In crisis situations, just carry on stepping!

Don't expect your problems or challenges to vanish into thin air. Don't try wishing that they weren't there. It is the nature of Life to have problems. Deal with Life, especially in a crisis, one step at a time.

Life in a crisis is pretty much like the headlights of your vehicle. You know where you want your vehicle to go. You know the destination. But in the darkness of the night, the headlight can't get you to see the destination. But it sure can light up some part of the way, a few feet at a time, and as you make progress you get to see what lies ahead. This goes on, until of course, it is daylight or you reach the destination you were driving to. Life works exactly the same way. The night, the crisis, is not likely to go away immediately. A new dawn awaits you, but it is never dawn until daylight arrives. So, in the darkness of the night, follow the headlight principle. Don't expect the entire road to be lit up. Be content with being able to see just a few feet at a time. In Life, therefore, when in a crisis situation, don't expect clarity and answers to what lies a week down the road, a month, a year or in the distant future. Just believe that you will survive. Know that you will ultimately prevail. Know that you will eventually achieve your goal, reach your destination, realize your dream.

This is as true a statement as it is to say that a day always follows each night! Live each moment and each day completely__keeping your focus on where you want to go, living in the awareness that if you can see a few feet ahead, if you can survive today, you are making good progress. Don't ask why are you in the dark phase or why you are groping with a crisis? Don't wish and pine for the crisis not to have been there. These sentiments will cause you agony and hamper your ability to think clearly. The truth is that the crisis exists. The truth also is that you are caught in the throes of it! Accept it. Tell yourself that if you can last the next few steps of the journey, you will be blessed. Then when you pass each day, when you last that phase of the journey, work on lasting a little longer. And keep going until time relents, the crisis blows away and you are bathed in the warm glow of daylight, or what the world will call, 'your success'! 

An old Chinese proverb reminds us that to get through all journeys, even the hardest ones, we need to take only one step at a time, but what's important is, we must carry on stepping!

Cooperate unconditionally with the inevitable present

The present moment is inevitable. What happens in it is inevitable. So, why are we resisting the present moment?

The beauty of Life resides in the moment. In the present. Whatever you may do, you cannot prevent the present. You can grieve your past. You can worry about your future. But you can do nothing__other than live through it__about the present moment! Before you know it, it is here. In front of you. And you are in it! And then it is gone. And a new present is born. So, how can you ever avoid the present? It is impossible. As people who have gone through a basic education, who like to live Life by understanding it better, this one powerful unputdownable thought should lead you to a lifetime of peace and bliss.

Spiritualist and writer Anthony D’Mello (1931~1987) shares a parable that goes like this: 

“What is the secret of your serenity?” asked the disciple. 

“To cooperate unconditionally with the inevitable,” answered the Master.

So beautiful. And so simple. As you finish another week reflect on this thought. Resolve to accept, collaborate, partner, and be in the inevitable present. Cooperate unconditionally with it. See how it transforms your Life __ helping you stay happy and peaceful__ despite all your circumstances.

Don’t churn the past or the future – just let it all be

The human mind is powerless in the present moment. That’s why it insists on dragging you back to the past or into the future.

An important and fundamental clarity we must all have is over the functioning of the human mind. It thrives in the dead past – spewing thoughts of anger, grief, guilt over what has happened. And it thrives in the still unborn, unknown future – throwing anxiety, worry and fear over what may (or may not) happen. So, as long as the mind is controlling you, you are oscillating between the past and the future. The mind never allows you to settle. Such is its nature. 60,000 thoughts arise daily and all of them invariably dwell in the past or concern the future. This is why we often feel chewed up and are desperate for clarity. And this is where mindfulness comes in. When you are mindful of the present moment, immersing yourself in your current reality, your mind is powerless. When your mind is not controlling you, and when you are directing it instead to be in the present, there can neither be grief or guilt nor can there be worry or fear.

Once you understand this basic concept about intelligent living, you can begin the practise of mindfulness. It requires that you train your mind. And the principle to remember is that just like the human body can be trained, the human mind can be trained too. Mindfulness begins when you stop churning the past or the future in your mind. Just let it all be. You focus only on what is, on what is available, in the present moment. It may be difficult – as is the case with any new practice – but if you keep at it, you will make progress. Surely, over 21 days of daily practise, you can learn to be mindful.

I love what the Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh has to say about mindfulness. He says it so simply, so beautifully: “To be mindful is to bring body and mind back to the present moment so that you do not miss your appointment with life.”

Eat the strawberry or stop complaining – either way choose to be happy!

Focus on what is happening than on what was happening or what will happen.

Distractions in our Life come from two sources. The past. And the future. There’s no worry about the present moment. Because you are in it already! There’s no choice with the present. This is where we can be happy.

But while we want to be happy, we don’t recognize the opportunity to be happy when it comes in front of us. The truth is we don’t know how to be happy. We like to indulge in self-pity and in worrying. So, we conveniently exercise the debilitating choice of slipping into the past or moving into an imaginary future state. Neither of which is in our control. The past is over, it HAS HAPPENED. It is dead. The future is still TO HAPPEN, it is the unknown. Anything can happen and not necessarily what you imagine. So, stay in the present. Stay here knowing fully well that you CANNOT stop the worries from coming to you. What you can do is STOP WORRYING!

Worries are like waves. Their job is to keep coming to the shore. Come, crash, ebb, recede, resurge, come, crash, ebb….this is a non-stop cycle. So will your worries keep coming to you, non-stop. Their job is to keep coming at you. You will have to learn to be unmoved. Don’t try to be untouched though. Because the nature of a worry is like the wave, it will drench you if you are standing at the shore. But don’t be influenced by it. Remain unmoved. And that you can achieve by focusing on what is happening. Worrying from a guilt or a burden from the past or fearing the unknown future is going to take away the beauty of the moment you are in. 

There’s this Zen story called ‘Cliffhanger’ that should help us understand the power of being in the NOW. One day while walking through the wilderness a man came across a vicious tiger in his path. He ran for his Life but soon came to the edge of a high cliff. Desperate to save himself, he climbed down a vine and dangled over the precipice. As he hung there, two mice appeared from a hole in the cliff and began gnawing at the vine. Suddenly, he noticed, on the vine, a plump wild strawberry. He plucked it and popped it in his mouth. It was incredibly delicious, he thought, and enjoyed himself! Imagine, the man had the following options: 1. Continue to hate the Tiger, his past, at the moment, that had, in a way, led him to his present. 2. Fear the mice for what they were about to do to the vine and worry about the future__for his Life. 3. Eat the strawberry and celebrate the moment’s delicious opportunity. He chose the third. This is the secret of intelligent living. To make the right choice.

Remember: Life’s offering us delicious strawberries even as the tigers from our past are chasing us and the mice are chewing away and possibly ruining what we imagine to be our future. Know that the tigers can’t come down to the present__they are only there to haunt us. And that the mice can’t do anything to stop you from enjoying the strawberry, if you decide to eat them! The simple non-negotiable reality is that if you want to be happy, you must eat the strawberry, you must ACCEPT WHAT IS. And if you don’t like strawberries, then, please stop complaining about the lack of happiness in your Life!

Drop the guilt and simply be

Guilt prevents you from being your true self – and from simply being.

Every once in a while, you will commit mistakes. Some of them may be simple and you can redeem yourself. But in some cases you cannot go back and undo what you did. In either case, the feeling of guilt lingers on – and in the cases where the damage owing to your actions is irreparable, the guilt refuses to go away. First, know that feeling this way, is something normal. But if you understand what guilt is, you will be able to deal with it better.

Guilt is an emotion always associated with the past. Therefore, in every sense, it is debilitating. Because, no matter what you do, you can’t change the past. But because, when feeling guilt, you tend to live only the past, you are held hostage by your guilt and miss out on the beautiful present, on living in the moment. Dropping the guilt does not mean you should not recognize your mistake or learn from your actions. I am not making a case for non-accountability. Indeed every mistake you make is an opportunity to learn and/or unlearn something. So, please reflect on what has happened. Just don’t keep clinging on to it ruefully, steeped in guilt and feeling perpetually depressed for your actions.

You must realize that there’s no one who is perfect. Each of us learns through stumbling, falling, getting up and moving on in Life. Each experience is a teacher. Each failure – and each success – is a lesson. We can only learn when we realize the consequences of our actions. The problem with guilt is that it arises along with your inner realization or awakening. And because the human mind thrives in the past, it projects your guilt forcefully and your guilt overpowers the inner awakening and wrests control. So, instead of saying what can I learn from my actions or what I must resolve not to do going forward, your mind insists that you keep hating yourself for doing what you did. That feeling of self-hate is guilt. It is totally useless and entirely crippling. The more time you spend hating yourself for what you did, the more depressed you will be. The more depressed you are, the less you will enjoy the Life that is happening to you. Interestingly, no other aspect of creation has the ability to feel guilty. An animal doesn’t feel guilt. It simply is. It will eat when it wants, it will mate when it wants, it will do whatever it wants, whenever it wants to do it! Period. But we humans will analyze each action and allow ourselves to mourn and brood over our actions.

As they say, sometimes, “Shit Happens”! And it is entirely possible that you caused it to happen. Instead of holding yourself guilty forever, accept the mistake, internalize the lesson it has to offer, resolve to act differently going forward and just move on. Clinging on to your guilt is not intelligent living – because it destroys the ability to live in the now.  

Happiness is always in the present

Whatever you do, give it your fullest attention. This is the only way to stop pursuing happiness and instead be happy.

If you are brushing your teeth, make sure you are thinking about your teeth and be grateful for the millions of times they have helped you nurture and nourish yourself with good food. When you are looking out of your plane window, admire the sky, the clouds, the sun, the moon, the stars and be grateful for this opportunity to change the way you look at this world. Every time you text, WhatsApp or place a call, thank the people behind all the telecom revolutions we have witnessed: from Bell to Motorola, without whom we would not be connected in this big world. While on this Page, just admire the fact that facebook has made possible what you always sought in Life – great friendships!

Giving attention is staying in the present. As Albert Einstein said, "Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl isn't simply giving the kiss the attention it deserves". Give Life all your attention by living for and in the moment. Watch Life roll out a red carpet for you.  It is in the present that there is happiness.

Be alive in each moment by being present in it

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

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

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

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

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

Own up your mistake, drop the guilt, be happy

Beware of the one you see in the mirror. Because you can never hide the truth from those eyes.

When you feel naked in front of those eyes, humbly accept your mistake and reform yourself. To make mistakes is human. It is but natural and an integral part of growing up. But never allow yourself to get carried away by the power of your own arguments that make you justify your mistakes. To try to justify them to others is bad enough, but don't try to kid yourself with your own misplaced logic. A mistake is a mistake. It has happened and it is over. And it ceases to hurt or come in the way of progress and inner peace when you fundamentally accept it as one. That's when it becomes a learning opportunity. All transformation__within or otherwise__happens when you recognize the transgression you have made, accept its outcome, and are willing to move on.

However, when you accept the truth to yourself, you cannot escape feeling guilty about what you have done. But with acceptance and introspection you can overcome guilt. Undoubtedly, guilt is a way of being truthful. But holding on to guilt can be debilitating. Feeling constantly guilty for what you have done means that you are living in the past. When you are in the past, you are not present in the now. But Life is happening in the now. Which is why, guilt often holds you to ransom and prevents you from enjoying what you have. When there's no guilt, happiness follows.

To find your peace, look at yourself in the mirror and accept, acknowledge, own up humbly before those eyes. Drop the guilt when it surfaces. This is the way to happiness.

Be mindful to rid yourself of all that which controls you

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

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

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

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

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

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

Still your mind and live in the now

Living in the past or being anxious, or hopeful, of the future, robs you of the present. To live in the present learn to still your mind.

The mind thrives in the past or in the future. In the present, the mind is powerless. Observe your thoughts closely, they are always of the past that is over and done with. Or they are of the future which is yet to come. Living in the past is easy because you have been there – it is predictable and you know what has happened. Living the future is again something that the mind tricks you into – one moment it tells you that the future is unknown and so it is scary. In another it says since we don’t know what will happen in the future let us hope for the best. So, you oscillate between fear and hope, imagining a future that no one has seen. In doing all this, which is living in the past, or in the future, you simply miss living in the present. In the now.

Life however is only in the present. We miss the beautiful opportunity to live in the present because we are held hostage by the mind. In Oriental philosophy they say that the real Buddha is one who has learnt to live in the moment – and one who goes on living from moment to moment. There’s then no guilt or grief about the past. In fact there are no thoughts of the past. And there’s no anxiety about the future. Who needs the future when the present is so beautiful?

To make your mind powerless, to still it, simply immerse yourself in whatever you are experiencing in the moment. For instance, if you are in rush hour traffic – be in it. Don’t think of the day ahead and your running behind schedule. Don’t think of the weekend and pine for it to come back again. In the most practical sense, when you are in a Monday, the weekend is still five days away. No amount of pining for it can bring it any closer. Living in the moment means knowing that Monday will have to be lived through for a Friday to arrive! When the mind becomes powerless you develop phenomenal focus – there’s no clutter, there’s no grief, guilt, fear or insecurity. You simply are. And when you are, you are happy!

Stop suffering and you will be happy

When you learn not to suffer, in any situation, you will be happy.  

A few weeks ago, a friend visited us. We went to the same college and were meeting after many, many years. When he called suggesting that we go over to his hotel to meet him, I cried out saying I did not have money to even use public transport, forget auto-fare. He understood our situation and graciously offered to come home. Over tea, he observed how much I had changed over the years. From being an aggressive, forever-restless, high-flier he wondered how I had now become calm, anchored and deeply reflective about Life (he’s been following my daily blogposts). “I notice that you are a lot happier living with all your financial problems than you were when you had lots of money and your business was flourishing,” he remarked.

I was humbled by his observation. He knows me very well and he is someone who is genuine, and never flaky.

If there’s one lesson I have learnt through this experience of being bankrupt – and penniless at times – it is to appreciate living in the moment, living accepting what is. This, as I have discovered, is the key to being happy. Suffering needs a cause. Happiness doesn’t need any cause. It simply is – all you have do is to be present, and accept whatever is, in the moment to feel happy.

You suffer when you expect things to be different from the way they are. I have suffered too. In the early years of my bankruptcy I have wished, in vain, for the situation to be different. Then, over time, as I learned to understand my Life, and living, better, I realized that cashlessness was not causing my suffering. My wishing that I had cash was causing me to suffer. It wasn’t easy to stop that wishing – who wants to be bankrupt? I had to train my mind, through my daily practice of mouna, to drop all expectations. For expectations bring agony. That’s where the suffering – in any situation – comes from. As I learned to do this, slow to begin with, but efficiently over time, I began to feel happier. Yes, there was pain. Of course, you will feel the pain when you can’t even buy vegetables or groceries, but the suffering ceased. Because, now, to me, being without cash is merely an event, a financial state – that I must focus on relentlessly to repair it. I don’t associate my financial state with my true Self. When I learned to accept what is – in my case, the cashless state – I was able to rid myself of all suffering. When my suffering disappeared, I could feel the happiness in me.

I have learnt that happiness is always there. In you. In me. We don’t feel it, because we are all the time focused on suffering. We are forever wishing for something or the other. When we learn to stop wishing, and instead start loving whatever is, we will be happy.

You will not suffer only when you choose not to suffer!

Don’t worry about the thoughts that arise in your mind. Don’t try to stop them. You can’t. Just learn to deal with them better.

Yesterday I delivered my “Fall Like A Rose Petal” Talk to a group of 75 Chartered Accountants and finance professionals. One of the young ladies in the audience sought a clarification on a famous quote of the Buddha that I used in my Talk – “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.” The lady wanted to know what to do when a suffering-related or suffering-inducing thought arises? “I understand completely that a headache is the one causing the pain, while my wishing there was no headache is what’s causing my suffering. I understand this completely. But what I can’t understand is how do I get rid of the wish that there was no headache in the first place? How do I get rid of the suffering-inducing wish,” she asked.

Well, the truth is you can’t get rid of your thoughts. The human mind thinks – research has proven this – 60,000 thoughts a day. A substantial number of these thoughts are about worry, anxiety, grief, guilt, anger, remorse, hatred, fear, jealousy and some of them are plain wishes that do not want certain realities about your Life to be there just now. So, you can’t avoid thoughts. The human mind is like a tennis-ball spewing machine – the sort that helps players train. It just keeps on generating thoughts. There’s no method. There’s no rationale. There’s no way you can switch off the mind. But what you can do is you can train yourself to ignore the negative or depressing or debilitating or suffering-inducing thoughts that arise. And you can, over time and consistent practice, train your mind to be present in the now. In the present moment. Suffering arises only when you wish that your current reality is not what it is. That’s when the mind revels in making you suffer – wish I did not have this headache, wish I did not have a relationship problem, wish I did not have to keep this job, wish I did not have to lose someone I loved. But when you say I have a headache, and let me live with it, then the mind is in the present moment, with the headache and with all the pain it brings along with it. In the present moment, the mind is powerless. And because there is no wishing, and total acceptance of what is, there is no suffering.

So, you can’t prevent a thought from arising in your mind. You just have to learn to deal with each thought. And learn to avoid those that depress you and cause your suffering. That’s why the Buddha says “suffering is optional”. Which is, you have the choice not to engage with such a thought that will cause your suffering. Exercise that choice. When you do that you will realize you can live with the pain, live with the thought that is intent on causing you to suffer and yet you will not suffer. Because you have chosen not to!