No matter how messed up your Life is, suicide is not the answer!!!

When did you ever ask to be born? Your lifetime is a gift. How can you then decide to end a Life that you has been ‘given’ to you?

I saw a note from a young reader this morning saying she read my post of two days ago – “Are you ‘sad sad’ or are you ‘happy sad’?” She confessed that she was just out of ICU after attempting suicide for a second time. She felt no one “really shared her sadness or was willing to understand why she was depressed”. Her note indicated that she was learning to cope with her reality: that she was perhaps having to deal with her Life, herself!

Indeed. Each of us is messed up in one way or the other. And we all have to deal with our quota of problems – some call it “s*%t” – by ourselves. Often times, Life may well be lonely. But sorry, I am not one who will ever support suicide as an idea – whatever may be the circumstances that drive anyone to that point.

Here’s what we need to understand. This lifetime of ours is a gift. None of us asked to be born. Life has been given, gifted, to us. For heaven’s sake, consider the miracle here. Isn’t it a miracle that you have been created as the human who gets the H1N1 (swine) flu and not as the swine that gives the flu? Even the swine did not ask to be born. Life has been given, gifted, to the swine as well. For all that the creator – if there is indeed one – cares, you may well have been created as a swine! So, know that, if you have been created as a human being, there must be a reason for it. And that reason is certainly not to feel depressed and to take your own Life!

A principal reason for depression is that your Life is not going the way you want it to. Simple. This reason may manifest itself in myriad ways but the basic concept is of not getting what you want. But hey, hold on a sec, will you? When did Life promise you anything? When was any guarantee given that your Life is going to play out this way or that way? Life does not promise anything. There are no guarantees in Life. Every product you buy comes with a user’s manual and a warranty. You – and I – are the only products, us humans, who come without any user manual to guide us or any guarantee that can assure us of a Life that we want. What this essentially means is that the best way to live Life is take it as it comes, to live with what is and to have no expectations from Life. The moment you expect Life to be this way or that way, and when it doesn’t go your way, you feel depressed. So, who is causing your depression, you – or Life? Besides, how intelligent is it to feel depressed over something that was never in your control?

Also, let’s not expect people to understand us either. It’s better to assume that no one will. And then when you find someone who understands you, well, won’t that relationship be worth celebrating? Your sadness is your own. Your happiness is your own. Don’t agonize over friends who don’t want to share either with you – the brutal reality is that such people were never your friends! You have made the mistake of calling mere acquaintances your friends, and you brood over their behavior? How intelligent is that? One of the best features that Facebook offers is when you add a friend, it asks you to categorize that relationship – is this a ‘close friend’, ‘an acquaintance’ or should this person be added to ‘another list’? I do this diligently for all my friends – even offline, off Facebook. And I would recommend you do it to. Let me tell you, it works!

Life has to be faced no matter what the circumstances. My wife and I have been enduring a bankruptcy for years now. For many spells over the last 8 years we have gone penniless. I have been called a cheat by my own mother and have been ‘disowned’ by my own family. As I write this, Vaani and I are not sure where our material Life is going – honestly there is so much debt to be repaid and no effort to reboot the business has kicked in place, the way we want it to. Yet, we are sure, that this Life must be lived, till it naturally ends, it is own inscrutable way, just as it all began! This is our story. But look around you – in your family, in your circle of influence, among your neighbors and colleagues – everyone’s got a personal story of pain, grief, guilt, sorrow and of facing Life stoically. If they can look their Life in the eye and live it, all of us too can!

I not going to tell this young reader – or anyone – that everything shall pass, that things will get better, that there will be dawn at the end of every dark night. I believe anyone attempting to take one’s Life is smart enough to know that all this is both true and fluff at the same time. Fluff because Life takes time to change. And it is people’s intrinsic impatience with Life, and a lack of understanding of what Life is, that drives them to suicide. But from experience I can tell this for sure: it is in enduring Life patiently that you evolve, you grow and you come to a point where you believe, like we do, that if you have been created you will be cared for, provided for, looked after – and loved! That you may not always get what you want, but you will always, always, be given what you need!    

“With acceptance there is only happiness”

‘The Happiness Road’ is a weekly Series on this Blog that appears on Sundays where I share my conversations with people while exploring their idea of happiness!

This Sunday I feature the dancer couple Shanta and V.P.Dhananjayan.

There’s a glint in the eyes of the Dhananjayan couple that you can’t miss. Over the last three decades, I have noticed the glint every time that I have seen them perform or on the few rare occasions that I have spoken to them. Recently, I met them for about an hour at their Shastri Nagar home. And all through the conversation, I couldn’t but help admire that glint. Perhaps, I wondered, the glint reflects their state of inner joy and peace – what you will find in people who love what they are doing and do only what they love!

Almost as if he is reading my mind, Dhananjayan says, “Happiness is just being.” “It is about being satisfied with what you are doing, with how you are living,” adds his wife Shanta.

Picture by Vaani Anand

Dhananjayan qualifies his earlier remark saying he feels blessed in many respects to have had the “right influences that impact happiness” at different times in his Life. First, he considers himself fortunate to have been born in a family where his father, a school teacher, instilled in him the value of ‘giving’ and taught him to never cling on to anything material. “He gave away everything he had to his sisters, leaving nothing for his eight children. Yet, all of us grew up happy, even if there was no food to eat at home on some days.” Second, living and learning in a gurukulam, at Kalakshetra, helped him understand that “group energy spreads harmony” – a work model that he has preserved over the years. Third, his companionship with soul-mate and partner Shanta, says Dhananjayan, has contributed immensely to the way he has grown through and evolved in Life. “We share each other’s ideology. Our art brings our hearts together. There’s a great understanding between us…we complete each other.”

Picture by Vaani Anand

Dhananjayan believes that when you know what you want from Life, and what makes you happy, you can face any situation, any challenge stoically. Shanta says that when they left Kalakshetra in 1968 they were only in their twenties, but they were already clear that they wanted to dedicate their lives to “putting Bharatanatyam on the world map”. “With the 25 continuous years we have spent conducting our summer gurukulam at Yogaville, Virginia, with the global collaborations we have had with artists from various genres and with the contribution we have been able to make to propagate Bharatiya sanskruti and kala worldwide, I guess we both have had a very fulfilling Life journey.”

But hasn’t there ever been a blemish on the bliss canvas? A challenge that threatened to disturb their inner equilibrium?

“Oh! There have been many,” exclaims Dhananjayan, adding, “But art teaches you humility and gratitude. When you have that attitude you always overcome.” He recounts his 15-year saga to establish Bhaskara, an academy to preserve and nurture the performing arts, in Payyanur in Kerala’s Kannur district. Everyone, from environmentalists to common-folk to a cold bureaucracy to disinterested politicians, came between him and his dream. For years, he soldiered on, investing every available hour and their hard-earned money in the project. Initially Bhaskara was only Dhananjayan’s baby. But when Shanta saw his intent and his passion being challenged by those who were opposing the project, she jumped in too, backing him fully. But “the people who operated the system” queered the pitch every single time. Finally the couple gave up, selling their investment to an educational institution that runs a B-school there now. “I was drained. When people don’t want to understand you, it can be very difficult. Kerala may be God’s own country, but it is also the Devil’s workshop! One day, seeing me frustrated, Shanta pointed out that there was no point in doing anything, even if it is your dream, if your inner peace is going to be disturbed. I saw light in her perspective,” confesses Dhananjayan.

Would he consider the Bhaskara project an epic loss – something that he failed at? “Fortunately, the Bhagavad Gita has taught me to keep my mind steady. Yes, there may be instances when the mind will waver. That’s when my art has helped steady it again. I have realized that there’s no success or failure. I have learnt to deal with both joy and sorrow with acceptance. With acceptance there is only happiness,” explains Dhananjayan.

So, here’s the secret, as I have discovered it, of that glint in Shanta’s and Dhananjayan’s eyes: Do what you believe in and love doing, always be grateful and content, simply accept whatever comes your way and never let anything disturb your inner peace!

In Life’s fairy tale, there are no sad endings

Don't approach anything that happens in your Life from sadness.

A loss. Pain. A heart-break. An insult. All of them are not what we ever want in our Life. And so we respond with shock, anger and sorrow. But after we get over the initial response, we must develop the attitude to shift the attention to joy.

Exult in the opportunity that each of those surprising events has thrown up. A loss always points to a gain in the future. It has also taught you through your grief what is more valuable in your Life. You grieve a loss because you attach a value to it. This awakening to the realization of what's important to you must call for celebration. And joy. If someone insults you, you must celebrate because you have now the opportunity to live with an insult. A capability that you never thought existed in you. Again, it calls for joy! Your spouse tells you that she or he can't carry on in the relationship with you anymore. Beneath the obvious layer of shock and tears, it actually opens so many more opportunities to start afresh in Life. To explore newer horizons rather than be stuck in a bad relationship in grief, in sorrow, in pain. Joy here means the suffering for both of you has come to an end. Yes the pain of going through the process of separation will have to be dealt with. But eventually it too will lead to joy!

What is certain about your Life and mine is that it will end one day. But interestingly when your Life ends you will not even know it. Only those who you leave behind will feel sad. And again you will not know that they are sad! So, in reality, in Life's fairy tale, there are no sad endings. So, why be sad about the interludes over which we have no control? 

Choose happiness over worry or sorrow in each moment

Don't try to make meaning out of Life. Make your Life meaningful.

Don't dismiss Life as a game of Snakes and Ladders where you will always be getting the Snakes. Nor is it a game of Chess where you are a mere pawn. Life is such an inscrutable experience that it has a mind of its own, an agenda of its own and has a pace of its own. So, you will find it dealing you a hard blow when you least expect it or it will give you a bounty when you have completely lost all hope. When we label Life as "terrible, a pain, agonizing" in the first instance, or, when we call it, "benevolent, fortunate, gracious" in the second one, we are trying to make meaning out of it. Either meaning will disappoint.

Life is like water in your palm. It is not going to be there forever, and definitely not in the same way that it once was. So, the only way to make Life meaningful is to do something that makes you happy each day. Choose happiness over worry or sorrow in each moment. In the toughest of situations, you will find a reason to smile. Choose that moment to cling on and claw your way back. Once you have learnt this method, you can then start making Life meaningful in more ways__by touching other lives. Be there for people. Offer your time, your shoulder and your helping hand. Know that only you can make your Life meaningful. Because it's your Life. If you don't find any meaning in your Life, to your Life, it's only because you have not exercised the option to be happy or you have not reached out to touch another Life. Think about it. It will make a lot of sense!

You and your mind – BFFs!!!

Your mind can be your best friend. So, don’t try to conquer it. Instead befriend it. Have conversations with it. Reason with it. Laugh with it! This is the only way you can get along with your mind, without it controlling you!

There’s an interesting story I remember reading. A sage was offering his prayers, when a very pretty lady walked past. He got distracted and kept thinking about her all day. The next morning he resolved that he would not get distracted by the beautiful woman. So, he closed his eyes tight. But when the lady walked past him, he was able to smell the jasmine flowers she wore in her hair and so he got distracted again. He was now angry with himself and vowed to close his eyes and nose the next morning. Yet, when the lady went past him, he was able to ‘feel’ her presence because he heard the sound of her anklets pass him by. Angry and completely lost, the sage vowed now to close his ears as well. But despite his intention being right and his making a valiant effort, he could still ‘feel’ her presence the next day, even when his eyes, nose and ears were closed. That’s when the sage concluded that it was ‘all in the mind’.

Indeed. It always was, is and will be so! But however hard you try, you can never control the mind. The mind is like a tennis-ball spewing machine that players use to perfect their strokes. The mind spews thoughts endlessly, like the machine spews tennis balls. On an average, a human mind spews 60,000 thoughts daily. These thoughts range from the bizarre to the fearful to the practical to the anxious to fantasy stuff, all at the same time. Which is, in most unevolved and untrained human beings, the mind is never in the present. It is clinging on to a past memory or dwelling in a future worry! The Buddha describes the human mind as being filled with drunken monkeys __ who never sit still and keep jumping from tree to tree, from banana to mango to orange, screeching and screaming all the time! And, says the Buddha, the only way to calm your drunken monkeys down is to have conversations with them. Which is, to talk to your own mind.

When you speak to your own mind, you can be very sure that you will not be interpreted but will be understood. That you can be candid, you can choose to disagree and still be on ‘talking terms’! Wouldn’t you say the same thing of speaking your heart (or mind!) to and sharing with a friend?

Los Angeles-based sociologist and author, BJ Gallagher, shares her secret for making your mind your best friend on her blog:

“I've found that engaging the monkeys in gentle conversation can sometimes calm them down. I'll give you an example: Fear seems to be an especially noisy monkey for people like me who own their own business. As the years go by, Fear Monkey shows up less often, but when he does, he's always very intense. So I take a little time out to talk to him.

"What's the worst that can happen?" I ask him.

"You'll go broke," Fear Monkey replies.

"OK, what will happen if I go broke?" I ask.

"You'll lose your home," the monkey answers.

"OK, will anybody die if I lose my home?"

"Hmmm, no, I guess not."

"Oh, well, it's just a house. I suppose there are other places to live, right?"

"Uh, yes, I guess so."

"OK then, can we live with it if we lose the house?"

"Yes, we can live with it," he concludes.

“And that usually does it. By the end of the conversation, Fear Monkey is still there, but he's calmed down. And I can get back to work, running my business and living my Life,” says Gallagher.

So, stop obsessing over your mind. There are NO mind-control methods. You can at best make your mind your best friend. Talk to your mind, to your drunken monkeys – to the Fear Monkey, the Anxiety Monkey, the Sorrow Monkey, the Jealous Monkey and any other, as the situation may demand. And calm them down. Once you have achieved that, you and your mind, the two of you, can be Best Friends Forever! 

Grief and guilt are worthless, not you!

Grief and guilt cripple you. When they arise, face them. And they will melt away.

Last evening I was talking to a young friend who quit her job a few months ago and has been struggling to find another one. She quit her job because her boss used to bully her a lot. And she can’t fathom why she’s unable to land another one, especially when she’s exceptionally talented. There are times, she confessed, when she’s overcome by guilt – over having chucked her job and grief – over her inability to find another one!

I told her that grief and guilt are very normal emotions. We mustn’t resist either of them. Instead watch them arise, feel them, cry if you must, but also consider their futile nature. How can grieving help? How can being guilty help? When you examine these questions closely you will realize that what’s over is over. The more you live in the past, clinging on a wretched memory, the more you will suffer. Any suffering is depressive. You will start feeling worthless. So, when grief and guilt arise, face them with absolute clarity. These emotions are worthless. Not you. And through this awareness begin to look at what actions can you take to make the situation that you are grieving over, or feeling guilty about, better.

You end up making a lot of decisions in Life. Not all decisions may work out the way you want them to. You will, at times, even feel stupid that you took such a regrettable, lousy call. Don’t let that feeling of remorse pin you down. Learn from that decision, from the experience. In my young friend’s case, perhaps the learning is that she could have been more prudent about how she wanted to deal with a bullying boss. She must have now learnt that quitting her job was not the only option she had. She could have, well, reported him – especially since her employer was a MNC with some great workplace practices. Anything that happens in Life, if it hasn’t killed you yet, makes you stronger and wiser. As you grow and evolve in Life, you will see how wasteful grief and guilt are. Through your awareness you will learn to let them go. And you will then just be!

Enjoy, Experience and Learn from the Journey of Life

This whole lifetime is, at one level, meaningless. There’s no success. And no failure. When you die, you take nothing, not even memories of your experiences.  

You may wonder what’s the point in living – earning, creating, saving – when you can’t take anything or anyone with you when you die? But this is the truth. This is the way it is. None of us knows what’s after death. So, we can only ensure that we live this one Life that we have well. This means we treat everything that comes our way – sadness, joy, love, anger, fear, passion and peace – with respect, with acceptance and with gratitude. In his immortal poem “The Guest House”, Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi, the 13^th Century Persian poet says, receive both Life’s sorrows and joys with respect, greeting them at the door “laughing” and “invite them in”, for each has been sent as a “guide from beyond”. There’s only one reason that I believe there is to describe why we go through so many experiences in our Life – and that reason is to teach us to be humble. What education, success, fame and money do to us is that they all make us, even if subconsciously, arrogant. We start gloating over how well we have planned out lives, how much we are in control and how well we have crafted our own tiny worlds. And then, in one fell swoop, Life changes everything. It’s like a wave that comes and sweeps away a sandcastle that a child has built on the beach. For some of us, these waves come multiple times and with each blow, with each upheaval, we become more and more humble.

Ustad Zakir Hussain
Picture Source: Internet

Those who have understood Life and the way it works, will have learnt also to be unswayed by whatever is happening to them. Neither grief nor glory can move them. I recently read an interview that Tabla maestro Ustad Zakir Hussain gave ‘Times Life’. He was asked how he dealt with being a celebrity and how he would deal with losing all his fame. His reply is so beautiful, so awakening: “I am a figment of everyone’s imagination. That’s what I am. And I know that I’m the dog today and I’m having my day. And there’ll be someone else to take over and really, there’s no problem in that. I’m not going to be the famous number one Tabla player all my Life. I took over from someone, did I not? And someone else is going to take over from me. And there’s no problem at all, as far as I’m concerned. Because, I am not the best. There is no best. You know, someone once told a maestro after a show ‘You were perfect today’ and the maestro replied ‘I haven’t played good enough to quit’. You know, that’s a very profound statement. In other words, if I had done what I think is the best I can do, I might as well hang up my boots. There’s nowhere else to go. So, there’s no perfect. You will never reach the horizon but that doesn’t stop you from enjoying and experiencing the journey, learning from it.” 

That’s all there is to Life. Keep enjoying and experiencing the journey, learning from it, every step of the way. Don’t cling on to anything. Neither your sorrows nor your joys. Take everything as it comes. If possible, during the time that you have here, on the planet, touch another Life, make a difference. That’s the only way to create meaning in an otherwise meaningless Life! Because, when it ends, when death comes, your lifetime will be a memory for those who knew you, and for you…it may, well, just mean nothing.

Drink Life, “Bottoms Up”!!!

There’s no point being half-hearted about Life. You can’t afford to be tentative. Because Life’s passing you by – every moment. You miss it and it is gone! So, take the plunge, live Life fully, intensely, totally! 

There’s an ancient Zen story. It must be true. For Lao Tzu (601~531 BC), Buddha (563~483 BC) and Confucius (551~479 BC) lived around the same time. It is said that the three of them met in paradise, in a café. The waiter came by with three glasses of a drink called “Life”.

Buddha refuses the drink saying: “Life is misery!”

Confucius has a more moderate view to Life. He insists that he cannot decide how “Life” is until he takes a sip of it. Confucius had a scientific bent of mind, he theorized logically. His point was that you must experience everything and then decide for yourself. So, he takes a sip of the drink from the glass and concludes: “Buddha is right. Life is misery!”

It is Lao Tzu’s turn now. He looks at all three glasses. He takes each of them, one after the other, empties all the three glasses and starts dancing.

Buddha and Confucius look at Lao Tzu. “Are you not going to say anything about Life?”, they ask him.

Lao Tzu replies: “What is there to say? My dancing is enough to tell you what Life is all about. And even if there is anything to say about Life, words may not be adequate to describe it. Which is why I am dancing!”

The message of the story is unputdownable. Lao Tzu drank from all three glasses. And started dancing ecstatically. His point was: “Unless you drink totally, you can’t say. And even if you drink totally and can say, words cannot express what Life is all about!”

If you can internalize that message, Life is so simple. Life is just a wondrous series of experiences. One after the other. All we have to do is go through each of them in total acceptance. Because we don’t have a choice. Really! There’s no way you or I can alter what Life has planned for us. So, if Life’s really that simple, what’s holding us back? Why are we not, like Lao Tzu, able to drink “Life” totally? Why are we tentative? One evident reason can be that we are conditioned to think of Life as complex. We confuse Life’s inscrutability with complexity. We imagine that because we don’t know what will happen next, the next event could be something awful, painful, sorrowful. The other reason could be that we don’t want pain. Naturally, if pain can be avoided, who will want it? But pain cannot be avoided. If it comes, and it will, so be it. When sadness follows pain, know that happiness will follow sadness. That’s the way of Life! So, whatever happens, whatever comes, accept it, take it in your stride and keep drinking from the cup of Life!

Drink Life, bottom’s up! Live each moment fully – because this is the only Life you have!! As someone wise has said: “Every man dies. But not every man really lives!”

From sadness to happiness

When you are consumed by sorrow and suffering, choose to do something that makes you happy!

Sorrow is a very natural, real human feeling. Someone dies. You lose something. You are misunderstood. You break-up in a relationship. You suffer a crippling health setback. Each of these situations can apply to any of us – at any time. And when something like that happens, chances are that you will be grief-stricken. You will wish your Life was different. This wishing will make you feel miserable and cause all your suffering. You will go down a depressive spiral and will continue to remain stuck in that cesspool of grief for a long, long time. Over time, you will not even know what you are sad about. Sadness would have become embedded in your subconscious.

The way to haul yourself up in a situation like this is to focus on whatever gives you joy. Could be music, art, watching a movie or being alone with nature. Whatever makes you forget that you are sad, in a natural manner, do it. Drinking or smoking do not fall in this category because they are artificial and you impose them on you. Look for an immersive experience – where you can lose yourself, without count of time or without thinking about your grief! 

Sadness and happiness are the same energy – expressed differently. Look around you. There are so many happy people. Why are you not happy in their midst? The reason is that when you look at them, you feel you can never be like them. You have conditioned yourself to thinking that way. Because the truth is, if you can be sad, you can be happy too! Not by replacing the factors that have caused your sadness. But by accepting the fact that you have reasons to be sad, and that, despite those reasons, you can chose to be happy doing what gives you joy!

Sorrow and suffering must not be resisted. Or controlled. Or repressed. They must be transcended. You can go past that – in fact, any – feeling if you are aware. Awareness will always lead you to happiness!

Get Better from Life, not Bitter

You can either be bitter from Life or better from it.

A key reason why many of us turn bitter, over time, with Life is because we are not able to treat events as events. We hold on to them, analyze them, and regret them, refusing to let go. Let’s say someone says something harsh to you. In reality, it’s just an event. But if you keep mulling over it, wondering why it was said, and what will others – who heard this person say this of you – think of you, then you are surely going to end up feeling miserable. Chewing endlessly on by gone events, holding on to past grudges and painful memories, is a sure way to invite suffering into your Life.

I am reminded of the Zen story of the two monks who were walking in the Himalayas.  

A senior monk and a junior monk were traveling together. At one point, they came to a river with a strong current. As the monks were preparing to cross the river, they saw a very young and beautiful woman also attempting to cross the river. The young woman asked them if they could help her cross to the other side.

The two monks glanced at one another because they had taken vows at their monastery not to touch a woman.

Then, without a word, the younger monk picked up the woman, carried her across the river, placed her gently on the other side, and carried on with his journey.

The older monk couldn’t believe what had just happened. He simply stood there staring as his young colleague briskly walked up the hill. After re-joining his companion, he was still speechless, but seething with rage nevertheless.

An hour passed without a word between them. Two more hours passed. Then three. Finally the older monk could contain himself any longer, and blurted out: “As monks, we are not permitted to touch a woman, how could you then carry that woman on your shoulders?”

The younger monk looked at him, startled at first, and then, comprehending the full import of his senior’s question, replied, “Brother, I set her down on the other side of the river, why are you still carrying her?”

Unfortunately, many of us, even if we have grown older, like the senior monk, have not grown up. We still carry baggage from our past with us – principally, hurt, regret, resentment and grief. And so we stumble along through Life. Our painful memories enslave us to the past and ensure we stay bitter. And this way we remain unhappy – unable to enjoy the present moment, the now! This is true of a lot of people, a lot of the times.

Siddharth Varadarajan: No Bitterness

Therefore, it was indeed refreshing this morning, to read Siddharth Varadarajan’s (the former editor of The Hindu) views on his unceremonious exit from the paper, following some Boardroom intrigue at Kasturi & Sons Ltd. (KSL – the company that owns The Hindu) earlier this week. An online portal asked him if he was feeling betrayed. And Varadarajan replied: “There is no question of feeling betrayed. I came to this job with my eyes wide open. I had a great run as Editor of The Hindu, which is India’s finest paper, and am grateful to the KSL Board for appointing me to the post.”

Clearly, whatever be the event that you end up having to face in Life, you have two options. You can be bitter or better from it. If you choose to be bitter, you will miss the opportunity to live fully and to experience the magic and beauty of Life in each moment. If you choose to be better from the experience, you will find yourself soaked in abundance and inner joy!

Happiness is where awareness is

Is it really possible to be happy despite your circumstances?

Some years back, a factory hand in Pune, who was attending a workshop on “Taking the elevator to Happiness” that I was leading, made a profound remark. He said: “Bhaashan se Raashan nahin bharta, Sahib!” (Sir, ‘philosophical’ speeches can’t help us buy groceries/rations to run the household.” Indeed, he is right. Understanding Life better cannot solve your problems. You still have to work hard, and consistently, on them. But what a better understanding can do is help you deal with Life’s vagaries better. More important, help you deal with them peacefully, happily!

Surely, there is no set way to live Life – so no way can be called right or wrong. Living Life completely – facing, accepting and dealing with what you are given – is the way! This is what I have learned from Zen teachings. Zen is not a philosophy. Because philosophy still operates at a mind level. And Zen goes beyond the mind. Zen draws you out of the mind, further, higher. So, when confronted with Life’s inscrutable challenges, you are invited to experience them fully, while learning to transcend them over a period of time – by training the mind – to be able to reach a ‘witness’ stage, to be merely an observer of your own Life. This does not mean inaction. This is a lot of action, a lot of hard work. Obviously, when you try to address a challenge you are facing, you work on finding a solution. If the solution works, great. When the solution doesn’t work, what do you do? You get angry, frustrated, sad, fearful – Zen teaches you to get past these debilitating emotions, understand that these, like Life itself, are transient, and experience the true nature of your creation.

Zen is awareness. Of just the present moment. Being aware does not mean a past hurt, guilt or memory will not rise in the mind. It does not also mean that a worry, of something that is likely to happen in the future, will not arise in the mind. The nature of the mind is that it can only live in the past or the future. The mind knows no present. And Zen teaches you to transcend the mind, go past its treacherous ways, and anchor yourself in the present. In the now.

                                                                                              

This is what happens to us when we are in nature’s lap. Each of us must have experienced that rare moment of completely losing ourselves to an ocean’s vastness or a mountains majestic beauty. Or sometimes losing ourselves to an art form that we cherish – like painting, cooking, music or writing. In those rare moments, you have lost your identity as so-and-so, with such-and-such problems, and have united with the Universal energy. Zen teaches you that this is possible in everyday Life too! Which is why, when a Zen Master was asked, “What is Zen?”, he replied: “Chopping Wood, Carrying Water”. These were everyday chores, even for a Master, in those days. And the import is that you have to be “immersed” in whatever you are doing in that moment without letting your mind wander into the past or the future. So, irrespective of what you are doing – or going through – be in it fully.

My experience is that you can be in the throes of a challenge and still be happy if you choose to be. Owing to our bankruptcy, and an inexplicable set of professional challenges, we have a lot of debt on us as a family, and absolute cashless-ness at most times. It is not that I don’t feel responsible or that I don’t recognize the enormity of the task ahead – of rebuilding our business and repaying our creditors – of us. It is not that fear and insecurity – or even the guilt of having caused this financial mess – do not arise in my mind. But my awareness helps me gets past those thoughts, and helps me take actions that I must take every single moment, each day. When my actions don’t bear fruit – as they haven’t over several months – my awareness again helps me stay anchored and get past the grief that failure often brings with it. I sleep well each night and wake up the next day to do another round of ‘chopping wood and carrying water’.

I am not sure I am “successful” with Life, but surely, I am peaceful living it! This may not be the only way to live. This may not even be the best way – may well be contestable, arguable and even admonishable. But it has helped me__and my wife__stay anchored and peaceful through tumultuous times and has taught us to be happy despite our circumstances.

Strive for harmony within

Don’t avoid conflict__whenever you strongly disagree__for the sake of feigning courtesy or harmony. At the same time, never make the conflict personal. Focus on the issue. Never on the person.

There are often times, when you will not want to accept what is being said or proposed or done. Yet you will not want to wave a red flag or raise an objection or even make a point because you fear that the “harmony” in the relationship or environment will be lost. And that you will be accused of disturbing it. So, you will choose to swallow your sentiments, submit to being popular than being authentic, and simply go on. Now, clearly, whenever you allow something to happen, with which you don’t agree principally, remember you are maintaining decorum externally but within you there is a violent churn. You are grieving, for, within you, there is chaos, turbulence, sorrow. And therefore your justification that you are choosing to ‘give in’ or remain ‘mum’ for the sake of ‘harmony’ falls flat on its face. This is not an intelligent way to live!

But this is the way we ‘adjust’, ‘accommodate’ and claim we ‘adapt’ in Life – all the time. This is true in all our relationships: boss-subordinate, parent-child, husband-wife, between lovers, neighbors and siblings. Every time we choose not to disagree, in order to prevent a debate for whatever reason, we are allowing a part of us, in the context of that given relationship, at that point in time, to die.

I am not saying that you take up cudgels on every issue, with everyone under the sun, and become combative. It is totally pointless to keep fighting people all the time. In fact, I am not even saying fight over an issue. All I am saying is please express yourself. Allow your sentiments to flow – in the context of the issue, irrespective of who you are dealing with. It is unlikely that the other person may agree with your sentiments. But at least the other person will know what__and how__you are thinking. When you express yourself, you are in harmony, you are free, you are traveling light! On the other hand, when you keep things bottled up, within you, you are simmering within, under the pretext of maintaining dignity and decorum outside.

An intelligent conflict, an intellectual debate, is far more harmonious than a pretentious peace when your insides are boiling over. Now, there will be times when your effort to debate is received immaturely. And you are dealt with a personal, often below-the-belt, response. When that happens, your awareness should help you not to get provoked, not to retaliate, but to stay with the issue – without getting personal. If you find that any effort is not worth it in this context, simply move on. Just don’t grieve. And, at all times, please don’t try to be a martyr. Self-martyrdom is very bad for your self-esteem and inner peace.

This is the way of the Tao that champions ‘effortless action’. The import here is that as long as you do what comes naturally to you, without having to make an effort, you will be at peace with yourself. So, if you must disagree while expressing yourself, please do so, even if it means being in an issue-based conflict. Except that such expression must be effortless. On the other hand, if refraining from expressing your sentiments requires a huge effort – which, in turn, affects your inner peace – drop that effort. Harmony begins with you. Unless you are at peace with yourself, in any context, you cannot live fully. And if you are not living fully, you may well be alive, but you were dead long, long ago!

Forgiveness is liberating

Forgiveness opens the gateway to inner peace. Always.

Ever so often, people hurt us. With their words or actions or both. We end up hating the presence of such people in our lives and are seething with anger at their mere mention. While such a response may appear logical and justified, in reality, it does affect the quality of our own lives. We end up carrying the baggage of that past experience and grieve every single time we reflect upon it. Anything that we carry as a burden will hurt us. Try this exercise: take a full glass of water and hold it up with your arm extended fully. Keep holding. How long is it since your arm starts aching and your shoulder starts hurting? How long can you go on holding this glass of water this way? At some point, you will be compelled to set it down. The sense of ‘aha’, the relief, you will experience when you put down that glass is the same when you forgive someone for what she or he has done to you. Forgiveness, however, must be unconditional. That’s when your inner peace will also be total.

I had the opportunity recently to deal with someone who has caused enormous pain and hardship to me. I hurted badly each time this person’s machinations got the better of me. Then, after much resisting, suffering and learning, when I realized there was no point in laboring over getting this person to see reason, I chose to simply forgive. I did not judge. I did not see who was right and who was wrong in the bargain. I simply chose to let go of all my hatred and ill-will for this person. For a long, long time, there was no contact between us. But because of the choice I had made, I discovered that I was not hurting anymore. That there was no anger in me towards this person anymore. When we finally were to meet recently, I was apprehensive how I would respond. I was hoping all the pain of the past will not surface again. I need not have been so concerned. Because when we met, while I discovered that this person had not changed one bit, my inner peace was untouched. My forgiving this person had helped me immensely.

A key ingredient of forgiveness, I have learnt, is to be non-judgmental. To say you are forgiving someone because she or he has done something wrong is bringing judgment into play. Such forgiving is suppressing your real emotions – your anger, your hurt, your pain. When you are not alert, these emotions can come back and explode on the surface like a volcano. True forgiveness is when you don’t judge, when you let go of your anger, your hurt and your ego. You simply decide that irrespective of what this person did to you, you are simply moving on. Because you don’t want to analyze. You don’t want to dissect what has happened. You simply want freedom from the past. And to be free of whatever you are holding on to or whatever is holding you in its clutches, you have to first let go. Then the forgiveness is complete. And liberating.

Remain unmoved to stay unscathed

Just as it is important not to get bogged down by failure, it is equally, perhaps more, critical not to get carried away by success.

M S Dhoni: Unmoved

At the presentation ceremony of the ICC Champions Trophy at Edgbaston, Birmingham, two nights ago, former England captain and Star Cricket’s anchor Nasser Hussain asked India captain M.S.Dhoni: “The T20 World Cup, the ICC World Cup and now the Champions Trophy….you have seen and got them all. What would you want next?”

Embarrassed and smiling, Dhoni, in his characteristic down-to-earth, grounded, style, replied: “I am not here to prove to anyone how good I am. My focus is on the game. We are off to the West Indies from here and we will be keen to put in our best there and work as a team.”

Many observers and commentators have been amazed with Dhoni’s unflappable leadership and his ability to remain calm in a crisis. I feel the biggest reason why he continues to be successful is the because he doesn’t get all that he’s achieved go to his head. He doesn’t let defeat affect him either. And that’s a remarkable quality. An ability. Something each of us can consider, reflect upon and try internalizing.

Think about it. In this lifetime, which has been given to us without our asking for it, there are many things that will happen to us. There are many experiences that we will go through. Some of them will work to a plan. And we will start imagining we caused or created them. Some will happen to us without any effort from us. And sometimes things will simply happen – causing us pain, joy, grief, suffering and often leaving us numbed, shocked, defeated, delighted or humbled. Osho, the Master, invites us to consider the example of the wheel. He says a wheel moves. While its center remains unmoved. So, if your Life were a wheel, with its own fair share of ups and downs, you, the real you, your center, your soul, must remain unmoved. Only this state of staying unmoved, despite whatever is happening to you, can keep you perpetually blissful! The best way to respond to Life is to remain unmoved – by joy or by sorrow, by victory or by defeat. Then, and only then, can you hope to get through this lifetime, unscathed!

A part of your Life’s gone with the moment

No matter what, the moment that you miss will never come back. In all your years here on this planet, if you can recall only a few moments of your Life as memorable, then the truth is that you probably lived ONLY in those moments. All the other time, you may have merely been existing.

The reason why most days of our lives are not memorable is because we are caught up with our worries, fears, insecurities and anxieties. We fail to see the mystical beauty of Life in our weary, dreary, troubled moments. We have somehow got conditioned to this thinking, and therefore have an expectation, that Life must go the way we have planned for it.. Despite ample evidence and our own individual experiences pointing to the opposite, we still secretly hope and fervently believe that our lives will ride smoothly. And then, when it doesn’t happen that way, we brood and agonize over the way our Life is. Or we become zombies – mechanically running from home to work, and from work to home, without pausing to even think why we are doing what we are doing!

I recall a simple Zen story. A minister asked Takuan, a Zen teacher, to suggest how he might pass the time. He felt his days very long attending his office and sitting stiffly to receive the homage of others.

Takuan wrote eight Chinese characters and gave them to the man:

Not twice this day

Inch time foot gem.

This day will not come again.

Each minute is worth a priceless gem.

No moment will come back again. Irrespective of what’s happening. Sometimes, when you observe your grief (based on what people, events, circumstances have done to you) closely, intensely, you will discover a rare beauty in it. And that beauty is there because your grief is real. It is a pointer to how alive you are. Happiness, beauty and living in the moment are not concepts that follow your evolution and growth as a person. You grow and evolve only because you embrace these concepts, imbibe their lessons and live your Life based on them.

The nature of Life is to be ever-straddling the two worlds of joy and sorrow. And you can do that, finding joy even in your sorrow, if you learn to cherish each moment __and live it, love it intimately, because no moment is ever going to come back.

From nonsense to non-tense living

Living completely requires you to be non-tense. Which is you must not allow anxiety, worry, guilt, fear, anger __ in fact anything that makes you tense or stressed __ to affect you in any manner. To be non-tense, we must learn to drop all memories, all expectations, all desires and simply embrace the present, the NOW.

At the core of all human suffering are memories, expectations and desires. Most of the time we are saddled with painful memories of what once was. We either want to go back in time or we want to rid ourselves of the pain and suffering we have been through. But how can you get rid of anything that you cling on to? Then there are our expectations. We expect that all our integrity and hard work is always rewarded. That all our wants are always met. When that does not always happen, as it may possibly not, you agonize. Then there are our desires. For a future that is not yet visible. We want Life of a particular order. We don’t know if it will happen or not. So we worry about the possibilities, about the odds, all the time.

To avoid all this suffering, you need to do three things:

• Stop living in your past __ and the memories will no longer come back to haunt you
• Expect nothing – simply receive what you get, with joy, with humility, in acceptance
• Desire nothing – In the absence of desires, think about it, there will be no future to worry about

Earlier this week a friend from the hospitality industry pinged me. He frantically wanted some advice. He lived and worked out of a South Asian country and served in one of the most premium beach resorts there as an Assistant Manager. His wife and one-year-old daughter live in India. He said he had been to India on vacation until 10 days ago. And confessed he was very homesick. He had stopped enjoying his work because he wanted to be living together with his family. His wife was not too keen on leaving India for another South Asian country and preferred moving to the Americas, if at all. To compound matters, his company had overlooked him for a promotion. He was disillusioned and wanted to quit his job and get back to India. He said he wanted to do something to make his situation better. We chatted a bit on Skype. Here are snatches from the conversation.

Me: How does quitting become the “something” you want to do to make your situation better?

Him: At least it will get me back to being with the family!

Me: Oh! So, you don’t need to be earning right now to support your family?

Him: No. No. I do need to be earning. I have not much savings, so, yes, I need to keep my job.

Me: Then how does quitting the one you have help?

Him: I am so frustrated. I just think quitting will help.

Me: Since you ask, let me tell you, you must not be quitting, but must create value in whatever work you do.

Him: Create value in a job for an employer who does not value me and has passed me over in the recent appraisals? I don’t get you!

Me: The employer has passed you over. That does not stop you from creating value. Yes, you probably need to find a lasting solution to your twin problems of a. living with your family and b. finding an employer that values you. But clearly quitting is not the way forward. Accept first that you are not living with your family now. So, let go of the immediate past, your vacation, that haunts you and makes you homesick. Accept also that your employer does not value you the way you would like to be. So, drop that expectation totally. And think of what best you can do every day. You can probably make your tenure as an Assistant Manager invaluable by creating value in your role every moment from now on! Just do that. Because that opportunity is in your control.

Him: So, what do I do about getting another job? Are you saying I don’t try at all?

Me: That doesn’t mean you should not try! Of course, just as you can create value in your role every day, you can apply to new positions every day. But do both these things without delving too much into the past or without worrying about the future. Work without pressure….work immersing yourself in the present, in the opportunity available to you, to create value!

That was my friend’s story. He signed off promising he would think over our conversation. Yesterday he pinged me again saying he had had a candid conversation with his current boss __ the one who had overlooked him for a promotion. And he said he kind of understood now the rationale behind his appraisal being the way it was. He declared that he was a lot more peaceful now. He said: “When you accept things for the way they are, you are no longer tense about how they will be or over how they once were.”

Honestly, I did not expect such a meditative point of view from my friend. But so deep has been his learning – he discovered the power of non-tense living! And I share it with you.

Your own Life situation may be different. But a non-tense way of looking at it may help you create value too than just acting in haste, and emotionally, in times when you don’t get what you want. A non-tense Life is always more fulfilling, more practical, more peaceful, because it is based on the only reality, the only truth available to each of us __ which is, the NOW! When you are not in the now, you are actually dealing with a lot of nonsense – emotions like worry, fear, anxiety, anger, that waste your now away. If you are focused on the now, on the other hand, there is no past, there is no future. There just is, what is. And so, in the present, there is no tension of what was or what will be. So, there will be no more wasteful emotions, literally, no nonsense!

Here’s hoping you live a truly non-tense day today!