Stop being a ‘nobody to anybody’

Sometimes we all see so much pain and suffering around us. And we wonder why is Life so harsh on people?

There is a reason.

Each instance of pain, every suffering fellow voyager through Life, is an invitation to us, an opportunity for us to lift ourselves from this quagmire of self-centered thinking and invest ourselves__our time, resources and efforts__meaningfully. And yet we hurry through Life, squirming at times when we see destitute people on the streets or hear of those who are living in agony and despair, promising ourselves that we will serve the rest of humanity when we have enough for ourselves first, which includes the most priceless commodity, our time!

Mother Teresa always reminded us of the folly in such thinking. She said that the best form of prayer was to serve those who needed love, understanding and caring. "One of the greatest diseases is to be a nobody to anybody. Only in heaven will we see how much we owe to the poor for helping us to love God better because of them,"  said. The time we have, this lifetime, is really not for merely rearing families, earning an income, planning for our retirement, and worrying about our past, present and future. It will be more meaningful to invest some of our time daily to touch lives__to cause a smile, to give some understanding, to lend a shoulder.

In making a difference to another Life, we will discover the God we so desperately seek. And, believe me, it is not so difficult to make a beginning. There are over 1 billion people that go hungry on the planet daily. Which means even if one of every 5 people feeds a hungry person daily, the hunger crisis can be mitigated. You could be one of those 5 people today! As Mother Teresa exhorted, "If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one." What are you waiting for? Stop being sick__a nobody to anybody. Wake up and make a difference today!

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! 

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.

Celebrate the “joy of breathing” and “serving”: nothing else matters

Only if you have served another person, can you call yourself human. Period.

All this debate over Mother Teresa is sickening. Bad enough that we have a petty mind charging her with preaching Christianity – as if it were a crime; while at the same time over-looking the years of unputdownable service she personally led for the poor, sick, downtrodden and dying. What’s even more repulsive is the social media stances taken by “informed, educated” folks who make justifications for her role in either serving humanity or in practicing and preaching her religion. To me, personally, Mother Teresa is among the greatest human beings to have walked on earth. She served without ever thinking of what she deserved. Had she been alive now, her response to all this nonsense about her would have been, to quote a teaching from the Bible (Luke 23:34): “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing!!”

To be honest, I have come to realize and conclude that religion, as it is being practiced today, has no role in our lives. In fact, it is being thrust on us and is dividing us. At a time when the world craves for unity, inner peace, love, understanding and compassion, anything – religion included – that divides the human race is unwelcome. It doesn’t matter to me – and it shouldn’t matter to anyone else either – whether the people I cohabit this world with are Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Jews, Sikhs or Buddhists. The fact is that all of us have the same volume of blood running through our veins – 5.5 liters; all that blood is red in color; we have the same 24 hours to call a day and make it count and we breathe the same air. So, how can we be different at our deepest core – as human beings? Even if we wear our clothes differently, even if we eat different cuisines, speak different languages, even if we live in different countries, we are first humans, citizens of planet Earth, before we choose to identify ourselves basis the color of our skin, our nationality, our language and, sadly, religion. Mother Teresa was one of those people who reminded us, through her servant attitude, that our true work is to love and serve others like us without expectations, without imposing conditions and, while doing all of this, experience the beauty and magic of compassion. To point at Mother Teresa is to accuse the pristine spirit of humanity. My humble, unsolicited perhaps, perspective: only those who have done even 0.0000000001% of what Mother Teresa has done for humanity in her lifetime have a right to comment on either side of this insipid debate raised by, of all people, a petty rabble rouser!

Maneesha: Knows the "joy of breathing"

We have a beautiful friend named Maneesha. She miraculously survived the gruesome fire tragedy at Carlton Towers in Bangalore five years ago. But the accident claimed her voice, and for the first three years, her vitality. She now communicates through an implant in her larynx. If anyone knows the value of the “joy of breathing” it is Maneesha. She received the first copy of 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) when it was launched in Bangalore last year. Receiving my Book she said, in reference to her miraculous escape, “…During, what seemed an endless wait, where we waited to be rescued from the seventh floor of Carlton Towers, all that was on my mind was the hope to be able to breath fresh, non-toxic air. I suddenly realized that all of us who were trapped badly wanted just one gasp of air – nothing else mattered.” Her poignant recall sums up Life – if all of us breathe – and need – only the same air, why do we fight or gloat over our differences? At the end of the day, what matters to stay alive, irrespective of which religion we belong to, is each breath of fresh air that we intake. And through staying alive what makes Life meaningful is the opportunity to be human.

Mother Teresa by Raghu Rai, 1979
Picture Courtesy: Internet

It really doesn’t – and shouldn’t – matter what religion you practise or how much you earn. Only if you have served another, have you earned your right to call yourself human. Mother Teresa, as we all know it, has earned that right several times over. Bottomline: let’s celebrate, like Maneesha, the “joy of breathing” and let’s try to serve, inspired by Mother Teresa, selflessly, so that we too can earn our right to call ourselves human. If we can do these two well, will (our) religion ever matter?

Beyond being a Valentine for a day – the “ashiq”, the “mashouka” and “ishq”!

The true meaning of “I love you” is “I will be there for you – no matter what happens”!

Another Valentine’s Day is here. From FM stations to facebook posts to diner offers, the cliché ‘Love’s in the Air’ is going to rule the world today. But do we even understand what loving someone really means? This question has become both necessary and relevant because everything around us – most of all, relationships – has come to be conditional and is evaluated in material terms. I recently heard the story of my son’s classmate whose mother forced her to break-up with her boyfriend because the family was keen that the young lady marry someone who has the same “social status and business background” as them. In another instance, a lady confessed to me that she had to arrange for 100 sovereigns of gold to marry the man she “loved” because his family imposed that steep pre-condition to approve their match. Another friend walked out on her husband, who, according to her, is a “great human being” but is “incapable of bringing home an income”; she confessed to me that “financial security” mattered a lot more to her than companionship. Someone I know says he doesn’t trust his wife but has decided not to “rake up the issue” because she earns a good salary – I know the family and believe that this gentleman’s perception of mistrust arises from the fact that she earns more than him! Unfortunately, our society is not helping make relationships any better – there’s so much pressure on earning a living, on providing, on buying, hoarding, showing off and owning, that loving has become less relevant and least important. Clearly, demonstrating – often time, proving – in material terms that you love someone has overtaken genuinely, simply, loving that someone!

Loving someone really is about being there unconditionally for that person. There is no way I can explain what loving means in English. But, as I have come to learn, understanding the Persian word “ishq” is one way to know what being loving or loving someone means. “Ishq” means loving someone intensely, when you lose yourself in that feeling, when nothing matters, when a certain madness takes over your whole being. This includes the love that one has for all of humanity – the way Mother Teresa had it or the love that one has for divinity – the way Meera had it for Krishna. “Ishq” makes people soul-mates; it goes beyond mind and body and unites both people at a soul level. With “ishq”, there is no lust, just pure, unadulterated, unconditional love.

The word “ishq” comes from the Persian root “a-shiq-a” which is actually the name of an ivy plant. The import is that, just as the ivy, a  climber entwines itself around other plants, the “ashiq” or lover entwines himself intensely around his “mashouka” or beloved, refusing to look at her shortcomings. The same logic applies vice versa too.  When you are loving, when you experience “ishq”, there are no demands, there are no constraints, and most important, there is no concept of time, space or of physical presence. And the simplest way to experience “ishq” is to go beyond the material trappings of any relationship. So, don’t just be content being a Valentine for a day; go on, find your “ashiq”, or “mashouka”, and be in “ishq”, forever! 

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!

Simply be….in love!

Understand that love is just being and that’s more profound than being in love!

The moment you read that first line of today’s Thought, I bet, your mind went to the definition of love as we commonly understand it__an attraction between the sexes! That’s been the whole challenge in the history of mankind. This idea of categorizing and justifying love. To imagine that love is different between man and woman, then different between parent and child, between siblings, between people of the same sex and so on. But that’s a socially convenient way of misunderstanding what love truly is and perpetrating that misunderstanding over generations. We are all guilty of it. When a boy and girl play together as a toddlers and infants we say, “How cute?” When they want to be together as teenagers, we say, “Oh! My God!”

Love, in reality, is a feeling of deep friendship for another__whoever it may be__and wanting to place that person’s interests above your own. It is about caring, not necessarily comforting. It is about being there not about being overbearing. It is about relating and understanding and not so much about the relationship or wanting to be understood. Most people often wonder how people of the same sex can love each other and even seek physical intimacy. There’s this amazing 2010 Indian film ‘Memories in March’ directed by Sanjoy Nag and starring Deepti Naval and Rituparno Ghosh, which demystifies homosexuality, and in my opinion, offers an enlightening perspective on what love truly means. Love is also about serving without seeking returns and without expecting even a ‘thank you’. This is what Mother Teresa taught the world when she cleaned, clothed and fed the sick and the dying for decades on the streets of Kolkata.

All the beauty in this world is lost for you when you start to look at love as conditional, when you demand that you be understood and when you strip it down to a banal physical satiation of the senses. There was a huge uproar in India a couple of years ago triggered by an overzealous Narendra Modi, who was then Gujarat’s Chief Minister, and who’s single, over how much Shashi Tharoor ‘loves’ his wife (Sunanda Pushkar – who is unfortunately no more), who was his girlfriend for several years. I believe that even the question is misplaced. How much ever you love a fellow human being is just not enough. Because there is so much more beauty between us human beings that’s capable of having us love each other – more  than all the apparent differences that divide us! It’s fine if you cannot accept this point of view immediately. You may often wonder if it is possible to love your detractor. It is indeed. Just send positive energy and leave that person alone, even if that person has not been amenable to your reason when you tried. Don’t insist that you get even, don’t try to pronounce that person guilty. Just let that person be. And you be too.

Osho, the Master, tells the story of two women:

“Nancy was having coffee with Helen.

Nancy asked, "How do you know your husband loves you?"

"He takes out the garbage every morning."

"That's not love. That's good housekeeping."

"My husband gives me all the spending money I need."

"That's not love. That's generosity."

"My husband never looks at other women."

"That's not love. That's poor vision."

"John always opens the door for me."

"That's not love. That's good manners."

"John kisses me even when I've eaten garlic and I have curlers in my hair."

"Now, that's love."

Explains Osho: “Everybody has their own idea of love. And only when you come to the state where all ideas about love have disappeared, where love is no more an idea but simply your being, then only will you know its freedom. Then love is God. Then love is the ultimate truth.” Here’s hoping your own ideas about love disappear over time and you too, simply, be….!

You are an ‘avatar’ too … created with a specific Purpose!

The key to intelligent living is to look within and find your Life’s Purpose manifest itself in front of you!

Here, take a break. And think about this calmly. There obviously is a reason why you and I have been created as human beings. Else, we could have been created as the swine that spreads the flu. Why be created as the human who gets that dreaded flu? So, let’s stop cribbing and instead celebrate being human. 

The problem with most of humankind is that we lament being human. We say, justifying our limitations and frailties, 'After all, I am human'. When we look at our creation from that perspective, we miss seeing the limitless power and potential within us. We are so overwhelmed by stories from history that we fail to see our true Self. We have grown up imagining that we are lesser mortals. For instance, when Krishna was born, so we are told, the prison gates opened and the serpent sheltered the baby as the father crossed the overflowing river in pouring rain. When Jesus was born, again as we have been told, the three Kings were guided by a star in the sky. When Nanak was born, I remember reading this in an Amar Chitra Katha edition, those visiting the child found a halo around the baby's head. But who recorded what they saw when you and I were born? Who tells the stories of our birth? Therein lies the reason as to why we don't recognize who we are and what we are truly capable of.

Know that if Mother Teresa's Life had a Purpose, if Swami Vivekananda's Life had a Purpose, if the Prophet's Life had a Purpose, so do our lives__your’s and mine. Swami Sathya Sai Baba says it beautifully,"The difference between you and me is that I know that I am God. And you don't know, or you refuse to accept, that you are God!" We will start living intelligently when we know that each of us has been created as a human with a specific Purpose. We are 'avatars' too....or 'messiahs', if you like.

Simply put, your Life’s Purpose will manifest itself in front of you when you stop searching for God outside of you. Being human is to know that the Godlight is within you. When you find it within, you too will 'awaken' to a lifetime of loving, serving and living!

Awaken the saint within with gratitude

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

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

Thanksgiving does not mean waiting for the last weekend of November each year to say your thanks for all that you are blessed with. Thanksgiving must be a daily celebration. Much as we postpone happiness, we postpone gratitude as well. We have in fact made gratitude conditional to our wants being met. I can be grateful if I get what I want, has become the excuse we subconsciously keep giving ourselves.

Remember that Life acts in ways beyond our comprehension. Yet every now and then you will find people who are grateful to Life for the opportunity they have to serve humanity. These are folks who rise above their current realities and problems and look at themselves as solution providers, enablers, who serve because another’s need is more than their own. If Mother Teresa is an ultimate example of selflessness, let us also know that there is a serving saint dormant in each of us. That saint within us will become awakened only when we practice gratitude. In the Bible, the disciple Paul instructs, “In everything we give thanks.” What he means is that it is impossible to know the outcome of each event in our Life. But if we remain grateful for each moment, each experience that we live through, we will find ourselves being happy and peaceful with whatever is.

To keep humanity alive, we have a role to play

Each of us has a role to play in rebuilding our world and reuniting humanity.

A relative who lives in Madurai was coming home this week. Since he was visiting us after several years, my wife suggested that he join us for a meal. He accepted the invitation but made a specific request that his meal be cooked by my wife and even the vegetables used for the various preparations be chopped by her. He said he did not like a “non-Brahmin” maid or helper to be involved in the preparation of the meal that he would have. We were appalled at this regressive request. We politely requested him to not eat at our place. Some years back, while performing a pooja for my father-in-law’s 80^th birthday, the priest objected to the presence of a north-Indian cook from Bihar in the room where the ceremony was taking place. I called the priest aside and told him politely that he was free to stop the proceedings half-way if he found it difficult to accept a human being as one. I pointed out to the learned priest that my father-in-law who had just come out of hospital then, was looked after for weeks and months while there by a nurse named Abdul and was currently under the care of another one called Mary. But the priest was unwilling to consider any of my secular appeals. Though the ceremony was happening at my residence, as my father-in-law lives with us, I had to “back off”  respecting my brother-in-law’s wishes, who was leading the birthday celebrations for his father.

Such repulsive casteist prejudices and behaviors leave me numb. I somehow don’t get it. How long more is it going to take until we have a world where we respect all human beings as equal? When are we going to stop allowing ourselves to be divided by caste, creed and religion? Nature has not created this planet with boundaries. Bad enough we have nations. Worse that we have states. Sad that we, in India particularly, were victims of caste and religious divisions. But wasn’t that all a vestige of an underdeveloped nation? It is shocking that such thinking is still prevalent in urban society today.

I would like to share a story I read recently. Despite his often-controversial public image, Bollywood super star Salman Khan is a do-gooder. His “Being Human” Foundation supports a lot of people in need. When Salam as shooting for his super-hit film Dabangg on location for several weeks, near Panchgani in Maharastra, sometime in 2009, his car had to cross throngs of school kids every morning. He made a few enquiries and discovered that the kids lived in a settlement about 5 km from their school. In the absence of any public transport, these 200 kids trudged up and down every day. Salman immediately asked his Foundation to donate each of these 200 kids a bicycle so they could ride them to school instead of having to walk. In a few days, all the kids received their bicycles. The day after the bicycles were distributed, one of the kids flagged down Salman’s car as he was proceeding to his shoot. The kid requested Salman to take back his bicycle and instead help his best friend who couldn’t come to school anymore because he had a hole in his heart! Salman was moved by the child’s compassion and asked his Foundation to provide the other child the best medical care. While I do laud Salman and his “Being Human” Foundation, I am moved by and salute the young child’s spirit of sacrifice and brotherhood that helped him look beyond himself and seek support for his ailing classmate.

Here’s another story, from Mother Teresa, the Apostle of Love and Service. She once told a gathering that she was addressing: “One night a man came to our house and told me, “There is a family with eight children. They have not eaten for days,” I took some food and I went. When I finally reached the house where the family lived, I saw the faces of those little children, they were struck by acute hunger. There was no sorrow or sadness in their faces, just the deep pain of hunger. I gave some rice to the mother. She divided the portion into two and went out, carrying half the rice with her. When she came back, I asked her, “Where did you go?” She gave me this simple answer, “To my neighbor’s – they are also hungry.” I was not surprised that she gave – because people who have nothing are generous. But I was surprised that she knew they were hungry. As a rule, when we are suffering, we are so focused on ourselves we have no time for others.”

I believe anyone who does not see another as a human being needs to be sent for some very urgent counselling. It is not as if divisive tendencies are prevalent only in politics or in religion or in the remote parts of our country and among the uneducated, illiterate masses. The fact that they are striking closer home, in our own families, as is evident from the experiences I have shared here, is very disturbing. The two stories, from the kid in Panchgani and from the hungry woman that Mother Teresa talks about, remind us that humanity is still alive. To continue to keep it alive each of us has a responsibility. Which is to say no to anything and anyone that divides us on national, geographical, racial, religious or caste basis. Only then can we hope to make our divided and decaying world any better.  

How are you paying your rent to the Universe?

Someone who I got to know recently wrote to me about the concept of paying our dues, as a rent, to the Universe – for having been created human and for enjoying the abundance that is available to us. The idea of paying back to the Universe appeals to me greatly.

If we pause to look up from the earning-a-living spree that we all find ourselves caught up in, if we step back and away from being obsessed with the imperfections in our lives and if we stop being attached to material things – we will find that there are many opportunities in everyday living that can help us touch another Life, make a difference and contribute to make this world a better place than it is now!

The way to do this is to transform passion into compassion. We are all passionate. About people, about vocations, about events. Passion is very individual and is directed only at someone or something. It is basically a lot of personal, possessive energy. This sense of possessiveness often makes people want to control, dominate and demand. And so, ever so often, passion becomes a selfish, draining pursuit. On the other hand, compassion is not at all about being possessive about someone or something. It is the same energy as passion is but it is about making that energy in you available to everyone. It is like a rain that showers and drenches whoever and whatever it falls upon. Simply, compassion is expansive – a radiation, a glow, while passion is regressive – controlling and possessing.

When we stop obsessing about what isn’t there in our daily lives and employ ourselves selflessly in whatever small way to make a difference, we can transform our passion into compassion. It’s not difficult. What it requires is an effort. The most inspiring example of this transformation is Mother Teresa, whose birthday it is today! And she taught the simplest way to get started on this transformational journey when she said: “If you can’t feed a hundred people, then just feed only one.”

This is a practice my wife and started four years ago and follow till date. We feed one person, randomly – someone who we find on the street – at mealtimes daily. When we do offer the packet of food, we look into the person’s eye and say “Thank You!” Because while the act of service may make us feel warm within, what humbles us and keeps us anchored really is the opportunity to serve. This practice is our own small way of paying our rent to the Universe.

Perhaps you have your own practice too. More power to you if you do. Or if you haven’t started to pay your rent, you may now want to, going forward?

Learn to love yourself

There will be times in Life when the world will convince you that you are a parasite. That you are good-for-nothing. That you are a burden on your immediate family, society and perhaps the planet. People will opinionate, judge you and condemn you. You will find everyone difficult to deal with because people have either formed their opinions or they have no time for you. Either way no one wants to have anything to do with you. In their eyes, you have either failed financially, morally, emotionally or physically. The truth may be different. You may have a story to say. But no one’s listening.

Learn, through such times, and in such moments, to first love yourself. Understand that Life destroys nobody. Life has given you the opportunity and experience of this lifetime. What you are faced with is a part of your own Life’s design. Good or bad, in Life’s parlance an experience is an experience. You label it good or bad basis your definitions of what you want and what you don’t. Your acceptance delivers you joy and your resistance brings you grief. So, if you peel off your responses to an experience, you can detach yourself further from it. Then irrespective of what is happening to you, you remain untouched. When you are so insulated, it is possible to value yourself, love yourself and celebrate yourself, no matter what people say about you and what you are faced with!

The reason why such a simple learning doesn’t easily get understood is because of our conditioning. Over years, you__and I__have been told that how the world views you is important to your survival in society. Right from clothing ourselves to getting good grades through school, to impressing people around us in our teens to work titles on our business cards to flaunting our class of travel, we have become masters of living for the world. There is a bizarre selflessness that governs our existence. But what is the point in being selfless, and living for others, when you are all the time grieving that you are not being yourself and are not able to live the Life that you really want to?

I learned this lesson the hard way. Only after I had wasted much of my early years trying to please many people, working towards being seen as someone ‘nice, good and honorable’. Then, through a series of events, and experiences, I learned that those who seek honesty from others hardly practice it themselves. That to condemn those in distress is sometimes a ruthless pastime that the worthless and insensitive indulge in. I discovered that what other people say or do, about your Life, does not__and should not__make a difference to the way you think, live and work__as long as you are true to yourself. I concluded that in trying to live your Life by someone else’s rules, you are actually punishing yourself.

To be sure, you have not been created to be punished. The purpose of your creation is to enjoy this experience, to be happy, to celebrate, to live. So, don’t try to please others by living a Life for them while dying every minute yourself. Love the Life that you have been given. Begin by loving yourself.

Understand who you are – Know that you are not this body, not your physical assets, not your educational qualifications, not your bank balance, your business title or your achievements, records or feats. So, if you have lost all of them, you have lost nothing. Because you came with nothing. So losing what you never came with, and what you will never go with, is losing nothing! You are above all these material markers. You are the Universal energy that’s powering you and keeping you alive.

Understand that Life is the only God – A lot of your Life’s situations get confounded when you begin to yearn for a savior to come and extricate you from your abyss. The truth is there is no savior. You have to save yourself by applying your common sense. That common sense should tell you that since you are alive, and are being powered by the Universal energy, you have the only God that there is, which is Life, in you!

Understand that unless you live, you can’t do much to change the world – You surely do have dreams. And you dream of leaving the world a better place than you found it. No, you may not want to change the world the way a Gandhi or Mother Teresa did. But your own little world, your family, you do want to have impacted positively in your lifetime. And that you can do only when you survive. Or to use an aviation analogy, you can help others only if you first wear the oxygen mask on yourself!

Despite all the abundance around us, people have stopped counting their blessings. Instead they wallow in their, often self-inflicted, miseries. By giving too much credence to what people have to say about you, you are only allowing yourself to be drowned in that sea of hopelessness and scarcity. Instead break free. Love yourself. Remember this: Life needs you to fulfill your Life’s purpose. That’s why you have been created! When you steel yourself against the depressive sentiments that sometimes the world may heap on you, you will find the ability, the energy, and the opportunity to heal and make a difference__surely, as long as you are alive and, at times, long after you are gone! As Oscar Wilde (1854~1900) has said, “To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.”  

You are what you do

A common question asked of people in social circles, especially when people are meeting each other for the first time, is, “What do you do?” A normal answer to the question would be to say that “I am an engineer or a doctor or a lawyer or entrepreneur or musician or actor or politician.” Given the myriad new vocations available to people, it would hardly surprise anyone to receive a reply that says, “I am a movement therapist or a sound engineer or survival coach or garbage expert.”

So, is that all that people do? Work?

No. Not really. A large mass of people actually worry. A lot others fear. Several more suffer. Which explains why, there is so much suffering, so much disease, so much anxiety and so little peace, love and humanity in the world!

Think about it. How beautiful it will be if we actually heard any of the following answers to that question__what do you do?__:

• I serve
• I spread cheer and happiness
• I champion peace
• I care
• I love

Ironically, in an increasingly, wildly, virally, connected world, while the distances between continents are shrinking, the distances between people are only growing. When people are so busy worrying and suffering, running a rat race to earn a living, where is the time they have to live, let alone serve, care and love?

But it is possible to live, serve, care and love. Mother Teresa taught the world how this was possible through her Life and her work. I remember a 1989 interview that she gave TIME magazine’s Edward Desmond. Desmond had asked Mother some unusual questions. And she answered with remarkable candor and love. Her answers serve as her key teachable points of view. Here are some excerpts relevant even today and, more so, in the context we are discussing.

TIME: Does the fact that you are a woman make your message more understandable?

Mother Teresa: I never think like that.

TIME: But don't you think the world responds better to a mother?

Mother Teresa: People are responding not because of me, but because of what we're doing. Before, people were speaking much about the poor, but now more and more people are speaking to the poor. That's the great difference. The work has created this.

TIME: Humble as you are, it must be an extraordinary thing to be a vehicle of God's grace in the world.

Mother Teresa: But it is His work. I think God wants to show His greatness by using nothingness.

TIME: You are nothingness?

Mother Teresa: I'm very sure of that.

TIME: You feel you have no special qualities?

Mother Teresa: I don't think so. I don't claim anything of the work. It's His work. I'm like a little pencil in His hand. That's all. He does the thinking. He does the writing. The pencil has nothing to do with it. The pencil has only to be allowed to be used. In human terms, the success of our work should not have happened, no? That is a sign that it's His work, and that He is using others as instruments - all our Sisters. None of us could produce this. Yet see what He has done.

TIME: Is materialism in the West a serious problem?

Mother Teresa: I don't know. I have so many things to think about. I pray lots about that, but I am not occupied by that. Take our congregation for example, we have very little, so we have nothing to be preoccupied with. The more you have, the more you are occupied, the less you give. But the less you have the more free you are. Poverty for us is a freedom. It is not a mortification, a penance. It is joyful freedom. There is no television here, no this, no that. This is the only fan in the whole house. It doesn't matter how hot it is, and it is for the guests. But we are perfectly happy.

TIME: How do you find rich people then?

Mother Teresa: I find the rich much poorer. Sometimes they are more lonely inside. They are never satisfied. They always need something more. I don't say all of them are like that. Everybody is not the same. I find that (kind of) poverty hard to remove. The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.

TIME: What are your plans for the future?

Mother Teresa: I just take one day. Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not come. We have only today to love Jesus.

Mother Teresa’s answers actually awaken us to a whole new opportunity spectrum, a new possibility. Which is, to be an instrument in Life’s hand, to serve a higher purpose, to touch another Life and make a difference. If you take stock of the amount of time you spend worrying about and berating your circumstances or fearing yet-to-be-born consequences, you will discover just how much of your Life you have wasted and continue to waste. If you are feeling an emptiness suffocate you, it is because what you do day in day out has stopped being meaningful. Being a bread-winner and provider is not the only thing you are both capable of and created on this planet for. There’s more you can do. The spirit of Mother Teresa’s Life can guide you if you want it to. You don’t always have to invest an entire lifetime serving others. But you can make your lifetime meaningful by devoting some of your time daily or weekly or even monthly, to eradicating the hunger for love and understanding in your circle of influence. Instead of being obsessed with earning, providing for and protecting your flock, you can spread your wings, embrace a few causes close to your heart and offer yourself and your time to create value among them.  

Then you will find your response to the “What do you do?” question far more answer-worthy. This is how you learn to love Life and live it fully. This was the message and spirit of Mother Teresa’s Life. This Women’s Day, celebrate that spirit. Do create value, do touch a Life, do wipe a tear, do feed a hungry soul, do educate a child, do smile at a stranger__do make a difference. Because, remember, you are what you do. If you worry, you will be worry. If you suffer, you will be the suffering. If you love, you will be the love. And if you deliver happiness, you will be happy!