is a chicken tikka sizzler. You eat a bit of it and want to throw up! You hate the restaurant, the chef, the owner, everyone! You suffer. So to put an end to your sufferings from situations and people, you must stop hating__anyone and anything!

Learn to treat each event dispassionately. Believe that things will and do happen. People will and do behave differently at different times. Such is the nature of Life. By hating people for who they are, over which you have no control, you are hurting yourself. By all means, express yourself. Choose not to put up with nonsense or behavior that you find despicable or even hate. But don’t hate the person. It is indeed possible to not hate a person and yet fight their action. This is what Gandhi taught us. He said, famously, “I do not hate the English. I just don't like the way they rule my country!” The essence of this philosophy is that all Life is equal, that people will do things which you may not subscribe to. In each such situation, bring in understanding and compassion. Pour love into that situation, for your own peace, and so that you don’t suffer, refuse to hate the person causing that situation. And refuse to hate the situation either. Like Gandhi, go down to work on changing the situation.

This is the true strength of your character, of your indomitable will. Doing this, each time you are oppressed, attacked, betrayed, or let down, means you are strong. Doing this, each time you are in a situation that you did not want or expect, means you are strong. Think about it. Do you have it in you? Try it. You will discover that you indeed do have it in you! Remember: Only when you stop hating, do you stop suffering!

Fight the good fight, fight the issue, but forgive the person

When people behave irrationally, trampling upon you, it is time for you to practice forgiveness.

There is no point in grieving over others’ behavior. Because you have no control over them. What you can control is how you react. Forgiveness needs to and must be cultivated. This does not mean you give up your stand or stop being firm in a situation. Fight the issue, fight the good fight, be dogged about what you believe is right, including the way you want to be treated, but forgive the person.

The practice of forgiveness involves training your mind using three steps: 1. Give the situation love. Send peaceful thoughts and energy to that person. This may be initially difficult, because the very thought of that person may make you feel angry. But keep at it. Keep saying, “May everything that this person wants to achieve in Life, and with me, be possible and may there always be light, happiness and peace in this person’s Life”. 2. Find ways to communicate to the person what your stand or views on the issue you are fighting over are. Avoid getting even. Stick to the point. Text messaging or sending a simple email are good options for such a purpose. Remember a physical interface can only aggravate and lead to a verbal duel. 3. Work hard on not revisiting that hurt. Immerse yourself in what gives you joy. Music, children, work, nature...whatever; keep reminding your mind that you don’t want to think about the hurt.  The most important reason why you must forgive and move on__irrespective of your stand on the issue__is that you__and I__are created to be happy and not in grief. You may, however, stick to your stand on the issue itself, doing whatever it takes to right the wrong that you believe has been committed.

Gandhi led the way and his Life with this idea of forgiveness. He would always champion this in his practice of ahimsa: “I cannot hate anybody, least of all an Englishman. But I hate the way the English rule our country and will fight their way till the very end.”

Big learning there. Holding on to a resentful episode at a personal level means you are continuing to hurt. This will only chew you up, keep you unhappy and in pain. When you walk away, with forgiveness in your heart, from a hurtful, resentful situation, you are walking tall. And you are walking away happy. Doesn’t that matter the most?

Break free from the tyranny of "I can't"

The biggest impediment to living your dreams is the view that whatever you want to do hasn't been done before and/or that you can't do it.

This is what I call 'starting trouble'. In the good old days here in India, we used to have Ambassador cars (we still have some of them on the roads). My family too had one. It was already a pretty old car by the time we bought it. And every once in a while, its ignition switch would fail and so we used to bring out a metal 'handle' from the boot and literally, physically crank the engine up. Or, if there was help available, we would push the vehicle in neutral gear for a while in a bid to start the engine with a jerk as the gears were switched! Almost all of us are like that old Ambassador car. We have trouble getting started on our journeys. We are willing to die, unknown to us, a million times in the few years that we are alive, doing things we don't like or love doing, than live the time we have on this planet fully! To live we need to awaken to the possibility that we too can achieve anything, absolutely anything, that we want.

So, to get started this morning on what can be a turning point in your Life, just consider what Mahatma Gandhi did. His greatest struggle was not about overthrowing the British. It was about 'How do you make an enslaved race think and feel equal to others when all around there is compelling evidence of the enslaving race's 'superiority'?' Porus Munshi, an innovator, thinker and author, says Gandhi found a way, by showing people the power of satyagraha and ahimsa. When people realized that they too could contribute to the freedom movement, they felt equal!

There’s a parallel here for us to delve into. We are all enslaved by our beliefs, our insecurities, our self-doubts. We must change the orbit of our thinking. The 'handle' we must use to crank up our engines is to awaken to the reality that we are all created equal. If you love painting, know that you too can become successful like M F Hussain, if you love writing fiction, you too can be insanely great like J K Rowling, if you love planes and flying, you too can own an airline like Air Asia's Tony Fernandez, if you want to change the world and serve, you too can become the next Gandhi or Mother Teresa. The key operative word here is love. And that love must be present and continuous – as in a verb! You must love whatever you do and your love for it must make you want to do it again, and again, and again – no matter what the impediments are. So, awaken. Break free from the tyranny of "I can't". Know that nothing can come in between you and your dream, unless you allow it to! Take flight, if you love something, go live it! 

Stop being a ‘thought terrorist’!

You are human first. Your gender, your religion, your nationality, your qualifications and your income come later and, quite honestly, don’t matter at all.

Misbah Quadri
Picture Courtesy: The Hindu

This morning’s Hindu reports the shocking story of a 25-year-old young lady, Misbah Quadri, being denied accommodation in all of Mumbai just because she is a Muslim! “Mumbai – of all places?” I thought. If Mumbai has become so parochial, the rest of India may well be damned! But this is not an isolated story or occurrence. The other day I was at a friend’s place for dinner. And he openly acknowledged that he would never rent his apartment to Muslims. He confessed: “Call me conservative or anti-Muslim, I cannot simply trust people who belong to that religion.” My friend is educated, widely traveled, does business globally and yet he holds such a regressive view? Within my own family, I have someone who cannot refer to Muslims without using an expletive alongside. This is a sad trend and needs to be condemned with as much intensity as it is being propagated.

When I think about it deeply, dispassionately, I believe we are finding it convenient to generalize and to hide behind our insecurities and flawed assumptions. While it is true that most acts of terror in the world are conducted by Muslims, it is wrong to imagine that all Muslims are terrorists. Perhaps, people find it simpler to banish an entire community because they have never tried to – or wanted to – be discerning in their judgment. Another reason why people cannot understand or appreciate Muslims may be because of their inscrutable practices, rituals and traditions – from circumcision to Muharram to the ubiquitous burkha. But that is no valid argument. Every religion, the way each of us is raised, every community has its own idiosyncratic methods and beliefs. If you find a burkha restricting women empowerment, then you should find the Hindu practice of disallowing girl children from performing the last rites of a dead parent equally restrictive. A sandhyavandanam can be as banal as Muharram if you don’t understand the significance of either.

I think there are as many reasons to divide humanity in this world as there are people on the planet. We don’t need to invent newer ways or choose to alienate a particular community or religion just because we don’t know or understand someone or something. Those who think they are very smart in exercising options such as the ones my friend has chosen, or what building societies in Mumbai have chosen against young Misbah, are actually sick in their heads and hearts. The very thought that you can discriminate against someone just because he or she belongs to a particular community or religion is an act of violence. As Gandhi would say, it is himsa (violence) of the highest order. It is worse than the acts of terror that kill people around the world each year. We must drop this tendency to be violent in our thoughts, in our perceptions, that lead us to discriminate against fellow human beings – urgently and wholeheartedly.

Fundamentally, let’s remember that there are only two kinds of people in the world. Humans who practice love and compassion. And humans who indulge in hatred and violence. If you cannot immediately decide which category someone belongs to, it is fine. But don’t imagine they belong to the latter category just because they come from a community that you think is redoubtable. If you do that, in the absence of valid, irrefutable evidence, unfortunately, sadly, you will be indulging in himsa too! When you discriminate against someone, you are being violent in thought. And, to be sure, thoughts can kill – they are like cancer, chewing away humanity! So, unless you are one, stop being a ‘thought terrorist’! 

Practice magnanimity: receive, embrace and transform hate into love

Don’t fight anyone, any situation in Life, by struggling, suffering and despairing. Feel deeply, practicing magnanimity, to understand the person, the situation, that is causing you distress. You will eventually prevail with love and compassion, than from fighting and engaging in a battle.

There are so many situations that you__and I__have encountered, and are perhaps even now facing, when people have been unkind to us. When they have schemed against us__in business, in families, at work, in the communities we live in__and have gained an upper hand by embracing falsehood and by using dishonest means. We have been devastated by the unfairness of people’s ways. And have become cold, numb and even turned cynical. We have lost trust in all of humanity perhaps too. We are suffering. Each one of us is. At times, it is not just individuals, but Life itself that has been ‘unfair’. A perfect Life has been thrown asunder by a health challenge or a devastating blow has been dealt to you by death snatching away someone that meant everything to you. You have never quite recovered from that tragedy. You are suffering. In either situation, the one caused by people around you, or the one in which Life dealt with you ‘unfairly’, practice magnanimity. Look at the person or situation deeply. Understand why that person is doing what she is doing. The truth is that a mother-in-law who is causing suffering to her daughter-in-law is actually suffering more. Her actions are actually a manifestation of her suffering. A boss who is trampling on his team member’s self-esteem, causing untold misery on the poor professional, is actually suffering more because of his own Life’s experiences. A rapist who outrages the modesty of a young teenager is actually representative of a mind suffering from a huge inferiority complex and craving for attention and love. The one who causes suffering is already suffering. Know that. And understand that if you respond with wanting to retaliate, avenge, fight, with I-will-teach-you-a-lesson attitude, you will only continue this chain of suffering.

Feeling deeply, practicing magnanimity, is what will break this chain. It may seem difficult and impossible. How can I be magnanimous in the face of deceit, dishonesty and a vulgar display of power, you may ask? I am not Gandhi, I am just a human being, you may argue. The truth is Gandhi was also a human being. A mere mortal. So was Jesus. But they did not suffer like you and I do. They ended their suffering by feeling deeply for those who perpetrated inhuman acts against them. When one side stops fighting, the other side HAS TO come on the path of love, awakening and peace. Hate cannot end hate. A fight cannot end a fight. Feeling can, magnanimity can.

The Buddha taught this to his disciple Rahula thus: “There are four great elements__earth, water, fire and air. Learn from them, Rahula. Whether people pour milk or fragrant liquids, deposit flowers or jewels, or pour urine, excrement, and mucus on the earth, the earth receives them without discrimination. Whether people throw into water things that are pure and pleasant or wash in it things of filth and stench, water quietly receives everything, without feelings of pride, attachment, grievance or being humiliated. Fire has the ability to receive and burn all things, including things of filth and stench, without grieving or feeling humiliated. Air has the ability to receive, carry away, and transform all odors, sweet or foul, without pride, attachment, grievance or feeling humiliated. Why? Because the earth, water, fire and air have the capacity to receive, embrace and transform. The earth can receive excrement and urine because it is immense. It transforms them into flowers, grass, and trees. Water has immense embracing capacity, is ever-flowing, and has the ability to receive and transform whatever it takes in. Fire has immense receptivity and the ability to burn and transform whatever people bring to it. Air has immense embracing capacity and the extraordinary faculty of mobility. If you cultivate your heart so that it is open, you can become immense like the earth, water, fire and air, and can embrace anyone or anything without suffering.”

Try responding to a person or situation you are currently grappling with in your Life, with the attitude of the four great elements__earth, water, fire and air. This does not mean that you merely accept, and resign to, a situation that is causing you grief or unhappiness. It means invoking your immense capacity to be magnanimous, to feel deeply, understand and, therefore, transform your current plight into an opportunity for abundant happiness. In fighting, you continue to be unhappy. And suffer. In feeling deeply and embracing with understanding why some people behave the way they do, you become bliss.

Understanding Purpose: an opportunity to create unique value in this ‘readymade’ lifetime

What is the Purpose of Life?

From a strictly biological and scientific point of view, it appears, that all Life exists to simply transfer information (genes) to the next generation. So, rationally speaking, the true Purpose of Life must be to perpetuate itself. As humans, we__you, me__are just a living organism that has a little more awareness than other living organisms. This is where, in my opinion, spirituality meets science.

I choose my words carefully: spirituality, and not religion, meets science. Now, if humans are endowed with a little more awareness, why is that so? Of what use can that awareness be? Truly, the awareness is visible, is evident, in the way the human brain develops and works, and has been evolving through the ages. But the truth also is that apart from transferring this evolutionary genetic code to the next generation, each human does not take away anything while leaving this planet. But delve deeper. Obviously creation has a design, a profound thought, which is why the human race is endowed with a greater awareness than all other Life on the planet. This awareness, when it awakens the human, and flowers within, is called spirituality. It is all about Self-Realization. When you realize your Self, you discover these simple truths: 1.Biologically, we will all grow older and eventually perish__albeit per different expiration dates! 2. Life’s repetitive cycles is just about transferring genes to each successive generation. 3. In the midst of such a pre-programmed Life, there’s still the possibility to individually make a difference. When you know how YOU can make that difference, you will have found your Purpose. When you are doing anything purposeful you will encounter joy, you will ‘feel’ the power of this ‘extra’, ‘higher’ awareness that we as humans possess.

Across the human race, just being kind, loving, compassionate and caring, can and always delivers this joy. So, that can be, and is, a common Purpose to all of us humans. But each of us also derives joy, feels blissful, doing somethings more than others. When we know what it is, which is when our awareness delivers laser-sharp clarity to us, we would have found the Purpose of our creation. This Purpose is beyond wants and desires, beyond wealth and assets, it is about serving, it is about giving up yourself, your profit and prestige, during this lifetime, to meet a higher end that delivers value to the following generations, to make this world a better place to live in, much after you are gone. To Gandhi it was equality and ahimsa, to Mother Teresa it was caring for the uncared, to Prof.Kachru, whose son Aman was ragged and murdered at a med school in Himachal Pradesh (North India), it is to eradicate ragging from the Indian University landscape, to Al Gore, former US Vice President, it is to awaken the world to the perils of global warming and so on.

Each human that pauses to reflect and gets beyond the insecurities and fears of everyday Life, infact anyone who takes a break from earning a living and even momentarily steps out of this rat race, will find Purpose. She or he will find that there is an opportunity to create unique value in this ‘readymade’ lifetime of ours. That’s when we will all know that we are not human beings going through temporary, feel good, spiritual experiences, but we really are spiritual beings going through temporary human experiences. And so, before this human experience ends, we must have touched a soul, provoked thought, inspired action, wiped a tear, loved, led, cared and made a difference.

Being POPO-ed is a dimension of Life that you have to live with

POPO: Pissed On and Passed Over!

This often happens to all of us in Life. And leaves us frustrated, fuming, feeling negative and vengeful. So, when this happens to you, or if it is happening to you just now, take it easy. You are not the only one. We are all POPO-ed__one way or the other. When this happens in a relationship, you feel like a used paper tissue. And the grief of having been taken for a ride, taken for granted, takes a long, long time to heal. At work, it leaves you disenchanted and grumpy. You sulk. You stop putting in your best and reason with yourself asking ‘what’s the use?’

But here’s a different take. When POPO-ed don’t do the normal. Don’t grieve. Don’t sulk. Don’t give up on the individual. Instead keep giving your 100 %. Grieving, sulking, bad-mouthing and cold-shouldering are acts of cowardice. Fight the injustice but with love, with mindfulness, by serving. In fact, whatever happens in Life, happens because it was meant to be so. If someone got promoted, that person perhaps deserved it. But in your eyes, you deserved it more. Instead of saying ‘hey, this is unfair’ respond with ‘how could I have served better so that I could have got it.’ This whole idea of deserving must be preceded by serving. Serve to deserve. And even then if you don’t get what you think was truly yours, live in the acceptance of that verdict. This is what will help you retain your sanity, stay anchored and keep moving on.

When we get caught in the cesspool of negative energy, resentment, anger and vengefulness, we are hurting ourselves. We must be selfish here. If someone pissed on you, trampled on you, let you down, they did it because they wanted to hurt you. And you will be, by being angry with them, by carrying vengeance and hatred in your heart, allowing them to succeed. If someone overlooked you and gave another what must have truly come to you__a job, a raise, a promotion, a gift, a compliment, a reward, whatever__understand that this person may either want to hurt you or must have a different point of view. By burning within, you are helping this person get what she wants. By reacting without understanding her point of view, you are being judgmental. So, the most selfish, the most blissful response to being POPO-ed is to be selfless and give the situation love, all your attention and magnanimity, to keep doing what you would have done if the situation did not exist. This is your way to inner peace.

Now, many times, people tell me, “But I am not Saint or a Mahatma? I am not evolved. I am just human.” Please know that Gandhi was also an unevolved, hurting human and he died only because he was human. To be evolved you don’t need to be a Saint. And being a Saint does not mean you are meek. A Saint, a true Saint, is a warrior of a different kind. Someone who has conquered the demons within. Someone who knows that it is but natural for Life and people to be unfair, that being POPO-ed is but a dimension of Life, a phase that we have to live with. Not with suffering. But with peace.

This doesn’t mean that the peaceful should not fight the injustice. But fight it differently. First don’t hurt. Next, return love for hatred and respect for contempt. Third, if there has truly been a case of injustice, choose a form of protest which rises above the ordinary and refuse to yield to the injustice by giving the situation 100 % of everything. These are not contradictory approaches. They are complementary. When you are peaceful, you will be able to fight meaningfully and successfully. So when POPO-ed, be mindful and loving, don’t be sulking!

To find inner peace, peace is “the” way

Peace arrives when you stop resisting, stop fighting and stop struggling with Life.

Each of us is fighting something or the other. All the time. Someone fights for health. Someone else for wealth. There’s someone fighting for dignity. And someone for identity. Someone out there fights for companionship. Another soldiers on for acceptance. Yet a factor that’s common to all constituencies is that everyone, despite their individual fights, wants peace. You look around. Ask around. And you will find that almost everyone wants just peace. And they will all talk about inner peace __  bliss, joy, plain, good ol’ happiness.

But you can’t pursue peace when you are struggling with Life, fighting its every dimension. You cannot be angry with your situation in Life and expect to find peace in it at the same time. Peace will come, when you suspend all hostility in your mind, and through that act, make your immediate circle of influence peaceful. Peace has a price to be paid for, and that is to be accepting of a situation or a person or an outcome. Many people wonder what is the way to peace. And the simplest answer to their query is what Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh champions: “Peace is the way!”

But by ceasing to fight, are you embracing inaction? And isn’t inaction equal to committing hara-kiri? Let me clarify: ceasing to fight is not inaction. It means acceptance. You can be accepting of a situation, be peaceful, and yet work towards changing it. They are not mutually exclusive. On the other hand, they are complementary. The other day, at a coffee shop, I noticed a young couple argue with each other at another table. The lady was agitated. Often gesticulating wildly, raising her voice just so much that others around could hear and perceive that she was upset with the gentleman. The man, on the other hand, was stoic. He was calm and in control of himself, even if he was not in control of the situation. At the end of their discussions and arguments, I felt nothing had been resolved. Things were where they were when they came in. But the lady stomped out in a huff, and I believe she must have been continuing to fight the situation, or the man, in her mind. The man was calm, perhaps not happy either with the way the meeting ended, and made a slow, peaceful exit. He may also have felt that things could have been better, but for sure, he wasn’t feeling worse. He was peaceful. He wasn’t fighting. Yet he was not abstaining from action. Coming to the meeting, making an attempt, while staying calm, was indeed action.

We too can embrace this way of living. Simply, don’t start with asking ‘WHY?’ of Life at each of its twists and turns. Exclaim instead, ‘Interesting, so, we have a situation…!’, and mobilize your action to resolving it. Even a fight for a nation’s independence can be a peaceful__and successful__one. Gandhi proved it and so did 300 million of his followers, fellow Indians, back then. The same principle applies here. End all violent thinking __ about anyone or anything __ and approach each problem or situation with complete focus and total equanimity. Remember: to find peace, inner peace, peace is the way! 

Romance Life to see how loving you really are!

Just as you can learn swimming, cycling, writing, you can learn loving too.

Overcoming small irritations and injustices by giving the situation and the perpetrator love, instead of anger, is how you practice loving. A motorist tries to cut past you and creates a small traffic jam but ends up blaming you. Don't respond with a how-dare-you look. Smile and say it was just an 'oops!' situation. At a busy check-out line at a store, someone edges past you and the cashier does not insist that you must be allowed to bill first. Don't agitate. Smile and say these things happen! Your boss holds you singularly responsible for the team's poor show though you have put in several extra miles. Don't grieve. Pray for your team and your boss.

Our daily Life is peppered with several hundreds of opportunities__or call them nanosecond tests__to practice loving. In that nanosecond you have to make a choice. Do you want to respond with anger or practice loving instead? When you practice loving, you learn forgiving__or, as Richard Carlson would say, you learn how not to sweat the small stuff. How you deal with the small things in Life is what determines how you deal with the big things. The interesting aspect of practicing loving is you don't have to become loving. You are love and you are capable of loving. The only thing that comes with practice is that you become more aware of this capability.

Just like Mother Teresa and Gandhi and now, Narayanan Krishnan, personify love, so can you. Because you are that already. Just that you don't know it. The love in you doesn't just need some lemon and honey, it needs practicing. Romance the travails of everyday Life, and see how loving you really are!

Employ ‘ahimsa’ for your inner peace

Learn to deal with your detractors with love and forgiveness. See how this approach helps you remain peaceful.

Ever so often we encounter detractors. Neighbors, colleagues, bosses, family, kids__everyone, at some time or the other, tries to throw a spanner in the works. Wantonly, inadvertently or even deliberately. And we immediately snap into the 'How Dare You?' mode. Our minds instantaneously start spewing negative thoughts, abuses (we may not always physically express them, but the mind goes on jabber-jabber) and we become, well, terrorists – albeit of a different kind. We start shooting off our mouths indiscriminately__at all and sundry__because one person has upset us. The issue__the reason why we are upset__is no longer important as the person that caused the upset becomes our enemy number one.

Gandhi championed and practised a process called 'ahimsa' to deal with such situations. Popularly misunderstood as his theory of non-violence, 'ahimsa' is today dealt with as a sexy ideal – something that you want to flaunt but don’t know how to practice. Many even believe 'ahimsa' is impractical. Actually, 'ahimsa' must be understood first for it to be practised right. What I have learnt from the thinker-guru, the late Eknath Eswaran (1910~1999), is that 'ahimsa' actually means the absence of violence. Which is, the state when even violent thought is absent and true love, our native state, prevails.

I have known from experience that it is possible to practice 'ahimsa' in the world and times we live in. When someone tries to derail your plans or attacks you, wantonly, inadvertently or deliberately, don't enjoin in the strife. The best way to win any battle is not to fight at all. Instead, remain silent. And wish, deeply from within, that person all luck. Wish that their deepest desire gets fulfilled. If you wish so, genuinely, any opposition/opponent will melt away! I have been practising this for several years now. And with each opportunity, my ability to harvest inner peace only gets better. I have come away unscathed from physically (when there has been a possibility of assault) challenging situations and emotionally excruciating circumstances by employing this method. I must confess that there are times when I have wanted to retaliate, but my awareness – honed by my daily practice of mouna (silence periods) – has always helped me.

To me, ‘ahimsa’ is a method. It is a process. It is a philosophy. It can be your way of Life too. Try it. It works! Happy experimenting!

Let your Life be your message

Set an example. Let your Life be your message.

To grow old, biologically, is no big deal. All of us will age with time. We have to make no effort. But to grow wiser, mature, and to apply our native intelligence, is both a big opportunity and a bigger responsibility.

Recently, I was out with a friend who lit up a cigarette and chucked the empty cigarette pack on the street. While I chided him for his mindless action, I also picked up the trash and reached it to a trashcan at a coffee place we went to later. Another friend drove around town without wearing his seat belt, with me beside him in the front of his car fully strapped. We drove short distances together but I prefer being strapped. It is not about being subservient to law in either instance, but to be personally responsible__and accountable__for our actions. This perspective is so relevant in India at the moment because of the Swach Bharat Campaign that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is leading and because of the new traffic laws being rolled out. One of the reasons why people don’t believe either of these much-needed initiatives will do well, or even survive, is because many expect public participation and ownership to be completely lacking. Without people changing themselves, we can hardly expect any change in our society.

Society is a reflection, a true one, of who we are. And the way we behave. So, in India, if we find our streets dirty, messy, and stinking with garbage mounds at each intersection, it is because we are an irresponsible population. If the cases of drunken driving, often leading to fatal accidents, is mounting among the younger (20 somethings) generation, it is because we parents are setting a poor example by way of our irreverent road sense. We may not always drink and drive, but we hesitate or don’t care enough to stop people__even in our immediate circle of influence__from driving without seatbelts or when they have imbibed a drink or two.

Gandhi said, with absolute simplicity, “Be the change that you want to see in the world”. He also said, “My Life is my message.” These need not be viewed as sentiments expressed by a man whose ideas were only relevant in a different era, in a century gone by. These are also not ideals that are hard to emulate. They remain as relevant as they once were and are an opportunity, in fact, a clarion call, for personal transformation. We don’t have to be leaders to set an example. We don’t have to be visionaries to have a message. We must lead though, our lives, with maturity and with a complete sense of responsibility__cognizant always of the kind of example we are setting to the generation that is following us and of the message it is reading of our Life!

Don’t Know? Then please don’t judge!

When you stop judging people and accept them for who they are – you will not only be peaceful, you will learn from them!

Kejriwal with Lali
Picture Source: Internet

Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal was slapped two days ago by an autorickshaw driver named Lali in New Delhi. This was the second attack on him in four days and the third in under a fortnight. Kejriwal was left with a swollen left eye after Lali slapped him. Yesterday, Kejriwal visited Lali and sought to understand why he was attacked. He said later that he had forgiven Lali for what he did. This action of Kejriwal’s is being viewed by many as a publicity stunt. Some call it a great “photo-grabop” – which is, insinuating that Kejriwal grabbed the opportunity to get free, positive mileage from the attack. I am not a supporter of Kejriwal. So, I don’t write this to say he’s right in what he did or that he’s truly Gandhian in his outlook. I am, however, keen to understand how do we, the #hashtag opinion-makers, know he’s not truly Gandhian? How do we know, merely by watching TV, following social media updates and reading political commentaries, that Kejriwal really did not forgive Lali?

As much as there’s muck around us, there’s muck in our minds too. We often rush to judge people that we hardly know anything about. Why do we see every politician as someone who’s wily, self-obsessed and corrupt? If someone does any good to anyone, why must he or she be having a hidden agenda? If someone does not bereave someone’s death by beating her chest, why must she be “cold-blooded”? If two people are very close friends, why must they be having an affair? We go on and on pronouncing judgment on everyone around us. And we do this without even seeking to know, let alone understand, the facts of any matter or the truth. Now, curiously, those who judge others are the ones who miss the opportunity to see the beauty in humanity around them or learn from fellow human beings.

Rushing to judge people is a disease that makes you look at everyone around you with suspicion. Your entire system is consumed by the negative energy and doubt and suspicion generate. With so much negativity in you, where’s the opportunity for you to feel love and compassion? When you are filled with negativity, you are hurting yourself in more ways than you can even imagine. And definitely you are not learning from the people you judge. Kejriwal, for instance, sat for an hour at Raj Ghat after the attack. He then went and met Lali – and forgave him. What I learnt from Kejriwal is what I know about the power of meditation – it helps you overcome anger, insult and hurt. I also learnt, in a very reinforcing way, the value of forgiveness. Forgiving someone, especially a detractor, sets you free. Otherwise the hurt can keep simmering and continue to breed more negativity in you. But if we just want to brand Kejriwal as a politician and judge him as someone who is a master at drawing political mileage from every situation, we will miss the spiritual lessons his episode has to offer.

The simple rule of thumb to practise is – if you don’t know something about someone, or don’t know that someone well enough, hold your opinions, views and judgment about that someone. Avoid getting carried away by popular sentiment. Because while the sentiment may be popular, there’s no guarantee that it reflects the truth. When you don’t rush to judge someone, chances are you will see the goodness in them and perhaps learn from them too!

Make peace with an incomplete Life

No matter how hard you try, some part of your Life will remain unfulfilled, incomplete, sometimes, even irreparable….

This is true for each of us, for every Life.

Pandit Bhimsen Joshi: Worshipped by legions of fans
Picture: Raghu Rai Source: Internet

The latest issue of Open magazine has a poignant story of Raghavendra Bhimsen Joshi, 69, eldest son of Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, the late singer-genius. Raghavendra was born through Joshi’s first wife, Sunanda. Lhendup Bhutia, who wrote the Open piece, talks to Raghavendra about the latter’s just-released Marathi book (also translated in Kannada) titled Ganaaryache Por (Singer’s Son). In the book, and in the interview with Bhutia, Raghavendra tells, with both reverence to his father and with total honesty, the tale of how his mother, he and his siblings had to face neglect and abandonment after his father married a second time, a woman named Vatsala, and eloped with her. “When people wrote articles or books on my father and his personal Life, we would never be mentioned…It was extremely hurtful. Here was this star, a public figure growing in stature, and here we were, neglected and alone,” Raghavendra told Bhutia. Raghavendra believes that as the years went by and as the guilt of neglecting his first wife and children grew, Joshi, who already loved his drink, took to the bottle more. Raghavendra confesses that he never really mustered the courage to either ask his famous father why Sunanda and her children were neglected. And although Raghavendra wanted to be a singer himself, he could never bring himself up to ask his accomplished father to train him. Then, a few years before Bhimsen Joshi’s death, as Joshi lay in bed with a fractured leg, Raghavendra asked him: “You could so effortlessly move people to tears with your voice, how could you be so cruel to your own family?” Joshi did not reply but, recalls Raghavendra, instead cried. Even as Joshi cried some more, Raghavendra took his permission and sang him a song. Again Joshi said nothing. Raghavendra sang for Joshi, one more time, a few years later, as Joshi lay on his deathbed. At the end of the song, Joshi, too weak to speak, gestured to the lone nurse in attendance in the room, with his eyes, what a fine Raghavendra was!

Such a great singer. Someone that legions of fans adored and worshipped. A Bharat Ratna. Yet Joshi died unable to express his love and admiration, per Raghavendra’s version, for his eldest son and without being able to ever acknowledge his first wife and her children in public.

This is Bhimsen Joshi’s story. Gandhi too, per his oldest  Hariram’s point of view, failed miserably as a father – although he is revered and remembered as the Father of the Nation! But none of us is any different. Each of us do have some part of our Life remaining unfulfilled or incomplete. With someone it could be a relationship with a spouse, with someone else it could be with a child. Someone could have a huge health challenge or the loss of particular physical faculty. Another could never perhaps get his career in order. Or someone will have either no parent to look up to or may not have one that understands.

Life deals with each of us differently. Even so, a spot of sunshine is surely ordained in everyone’s lifetime. Just as a patch of pain is. Sometimes, the factor causing pain may end up being a permanent aspect of your Life! When you realize that you can’t do anything to remove that factor which is causing you pain, learn to either accept it or ignore it. Accepting or ignoring the pain will not make the pain go away. But it will surely help you deal with it better. And it may well help you not to suffer.

But the choice to accept or ignore, whatever’s causing you pain, can be made only when you understand that there are some aspects of your Life which will be unfixable. Acceptance is easier in a physical context. For instance, if you lose a limb in an accident, it is easier for you to accept this reality and not grieve over it or suffer. But if you lose a parent’s trust or understanding or don’t get her affection, you will struggle with both accepting or ignoring it.

Intelligent living, however, means to be able to see a pattern to your Life – with regard to your relationships or with regard to those aspects that don’t seem to have ever worked and to simply move on. That’s when you will be in complete peace even with an incomplete Life!

You will never awaken unless you are felled by hubris

Beware, as you ascend in Life, in career, in society, in name and fame, of the Master Feller – Hubris!

Tarun Tejpal

Much is being written and told of former Tehelka Editor-in-Chief, Tarun Tejpal’s rise and fall this past week. Almost everyone who knows him is sure that he was struck by hubris – excessive pride and a presumption that one is infallible! Because nothing else can explain why Tejpal, now 50, and one of India’s finest thinkers, editors and writers, would want to allegedly sexually outrage his much junior colleague, who not only is his daughter’s age, but is also her best friend? As one commentator, Vijay Simha, wrote yesterday: “His argument that it was a fleeting consensual encounter suggests that he may be in a state of denial. He may be having difficulty processing the consequences of his actions. Friendly or hostile is not the point. Tejpal simply shouldn’t have been there. A legal victory, which he seems to think he will have, is a mere footnote. The only real authority a human being has is moral. All other forms of authority are fugacious. Tejpal has ceded moral authority.”

Tejpal was once my senior colleague. Indeed I am saddened by what has happened. But I am not here to preach morality in Life. I may hardly qualify to be able to do that. But let me warn you about hubris. Because I too have been felled by hubris.

There was a time when everything about my Life was just the way I had wanted it to be. I come for a middle-class background. So, as I grew up, for various reasons, I developed this urge to want to succeed beyond even the wildest imaginations of my family. I wanted name, fame and money. To be sure, I got all of that. By the time I was 35, I had it all. I had built a very successful consulting Firm, I lived in a premium neighborhood, I was famous in the industry we worked in and I had money. Then I made mistakes with the way we chose to grow our business. I was warned that this was not the way to go about growth – by my soulmate and partner, my wife. I was warned by senior advisors who we had on our Firm’s management council. I was warned by my colleagues. But hubris always strikes stealthily. You will never know that you are thinking of yourself as infallible. On the contrary, hubris will wear the mask of humility and complete down-to-earthiness. It will make you believe that you can conquer the world. It will make you think that all those who are offering you sane counsel are wimps. And just when you believe that nothing ever can go wrong with your Life, everything really will! My decisions blew up on my face. My Firm’s fortunes came crashing. And in no time we were bankrupt! All that I had painstakingly built up - from my career to my Firm to my finances – went up in smoke. Everything that I was attached to was taken away from me.

It was very, very, very difficult to accept whatever was happening to me. I resisted. I fought. I cried. I sulked. But Life only got more difficult to face. It hurt me so much that I had failed and fallen. I desperately wanted to let go of the past and I wanted to know how I could be peaceful, happy and content.

That’s when, by sheer accident, actually cosmic design, I stumbled upon my Guru, Eknath Easwaran’s (1910~1999) book Gandhi The Man. Easwaran talks about the evolution of spirituality in the ordinary mortal – who was pretty much like you and me – M.K.Gandhi, eventually making him a Mahatma. Easwaran shares a verse, and I reproduce a relevant part of it below,  from the second chapter of the Bhagavad Gita that Gandhi meditated on each morning for over 50 years of his Life.

Arjuna asks Krishna: “What are the marks of the man who lives in wisdom, completely established in himself?” (Himself here means ‘his true, real, Self’). Krishna replies:

“….He lives in wisdom

Who sees himself in all and all in him,

Whose love for the Lord of Love has consumed

Every selfish desire and sense-craving

Tormenting the heart. Not agitated

By grief, nor hankering after pleasure,

He lives free from lust and fear and anger.

Fettered no more by selfish attachments,

He is not elated by good fortune

Nor depressed by bad. Such is the seer…”

I too have found great value in meditating on this verse. As I struggled to get over my fall, and my losses, Easwaran’s commentary on learnings from Gandhi’s Life and this verse helped me immensely. I soon discovered that what’s more valuable and enduring in Life are not what we acquire for ourselves in our lifetime but what we will leave behind – by way of a message, by way of creating something that will continue to be useful for generations to come, by way of leaving the world better than we found it!

To be wise, to live intelligently, is not difficult. It is a choice. All of us – you, me, everyone – will be struck by hubris at some time or the other, in our own unique ways. When you understand that Life is far more meaningful than satisfying your sensory pleasures and amassing wealth or seeking fame, you will have built the best armor around you to protect yourself from that wily predator – hubris. But the interesting irony about Life is that – in big or small measure – unless you are felled by hubris, you will never awaken!

Weed out expectations to free yourself from anger

You have a right to be angry with people, circumstances and Life itself! But don’t let your anger consume you. For, as the Buddha has said, “You will not be punished for your anger. You will be punished by it!”

How many of us enjoy being angry? No one, in fact, does. Anger is one of the most wasteful emotions. It makes you lose your equilibrium and leaves you hurt, bruised, injured and grumpy. Yet we all succumb to anger almost all the time. Clearly, anger is our quickest, easiest reaction to an expectation not being fulfilled.

To deal with anger, understand its anatomy carefully. Go to its root. If you work on the periphery, at the symptoms, you will not be able to get over anger. By getting angry with someone or something, you are only transferring the energy released by your anger to someone else. Then that someone releases it on someone else. And so the ruinous chain continues. So, go beyond the periphery if you want to halt this chain reaction. You have to go to the cause of what’s making you angry with people and situations. When you go down to the cause, you will find that despite the contexts being different, all causes boil down to being the same __ you got angry with someone or something because what you expected was not done, delivered or did not happen. So, whether it was coffee being served cold at a restaurant or the long queues at security at the airport or a distasteful meeting at work or a showdown with your companion at home, at the bottom of all of these is the common thread of your expectations remaining unfulfilled. And this cause is what makes you angry in a myriad situations.

So learn get to the cause, the bottom, of your anger. Expunge all expectations from your Life. Understand this well. Wishing is not wrong. But the expectation that your wish will be fulfilled, simply because you wished it, is what is ruinous. Some of our wishes in Life will still remain unfulfilled when we die. Accept this reality. Then when the coffee arrives cold, your mind does not rush to think of a conspiracy by the restaurant. Or being in a long queue becomes an opportunity to drop anchor and meditate than to crib and lament. A distasteful meeting then becomes an opportunity to decide not to attend such timewasters in the future. And the showdown at home will never be because you will be more compassionate than complicated!

Don’t try to avoid anger though. That will be equally disastrous. Because anger is, interestingly, a natural response to and in Life. It is also an incredible amount of energy released and available for productive use. Avoiding it therefore will not help. Channelizing it well will instead result in bringing out lasting changes that make the world a better place__that’s what Gandhi did with his anger at being thrown out of that first class compartment in Pietermaritzburg in South Africa in June, 1893. At a deeply personal and everyday level, getting to anger’s root though, and weeding out the expectations that cause anger, is what will help us live more peacefully despite the people and circumstances in our lives. If we can use some of that energy available to make this world a better place, great. But even if we manage to make ourselves better, a wee bit, every single day, won’t the world already be a lot better than it is?