Sometimes, you can’t unentangle a web unless the master-weaver awakens!

If things don’t work out the way as they should, it is perhaps best to let go and let everything – and everyone – just be!!

Angel Glady and Sunil Menon in conversation with Vaani and AVIS

This weekend has been more than interesting. Vaani and I have led a public conversation with people who have a special orientation. This is part of a non-commercial, by-invitation-only Event Series called ‘Heart of Matter – Happiness Conversations’ that we host quarterly in partnership with InKo Centre. Last evening, we had renowned fashion designer Sunil Menon and theatre artist Angel Glady as our guests – it was a conversation that was intimate, intense, thought-provoking and awakening. It helped people in the audience reflect on their idea of happiness and invited them to turn unequivocally inclusive. Elsewhere in the city, my brother, a well-known theatre director and entertainment industry coach, staged a production that had actors with special abilities perform in it. His production, I am told, championed inclusiveness too and was highly, critically, acclaimed. Isn’t it beautiful that both brothers, supported by their spouses, are doing work that’s meaningful, in the same city, on the same weekend? Yet, what makes this rare coincidence ironical too is that we brothers don’t speak to each other!!! We haven’t connected in several years now. We remain strung, clinging on to our own positions, in a web of deceit, manipulation and self-obsession that has been cast by someone else. A third sibling, our sister, is strung from somewhere on the web too. We all live in the same city and yet we can never quite figure out a way out of this web. I have made attempts in the past, to unentangle this mess, but I have found myself getting stung, not just strung, every single time. So, I have let it all go. Concluding that perhaps the best thing to happen for all of us is for us to be where we are, the way we are; but being happy, at peace with ourselves, in spite of ourselves and each other!

Sometimes your Life’s design is so intricately constructed by a web of actions that someone has woven that you end up just being a helpless victim! But you have a choice to not feel like a victim – just let go and let everything – and everyone – just be! And sometimes this is the way Life has to be lived. There are no hard and fast rules in Life. There is no guarantee that all homes and families will be the same. We all have to do what we have to do. If in some cases, like in mine, things don’t work out the way they should, it is best to just be. For, if you are not weaving the web, how can you ever hope to unentangle it unless the master-weaver awakens? 

You suffer only when you partner with your grief

How can anyone forgive when in grief and when still mourning the betrayal?

It is possibly true for all of us that we have all been, at some time or the other, let down by people whom we trusted and loved deeply. It is always numbing to discover such a let-down. You will feel beaten and betrayed. The after-taste of the episode will continue to haunt you for a long, long time. At all such times, remember this: People do what they do because they think they are right in doing it that way. So, there’s no point in either talking sense to them in such a time that they are gripped by their own stupor or in grieving over their behavior. The best approach is to take the one that Jesus took on the Cross – “Forgive them O! Lord, because they know not, what they do!”

You will perhaps argue that this is easier said than done. How can anyone move on when the heart aches, when the mind is lamenting why such a thing has happened in the first place?

I have learned that it is fine to be a fool sometimes in Life. A fool is one who doesn’t know anything. He or she is not worldy-wise. So, he or she, will continue to trust despite the evidence pointing to the contrary. The fact that you stand betrayed points to your having been a fool. So, simple. Continue being a fool. If you find forgiveness difficult, just continue being trusting or being vulnerable. A few more times people will continue to hurt you. But they will soon give up when they realize that you are refusing to get hurt. People love, in a sadistic sense, to see that their actions, in this case negatively, impact their target audience. When you subtly, through your, even if feigned, foolishness, deny them that pleasure, they will cease to persist with their designs.

The other case for ‘moving on’ and not ‘retaliating’ is that the world is already divided. By several zillion factors. If it is a close friend or relation, perhaps from the family, that has let you down, your sulking or wanting to avenge, is only going to divide your already fractured world further. It is only going to make the distances between you both grown wider, and often, render them unbridgeable. It takes two hands to clap. Suppose you don’t offer yours, there will be no thunder. And hence no issue. Or at least a complicated situation will not get further confounded with your participation.

Here’s an interesting story that came my way.

"In the forest there is a banana plant with its smooth wide leaves next to the thorny berry tree. The wind causes both to dance and to sway. The thorns of the berry tree rip the leaves of the banana plant. 

Who is to be blamed? The wind for causing them to sway?

Or the banana for growing close to the berry tree?

Or the berry tree for having thorns? 

The sage wonders, and realizes that if he did not exist, these notions of who to blame would not exist. Only humans blame and begrudge and resent, because we can imagine an alternate reality. 

The rest of Nature go about their own business."

So, let go. Go about your own business as if nothing’s happened. In a betrayal, as in any other situation involving pain, you suffer only because you choose to partner with your grief. Choose instead to be a fool and go on trusting or choose to believe as if you do not exist. Know that there is no alternate reality. It is what it is. This the only way you can be happy, and untouched, in the wake of the pain that follows let-downs!

Life has to be faced, not feared

Your fearing something is not going to take that something away.

There are times in Life when nothing will go your way. There will be so much unsaid, so much unresolved. And it may just seem like everything is wrong about your Life. Every effort you make, each step you take, you will be stonewalled, tripped or pushed to a corner. The mind will invite you to despair. Decline that invitation artfully and let Life lead you.

Relax. Get yourself a cup of tea or grab a drink if you can. The mind is like a tennis-ball practice machine. It keeps spewing out worries and fears endlessly. These debilitating thoughts will tell you that you can and must solve the problems that face you just now. But what if you have already tried all that you can think up of. And failed. And the problems persist. The very thought that there’s no way forward may force you to allow your fears to take hold of you. Please don’t let them. Your fearing something is not going to take that something away. Life has to be faced, not feared.

The truth is that Life has always been flowing on its own. You and I have done precious little to make our lives happen. So, let Life happen as it has been happening and as it is happening. When things don’t go your way and when you don’t know what to do, accepting that there’s no choice than to wait and watch is an intelligent choice in itself.  Exercise it.

Let go and let Life take over!

Please Note: This Blog will continue to feature my daily blogposts. In addition, on Sundays, public holidays and long weekends, I will feature The Happiness Road Series and my #HelpYourselfToHappiness Vlog Series!

Here's today's blogpost - not posting a Vlog today, though it is a Sunday!!

Life never lets you down. You always get what you need.

A major part of today was spent in clearing papers and documents that had got accumulated over the last 7~8 years – this is the time that we have been going through a bankruptcy, acute pennilessness at most times. Some of this documentation had to do with our medical records as a family. A substantial chunk also dealt with the under-grad education of our two children Aashirwad and Aanchal. Aash graduated with an Economics degree from the University of Chicago in 2012. And Aanch graduated last year from the University of Madras with a degree in Psychology – today, in fact, was her graduation day ceremony! As Vaani and I worked on the papers, separating them chronologically and subject-wise, we saw a beautiful pattern emerge. We realized that everything that we needed has always come to – perhaps not in the form we were expecting it to come, but it always came, often in the nick of time!

As we organized the papers, we revisited some of the most painful and stressful times we had gone through as a family. The fortnight prior to Aash’s graduation – I have elaborated this story in my Book “Fall Like A Rose Petal” (Westland, 2014); the week of Aanch’s admission to her under-grad program; the repeated times we had defaulted on fee payments; and the number of times our children have come close to being placed under suspension because of their tuition fee accounts being overdue….these scenarios played out vividly in front of our eyes. The replay left us humbled and overwhelmed. We realized that our children have made it through college – not because of us, but despite our grave financial circumstances; because Life willed it so, because of the kindness that people around us have showered on us as a family.

When Vaani and I came together in 1987 – we married in 1989 – we shared a common vision for our family. It was a beautiful dream, that brought alive in our minds the spirit of this song from Tapasya (1976, Anil Ganguly, Parikshit Sahni, Raakhee, Kishore Kumar, Aarti Mukherjee, Ravindra Jain, M.G.Hashmat). 

But when the bankruptcy arrived in December 2007, our dream lay shattered in smithereens. Aash had just then secured admission to the prestigious University of Chicago. Aanch was getting into High School. How would we put them through college? How would we fulfil their aspirations? Where will the money for their fees come from? These and more nerve-wracking questions would consume me and Vaani on a daily basis. To be sure, we came up with no answers. But each question placed us on the horns of a painful dilemma every single time. Should we go the way Life is taking us – in the direction of letting go, and letting Life take over – or should we go our way, humanly trying to solve and control an unsolvable, uncontrollable, money problem? I have no logical, rational explanations to offer why we chose the way we went. But we certainly felt flowing with Life more meaningful. So, we let go, and went with where Life took us. At our dining table this morning, as we sorted those papers, we discovered how compassionately, how beautifully, Life had arranged for the education and graduation of our children. Each time, when we came to the edge of a precipice, with regard to their college dues, a messiah arrived in our Life, a helping hand showed up and we were hoisted up – and Aash and Aanch made it to their next academic terms.

Japanese writer Haruki Murakami has said: “Whatever it is you are seeking won’t come in the form you are expecting.” I totally agree with him. But there’s something I would like to add, from our experience, to this perspective. Which is, Life may often never give you what you want. Yet it gives you what you need, not the way you think you need it, but the way Life thinks you need it. So, while all our human plans, projections and methods to somehow get Aash and Aanch to graduate existed in theory, on paper, and in our fervent prayer to Life, the way they have got past their individual under-grad programs is purely the way Life has willed it.

Vaani and I believe the best way to live is to live in a let go! Make your plans, put in your efforts. But let go of expectations, let go of wants, and let the magic of Life happen. When you do this, and let Life take over, you too will discover that Life’s indeed compassionate – you always get what you need! 

Zen and the Art of Fearlessness

To be fearless, just ask yourself ‘what is it that you are afraid of losing’?

At a Talk that I delivered recently, a young lady asked me how to deal with insecurity and fear. She said she often spent long spells of time imagining stuff that could possibly happen to her – a pink slip, a health setback, a relationship problem, her son failing in school and such.

“I know it is stupid to be this way. But how does one get rid of ‘worst-case scenarios’ from your head,” she asked.

I, in turn, asked her: “What is the worst that can happen to you?”

She thought for a moment and replied: “Two things – either my son can die or I can die. Yes, these are my worst-case scenarios.”

My next question to her was this: “Is there anything that you can do to prevent these scenarios from ever happening in your Life?”

Again she thought about it deeply and exclaimed: “No. Seriously, noooooooooooo!”

I asked her: “So why worry and fear about something that you can’t prevent?”

And that is really how you get rid of worst-case scenarios in your head. To be sure, the human mind can beat any Bollywood screenwriter in terms of conjuring up unheard of, unfathomable, often fantasy-based scenarios. Some of them will necessarily torment you with worry, anxiety, insecurity and fear. There is a pretty simple way to deal with these debilitating emotions.

In every situation that makes me fearful, I ask myself what is the worst that can happen. And I tell my mind that I am ready and willing for that eventuality. For instance, in a matter relating to a police complaint filed against me, by my creditor, it had become evident that if the court disallowed my bail application, I would be arrested and remanded in custody. I asked my lawyer if there was a way out. He said that there was none since I did not have money to furnish a personal surety (a financial bond). This situation was unfolding in another city. Honestly, I was feeling very restless and fearful. So, I took a deep breath and called up Vaani. I briefed her of the logical, practical reality we were faced with. And then I told her, “Listen, I will stay strong where I am and wherever I have to go. You stay strong too. A way will be born soon.” Just that acceptance of whatever our reality was at that moment – that I will be arrested, so be it! – changed the way I felt. I became fearless. In another situation, when I was diagnosed with a possible life-threatening health condition, I considered the worst that could happen to me if we didn’t find the money to get a surgery done. I would die, I reckoned. The whole scenario of my impending death unfolded in my mind’s eye and I actually started smiling. Of course, all of us will die, I remember thinking. “And this was perhaps my time to die,” I had concluded. That thought actually made me feel lighter – and totally fearless. From then on, whenever I am faced with any no-go situation – and I have to deal with several of them each week – I remind myself that “I was once even prepared to die”. Whenever I do this, my fear always slinks away.

An additional perspective: to me faith is not about deifying an idol or a place of worship. I implicitly trust the Higher Energy – some call this divinity – that shapes our ends and guides our lives. I know that I will – my family included – be provided for, taken care of and given whatever we need. To me my faith in myself, in Vaani, in this Higher Energy is the light that shows the way whenever the road ahead is dark and fearful. And I know, just as you do, that while light can drive away darkness, darkness can never drive away light! So, when there is faith, how can there ever be fear? 

Let your loss go and embrace your new reality

When you dwell too much on a loss, you suffer. Period.

Earlier this week, someone we know shared his story of loss during the Chennai floods with us. His car was drowned in the deluge and Ford has quoted Rs.2.62 Lakh for fixing it. His insurance claim will cover about 50 % of the cost, the balance however has to be paid by him. “Initially, I could not even reconcile to the fact that my car was sunk. I wept. I felt miserable for a few days. When I got the quote from Ford, I was shattered. Then I just shrugged it all away saying, ‘If the car has to be fixed, it has to be fixed.’ I felt better. When I looked beyond my loss, when I looked around me, I saw so many people whose livelihoods had been wiped out in those seven hours. I felt my loss was still manageable. I have accepted my loss for what it is. I don’t suffer on this count anymore,” he said to me over a cup of tea.

He’s a young man. This was his first car. His sentiments are perfectly understandable. I really admire his ability to have sorted out his perspectives over his loss within himself.

To be sure, that is the only way. You have to go through the phases of grief, grief-induced-suffering, grudging acceptance, acceptance and moving on over every loss. You suffer only when you refuse to accept a situation for what it is. The more you cling on to your grief, the more you will resist what has happened and what is happening to you. Grief, interestingly, is very comforting. It’s strangely a warm feeling to be wallowing in self-pity. People will come to you, hold your hand, support you, dote over you and perhaps even pamper you when you are in grief. But how long can people be with you? They have their lives to deal with. At some point, people will peel away. But because you have become used to your grief, you continue to be in that grief-zone – so you will go on suffering.

Suffering makes Life very difficult. Suffering is what you invite into your Life by refusing to accept the Life that you have been given. Your personal choices cause all your suffering. But like my young friend, if you can look up from your loss, you will realize the futility of clinging on to your grief. That’s when you will accept your new reality. The moment you accept a situation – any situation – you will stop suffering!

It is as simple as that.

Just as death is inevitable, so is loss. Whenever you are faced with a material loss or emotional loss (a break-up, poor chemistry with someone), you must reason that everything is impermanent. Including your own Life. Consider this: A car that’s lost can be replaced with a new one! But a moment lost – grieving and suffering – will never come back. Already, your Life is shorter by the time you have taken to read this post. So, stop your suffering! Let your loss go! Embrace your new reality for this is the only one you have right now!

Are you “sad sad” or are you “happy sad”?

When you feel sad, celebrate your sadness. When you feel happy, celebrate your happiness. This is Zen!

Picture Courtesy: Internet

In R.Balki’s extra-sweet ‘Cheeni Kum’ (2007), the little girl Sexy (Swini Khara) asks Amitabh Bachchan, when he comes back disturbed and confused from work, if he is “sad, sad” or “happy sad”? Although it seems like an innocuous, well-written, line for the movie, understanding and answering the question can simplify Life phenomenally!

Are you “sad sad” or are you “happy sad”?

Nobody wants to be sad. Yet sadness is unavoidable. It is a natural human state, an emotion, that you will feel when you don’t like what is happening to you or when what you don’t like happens to you. Life is not in your control. So there will be times when you will feel sad. When you feel that way, hold that feeling close to you. Examine it. Dissect it – Who or what is causing your sadness? Is there anything you can do about it? If you can, fine, go ahead, do it. If you can’t, ask yourself, is there a point in continuing to feel sad? The moment you come to this level of clarity over whatever’s making you sad and what you can do about it, your sadness will disappear. This is what celebrating your sadness really means – when you are willing to accept it for what it is and move on!

Celebrating happiness is easy. We all know how to do it. We share. We beam. We spread cheer and goodwill. Sometimes, we party. Interestingly, the same approach will work for sadness as well. Surely, a party to share your sadness will work as well as a party to share your joy! We don’t know it works because we have not tried it. Why? Because society has conditioned us to restrict celebrations to happiness and has associated sadness with a state of mourning. Osho, the Master, has a beautiful perspective to offer here: “Celebration is unconditional; I celebrate Life. It brings unhappiness – good, I celebrate it. It brings happiness – good, I celebrate it. Celebration is my attitude, unconditional to what Life brings.”

Life’s really about experiencing what comes your way. And over this you – and I – have no control. The real question is, how do you want to live your Life? Do you want to live it lamenting that nothing’s in your control? Or do you want to celebrate the fact that because you are not in control, because you don’t have to control, you are free?

I choose to celebrate this freedom every day. I ask myself when I am confronted with a situation, and an emotion connected with that situation: Is there anything I can do about this? If I can, I go do whatever I can to fix the situation. If I can’t, I let it – the way I feel about the situation – go. And I remind myself, in either context, not to sweat over the situation or the emotion it brings along with it – and, instead I smile! This is my learning from Life: celebrate it for what it is, the way it is, as it comes! So, no “sad sad” for me anymore, just “happy sad”!

Living with and loving what is, is happiness

Don’t try to control your Life. You can’t. Instead, simply go with the flow!

Someone we know is going through a tough phase in Life. None of what he’s doing or is trying to do is yielding him the results that he is looking for. In fact, for most part, his efforts are not fetching him any results. He’s trying harder each day, fighting frustration and depression, but he’s just not getting what he wants. He asked me what he should be doing.

I said: “Simply, go with the flow!”

But what do you do when you don’t like the direction of the flow? The truth is, you don’t have a choice. Well, when you are unable to proceed in the direction you want to move in, you can either resist Life and suffer. Or you can simply accept – and want – what you get. Wanting what you get is the key to happiness. Truly.

Here’s what I have learnt from Life. Don’t control, don’t resist, don’t grieve when it doesn’t go as per your wishes, your plans. Stay anticipating and welcoming the possibility of an exciting adventure and you will never be unhappy. 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: birth to starting school, starting school to finishing school (pre-school to high-school), starting a course to qualifying for that degree, starting a job to starting a family, finishing actively caring for children to retiring from your 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 at each stage of our lives, events that we have been able to overcome them and get to today. So, why this anxiety about Life’s next surprise or adventure? Why the fear of an ‘unknown’ future? Why do you want to control Life and steer it away from adventure to predictability?

Going with the flow does not mean giving up. It only means that you must not think anything’s wrong with you just because your efforts are not fetching any results. When you think you are the problem, you will feel frustrated and depressed. Instead look at the problem – and address it. Do whatever you can and you must in a given situation. If you don’t get the results you wanted, try again. And again. And while you keep trying, go with the flow of Life too. Going with the flow means living with what is. Living with and loving what is, is happiness!

Don’t be a bad student – learn from what people teach you

Each person who comes into your Life is a teacher.

She or he is teaching you through not just what they know, but through their behavior. Some people teach you why you must never trust them. They have taught you this by repeatedly refusing to live up to the trust you placed in them. Eventually, you may have reached a point when you would have said that you can’t trust this person anymore. And yet you would have given this person one more chance. When your trust was betrayed one more time, you move from the can’t-trust to the must-never-trust zone. Please know, there is nothing wrong with you if you come to this conclusion. And there is nothing inhuman about this stance.

To trust humankind and Life is indeed the best way to live. But to have your self-esteem trampled upon__that’s precisely what happens when your trust is betrayed__is foolishness. Remember if that person is a teacher, just as each person in your Life is, then you are being a bad student if you are not learning from your teacher! You don’t have to hate the person though. Just don’t trust. When you don’t trust, there can be no relating, leave alone a relationship. You can still know each other and not be in a relationship. Now, even if this is a parent, sibling, child, or spouse, it is imminently possible to stay this way. Because at the end of the day, the person is simply not worthy of your trust. And the person has taught you, through repeated patterns of behavior, that she or he is not trustworthy.

So, please simplify your Life. If you have been let down repeatedly, know that you have a right to choose not to trust someone anymore. Exercise that right. Live your Life in peace and not in grief. Yet live leaving that person alone. Don’t fight. Don’t provoke. Don’t grieve. Just live and let live! 

Realizations of a “scumbag”

Don’t take what people have to say about you seriously. Better still, don’t take yourself seriously either!  

The other day someone I know called me a scumbag (per an online dictionary that I referred to, it is a noun and means ‘a contemptible or objectionable person’; ‘someone with poor judgment and no class’) in a closed-group message thread. I smiled at the charge. And decided not to respond.

Just three years ago, I had physically prevented this person from drinking and driving. He had then objected to me intruding on his privacy, personal preference (to drink and drive) and judgment (to know what is right for him). I had tried explaining to him that I only had his best interest in mind. But, in the same closed-group message thread, he had cried foul. Back then I was pained that I could not get him to see where I was coming from. I apologized for my behavior. But the matter never got resolved and, in fact, as he continues to see it, the “damage to our relationship is irrevocable”.

But this time, when in another context, this person referred again to the three-year-old episode and called me a scumbag I was unperturbed. I was neither pained. Nor was I keen to avenge his sentiment. And here’s why I chose to be so: after all, this person had a right to his view – if he found what I had done to him contemptible and objectionable, if he had found my judgment poor and for all those reasons, if he perhaps found me lacking in class and not worthy of his association, he definitely was entitled to his opinion. In essence, the best and the only thing I could do was to respect it.

Truly, the lesser importance you give to what others have to say about you, the more peaceful you will be. Developing this attitude need not mean that you must be thick-skinned, brazen and egotistic. It only means that you have learnt to respect an opinion which is divergent from yours, that you have stopped sweating the small stuff and that you realize the value in letting go and moving on!

The reason why we want to avenge people’s uncharitable (per our view, not theirs!) sentiments with a how-dare-you is that we place undue importance on ourselves. A how-dare-you is nothing but your ego erupting and manifesting itself as anger and intolerance – often even as physical violence – towards whoever you are disagreeing with.

Actually, you need not place so much importance on yourself. I have learnt this the hard way – from my own experience. There will be times in Life when people will not be willing to understand you or appreciate what you have to say. In such times, the best response is to not respond, not clarify, certainly not avenge and to simply let go and move on. You can never control what people say or do. You cannot make them understand you if all they want is to interpret what you say. Respect their right to have an opinion even if you disagree with the opinion. Forgive them if you can. If you can’t do either, just remember this: whether you are called a scumbag or a cheat, whether you are called a liar or an opportunist, at the end of the day, you know who you really are. As long as you are true to yourself, and are happy being who you are, don’t sweat over what others have to say! 

The only way to heal is to share, be open and not worry about being vulnerable!

You are not alone. Everyone has problems. So, stop obsessing over your problems and start living.

Our daughter has enrolled for a Creative Dance Movement Therapy Program. She intends to make a career out of practicing dance movement therapy. We asked her how her Program was coming along. Over some soup and pasta, she explained to us how the Program’s instructor insisted that they employ the therapy techniques on themselves first. She said: “It was a therapeutic, healing experience. As each of my class fellows shared their Life stories, I realized that we are not the only ones facing problems. Everyone is. And the only way to heal yourself is to be open, to share what you feel and to not worry about being vulnerable.”

I am delighted our daughter at 20-something has understood the futility of keeping things bottled up. I learnt this only when I was 35. Sadly, many people still don’t get it.

All our suffering comes from wanting our lives to be different from what it is now. And because it is not always possible to change what is, we spend our lives pretending that everything’s normal. For instance, people carry on with broken marriages because they worry about social approval, people live beyond their means because they want to maintain a public profile, people don’t speak their mind because they want to be nice to their oppressors and people are refusing to forgive themselves for what they have said and done only because they are still clinging on to anger and guilt. Here’s the nub: As long as we live, we will face problems. Some of the problems will cripple us physically, some will drain us emotionally. In either context, we must be willing to let go of past experiences, hurts, insults and opinions, and, in many cases, even people – we must simply move on. Anything and anyone that makes us unhappy must be avoided – like plague, even if it is our own thoughts, or even if it is someone with whom we have a biological connect! The past serves only one purpose: it teaches us lessons from what we have been through. Beyond the lesson, we have must have no attachment to a past event, person or experience.

If you are clinging on to someone or something and are suffering, then open up and share. When you share, you may be vulnerable. But you will also heal. You fear being vulnerable only because you think people will take advantage of you. If they do, that’s a learning too – that you can’t count on such people. Believe me, I have been wearing my Life on my sleeve for over 15 years now. And so far, none has exploited my vulnerability. Because, contrary to what we all think, this is a wonderful world, with beautiful, compassionate people! 

If you don’t feel good being with someone, don’t be with them. Whoever they may be.

Respect the way you feel before you respect how others feel about a situation or about you.

        

Yesterday a friend called to say that my father was unwell. He said my brother-in-law was trying to reach me. I spoke to my brother-in-law and inferred that my dad indeed had not been keeping good health. However, I excused myself from visiting him.

My family – parents and siblings – and I have been estranged for several years now. In the recent past the estrangement has been acute – a lot of it has to also do with the money my wife and I have borrowed from my parents in the past to resurrect our business. Naturally the money still remains due to them because our business has not picked up enough to enable us to repay anyone. (I have talked about this forgettable family saga 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.)

But my decision to distance myself from my parents and siblings has a deeper context. I feel there is complete mistrust between all of us. Besides, I don’t find any of them true to who they are making themselves out to be. So, like I have done in the past, I chose to stay away from the present situation concerning my dad. And I prefer to remain this way in the future too.

My stance, without doubt, is debatable. In the world’s view, what I am doing may be seen as dereliction of duty. Some may term it as total abdication. Others may view it as lack of compassion: “A 76-year-old is pining for his oldest son, but the son obstinately clings on to his ego!” Yet others may believe that because it is a short Life, we must let go, bury our differences, and move on. My siblings have, for their part, on more than one occasion, pointed out to me that since I have been unable to return the money I owe to the family, the least I can and must do is to be a “dutiful” son and look after my parents physically. Indeed, there are these and several other ways to look at the choice I have exercised.

But I have not been driven by any of these considerations. To be sure, I hold no grudge against my family for the way my wife and I have been treated by them. I also recognize that I have, in the past, contributed unwittingly to the fractious environment in the family. Even so, after much reflection and soul-searching, my realization is that I don’t relate to any of them anymore. I can’t trust any of them and I feel there’s so much “untruth” and “pretension” on the rare occasions we have met. I believe they feel this way about me and my wife too. So, therefore, I have decided to refuse to brush aside this intense discomfort within me and pretend everything is normal by “showing up and being seen”. I feel that by staying away from each other we are all anchored in our own peaceful states. For everyone, including my ailing father, this is the best place to be in. This is my view. And I am peaceful living my Life with this view.

Yes, my wife and I owe my family, just as we owe 178 other creditors, money. And we believe, when things turn around for us financially, we will repay every rupee to everyone, with full interest due.

I don’t expect anyone to agree with my view here. But I will still share the learning I have gleaned from the experience I have had of being a “member” of my dysfunctional family! Sometimes when relationships become very messy, when there is no more relating among the people in the relationship, it is just best to let go of the relationships. Or, if you can’t, then let them simply be. Trying to get people, who are hell bent on misinterpreting you, to understand you is a waste of your precious time and energy. Trying to fulfil your familial obligations or filial duties at acute discomfort to you, while letting your inner peace be disturbed, is absolute hara-kiri. The past does not matter anymore. The future no one has seen. In the present, if you can’t trust someone, if you don’t feel happy being in someone’s presence, simply don’t pretend being comfortable and suffer in the bargain. Nothing is worth more in Life than your inner peace. If you cannot feel good being someplace with someone, don’t go there, don’t be with them. Whoever they may be. It is important you respect how you feel before you even respect the way others will feel.

Don’t shut yourself to love

It is fine to fail in love in Life. The bigger tragedy is to not get any love or, worse, shut yourself to love.   

I read the story of a 62-year-old man from Bihar yesterday. In his early twenties he had an affair with a South-Indian, Tam Bram, girl. Her parents had her hurriedly married off to a Tam Bram engineer when they heard of the affair. Today, 39 years hence, the man still pines for her. He lives in Nainital presently but visits Hyderabad each year just to see her. He recently wrote this on facebook: “Today she has 2 kids; one son married and the other son is in the United States. She also has a grandchild, a girl. She lives in Hyderabad. Every year for the last 39 years, I have gone to see her. I don't meet her or make her even aware that I am there. I don't want her to feel embarrassed. I guess I live my Life through her. I never knew why she didn't have the courage to fight for “us” – something that I was willing to do. I guess I will never know. I am 62, unmarried, retired; I live alone in a three bedroom cottage, and today, when I reflect back, I wonder if I made the right choice?”

Clearly, this man is clinging on to his past. He has simply shut himself to love. It is fine to fail in love. Sometimes things don’t work out. Either before marriage or, as it often happens, even after marriage. The truth is marriage plays no role in helping two people relate to each other. When the relating stops, the relationship ends – whether or not you marry someone. In this man’s case, his beau succumbed to the pressure she faced from her parents – a story that has been played over and over and over again in many a Bollywood film right up until the late 1990s. In fact, films of those days merely portrayed what society was experiencing. By clinging on to what he believes is true love, the man has shut himself out for 39 long years. He need not have married again. But he surely could have been open to allowing himself to be loved and cared for.

Interestingly, this man and his story are but a metaphor. The learning from his story applies to all of us – whatever be our contexts. His is a tale of a lost relationship. But so many of us are trapped in the past too. We are clinging on to something which is dead. By holding on to what isn’t there, we are missing out on what is. And what is, is the perfect present – the now. Where love is in abundance. Where peace is in plenty. But to experience all of it, we must be present here – in the now.

Ask yourself: “What am I clinging on to?” Let go of whatever that hasn’t worked out or worked for you. Simply let go! Open yourself up and offer yourself to the opportunity in the moment. Then you will feel the difference. Your Life will be filled with love, peace and joy! 

No point trying to squander your precious lifetime by taking it too seriously

Let’s not take Life too seriously. Just live it. And forget about it!

A story in the papers this morning set me thinking. The family of a dead man in Trichy has charged the local gasifier crematorium of the Trichy Corporation of not handing over his ashes to them. The family claims that the ashes they have received are not of their man’s and believe that there has been a “mix-up”, “some foul play” and demand a “DNA Test” by the Corporation to confirm and assure them that those ashes indeed belong to their dead relative.

I couldn’t help chuckling to myself as I read that story.

Does it really matter what we do about our dead after they are gone, after they are cremated or buried with dignity? Think about it, they are just mere ashes. We came from dust and unto dust we all will return – this is the simplest way to understand Life. That is all there is to it. It was a choice-less birth (none of us has asked to be born), and it is often an exit which we don’t quite plan. We come with nothing. We go with nothing. Then why this drama – of success, failure, wealth, ego, relationships, religion and what not – during this lifetime? What’s worse, as is apparent in the Trichy crematorium story, is that the drama continues even after someone’s dead and gone!

I can’t think of a better way to live than to simply let go. Don’t take Life too seriously. Nothing will survive. No one will survive. So, just be easy on yourself. And on people around you. If you can solve your problems, do so. If you can’t, let them be. If you can get along with people, great. If you can’t let them be and you just move on. If you have money, you can buy a few things you want. If you have no money, be sure that no matter who you are, your needs will be taken care of. Not the way you want your needs to be met, but the way Life has designed to meet them. This is what Life is all about. So, don’t waste your precious lifetime trying to make your ever-perishing Life perfect. Just let go and be happy!

We are all a product of the time we go through

The situation that you are dealing with is your God. This is where experience comes from, this is how you learn – and unlearn.

The other day a cousin visited us. She’s been fighting cancer and has lost all her hair consequently. But she was her usual cheerful, well-groomed self. She’s been through a lot in her Life apart from her own health situation. And it was inspiring to see how she had coped with cancer with equanimity and cheer. We got chatting a bit on her positive attitude being her biggest asset. She corrected me – she saw it as her only asset! I agreed wholeheartedly. I told her: “The crises we go through in Life are our teachers. They are the God we seek. Because only through them, do we learn and unlearn to live inspired and intelligently.”

This morning’s story in Chennai Times on the Tamil star Simbu (Silambarasan) only reiterated this perspective. Simbu confessed to TOI’s Janani Karthik: “I have had no (film) release for the past two years. But personally, in the last two years, I have learnt a lot about Life. I have had personal experiences that have tried me... I might have been born with a silver spoon, but I went through a lot. I lost everything. I lost films, I lost money; it hurts when I go and ask for money from my mother for my daily expenses. When I lost money and films, I thought that, at least, I have someone who loves me, who I was in love with too, by my side. But now, the girl (Hansika) also has gone. Throughout that period, I thought that I would get married one day, have children of my own... But that too is not happening now. It was when I lost everything in Life, that I realized that I have only my breath with me. I am still alive, and I believe that I am alive for a purpose on this earth...” That’s a very evolved Simbu talking there. And that’s what Life’s situations do to you.

You, me, everyone – all of us, are a product of the time we go through. Our situations mold us. They make us the people that we are now. And they will further make us who will be in the future. So, in effect, in reality, each situation is God. To be sure, situations are just events, mere happenings, in Life. You can go on and label them as good, bad, testing, whatever, but you can’t change a situation. Only time can. In going through any situation, you can learn – or unlearn – from it or you can resist it and so suffer. When you accept a situation and learn from it, you evolve. It is as simple as that. So, to me, God is not in a temple or a mosque or a church. The God we seek is right in us, with us, in each situation we experience in Life.

When you reach this state of understanding of Life, you are unmoved by the situations. Nothing can rattle you anymore. You remain anchored in your inner peace. You have then realized that everything is transient and impermanent. Why worry about anything that will go away from you certainly some day? Without exception, each of us has to go – empty handed. So, the best way to live is to live intelligently – learning from each experience and going with the flow of Life!

Carry on living with whatever is, just the way it is!

Life is full of ironies, full of imperfections – don’t seek clarity, don’t search for meaning, just live in the moment with whatever is.

The Week magazine, in their latest issue, have run a cover story on celebrity love children – those born outside of marriage, and from an affair, that celebrities have had. The story features Masaba Gupta (Neena Gupta and Sir Vivian Richards), Prateik Babbar (Smita Patil and Raj Babbar), Aatish Taseer (Tavleen Singh and the late Pakistani businessman and politician who was assassinated in 2011) and Rohit Shekar (Ujjwala Sharma and N.D.Tiwari). While all these people have made peace with their ‘unconventional’ identity, there is an emotional, unstated, underpinning to the story. All of them seem to be asking: ‘why do we have to be judged this way?’ I totally understand that sentiment. Fundamentally, any social norm that labels and categorizes people must be expunged. If you view Life objectively, aren’t all children – all of humanity in fact – born as ‘love children’? The act of making love, having sex, that furthers procreation, is the same among our species. In a way, it is the same biological process that has caused all our existence. So, why label one set of progeny as inferior and another as superior just because the other has come out of a socially acceptable arrangement a.k.a marriage? The best way to deal with such an irony – where you are judged for no fault of yours by those who have no role or business to judge in the first place – is to simply be who you are. As Masaba Gupta told The Week’s Shweta Thakur Nanda, “Yes I am a love child. So what are you going to do? Eat me up?”

Let’s face it. Life is full of imperfections. And ironies. Many a time you are confronted with situations that you did not cause or create. Yet, you have no choice but to live with them. You can’t understand why things are the way they are, you can’t explain the why of whatever is that you are dealing with and, often times, you simply can’t make meaning out of Life.

I talk here also from my personal experience. I have no explanation for why my mother called me a cheat or why my siblings remain estranged from me or why I can’t interact with my father although we all live in the same city (‘Fall Like A Rose Petal – A father’s lessons on how to be happy and content while living without money’; Westland – August 2014). My faulty decision to borrow from the family, my enduring bankruptcy and poor chemistry with my mother have confounded an already vitiated environment. Things have now reached a point where unless I return the money I owe the family, none of them is going to – or perhaps is even willing to – have anything to do with me. As long as I tried to convince my family that I have integrity and the intent to repay, that I meant well, that I am a victim of circumstance (some of it caused by my poor decisions), I suffered. Because they just refused to believe me. As long as I wished that I was understood by them, and not judged, I grieved. But when I gave up all efforts to convince my family and stopped craving that I be understood by them, my suffering ended.

I am reminded of the way Osho, the Master, explains Krishna’s conversation with Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita: “Don’t think of the result at all. It is a message of tremendous beauty and significance and truth. Don’t think of the result at all. Just do what you are doing with your totality. Get lost in it, lose the doer in the doing. Don’t ‘be’– let your creative energies flow unhindered. That’s why Krishna said to Arjuna: ‘Don’t escape from the war… because I can see this escape is just an ego trip. The way you are talking simply shows that you are calculating, you are thinking that by escaping from the war you will become a great saint. Rather than surrendering to the whole, you are taking yourself too seriously– as if there will be no war if you are not there.’ Krishna says to Arjuna, ‘Just be in a state of let-go. Say to existence, ‘Use me in whatever way you want to use me. I am available, unconditionally available.’ Then whatsoever happens through you will have a great authenticity about it. It will have intensity, it will have depth. It will have the impact of the eternal on it.’"  

If you look at your Life deeply, just the way it is, it is so beautiful. So, don’t try to escape the ironies and imperfections of your Life. Just be in a state of let-go. Whatever is happening to you, let it happen. Don’t resist. Don’t analyze. Don’t wish it were different. Let Life use you the way it deems fit. Whether you are labeled a love child or a cheat has no relevance to who you truly are. You are who you believe you are. So, carry on living, being available, unconditionally available to Life, with whatever is, just the way it is! 

Choose forgiveness to be free

Forgiveness is the best form of offence. It frees you from suffering__caused by the pain inflicted by someone__and helps that someone reflect and repair from whatever they have done unto you. It’s a win-win.

Think deeply and you will agree with my perspective. Often times people hurt us with their actions, thoughts and utterances. They lie on us, they betray our trust in them, they speak ill behind our back, they take away what is rightfully ours and they leave us numbed. None of this feels good. The first, obvious, logical response, in all such situations, is to freak out, scream, kick, demand why, seek to know why were you betrayed…..and eventually, over a period of weeks, the angst morphs into a ‘certain coldness’ and eventually, you stop trusting people. While this may seem a normal and appropriate response in “self-defense” (so that you are not betrayed one more time), the flip side is it will leave you perpetually grieving. And how can you live fully, peacefully, if you are forever in a state of suffering?

Here’s a Zen story that will sensitize you to the perils of carrying the baggage of being ‘unforgiving’! Once there was a monk who asked his disciples to carve out names of the people they cannot forgive on potatoes, one potato for each name. Then the disciples were asked to put all their potatoes in a sack and carry it with them at all times for one week. The longer the time went by, the heavier the potatoes seemed to have become. To make the matter worse, those carved potatoes also started to rot and smell bad. It was such an unpleasant experience for the disciples. At the end of the week, the Master asked, "So, what did you learn?" At once the disciples told the Master that they now realized that holding on to grudges only brought negativity to them. Asked how they should go about correcting it, the youngsters said they should strive their best to forgive everyone that used to cross them and made them angry. The Master then asked, "What if someone crosses you again after you unload this present load of potatoes?" The disciples suddenly felt terrified at the thought of having to start all over again with new potatoes, week after week. "What can we do if there are still other people crossing us? We cannot control what other people do to us!" they confessed. At which point the Master replied, "So far we only discussed the conventional way to approach forgiveness, that is, to strive to forgive. Striving is difficult. In Zen, there is no striving." Seeing the disciples completely at a loss then, the Master further suggested, "If the negative feelings are the potatoes, what is the sack?" The disciples finally grasped it. "Ah, the sack is something that allows me to hold on to the negativity. It is my inflated sense of self-importance!" replied one of them. And that was the lesson of this story. Once we learn how to let go of the sack, whatever people say or do against us would no longer matter.

In Zen, forgiveness is the conscious decision to get rid of the sack/sense of self-importance altogether, not just the potatoes/negative feelings. With the understanding of Zen, Life suddenly becomes effortless, elegant, and natural. Get rid of the sack, and there will be no more rotten potatoes. Even if we, lesser mortals, as we may erroneously imagine, stop carving potatoes, it is a small, humble beginning. But those of us who believe in a strategic, planned, precise approach to Life, may want to consider forgiveness as a tool and not just a spiritual concept. Former American President Bill Clinton once shared what he learned from Nelson Mandela on forgiveness. In one meeting of the two men, Clinton asked, "I wonder what you must have felt towards your jailers when you were walking out of that prison after those 27 years. Weren't you angry at them?" "Yes, I was angry. And I was a little afraid," answered Mandela. "After all, I've not been free in so long." "But," he added, "when I felt that anger welling up inside me, I realized that if I continue to hate them after I got outside that gate, then they would still have me." With a smile, Mandela concluded, "I wanted to be free, so I let it go."

So, for the thinking, strategizing, master-craftsmen and wonderful upwardly-mobile wise women of the modern world, I would say, choose forgiveness to be liberated, to be free. Also consider forgiveness as a form of offence in today’s world. A peaceful resistance to the crude, unethical practices that attempt to derail you, your career and your Life. None of this is my original hypothesis, let me hasten to clarify. Here are the words of Christ found in his teaching in Matthew 5-38-48: “But I say to you , love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use and persecute you.” Loving someone who loves you is easy. Loving someone who hates you is difficult. So, whether it is a challenge like an exciting new electronic game (like Angry Birds!) or a form of offence or a tool to freedom, forgiveness makes imminent sense. Only, of course, if you want it to!

Forgive, even if you can’t forget, let go and move on!

When you end up having to fight someone or something, or plain injustice, don’t let emotion rule you. Being angry and emotional will only ruin your inner peace.

This morning’s Chennai Times reports Tamil lyricist Thamarai’s on-going protest against her husband Thiyagu. The couple have been estranged for a few months and Thamarai’s been on a sit-in protest with her son Samaran outside Thiyagu’s office for the last few days. She’s been demanding that her husband apologize to her and, possibly, reunite with her. The media has been full of stories of her protest. Today’s Chennai Times leads with this heading, a quote from Thamarai, for a story by Janani Karthik: “I need the 20 years I spent with my husband back.” 

Samaran and Thamarai sit in protest
Picture Courtesy: Internet

I felt sorry for Thamarai. Not just because she is having to grapple with a personal challenge. But also because someone as intelligent and as deeply soulful (her work in Tamil cinema in recent years is unputdownable) as she is, has lost her equanimity and is responding in such a futile manner to the situation. I am not even speaking in favor of or against either Thamarai or Thiyagu. I don’t know them. If we were to go by Thamarai’s version, Thiyagu left home in November last year and has been refusing to resume ties with her ever since. Clearly, it shows that the couple have stopped relating to each other. When there’s no relating between two people, what is the point in berating the relationship – that too in public? I feel sorry for Thamarai that she does not realize that her relationship with Thiyagu is dead. It’s over. Even if they come back together, it will be more for a social need than for experiencing the joy of being together. Also, by demanding something which cannot happen – wanting back the 20 years she spent with him – Thamarai is only causing herself more grief and agony. Which, although she claims otherwise, will affect her craft – something that is the bliss factor in her Life, something that she undoubtedly is a master of. In trying to shame Thiyagu and in trying to win the sympathy of her professional circle and of her fans, she’s simply on a mission to destroy her inner peace. In the context of a marital dispute, there are laws and the country’s family courts are more than equipped to sort out such an issue. In the context of her inner peace, she is only ruining it further by resisting what has already happened to her and failing to accept that her marriage with Thiaygu is, obviously, over! My advice, unsolicited obviously, to Thamarai is this: forgive, even if you can’t forget, simply let go and move on!

There’s a huge learning we can draw from l’affaire Thamarai. Very often in Life we may end up feeling let down, trampled upon, pissed on and passed over. We will want to avenge the person or the act or both. Every cell in our body will want revenge. After all, who can accept or tolerate injustice? This is when we must realize that the best way to win a battle is to not fight – emotionally – at all. Emotions only make any matter worse. By all means fight, but don’t respond emotionally. Chose a legal or sometimes a practical, strategic approach. Think through what you want. And act with a plan. Don’t react. In a dispute such as Thamarai’s and Thiyagu’s, public shaming will get neither party anywhere. Definitely not to feeling peaceful. Remember that people always do what they do because they feel they are right. In trying to tell someone that they are wrong, when they believe they are right, you may well end up burning a lot of your precious positive energy. You build up negativity and stress in you and, eventually, turn depressive. Instead if you approach the situation with peace, calm and – if possible, forgiveness, you will be able to operate with more clarity. When you are able to see the situation – and your Life – more clearly, you may really not want anything other than your inner peace. Most important, you may not want to fight at all. That’s when you will realize that there’s great value in forgiving someone, even if you can’t necessarily forget what they did to you!