Welcome to the party called Life – it’s on 24x7!!!

Celebration is not an event. It is a state of being.

As another year flows past and as yet another flows in, you may quite be tempted to believe that it’s the event tonight – New Year’s Eve – that’s the celebration. The truth however is that your entire Life is – has been and will continue to be – a celebration. You don’t see your Life as a celebration because you are preoccupied with the small stuff. And as Richard Carlson has famously said, ‘it’s all small stuff’! 

Just consider this: what if you didn’t join a New Year party tonight? Won’t you physically be missing all the action? All the fun? All the dancing and the drinks? Indeed, how can you enjoy a party for which you never showed up? This is the problem with most of us – this big, magical, beautiful party called Life is happening 24x7, 365 days, for us but we are not “in” it, we are not present or although we are physically there, we are lost in the maze of our grief, guilt, worries, fears and anxieties.

If I have learnt anything from Life, it is this: Life is one helluva celebration. If we start valuing what we have, instead of pining for what we don’t have or worrying about what may happen to us, we will be soaked in happiness. Celebration, in the context of Life, is a state of being. It is eternal and present continuously!

Okay, here’s a little exercise you can do. Sit down quietly for a few minutes. And make a list of your most memorable moments from your Life so far. Wasn’t that birthday five years ago awesome? Wasn’t that office party where you met you partner unforgettable? Wasn’t the day you child was born your biggest celebration up until this time? So, make the list….but hey, you know what? There’s a catch here. The moment you start counting your memorable moments of your Life, you have lost this game. If you take your age and multiply it with 365 days – that’s how many days you have been around here on the planet. And yet you can count only a handful of days as being memorable among the thousands that you have ostensibly lived, well, isn’t that a tragedy?

Think about it – if you are not celebrating each moment, aren’t you squandering this once in a lifetime opportunity, this limited period offer, called Life? Begin by celebrating what is and what you have. Celebrate the air in your lungs. Celebrate the magic of a sunrise, a dew drop, a flower, the smile of a child or the warmth of a pet. Celebrate that you have access to internet and Facebook so you can pontificate on whether Free Basics is a rip-off or not! Even if someone you love has passed on or moved away – celebrate their Life or your time with them. Life is too precious – and you don’t need me to tell you this – so, go beyond the party you have planned to be at tonight! Make each day of your Life a celebration – and see how it is then filled with abundance and grace!  

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!    

‘Tis time for rebuilding, renewal and revival

Life is a great leveler. At times you don’t have much choice but to just go with the hand that you have been dealt with.     

A Facebook and WhatsApp forward that was shared by my friend caught my attention. Here’s what it had to say.

(The typos are as in the original!)

Photo Courtesy: PTI/Internet

“I am prassana venkatram working as a system analyst for an American software company in Chennai. Presently drawing 18 lakhs P.A. proud owner of a 3BHK in suburbs of Chennai. Today I have 2 credit cards with more than 1 lakh credit limit and a bank balance of 65 thousand in my account. But due to heavy water logging I am not able to move out my house, all I need is water and food for my survival. Till yesterday I was worried about my appraisal and was expecting at least 15% hike but today I am standing in my terrace waiting for a food packet.

Nature is the best teacher.”

Prassana’s candor makes the learning he shares very stark, real and relatable. At least those in Chennai, at the moment surely, can relate to what he says.

Another story I saw in this morning’s TOI threw up a similar learning. It narrated the experience of Deepika from Mudichur (a Chennai suburb) who had to keep her 77-year-old father’s dead body in her home because the floods prevented freezer boxes from reaching her and even if she had managed to secure one, the whole idea was rendered useless with the lack of electricity. She kept the body wrapped in a bedsheet for 2 full days and nights as she waited for the water recede – she lit incense sticks from time to time to keep the foul odor at bay. “My father deserved better,” Deepika told TOI.  

Deservance is an aspiration that all humans have. You work hard, you are ethical, you are well-meaning and so you expect Life to be fair to you. You often always think you deserve more than what you are getting from Life. And then Life deals you a hand, catching you totally by surprise, reminding you in the process that Life happens not because of you, but in spite of you. If you are wise you will humbly accept the learning Life offers you through such an experience and move on. It is when you miss the learning, and choose to instead resist the Life that’s happening to you, that you suffer!

Prassana’s and Deepika’s stories are just two among the several million that you can hear from Chennaiites just now. And all of them will point you in one – only one – direction…just take Life as it comes, accepting it for what it is.

But there are many who simply don’t get this; they don’t understand Life.

Even as the floods were marauding Chennai, a friend pinged me on Facebook messenger. He observed: “I hope there’s no financial loss for you.” He didn’t appear to be interested in knowing if my family and I were safe. My reply to him was: “I have nothing material with me to lose.” Which is indeed true! Our 8-year-old-and-enduring bankruptcy has left us literally without material possessions. The few “things” we have, we have learnt to be detached with them, about them. The lesson that Prassana learnt with the Chennai deluge, we learnt through our bankruptcy. And that is the most beautiful quality about Life as a teacher – she always gives you the test first and the lesson later! And what she teaches you, when you internalize the lessons, make centered, anchored and grounded.

Chennai is moving on. And everyone here will have to move on too. Because there is no other way. When Life takes over, you just go with the flow. In this case, the flow – literally, the water flow – is encouraging everyone to let go of all their material possessions and make a new beginning.

The message is simply this: don’t grieve over what’s past and what’s lost! Don’t crave for deservance! Just get up, rebuild, renew and revive yourself!

No matter what, it is still a very kind and compassionate world!

Every once in a while, people will remind you that they care. And that compassion still thrives in this cold, seemingly hostile, inhuman world.

Last evening, Chennai had a non-stop torrential downpour for six hours. This was already a city that was struggling to return to normalcy after last week’s floods – caused by an aggressive North-East monsoon. What’s worse, two things that Chennai and Chennaites don’t know how handle are rain and traffic. So, the whole city choked and crawled taking, on an average, 4 hours to move less than 1 km. This, even as it mercilessly pelted from the skies!

Photo Courtesy: Times Of India/Internet

We had miraculously found ourselves a cab. And had decided to brave – our decision was made much ahead of the rain intensifying – it to attend a bhajan at a friend’s place to celebrate Swami Sathya Sai Baba’s 90^th birthday. This is an annual affair and is a spiritual fellowship that Vaani and I rarely miss. Understandably, we were also stuck in the traffic and rain. As our cab moved a millimeter at a time, we noticed hapless people returning from work, drenched, waiting at bus-stops for buses that probably would never have come last evening. Several people decided to walk, wading through knee-deep, and rising, water. The traffic cops were resilient and were trying to be helpful, despite being soaked under their rain gear, in a literally helpless situation. Everyone was patient though. Not too many people honked with frustration – something that strangely is a practice that we Indians revel in, when we are stuck in traffic snarls.

Between looking out the window, chatting occasionally with Vaani and listening to some great Bollywood numbers on Fever 91.9 FM, that the cabbie was kind enough to play, I was checking Facebook – often aimlessly.

That’s when this status from a young friend Joe popped up. “Right now on the road, I've taken two people into my car. In case any of you have an SUV or any other car capable of wading through knee-deep water in Chennai at this point, now is the time. Go help. ‪#‎helpchennai” I thought this was an awesome and inspiring gesture! It touched me.

It took us over 2 hours to cross a 700m distance to reach our destination. Our friend Kumar, and his father Ram, had made elaborate arrangements for the post-bhajan prasad (actually a full dinner spread including steaming idlis, hot sambar, bissibelebath and curd rice) to be served. Several people who were expected at the bhajan that evening could not make it. But several people, passing by, hearing of hot food being served, trooped in. They were welcomed with opens arm and fed personally by Kumar, Ram and their family. I just marveled at the spirit of service that thrived in the moment.

A lady who had also made it to the bhajan venue in an Ola, could not find one to get back home. We discovered she lived in our neighborhood. We offered to drop her back home. It was actually not a drive on the way back; our cab seemed more like a motorized boat and the roads looked like over-flowing canals. We got back home close to midnight and as we went to bed, Vaani and I were both content that, in our own small way, we had been useful.

As I scroll through my Facebook Page and catch up on FM and newspaper updates, I just see how many, many people have come together, stepping out of their comfort zones, to help those who need some warmth, some care and love. All this leaves me feeling human, feeling good.

This is no appeal. I don’t wish to preach. I just make an observation. No matter what we see on TV or read in the papers (#Paris, #Mali, #intolerance, #Beef, #Muzaffarpur, #awardwapsi and such), it is still a very kind, compassionate world out there. The truth is we too can see its magic and beauty – if only we pause to look up from all our ‘busy-ness’! This observation, I believe, is the best way to amplify Swami’s Life’s message: “Love All, Serve All!”

No one can live (with) a lie for too long

If something makes you happy do it, don’t crave for social acceptance. The time you spend trying to make others happy, if you invest on what makes you come alive, you will find your Life having more meaning than it has just now.

Last evening I watched Bombay Talkies (a 2013 anthology featuring films by four directors) one more time. The opening film Ajeeb Dastan Hai Yeh by Karan Johar tells the story of a man Dev who discovers that his entire Life has been a lie – he is gay but he doesn’t want to admit it.

The 30-min short ends on a moralistic note – jhoot bolna buri baat hai; “It is wrong to lie”. This may sound like a clichéd, lofty message. But it is important, every once in a while, to pause and ask yourself if you are living your Life the way you want to? Or are you living your Life to please others? Simply, to put it bluntly, is your Life a lie that you are trying to hide from?

Interestingly, I don’t believe there’s anyone out there who does not know what they want from Life. I think people have a fairly clear idea. Yet people don’t want to go do what they want to because they are keen to secure social approval. Recently, a young friend said he doesn’t believe, at a deeply personal level, that securing “likes” on Facebook matters to him but he wonders if those “likes” are a sign of his social stature – of acceptance, of popularity. I feel my friend has answered his own question – as long as something doesn’t matter to him, why should he worry about gaining social acceptance? The same logic applies to each of us in all contexts of Life.

The key to intelligent living is to simplify Life. Be true to yourself. Do what gives you joy. Trying to work for social approval will only make you feel miserable over time – because no one can live (with) a lie for too long.  

You are unhappy only when you compromise with your happiness!

Don’t attach meanings to events, people, or technology. Just be yourself – with whoever, with whatever is. If you can’t be yourself, simply move away from whatever or whoever makes you uncomfortable!

I saw a story doing the rounds that quoted a recent study conducted in Copenhagen which found that people who got off Facebook were a lot happier than those who were addicted to being on it. I humbly disagree.

Nothing external can make you happy or unhappy. Ultimately you alone are responsible for your happiness. Period.

Technology is a mere enabler. What Facebook has managed to do is that it has brought people closer. It offers us an opportunity to share our lives, experiences and learnings with people we know who are living elsewhere in this world. What can Facebook do if you choose that platform to get into ideological debates with people that you know or start talking to people who don’t know you, who you don’t know, and who make you unhappy? A friend on Facebook is no more or less than someone who is your neighbor or colleague. Either you trust that friend and relate to the person or you don’t. If you do relate, you will enjoy hanging out with that person. If you don’t you won’t. It is simple – as simple as that.

We have a simple thumb rule. We don’t add anyone on Facebook who we think we can’t invite into our home. It doesn’t mean everyone who sends us a friend request will either be invited in/accepted at once or will never be accepted. We prefer getting to know newer friends better before adding them. This way we keep our Facebook walls clutter and litter-free.

I must make a confession here – I simply love Facebook. It gives me a continuous opportunity to share and learn from the people I like to hang out. I like to learn and unlearn from the stories and experiences of my friends – who I have let into my Life. So, here lies the nub: only I am responsible for how I am feeling on Facebook.   

To be sure, this is not about Facebook alone. In all contexts in Life, your happiness is directly linked to the choices you make. And let me hasten to add, there are really no right or wrong ways to make choices. You just choose. Some experiences work for you and make you happy. Others don’t. As long as you lean in the direction of what makes you happy, you can never go wrong. It is only when you make compromises with your happiness that you become unhappy. 

In order to find time for yourself, simply create it!

If you can pause and reflect, for a quality period of time daily, the quality of your Life will undoubtedly improve.

Yesterday, at The Brew Room, a beautiful café in downtown Chennai, I caught a hand-written sign that read: “Everything gets better with coffee.” I smiled as I took a picture of this sign. And I thought to myself, how true this simple promotional line for coffee is – in a real world context.

If there’s one thing that we all need desperately in Life it is time. And if there’s one thing that’s available in abundance, and uniformly, to all of us it is time. To be sure, we have the same 24 hours at our disposal. Within our reach. No one has a minute more or a minute less than the other. Yet we scramble along, stumbling and falling, struggling and heaving, complaining forever that we don’t have enough time! Now, the reason why time seems elusive is because we expect all our responsibilities to be settled, all our tasks to be completed, all our goals to be achieved, before we sit down to experience some quality time for ourselves, with ourselves. That certainly is not going to happen. Because each gone moment is gone. It is never going to come back. With each moment that is past, we have lesser time on this planet. This is the bitter truth. And unless we invest time we are not going to be able to create quality time – for ourselves, our families and for doing what we love doing. Period. Just as investing money wisely helps multiply it, investing time wisely alone helps create time.

So, the simplest way to find that time for yourself is to create it. Just drop everything and sit down for 15 minutes to half-an-hour quietly, each day, and feel your breathing. Read something. Check Facebook. Listen to music. Just don’t be under pressure. Think through your day and week. Do this diligently, daily, and watch the quality of your work and Life improving with this practice. I am not sure really if “everything gets better with coffee” all the time, but everything does get better when you pause and reflect. As someone has wisely said, “Now and then it is good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.”

Patience is the way

If you have learnt to be patient in Life, with Life, you have mastered the art of living!

My friend and I had a creative and spiritual disagreement a few days ago. My friend argued that you cannot be patient when the whole world is impatient around you. The boss is breathing down your neck. The guy behind you is honking. People rush into elevators instead of filing into them with order and decorum. Your colleague is pressurizing you to finish up your part of the work fast so that she can get her job done faster. So, patience, really? It doesn’t work, my friend protested: “You live in a Utopian world, AVIS. Here, in today’s world, if you are not moving at the speed of light, if you are not overtaking slow-coaches and laggards, someone else is going to overtake you and them. The one who is moving fast, has the advantage. Patience does not work anymore today!”

Yet, despite my friend’s well-reasoned pitch, today’s world requires patience more as a must-have quality, a necessity, than as a rare virtue which, when available and used, can create value! Because patience alone can lead you to a Life of peace, personal well-being and prosperity.

Patience comes from a deeper understanding of Life. We are impatient with people, events, circumstances, service, technology, and with Life, because fundamentally we want things to happen our way. But that’s just not going to happen. Despite our living in a time of instant gratification – WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter surreptitiously aiding and abetting it – Life works only in its own way, at its own pace. You can have your way only if you are patient with and in Life.

Osho, the Master, often narrated these three lines to help people understand Life better. He would say:

1.     Everything comes in its own time

2.     Everything comes when you are ripe

3.     Everything comes when you deserve it

Now, review your own Life in the context of these three statements. You will find that anything you have got so far from Life, stuff you have welcomed and have wanted, has come only per these three dimensions of Life. You may have wanted something and may have even been frustrated. And it has never come. You know your story better than anyone else. So, think back, and ask if you got anything you wanted any earlier or any later than when you needed it – when you finally got it? Were you not in total receiver mode to have got it? And you only got something when you truly deserved it, right?

Patience is about simply understanding these three dimensions of Life and reminding yourself of them every time you mind grieves or when frustration sets in. Simply, there is a no way to be patient; patience is the way!

Of a Priest, Prayer, God and Job Security

Does prayer really work? Does it lead you to God? Does it solve your problems?

I guess these are questions that often rise in our minds at a deeply rational, logical level. But I have come to believe that the questions are misplaced! The question we really need to ask ourselves is, of what use are all the religious rituals that we conduct monotonously and mindlessly when we are not mindful of Life’s gifts__the grace, abundance, blessings in our lives__ itself and we continue to still worry, fear and agonize over what the (unknown) future holds for us?

I am reminded of a conversation that I had with our family priest a few years ago. A self-confessed champion of piety, who called himself a ‘strict Brahmin’, he came to me asking for career advice for his son who was looking to join an IT services company after completing his undergraduate studies in software engineering. He explained that his son had been selected by a leading software company through campus interviews. Yet he claimed he was worried. Our conversation went somewhat like this:

Me: Why are you still worried Sir?

Him: I don’t know if IT companies can offer job security the way the government can!

Me: Why would you, a faithful servant of the Lord, for years now, be insecure __ and want to seek security in a government job?

Him: Sir, how can God guarantee job security?

Me: What is God there for then if HE/SHE can’t guarantee you security?

Him: Sir, velayadathengo! Don’t pull my leg, Sir! God can’t come and tell me that my son’s future is assured!

Me: If God can’t tell you that, the one who has direct access to HIM/HER, who else can reach God? Why do you pray then?

Him: Sir, praying to God is my profession. I still need ‘something else’ to tell me that my Life is on track and that my family and I will be secure!

With due apologies, and respect, to my family priest, I must confess that this is the problem with praying mindlessly. That ‘something else’ which my priest was looking for__and I hope he found it in his own way subsequently__is ‘mindfulness’. When you are mindful of the present moment, and are grateful for it, that would be prayer enough to make you realize your God!

You will then find God in this blessing__that you have to access Facebook and are able to read a post. You will then find God when you feel the air in your lungs. You will the find God in the sunrises and sunsets that happen outside your window every single day without fail. You will then find God in a child’s smile, in leaves rustling in the night breeze, in a cow mooing and in a dew drop! You will then find God in every form of creation that you connect with. You will then find God in each moment. And then you will understand and value what being prayerful is all about. You will then realize that such true prayer, of living in the moment, alone can lead you to your God! 

Don’t shut yourself to love

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

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

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

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

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

Don’t kill beautiful minds with poor parenting and poorer leadership

Don’t restrict your child’s natural curiosity to explore the world. Be an empowering parent – let go and watch your child grow!

A friend of mine from my college days reached out to me. He lives in Mangalore. He wanted me to “inspire some confidence” into his young, 16-year-old son. We met for coffee last evening. I found the boy to be very cheerful, very positive and extremely clear about what he wanted to do. He said he loved science – all three subjects, Physics, Chemistry and Biology. He aspired to study medicine (when he finished his 12^th/Junior College in Mangalore) at the Armed Forces Medical College, Pune. He wanted to be a doctor and wanted to continue sketching (his hobby) all his Life. Now, what do you tell a child who’s got all his plans mapped out? I told him this: “Be curious always. Never settle into a comfort zone. Keep seeking, keep learning, keep enquiring. Nobody can motivate you. Motivation is an inside job. Whenever you feel distracted, think of what will happen to your long-term goals. Understand that distraction is not a sin. It will only delay your journey to your dreams and goals. When you refocus on your goals, you will let go of all that which distracts you.” The young lad smiled back at me. He appeared to have understood what I had to say.

“Are you on facebook,” I asked him.

“No,” he replied sheepishly, while looking at his dad questioningly.

My friend piped in: “His (Junior) College principal has made him sign an undertaking, an oath actually, saying for the next two years he will not get on to facebook or use a mobile phone – neither at College nor at home. The principal wants to ensure that his College’s success rate to get students into premier “professional courses” is never diluted. And I support the principal’s stand wholesomely.”

I disagreed with my friend. I said that both facebook and mobile phones are enablers. They are both tools, a way of engaging with the world, I suggested. But my friend cut me short. He was clear his son should not be “corrupted” with a view that “encouraged being on facebook”. I decided not to force my view. That ended my conversation with the young chap; for the rest of the evening, my friend and I went on to talk about our lives and times…

On my auto-rickshaw ride back home from the cafe, I reflected on the myopic perspective that both parents and teachers have that inhibits the natural curiosity that children have. In today’s world, when there is so much information available on fingertips, why would anybody want to deny their children access to that information? Yes, the internet can lead you to porn sites as much as it can lead you to wikis on various subjects. Being on facebook can connect you to friends and family who share experiences and learnings that can enable you to gain an insight into how the world thrives. Yes, you can end up adding avoidable people as friends on facebook if you are not prudent. But I feel a parent’s job is to help children develop this discerning point of view. Empowering with choice, while explaining consequences, is much better than restricting children from doing things that they will be naturally curious to do. This whole view that facebook and mobile phones will corrupt a child and ruin his or her Life is reflective of the parent’s/teacher’s poor quality of thought. In my humble opinion, the moment you restrain a child, you are planting the seed of rebellion or are encouraging the child to operate with deceit. Because, whatever you bluntly deny – without adequate logic and conviction – children will find the means, one way or the other, to access it. A better approach would be to allow the child freedom of choice, have continuous conversations and if there is an over indulgence from the child, only then take restrictive steps. To employ a blanket judgment that all children will get “distracted” from academics or that they will go “astray” if they are on facebook or if they use mobile phones is poor parenting and poorer leadership.

Another point: for heaven’s sake, let’s stop obsessing over “professional” courses, “safe” careers and “95+ percentage strikes”. What we need teachers to do is to inspire the spirit of excellence in children and not to flog them to deliver grades. What we need parents to do is to imbue good values in their children and not to make academically-proficient nerds out of them. Finally, here’s the bottom-line: This is not a case for facebook or mobile phones. This is about raising beautiful, intuitive minds. Empowering children will nurture their curiosity and creativity, restraining them will only make vegetables and rebels out of them. 

Demystifying work and prayer

All of us work hard. And almost all of us pray. Many of us wonder also if prayer works. Especially when our prayers are not ‘answered’. Consider this: if you make your work, your prayer, you will neither need to work nor pray!!!

Think about it. Life will be so simple and blissful. Let’s demystify two myths that the world has been conditioned to. 1. The first myth is that work is drudgery. That it is something you to do earn a living. Rubbish. Work is everything you do. Whatever you are immersed in, you are working on it now. You are working at your computer now. You are working on your facebook Page now. If you get up and go for a bath, you are working on cleaning yourself up. When you eat, you are working on your appetite and so on. Work therefore is everything we do living and not only what we do to earn a living. 2. The second myth is that prayer is asking something from God. That it is a method. That it is a practice. That it is a dialogue. Every religion has made prayer a ritual with their prescriptions and standard operating procedures. The reality is that prayer is about being immersed, being alive, and, in fact, just being. So, being in the present moment, engaged with Life, living, and totally immersing yourself, mindfully, in thought, body and soul with whatever you are doing, is prayer.

Offer whatever you do to Life, in gratitude. If you are cooking, cleaning, sweeping, making a presentation, making love, preparing a report, tending your garden, drinking, eating, whatever, make it an offering to Life. That’s when work becomes prayer. And Living becomes praying. And then you don’t need to ask anything from Life. All the answers are there in front of you, within you. When you reach this state of awakening, you stop treating Mondays as manic workdays and weekends as leisure days. Every day is fun. Each moment comes alive. And Life becomes meaningful. Blissful. 

We have become ‘wanting’ beings

Give up all that you don’t need, don’t have or keep pining for. Life then, most certainly, will be bliss.

You – and I – thanks to instant gratification in a facebook and SMS era, have become obsessed with wanting things now and urgently. You try to reach someone and the lines are jammed. You get irritated. You get a mobile phone but you are not satisfied. You want an iPhone. You have a roof over head, but you want to own a property. You want to buy gold because prices are up now and you want an investment backed-up. You have a child, but you won’t leave the child alone; you want the child to be doctor, engineer, class-topper, cricket player, and such, never pausing to think what the child wants to do! Wants. Wants and more Wants! This has made your Life miserable. You have become a wanting being. Than being human! Which is why you are running from pillar to post. Trying to earn more and more thinking you will be happy some day in the future. Now, if you get all that you want it is fine. But Life doesn’t work like that. So, when you don’t get all that you want, you become desperate; you sulk, brood, and plunge your Life into an abyss of worries. Then you attend therapeutic programs and read spiritual books to ‘cleanse’ yourself. The feeling of oneness with the Universe lasts only as long as the programs do. Soon you have resumed the wanting in you and have lost yourself again.

Know that you will always get what you need and never always what you want!  If you have all that you need, just be happy with it. And stop pining for what you don’t have. Only then will you be in bliss!

The way to live free from suffering

We suffer only when we try to control outcomes and do not accept Life for the way it is.

Last night I received a mail from a reader 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). He wrote saying that the story of my Life resonated with his own. He thanked me for the strength he gained after reading my Book. He confessed that he had been very upset with his own Life – being out of job, struggling to make ends meet and yet having to pay for his son’s education. He had for a long time held himself responsible and guilty for his “errors in judgment” that had led to his wife and son having to undergo so much stress along with him. He said at one point he wanted to delete his LinkedIn account because he didn’t want to connect with anyone.

Now, what has a LinkedIn account got to do with feeling defeated and lost in Life? Well, sometimes, it has everything to do with feeling depressed. I have been there and felt so too. Not just LinkedIn, you, when you are suffering from loss and failure – despite your best efforts – just don’t want to believe in Life or anyone or any opportunity anymore. You just want to go into a cave and not come out. You prefer the darkness in your Life – and love wallowing in self-pity. Indeed. Sometimes, suffering can, strangely, make you feel comfortable with all your pain and agony.

It is in such times that you must ask yourself the following questions: Is feeling depressed going to help you deal with your Life situation any better? Will ripping down a LinkedIn profile or quitting facebook or not wanting to meet anyone help you solve your problems? Will sulking ever make you happy? If you answer ‘yes’ to any of these questions, then your choosing to be that way is well worth it. But no one can honestly answer ‘yes’ to those questions. The truth is suffering is convenient. It does not require any great effort. Whenever there’s pain, suffering follows. You don’t have to do anything to suffer. Just hate and resist the pain – which is quiet natural again – and you will suffer. But if you want to avoid suffering, you must work on accepting whatever is causing you pain. And that’s a lot of work. That work becomes easier to do when you realize that there’s no point resisting whatever’s causing you pain, or hating the Life you have. Because resisting pain does not make it go away. Accepting it doesn’t make it go away either. But when you accept pain, or any situation in Life, you don’t suffer. When there’s no suffering, the mind is clear and focused. Solutions stand a better chance of emerging from a mind that’s free from clutter and is focused than from a confused, depressed state of mind.

Remember that you can only control your efforts. You cannot control the outcomes of your efforts. So, make all your efforts but accept the outcomes as they are. That’s the way to live free from suffering in Life!

How you feel depends on how you see, and think about, Life!

Nothing ever is as bad as we make it out to be. Every moment happens just the way it was designed. It is the way we perceive each moment or event in our lives that dictates how we feel about it.

For instance, some of us perceive a dark room as an opportunity to let fear take over. How would a visually impaired person deal with darkness? Or we eat at a restaurant and lament about the quality of the food; we carry the aftertaste of that experience all day, cribbing relentlessly. How would a person who has been starving for days have reacted to the food had you bought it for her? A malfunction in your car's air-conditioning makes it unbearable for you to ride in it. Wouldn't someone who travels by a bus or local train daily, packed like a sardine in a can, consider a ride in your car a pleasurable experience? One sure way to change perceptions is to metaphorically 'refresh' the situation almost the way you would press the 'refresh' icon on your browser. Compel yourself to consider the positives in it each time you are confronted with an agonizing situation. Watch how your feelings transform magically, like your webpage gets refreshed instantaneously allowing a new newsfeed (if on facebook!) to show up.

It is not without reason that we have all be taught the adage, 'every cloud has a silver lining'! All perception is relative. Change the way you see, and think about, something. Be sure, you will change the way you feel about (most things in) Life!

Life offers no control; just impermanence and change!

Learn to live with Life’s uncertainties. Because Life's like that!

Understand that everything that you call your own, will perish or cease to be yours someday soon. Know that your iPhone, this facebook account, your health, your relationships, your job, your bank balance, your health and your Life, all are, every one of them is, impermanent. You know this is true, of course, don't you? But you conveniently ignore this truth because it's comfortable to live imagining that what is yours is yours forever. Because to worry about things withering away, people passing away and you moving on, is uncomfortable, fearful and therefore, avoidable. But to kid yourself that Life is permanent and you will have lot more time to live in the future than in the now, is outright foolish. Since you consider yourself intelligent, since you know that both Life and Money are impermanent, wake up, and start living.

Here’s a simple Zen story that makes the point. There once was a young man who wanted to face “real” Life. So he left home and travelled to seek the real world. During his travels he reached a village and met a young family, where the wife was pregnant and the husband was hard-working. They welcomed him and invited him to stay with them. He was there for just one day and night.  During that time, the husband suddenly died and his wife mourned so much that it affected her pregnancy and she gave birth prematurely. The young traveler saw death and birth in quick succession and at close quarters. He saw the impermanence of Life that caused both grief and happiness. The wife grieved at the loss of her beloved husband and yet was happy to have a baby. He helped that family with the funeral service and then continued his travels.

He arrived at another village. Here he knew two brothers: one was successful in business and the other was not. He smiled at Life and moved on to another village. A year went by and he returned to the same village and met the same two brothers. Then he discovered that the one who was successful had failed and the one who had not been successful was now doing well in his business. He saw how change happens in Life; how success and failure had brought both fulfilment and disappointment.

Time passed by.  After he had travelled for many years he realized that he was getting old. He had learned that Life offered no control, but only impermanence and a series of changes. He had witnessed that youth changed to old age, past to present and the present to the future. Impermanence means that there is no guarantee that there would be a tomorrow.  The here and now is the only time which everyone has. It took a lifetime for this man to understand Life as it was. At the end of his Life, he rested in peace and happiness.

Do we need to spend a lifetime trying to understand this simple truth about Life? Heraclitus, the pre-Socratic philosopher, (535~475 BC), said, “Everything flows and nothing abides, everything gives way and nothing stays fixed.” So, embrace this uncertainty, flow with Life, knowing that when you get called, you too will have to go away!

A Gift and a Blessing

Life is an eternal blessing, an endless course of abundance. We are not seeing this always because we are steeped in scarcity thinking!

Focusing on what we don’t have comes naturally to all of us. But for each thing that we don’t have or for each dimension of our Life where there’s something scarce, there’s a blessing, another aspect that’s soaked in abundance. For every dark cloud that hangs over us, there is the proverbial silver lining. To find it, we must just let go of our grief over what has happened and of what we don’t have, and simply survey what we have left with us. When we let go and learn to live with what we have we will immediately experience inner peace.

Some months ago, I had to sell my car. It was old and was breaking down far too frequently. There wasn’t money to either fix it or replace it with another car. We simply had to let it go. It was a difficult decision, having had a car for over 25 years, for as long as I have been independent and married. The question that confronted me – and my wife – was how would our daughter manage. She had never used public transport before. Not that she was spoilt by luxury. Hardly. But there had miraculously never been a need for her to take a bus or auto-rickshaw ever – to school or to her social outings or to college. We called her and updated her of our hard decision and predicament. We advised her to use autos for transport. To our surprise, she declined. She said she understood the situation we are in and so wanted to use train and bus for her commute. We tried explaining to her that since we was not used to either mode, she may find it difficult to cope with the crowds at rush hour. But she insisted that she wanted to give it a shot. We agreed that she would try for two weeks at which point we would review. In exactly a fortnight our daughter came back to declare that she was “comfortable and was settling in” with her new reality. She said it so simply, so responsibly and so convincingly that we did not feel like countering her with our parental anxiety and reasoning.

It was a beautiful moment of awakening and discovery for me personally. Here I was grappling with what I didn’t have – a car, and so was steeped in scarcity thinking, wondering how a child who had never ever used public transport would cope. And here was Life that had blessed me and my wife with such a wonderful daughter who not only had the maturity to accept our current reality – in which anything material, even a basic taken-for-granted gadget, device, instrument, machine or asset, is a luxury – but also had the sense of adventure to plunge head-on into an environment she was not familiar with. I don’t share this by way of self-congratulation or to praise my child, but I share to tell you how beautiful Life’s ways are. Our daughter (and son) fills our Life with abundance – this blessing far outweighs what we don’t have and what, perhaps, no longer matters!

Indeed. There’s so much abundance in us and around us. And not all of it is material or linked to money or to what money can buy. Most of it, in fact, can make us happier even if we didn’t have money or things with us. Someone I know, Madhuri Velegar, who used to write for Femina magazine from Bangalore, died of cancer a couple of days ago. A friend pulled out what she had written sometime back (on how she felt in her last days) and posted it on facebook: “…I got drawn into meditation. Almost daily I stared long at the Gulmohar tree and its flowers outside my house. I waited for sunsets, I sat under the morning sun, I worshipped the rain…” That’s the abundance that I am talking of.

Our lives are abundant too. Our sunrises and sunsets, the rains, the flowers, the birds, the love and warmth of our children and the companionship of our soul-mates, all these are available to us and are waiting to soak us in abundance. Provided, of course, we stop complaining about what we don’t have and instead celebrate what we have! When we do that we too will realize what a wonderful gift Life is and what a blessing it is to be alive!