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Category: mind

Mind test

Here’s an interesting exercise.

Imagine a person suspects terminal illness. So they go to the hospital and get some check-ups done.

All day and all night, they are unable to eat, sleep or work properly, constantly consumed by the anxiety of what the report might contain. Will it be 12 months to live? Or even lesser?

And then the report comes.

The doc gives an “All clear”. Nothing to worry about.

All the problems of the world have suddenly vanished. Eating, sleeping, working have instantaneously become joyful activities.

But what changed? There was no terminal illness before the test, and no terminal illness after the test. Just the mind…

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Shooting for the loon

It’s outstanding that India was able to send a rocket and rover to the Moon for less than a hundred mil. This when other countries have done it for billions. Of course there are differences in the way the launch was planned and the time taken to reach the destination. But this is, after all, truly rocket science, and I’m surely not a rocket scientist, not even a scientist.

But what struck me as amazing was how all the rocket scientists at ISRO prayed at various temples before the launch.

Why should they pray? They are people of science no? They are more scientists than many other classes of scientists perhaps. They can’t get away from anything like I do by saying, “Hey this is rocket science!”

They pray perhaps because despite knowing so much about science, they still acknowledge that there is too much they do not know. And a billion things that they cannot control. The prayer gives them strength and hope. It may or may not give them a successful rocket mission. But it wouldn’t matter, because they would always be giving their best, no matter the outcome.

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The Pratfall Effect

Think perfection is good? Think others will like you if you are perfect?

In Jonah Berger’s insightful book “Magic Words”, he introduces us to a fascinating psychological phenomenon known as the “Pratfall Effect”. This concept revolves around the idea that our minor blunders and mishaps can actually enhance our likability.

Berger illustrates this concept through an intriguing experiment. A group of students were introduced to a trivia contestant (an actor in reality). This contestant was portrayed in two different scenarios – as highly competent, answering most quiz questions correctly, and as less impressive, answering only a few correctly. In both scenarios, the contestant clumsily spilled coffee on his suit.

The results were surprising. The competent contestant, despite his blunder, became more likable. His mistake humanized him, making him more relatable and endearing. This is the essence of the Pratfall Effect. It shows us that our imperfections can be our assets, making us more human and approachable.

So, the next time you stumble or make a mistake, remember the Pratfall Effect. It’s these little imperfections that make us who we are, and often, they make us more likable. So we can embrace our pratfalls oops I mean pitfalls, for they are a part of our unique charm, while always working on our competence of course!

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Chill to thrill

Feeling swamped under a pile of tasks? Experiencing stress from information overload? In such times, Cal Newport’s “Deep Work” suggests an inviting solution – let’s disconnect to reconnect. We can step aside, immerse ourselves in gardening, yoga, or cooking.

Such calming pursuits provide a necessary interlude, allowing our minds to recharge and reboot. When we return to the task at hand, it’s not unusual to find fresh perspectives dawning.

Remember Newton’s epiphany under the apple tree? A moment of leisure birthed a profound scientific insight.

Thus, we should not hesitate to step out of our routine grind. By opening ourselves to the unexpected (or even just setting aside time for the mundane walks and baths), we pave the way for creativity to flourish.

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Dancy dancy

Many toddlers love the idea of dancy dancy. Just dancing or prancing around or bum-shaking to some beats or music as though no one is watching. Ah, the bliss, even just for a watching passerby.

On the flip side, I can’t shake a leg even if held at gunpoint. The ear-limb coordination just does not exist. But my mind in this respect is as though of a different breed. It can dance all day and all night, and sway to pretty much any tune. Gossip somewhere? Okay let’s dance in that direction. Breaking news somewhere else? Okay let’s shimmy toward there now.

Indeed my mind might be the greatest dancer of all, never once sitting still. Which might sound like a contender for the Guinness Book of World Records, but on the path of meditation, it might score the lowest.

What is the solution? I have no idea. But maybe Osho’s thoughts below leave a clue?

Meditation is not anything of the mind, it is something beyond the mind. The first step is to be playful about it. It is a song to be sung, a dance to be danced. Take it as fun and you will be surprised: if you can be playful about meditation, meditation will grow in leaps and bounds... 
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Ataraxia

Came across this interesting term called “ataraxia” by Greek philosopher Epicures. It means “not being troubled”.

Not being troubled by what? By anything. Not taking the whole world’s problems and putting it on our heads. Not constantly living in anxiety.

All we need is some food, water and shelter. That’s how we relax too, isn’t it. Nothing much else is required.

The mind is at peace only when it isn’t desperately looking to acquire something else.

As Nathaniel Hawthorne says, “Happiness is like a butterfly, which when pursued is always beyond our grasp, but if you sit still down quietly, may alight upon you.”

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Forcefully yours

Here’s an interesting thought I came across.

How do we steady the mind? How do we prevent it from having thoughts? By sleeping of course!

In sleep, all the thoughts of the awakened state, at least whatever we were thinking about just before sleeping, is all gone.

But can we force ourselves to sleep? Impossible. The more we force ourselves to sleep by thinking that we should sleep, the more active and stressed out our mind becomes!

The 4 states of the mind – active, sleeping, dreaming and dhyan (meditative and ‘awakened’) are all natural states. If we “try” to reach these states, then we effectively only prevent these states from happening.

What can we do then? Simply prepare conditions for these favorable states to come about (like ensure a fit body for instance!).

PS: Dhyan, according to Shri Durga Charan Mishra is when one is doing something and becomes one with that process, then it is a state of dhyan, meditation.

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What is the karmic reason behind…

On a recent podcast (or videocast interview maybe?) with Smriti Irani, an exceptionally talented and empathetic Union Cabinet Minister of India, she was asked an interesting and important question.

“Do you believe in the role of destiny, luck, karma, circumstance etc. in bringing you to where you are in life today?”

“Yes, I do”, pat came the reply.

The follow up. “Why do you think God chose you for this role?”

This answer came even faster. “I have no idea. And anyone who tells you they do is lying!”

“Do you think about this?”

This to me was the clincher. “Not at all. I just say thank you. Because this opportunity that I have, is not an opportunity to question ‘why'”

How extraordinary a response is that! Absolutely love it.

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Mind bound

Remember Mind Bind from just 3 years ago?

The Amritabindu Upanishad which my Guru keeps referencing (because it is so awesome!) says mana-eva kaaranam mokshaaya bandhaaya. The mind alone is the reason, for both liberation and bondage. Said simply, the mind is both the problem, and the solution.

He recently in a talk beautifully added a couple more rhyming words at the end.

mana-eva kaaranam mokshaaya bandhaaya

mana-eva kaaranam dukhaaya sukhhaaya

mana-eva kaaranam maanaaya apamaanaaya

mana-eva kaaranam sarva vishayaaya!

So simply profound!

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Moodle maps

Came across a cute story where a man was having back to back office calls. His little daughter was insistent on playing with him at exactly that time.

So he hatched a quick plan. He saw a picture of a world map lying on table. He quickly tore it up into many pieces and gave it to his child to put it back together. A fun puzzle and one that would take a while to solve!

To his surprise, his daughter was back in a few minutes, having put the entire thing together. The man was shocked. How? Was she a geography-savant?

His baby girl told him that on the back side of the map was a picture of a person. All she had to do was to put the person together, and the map would come back on its own!

The lesson for me: When we find inner harmony, when we are put together properly, when our mood swings don’t destroy us, the world will be taken care of.

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Mind placid

We all want a placid mind when we meditate.

But the mind is a creature of habit.

Is the mind placid when we go about our normal routine?

Like when we are in office, how much time do we really spend on the task at hand? How quickly is our mind diverted to the notifications piling in on our phone? Or to the thought of what happened at home as we were leaving for work?

Or even when we are at home. If a family member is speaking to us – the spouse, the kids, the parents, anyone – are we looking them in the eye and giving our complete attention? Or is the mind simply darting from one thought to another?

Throughout the day, if the mind is constantly flitting like a bee from one flower to the next, then how can we expect it to sit still only during a 15 minute meditation practise in the morning?

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Great deaths

A man was once seen lamenting the death of a close relative.

A friend approached him to offer condolences and to console him.

The man said he was crying not because his uncle died, but because he had left him an inheritance of a million dollars.

His friend was aghast. “You just got a million dollars, and you are crying?”

The man continued to cry. “Just yesterday, another uncle of mine died, and he too left me a million dollars.”

“And the day before that? One more uncle died, and he too left me a million dollars.”

The friend just couldn’t take it anymore, “You just inherited 3 million dollars out of thin air, and you are crying?”

“Yes”, said the man, “now I don’t have any more uncles who can die!”

What do we focus on in our lives? The money or the uncles?

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Captain cool

There’s only 1 Captain Cool in India, or at least only one who is nicknamed this and well known for it. No further suspense, and everyone knows anyway, none other than cricket legend MS Dhoni.

In a recent interview, he was asked how he always manages to remain so cool, calm and composed, even in times when games are so tense and spectators have chewed off all their nails!

His answer?

“Never think about the result.”

“Because it’s the result that brings in fear and leads to being the opposite of calm and cool and composed.”

“We control the controllables. Focus on what we can do. If we have put in all the effort, then the desired result has to come. And even if the desired result doesn’t come, then at least we would have grown in process.”

Such an outstanding lesson in stress management, from one who should arguably be amongst the most stressed out people in the country!

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Faster and faster

That’s the world we live in. Going faster and faster, every minute, such that no amount of speed is enough.

But what about quality? Does concentration suffer? Is it even feasible to get work done when we are constantly running? Even if we aren’t running physically, our minds are running non-stop! Here’s a super representation of the same thing… Enjoy!

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Thinking about what

The last few days when I’ve sat for my morning meditation, I’ve meditated on only one thing. My office work.

No gods, no deities, no spiritual stuff, no religious stuff, nothing else. Only work.

It’s almost frustrating! I close my eyes, and instead of silence, I see various tasks I need to complete, various potential outcomes of several different assignments, projections into the future of what may be or may not be, bonuses or the lack thereof, promotions or the lack thereof, various nasty things that colleagues and bosses may say, and on and on it goes.

My mind is so noisy that any outside sound is completely drowned out. It shows me how consumed I am by my office work, that I’m unable to set aside 15 minutes a day to think of anything but that!

On the flip side, I console myself that at least I can concentrate on “something”, even if it’s not the right thing to concentrate on for now. Slow and steady….hopefully!

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Giving up As and Ds

We know this all too well by now. Giving up attachments and desires are the keys to spiritual success.

Which comes first? Perhaps desire is borne of attachment. We see an object (or person) and keep thinking of it, and how it might bring us happiness. This repeated mental attachment leads to us desiring the object or person. If someone else succeeds first, then it leads to envy and potentially anger. If we succeed, then it leads to pride and greed (because we want more!).

So is it the fault of the desired object or person? Absolutely not! Even things that aren’t good can ambush the mind. Alcohol doesn’t taste good, cigarette smoke is suffocating and sugary sweets are the causes for all sorts of maladies, and so it’s not as though it’s the great qualities of these items that causes us to get attached. Rather, it is simply our minds tricking us into thinking that these objects offer us lasting happiness.

Couldn’t be further from the truth of course.

So what is the solution? To desire attachment to the Lord. That’s the only desire and attachment that is “allowed”. Why? Because instead of pandering to the mind, it purifies it!

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Vincenzo Casanova!

There’s a very cool Korean Netflix series called Vincenzo. It’s definitely an odd name for K-drama, but when you realize it’s about an Italian-Korean mafia consigliere who returns to Seoul for some work, then it begins to make some sense. It’s super funny, and has a very good feel good factor to it. This isn’t a show review though!

The protagonist at one point realizes that there is too much anger still locked up inside him. He consults a monk for advice, and asks him, “Sir, I’m going to move back to Italy, or maybe even to an island in the middle of nowhere. Do you think my anger will go away?”

To which the monk replies profoundly, “Son, your anger is not on an island, but in your mind. If you can fight your anger, then you can be peaceful anywhere. If you can’t, then no place will help you!”

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Restive

The English word ‘restless’ always has a profound impact on me. It’s like I begin to feel restless just by reading the word. But it became even worse when I found out that the word ‘restive’, although sounding much more peaceful and rested, also means restless only! What a curious language!

Anyway, I came across a very nice set of lines by Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh on restlessness.

From time to time you may become restless, and the restlessness will not go away. At such times, just sit quietly follow your breathing, smile a half-smile, and shine your awareness on the restlessness. Don't judge it or try to destroy it, because this restlessness is you yourself. It is born, has some period of existence, and dies away quite naturally. Don't try too hard to make it disappear. Just illuminate it. You will see that little by little it will change, merging, becoming connected, with you, the observer: Any psychological state which you subject to this illumination will eventually soften and acquire the same nature as the observing mind.
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Kshetra and kshetrajna

In chapter 13 of the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna brings up two terms to define Creation.

He says there’s the Kshetra, the material world. And the Kshetrajna, us.

This seems easy enough. We know this distinction already. The material world around us is insentient, and so indeed that must be Kshetra. And we are alive and kicking, so we must be Kshetrajna. So what’s the big deal here?

The big deal is, that Kshetra includes not just the material world according to Krishna, but also our body and mind! So the physical and mental aspects of ourselves is also part of this relative insentience – even though maya makes us feel otherwise.

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So intuitive – part 2 of 2

In Vedic/Hindu spirituality, intuition is known as the directly perceiving faculty of the soul, and it is a powerful tool that allows us to know the truth about everything without relying on sensory experience or reason.

According to Paramhansa Yogananda, the highest form of intuition – true intuition – is developed through regular meditation and practice. Here’s some guidelines for how to do this:

Meditating regularly every morning and before going to bed at night. Sitting quietly and feeling a calm peace.

After meditating, sitting still for a long time, enjoying inner peace.

Meditating until the breath becomes calm. Then concentrating simultaneously at the point between the eyebrows and the heart, and asking God to direct our intuition so that we know what to do.

It is said, that when our intuition is fully developed, we will stand firm in our knowledge and convictions, no matter what challenges may arise. By developing our intuition through meditation, we can come closer to the divine and experience a deeper connection to the world around us.

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Clarity of thought

Does the ability to think clearly come with more knowledge and learning?

It might certainly seem logical. The more we know, the better information we will have for making decisions.

But apparently it’s not so easy. Learning and knowledge often brings ego, which can act as a barrier to clear thinking.

What is important is objectivity. The example of a baby in the arms of an old wrinkly skinned man is a case in point. The baby snuggles with the man no matter the color or quality of his skin, or his age, or his smell or anything else for that matter. All it cares about, is the love the man showers onto the baby, and the baby simply reciprocates. Zero prejudice.

Our past experiences and prejudices often color our thinking. So instead of responding to the reality of a situation, we end up responding to the prejudices and preconceptions instead.

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Calm waters

Ever seen some of those insane NatGeo or similar deep-ocean documentaries? The dark blue waters and the total silence… it’s almost eerie.

But there’s actually a crazy amount of action going on there. So many fish and amphibians and crustaceans and other creatures are alive and buzzing.

And then imagine the torrential amounts of water that flows into the ocean, every day, every hour, every minute, every second. From rivers, from melting ice, from rain, and other sources too perhaps.

But through all this commotion, the deep ocean is always calm and placid. Exactly like how we would be, once we’ve attained that Blissful State. Once the Brahman has been experienced, none of the piddly matters of today will ever affect that deep calm ocean.

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Mental farmland

Have you ever had that experience, where you think and think and think – searching for an answer – but that answer just stays elusive?

You feel so stupid. The answer seems to be just on the tip of your tongue. And still it evades you.

But then you go for a walk, or a shower, or are sitting aimlessly carelessly somewhere sometime, and boom, the answer hits you. Why is this?

Simon Sinek, the author of bestselling book “Start with Why”, and the host of the awesome podcast “A bit of optimism”, has a scientific answer.

According to him, our minds have access to data at 2 levels. The conscious mind (which we use to quickly look for an answer) has about 2 feet of data access. Think of it like a small local database.

But our subconscious mind? It has access to 11 acres of data! No wonder we remember so much, but the timing is not in our hands.

This is why ‘brainstorming’ is actually about asking the right questions. The right answers will come later, likely in the shower!

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Short and sweet

ForeverHappyNow blogs are always short. Sweet, I don’t know. Depends on the mood I suppose, of the writer, the reader, the environment, the circumstances, you name it.

And these mood swings are common to one and all, except the Guru perhaps. We each go through so many positive and negative emotions, always with ourselves in the center. What if this, what if that, am I capable, am I good, am I liked, am I strong, will I be successful, will I be rich etc etc?

Swami Vivekananda has something short and sweet to say:

All power is within you; you can do anything and everything. Believe in that, do not believe that you are weak; do not beleive that you are half-crazy lunatics. You can do anything and everything, without even the guidance of anyone. Stand up and express the divinity within you. 

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Superhero

We all know the Indian version of Superman, Spiderman and Batman, because he is none other than Hanuman.

But why is he a superhero, and worshipped with so much love and affection by countless devotees?

Not just because he is macho or immortal.

But because, as the Hanuman Chalisa says, he is the one who has complete alignment of man-karam-and-vachan, ie, thoughts, words and actions.

When he thinks of Lord Rama, his words and actions are completely in sync with his beloved Master.

If only I had this superpower. I can barely even write one blog post completely before my mind wanders off somewhere, my hand instinctively looks to check WhatsApp, and the mouth opens not to speak but to pop some junk food into it 🙈

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Tyson’s fears – part 2 of 2

An afraid Mike Tyson is so uncharacteristic of him, one would think.

Sadhguru breaks this down masterfully.

He says that human beings are uncanny because they don’t need any external stimulus to be afraid, or happy or sad or angry. All of that happens within us. External stimuli might exacerbate certain emotions, but these emotions can very well spring up (and last) on their own.

For instance, we may think of an impending client meeting, and worry about how our performance will be. We may also use a reference of a prior meeting with the client, and add to the worry. But in reality, today where we are, neither the meeting from the past is happening now, nor is the meeting to be held in the future happening now. So we are afraid of something that isn’t even real.

Seemingly simple concept, but applicable to each one, especially if knockout-king Tyson himself has unexplained fears!

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Tyson’s fears

In a very interesting podcast with Sadhguru, the interviewer was the legendary boxer Mike Tyson.

Tyson starts off by asking, “Hey Sadhguru, why do you think I’m here today in front of you?”

To which Sadhguru thinks for a moment and replies, “Because you are afraid of something.”

And Tyson says, “Wow, yes, indeed I am afraid. I’ve got all the success in life, and yet I am afraid of something and I do not even know what!”

Can you imagine that? The great Mike Tyson, that no one would dare enter the ring against, is afraid?!

What is this about? Concluded tomorrow.

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“Leave your work behind in office”

We’ve all heard this as advice at some point, or even felt it personally. When work gets to us, when stress and anxiety from the workplace increase, we wish the option would exist to keep our personal and office lives completely separate.

The brilliant folks over at Apple TV created a mind-boggling TV show called Severance with exactly this premise. What if you could truly leave your work behind… at work?!

A couple of considerations on how it would play out practically, as portrayed wonderfully in the show:

1. We would literally have no recollection of work outside it, and ditto for home. Once the clock strikes 6 pm and you’re out of office, you won’t know what happens in office at all. Is this good?

2. Maybe not. Because your work self only knows work, it’ll mean one never gets out of work at all. Each day begins with you walking into the office (but from where, you’d never know, because that is a separate life), and each day ends with you walking out, without knowing where to. As far as your life is concerned, work and home have truly been separated.

Of course the show is much more nuanced than just this. But it is a sure starting point for anyone who thinks that the splitting of work and life brings immediate benefit. It does not!

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Sleep hack

We all surely experience times where sleep doesn’t come that easily.

Or maybe we wake up randomly at 2 am or such, and then keep tossing and turning, struggling to fall asleep again.

The first port of call for most? The mobile phone of course. And once that light hits the eye, sleep is only going to get delayed even further (science backs this up!).

But there’s another way.

Know how we usually do not find much time to meditate? Well why not meditate at such times when sleep isn’t coming?

I find this incredibly useful. One only needs to focus on the breath, slowly and calmly. At that time of night, usually all surrounding noises have died down. Peace prevails, and sleep will soon too.

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Old is sold

Many people start feeling old the moment they hit 30. Some feel old even before. “Oh no, my twenties are almost over!” they sigh.

Given the stresses and lifestyles of today, it’s not just the twenties that are receding, but hairlines as well. All sorts of garbage are sold in the garb of success.

That’s why it’s a pleasure to see what limits are possible. And this is not about fake limits set up on Instagram, showing extraordinary bodies shot in conditioned light. Nope.

I was reading about Olympic Champion Eliud Kipchoge, who recently broke his own world record running a marathon in just 2 hours 1 minute and 9 seconds. Outstanding feat. But I also liked what the 37 year old had to say about his fitness, both physical and mental.

"My legs and my body still feel young. But most importantly, my mind also feels young."
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Angry turd

No one likes angry people. Except the angry ones themselves, who feel great, in the heat of the moment. And these angry people aren’t other people, but rather each one of us, and specifically me. Guilty as charged folks!

It’s not necessary that angry people only show their anger outwardly. Sometimes the rage can be simmering on the inside for a very long time. One day that volcano might erupt.

What’s the opposite of being angry? One would say it is being peaceful. Maybe, but while being angry is seen as being active and assertive, being peaceful is seen as being passive and suppressed.

That can’t be further than the truth. Being peaceful is a positive and active state of consciousness. True strength is when our inner peace is completely unruffled, no matter what the external stimulus is.

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Educated guess

When someone says they are educated, what is it that comes to mind?

School, college, university, 12th grade, board exams, coding, chemistry, MBA, Harvard, Stanford, MIT, IIT, IIM, doctor, lawyer, engineer, CAT, UPSC, JEE. These could be a few of the top ones.

All good.

This is indeed what education means today.

What about character building? What about spirituality? Self discipline? Values of love, truthfulness, goodness and nobility?

But is this all?

Today’s education is mostly about living off of others, one-upmanship – always gaining something at someone else’s expense, always wanting more. More and more. The wants never stop.

True education is in our scriptures. They teach us that we should live not for ourselves, but for others.

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Mandatory rituals

There’s a lot of people who will tell you when and how to do what. Like don’t pray facing this direction. Don’t prostrate in that direction. Don’t chant without taking bath. Don’t eat with that hand. And on and on.

Are these rituals or rules important? Yes, very much, but…

But, standalone, these rules are meaningless. As my Guru states very clearly in chapter 18 verse 3 of the Amazing Simple Gita, all these external rituals are only important to overlap a clean mind. If the mind is not clean and purified, then all these external rituals have no meaning.

Here is His outstanding example in the purport:

Again this purification is superficial, if the Knowledge of Reality is lacking. Each time the mind is purified, it is like dusting our veranda. The next day, the veranda has new dust. Only when the windows and doors are shut tight will new dust not accumulate. 
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One or the other

Having a traveling job is awesome. You get to see so many places, live in nice hotels, and enjoy diverse cuisines. Except, this is the outsider view. Ask anyone working like this, living half their lives on a flight or hotel and they would tell you how much they would rather be in a non-traveling job coming home to family each night. Ask anyone doing a desk job, and they’d be yearning to travel to various countries, always jet setting and globe trotting.

Working in a startup is really amazing. Freedom to choose your own work, style of work, location of work – you name it. But ask someone in a startup and they’d probably like the stability offered by a role in an established company. Ask someone in an established company though, and they’d be yearning for working at a startup.

Ask someone living in a city, and they’d hate it and want to “go live peacefully in the outdoors”. But ask the rural folk, and they’d love to be in the city to “earn more and live better”.

You can see where these comparisons are going. No place is perfect, except if our mind thinks it is.

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Don’t worry be happy!

This title is the crux of spirituality. Really.

All is well. And all will be well. Whether something is good or bad is decided by the mind. Our minds are very poor predictors of what is to come – and that is why we can never stay happy, even if we achieve exactly or more than what we want.

When we let every minor or major problem in our lives derail our happiness, we get more and more irritated, angry, frustrated, jealous, disappointed… which then leads to further worry.

Why do we worry? Because, my Guru says, we are living in the past or the future, not in the present moment. What is the fix? To simply accept things the way they are, to enjoy the moment, and to not worry about what was or will be. Easier said than done?

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More and more

The other day, I came across a book in a bookstore (yes those still exist!).

It was partially covered, and so I only saw half the title.

The words were “Ask For More”.

I thought to myself, “What a weird title!”, and then proceeded to pick up the book out of interest.

Turns out, the title was actually “Say Less, Ask More”. It was not ‘ask “for” more’. That was just my mind playing tricks on me. Not just tricks, but working in its usual ways of wanting more and more.

The book instead was on how to lead effectively. By listening more, saying less, and asking more questions so that learning improves. Nice isn’t it?

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Trasher

Here are three hard hitting lines I came across in a podcast.

“Would you let someone to come into your house and trash it?”

“No right?”

“Then why are we letting people come into our minds and trash it?”

The moment we feel weak or sad or angry simply because of what someone else told us, we have let them into our minds to trash it.

Is that what we want?

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Can we think of the Lord all the time?

A close friend couple (husband + wife) had taken a 1 year sabbatical. This was what they recounted to me.

They planned their sabbatical about 10 months in advance. And they were both working right till the start of the sabbatical.

Initially, they said, it felt so far off, and they would hardly think of it.

But towards the end, as time kept moving forward, and as the time-to-sabbatical reduced from months to just weeks and days and hours, they said that they kept thinking of the sabbatical ever increasingly, even during their office work, which they were anyway doing, and doing well.

We certainly seem to have the capacity to process multiple things at once in our minds. So can we think of the Lord a lot of the time, while also going about our other daily duties? We sure can!

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How to work?

My Guru repeatedly says that there is no such thing as a perfect type of work.

Even the best of things, done over and over, will only bring boredom and frustration.

Our scriptures also place no emphasis on the actual work we do, but rather only focus on the state of our minds, while we are engaged in that (any) work.

How to work then? My Guru repeats this verse from chapter 18 of the Gita:

mukta-saṅgo ‘nahaṁ-vādī dhṛity-utsāha-samanvitaḥ

It means that one must be free from attachment and ego, and be endowed with dhriti and utsaha, i.e. perseverance and enthusiasm. That is the simple (but not easy) secret sauce to success.

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Constructive focus

Was observing a construction worker recently.

He had just laid a ton of bricks. Putting one after the other, and cementing up an entire wall. Grunt work, if there was any.

His boss came up to him the next day and said the owners had asked for the wall to be shifted a little. This meant disassembling his entire work from the previous day, and putting the wall up again, brick by brick, a couple of meters away.

Anyone in his place would have been frustrated, and understandably so. Why couldn’t someone have told him the correct place to put the wall up in the first place?

But our man? Not at all fazed. He coolly nodded, and went about taking apart the current wall and setting up the new one. His entire focus was on the work itself (laying the bricks) and not at all on the result (whether the wall was here or there or on Mars). A good lesson for me as I go about my daily work.

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Mental case

Troubled by stress, anxiety and tension? You are not alone.

How to keep these at bay? By not worrying about what will happen. We know this.

The only thing that differentiates each one of us, and especially those who take a lot of tension versus those who don’t, is their state of mind once a problem has been revealed to them.

Maybe you found out that you need to make a presentation in front of a 1000-people audience, and you just detest the idea. But you need to do it, because that is your job.

The chilled out guy is not worried, because he knows he anyway has to present to that large group, so why worry? Besides, he has faced several tough situations before, and he’s still alive, and so he has faith in himself and/or at least in a higher power to help guide him.

Often it’s not the fear of actually presenting that is the cause of worry, but the fear of underperformance. That people will laugh. That I’d make a fool of myself, and be relegated to YouTube’s Greatest Fools’ Hall of Fame top list. The reality is that no one cares, because everyone is too busy worrying about themselves.

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Public Work

Met an old bloke today. Probably in his fifties.

He was happy – smiling and whistling to himself. Not that I met him in happy circumstances.

He was in his small claustrophobic office doing his work. We know his office well. It is also called the public restroom. No he wasn’t spending time there because of a bad stomach. It was just his daily job. 8 hours of business to be done once others were done with theirs.

He said he traveled 2 hours one way from house, in an overcrowded train, every single day. 4 hours spent in traveling, in sweat and crowd, all to get a pittance, after being locked 7 days a week 8 hours a day in a tiny smelly room!

How could he possibly be happy and smiling and whistling? The only possible answer to this question is that happiness is in the mind.

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The 5-4-3-2-1 technique you cannot miss!

We all get stressed sometimes. It’s natural. And then we read up on how to reduce this stress. And nice books will tell you that you should not worry about the future. That you should only live in the present.

This is absolutely perfect advice of course. But how to follow this?

Here’s a method I came across. It’s called the 5-4-3-2-1 technique. And it is really simple. If followed properly, it can quickly yank us right back into the present. How to do this?

5. Acknowledge 5 things you can see around you.

4. Acknowledge 4 things that you can touch around you.

3. Acknowledge 3 things that you can hear around you.

2. Acknowledge 2 things that you can smell around you.

1. Acknowledge 1 thing that you can taste around you.

That’s all there is to the 5-4-3-2-1 technique, but it works, and your mind should be less stressed already!

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Toil-let

It’s interesting how quickly we humans adapt.

Some months ago, we had the opportunity to stay a short while in a 3 BHK, one with 3 toilets. Of course that is very comfortable for typical Indian standards. Felt good.

Then we traveled, and spent a while in a place with a toilet that was separate and outside the room. A couple of days, and we got comfortably used to that as well.

And then we spent some time in a place with just one loo, but attached to the room. A damn cool upgrade as it were. And very comfortable.

And then back to base with 2 loos.

What did I learn as a nomadic loorist (loo+tourist, but you got that already)? That the body adjusts really fast to any change – almost momentarily. But the mind? Oh that’s a toughie!

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Peace of mind

We are constantly worrying about the future, aren’t we?

How will I perform in a new job? How will I perform in a new family setup? How will my kids do? Will my family be able to cope? Will I be able to deliver my presentation well? Will I be able to get a promotion? Will I clear my impending exams and certifications? Will I be accepted by my peers and colleagues? Will I be able to provide for my family?

And on and on and on these questions go, with hardly any clarity.

And to make matters worse, with each passing day, more and more questions only keep getting added on to the pile.

Then how to get rid of these?

You can’t. That’s the simple answer.

The solution? To keep the mind occupied elsewhere. That’s the only way. I observe this in my Guru. Nearing 80 years of age, he spends not even one waking minute in isolation, thinking and wondering about the future, but is instead always engaged in karma yoga, action here and now. We just need to imitate.

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PeaZzzz

Saw the craziest thing today.

Was stuck in a traffic jam for what seemed like ages.

Everyone there was frustrated, irritated, angry, and likely hungry too.

The tension in the air was translating into louder and louder horns.

Much like a glass filled with stones still has space for sand, the road too with large trucks and buses was choc a block full with bikes, cycles and pedestrians.

There was literally nowhere to go. It was completely maddening, with nary a second of silence.

But to my amazement, in the corner on the pavement, was a hairy homeless man. He was fast asleep, totally unbothered by the din around him. A peaceful smile covered his face, and if he didn’t awaken with all that hullabaloo, he might as well have been deaf.

There is chaos in our lives all the time. But to drown it out is what could differentiate the happy from the rest.

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VVP

This is how the world is deconstructed in the spiritual context.

Vyakti. Vastu. Paristhithi.

Person. Object. Situation.

According to the Gita and other Vedic texts, all of life revolves around these three and the interplay between them.

Why does this matter?

Because it tells us what is important. Or rather what is not.

Can any of these 3 – whether in isolation or in combination – bring us permanent happiness?

The answer is an emphatic No. Hence VVP helps us contextualise what is truly valuable.

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Negative to positive

Many people think that visualization is a farce. That positive reaffirmations do not work. That our minds are not really that powerful.

But just look on the flip side. If someone says something mean to us, we feel so angry. If we don’t clear an interview, we feel like the world has come to an end. That we are not even worth a job. If we have to present something in front of a group, we start feeling nervous, maybe the tummy goes for a toss too. These are all absolutely normal.

But these are all also linked to the mind only. The same mean comment, interview and presentation would mean nothing a few months or years down the line, even if they do not go in our favor. But today they do matter, and the mind getting so restless due to the uncertainty can itself cause bad results.

If this is the case for negative outcomes, why can’t the reverse be true for positive outcomes?

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Key, da!

“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”, is what French philosopher Pascal once said. Bang on he was of course.

In Hindi, this is also known as ‘keeda’. Well not literally, because keeda only means insect. However, do imagine a small insect running around in your mind, with the latter unable to sit still.

That’s a keeda for you. Everything is perfect, life is great, the job is great, the pay is great, and yet, you want something more. You feel like something is missing, even though to an outsider, your life would look absolutely perfect. That’s a keeda in action.

How to get out of this feeling? Because everyone’s experiencing it most of the time. What’s the solution – the key, da? (to use some Tamil slang as well).

As my Guru keeps saying, the only way, is “to realize the futility of it all”. So many greats have come and gone. Where are all their worries and troubles now? Where will ours be in a 100 years?

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Emoshunned – part 4 of 4

Why the jealousy versus envy example? Because as humans, we are naturally wired to compare.

Naming the emotion here helps. Because we get to identify the inflection point. If we are envious about something someone else has, we can consciously choose what we want to do with that comparison. As someone nicely summarized – if we compare against others, we become bitter. But if we compare against ourselves, we become better!

Brene dropped this cool line on the podcast – “To compare, is human, but to let go is divine.”

She also talks of the 4 Bs. Biology, Biography, Behaviour and Backstory. These help in further dissecting one’s emotions.

Biology is what we naturally have a tendency for. Biography is how we were raised (in a very strict upbringing versus easy going, or rich versus poor). Behaviour refers to my reactions today – do I just control my anger, or do I turn red and punch a wall, or worse. Backstory – this really helps find an answer, such as if someone tears up, is that anger? Grief? Sadness? Disappointment?

A backstory helps us do better. For instance, if we have an interview lined up, it is but natural to have a few butterflies in the tummy. For some, this can even lead to anxiety. But instead of feeling desperate for the job and just making things worse, it would help to have backstory that emphasizes how it would be such an exciting challenge to speak with 4 interviewers and clinch the job.

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Repetition

My Guru in his Amazing Simple Gita has encapsulated many outstanding truths of life. One such truth comes in chapter 1 itself.

He has written it for all the utopians amongst us. Those who yearn for perfect harmony. For a world filled with peace and laughter.

We have everything already don’t we? Incredible changes in technology mean even some of today’s poor people might have luxuries unbeknownst to the kings and queens of yesteryear.

But still, the kings and queens and rulers of today are themselves discontent. Ever eyeing nearby lands and their resources, with not a care for its people, on they go with their plunder and loot.

Oh why can’t this change? Because of the mind. The mind is one’s own best friend and one’s own worst enemy. Consumed by greed, lust, jealousy and anger, how can this mind think of harmony and peace? No matter the reward, the mind is continuously dissatisfied. As my Guru notes, as long as the mind exists, there exists no respite.

Spirituality teaches us how to subdue the mind, and surrender the ego. When this is achieved, there is nothing but peace.

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Pecking order

We never say “Oh look, his leg has gone for a walk”, or “hey her hand is making food in the kitchen”, do we? No we don’t, because we always consider everything about a person to be one singular entity.

In the Gita, Lord Krishna breaks it up, and for good reason. He says there is a clear pecking order:

Gross body < sense organs < mind < intellect < HE

This is to say, that it is our body and sense organs that get attracted to sense objects, because they give in to desires.

If we are able to use our intellect to focus the (monkey) mind on to HE, then that would be cool wouldn’t it? No need to worry about desires much then. But how to do it? Through karma yoga, aka the principle that work is worship (remember The secret to success at work?).

Also, this is a step by step process. When we know we are doing something bad, and we want to change it, we immediately try to jettison it, throw it out – and then we struggle with withdrawal symptoms. Whereas My Guru’s approach is always more measured, calibrated and sustainable. How? By aiming for something higher, so that whatever is lower and weaker, will automatically drop off. Work is good, but working selflessly as worship is the highest good.

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Memory power

As a kid, my memorization skills were terrible. We used to have those competitions in school where we’d be blindfolded, taken into a room, showed a number of objects, and then brought back into our classroom to write within two minutes everything that we could remember from that visit.

I would hardly get 7 or 8 right, while kids around me easily did 30 or more.

Even to today, I struggle with names, places, birthdays (shhh, don’t tell my wife!), faces, events and everything else. How I cleared exams, especially engineering, where I didn’t understand so many of the most basic concepts, really befuddles me to this date.

But you know the best part of having a poor memory? It extends to all walks of life. If someone tells me something rude or hurtful, I forget that as well. If someone passed some nasty comment – poof, a few weeks later I often have no recall of the event. It sucks when there are fights, if I need to prove a point, then I can barely connect past events to make my case.

But in the long run, does it really matter? Once the ego clash is taken out of the equation, is there really a winner or loser? There likely isn’t, and which is why to me personally, a bad memory isn’t a problem, it is a divine gift!

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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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Divine eyes – part 2 of 3

There is another side to this. The ‘divine eyes’ are not some cool sunglasses, but rather a change in perspective of the Lord.

No different from when we expect a Guru to perform miracles like levitation and telepathy, only to realize the real miracle was in his changing our minds!

It is easy to change anything in today’s world if you throw some money at it, but to really deeply change someone’s mind? Ask a parent about their adolescent kids. Or a husband/wife about their better half. “Impossible”, they will say.

And it’s not as though Lord Krishna had been hiding anything from Arjuna. He told him he was the Creator, Sustainer and Destroyer, and heck, even the substratum of all Creation!

But Arjuna didn’t really get it. It’s like meeting your childhood gully friend (the one you use to play with in all the dirt and dust, wearing only undies) after 3 decades only to realize he is now one of the richest people in the world. To you, that person is still the same old playmate from your childhood. Only when you see his face in a few magazines do you realize the truth.

And so he requests Krishna for a true-blue view.

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To do…

To do lists are awesome. They really help me get my work done, and ensure that I don’t miss anything critical.

So to do lists are great, and we’ve established that.

But you know the problem with to do lists? They are never ending. My to do lists just keep getting longer and longer. And this builds up a lot of stress and anxiety.

Therefore, here’s another kind of useful list… The ‘to-don’t’ list!

Many times, what I’m unable to do or accomplish is a direct outcome of other things I should be giving up. Like?

Here’s some to-don’ts for me. Don’t check your emails for at least an hour (did you know we check our emails on average 80 times a day?!). Don’t procrastinate. Don’t worry about the future. Don’t focus on the result. Don’t think about missing one day of your 7-days-a-week workout. Don’t worry about one cheat meal. And so it goes.

Even a short but effective to-don’t list can make a to do list really effective!

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Problematic

Verse 2.55 in the Gita is an interesting one.

But before that, do we have any problems in life? If no, then you are a jivanmukta. If yes, which should be the case for most of us, then the next questions should be – where do our problems come from?

For everyone who is working, we might unanimously think “Oh all my life’s problems come from my boss”. For those of us who are studying, we might think “Oh these darned exams. I love to study and read, but I so hate giving exams and having to compete in the mindless rat race”. For others, problems come from maybe an irritating sibling, or a friend, or a colleague, or even from certain things not going our way.

So the sources of problems can be multifarious.

But Krishna has a different take. He is saying “Hang on, all your problems, my problems, the world’s problems have only one source. And that source, is an unstable mind”.

And hence verse 2.55 says, “When one thoroughly casts off all cravings of the mind, is satisfied in the Self, through the joy of the Self, he is called one of stable mind.”

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Superior inferior

In the workplace, a common complaint I’ve heard across industries and sectors is that it appears the seniors / superiors / bosses / managers don’t really do much. They also don’t know much. But by virtue of their legacy, having warmed their chairs for many years, they get to be where they are.

How to tackle this? Here are some ways to look at this:

  1. If we are junior to someone else, we cannot control the other person’s current position or future career trajectory.
  2. We can control what we do with our hours put in at work though.
  3. In many cases, a person’s authority in a particular position comes solely because of the title. If an incompetent person is made head of the team, it is still the head only who can take certain decisions, whether bad or good.
  4. If a superior doesn’t ‘deserve’ a role, s/he may hold the position for a very long time, but the impact they will create will be negligible.
  5. If we get a chance to go into that role in say 3 years or 5 years, what would our impact be then? What would we want it to be?
  6. If the impact has to be much better, then we need to start putting in substantial efforts – from today itself.
  7. We cannot control the outcome of tomorrow, but we can control what we learn today, what skills we develop today and what networks we build today. This is most important. And it has never been easier to learn new things and add to ones repertoire – whether via Udemy, or YouTube or Coursera or any other.

As Swami Vivekananda has said, “We find ourselves in the position for which we are fit, and if one has some capacity above another, the world will find that out too.”

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Young dung

Often times, new comers, especially youngsters, come to the satsang seemingly in bliss. No, no, not that they’re high or anything, but they can often not see the point of having a satsang or being in one.

“Life is good. I’m working in a good company. I get recognized for my work. I get a monthly salary. I’m interacting with my friends and colleagues and having fun. Everything is fine and dandy. Then why do I need satsang at all? Meditation, liberation, sanskrit verses, detachment, no desires and blah blah blah, my problems aren’t really so big that I need to do all these boring things”, all the youth seem to say.

There can be two ways to think about this.

1. Yes, forget satsang and spirituality and all that. If really someone is in nirvana with the life around them, then so be it! No stress, no anxiety, no peer pressure, no comparison right? Life’s good, and everyone believes you.

2. Maybe one day, some day, hopefully never, there is the off-chance that something in that “perfect life” may not go according to plan. And when that happens, opening up a chapter of the Gita will be too little, too late, and meaningless. Because spirituality is not about knowledge, but about action. And no artist perfected his craft with just the first stroke. That’s why years of practice are necessary, and no different for spiritual success either.

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Control centre

Here’s a cool story I heard on an investment-Guru Howard Marks’ interview podcast. It was apparently narrated to him by his father.

A man loved gambling. He used to spend whatever money he’d make on horse racing.

But he wasn’t very good at it. So he ended up losing money.

A lot of it.

One day, he decided that he would win for sure. So he went and bet on a race where there was only one horse.

A cinch, right?

No, because halfway through the race, the lone horse jumped over the fence and bolted off to freedom.

Life is like that. So unpredictable, even when we think we have it all under control.

Pretty much nothing is in our control, externally.

But if we control our minds, then we do not need to control anything external.

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Paralimping

Of the various disabilities that exist, a physical one is very hard to live with. Not that mental disabilities aren’t hard – they certainly are. But given weaker cognition as it is, it may have a lesser impact on one’s own self worth. But a physical disability coupled with perfect mental machinery? Surmounting those odds requires gargantuan effort. The various incidences of kids poking fun at undeveloped limbs, or the inability to run around like most kids would – not easy. Even those that are physically (fully) well endowed struggle with their self-images and self-worth. How many times have we not wished to be slightly thinner, more muscular, taller, fairer? Even A-list celebrities, yes the same ones whose chiselled bodies adorn cover pages of leading fashion magazines, too succumb to such mental competitiveness.

So awesome it is then, to read the inspiring stories behind various Paralympic athletes from India and other countries who won golds, silvers and bronzes. Here are some outstandingly fine men and women, who were either born with physical disabilities, or picked them up along the way – through some unnerving quirks of fate. But the power of their resolve, hard work and persistence in the face of seemingly insurmountable physical loss – teaches lessons to those of us who have everything, yet live in our own made-up worlds of mental distress. Money never enough, job not good enough, things not going according to plan, small molehills repeatedly made out to be mountains, giving up on smiling altogether, taking tensions for the smallest things – and on and on. All this begs the question – who really is the one with the disability?

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Heavenly hell

Since time immemorial, man has wanted to live an enjoyable afterlife. Avoid hell at any cost, and make sure to get into heaven.

Why heaven? Because everything there is awesome – a cornucopia of food, women, money, opulence and grandeur. Who wouldn’t want to go to such a place no?

The question to ask is, even if we had all this, would we still be happy? Is happiness guaranteed? Surely some celestial beings in heaven would be having more comforts than others. And the comparison game would begin playing on their minds. Or if everything was always available equally and status quo for everyone, then surely life would become very boring, and that would lead to its own problems.

So a promised heaven in the afterlife really is not an answer at all.

Then what about in this life? I really like how Sadhguru puts it. “If you are doing something unwillingly, that is your Hell. If you are doing something willingly, that is your Heaven.”

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Randomly random

Karma. That is what we are constantly accruing. But it is also the name of a newly released book by Acharya Prashant. He’s an IIT-IIM-grad-turned-spiritual-Guru and so I was quite keen to read what he has to say on this topic.

There are many interesting things he covers. One for today’s post, is on randomness. He says that the happenings in the material world around us are truly random. That it is impossible to predict the future with any certainty.

There are so many people and creatures in the world and each has its own free will. When all of these interact, in real time, dynamically, how is it possible to ‘setup’ a specific karmic event for any single individual that is supposed to experience the fruits of their past actions?

The thought is sobering, and indeed seems to make sense from the perspective of our limited and miniscule intellect. But for the Creator of everything around us, maybe it is not such a big deal? The author agrees that karmic law exists. However, this is applicable at the level of an individual, by way of his/her reaction to an external stimulus, i.e. two people could react very differently to the same news, for instance.

So is this what the birth chart of a native predicts in vedic astrology? That s/he will be successful during this period, or will get married during this period, and so is perhaps referring to internal emotions likely to be felt by the native? The word ‘likely’ is important, because free will can be exercised in a counterfactual manner.

There are also many great saints who have tweaked the karma of their disciples. Some say that mass fatalities like plane crashes and terrorism are part of ‘community karma’, perhaps engineered to perfection by Nature Herself. How does that fit in here, in a world ruled by free will and chaos? I guess there will always be some things we just cannot understand…

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Tough life

When life gets tough, we often just want to kick it all off and take a break. But few have this luxury. Here are some things we can do irrespective of whether life has gotten tough or not. It’s hard to practise, but this is what great and successful people have advised and continue to advise.

  1. Smile. That’s it. Easy peasy. But can we smile when we know the world around us seems to be falling apart? And “falling apart” is really taking things to the extreme. Often times it is just one of our life-long dreams hitting a minor speedbump. Many times even smaller and more inconsequential, but which we love to focus on and exaggerate.
  2. Don’t complain. As they say, “Don’t tell people about your problems, because 80% of the people don’t care and the rest 20% are happy you have them!”
  3. Learn. All of life is about growing and becoming better. One day at a time. If we can’t learn from our or other people’s experiences aka failures, then those would only be wasted opportunities.
  4. Give back. Living life for ourselves alone is a huge huge huge burden. But living for improving the life of others, for the country, for the world? While the tasks may be harder, the selfless nature of the assignment will make the burden feel weightless.
  5. ABCs. Attitude, Behaviour, Character – this is what differentiates the best from the also-rans.

Finally, as Guruji always says, modern education and material comparisons can only help us in the material world. But the material world is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. Our ultimate goal as human beings should be moksha, i.e. realizing our true nature is not of the body but of the Soul.

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Working remotely

There’s a lot of people who want to work remotely these days. Work from the mountains. Work from the snow. Work from the riverside. Work from the beaches. Work from anywhere but home. All you need is a strong internet connection and some good homecooked food.

I know many people who’ve made this journey as well. From a few weeks to a few months, they’ve tried different combinations. And technology has certainly made things easier. No denying that. However, the feedback I’ve got (and it’s expected of course!) is that the work doesn’t magically become lighter. The sweet aroma of the flowers from the mountain top does little to change the deadline of an irate client.

Said differently, all that matters is what’s in our minds. If we train it to seek a rumbling waterfall or gurgling creek in order to do our work well, then that’s what it will keep demanding, regardless of whether it actually works well in that landscape.

Also, we hardly know what is good for us – but we always think we do. A recent tragedy is a case in point. So many wanted to work remotely from this idyllic place. But said place saw unexpected rains and subsequent landslides that resulted in quite a bit of destruction and loss of lives. Sometimes, if life doesn’t go the way we dream it too, maybe that’s not such a bad thing. Does that mean we should never wish for anything? Not at all, but if it doesn’t go our way, then best to just take it in our stride.

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1 – 2 ka 4

Someone asked the tennis legend Martina Navratilova once how she can continue playing so well at the age of 43. Her reply was precious. She said, “The ball doesn’t know how young or old I am. Besides, for 90% of the match, I do not need to focus.”

This is an amazing response on two counts. One, it is the internal content of the person that really matters. Which is why we see so many billion dollar companies being run by 20- or 30-year olds, and not necessarily by septuagenarians alone. While hierarchy, age and respect are important, when it comes to work and giving one’s best, the opinions of the world around us do not matter much.

Two, in our daily work, it might appear that we are working 12-15 hours a day. But is every minute or every hour really that intense and productive? Likely not. Which is why more and more research and experiments seem to suggest that taking walks and breaks and creative time off is better than just sitting at one’s desk for hours on end.

In certain professions, this is easier. Like for Usain Bolt or Michael Phelps – they need to bring their A-game and focus for the entirety of only 1 or 2 minutes. And that will last them 4 years at the Olympics. No comments on the length of their practise sessions though 😃

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Equations – part 2

A few more simple equations:

  1. Visualization + execution >>> execution-only > visualization-only
  2. Health + wealth >> Health > wealth
  3. Distraction = destruction
  4. Spirituality = embracing uncertainty
  5. Pain =/= suffering; suffering is only in the mind
  6. Pain + reflection = progress

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From raags to riches

Raaga in sankrit refers to attachment. This attachment is considered to be one of the greatest barriers to spiritual evolution. Why so? Because if we are attached to our own body, our own families, our own this and that, then there is no scope for appreciating the one true Consciousness, which is everywhere at once.

The requirement then is to get rid of this raaga. This is called vairaagya or detachment. Defining it is easy, but actually living it is nearly impossible. Just play with a cute baby for a few hours, and you’ll find yourself attached, and thinking of the baby many times a day “Oh so cute!”.

As my Guru recently commented:

  1. Bhakti or devotion, means inseparable pain when away from the Lord. Which them implies needing to give up everything else, i.e. devotion begins when raaga ends.
  2. Parents believe that giving their children a lot of wealth would tantamount to their welfare. But no, their welfare is in their vairagya or detachment to the wealth.
  3. Someone did something bad to you. That is over. Now forget about it. Don’t replay it a 100 times for 100 years. If we are mentally at peace, then vairagya becomes easy.
  4. Supremely detached fellow is giving hundreds of thousands to charitable organizations but is fighting for a few rupees with the roadside vegetable vendor.

All worth pondering over deeply.

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Mediterranean Life – is back

We discussed the TV show Mediterranean Life back in April this year. They’re back with season 2, and boy do those landscapes and vistas and balcony views look stunning!

So yet another bunch of families leave their homes and hometowns behind, in the quest for a peaceful Mediterranean lifestyle.

One opening remark by one of the wandering souls struck me deeply. He said, “Wow what sunny beaches. I’m so happy to leave behind all the snow. Yay, no more snow!”

No more snow? I’ve never been to a place while it’s snowing. I don’t know how snow feels. Is it hard? soft? fluffy? I’ve seen many YouTube videos of course, but never had snow falling over my head. But 45-degrees sun? Yes that I’ve seen plenty of.

It’s amazing how what one person is running towards, another is running away from. The bottom line is that people are always running. Standing still might be the best antidote to all our problems. Physically, and mentally.

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Struggler

Everyone is constantly struggling. Someone wants to change their job. Someone wants to have the same job that this other person is so desperate to leave. Someone wants more money. Someone with a lot of money wants to know how to invest it best. Someone wants more recognition. Someone wants more love and legitimacy in their relationship. Someone wants a family. Someone wants a child. And on and on and on. The struggles are never ending.

Everyone thinks their baby days were the best. No office tension. No home tension. No need to do anything. Just cry, and you can be assured of full service. But is it that easy?

Babies cry for the weirdest reasons. Could be a little gas in the tummy. Or a sudden loud sound. Or hearing another baby nearby cry. Or not knowing how to go to sleep. Or hunger. Or tiredness. You name it. And their cries are really loud. Because that’s the only defence/weapon that human babies have in their arsenal.

And the other end of the spectrum? As an old person, maybe touching 100, are they free from struggles? Despite presumably having lived happy lives, having had great careers, made name and fame, having wonderful large grand and great-grandchildren, they might struggle for basic physical needs – like getting up for a glass of water maybe.

Life moves fast, and we each are going from one end of the spectrum to the other at breakneck speed. And this struggle is constant – during every step of this ephemeral spectral move. When one struggle ends, the next begins.

However, as every spiritual text would tell us, the struggle really is only in the mind, as is the victory over it. We know this, yet we struggle. That is the biggest struggle.

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Securing the crown – part 3

Do we think that money can buy us everything? It might certainly seem so. And not just money – what if you had power as well, and status? And servants at your beck and call. Also media people tracking your every move. A true celebrity. And on top of this all, you don’t need to work at all. Not a single day of your life. Yes, that’s right – no work at all!

Too good to be true you say?

This was the exact problem facing Princess Margaret as beautifully captured in the Netflix series The Crown. She’s of royal blood, has an entourage of obsequious ministers, servants and attendants one can only imagine and never has to worry about money. The only mistake she made? Being born second in-line, not first. Her elder sister, Queen Elizabeth II, became Queen (duh!).

In some wonderful dialogue exchanges, Princess Margaret is actually seen beseeching her elder sister for more work – for more representation. “I have everything, but I have nothing to do, nowhere to go!”

So to those of us who believe that having all the material pleasures of the world is the endgame, we must rethink whether that will be enough. It might quell our fantasies for today, but will it quell our mind of tomorrow?

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Securing the crown

There is an amazing scene in the Netflix drama The Crown, which is based on Queen Elizabeth’s life. No spoilers ahead, I think 🙂

In season 2 episode 8, when John F Kennedy travels to the UK, they meet the Queen and her husband. It’s not just the Queen who’s the lead female though. More than JFK, it is Mrs. Kennedy that has got everyone’s heads turning. Smart, charming, beautiful, dazzling, intelligent, a brilliant conversationalist – on and on her admirers go. So much so that even the Queen’s husband is desperate to get a seat near Mrs. K at the lavish dinner table.

But the (dinner) tables do turn, and make for provoking thought. The Queen is extremely uncomfortable. Why? Because she feels threatened by her adversary. Although she’s not really even her adversary is she? One is the Queen of Great Britain, the other a First Lady of another country. And for crying out loud, she is the Queen! She has everything and more anyone could ever ask for. There ought not to be any comparison at all!

Therein lies the catch. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you have – even if you are the proverbial (or literal) Queen of England. If there is something you do not have however, and if someone else has it, then that immediately takes the Crown (figuratively only :)). What Mrs. K had, the Queen lacked, or so she thought, and the power of insecurity rises to the fore in some wonderful acting. What the Queen doesn’t realize at the time, is that Mrs. K too has her own share of insecurities. Wow, the two most powerful women in the world back in the 1960s, had so many insecurities…

This is not to poke fun – no, not at all. But just a reminder, that deep down, we are all human, and suffer the same human biases. If we can control the mind, that is much better than having a head with a crown on it.

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Doing the dishes

Here’s an example of applying learnings from spirituality to the real world.

You have a maid for cleaning utensils. You pay her a salary. You pay her even if she doesn’t come for a few days, like when she took time off to go back to her ancestral home, or when there was a lockdown etc. You also pay her kids’ school fees, and often buy chocolates for them. She knows you are a good person.

One day you need to go out urgently, maybe to the hospital or some such. It’s unavoidable, and so you ring up the maid and request her to come in earlier, only for today, and only by a couple of hours. She replies with some excuse (like she has to cook food at her home) and hence cannot come.

It’s easy to get angry at this point – even if only internally. “I’ve done so much for this maid, and the one day when I have an urgency, she can’t make it?” That she cannot come, is a fact. But how we react to the situation is not yet so, and entirely in our control. We could get angry and spoil the mood of the entire home for the day. Or we could don the kitchen gloves, put on our earphones and listen to music or a podcast while doing the dishes. Two birds with one stone. The solution is in our own hands.

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Standing tall

As a boy, one of the important things as you’d grow up to becoming an adult is your height. The magic 6-feet number is an elusive one for many, maybe most. It’s cool to be tall, you can see above most others in the room, and perhaps even be spotted by the ladies, head above the rest and all. But height is not what one has under their control. You can hang from pull-up bars, but there is no guarantee!

Over time, these views change.

You realize that being physically tall is irrelevant – but one is as tall as the problems they have overcome.

One’s actual figure on the weighing scale doesn’t matter much, but one’s influence in life – amongst their colleagues, peers, friends and family is what counts.

The fairness of the skin is not important, but one’s moral code, impartiality and treating everyone around them fairly is what could be a real differentiator in this world.

The strength of the muscles in the body is a good sign of physical health, but far more important perhaps is the strength of the mind – which would help one dominate fear, failure and self-doubt.

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Visual creatures

One of my Guru’s most favourite topics is the power of visualization. He loves to help others (young and old) visualize their future dreams and goals. He is of the strongest opinion that it has an undeniable and incredible influence on the final outcome. And through this power of visualization, he has made so many miracles happen – things that otherwise seemed impossible, but happened nonetheless.

This visualization principle is not different from what other sources might teach us. Rhonda Byrne’s book The Secret, which became a worldwide phenomenon when it was released, essentially said “The universe will give you whatever you ask it.”

And we know that if we set our minds to something and go after it with single-pointed focus, then rarely can something stop us along the way.

“But how is it possible Guruji, how can we create the future by simply visualizing?” I once naively asked him.

His response was golden. “Deep down, we are all Brahman. All Creation has come from the same Brahman. Why can’t the Brahman inside you create the future that you want then?”

Point taken.

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Masculinity

There’s an excellent interview on Youtube of ex-US President Mr. Barack Obama. It’s a very short clip – hardly two minutes long. He is quizzed on what masculinity is, what it means to be macho. Mr. Obama’s response, as expected of him, is simple yet profound.

He says that “a man doesn’t need eight women around you twerking to show their masculinity”. When we see most music videos / ads / movies / magazines / item numbers in songs etc. – they all seem to capture this exact theme – machoism and womanizing.

Instead, Mr. Obama clarifies that what makes a good man, is “first and foremost being a good human being and that means being responsible, being reliable, working hard, being kind, being respectful, being compassionate. The notion that being a man is to put somebody down rather than lift them up is an old view.”

Such a lovely thought, isn’t it? In the spirit of equality, no doubt this applies to women as well – because at the core of this life of ours, we are all human beings first.

We become great when we make others around us great, and this starts by treating them as though they are already great.

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A tale of two-is-one – part 2

You have been practising meditation for a very long time. Many years in fact.

A guest in your house, one day sees you meditating. He comes up to you and says your posture is not right. Fold your palms this way, touch your fingers like this, and face this specific direction. How does he know you ask? He read it in a book.

You get irritated. And rightly so. Years of live meditation, versus reading from a book – really? Who does he think he is? You decide to give him a piece of your mind.

But you also think about it a bit more. “What am I doing all this meditating for? To control my mind, and my tongue, isn’t it?”

You mull over the learnings here. “The spiritual aspirant always has to face two sides of the coin. One, as a person making the suggestion, I do not know anything about the spiritual level reached by others. So telling anyone to do anything differently or to change their routine is not my place. And two, as the recipient of unsolicited advice, I can only control my reactions and responses. This way I gain mastery over my mind and tongue, and also ensure I do not hurt the other person.”

We can surely listen to advice, and even test it out, but if it is unsuitable, we can choose to ignore it. Why get angry, and mess up the rest of our day?

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Twit quot 2

Here are some more simple yet profound quotes I came across on Twitter:

The way to forget insults is to not take compliments in the first place.
When in doubt, go for a walk.
Don't worry about being qualified. Everyone is learning as they go.
Reading 1-2 hours a day puts me in the top 0.00001%.
In the short term you are as good as your intensity. In the long term, you are as good as your consistency.

Link to Twit quot 1

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Small to great

We discussed recently how Yudhishthira and Duryodhana went around the kingdom to find good people, and how the latter couldn’t find even one good person, while the former found goodness in everyone.

Do we too become like Duryodhana sometimes?

If we do a self-audit, would we find ourselves cribbing a lot about others, gossiping, talking behind people’s backs, complaining about the company we work for and the bosses, putting down others who got promotions (especially if they didn’t seem to deserve it!) and so on? Oh and not to forget much of the bashing has actually moved online these days – with social media becoming nothing short of the Kurukshetra battlefield (no matter the topic, there will be enough armchair experts to give you a rough time). It’s fine – these are normal, and we are human, so it is bound to happen.

The real problem with such discussions and thoughts though, is that constantly talking about other people’s negative qualities will subconsciously cause us to also become more negative. We not only talk bad about others, but this mindset also pulls us into a deeply self-critical mode. We eventually begin to question our own looks (lack of hair, long nose etc.), our talents, our abilities and capabilities as well simply because that negativity has seeped right in. Having a positive view of things, and celebrating even small joys and victories each and every day is much better than being morose and picking out the losses, even if they outnumber the daily wins 10 to 1. So it all boils down to keeping the mind focused on the good.

As a former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “Small minds discuss people, average minds discuss events, great minds discuss ideas.”

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Metabolic reversal

There are only two things we need to do to be happy.

  1. Have a fit body.
  2. Have a fit mind.

Indeed this sounds very simple. It is, but it is not easy to achieve.

A fit body requires being active throughout the day. “Oh how I wish my metabolism would be better!” Contrary to popular perception, we do not move less because of low metabolism. We move less to begin with, and that leads to low metabolism!

A fit mind on the other hand, requires lesser movement and more stability. Meditation, or the ability to focus and concentrate is key. And this comes only with practice.

How contradictory! The body needs movement, while the mind needs stability.

For many of us, given all the developments in technology and instant deliveries, our bodies are mostly resting, while our minds are mostly exercising. Just reversing that, will make our lives infinitely better.

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Overthinking

Overthinking. This is a big problem many of us have. But it is not a disease – only a habit. And one that we can consciously change. A lot of students often wish to know how to tackle this.

Thinking mostly happens when there is an absence of doing. As they say, an idle mind is a devil’s workshop.

It would also perhaps help to acknowledge first, that no matter what we do in life, there will always be way too many things outside our control. Right from whether the cleaners come on time, or whether there’ll be a traffic jam on your way to work, or even how your own family members might react to an important development in your life – we just can never be sure of the outcome.

Hence overthinking won’t help, because the additional thinking has limited control on the situations around us.

However, thinking per se, is not bad, and is probably necessary. Planning, strategy, evaluating the options etc. all come from thinking. The challenge is preventing thinking from going overboard. One way to achieve this, is to replace extra thought with action. As Lord Krishna said in the Gita, the panacea for Kali Yuga is Karma Yoga.

Just like we schedule activities for ourselves, it helps to schedule maybe 30 or 45 minutes on a day for thinking / overthinking. During this interval, one can feel free to let their mind run riot.

But outside this time, no overthinking, only doing.

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I think you think I think

When do I think I’m happy? When society has watched me ‘arrive’ in life. When society thinks that I’m successful.

How does society define this success of mine? Once I get a promotion at work, buy a house, have paid off my loans, take a vacation in Hawaii, maybe sell a million dollar start-up to some VC etc.

Jay Shetty in his book Think Like a Monk, drives home a very important point. He quotes a sociologist named Charles Horton Cooley from 1902 thus. “I am not what I think I am, and I am not what you think I am. I am what I think you think I am.” I had to read this a couple of times to let it sink in.

What he’s saying is what we all know. But it’s still so powerful. Society is not defining my success. It is me who is giving society a moving goalpost to evaluate me. Society couldn’t care less if I got one promotion or three. But my folly lies in thinking that society cares.

As my Guru asks often, “Do you even remember what shirt your friend wore a few days ago? What they ate 5 days ago? What they said 15 days ago?” No one remembers anything, except when it is relevant to themselves. No one is thinking about us, let alone about the metrics for our success. Let us live by our own scorecards. This will elevate our happiness and bring down stress and anxiety.

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Seeing is solving

There is a saying, ‘Jaisi drishti waisi srishti’. This is nice and rhyming in Hindi/Sanskrit, but in English not so much. But the meaning is powerful – it says that the way we look at the world, is the way the world is.

An example in the Mahabharata illustrates this well. Both Duryodhana (Kaurava head, bad guy) and Yudhishtira (Pandava head, nice guy) were asked to go and find a good person in the kingdom. The story goes that at the end of the day, Duryodhana could find not even one person, whereas Yudhishtira found good qualities in everyone.

The application of this thought is more important than we give credit for. As human beings controlled by a monkey mind, we give in to mood swings all too often. When the going is good, the world seems nice and rosy, and when the tide turns, everything seems futile.

To be clear, just remembering the above saying doesn’t mean we will never encounter troubling situations in life. But having a happy mind will enable us to find solutions where none seem to exist. And that alone is the difference between those who are successful and those who are not. Because problems come to everyone. How they are tackled makes all the difference.

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Too much to read 4

So here’s the last of a series of thoughts on reading. This one involves a little bit of math, but is very simple – just so it drives home the point.

How much should we read? 1000 pages like Warren Buffet? That would be nice, but it would also mean that we would need to pursue reading as a full time job. Nice as it may sound, I’ve never come across such a job description!

A simpler way, is to target just 25 pages a day. This should take about half an hour. Not much at all. If we assume we sleep 8 hours and work 8 hours, we still have 8 hours left in the day. Half an hour in these eight hours is less than 10% of the time spent reading.

The magic happens as the reading practice compounds along. 25 pages a day, is 175 a week – which means roughly one book every 2 weeks, and ~26 books or ~10,000 pages a year – an incredible achievement for anyone who wasn’t reading much to begin with!

One important and final tip – do not count searching for the right book as part of your reading time – otherwise you can lose hours just searching for the right material. All the perfect books may not present themselves to you on day 1 itself – but I keep searching Amazon Books for new and upcoming releases periodically, and keep adding those to a wishlist/readlist. Works well. Put the posts ‘Too much to read 1-2-3-4’ together, and this should help us kickstart our reading journeys. Hope you liked it!

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Too much to read 3

A few more thoughts on reading as one of the best habits one can have. I was super lucky because my parents introduced me to reading very early in life, and holidays meant hitting the local libraries and devouring whatever books I could find my hands on. Initially, I used to read only fiction, but eventually I realized that non-fiction is where all the learning and development happens.

But it wasn’t easy – books weren’t available as easily three decades ago as it is today. Certainly not at the click of a button and delivered wirelessly over ‘whispernet’. However, there weren’t as many distractions as today either – perhaps making the act of reading itself more sustainable.

Technology does have a very good flip side though. Not only can we store 1000s of books in a flat e-reader, but we can also look up instant dictionaries, highlight items for future reference, make notes, export key paragraphs and more. And finding specific mentions across books was never easier. Tech is also awesome because of other formats like audio books, podcasts, and so on.

As my Guru says, the way to read a book, is to go in with full reverence to the author. To imagine that the author is himself/herself speaking to you through the pages, and personally sharing with you, decades of inimitable experience, all within just 300 pages! Such an amazing way to think about reading, isn’t it?

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Successfool

Why material success is important
better quality of life
more amount for charity
more time for social work (i.e. your wealth has brought you freedom)
brings temporary happiness
the world wants you, which is important for getting worldly things done

Why material success is not important
fuels the ego
is only a relative measure versus peers
limits learning (we feel we know everything)
only brings temporary happiness
a world that wants you, capsizes you
has no bearing on spiritual growth

What if we could live physically in the world as though successful, but mentally give up all success to the Lord / Guru / Divine? Win-win!

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Ritualistic

There is only one true reason to perform rituals, as my Guru says. And that is, to purify the mind.

What does purification of the mind mean? At one level, it involves destroying the mind altogether. In a non-violent manner of course. We all know our monkey-minds are always going off on tangents, ever seeking more and more. What if this mind could come under control? Very difficult? I agree!

At another (and maybe more easier, and more tangible) level, purifying the mind involves broadening its scope. For most of us, our lives revolve only around ourselves – our wants, needs, desires. But what if we could include others, friends, family, acquaintances, strangers – eventually the whole world, especially all the good people – into our vision of goodness? What if we could desire good for all?

Herein lies the beauty of my Guru’s recommendations. Do the rituals you like, but perform them for the larger benefit of society. Chanting some shlokas? Excellent, chant for mother earth. Doing charity? Wonderful. Keep aside 10% of your income, no matter how small. Use the remaining 90% – invest it, let it compound – have it your way. But the 10% that you’ve decided to give away – that will begin to purify your mind. Because the human mind has been trained for countless generations to simply do everything it can to survive and sustain. There is more to life than that though. As the ancients tell us, the real magic happens when the ego melts away. That will happen when we truly believe that nothing belongs to ‘us’, and the mind merges with the universal mind.

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Blindspots

Just because something is invisible to the eye, or appears beyond our comprehension and perception, does not make it non-existent or fraudulent. Take the example of gravity. Despite all the advancements in science and technology, we still do not understand the process behind why people drinking tea simultaneously at the North and South poles have no problem keeping the liquids in their cups. Take also the human body – with a plethora activities going on inside at any moment – digestion, cognition, respiration etc. all of which we tend to be blissfully unaware of.

The same is said to be true of Consciousness. It is very much there – the fabric underlying all Creation. There for everyone to experience, if scrutinized closely, yet immediately unavailable to any. This is not a paradox, as author Sam Harris of the outstanding book Waking Up (which delves deep into the topic of human consciousness) puts it. He goes on to describe an optic blindspot that each one of us has, and something I never knew of. Apparently the optic nerve passes through the retina of each eye, creating a small region in each visual field where we are effectively blind. He further adds that most people in human history have been totally unaware of the optic blind spot. Even those of us who know about it go for decades without noticing it. And yet, it is always there, right on the surface of experience. Here’s a simple experiment you can try yourself!

So, can we experience this Atman / Brahman / Consciousness within us? Yes, with some training / effort / meditation. As Harris puts it, “The self that I am discussing throughout this book—the illusory, albeit reliable, source of so much suffering and confusion—is the feeling that there is an inner subject, behind our eyes, thinking our thoughts and experiencing our experience. We must distinguish between the self and the myriad mental states—self-recognition, volition, memory, bodily awareness—with which it can be associated.

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Animal king

We know who the king of the jungle is, right? He’s the strongest, fastest, largest and cleverest animal of them all.

Wait, I thought ‘strongest’ was the elephant. And ‘largest’ animal should be the blue whale? And ‘cleverest’, the fox? The fastest surely is the cheetah. But none of these guys are the kings!

The king is one who may not be the best at everything, but is able to keep it all together, and exude a level of confidence that no other member of the kingdom is able to.

We think lions and tigers have a chilled out life, sitting cushy at the top of the food chain. But no, they struggle too. The males have to constantly guard their territory and females from other usurper males. The females have to constantly look out for the safety of their kids, not just from said usurpers, but also from the father lion who might kill the babies seeing them as a threat to his status. When it comes to food, most hunts end in failure, with mom and babies having to go to bed hungry for days together – and so it is not as easy as it seems.

Nature never has it easy on anyone. That’s the cycle of life. One has to work hard to earn their living, or at least to sustain their lifestyle. This is a universal truth, applicable in past lives, this life, and the next.

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Jail time

We envy the lucky. Here are some thoughts running through the minds of these oh-so-fortunate people:

Looking in the mirror, I wish I had a better nose, two dimples and sharper features.

At work, with my boss and colleagues and employees, am I really fitting in? Or am I just being tolerated?

With the spouse – not much in terms of common topics it seems. And those days of courtship from two decades ago…gone!

When I wake up in the morning, why do I feel lethargic? Why do Monday morning blues haunt me?

My kids are happy and well trained, but they have no time for me.

Is there really a difference between the lucky and the not so lucky? Is luck always good? Are the lucky (and envied) truly free? Or are they too, prisoners of their thoughts?

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Meditation and thoughts – 3

We looked at meditation and thoughts over the last couple of days. Much is written and said about supernatural experiences, lights, out of body experiences and other fantastical stuff. Here’s a gist of how my Guru looks at this subject.

His questions are: Can you be calm when your peer makes 5x your salary and drives a Ferrari? Can you stay placid when your boss throws a fit, and expects you to clean up? Can you be equanimous in the face of nonsense peddled by many many unavoidable people around you? What is the use of meditation and magical experiences, if these leave you completely untransformed? Still the same jealousy, anger, pride, hatred et al.

Hence, my Guru’s focus has always been not on meditation, but on living a meditative life. It is not about sitting and closing one’s eyes for 60 minutes, especially not if the remaining 23 hours are spent on ungodly pursuits. His goal is to infuse godliness into every waking moment. Transform from a material person living a spiritual life, to a spiritual person also happening to live a material life. And hence a spiritual person asking for a promotion and a raise is alright because his nobility will ensure he uses his wealth primarily to give back to society.

How can one spiritualize themselves? By doing the true tapas. By holding God steady in their minds. For the atheistic and agnostic, by not holding themselves only in their minds, but holding the service of others steady in their minds. Unflinchingly. The beauty is that this can be equally hard or easy for both a commoner and a king.

Swami Chinmayananda was once asked how many hours in a day one should practise meditation. His answer? 24 hours.

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Meditation and thoughts – 2

Continuing on from yesterday, here are some more ideas on meditation that I came across, and which have helped my practice.

By practicing mindfulness, however, one can awaken from the dream of discursive thought and begin to see each arising image, idea, or bit of language vanish without a trace. What remains is consciousness itself, with its attendant sights, sounds, sensations, and thoughts appearing and changing in every moment.
In the beginning of one’s meditation practice, the difference between ordinary experience and what one comes to consider “mindfulness” is not very clear, and it takes some training to distinguish between being lost in thought and seeing thoughts for what they are.
In this sense, learning to meditate is just like acquiring any other skill.
Eventually, it begins to seem as if you are repeatedly awakening from a dream to find yourself safely in bed. No matter how terrible the dream, the relief is instantaneous. And yet it is difficult to stay awake for more than a few seconds at a time.

Conclusion and takeaways tomorrow!

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Meditation and thoughts – 1

To anyone who’s tried meditating, we know it is hard. As beginners, the first thought is, “Are we doing this right?”. And then the thoughts never cease to flow. One after another after another they come, bringing a whole host of memories, both pleasant and unpleasant, catapulting us into the distant future, and suddenly yanking us back again into the past. Is this how meditation is always supposed to be? So many mystic / yogic accounts speak of supernatural states, kaleidoscopic lights, unblemished ecstasy and myriad other things. What to make of it? I don’t know, but here are a few pointers I came across in a book called Waking Up by Sam Harris, that might help in meditation practice.

The problem is not thoughts themselves but the state of thinking without knowing that we are thinking.
In fact, thoughts of all kinds can be perfectly good objects of mindfulness.
In the early stages of one’s practice, however, the arising of thought will be more or less synonymous with distraction—that is, with a failure to meditate.
Most people who believe they are meditating are merely thinking with their eyes closed.

Continued in tomorrow’s post…

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Life changing thoughts

In the book ‘How to Change Your Life by Changing Your Thoughts’ written by James Allen, there are some outstanding lines of thought provoking advice. A few highlights:

Men do not attract that which they want, but that which they are.
Not what he wishes and prays for does a man get, but what he justly earns. His wishes and prayers are only gratified and answered when they harmonize with his thoughts and actions.
Men are anxious to improve their circumstances, but they are unwilling to improve themselves; they therefore remain bound.
Good thoughts and actions can never produce bad results; bad thoughts and actions can never produce good results. This is but saying that nothing can come from corn but corn. Men understand this law in the natural world, but not in the mental and moral world.
Blessedness, not material possessions, is the measure of right thought. Wretchedness, not lack of material possessions, is the measure of wrong thought.
The world is your kaleidoscope, and the varying combinations of colours, which at every succeeding moment it presents to you, are the exquisitely adjusted pictures of your ever moving thoughts.
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The secret converter

Years ago we…

… had a problem at work, but today that is a laughing matter
… had a major fight with the other kids at school, but today that is a laughing matter
… had a complaint to your parents from the principal, but today that is a laughing matter
… had an altercation with a close friend, but today that is a laughing matter
… had a major argument with the spouse, but today that is a laughing matter
… had a tussle with the landlord, but today that is a laughing matter
… had an issue with your kids’ schooling, but today that is a laughing matter
… had so many worries about the future, but today that is a laughing matter
… had so much stress and tension about…something, don’t even remember, but today that is a laughing matter

Looking back from today, all those anxieties and worries – everything has been forgotten, and got converted into nothing more than a laughing matter – what a miracle, isn’t it?!

Now that we know and understand everything gets converted into a laughing matter in the future, why not laugh today itself?

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Best friend, worst friend

Remember when as kids, we used to have things like katti and bacchi? Stick your thumb out and that would mean good friend. And stick your pinky finger out and that would become sworn enemy. And a friend of a friend is a friend, and enemy of an enemy is an enemy. But of course, we were kids, so allegiances would change mighty quickly! You want to play soccer and there is only one kid who owns the ball? Everyone wants to be bacchi with him. Kids also are very quick to say (often to the face) “That girl – she’s my friend, but this girl? She’s my best friend” much to the embarrassment of the parents!

Those days are past, and we have outgrown these best friend worst friend monikers. There is still one best/worst friend though for each one of us. And it is not only simultaneously both best and worst friend, but also the same for all of us! Guessed it? The mind!

As verse 6.5 in the Gita says, ‘Elevate yourself through the power of your mind, and not degrade yourself, for the mind can be the friend and also the enemy of the self.

How can we make sure that the mind remains our friend, and not enemy? By eventually replacing all desires and attachments with gratitude. If desire comes in between mind and intellect, then they squabble. If there are no desires, and work is done as a service to benefit mankind or at the instruction of the Guru, then the mind and intellect on the spiritual path are best friends!

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Vedic chants

Vedic mantras can be really powerful. There are experiments that have been conducted across the world, which demonstrate how vedic chants including the right intonations, can alter the energies of a place.

Chanted right in a hospital for instance, can not just uplift patients’ moods, but also improve their health. It is also considered a wonderful breathing exercise, given the tempo of chanting and length of the verses.

Even a simple ‘Aum’ or ‘Om’, chanted 3, 7 or 9 times in succession can bring much peace and clarity. No controlled experiments necessary – you may just try this right now!

However, said vedic mantras are not like some magic trick. They work based on certain principles that modern science doesn’t understand. The most important aspect, is that these are aimed at altering and improving our Consciousness. And hence, it is not enough if the sound-speaker in the kitchen is blaring a vedic chant, while I am in another room watching TV. The kitchen might get moksha, but not me!

Likewise, it is in no way sufficient if I chant hymns for an hour a day, only to follow it up with abusive language, extreme desire prompted actions, significant anger and jealousy etc. If I am not mindful about how I live my life, no amount of chanting or prayer will help. On the contrary, it might only make me more conceited – because now I have the feeling that not only am I a good person, but I’m also a great person, owing to my prayers and chants. A fall will be around the corner.

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Oh stress

Everyone is stressed today. Even toddlers, in the face of gargantuan expectations of success from their parents.

The sheer number of kids competing in junior Olympiads, reality TV shows for best dancer, best singer, best chef and what not. Many more categories have been added by the hour, surely.

If these are done with love, fun and enjoyment, then absolutely no problem. But in reality (pun intended), these are for quick fame, and quicker moolah.

If childhood itself begins with stress, little chance of youth or young adulthood and beyond not going down the same path. If childhood itself begins with fierce competition – and not everyone wins every single time – then what is to say of later life?

As noted previously here, it is important to take life sincerely, but not seriously.

Bertrand Russell had the last say on this, ‘If you’re beginning to think that what you’re doing is very important, you need to take a holiday.’

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Intel(lect) inside

A quick follow up to the Mind versus Intellect post from a few days ago. On the spiritual path, it is said that the intellect is a barrier. But why is that?

Because we are taught in life that we must understand everything before doing anything. Such as “Don’t mug your physics and chemistry formulae, try to understand it.” or “Try to understand your client’s needs before jumping to offer her a solution”. This is good for the real world no doubt.

But on the spiritual path, it is difficult to understand without experiencing. For instance, how can you understand a God that you have never seen? How can you post faith in a Guru if you don’t have a first-hand understanding of his miraculous ways? How can you meditate on chakras and nadis when these are hopelessly intangible? The intellect can indeed be the biggest barrier here. If none of this can be understood, then what is the point, you say?

Valid, but even child has no understanding of what its parents say. This is nature versus nurture. The child will not understand procreation, yet it is alive and here. The child will not understand thermodynamics or gravity or the laws of motion, yet these are the laws that govern the world around it. But what is evident to us today, is that the kid will learn these truths over time.

What must we do? We can park these questions aside for the time being. Our scriptures tell us that we can understand only when our intellect gets purified. Purification happens through implementation of the lessons taught in the scriptures. Living selflessly in service to God and society would be a great place to start. The rest will follow.

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Take less stress

A simple principle to follow could be one of inversion. Continuing on from yesterday’s post titled ‘Take more stress’, here are some examples of useful inversion.

The things we are stressed about, and (how to invert them):

  1. landing a better job, (enjoying our current job to the fullest)
  2. earning more money, (living in contentment)
  3. finding a good spouse / partner, (being a good spouse/partner/person)
  4. having a good family, (loving the family you have, and being a dependable family person)
  5. going on a quality vacation, (living every moment like it’s a vacation)
  6. being recognized in society, (working for society)
  7. working to fulfil our kids desires, even if they don’t reciprocate, (allowing the kids to live their own lives, and taking care of your loved ones with no expectations)

On doing these, we will perhaps come to realize what Gandhi ji said, that peace is not a destination, but a path. Moksha is no different, and as my Guru says, available here and now to one and all.

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Wake up

In their 2001 hit song Chop Suey, American band System of a Down crooned “Wake up wake up, grab a brush and put a little make up. Hide the scars to fade away the shake-up”. The song was intense to say the least, and while the rest of it is irrelevant, this portion well summarizes how many begin their day – stressed, anxious, shaken-up and somewhat empty inside.

“How do I get rid of stress and anxiety?” is the title of a YouTube video I recently watched. The question was asked by Indian Bollywood celebrity Suresh Oberoi to Shivani didi of the global Brahmakumaris movement.

Her response was crisp, simple, practical and immediately actionable.

  1. Our thoughts and words manifest into the reality around us, albeit with a time lag.
  2. Therefore, we must think and speak positive, not negative.
  3. This positivity can only be generated from within, as we do not have control over what goes on outside.
  4. Do not look at your phone for the first 30 to 60 minutes after waking up. This prevents us from falling into the clutches of the world, which tends to send all sorts of negative ideas and emotions.
  5. Start with gratitude. Before even opening your eyes, feel grateful for your life, healthy body, family, money, opportunities etc. This will over the course of a few days significantly reduce our complaining / criticising behaviour.
  6. Choose and repeat a few affirmations relevant to you. Like “I am enjoying my work, and am very successful”, or “I am very healthy and healed” or “I have amazing relationships” etc.

That’s it. Easy to practise? Found it useful?

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By the second

On social media, there seem to be an increase in ‘social’ advertisements. Many pubs and bars seem to have opened up, having being closed many months due to the pandemic. People have been thronging them. Many such establishments have apparently been flouting government norms too – admitting more people and operating longer hours than they should.

While on one side of the world, the devastating coronavirus rages on, on the other side, said nightclubs are teeming with people. Photos show groups of intoxicated half-clothed youngsters, huddled close together, oblivious to the blaring music, high on drink and low on perception.

Sure, the business owners need to run their shops, and this may be a means of advertisement. And of course everyone is free to do as they choose – get high, and leave them problems of the world behind.

But I can’t help but wonder – if there hasn’t been a lifestyle shift. Most of the middle class folks spend everything they earn, just to keep up their ‘image’. Not only are more and more people living paycheck to paycheck, they are also living weekend to weekend. Despising everything related to ‘work’ and ‘office’ on weekdays, all Mon-Fri waking hours are spent waiting for Sat-Sun. And when these do come, they disappear in a flash, feeling like a haze, left in a daze.

What if we lived – not weekend to weekend – but second to second. Giving our fullest to every moment. Enjoying the now. Embracing it. With no care of the past that was or a future to come. How infinitely more productive and yet relaxed, would we be?

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Intel inside

Self-styled mystic Jaggi Vasudev (aka Sadhguru) makes an interesting point in one of his YouTube videos. “What we are all always doing, is mistaking our memories for intelligence.”

This is a mouthful and worth delving into. What he is saying is that everything we do is guided by what we have experienced in the past and how that has got embedded in our minds. We remember a variety of things and use those instances to make decisions for the future. We also consider those memories and events as knowledge and use it to not just portray our own IQ but also become judgemental about the IQs of others.

This memory characteristic is also true at the physical level. Our body (and every single cell in it) remembers too. This is why pav bhaji (or biryani or pizza or burger) eaten by you turns into more of you, and not into me or into some other animal or plant or food.

The problem with this memory-to-intelligence approach is that it limits our perception to only what exists in our memory. It also closes us to future possibilities, especially those that we cannot comprehend, based on current memory (which we call knowledge). If we are told that astrology is a baseless science, this sticks to us, and we make no efforts to unearth if this is actually true. This is particularly important when a modicum of faith is required, such as to progress on the spiritual path. Despite the guidance of many thousands of realized masters over many millennia, we are content with mistaking our own lack of experience, for intel-inside.

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Deli Belly

The Gita at many times talks of the importance of consuming the right food. Really? A spiritual book talking about food? It was surprising to me too at first.

And then I realized Ayurveda too, is heavily focused on digestion. If the gut / stomach is alright, most problems disappear.

Nowadays, even fitness trainers and nutritionists in gyms say the same thing. Your body is not made in the gym, rather it is made in the kitchen.

Our scriptures of course are not so focused on biceps or abs. But they sure are focused on the organ in the head, and more specifically, the mind. We’ve all felt this before – eat too much and the next few hours are soporific and lethargic. Eat spicy and the mood becomes aggressive. Eat too sweet and that cloying feeling doesn’t let up.

For optimum efficiency, the mind must function at peak performance. And for this, the right inputs to the belly are paramount.

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Mind versus Intellect

The human brain is an absolute wonder. We all know this. But Tony Buzan, an expert on the brain, said in his research that we use only 1% of our brains. Anyone thinking that we have now learned “too much”, clearly needs to think again.

While the brain is just one physical organ, Vedanta delineates it into four parts: mind, intellect, memory and ego.

Memory we understand, and Ego we have experienced – especially when speaking to someone who threatens our authority 🙂

The mind and the intellect are more important to decipher, as it helps us understand our weaknesses better. The mind is what helps us think, imagine, ideate. The intellect is what helps us evaluate options. The intellect presents the available paths with rationale, and the (monkey) mind gets to make the ultimate choice.

When not ensnared by attachment or desires, the mind and intellect cooperate and collaborate beautifully, as if they are salsa partners. In times of turmoil, the music stops abruptly.

While these are all understandable for the material world, the mind and intellect are less useful (or practically useless, and actually maybe even deterrents) when it comes to spirituality. The intellect helps with scientific rationality – which only slows spiritual progress. For a deeply spiritual seeker, there is nothing to choose between or think about. It is totally experiential.

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It is unfair…

… that I get to sit at home and type this, while so many front line workers are doing their day/night jobs putting their own lives at risk.

… that a teacher gets paid nothing but many who’ve ‘inherited’ their way to education get paid millions.

… that youngsters that are able to code are paid more than ‘offline’ workers who have done their jobs in sincerity for decades.

… that those who graduate from the best universities during recessions make less than those who may not even graduate, but enter the workforce during economic booms.

… that industries which were seemingly untouchable a few months ago, have all but collapsed, while other unknown sectors have skyrocketed to fame.

… that life is not fair.

But what one calls unfair, another views as opportunity. And that is often enough to make the unfair fair.

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Restart

It used to irritate me no end that ‘tech geeks’ would suggest just a one-size-fits-all solution to any of my computer problems. So many times my Windows OS would have hanged. Surely this has happened to you as well. You click on some button one too many times. And you see the message on the title bar on top ‘Not Responding’. Then you try to open the Task Manager and realize one particular program is eating up most of the computer’s resources. And then when nothing worked, going to the aforementioned tech geek would elicit the desultory “Sir just restart your machine and it will be fine.”

The surprising thing though, was that it worked! The user didn’t need to know coding or troubleshooting. Just press the power button, and wait a few minutes, and everything would be normal again.

Our daily troubles are no different. Small niggles here and there. These take up an inordinate amount of our mind space. And we often allow such incidents to remain an overhang, corrupting the rest of our mental hard drives. Not unlike the faded screens where the mouse doesn’t click anymore.

The fastest way out? To do a clean restart. To think of something else. To do some other activity. And to not come back to the pain point, until the mind has calmed down. Bonus point? If the other activity is spiritual in nature, the reset will immediately be more fruitful.

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Hard and smart

When Apple launched the iPhone in 2007, what they did was not to make a better phone. This was a point that was missed out by then market leader Nokia. Hence what Nokia did in response, was to try and further strengthen their Symbian OS, and come up with a better phone. But they were still playing the wrong game. The game was not of phones anymore. It was of making in-pocket computers – i.e. devices which incidentally had the capability to make phone calls as well.

When Amazon had just started out selling books online, the then market leader Barnes & Noble was selling more books in a day though their offline bookstores than Amazon would in a year. But Amazon continued to plough on, tail tucked between the legs, unworried about what others were doing. We know what happened next.

There is limited time, money and energy we possess. The resources are finite, whether for a country, a company or a citizen. What we have in abundance though is mind power, available at our beck and call. Of course hard work is important like Amazon proved – with its grit and determination to come up the curve. Equally important is smart work, as Apple proved, while creating a whole new ecosystem. Samsung too soon followed, nicely taking inspiration from Apple, and being agile enough to change, despite not being first movers, and also saddled with their own legacy of dumbphones.

While these giants are all familiar brands today, they each took several years to get to this stage. Some amount of struggle is indeed good and necessary (ref: praise the struggle(r)). But struggling for the sake of it, in the wrong direction, may have us end up like Nokia.

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Spiritual Fiction. Or reality?

Christopher Nolan is perhaps one of the greatest Hollywood directors of all time. Partly because his films are so awesome, and partly because his ideas and concepts are so complex that most audiences do not understand a thing – yours truly included. I almost feel foolish watching his movies but I still love them. There was some tesseract in Interstellar, which I just could not fathom. The ending of Inception – a spinning top cliff-hanger – again I could not make head or tail of. Memento was just unbelievable, and then an Indian version called Ghajini was made – which just paled in comparison.

Spielberg is a little easier – like his Avatar movie was way more palatable. Titanic of course was not sci-fi.

Spirituality too can have plenty of sci-fi elements. If one were to read books like Yoga Vashishtam, the Aghora series or Apprenticed to a Himalayan Master or even books on Kundalini shakti etc. (all of which are outstanding books), there would be no dearth of apparent science fiction.

While these are great to read, and also lead me to hope that one day I may experience even a fragment of the True Oneness, my Guru is clinical in his advice. He says only 2 things are needed. Give up desires. Give up attachments. These two are the beejas (seeds) for everything else. The only permanent way to exit from our delusionary state is by realizing the futility of all our worldly pursuits. There is no other way.

Nolan himself has the last say in his most recent movie Tenet, “Don’t try to understand it. Feel it.”

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The equalizer

Technology has really changed the world. We know this. We each feel this, tangibly on a daily basis. Many of us are just consumers, and have probably not realized its true potential – as a money spinner.

In the olden times, economic success was cornered by those with resources i.e. money, land or labour. Today, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Why? Because of the internet.

Want to build your own e-commerce website? It is literally drag-and-drop. Have a great product to sell? Amazon will do it for you. Want to build your own brand? You can do it from your own home. Have a talent to showcase? You can blog about it. Or create YouTube videos. Or maybe begin a podcast. Get your 10 million followers, and you could become an influencer, just sitting in the comfort of your living room. Not to say that this is easy. But it is certainly within the reach of the common man. Nay, even the common kid! One famous YouTube channel has a small boy reviewing a variety of toys and playthings, so much so that he earned over US$ 20 million in a single year! All the major toy companies fight over themselves to send him their latest toys in the hope of winning his approval.

Why is all this important? Because the economic success and allied happiness we seek has never been easier to attain. One does not need to only become an “engineer/doctor/lawyer” to become rich. The new age gig economy actually enables people to work on what they love doing, and get paid handsomely for it. There is now a real way for passion to be monetized. And a way for age, legacy, background, gender, location, education and many other previously important things, to all be neutralized. Are you taking advantage of the trend yet?

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Boat float

Some people eat out regularly, while others have tummy upsets just peeking at some oily street food.

Some work 120 hour weeks productively, while others are most productive with better work-life balance.

Some love to skydive or bungee, while others prefer feet up on the sofa.

Some spend their weekends watching horror movies, while others wonder how one can relax with that genre.

Some plan trips months in advance, while others are always last-minute.

Some are pro gig-economy preferring to rent, while others take great solace in their ownership.

Some live for status and wealth, while others for purpose and process.

There is no right or wrong. Whatever floats your boat. And brings you peace of mind. Be yourself.

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Up curve down curve

We know from experience that if we are happy, we smile more, and if we are sad we frown more.

But I had no clue that the reverse is true as well – and this was quite a revelation. My wife recently told me about the Facial Feedback Hypothesis. This was a study conducted in Germany, where the researchers found that it was indeed possible to trick the brain into becoming happy. How? Just stick a pen or pencil horizontally between the teeth, such that the mouth mimics a wide smile. That’s it.

The brain is apparently always monitoring external stimuli – i.e. what is happening to muscle tension, posture, heart rate, breathing, facial expressions and so on – in order to judge how one is feeling. It was observed that this simple pencil trick caused subjects to rate cartoons as much funnier than those who held the pen/pencil in between their lips (and not teeth), mimicking a frown.

Can we not use this in our daily lives, especially when we feel dejected about something trivial? Time to come up the curve!

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Stalled

An 80 year old couple have been running a food stall since the 1980s. They survive each day on what they make selling their food. The pandemic had caused fear towards eating roadside food, and footfalls to the stall had dwindled to nothing. How were these couple to fend for themselves?

A good samaritan comes along, takes a video of the couple, puts it on social media and requests for help. Soon enough, the video goes viral, a lot of money is donated and the stall owner is beaming, business running brusquely.

Cut to a week later, and the stall owner lodged a police complaint against the good samaritan. Why? Because apparently the YouTuber kept most of the funds to himself. The elderly couple also claimed that in recent days, people were not coming as customers, but only to take photos and selfies. The YouTuber on his part has disclosed all his transactions publicly, claiming no malpractice.

What is the truth? I don’t know. But it is indeed amazing how people can find victory in adversity, and soon after, find adversity in victory. Surely I’m culpable too, as I’ve often wanted something to happen, and when that thing happened, the peace of mind that ensued was fickle at best. Something else would come up. And then something else. The cycle is never stalled.

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Acronyms of a liberated soul

Just a fun post this one (aren’t they all!). Here’s how a liberated soul might react to some common acronyms:

ICYMI – In Case You Missed It – “There is nothing to miss, because nothing ever was.”
BRB – Be Right Back – “How can you be so sure? It is all a play of the Supreme”
AFAIK – As Far As I Know – “We know nothing. Even Saraswati says she knows less than 1% of all creation.’
G2G – Got To Go – “What is the hurry? In a 100 years from now, none of us will matter”
BTW – By The Way – “All ways lead only to Him.”
YOLO – You Only Live Once – “Couldn’t be further from the truth.”
OMG – Oh My God – “Why do you exclaim only in times of need? There is nothing besides God”
IMHO – In My Humble Opinion – “I have no opinion, it is all God’s plan and His doing only”
IDK – I Don’t Know – “Yes, you are right on that one”
LOL – Laughing Out Loud – “I’ll join you, because life is fun.”
FAQ – Frequently Asked Questions – “What is Brahman, Aatman, Paramatman, Maya, Moksha?”
DIY – Do It Yourself – “Who else will? You came alone, you will go alone.”

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Mind bind

There is a lot of confusion when it comes to topics like fate, free will, destiny, effort, luck, karma etc.

Do I have free will? If so, then how does astrology work? Why do people say I am destined for such and such problem to occur? Do I need to make any effort to change my circumstances?

Lord Krishna in the Gita answers these questions in one fell swoop.

Chapter 6, verse 5. He says that there is only one person responsible for both the highs and lows in one’s life. And that is the person himself/herself. Krishna also clarifies in this that everything depends on the state of one’s mind. If one uses their mind well, they can elevate themselves. If one denigrates themselves, they will fall. Remember the recent Maldives trip? (link)

The Amritabindu upanishad has the final say. Mana-eva kaaranam mokshaaya bandhaaya. The mind alone is the reason, for both liberation and bondage. Said simply, the mind is both the problem, and the solution.

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The Conjuring

Day 1: I’m finally going on a holiday. Next week. To Maldives. After an incessant workload this past year, compounded by the pandemic, and having had no opportunities for breaks in between. I’m so happy!

Day 2: There is no respite from work. Today’s workload has been the worst this whole year. But it is fine. My holiday is coming up, and the workload actually feels light. Happiness abounds.

Day 3: Mentally I’m already in The Maldives. The virtual smell of sand and salt water. Is this paradise already?

Day 4: Something has come up at work. A teammate had to take emergency leave. My trip has to be postponed. There is no alternative. Today, my workload is really less, but it feels like I am doing the entire company’s work singlehandedly. I’m feeling not just angry or dejected, but also tired.

Day 5: But there is a very good learning for me from all this. I have experienced a range of emotions from extreme joy to extreme despair. All these because of The Maldives vacation. But also all these without once setting foot in that country or beginning my vacation. Everything was just playing out in my mind. The actual reality? Irrelevant. Only what my mind was conjuring up mattered. Then why don’t I always conjure up good things?

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Morose code

A whole host of startups have emerged that seemed to be aimed at killing the joys of childhood. No more playing after school, no more watching cartoons, no more enjoying with other kids in the neighborhood.

Okay maybe its not so bad. But it’s certainly moving in that direction. The focus on academics has just gotten ridiculously high. Of course education is important, at least from a worldly perspective. Good credentials certainly help in getting jobs, and providing for the family.

But rats that most of us are, does the rat race have to begin at the tender age of 5?

There are now courses that teach kids to code. Some others teach kids ‘junior MBAs’ and ‘junior CEOs’. Putting undue pressure on kids is a dicey strategy, because they need to get to the age of 20 or 30 or 40 without suffering other mental health issues first. Fine, I get that coding has become a very important skill. But just alongside that, there are startups in the domain of ‘no-code’, which (simply put) means that these new age companies want to automate the process of coding itself. If this is the future, what then is the point of learning coding at age 5? Too much is changing too fast, and an inability to keep pace is leading to hundreds of millions of youngsters feeling inadequate, incompetent and helpless.

Laughing in the wind, rain on the face, mud in the shoes, learning values and morals from parents – those are the joys of childhood. Coding, CEO and MBA can wait.

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How to remember

When you were younger – in school and college, perhaps you struggled with remembering long answers, facts from history / geography, dates, numbers, specifics, names of people? Even to this day I struggle with these things.

My Guru says there are only two ways to overcome this. 1) Fall in love with the content. 2) Repeat/revise/recall.

1 and 2 are inter-related, because if you really love something, you will keep doing it again and again.

The question to Him then, is how to love a subject you really don’t like? His answer: To visualize that you like it. Keep saying that you like it. Keep thinking it, and keep feeling it. It will automatically happen. Not by some magic, but because that is the only language the brain (aka mind) needs and understands.

This is not very different from how a boy and girl who keep interacting with each other soon fall in love!

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How to think clearly

When are our minds crystal clear for decision making? When we are making decisions for others!

Think about it. Your best friend is in deep trouble in his relationship. Your advice comes pat, “Leave her, she’s not the one for you. She does not share your core values.” Or the new neighbour who has been struggling to gel with the others in the society. “Hey, why don’t you invite them over for lunch this weekend? They will get to know you better, and it will cement your place in our group.” There are also the slightly obese ones to whom we are able to easily say, “Boss, your eating habits are terrible. You need to stop drinking 3 cans of coke a day, start including some salad in your meals, and go for a run.” If someone comes to us for business / job advice, our minds are quickly able to put together relevant and useful solutions. “My suggestion is, you write directly to the HR head. Reach out via Linkedin, not via email. Mention your years of experience upfront. Also speak to this guy I know from before – he will definitely connect you.”

Haven’t we all experienced this? Unimaginable clarity, when it comes to helping others.

Then why do we struggle to help ourselves the same way, when we are each so capable? Because of our desires and attachments to the end goals we think we deserve. These delude us, and prevent us from taking the right decisions. What is the way out? To remove the ego, and be honest to ourselves and those around us. Not honest from a ‘speaking the truth’ point of view. But honest from the view that ‘we must see the reality for what it is’.

It would also help to surround ourselves with people who will call a spade a spade. Because just like we so easily help others, others too will find it easy to help us. Win-win!

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How to remain calm no matter what?

Here is a lovely story I heard recently from my very good childhood friend.

A factory owner once gave a surprise payout to all his employees. Each one of them came up to him, thanked him, praised him and left him with a big smile. Each one, except one. Just one employee, neither thanked him nor praised him. And this got onto the factory owner’s nerves. He just couldn’t understand why this person would not come to thank him.

This kept playing on the owner’s mind over and over. A few months down the line, he announced a cut in salary for this employee. A few days passed, and he was shocked that the employee still never came to him – crying, arguing, or at the very least, demanding an explanation.

Perplexed, the factory owner decided to confront the employee about his unsettling behaviour. The employee said, “Sir, on the day you announced the bonus, my wife gave birth to our son, and I took the bonus as a stroke of luck brought by my child. On the day when you cut my pay, my mother passed away, and I took the pay cut as if she took away what belonged to her. Therefore, I am unaffected by the pay rise or the pay reduction.”

It is said that one of the hardest feats a true yogi can achieve, is to remain equanimous in the face of duality. Especially in the face of life’s opposites – joy versus sorrow, pain versus pleasure etc. Life is full of such extremes – with today’s pain leading to tomorrow’s pleasure which then leads to further pain and the cycle continues forever.

Once we accept and realise that life is cyclical, we will be able to objectively evaluate each situation life places us in – and respond appropriately. Moderation is the key – and if the good doesn’t matter much, the bad won’t either.

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Commonly uncommon

At first, all this spiritual talk about everyone being the same, the Brahman, will seem like nonsense. This stage of denial is safe.

Close to the finish line – it will dawn – through the reality of experience. This exposure is safe too.

In between though, is the most dangerous. This is the stage of the half-truth. A seeker will under delusion apparently see himself in everything and everything in himself. And then calmly present his head between a crocodile’s jaws, or his entire body to a pack of hunting lions. Or side with murderers, or worse. “But they are all Brahman, aren’t they?” This is where common sense becomes so essential. Spirituality is only relevant when the aspirant is alive.

All of this talk of the soul deep down being the same, is certainly correct, but often incomplete in application. One must use the mind, and then go beyond it. Easier said than done, and largely just a play of words. In practical application, there are two things to focus on, to make the highest goal attainable:
1. Reduce, and eventually give up desires.
2. Reduce, and eventually give up attachments.

The rest will happen automatically, say those who have experienced.

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Purple hues

“That purple streak you’ve got in your hair – it doesn’t suit you.”, said the man. You just let that drop by unnoticed. Why? Because you don’t have a purple streak in your hair. “What a random comment. Nonsense.”, you think to yourself.

“You have a funny nose – it is so pointy.”, said the man. Ooooh, this one stings! You know you have a pointy nose, and have been the butt of many jokes since your childhood. “I hate myself. I look so ugly. Me and my stupid nose.”

We are offered many free unsolicited opinions by all kinds of people. Most people do not care if what they are saying is hurtful, necessary or even factually correct.

Our problems arise not from listening to such people or even having them as friends or colleagues. Rather, our problems come from taking such people seriously and believing that what they say is indeed true. This makes us feel small at best, and devastated and depressed at worst.

The next time someone says something hurtful to us, whether partially true, fully true or fully false, we just need to remember one thing. That our hair is not purple.

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Trick or treat

It is Friday night here. Today was a really tiring and hectic day for me at work. This past week has been the exact same. Every day has been so tight, this might easily be the fastest week this year.

At this very moment, although I have some pending work for today, I am at peace.
Yesterday and the day before, at the exact same time, I was already done with work. Yet I was on edge.

What explains this?

It is just my mind playing tricks on me. Surely the imminent weekend has much (or all) to do with it.
There are automatic labels that have got established.
Weekend = Fun.
Weekday = Not Fun.

This is all just an illusion. Even the weekend is not fun, once we start thinking about the week ahead. While any weekday that is part of a countdown to an upcoming vacation is fun.

The only fun to be had is right here right now. As I write this blog. As you read it. And as you and I both continue on with whatever else life throws at us. Everything is fun. Life is fun. Let us believe it, and our minds will fall for it. Guaranteed!

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La casa de la mente

This weekend, my wife and I started watching Netflix’s amazing and highly acclaimed Spanish language TV show titled La Casa de Papel (aka Money Heist, with subtitles). No spoilers here, don’t worry!

Like in any robbery / hostage drama, a negotiator is always a key character. And if there is one dependable weapon a negotiator needs, it is a calm mind.

We are all negotiators in some sense, in our day to day lives. Things often do not go according to plan. And while we can cry and bawl about all of life’s quandaries, we cannot change external circumstances. The victor is one who has brought her/his mind under control, irrespective of the outside world.

This is no doubt easier said than done. But it is also not acquired solely by divine endowment either. There are 3 specific steps which will help control the mind (i.e. mente).

  1. Practise meditating everyday. Intentionally, purposefully. Setting time aside for it.
  2. Right Living. Including moderation in food intake, exercise and sleeping.
  3. Staying alert. This is to ensure continuity of 1 and 2. It is easy to fall off the path. Doing a spiritual audit, or being in a self-help group or ‘satsanga’ helps.

The end result? Mente tranquila!

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