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Tag: enjoy

Processing…

Processing…

Published July 6, 2020

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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Report Card: E for Everyone

Report Card: E for Everyone

Published June 22, 2020

We are all constantly chasing material progress. And we understand progress. Two houses are better than one, and two million bucks is better than one million.

But what of spiritual progress? Is there a report card?

According to Swami Tejomayananda, there are only two questions one must answer when evaluating one’s own spiritual progress.

  1. How much does everyone want to be in my company?
  2. How much do I want to be in the company of everyone?

Note, that this is everyone. Not a cherry picked group of friends or family members or colleagues that we have a predilection for. Or a specific set of people we detest and wish to avoid at all costs.

Spirituality is about training the mind to accept and enjoy everyone and everything as they are. Even that nosy bothersome fellow at work, or that pesky old neighbour next door, and also that cranky boss who calls you up on the weekends for extra work.

If we are making progress spiritually, we will be courting inner peace, and the answers to 1 and 2 would be ‘very much’, if not more.

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Enjoy the Unjoy

Enjoy the Unjoy

Published June 1, 2020

Maybe you’re stuck in the worst job, with the worst boss. Or maybe you’re stuck in the worst relationship, with the worst partner. Or stuck with the worst degree, in the worst college.

The circumstances we find ourselves in right now may be hard to change immediately.

The tools we are given must be accepted. But the design we create with those tools is on us. And in the process, we may chance upon better tools as well.

How can we do this? Only by loving and enjoying what we are already doing, irrespective of what we are doing. We must find the positives, even if only temporary. There is no other way.

But I don’t enjoy my job, you say? No one does. Given a choice, most people would prefer to become a couch potato, or maybe ‘find their passion’. Whatever that goose chase is about!

Interestingly, the entire of the Bhagavad Gita never once mentions whether one should be in this profession or that. But only about how to do the work associated with any profession.

It helps if we accept that the circumstances in a way stem from our own past karmic doing, from this life or before. It helps because we can begin to sow the seeds for better future circumstances.

If we anyway have to do our jobs, deal with our partners, study what we are studying – we might as well do it happily. Because being unhappy about it will only increase anxiety. Our positive energies will dissipate. This will prevent us from spending time on finding and building toward new circumstances quickly – that dream job at Google, that dream partner from Hollywood, that dream Harvard MBA.

The future can certainly be changed. Dreams can surely materialise. But only if we begin to enjoy the now, now.

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