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Category: time

FortyTwo – part 2 of 2

So what answer did Elon Musk find? In the whimsical universe of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adams, one finds not just humor and absurdity but also unexpected pearls of wisdom, especially when it comes to spirituality.

It’s a tale where the Earth is revealed to be a supercomputer designed to calculate the “Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything,”. And what is the final answer? Simply the number “42.”

This comically simple answer raises profound questions about the nature of spirituality. The search for meaning, for many, is a lifelong journey.

So much so that Elon himself believes that it’s not about the answer, but about finding the right question. What question about the complex creation we are part of will even come close to having an answer like 42?

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Secret ingredient

Now I’m no cook. I know next to nothing about the kitchen. A few dishes to survive? Sure, I can whip something up so that I won’t starve. But serve my cooking to others? Wouldn’t do it to my worst enemy even! With that simple disclaimer out of the way, an interesting book is “Masala Lab” by Krish Ashok. And within it lies a tale that resonates with every culinary enthusiast. Readers are gracefully led into a traditional kitchen, where generations-old recipes are passed down with love and care.

As the author meticulously lists the ingredients for a crispy multi-lentil pancake – adai as it is known in South India and specifically in Tamil Nadu – a profound revelation emerges. The grandmother, a character brimming with wisdom, introduces a secret ingredient that transcends the tangible: Patience.

Through this narrative, Ashok captures the essence of cooking as an art, where patience isn’t just a virtue but a vital ingredient. In our modern world, where instant gratification is often sought, this story is a poignant reminder of the timeless values that form the foundation of great cooking, whether in the kitchen, or as a recipe for one’s own success!

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Presi for a day

It’s very cute, these little childhood essays we used to get. “What would you do if you were PM or President for a day?”

And everyone would write all sorts of things – trying to resolve every problem one ever encountered in their lives.

“Ah, if only I had the power to change the world…”

The reality isn’t that the answer is difficult, but perhaps that the question itself is wrong. In today’s world of hyperinstant gratification, even the PM’s role has been reduced to results demanded in 24 hours!

As many greats have said, nothing worth having in life comes easy (aka quickly). It would be best to focus on becoming better versions of ourselves each and every day, leading to an unimaginably profound longer term impact.

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Rolex flex

Everyone knows the value of a Rolex. Sometimes the price is so high that it’s shocking. But why is this the case? And do we have some lessons for how value is created? For me, for sure! Here’s what was in a recent half page Rolex ad in the paper:

WHAT MAKES A ROLEX A ROLEX?
It's not the wheels and cogs. It's not the steel we shape nor the gold we forge. It's not the sum of every single part that we design, craft, polish and assemble with countless skills and constant care. It's the time it takes. The numerous days and months that are necessary until we can print this single word on each individual dial leaving our workshops: "Superlative." It's the mark of our autonomy, responsibility and integrity. This is all we make, but we make it all. So that, in time, you can make it your own. 

As we well know, all good things, take time. So no need to worry if success isn’t imminent, as long as the effort is going in!

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Butterfly effect

In ancient China, there was a philosopher-mystic named Chuang Tzu. He once woke up in the middle of the night very alarmed. His disciples rushed to his bedside and asked him what happened.

Chuang Tzu said he dreamt he was a butterfly, blissfully fluttering in nature’s embrace, flitting from one flower to the next.

Upon awakening, he was now pondering: Was he a man who dreamed of being a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming of being a man? Was he in a dream then? Or was he in a dream now?

Do we know for sure? Perhaps we will never know.

That’s why our Gurus, our ancients and our scriptures ask us to focus on the one true changeless Consciousness. Chuang Tzu’s tale also reminds us to appreciate the beauty of change and find harmony amidst uncertainty.

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Titaning the noose

Some people love to live on the precipice of danger. The thrill of adrenaline. I’ve never understood it.

Why would one stuff oneself into a small tube and go down the depths of the ocean to see a sunken ship? There must be some good reason that my tiny brain is unable to process.

And it’s not like the ride was free. It was a cool quarter of a million dollars per head. Phew! It’s like a 1000x magnified version of paying crazy ticket prices to go see a horror movie – as if the horrors of daily life aren’t enough!

Many people routinely do this – climbing mountain peaks that are overly crowded, or parkour on top of skyscrapers with no safety harnesses, or surf in shark infested waters. Why voluntarily increase the probability of throwing away one’s life?

As our scriptures tell us, this human birth is incredibly rare. Why do we want to throw it away? But as my Guru points out, if we are not on the spiritual path and constantly focused on the Lord, then we are anyway throwing our lives away!

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Don’t look up…

…because there’s a comet about to obliterate the earth.

One that is 9 kilometers wide, and is easily a mass extinction event.

Nobody will survive.

The calculations are perfect.

Top scientists have accorded a 100% chance of this happening. Yes, you read that right, 100%, not 99, not 99.9, but 100%!

Okay okay, I admit, if this seems like it is taken straight out of a Hollywood movie, then that it because it almost is. The name of the movie is, you guessed it, “Don’t look up”, and it is supremely entertaining.

And you know why? Because it is so realistic! The world is literally about to end, but all anyone cares about are themselves, their properties, their money, their own goals and ambitions, their power and influence, and on and on. Is this only on-screen, or does it remind you of off-screen behavior as well??! ????

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N.O.W = No Other Way

Now is all we have, No Other Way
To live our lives, to make each day
A moment to embrace and hold dear
To focus on the present, never fear

The past is gone, the future yet to be
But now is all we have, don’t we see?
So let go of regrets, of what-ifs and might-have-beens
And embrace the present, for it’s all that’s ever been

Everything that’s happened, everything that will
Were nows, in their own time, until
They slipped away, into the past
Leaving us with now, this moment that will last

So let’s make the most of now, and all it can bring
Embrace the present, and let the past take wing
For now is all we have, no other way
To live and love and be, each and every day

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Living in the…

We know that we need to live in the now. That’s what all great people say. The present is a gift, and that’s why it’s called the present, yada yada.

So there was a question this weekend at the satsang by a newbie. A very valid question, that could put all the oldies to shame. Just because one has spent 30-40-50 years in the satsang means nothing, no different from giving the same exam year after after for decades and flunking each time.

The question was this. We are told to live in the present. But we often find great learnings from mistakes we made in the past. If we have to live in the present only, then how to learn from past mistakes?

The answer given by the speaker was mind blowing. He said that it’s great to learn from the past, but not okay to regret the past. What’s the difference? The former is a conscious activity, while the latter is unconscious. The former propels us toward action, the latter prevents it. Likewise for the future. There’s no harm planning for it. But getting anxious about the future? Not allowed bye bye.

Interestingly, both learning and planning, while associated with the past and future respectively, actually happen in the now only!

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Transitionary

Supple to firm to infirm.

Baby to youth to old.

Each one of us goes through this.

No exceptions.

Everything is short lived.

And still in this short time, we run after only short lived things.

Is this sensible?

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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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Advertising

Here’s an advertisement in the newspaper that I came across recently. I honestly had no clue what it was talking about until I turned the page to see the picture of the actual product. Can you guess?

Snowflake hallmark since 1969. Manufacture calibre. 70-hour weekend proof power reserve. Silicon hair spring. COSC certification and Master certification from METAS.

I seriously had no clue! But that’s also how our scriptures are. The same line would with be pregnant with meaning when my Guru reads it, whereas when I read it, I can probably not make out anything more than a few words strung together ?

Okay in case you were wondering, this ad was for some premium wrist watch collection.

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Why prepping in advance is key – part 1 of 2

We are often told to read our scriptures, heed the advice of the wise, and attend satsangs regularly. After a while, we come to realize that most of the content is the same – seemingly repetitive and boring.

But you know what? In the repetition is where the magic happens!

Consider the stock markets for example. Everyone knows you need to buy low and sell high. It’s the easiest thing to do, right? Wrong. It’s the hardest thing to do, as any experienced investor will tell you, because when the market falls, your portfolio falls with it, and it paralyses one from taking action, even if that is the best time to buy more! Have a look at this often quoted statement in the market:

During these moments, confidence and clarity evaporates and is replaced by pessimism and doubt.

This exactly summarizes why we need to prepare in advance, read the scriptures in advance, practise in advance, attend satsangs in advance, build our key relationships – you guessed it – in advance. Because mental and physical strength is built during practise, not on the battlefield.

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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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Ageless

If you are middle aged and have many years of experience, would you work for a teenager? Probably not, right? Huge career risk perhaps, and their lack of experience means you may not learn much. Besides, working for someone that much younger than you could be a bit weird.

That thinking is passé now.

No I’m not saying this frivolously.

I recently discovered that one of the hyperlocal apps that I use is a billion dollar company run by two teenagers!

Of course no one can see the future and how risky it can be. But surely in this day and age, age is no bar. Execution of an idea (perseverance, patience) trumps everything else. Good advice for spirituality as well.

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Beyond home and work – part 5 of 8

Continued from yesterday:

So here is something for each one of us to think about deeply.

Everything we each have succeeded in today, can we really say with 100% confidence that it is all solely because of us? The marks we got in school? Yes we studied of course, but teachers helped, parents helped, someone wrote a question paper, someone wrote a book, someone invented or discovered something that could be written about in the first place – and on and on!

Same for the bonuses and promotions we got at work, somebody trained us, someone recognized us, someone provided us with a job to be, someone invented a computer decades ago, without which much of our work wouldn’t even get done!

It’s not that we should not get credit for our actions, but think about it, and we’ve really just been taking-taking-taking from day 1.

Continued tomorrow…

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Beyond home and work – part 4 of 8

Continued from yesterday:

One-and-a-half hours later, there was still no respite, and people started getting angry and stressed. Some were shouting, others were fighting, some started live-tweeting their frustration, babies were crying – it was just total and complete chaos.

And it was immediately evident, that even outside of home and work, stress and anger can cause the entire day to become unproductive.

Because yes this got sorted and people checked-in and all. But even after the flight was over and we landed at the destination, there were some people arguing with each other about having cut in front of them into the line in the morning and how they have no manners and such!

Continued tomorrow…

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Beyond home and work – part 2 of 8

Continued from yesterday:

For many of us, the question will be, “Really? Is there even anything outside of work and home?” “With weekdays and weekends both just flying past in a complete blur?”

But there still are things that frequently upset us – like:

  • struggling with our workout schedules,
  • not being able to take vacations, or even worse
  • taking vacations but mentally still being unable to relax;
  • or we may have doubts on what the right decision to make is, given a certain set of circumstances;
  • or there may be an inability to maintain true friendships – we may be online all the time on social media, and yet feel extremely lonely and disconnected,

and on and on and on….

Continued tomorrow…

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Peda

Peda is a sweet popular in India. There’s also PEDA. That’s not a sweet, but can surely make your life sweet. How?

Most of us struggle with time management. There’s just never enough time. But that’s probably because of how we look at time.

We start with our task list and then start assigning times it will take to complete each. Total them up and realize it would take days and weeks to complete, leading to frustration.

Enter PEDA. (Okay okay, too dramatic I know, but hear me out). It’s just an acronym I put together for the following:

  1. Procrastinate (everything you don’t need to do right away)
  2. Eliminate (whatever you don’t ever need to do)
  3. Delegate (to others who are better at the work or have more time)
  4. Automate (if it is repetitive and can be coded)

There you have it. Follow PEDA, and you’ll find time is actually plenty.

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Successhun – part 2 of 2

There’s an amazing scene in Succession. Correction, there are several amazing scenes in this 8.9 IMDB rated show.

One in particular stood out for me. No spoilers don’t worry.

The kids (grown up of course) are all standing around papa Logan, the big man, the head honcho.

Everyone is looking for their own pound of flesh, trying to score brownies points, and put everyone else down while at it.

One narcissistic chap tries to sell himself golden, “Dad, remember how I did this and that and succeeded and cracked the deal last week and blahblueblee.”

To which the big kahuna replies curtly as only he can, “I don’t do ancient history.”

Finito. Trap wide shut. Nobody gives a damn about the past. It’s over. We shouldn’t either. The future, is in the present. That’s all that matters.

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What’s the hurry?

Maybe this is an Indianism. I’ve grown up hearing the phrase ‘hurry burry’. The word burry doesn’t mean anything in particular, but taken together, the words refer to the crazy pace of life.

Indeed, everywhere I look, people are in a hurry. Mostly the hurry to achieve. To have lofty goals and ambitions and then shoot them down in half the expected time. And then feel dejected that it even took that long.

20-year olds are now routinely talking about making at least a million dollars by the time they are 30, and retiring by the time they are 35. Everyone wants to be a founder, and a CEO. By 20. Not 30, because 30 is very close to retirement.

What will someone do after retiring at 35, I wonder? Assuming life expectancy of a 100, that’s another 65 years to live through. Money = freedom, and I get that, and having a good sum of money saved up is great. But the crazy pace to get there? To put arbitrary age thresholds (30, 35 etc.)? Quite unneccessary.

Whether 30 or 60, it will always feel like there is too much time (no one thinks they are going to die tomorrow), or that there is too less (when things aren’t going your way). Best to not think about time as a factor, and instead just enjoy the work.

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Basically

Many of us want success and we want it quick. We also want it with smart work and the least effort.

One journalist covering basketball champion Kobe Bryant wanted to catch up with him while practicing.

Kobe asked him to come join him at 4.30. Not in the afternoon, but 4.30 in the morning!

To show discipline, the journalist went to meet Kobe 30 minutes earlier, at 4 am, hoping to score some brownie points.

But even at 4 am, he was amazed to see Kobe already having started his practice about a half hour prior, his jersey fully drenched in sweat.

Kobe was in fact practising repeatedly some very basic drills. To which the journo asked, “You are the best player in the world. Why are you doing such basic drills?”

To which Kobe replied smilingly, “Why do you think I’m the best player in the world? Because I never get bored with the basics…”

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Temporarily permanent – part 2 of 2

Did you notice the sly switch of words in title from yesterday to today? 🙂

There’s a reason for it.

While Lord Krishna’s message may have got lost in between, the content remained absolutely the same. Absolutely evergreen. So despite temporary disappearances from our collective memories, it still remains permanent.

Why? Because the message is as relevant today as it was 5000 years ago.

But how is that possible? Would the ancients even begin to fathom how hard it is when your post on social media does not get even 10 likes? Or the difficulties presented by not having a charger on hand when the iPhone battery is close to dead?

Obviously they wouldn’t. But that is also precisely the point. No matter the advancement in technology, the underlying problems are still the same. People still get tensed, jealous, angry, stressed, greedy – you name it.

What should we prioritize then – newer technology or time-tested truths?

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Permanently temporary – part 1 of 2

At the start of the 4th chapter of the Gita, the Lord tells Arjuna, “I revealed this yoga to the Sun god, Vivaswan, Manu, Ikshvaku. It got lost by passage of time. The same is told to you now.”

Can you believe it? The most important knowledge in the world, nay not even the world, of all creation. In fact the secret of creation itself…lost!

What does this tell us?

That with the passage of time, everything is lost.

Grandpa plants a seed, three generations later, the kids are okay to cut down the tree to construct their home. Parents save a fortune, only to see it frittered away by the next layer. Bulbs, telephones, car models, women confined to the kitchens – you name it, and it will change.

What do we learn from this? Not to be (too) attached to anything. Because the expectation that we should preserve anything forever, is just foolishness.

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6 months to… part 2 of 3

As mentioned yesterday, today’s and tomorrow’s posts will contain some gems from the amazing book 6 Months to Live (available here).

  1. When some people are faced with a life-threatening illness, they lose all hope and wither away. True strength of character is seen when death is faced eye to eye without blinking, without questioning, without self-pity.
  2. “Not everything that is faced, can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
  3. We talk about angels in disguise…. What disguise? Here was an angel incarnate, whom God had sent to look after us in those trying times.
  4. The above vacations and participation in various family events just proves that cancer is not THE END of everything. You can almost go about your routine life with positivity and enthusiasm.
  5. Moving on is the best tribute you can give your most loved one who is no longer with you in person.

Concluded tomorrow, with some more gems!

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Memento mori

How did the Ancient Romans manage triumph? Did they let it get to their head? Such a weird question isn’t it?

No, because they actually had a process around it. The process was such, that a victorious general or commander could only enter his home city during a special parade. All the loot and plunder and slaves would be displayed amid great pomp and show.

Bringing up the end of the parade, would be the victorious commander, riding in a chariot.

However, he would not be alone. He would be accompanied in the chariot by an auriga, a slave.

This auriga’s only role during this lavish cavalcade? To continuously whisper the title phrase into the commander’s ears.

“Memento mori, memento mori, memento mori, memento mori…”

“Remember you are mortal, remember you are mortal, remember you are mortal, remember you are mortal…”

What a lesson to be reminded of, at the peak of one’s glory!

And then there are some who gloat, even without achieving any glory… <facepalm>

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Avoidable inconvenience

‘Do it right the first time’ is a phrase my Guru keeps using often. Which is to say, don’t compound your mistakes. Make one, and the domino effect begins. We saw this previously here, called DIRFTI.

A few days ago, I had to catch a flight. The website of this flight carrier said passengers needed to carry an RTPCR test.

This is quite a hassle, and quite expensive too.

Speaking with a few friends, it was quickly evident that this is just a rule on paper, and that no one at either the source airport or the destination airport, were checking. Besides, most folks were telling me that Covid cases have reduced substantially, and questioning if this was really necessary.

Luckily, better sense prevailed, and I did take the RTPCR test before leaving.

Not only did they check it at the source airport, they were also disallowing passengers to board the flight, if they didn’t possess the test report. Further, at the destination airport too, the authorities picked out those who didn’t have their reports to do tests right there (another long queue for that).

Either scenario – while not the end of the world – was unnecessary, and would have led to avoidable inconveniences. DIRFTI indeed.

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Base rates

There are certain things in life that we would just be biased by. Psychologically. And this will mostly have to do with our upbringing. If we’ve only seen one kind of life, then it would be natural to assume that life in general for everyone is indeed as we have experienced it. For instance, a child born in the last decade, can never understand a world without mobile phones. So much so that s/he thinks that life without phones would be impossible.

A common example that would be asked to test biases is, “James Smith living in the USA is either a librarian or a salesman. His personality can best be described as shy and introverted. What are the odds that James is a librarian”

What is your answer?

James is a Librarian of course, at least a 90% probability. Right? That’s what most people would say. Because librarians are reserved and quiet people while salesmen are all chatty and gregarious. But would your answer change if you knew a fact – that there are 100 salesmen for every male librarian in the US? That means the probability of James being a librarian is just 1%, nowhere near the 90% we were thinking! That’s the base rate.

Base rates apply in spirituality as well. They are here for all to see. How many people got super happy and super rich after they died? Not even 1% of the people. Not even 0.0001% of the people. Because death = bye bye. Yet we crave more and more materiality, all the while ignoring the wise counsel of the gurus and saints who’ve lived this exact life for centuries upon centuries.

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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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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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Distractions galore

Our lives seem to be full of distractions. The mobile phone, the internet, YouTube… Oh there are so many culpable offenders in my fight against distraction. So many things to do, but just no ability to focus on the various tasks at hand.

But maybe distractions are par for the course simply because the work that is done is chosen poorly. The work is chosen only because the result seems favorable. Some money, some benefits, some perks, some power, some something or the other.

Spirituality keeps on asking us to live in the moment. That only means we’ve to love the work, i.e. the process of working, and not the outcome of the work alone. If instead, we are focused on monthly payday alone, of course distractions will plague us. Even the feeblest of winds can get us to alter course then.

If we look at it this way, then maybe distractions are good, even great. If I’m going to work in an organization for the rest of my life/career but still get distracted easily, maybe that work is not something I truly like? What’s the point in doing something if it’s truly not meaningful enough? Note that meaning is only for the doer – what’s meaningful to me might be nonsensical to another.

The alternative of brainstorming, networking and hustling to get to do what you feel is truly meaningful, is not an easy path. And so for most, it is easy to continue to do what they have been, while cribbing about distractions, while letting the void-for-meaning deep within them, grow stronger and stronger.

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One at a time

Sometimes there’s just too much to focus on. Like the rabbits that Jack Ma talked about once. He said that if you’ve got a room full of rabbits and you need to catch one, most people start with the rabbit closest to them. If that runs away, then they switch to the next nearest one. Momentarily another rabbit comes into view, and then they run after that one. And then another one. At the end, they are left with no rabbit.

The better way, is to just focus on one rabbit all along.

This can be extended to our daily ‘things to do’ checklist as well. We could focus on one newspaper, one podcast, one TV show, one book, one scripture, one chapter, one YouTube channel etc. Even within these, say one specific online course that we like, the focus can be on doing only the 10 minutes it requires per day. That would make it easy to execute as well as track.

If this is implemented with discipline, it can work wonders in the medium to long term. But if not, then at the end of the month, on one fine weekend, we are suddenly saddled with hours of work to catch up on, which then leads to anxiety and feelings of incompetence. 10 minutes a day. That’s all it takes. It’s a fine line!

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Live in the moment (really?)

Here’s something we hear often. And it is linked to spirituality too. “Live in the present”, “Live in this moment alone”, “Don’t live in the past or in the future”, “the present is a gift” and so on and so forth. There are many variations of these. And they all sound amazing. Liberating too. Marry these words with some spectacular visuals on Instagram or Facebook and that is enough to make even a corpse feel all charged up and alive.

Feeling charged up and alive is indeed a good thing. But ‘living in the present’ needs to be understood well. It is ultimately dependent on the internal qualities or gunas of a person.

If people are sattvik by nature, they are likely to work for others and for a greater cause. Therefore their focus while working – in the true sense – will not be focused on the results of their actions.

For tamasik people however, this is not so obvious. They too may appear to not care about the result. But this apparent lack of caring comes from a deep rooted centre of laziness, inertia and selfishness which precludes them from calling a spade a spade. Their very success comes from denying the truth, and from seeking to avoid the consequences of their actions.

In that sense, the rajasik folks may be better off – as they at least know there is a gap which they need to bridge.

And thus, it is important to understand well what it takes to live in the moment. If we are thinking only about ourselves, jumping from one desire to the next, we may already be many moments ahead, and certainly not in the present.

If one has transcended the ego however, and is working solely for the benefit of the greater good, then living in the moment will come automatically. It is a state of ‘flow’. Nothing needs to be done to achieve it.

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Regressive development

When a realized soul says, “What is the use of education? What is the use of all this advancement and technology? These are all meaningless in the quest to quell the mind.”, it certainly raises some eyebrows. In this day and age of amazing technology, how can someone denounce these life-savers? “I can’t even sit in a room alone for 5 minutes without my phone – God bless the one who invented it”, would seem a reasonable response.

Maybe a slight shift in perspective would help see the world from the eyes of a jivanmukta. Indeed, to live in today’s world as it is, technology and education are important. But what if this world wasn’t the way it is?

If we went back to the olden times, there were no TVs, no cars, no ACs. But them folks still survived, relying on the outdoors and social gatherings. There were no mobile phones, even for long distance calls, but then there really wasn’t any need for going long distance. All needs were met within the village area. Yes trade and commerce and what not helped ‘develop and civilize’ humans, but was that really necessary? All industrial and technology improvements are supposed to have made our lives more efficient, but here we are, more stressed, more depressed and more anxious than ever before. And the great advances in medicine are now mainly to treat cool-sounding “lifestyle diseases”, which probably wouldn’t have arrived if man didn’t venture beyond his means.

This is probably what the self-realized folks really suggest. If all the technology and modernization and education ultimately leads to a worse life than before, then of what good is all this so-called progress?

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Monetime

A very interesting book called Layered Money that I’m reading traces the evolution of money through time. In the very earliest days of commerce, there was no money – only the barter system. If I had potatoes from my farm, but desperately wanted cotton, then all I could do was to offer my potatoes and hope the cotton farmer wanted some. Of course potatoes were important (still are), but there could be a limit to how many potatoes a cotton farmer could eat.

So people devised ways to get around this. In the earliest days, money wasn’t coins or paper as we know it today. It was mostly seashells. Big and shiny meant richer and wealthier. But of course not everyone lived near a beach, and so that had to change. Iron pieces were then used too – for quite a while. And then unsurprisingly, silver and gold came along the way. People with a lot of gold and silver even today are considered rich.

Alongside that wealth, came human ego. Coins were introduced, and standardized in design and weight. And then coins were embossed with the faces of the kings and queens of the time. Currency notes too had the same features. Many rulers would kill and plunder simply to change the faces on them coins and notes. It was a matter of great personal pride. Coins from hundreds of years ago – of perhaps the greatest kings that ever lived in those times – are but worthless now. That face – completely unrecognizable and irrelevant to those born today.

And now we have digital currencies, like Bitcoins and Ether. Even these aren’t as individualistic as their creators would want them to be, because there are over 9500 cryptocurrencies. And anyone with coding knowledge, can create a new one. Time takes care of all egos.

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Sweaty

In a recent youth satsang, one of the questions asked was on how to calm oneself down during an altercation. This is surely hard. If someone gets angry at us, then even if we’ve read all the anger management books out there, we may still feel our pulse racing, our hearts beating faster, our teeth and jaws clenching etc. So then what to do?

The answer given by a senior satsangi was on point. He quoted, “The more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in battle.”

We think controlling our emotions is an on-off switch, and can be learned with some tips from a one-hour session. But the crux is to prepare before the game. Well before the game. To in fact be in a constant state of preparation.

Our scriptures suggest a variety of ‘exercises’, whether it is breathing, yoga, giving up desires and attachments, meditating, austerity, sacrifice, charity and several others. It might seem like these are all unrelated and irrelevant to our daily troubles. But this couldn’t be further from the truth.

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Lights out

Today morning, the electricity went off. Poof, kaput, gone. Some maintenance work yada yada will be back in 12 hours yada yada said one whatsapp message.

I quickly switched from wifi to mobile hotspot and continued to work. A couple of video calls, and a few other normal calls, plenty of emails, several powerpoint slides, some excel sheets and a few more emails later, my laptop battery started to give way.

A few hours later, and my phone was dying too. Dusk had set in. Darkness all around, except my phone screen. And then that was gone as well. No this is not a horror story.

No screens, no calls from work, no deadlines, no TV, no music, no noises, only darkness. But it was beautiful. We sat together and talked – with zero distractions. It was free flowing, and chilled out. Not a care in that moment. Such simple pleasures of life. Going with the flow.

And the lights momentarily came on as the fan whirred back to life. Deadlines, phone calls, work, screens, distractions – everything was back. Back to normal. But our normal is quite abnormal, isn’t it?

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Single-tasking

Have you ever seen a job description that asks you to work only on a single task? If you have, then please forward it to me so that I can apply ?.

In this book I’m reading called Beyond the Alphas, the author mentions that the average worker makes between 10,000 and 40,000 decisions – every day!

This is just insane. Apparently we also switch between tasks no less than 300 times a day. For all this talk and requirement for multitasking – is this something that is really even possible? Can I read a book and play a video game, at the very same time? Or can I have a deep conversation with my spouse while also watching TV? That second one I don’t even want to attempt!

Multitasking is only done by computers, that can really run multiple processes in parallel. And when we have computers doing all that work, why should we? Computers don’t get tensed or anxious or stressed, but we certainly do.

That’s why it might be a good idea, to get back to single-tasking, at least on the weekends. To spend 3 hours reading a book, and nothing else. Or an hour of deep conversation, and nothing else. A few hours playing with the kids, and nothing else. Including no phones, tablets or other screens for distraction. Let’s try it out!

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NWL

In the amazing Netflix show The Crown, there’s an interesting scene. The show itself chronicles Queen Elizabeth’s life and her ascension to the throne at a relatively young age. I don’t know if that’s what the entire show is about – we’re only on season 1, and there are three more to go at least. But soon after her coronation, her mother (now the ex-queen Mary) feels quite suffocated and heads off to Scotland to be with some friends and to get some air (riding horses by the seaside, hiking in amazingly scenic landscapes, you get the drift). In this particular scene, the ex-Queen is asked by her friends, “Has it been very difficult?” To which she replies thus:

"I don't want to sound self-piteous but loss has followed loss. First and foremost, the loss of a husband.
Then the loss of a home, having to leave the palace. The loss of motherhood, as daughters become adults.
Loss of a routine, a sense of purpose. The loss of a Crown. Imagine, 17 years' experience as Queen and being the head of the family. Bertie was a wonderful husband and father, but he needed a great deal of help as King.
And then we lose him and, at precisely the moment when they should be giving me more to do, stop me falling into despair, they take it all away... They put it all into the hands of a girl who's totally unequipped for it."

If this were to be on Twitter, people would tag it as #firstworldproblems. Of course, a bereavement is never easy. But it also shows that power – especially got from position – is impossible to let go of. What she went through, every human being must go through as they age – whether queen or not. It begs the question – do we even realize when our needs becomes wants, and our wants become luxuries?

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Lockdown

“Isolation” and “Quarantine” and “Lockdown”. Three words that have suddenly become commonplace, all thanks to the Covid situation. Most people everywhere seem to be cribbing big time. “I’m so sick of staying at home. Just can’t wait for things to open up. I hate this lockdown business. Can’t even go anywhere. I really miss my vacations and international trips.”

But a change in mindset is necessary. An entitled person may think sitting at home unable to travel for pleasure is bad. But how about those people who are isolated in hospital wards, separated from their loved ones, stuck on a hospital bed amongst hundreds of others, breathing into tubes attached to cylinders, with no indication of when their ordeal would end. Isn’t that infinitely worse? And then there are those that desperately need hospitals / ICUs / beds but these are all full. What of them?

As an Indian army jawan noted on his Linkedin post – “Don’t be scared of isolation. My longest spell was on Siachen glacier, lasting 138 days, with 98 days of intense firing. All 19 of us survived 100s of kilos of TNT. I lost 19 kilos of weight, and took bath after 138 days. The minimum temperature was -50-degrees Celcius.”

What are the rest of us cribbing about? We must be deeply cognizant that anyone stepping out for any reason could be the cause for someone else falling sick or losing a loved one. It is our duty to stay indoors and safe, until all this bad news passes.

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Sightful

Here’s an awesome story narrated by Morgan Housel who writes for the Collaborative Fund blog.

Dr. Dan Goodman once performed surgery on a middle-aged woman whose cataract had left her blind since childhood. The cataract was removed, leaving the woman with near-perfect vision. A miraculous success.

The patient returned for a checkup a few weeks later. The book Crashing Through writes:

Her reaction startled Goodman. She had been happy and content as a blind person. Now sighted, she became anxious and depressed. She told him that she had spent her adult life on welfare and had never worked, married, or ventured far from home – a small existence to which she had become comfortably accustomed. Now, however, government officials told her that she no longer qualified for disability, and they expected her to get a job. Society wanted her to function normally. It was, she told Goodman, too much to handle.

Wow, you did not expect that ending to the story did you? It is no surprise that humans are the worst predictors of their own future. Our superpower, nay super-weakness is the ability to isolate exactly one outcome of the future (like more money, fame, here eyesight etc.) that we want, to the exclusion of everything else – often risks – that would automatically accompany that outcome.

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FTP 30 TAP

To a computer engineer, these might sound like some network transfer protocols. But I’m not one, so I have no idea ?

FTP and TAP are the difference between sorrow and happiness.

It’s very simple.

30 refers to 30 seconds.

FTP is Fail To Pause.

TAP is Take A Pause (courtesy a satsangi).

There are so many scenarios in day to day life that we come across, where we say or do things that we come to regret later on. It could be an uncontrolled burst of emotion, an angry retort to a loved one or friend or boss (these could be the same person ?), a hasty decision, or just a lazy and unnecessary comment about someone or something.

A 30 second pause will not delay our life. But if it prevents us from saying or doing soemthing reckless, it can surely improve it.

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Quick not hasty

Google Pay has a nice ad. It shows people engaged in a variety of transactions, and then using the app to make their payments. The tagline that goes alongside is “Jaldi, lekin jaldbaazi nahin”, which means quick but not hasty. This is an important but often overlooked mode of action.

Just a few days ago, a friend of mine who had come back to his hometown for a break, was telling me that his marriage got fixed. But he had given an ultimatum to his fiancee, that they needed to be married in the following 3 weeks, before he headed back to his place of work. The girl’s side wasn’t so keen on this alacrity. Marriage is one of those things where it is not possible to momentarily reverse one’s decision – it is not a hop-on hop-off bus. While one can understand my friend’s urgency, in the long run, what is a few months here and there?

But we’ve now got used to doing everything at great speed. Instant gratification and all that. And we naturally come to expect this in spiritual progress as well. But as is very nicely described in Tattvabodha, there are four things simultaneously needed for moksha or liberation = a Guru + satsang + scriptures + X. Three of these we can all have. But what is X? It is time. No matter how much of a hurry we may be in, we cannot sidestep the learnings that time and experience unveil to us.

For large important life-changing decisions, quality trumps speed any day, especially if we want to minimize regrets in the future.

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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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5/25

Ace investor Warren Buffet’s personal pilot was Mike Flint. The latter once came to Mr. Buffet for some career prioritization advice.

What did he say? “Write down your top 25 goals. Now circle the top 5, and drop all the others.”

This is super advice, especially for someone like me, because I often have lengthy to-do lists, and keep worrying about not being able to achieve those things. More often than not, the pace of new items coming on to the list is much higher than the pace of things coming off it!

Why does the 25/5 rule help? Because it fairly estimates that each individual has certain limitations. Over the long run, it is difficult to achieve more than 3-5 large goals, and hence what goals 6 to 25 are, are not really goals, but more of distractions.

I try to use this even for day to day living, as it helps with minimalism. It could be for the things I need to get done in the next hour. Or in the next day. Or even while grocery shopping. If there’s a list of 25 items I think I need, do I really need all of them? Or can I make do with lesser, and order the rest in the next round? A good test of self-control.

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Kaizen

We discussed here before the benefits of doing things small, rather than larger-than-life. Instead of having insane unachievable new year resolutions, just taking it step by step, but being consistent with it, is likely to yield far better results.

There’s a Japanese term called Kaizen, and maybe you’ve come across it before. The term refers to ‘taking small steps for continual improvement’. It is such a revolutionary yet simple idea, because the small steps make it sustainable, and the consistency compounds over time.

As James Clear beautifully puts it in his book Atomic Habits, 1% worse every day over a year, is (0.99)^365 = 0.03, whereas 1% better everyday is (1.01)^365 = 37.78. What a difference consistency makes!

Robert Maurer in The Kaizen Way talks of 6 simple strategies that can bring about big changes in a our lives over time.
1. Asking small questions.
2. Thinking small thoughts.
3. Taking small actions.
4. Solving small problems.
5. Giving small rewards.
6. Recognizing small moments.

Not how the common word is ‘small’. Big changes often only trigger subconscious fears in our brains, and these end up hampering our progress. Instead of asking “How can I be successful in my career?”, we could ask “What can I do today at my work, that is an improvement over yesterday?” Same for relationships. Asked and acted upon consistently, you can see how career-success and relationship-success will come naturally, eventually!

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Drive through

The Gita says that each one of us has had multiple births in the past. Millions, billions, I don’t know, maybe countless births. The soul keeps changing from one body to the next. Probably once an ant, to once a deer to once a human being and so on. It also adds that attaining liberation is possible via a human birth alone – because only in this birth do we have the ability and capacity to understand what liberation really means and takes. In all these births, we have in one way or another been associated with all the people around us. In one, today’s sister may have been an uncle. In another, today’s uncle may have been a grand-daughter, and so on.

This is somewhat like an experience most people who love to drive would have had, especially long distance. More often than not, on short patches of maybe 50 kilometres, we will find another vehicle that drives at nearly the same speed, and maintain a temporary unsaid relationship. Navigating through the same traffic, passing the same slow cars in equal frustration (followed by relief), once taking the lead, once falling behind, almost having a mini unarticulated drag race. You know it’s nothing, yet the feeling of a duel is palpable, even if only to yourself and the other driver, while all other passengers are blissfully unaware. And then one car, either yours or theirs, needs to make a pit stop – to buy water, to drink some chai, to have a bite, to fill some petrol, or just take another path. And the race is over, almost abruptly. Only to be resumed a few kilometres later, but this time with another vehicle. And another after that, and another. The cycle repeats ad infinitum. Until the journey itself comes to an end, i.e. liberation.

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Over and over

A question arises, “Why should I keep doing the same things over and over?” Why read our scriptures daily. If we’ve read it once, that should be enough no? Or why participate in satsang as many times as possible? Why not just listen to one lecture once and then implement and chill?

Marcel Proust, one of the greatest French authors of the 20th century said “”The real voyage of discovery consists, not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”

As the story goes, a child asked his grandpa why he was repeatedly reading the Gita. To which grandpa asked the child to fetch water from the nearby river, but in a basket. The child did as instructed, but obviously much of the water leaked out through the gaps in the basket. The grandpa asked the child to go and get water, again and again, and each time most of the water had leaked out. Finally, when the child was frustrated, the grandpa asked his grandson to look at the basket closely. This child remarked, “Wow, the the basket has now got cleaned so nicely!”, exactly like how the mind would need to be cleaned by multiple readings.

My Guru follows this principle very closely, and takes it a step further – adding that reading alone is not enough, but acting upon the lessons learned is critical. Like the Chinese philosopher Confucius once said. “I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand”.

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Time and tide

Apparently there are some 3 billion Gods in Hinduism. There is a God for everything. For getting pregnant, for money, for status – even for getting a visa to work abroad! Having so many Gods allows the religion to be very flexible. If you believe one thing over another, then you can just switch to another God who’s rules and regulations align better to your thought process, nay current requirements.

One God though, that presides over all, is Maha Kaal. He is considered to be Lord Shiva, and also a personification of Time itself, kaal meaning time.

When we’re on the last day of work before a two week vacation, that particular day in the office will just seem to crawl by annoyingly slowly. When we’re in the vacation itself though, the days will seem to slip by agonizingly quickly. “What? It’s the fifth day of our beach vacation already? We need to head back soon, oh no.”

There is a lot to learn from Time In the above all-too-familiar examples, we know that time itself never changed. Only our perceptions of it moved around. We know this, but still struggle with time management. It seems like there is never enough time. But as Maha Kaal will tell us, the speed of Time remains unchanged, only our mind believes so. What can we do?

We can start by acknowledging this truth. That there will never be enough time for doing everything. But there will certainly be enough time for all your priorities. Prioritization makes all the difference.

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Take more stress

The things we are stressed about:

  1. landing a better job
  2. earning more money
  3. finding a good spouse / partner
  4. having a good family
  5. going on a quality vacation
  6. being recognized in society
  7. working to fulfil our kids desires, even if they don’t reciprocate

Nothing wrong with these. Except that we usually spend our entire life, nay lives, trying to fix these.

The only thing the Guru asks us to stress about? Getting moksha or liberation. To keep that as a single pointed focus. And to act with urgency. Why? Because moksha is only possible with human life. And we are supremely lucky to have received a human birth, and that too one conducive to spirituality. Who knows if we will get this chance the next time around?

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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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Taking a break

At least in India, the concept of a sabbatical is practically unknown. The workhorses that most people here tend to be, coupled with the social stigma of being jobless, ensures neither employer nor employee ever considers it. But as is we well know, workplace stress is rampant.

Refreshing then, was to know about Swanand Kelkar, Managing Director at Morgan Stanley, who decided to take 2020 off (yes the whole year!) to pursue his interests. In an interview, he explains how he was enamoured by a concept called time billionaire. We all want to be money-billionaires, but the scarcest resource any of us has is time. If we had enough time to do anything we wanted (i.e. no office, no deadlines, no 7 am Monday morning blues) then what would we do? He decided to use the one year to attempt 10 different interest areas like professional cooking, yoga certification in Sivananda Ashram in Madurai, book writing, dancing and other things that he would have otherwise never ventured into. Engaging the expertise of stalwarts in these respective fields, he set about using a month each pursuing his interests. He says he also benefitted from interacting with people in such diverse fields bringing myriad viewpoints compared to meeting the same people daily at work.

My own experience of a short break – to dabble in gaining a few new skills – some years ago in between jobs was fruitful, but perhaps not as well structured. I can however vouch for how much the gains can be – far outweighing the benefit of just staying stuck in the same job for those 12 months.

Of course not everyone can take a sabbatical at will. Some may have just joined a new organization, or their employer may not be sabbatical-friendly, or one may not have money saved up to ride out the non-earning period. In these cases, some planning will be necessary. However, at the end of the day, sabbatical / vacation / break etc. are all just ways to gain some mental peace (maybe using up-skilling as a means). The Prime Minister of India has not taken a holiday in 30 years at least, and neither has my Guru. They are both working at peak efficiency, the former in his 70s and the latter in his 80s. I have much to learn from them.

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Ro ro

According to Google Maps, the drive time from Mumbai to weekend destination Alibaug is just 2 hours and 15 minutes. But anyone who’s taking the road would know of its pitiable condition, easily doubling the drive time to four and a half hours.

The government has come up with an amazing solution. Have a ferry that not only transports people but also cars. It’s called the Ro-Ro for roll-on roll-off. Having taken it a couple of times, I can vouch for its awesomeness. The travel time between Mumbai and Alibaug is reduced to about 50 minutes, car in tow.

What was really amazing though, was the punctuality. All the more so as these are not expected of public services. This was surely different. At 12.30 sharp and as indicated on their website, the ferry set off from the harbor. And at 1.20, it docked into the Mandwa pier.

We all know that there is nothing more valuable than time. If there is someone who values your time, that garners immense respect. Even simple things like being on time for a meeting (increasingly online now), are often taken for granted. Unlike money, time lost cannot be regained. Time to roll-off the time wasters and roll-on the time-spinners.

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Birthday of the truly timeless

Today marks Guru Nanak Jayanti. It is perhaps the most sacred festival in Sikhism. It commemorates the birth of the first Sikh Guru, Guru Nanak. During most of my childhood and youth, I would consider this birthday just another blessing – thanks to the additional holiday each year. But having read about Guru Nanak’s life and teachings in the book Ten Companions of God by J.P Vaswani, there are a lot of lessons for me to learn from.

Initially started as an offshoot of Hinduism, many core principles in Sikhism remain intact. The focus is on service, to humanity as a whole, and specifically to those in need. The underlying belief that the Supreme is One, is also similar. Many Sikhs greet each other by saying “Sat Sri Akal”. Sat is the Truth. Not like a spoken truth/lie, but referring to the only changeless Truth. Sri confers respect on Kal. And Kal refers to time, and a-Kal is the timeless. Thus there is only one True Timeless permanent fixture (aka God), and that is what Sikhs remember, when they greet each other.

There are 3 outstanding tenets Guru Nanak preached.

  1. Vand chako – Share whatever we have, and always be in the service of others
  2. Kirat karo – Be duty bound, work hard and and earn an honest living
  3. Naam japo – Meditate on God

So simple, yet so profound.

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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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More life more living

If someone was born in 1914, there was only a 1% chance that he/she would survive till the age of 100.

Thanks to medical advancements including the eradication of many deadly diseases, there is now a 50% probability that a child born today lives to a 100. In Japan, this number is 109 years.

Is this good? Indeed, it is wonderful news. But what matters is not the age itself, but the quality of the life we live.

Would we rather die 70 happy and carefree, or 100 stressed and depressed?

We are presented with many choices. The work we do (and the consequent stress we take on), the food we eat, the health we neglect, the exercise we strive to be regular with, the sabbaticals we take (yes, refuelling is a good idea – otherwise we are all just rats in a rat race!), the spiritual practices we so wish we could do, among many others.

The choices we make today, will go a long way towards improving our lives.

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What makes us different

Name one person from history, who attained infinite peace from his/her:
– money
– title / status
– beauty
– immortality
– relationships
– accolades received from society

Which of these above are permanent features of our lives?

Are we ourselves permanent features?

Are we any different from all those people who have come and gone?

Do we want what is permanently good, or what is deceptively good?

We must think of the consequences of our thoughts, habits, desires and actions – and evaluate if what we want is really what we need.

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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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Physical or mental?

Renunciation is often misunderstood. It is equated with donning ochre robes and heading to the mountains as an ascetic. This physical jettisoning is certainly one form of renunciation. But it is a difficult path, and not suited to most.

If a mosquito starts buzzing around us in the comfort of our air conditioned homes, we get jittery. Simply by wearing ochre robes and going to meditate in a forest, the local mosquitoes over there will not leave you be.

Renunciation at the mind level is very difficult, but is perhaps more relevant. A person who has tamed his mind while living in the world as any of us is called a jivanmukta (i.e. liberated while living).

To some, mental renunciation may seem easier. But is it really so? For instance, it might be very hard for me to physically part with my money (say for a charity). But it is much easier for me to think mentally that I am unattached to the money in my bank account. The real test will be the day when someone needs the money I have ‘mentally’ given away. Will I physically be able to give it away as well?

This is why, ideally, both physical and mental renunciation must go together, as much as possible. As my Guru says, if we begin to give small amounts to charity today itself, then we will find that progressively we are able to share more of our wealth with the needy. The same is true of other physical needs as well. We can slowly but surely reduce our dependence on clothes, accessories, electronics and luxuries because one day we will realize these mean nothing in our quest for happiness. Might as well start small today, because nothing big comes without practice.

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What is life?

  1. We are born one day
  2. We are dead another
  3. And in between we go through a variety of experiences
  4. These experiences evoke emotions within us
  5. Some of these emotions lead to learnings

No matter who we are, point 1 has already happened, and we cannot escape points 2 and 3.

Point 4 is in our control, but we tend to be the slave instead. According to our scriptures, liberated are those who only focus on point 5, learning and imbibing wisdom, finally moving from controlled to controller.

That’s about it, isn’t it?

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The right age

My Guru, at the age of 81, works 18 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. No this is not like going to office for getting a salary. Rather he works selflessly and tirelessly for others, with zero pay. No bonus, no increments. All assets willed away to charity. Nothing but the future of the world and its good citizens as his sole concern. Yet I have never once seen him complain or display weariness.

Can he control the world around him? Hardly. But himself? Oh his control over his mind is phenomenal. He says he was not always this way. But practise of sacrifice, austerity and charity has made all the difference.

When did he become like that? At age 20? Or 40? Or 60? Or when he started getting white hair? Or after he retired? Or after he had kids? Or after he shifted jobs?

He became like that the moment he decided to, which was well in the prime of his youth. And that is exactly what he and all the other spiritual masters preach as well. While we are busy becoming dizzy in the world, we tend to postpone anything remotely selfless and spiritual to when get ‘older’. Many 70-year olds still give the same excuse!

The decision, and the benefits, are ours.

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Sorry I don’t have time

“Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you dear! Happy birthday to you!” And everyone is so happy and celebrative. Right from childhood to adulthood to ‘old’hood, that one day of every year makes us feel truly special. But what are we celebrating? Or rather, why are we celebrating? We are only getting older, not younger, and in many cases not even wiser.

We yearn uncontrollably for money and status. But if there is one thing we must yearn for, it is time. It is the biggest treasure of all, and also the scarcest. The only plausible way to ‘buy time’ if at all is through better health, diet and exercise. Even so, phrases like “I don’t have time” crop up multiple times a day as part of our conversations.

It is worth thinking about “I don’t have time.” It rarely means what is said. It only suggests, “This is not a priority for me.” There are certain draining, money-sucking pursuits and people (like agents calling us take on new loans we don’t need) that we can certainly push back on. But lack of time can never be an excuse for not getting physical exercise. Or meditation. Or a better diet plan. If we are saying no to these things for lack of time, then we have our priorities all mixed (messed) up.

One way to help stay on track, is to take up a challenge publicly (not necessarily via social media, but even committing to family members helps!). This makes it harder to give up midway, because we now have a public image to maintain.

Quitting is easy, prioritization is hard. As they say, “Easy choices, hard life. Hard choices, easy life.”

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Making room

Blaise Pascal, a famous scientist and philosopher, wrote in 1654, “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”

This is worth pondering, as it links to why our search for happiness always ends in failure.

As toddlers, we had no cares in the world. Yes we needed food and the occasional cleaning. But our lives were not driven second-by-second in the pursuit of some big goal. The goal itself is not the cause of anxiety, as much as our expectation that when we achieve the goal, the world will take notice and offer us something in return. This by definition is a fool’s errand, because it is impossible to change the world. All we can change is ourselves.

In several spiritual camps in India, it is a requirement that one spend a day or two in complete solitude. A room with no electronics, no books, no outlet and no one else. A plate of food will be slid under the door from time to time. The exercise helps build inner strength, although many participants quit well before halfway.

Happiness comes from being content with who we are. Material success on the other hand springs from dissatisfaction. While these are separate things for the realized masters, it is hard to distinguish for normal people like me. That is why I need to keep reminding myself at every step, “I’m driven to achieve my goal. But no matter the outcome, I’m already enjoying every step of the process.”

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Kit for Kat

Have you ever had Bakeable custard, Chocobanana, Edamame, Cherry, Ginger Ale, Lemon cheesecake, Rocksalt or Royal Milk Tea? Okay yes maybe. But have you had these on twin chocolate bars?

Surely most of us are familiar with the ubiquitous KitKat chocolate bars from Nestle. Whether they are normal chocolate bars or white chocolate bars, they are too tasty to stop with just one. But did you know that there are over 300 flavors of KitKat, including the ones mentioned above? Why have we not seen them around us you say? Because most of these are available only in Japan!

The parent company Nestlé, is known for its coffee rather than its chocolates. Its brands including Nescafe and Nespresso occupy kitchen shelves across the world. But coffee was not a big thing in Japan. In fact Japanese culture always preferred tea. So how would Nestlé introduce coffee? By targeting the right audience of course! In the 1970s, Nestlé began by introducing coffee flavors in candy for children, so that later in life these kids would grow to have a positive affinity to the idea of coffee. In 1970, coffee sales in Japan were almost zero; but today, nearly 50 years later, Japan is the world’s third largest importer of coffee. And it is only in recent years that the KitKat varieties in Japan have exploded. The name KitKat is apparently similar to a Japanese expression “kitto katsu” meaning “Victory will be yours” and is used by students to wish each other luck before their exams. So the good foundations were laid several years in advance of a favourable outcome!

It is said that there are 4 critical components for realising spiritual progress. The first three are 1. A Guru. 2. Scriptures. and 3. Satsang (the company of the wise). Many of us are blessed with these three. But a few meditation sessions plus some satsangs plus some seva for the Guru later, we are already impatient for results. The fourth and most critical component though, is Time. Because spiritual progress too, like all good things, cannot happen without without efforts consistently practised over the years. Just ask someone who has eaten many KitKats over the years, and is trying to lose the extra pounds 🙂

And if you want to get the whole list of KitKat flavors, please hit the thumbs-up button below, and then click here highly recommended!

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Time travel

Since time immemorial, (wo)man has always enquired about two things.
1. The past, before this life
2. The future, in this same life

Both of these questions can be answered to a good extent, by a good astrologer, assuming accurate birth data are available. Astrology can indeed be useful to help prepare the mind for what is to come – both good and bad.

However, time travelling through astrology can often lead us to not revel in the current moment. Why?

Let us say we need to present a very important deliverable at work. It will take 1 week of intense preparation, and we are absolutely enthused about it, given this could be a career-defining moment. However, if we knew in advance, that the presentation would not be well received, or that a colleague would outdo us, or the manager would change, or the client would not go ahead with the suggestion, it is highly likely we will not put adequate effort into making the presentation in the first place. If we knew in advance that a relationship would not last, we would not get into it in the first place. If an entrepreneur knew their company was going to shut down after 2 years, they would never ‘start-up’ to begin with.

And therein lies the problem. We are conditioned to believe that success is the endgame. But it is not. Learning or growth is the real endgame. And all the actions that bestow so-called ‘failure’ are what toughens us up for the future.

Likewise for the past. What are we going to do by knowing we were a king or a great sage or Krishna’s consort in an earlier life? Spirituality teaches us to eschew all identification with our body/mind/intellect. Liberation comes from renunciation. Why add additional layers from past lives?

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Focus Pocus

In the age of news shorts, 10 second video clips, vanishing snap-chats, 20 minute food deliveries and 45 second blog posts (does the last one seem familiar? 🙂 ), it is no surprise that our collective patience levels have dropped considerably.

With such limited patience, it is hard to stay focused. Jack Ma of Alibaba fame gives the example of a task that requires catching 1 out of 9 rabbits in a room. Easier said than done, as the furry fellows scramble like mad across the room. The difficulty arises because the catcher keeps shifting focus from one rabbit to the next depending on how close the rabbit is. If one jumps away, the catcher locks in to the next, and then the next, eventually ending up with none.

Our daily lives too tempt us with multiple opportunities. This work, that work, this book, that book, this song, that song, this class, that class, this movie, that movie, learning this, learning that, this restaurant, that restaurant. Oh so many options!

It would help to lock targets on one rabbit, on one task, and expend energies on that goal, for that period of time. Multi-tasking is good, but 60 minutes dedicated to one task followed by 60 minutes to another is always better than 60 minutes of attention simultaneously allocated to ten tasks (rabbits).

Interestingly, we never lose focus when watching Netflix or our favourite sports games, do we? Nothing wrong in taking some time off to enjoy these at all. But also good to remember, that in a way, we are paying to watch these people do their jobs. How many people are paying to watch us do ours? The stars and celebrities got to where they are by focusing on their lives and building their skills. We should do the same, till we get a paying audience.

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Living optimally

Ask any scientist about the universe(s). S/he will tell you it is all based on the space time continuum. This term has also been made famous by sci-fi Hollywood movies.

The space-time continuum simply describes how space and time are relative and how objects that move at higher speeds experience time more slowly. That level of detail doesn’t matter much to most of us, as we are rarely going to be travelling at anything remotely close to the speed of light.

What is nice though, is that our ancients had this all figured out. They realised that our lives are impacted by these two critical aspects, i.e. time and space. They figured, that if we could optimise both time and space, then we could live our lives to our fullest potential.

How did they do this?

To optimise time, they used Jyotish (i.e. Vedic Astrology) to answer what the good and bad periods in one’s life were, which specific areas of life would be most impacted, and how one could make crucial decision using all this information.

To optimise space, they used Vaastu, i.e. the science of space, light, flow, architecture etc. to design ideal living spaces / homes.

The level of detail (available to anyone who is interested, please google!) in these sciences is unfathomable. Most people today unfortunately use these for fear mongering, as superstition or to make money unlawfully. These traditional sciences need to be revived and their benefits shared with everyone.

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When time saved != time earned

We procrastinate on several things. Especially good things.

We don’t find 5 minutes to plan our days. But astute planning can reduce much daily stress.
We don’t find 10 minutes for meditation. But meditating regularly can add great clarity to our thoughts.
We don’t find 20 minutes for exercise / yoga. But exercising regularly can add many years to our lives.
We don’t find 30 minutes for cooking. But making our own meals can keep all ailments away.
We don’t find 60 minutes to complete our sleep quota. But sleeping well adds many hours to our productivity.
We don’t find any time to spend with our loved ones. But our family is what will be there when no one else will.

Each of these activities takes time. But the benefits far outweigh the time spent on the activities themselves.

Let us invest our time wisely.

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Meld and forget

Take all the gold mined in the entire world. Including gold bars, gold coins, gold nuggets, gold jewellery etc. Now melt and meld all of it into a cube. That cube would measure just 20 meters each side.

Take all our life’s worst problems. Including loved one passed away, job lost, got divorced, promotion denied, pet died, real-estate investment gone bust etc. etc. etc. All of these will fit into less than one calendar month of 20 days.

But in a life of 100 years or 36,500 days, we replay these 20 problem days over and over and over – so much so that all 36,500 days become problem days.

The problem is not with the problem days. The problem is in our minds. We must forget the past, and the future, and instead learn to embrace the now.

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Processing…

How I wish I had the time to read books. And the time to learn a foreign language. And the time to learn to play an instrument. But I just don’t get any time at all. This is person X.

Person X looks back at the last 1 week – he did not do any of the above. However he could have done 70 minutes worth of these at the very least. How? By simply taking out 10 minutes a day.

Surely he can take that much time out? Even if not in one shot, 5 minutes in the morning and 5 in the evening are possible? So 70 minutes is easily possible!

It all depends on how desperate we are. We must ask ourselves honestly. Do I really want to read a book, or learn a foreign language or learn to play an instrument?

Note that the focus here is on reading / learning, i.e the process, and not the outcomes, i.e. actually discussing a book after reading it, or speaking in a foreign tongue, or playing Fur Elise. The outcome is what we all love, but the process everyone despises.

Instead, let us love the process. Intensely. We will be surprised how time makes itself magically available. Even 700 minutes will be possible.

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The 8 hour grab

What all did we accomplish in the last 24 hours?

Yesterday I slept 8 hours, worked 8 hours, ate my meals 1 hour, read a book 1 hour, practised piano 1 hour, exercised 1 hour, learned a new skill for 30 mins, meditated for 30 mins, ablutions 30 mins, blogging 30 mins, TV/entertainment/catching up with friends 1 hour, commuting 1 hour.

versus

Yesterday I slept 5 hours, worked 8 hours, ate my meals 1 hour, felt lazy and procrastinated 1 hour, practised piano 15 mins, daydreamed 45 mins, stressed about something 1 hour, planned (my future) 30 mins, re-planned 30 mins, ablutions 30 mins, worried 30 mins, TV/entertainment/catching up with friends 1 hour, commuting 1 hour, and the other 3 hours I can’t figure out where it disappeared.

How do our typical days look like? How much is slipping through the cracks? Is 8 hours of non-work non-sleep time every single day not more than adequate for bettering ourselves?

Time is indifferent to the experiencer.

The control rests squarely in our hands. But only if we have grabbed it.

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Full steam ahead!

Robert Iger, the ex-CEO of Disney Inc. has a fascinating story in his memoir – The Ride of a Lifetime. After the ouster of the company’s previous Chairman and CEO, the Board announce they will look at possible candidates. Mr. Iger, the best contender for the job, was worried about how he should neither look good at the expense of his ex-boss’ mistakes, nor come across as diffident, something a new CEO would never be selected for.

Which is when a political consultant and branding expert reaches out to mentor him. His advice is not new, yet it is nothing short of golden. He said that Mr. Iger need not rehash the past, and defend or criticize anyone.

Instead, he had to think forward and move forward, definitively.

We are often in similar positions, seemingly handcuffed by things either we did or others did in the past. It doesn’t have to be that way, as long as we decide that history is…history!

Nobody likes someone forever wallowing in the past. What has happened cannot be undone. But in the future lies a great realm of possibility.

We must unshackle ourselves from the past and embrace the uncertainty. Maybe not because we want to. But because there is no other way. At least we can attempt to enjoy the time ahead!

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More

It is the year 3020.

This blog is no more.

This author is no more.

Everybody reading this blog today is no more.

All the nasty things anyone said about anyone else today, are no more.

All the stress and anxieties we built up today, are no more.

All the work we crammed at the expense of family, is no more.

All the money we raced and fought and killed to hoard, is no more.

But we still want more and more.

Go figure.

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It’s Time To Party!

My Guru gave me a special invitation to his lavish Millennium Party.

He said, “Every person who attends the party, would be gifted a mansion worth US$ 10 million, two Rolls Royce cars, and US$ 25 million wired to their accounts.”

The catch? Each invitee must come in-person, to collect their gifts. The Millennium Party will happen (you guessed it) in the year 2120.

Everyone reading this today would be a 100 years older. Our kids would be great-great-grandparents, their kids would be great-grandparents, their kids would be grandparents, their kids would be parents and some from the youngest generation would have just started working!

Not even one person from today’s 8 billion population will be alive to make it to the party.

Our end is clear, yet we live a life full of one-upmanship.

As Mahatma Gandhi aptly put it, “There is enough in this world for everyone’s need, but not enough for even one man’s greed”.

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The right time

A Guru was sitting on a rock on the banks of a river. As he stared intently into the flowing water, a few disciples came to him and asked “Guru ji, you have been staring at the river for hours. What are you upto?”. The Guru replied, “I am waiting for all the water to finish flowing through so that I may cross over to the other side.”. The disciples mocked him “Don’t you know that will never happen? How can you be so silly? You need to swim right now if you want to reach the other side!”. The Guru exclaimed, “Exactly, my dear students, think about that, when each day of your lives, you postpone the important, and focus on the unneccesary”. The disciples understood their lesson.

We cannot change the past, nor the future. We can only influence the now. Let us do now, what we have always wanted to, but never did.

There is no need to search or wait for ‘the right time’ to come to us. The right time is now.

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