Life

It's raining heavily in Delhi. As if the sky wants to shower its blessings generously. Generosity is a great virtue. We can give only when we have something and do not want to hold on to the same and therefore wish to share. Most of the time, we are in a mode of seeking. We get so many things in life, such as air, water, health, parents, friends, and great human intelligence. Yet, stupidly, we forget the value of all the things we have and keep seeking a few things we do not have. We hold on to the things that we have and become greedy to get more and more things otherwise, how is it possible that a few billionaires in this world have more wealth than the entire humanity put together. If these billionaires also become generous like the clouds, who can stop this Earth from becoming heaven? I often wonder why people shy away from sharing and being generous. Is this some deep-rooted insecurity? I have seen some of my colleagues who have earned huge money and yet their greed has not re...

I often wonder as to what is the meaning of equality? Some are born into families that can spend thousands of crore rupees to make their kids happy, and many can not buy enough food for their kids and their kids sleep hungry stomach and still remain happy and grateful. Some travel by private jet while many have to travel in the locals like cattle. Some own many buildings worth thousands of crores while many sleep on the streets. If somebody knows how to manipulate the systems, the sky is the limit in this world. However, all these hold true, if we believe that happiness is a by-product of money. In fact, I see that the reality is quite the contrary. First of all, life is much more than money. There are 12 houses in Astrology representing 12 different dimensions of life. The first house represents health, the second wealth, the third initiatives and younger siblings, the fourth vehicles, properties, and everything that comes as a result of our initiatives, the fifth new direction, and k...

Yesterday. I attended the farewell function of my boss. I noticed one thing quite distinctly and that is the love and affection among the batch mates. With friends around, there is no superannuation, rather there is graduation to life where one looks forward to regaining freedom over one's schedule, freedom of speech, and freedom of movement. One looks forward to spending time with good friends and having fun. With friends and like-minded people, everything is fun, be it singing, dancing, and chit-chatting. I feel that one of the most crucial requirements of friendship is trust. There can be a great friendship between two or more people who have altogether different ways of living lives. However, what matters in friendship is not how they live life, but rather, how much they trust each other. Trust is non-judgemental. It's not a subject matter of mind, rather it is a matter of heart. When one feels connected to the other person, and has the confidence that the other person is h...

It takes a lot of effort to fill a balloon with air. The more air we fill in the balloon, the more effort we need to put in. It is probably because the skin of the balloon resists change. It wants to come back to its original shape and we have to make an effort against this resistance. However, once it is filled with the air, its market value rises due to that. However, no balloon can hold air for long and comes back to its original shape after some time and dies its natural death. Moreover, it can expand up to a particular limit, crossing which it bursts.  Aren't human beings also like the balloon? They resist their growth. Whenever there comes an opportunity to grow, they resist such opportunity, and once they take the challenge their ego gets inflated with the experiences they have passed through. If the challenges are above a threshold, human beings burst like a balloon with sadness, anger, and frustration. They run around to babas and astrologers to find solutions to reduce th...

Human beings are so strangely obsessed with goals that the games that they designed to have fun too become quite stressful because we get so obsessed with winning. This is reflected in almost every game we play in the streets or in the Olympics. As soon as winning the game becomes primary, we stop enjoying the game. Probably, the reason for the same phenomenon is the basic architecture of our brain. Our brain can hold on to only one thing at a time. Either we think of the result or play the game. If we get obsessed with the result of the game, either the expectation of winning or fear of losing takes over our attention and we lose concentration on the game and end up performing worse than what we could have. There are few, who would say that until and unless we are concerned about the result, we would not be able to concentrate on the game. I fully agree with these people in situations where the player has no love for the game and playing under peer pressure. In that case, if he is rel...

I am not a big fan of virtual games. However, sometime back, I started playing a mobile game named "Hey Day" and I got quite addicted to the same. The player in the game acts like a farmer and he gets some points, a small virtual farm, and some other things to begin with. Then he harvests crops, cuts the same, and sells that in the market. He gets money for the same and with such money, he can buy more fields, hens, different types of seeds, farmhouses, boats, ships, and so on. Initially, the game looks quite innocuous, however, as we keep playing, we get addicted to the same, to the extent that we do not mind paying real money to get some virtual money. Probably, that's the trap every virtual game has. We get addicted to the rewards after some time and keep playing the game in anticipation of the rewards. Isn't this society also similar to a virtual game? Society too gives us certain things to begin the game. Some of us are born with a silver spoon and inherit quite ...

It is quite surprising to see that so many of us have a huge potential to grow and yet end up living a routine life. 9 to 6 office, looking forward to the weekends the entire week and then spending weekends over some socialization, day trips, taking rest, and watching movies. That's how our entire life is spent after getting the job. The only growth we experience after getting the job is the growth of bank balance, which hardly carries any meaning. Even more surprising is the fact that the most talented people in this country who pass out from the best of the colleges, IITs, IIMs, and clear civil services, end up living such a routine life. What else can be done? Aren't we supposed to earn and take care of the families? What is wrong with that? There would be many such questions like that. I would like to answer these questions by asking a counter-question. What makes us resist change while we look forward to exploring every new thing and every new experience as a child? We nee...

Most of us keep passing through four different states of mind. We feel " stressed" when we have set certain targets and we are somehow unable to get the desired results. For example, when we have not completed the syllabus and exams are around the corner, or we have not been able to complete the assignment and the boss is going to take a review meeting, or our relationship with a friend is tense. That may be due to the competency gap i.e. our competency or skill is less than the requisite skill set. Or we may feel stressed because the situations are not supporting us. In such cases, there is a high level of reaction and restlessness.  Sometimes we feel "excited" . It so happens when we achieve the targets we have set for ourselves. It may again happen since we have the competence required to achieve the goal, and the circumstances are favoring us. The level of reaction is high and we feel like celebrating or partying in such cases. This so happens when we get a goo...

In a world that is so full of exploitation and violence, how is it possible for any sensitive person to maintain equanimity? Does one need to be insensitive to maintain equanimity? Any sensitive person would be concerned about gender injustice, exploitation of the poor by the rich, mass killings in the name of religion, exploitation of the vulnerable, gross inequalities, people dying of hunger, and the pain of a kid burdened by the expectations of society and parents. Any sensitive person will have concerns. There would be a natural reaction when a sensitive person sees exploitation or injustice. However, does concern mean that there is no equanimity? Equanimity can definitely not be equated to insensitivity. Equanimity, to the best of my understanding, comes with higher awareness. Suppose a friend of us pushes us and we fall down and hurt our knee, we get angry naturally. We are sensitive and therefore would like to protect our bodies. The same reaction would come when a stranger push...

I notice a strange phenomenon where a person accepts that he has very limited exposure and yet is adamant about not growing. We can see it all around in individuals and communities. Such people will find hundreds of reasons not to grow and will try to pull down others as well in relationships with them out of sheer insecurities. They have a number of arguments about continuing to behave like that.  I was trying to find an answer to this question that was troubling me for quite some time. Then I recalled the lectures of Shri S N Goenka ji which I listened to during the Vipassana camps. I remember at one place he mentioned that Buddha said that there are 4 types of people in this world. The first one travels from light to light. These people understand the temporariness of the material world and since childhood, they carry this understanding and live accordingly. They explore this world while being in the human body do not get attached to it and always remain free. The second kind of...

The human brain is one of the best storytellers. It makes the best stories in the world. It sees people dying every day and yet makes meaning of life assuming that we will stay alive forever. In every relationship tussle, each party believes the fault lies in the other person. Responsibility for each failure lies with either the circumstances or some other person, while the credit for each success goes to ourselves. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. The human brain creates so many stories and we keep believing in all these stories and live life accordingly. For example, many psychological tests challenge our brains. For example, can we read the following sentence: Most of us would be able to read the sentence easily because our brain has developed an ability to economize resources. In the process, it has to learn to make intelligent guesses and make meaning. That is why even if the spelling of almost all the words in the sentence is wrong, our brain makes mean...

डर एक बहुत ही अजीब भावना है. हम सभी के मन में कोई न कोई डर होता है जो हमारे जीवन को प्रभावित करता है। छात्रों को परीक्षाओं का डर है, कर्मचारियों को नौकरी से निकाले जाने का डर है, नियोक्ताओं को पर्याप्त लाभ न कमा पाने का डर है, समुदायों को अपनी पहचान खोने का डर है, राष्ट्रों को हमला होने का डर है और मानवता का डर है विलुप्त होने का डर है. इसमें कोई संदेह नहीं कि ये सभी डर वास्तविक हैं।  संभवतः सभी आशंकाओं का आधार परिवर्तन को स्वीकार करने में असमर्थता है। यह शाश्वत सत्य है कि यदि कोई व्यक्ति या वस्तु जन्म लेती है तो एक दिन उसकी मृत्यु भी होगी। हालाँकि, जैसे-जैसे हमारी उम्र बढ़ती है, हमारे पास जो कुछ है उस पर हमारा लगाव और अधिक विकसित हो जाता है। संभवतः, आंतरिक वियोग के कारण "हम क्या हैं" के बारे में जागरूकता खो देने के कारण, हम अपनी पहचान के बारे में भ्रमित हो जाते हैं और अपनी पहचान खोजने की हताशा में, हम "हमारे पास क्या है" पर केंद्रित हो जाते हैं, और यह मानने लगते हैं कि यही हमारी असली पहचान है। . चूँकि "हमारे पास जो है" वह काफी अस्थायी है और निश्चित रूप से...

Fear is a very strange emotion. All of us have one or the other fear that drives our lives. Students have a fear of examinations, employees have a fear of being removed from the job, employers have a fear of not being able to make sufficient profit, communities have the fear of losing their identities, nations have the fear of being attacked, and humanity has a fear of extinction. There is no doubt that all these fears are real.  Probably, the foundation of all the fears is the inability to accept change. It is an eternal truth that if somebody or something is born, it will die one day. However, as we age, we develop more and more fixation on what we have. Probably, having lost awareness of "what we are" due to the inner disconnection, we get confused about our identity and in desperation to find our identity, we get fixated on "what we have" , and start assuming that to be our true identity. Since "what we have" is quite temporary and will definitely und...

It appears quite strange to see people flaunting their money in different forms. Spending so much money on functions, dresses, and show-offs by society's so-called role models makes us think about which direction the entire society is moving. There is a counter-argument to such flaunting of money that if somebody has worked hard and earned money, then one has a right to spend the way one wishes to spend money.  I feel that the issue is not about the individual's rights rather the issue is about the disconnection of the individual from the whole. Are we so disconnected from the whole that in a world where thousands are dying due to hunger each day, we are not concerned about their pain? It's also a question of wisdom. Is it wise to spend so much money on such temporary things? Have we lost wisdom to the extent that we may spend crores of rupees on partying and bridal dresses? What about the higher level of needs? What about self-actualization needs and love for exploration? ...

हम प्रयासों को बहुत अधिक महत्व देते हैं। हम वांछित परिणाम पाने के लिए प्रयास करते हैं। उदाहरण के लिए, जब हम गुरुत्वाकर्षण बल के विरुद्ध किसी वस्तु को उठाने का प्रयास करते हैं तो हमें प्रयास करना पड़ता है। हालाँकि, यही परिणाम बाहरी अंतरिक्ष में भी प्राप्त किया जा सकता है, जहाँ कोई गुरुत्वाकर्षण नहीं है, बिना किसी प्रयास के, या बहुत कम प्रयास से। इसका मतलब है कि प्रयास करने की आवश्यकता गुरुत्वाकर्षण के कारण उत्पन्न होती है।  अपने दैनिक जीवन में, हम कुछ निश्चित परिणाम प्राप्त करने के लिए प्रयास करते हैं। लेकिन हमें प्रयास क्यों करना है? क्या हम अंतरिक्ष यान की गति की तरह सहजता से जीवन नहीं जी सकते? शायद नहीं। बचपन से ही हमने अलग-अलग आदतें बनाई हैं। हम इनमें से कुछ आदत पैटर्न के प्रति सचेत हैं जबकि उनमें से अधिकांश अचेतन मन में रहते हैं, हमारी विश्वास प्रणाली और जीवन की समझ, सभी का अपना गुरुत्वाकर्षण है। हम जिस भी चीज़ से जुड़ते हैं उसका अपना एक गुरुत्वाकर्षण होता है। उदाहरण के लिए, हमें घर पर रहने की आदत हो जाती है और जब भी हमें घर से बाहर जाना होता है, हॉस्टल में रहना होता है, तो यह ...

We give a lot of premium to efforts. We make efforts to get the desired outcome. For example, when we try to lift something against the force of gravity, we have to make efforts. However, the same outcome can be achieved in outer space, where there is no gravity, without any effort, or with very little effort. That means that the need to make an effort arises due to gravity.  In our daily lives, we make efforts to achieve certain outcomes. But why do we have to make efforts? Can't we live life in an effortless mode like the movement of a spaceship? Probably not. Since childhood, we have formed different habit patterns. We are conscious of some of these habit patterns while most of them remain in the unconscious mind. Our belief systems and understanding of life, all have a gravity of their own. Anything we get attached to has a gravity of its own. For example, we get used to living at home and whenever we have to move out of home, to live in a hostel, that's a big effort agains...

We carry out so many activities almost every day. We read books, go to offices, drive cars, interact with people, do our work, make food in the kitchen, interact with kids and family members, and so on. Every activity we do has an impact on us. In fact, we are the sum total of the activities we have carried out so far. I feel that there are three different parts of our being: Mind, body, and soul, and each activity carried out by us has an impact on all these three beings.  Certain activities look fun for the mind, but they are not good for the body. For example, junk food tastes good and that is the reason that our minds like more and more junk food. It stimulates our taste buds and that is the reason why we feel we want to have more and more junk food. However, it has a bad impact on the body, especially the internal organs. Similarly, many people get used to alcohol and drugs. The mind wants more and more of the same, however, these substances are quite harmful to the body. Simi...

It's quite interesting to observe what development has done to us. Why are there wars among nations? Why are there dictators like Hitler? Why are there psychological disorders among the rich? Why is there so much exploitation in this world? Why are people spending crores of rupees on useless functions while so many are dying hungry? How do we get so disconnected from fellow human beings? Human beings are very insecure since the body they are born in is very fragile by its very nature. The moment we get some illness or accident, we feel pain in different parts of our body. Even a baby cries when he feels pain. That is the natural defense mechanism of the body. The body tries to draw our attention by making us feel pain so that we attend to that particular area of the body. If there is pain in the stomach, we will take a painkiller or any other medicine suggested by the doctor. Do we feel happy when there is no pain in the body? Probably not. We take the body for granted and the mome...