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Category: gratitude

Energetically yours

Came across a very interesting thought. It’s not radical or new. But a different perspective on the same thing.

Who is God?

Most will describe him as an old man with a flowing beard. No, not Santa Claus, although he does fit the description.

Said God apparently gets angry when we do bad things. And if we do good things, then he rewards us.

But is that how we have experienced God? Hardly.

A better way to think of this is that God is just energy. He is the energy that created all of Creation. He is also the one that sustains all of it, and eventually leads to destruction and recycling.

So if everything is God’s energy, what are we doing about it? If we do bad things, then God’s energy gets suppressed. But if we do good things, we practice gratitude, we are kind to others, we are empathetic and compassionate, then we automatically become free flowing channels of God’s energy. Isn’t that incredible?

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Work perk

On a recent trip to a beautiful but politically-charged place, I couldn’t help but notice the substantial presence of army officers and patrols.

They’ve been placed there for good reason of course.

But my heart went out to them – for their courage and sacrifice, all to keep the rest of the country safe and sound.

Are they different in any way? They too are human. But their postings are in far flung areas, often involving standing for hours together, holding heavy guns, ever ready to thwart a terrorist attack. Do they see family often? Not at all. Do they get to savour relationships? Hardly.

Yes, it is a job, and a very hard one that needs to be done. I cannot do it, as I wouldn’t be able to last a day in their grueling circumstances. But we can pray for them – as my Guru does – for their safety and well being, which is more critical than any other work perk.

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The art of praising

Is praise always good? Yes it is, because it is better than criticising someone or complaining about someone.

But is there a good way and a bad way to praise someone? Yes there is apparently.

An example is while praising kids. Singling out one kid and praising that kid alone for a correct answer is a bad way. Why? Because the kid feels rewarded for his knowledge of that one answer. This is good, but no one knows everything. At the same time, the other kids who may not have have known that one answer will feel left out.

A better way of praising is to acknowledge and call out the behaviour and the effort. Such as commending them for participating in the class. Or praising the effort required to read up before the class. By focusing on the behaviours and efforts, the praise is far more sustainable too. Because it reinforces the need to continue such good behaviour, not just in that one person, but in everyone around them. And while one answer everyone may not know, a behaviour everyone can cultivate and effort – everyone can put in!

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Rejected and dejected

Rejections happen all the time. Just ask any salesperson! Keeping oneself in silence and peace when faced with negative words is a sign of great wisdom. It’s tempting to seek praise and approval from others, but becoming dependent on it can be detrimental. In fact, relying on the applause of others to feel secure can lead to further insecurity.

It might even be worthwhile to be comfortable with being ignored or forgotten. This allows us the freedom to move about without any expectations from others. Rather than feeling the need for attention, we can remind ourselves of the wisdom of the mystics who know that the divine within us is all we need to feel fulfilled.

Even those who are sensitive to praise and appreciation can learn to be secure within themselves, so that rejection becomes a word that doesn’t exist in their vocabulary. Ultimately, it’s the divine within that will never reject us, and that’s enough to make up for any rejection we may experience from others.

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Rhyme or reason

Sleep is the foundation of our health,

But fear can steal our peaceful wealth.

Karma says what we do comes back,

Good deeds create the right sleep track.

Meditation, gratitude, and cheer,

These positive habits help us steer.

Toward an optimistic, happy mind,

Where fears and worries are left behind.

So let’s cultivate good karma each day,

And let our fears and anxieties sway.

For with positive habits, thoughts, and rhyme,

We’ll sleep better and feel sublime.

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1000

Sometimes it feels like there’s so much to write and say. And yet, when I pick my fingers up to type, I draw a blank. This has gone on for many many days, so much so, that today’s post is #1000! Pretty cool no? Can only thank you for it, for patiently reading day after day.

But the blanks still come. What to do about it I wonder sometimes? One answer came today in the form of a nice Simon Sinek podcast.

He spoke of one time when he was giving a speech – probably the most important one of his career at the time – and in front of a massive audience of thousands of people. Halfway through his speech, he completely lost his train of thought, and went dead silent, as did the room, expectantly looking at him, waiting for him to complete his thought. But nothing came. 5 seconds passed, and Simon narrates how afraid he was initially and what might happen thereafter.

But then he changed it up. He put himself in a position of vulnerability, and explained honestly to his audience that he was in one of those situations where one just blanks out, how it happens to everyone, and that he was not regretting it, but instead enjoying it and “feeling absolutely alive!”

Then he requested the audience to help remind him of what the last thing he said was. And someone did, and boom, he was back on track again. Simon says that the audience applauded so much at that point, that it was much more than the applause at the end of his speech. Why? According to him, it’s because instead of thinking about himself, he was thinking about the audience, how they would feel being left in the lurch, and to think of what the best way would be to make them feel comfortable again. Not thinking about himself or how foolish he would look, but entirely about how audience would feel. As Simon concludes on the podcast, selfless service is always the right answer.

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Desire? Or no desire?

There’s always this confusion while living in the material world. Should we achieve more? Or not?

If we should achieve more, we need to have lofty goals. If we have to have lofty goals, then we’d also need to desire those things.

But spirituality tells us to give up all desires and attachments. On the other side, self-help and motivational coaches talk about the importance of daily affirmations and creatively visualizing your goals, as if they already happened. Is there a way to bridge this disconnect?

There may be. If the desires are truly and solely for the benefit of others and to the exclusion of oneself, then there is perhaps no disconnect. And desires for one’s own kin so that it indirectly benefits us does not count!

The other plausible line of desires could be to improve one’s own good qualities – to affirm that we would be kinder, nobler, more generous, more compassionate human beings. These again ultimately help to serve creation, rather than leech from it.

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Can TGIF ever become TGIM?

Anyone who goes to office knows what TGIF is… Thank God it’s Friday! After a grueling week, the mental peace that Friday brings is just unparalleled.

But what of Mondays? They’re only ever associated with the color blue, as we well know.

Here’s two tips I got recently, to love work:

1. Work as a nimmita of the Lord, as an instrument. We are doing His grand work. So how can we feel tired, angry, frustrated or irritated? We have the opportunity to work for the Lord. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t strive for better pay or promotions and such. But whatever we are doing right now is but a prasad of the Lord.

2. Take the ego out of the work. Lose the identity. Not to be foolish, but prepared. This will inculcate risk taking ability, without worrying about whether you are presenting to a peer or a senior. How you can add value to your colleagues and your organization trumps the fear of what will happen to you if something doesn’t go well.

Of these two points, #2 done with #1 in mind can lead to outstanding results. It’s not whether TGIF becomes TGIM, but that there is always TG in our minds!

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Remembrance when?

Sant Kabir has this amazing couplet:

Dukh me sumiran sab kare, Sukh me kare na koi
Jo sukh sumiran kare, Dukh kahe ko hoye kabi

When do people look to the heavens? Only when things are going wrong of course.

Sant Kabir says, that if we remember God when we are happy instead, then there will be no sorrow in the first place!

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Turning the tables

In many parts of the Gita, Lord Krishna mentions that he is only the Watcher, not the Doer. He has only created the Nature around us to function based on certain laws (of nature), and whatever happens thereafter is upon creation, not Him.

Some people question this. How?

By asking why the Lord would not step in where required. Seems very easy to just say, “Okay, I’ve created, and so my part here is done.”. Why not interfere when things are going wrong? If crime is being committed, why would the Lord not come in and take charge? Why does he have to say that he has nothing to do with this?

The answer lies in karmic theory of course. That we each are responsible for what we do, and this karmic record spans multiple lifetimes. But there is another way to think of this as well.

What if the Lord questions us thus, “Hey I created this universe and world and have given each of you the most beautiful planet to live on. I’ve ensured everything is perfect, beautiful nature, bountiful resources and every reason for you to be happy forever. And yet, what have you people done? Are you really happy? Are the resources you’ve been given used properly? Sustainably? Are you all living together in love and harmony?”

The tables have been turned.

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Master feeder

There are many pious families in India that will not eat until the food has first been offered to the Lord (at their altars).

This is a phenomenal tradition, and not just for the sake of it.

Of course it is more symbolic than real, because one wouldn’t expect the food to actually be eaten. But that is irrelevant.

Even when you are really ravenous, if you are able to put someone else (the Lord) above yourself first in the hunger chain, that is amazing.

Further, the idea is that you are taking care of the Lord, providing him with food, and not vice versa, given that we are constantly praying for accumulating more and more.

This is a wonderful break from the usual selfish infinite list of “I want”s. If you think about it deeply, we really aren’t giving anything to the Lord. And how can we? We are the ones who have got everything from Him in the first place! But such actions still serve as an outstanding conduit for expressing our gratitude.

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Rich people

On a recent business trip, the cabbie was a chatty fellow.

Looking at where our hotel was (apparently in a posh locality, although the hotel itself wasn’t!), he said “Are you guys from the top of the food chain in your country?”

We tried to deflect, “No, no, no such thing, our travel agent just happened to find this hotel convenient for our meetings and such.”

To which he quickly replied, “Hey I have no problems with rich people, none of that inequality angle or the attitude or jealousy or anything. In fact I like rich people, because they’re the ones that keep my business running!”

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Holy Cow – part 4 of 5

Yet today, there is so much of cow torture and abuse, largely for commercial purposes.

Many cows are disposed of once they stop giving milk.

Do you know how many cows are slaughtered each year around the world?

300 million. Isn’t that shocking?

How insensitive is it, to chop off the hand that feeds us?

On the contrary, imagine the blessings one would get if provided with the chance to tend to this beautiful, peaceful and loving creature.

That chance is available, with the ability to participate (online in many cases, thanks to technology) in the seva of cows. Where gauseva is 100% seva, and 0% commercial. All cow products are either utilized within the premises or given away for free. And all cows are loved and cared for, no matter whether they continue to give milk or not.

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Mispriced asset

“I’m a mispriced asset”, is what a friend told me recently. He took up his job because he didn’t have a choice. He wanted to break into a specific market, and because he didn’t have the relevant work experience, he had to take a pay cut.

We know how this story ends right? The guy after 3 years in his ‘compromise’ job, managed to get another offer elsewhere, better pay, and before you know it, it was mispricing no more.

Each of us who is in the corporate world comes across this question often. How much am I worth?

The answer as the experts will tell you, is not your intrinsic value. Rather, what you are worth, is simply what someone is willing to pay you. Aka, the greater fool theory. It’s just like the stock market, or the market for art or collectibles, or cryptos or NFTs today. If someone will pay 10, then why settle for 6?

While this is great in the business world, it doesn’t matter in anything in life outside of economic comparisons. Keep wealth aside, and the equations change. If you pay for your house help’s kids’ education, they will likely shower you with more gratitude than any billionaire could hope to amass.

But even that, is looking outward. Your real value, only you can ascribe. And that too might be quite limiting, and mispriced.

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6 months to… part 1 of 3

There’s an outstanding short-book that I just finished reading.

It’s called 6 Months To Live, and written by Dr. Sangeeta Raman Girdhar.

The book is only about 70-odd pages long, and can easily be finished in one sitting, and within the hour.

But the convenient length of the book not the reason everyone should read it.

What the book captures so beautifully, is a combination of 4 things:

  1. What all a loved one goes through when faced with a terminal disease
  2. What the immediate family of this person goes through
  3. What life lessons and spiritual lessons we can each take away, especially if (God-forbid) put in such circumstances
  4. How to deal with cancer, and even make micro lifestyle changes to prevent it

I’m going to share a few powerful takeaways from the book over the next couple of days, but the book has much more than just these, so do consider reading it. The author is my cousin sister, who is an amazing human being. The least I can do is feature her work on FHN! The book is available here.

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Can we give up desires?

A tough aspect of spirituality is not in reading what is said, but in actually understanding and implementing it.

For instance, Lord Krishna in the Gita often asks Arjuna to give up desires.

Is this practical? If I give up all my desires, I wouldn’t even be able to get up from my bed on a Sunday, let alone on a Monday morning!

Maybe there is something deeper and subtler. This is my Guru’s amazing interpretation.

When Krishna says ‘give up desires’, he actually means ‘give up the cravings in your mind’. Having dharmic desires is fine, but it is critical to cut the umbilical cord between desire and happiness.

Our happiness is always linked to the fulfilment of desires. “Think of a time when you were happy” tends to be accomplishments like “when I won the game, or topped the class, or got married, or had kids, or got promoted”.

But what if everything we did, could start from happiness, rather than end in it? This is possible, and it (too) starts with gratitude.

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Thirsty fish

The poet Kabir has an outstanding line:

The fish in the water is thirsty, and every time I see that, it makes me laugh!

What does this mean?

Well, we are the fish!

Aren’t we always wanting something or the other? What we have, never seems to be enough. There are people who would do 2x our work at 1/10th the salary. And still we are unhappy and want more. Compared to the poor and destitute, we are nothing but kings and queens!

Yet we are thirsty for more. We have all the water around us, yet not a drop to drink will quench this thirst ?

Is there anything that can quench this thirst? Yes there is, and you know all about it already. It is called gratitude.

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Fool

A lovely point was expressed in a recent satsang by a satsangi who had watched a sermon on the Gita.

We are always hankering after the ‘results’ – we want more and more, and often for not even doing much.

The speaker said, that we should never consider ourselves as the ‘doers’. Are we really the doers? What are we really doing? We are at best only facilitating a grand plan that is already in motion. Even the CEO of a company isn’t really doing much – his outstanding vision itself might be borrowed and stitched together from many others. In any case, he is also dependent on all his employees, vendors, stakeholders, all those who invented things till this point, and so on. No one is truly indispensable. So are we really ‘doing’ as much as we think?

If we do not consider ourselves the doers, the benefit of this approach is that we will not demand results either. To be clear, this is for our own peace of mind and spiritual evolution, and not for use on the day of ‘annual performance evaluation’ at work.

The other statement made was that we need to be grateful for whatever we receive. Always. Otherwise, we would each be a great fool!

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Mentorship

Ah what would we do without mentors? I have lost count of the number of times a mentor has benefitted me – be it my parents, my wife, my brother, my friends, my teachers, well-meaning colleagues, ill-meaning colleagues, good bosses, bad bosses, friends… you name it. Even though some learning experiences were brutal and demeaning at the time, looking back, those feedback loops are what helped into shaping the person I am today. Of course I’m not a successful billionaire, so this probably doesn’t count for much from a materialistic point of view.

But mentors are super important in life, and especially the specialist mentors, the 1-2 people you can rely on for non-technical guidance in your specialist domain. If you are lucky, such a person can double up as your boss too.

The logical next question is, what if I need to move (presumably to a better workplace), and if I consequently need to leave my mentor / boss as well?

This is summarized beautifully in a dialogue in the hit TV series called Ted Lasso:

A good mentor hopes you will leave.
A great mentor knows you will leave!

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Nimittas – part 3 of 3

Knowing now that being the nimitta of the Lord is the easy way to moksha, how exactly does one go about this?

Krishna himself gives a clue in verse 11.54, specifying a particular type of devotion or bhakti. Not any bhakti, but ananya bhakti.

Ananya, refers to no ‘anya’, i.e. no other. There is no other, apart from the Lord. This is not of some specific deity necessarily, but could also be of faith in the Creator. If there is such unconditional, indelible love towards the Lord, thinking of only Him 24×7, then that would be ananya bhakti.

Is this practical? Some research suggests we have nearly 40,000 thoughts a day. Where is the space for 24×7 ananya bhakti then!

My Guru says we can start small (remember ‘microsteps‘?). Offer gratitude to the Lord before sleeping, after waking up, before eating, after eating, before working, after working, before leaving the house, after coming back, after sneezing, after coughing, while yawning and so on.

Eventually, everything we do will automatically become associated with the Lord.

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