Life

Fear drives our lives. Are poor people more fearful than the rich? On the surface, this is true. However, reality is quite different. We see street children playing fearlessly on the streets despite heavy traffic. While the privileged children are afraid to even step outside their homes. We have a fear of losing "what we hold on to". Therefore, it depends on what we hold on to. We generally hold on to our image, dreams, relationships, and possessions. We hold on to our image, and that's the reason why the toppers in the school are often afraid. They are afraid to have a dent in their image of being brilliant. Initially, they ask questions fearlessly, appreciated in the process, but slowly in the process, they "hold on to that image of being brilliant", and slowly become quite fearful of "losing that tag". That makes them full of fear and cautious while asking questions and participating in the discussions. Similarly, many employees hold on to their ima...

Our daily schedule drains our energy and leaves little time to contemplate the meaning of life. We wake up in the morning and help the kids get ready for school. By the time they leave for school, it’s time for a walk or morning exercise, and after we return and finish the newspaper, it’s time to head to the office. The moment we reach the office, we operate on autopilot for the rest of the day. When we finally get home, we are almost exhausted, but we somehow manage to complete our evening walk, have dinner, and go to bed. Most people in this world live the same life. We wait for the weekend to watch movies and socialise with friends, and spend some time with family. Weekend passes very quickly, and again, the same routine takes over. In fact, with quick changes in the work culture in almost every organization, now even weekends are turning into working days.  Pre-civilization, each human being was free to choose their schedule. Conditions were quite harsh. Everybody needs to work...

A few days back, I observed some of the kids trying to earn some money by wiping the glasses of cars on the roads while the cars stopped at the traffic lights. Some ladies were also carrying babies in their laps and begging for money. This is one strata of the society that is somehow struggling for survival. There is another sector of society that is comfortable in mediocrity. That includes the people who are born rich and have a family business. The kids take over the family business from their parents without any new innovation. This also includes the people who spend their entire lives doing a routine job without much innovation. That also includes people who stay at home without any drive for excellence in any area of life. There is a third category of people who are always working hard for excellence in all walks of life. That may include scientists constantly trying the break the frontiers of present-day knowledge, doctors trying to find treatment for complicated diseases, spirit...

We make choices almost every moment. Sometimes we choose to listen, while sometimes we choose to close our ears. We listen carefully when somebody is talking sense, while closing our ears to nonsense. We listen to nice music while closing our ears when somebody is honking unnecessarily.  While listening to anything, what is our first reaction? For example, when we listen to honking, what is our first reaction? We may become alert to see whether we have done something wrong, or there is something wrong with the vehicle, and somebody is trying to attract our attention. However, when we are waiting at the red light, and somebody is honking from the back side, we tend to ignore the same. Similarly, in a city like Delhi, there is too much unnecessary honking, and we tend to ignore honking many times. However, on the other hand, when our parents tell us something unpleasant, we may close our ears to the same, which may have long-term consequences. For example, when we do not listen to th...

One of the most amazing attributes of a "stupid" person is his conviction. He has so little exposure to life that he is quite convinced of what he thinks. The top-notch scientists of the day are not sure of the universe's genesis, but a "stupid" person would be convinced of the universe's genesis based on whatever he has heard in the mythological stories prevalent in his society. This "conviction" is very attractive. People want certainty, and that is why these "idiots" are sold heavily in the market.  It makes sense. Why would somebody like to go for inconclusive and confused advice? But at what cost? You go to a baba and the baba tells with certainty that you imagine "God" using a particular technique, and due to constant "mental visualization" of God, you get to hallucinate meeting God. Yes, it has fulfilled the long-pending desire. But what has it done to our lives? Hasn't it wrapped our lives with a thick laye...

It is really disturbing to hear the news of so many people being killed in the name of religion and nationality. Some people have killed people belonging to a faith that they do not agree with. Tomorrow, somebody may declare blue to be their favourite color and start killing people who wear red or pink or any other color. What can be greater stupidity and cruelty than this?  What is the role of religion in our lives? In fact, what is religion? Some people, at some point in time, undertook an inner journey and had some experiences. They have spoken about these experiences, and these experiences have been written down by their disciples in the form of different books. Sometimes, the people who had these experiences have themselves written down in the form of books. These scriptures are open to anybody to explore the path and have the same experiences. To be able to have these experiences, certain ways and means have been suggested by these enlightened people. However, none of these e...

There are two essential components of any weight loss journey: mindful eating and regular exercise. People may differ on what to eat and which exercise to do. Thus, we have to focus on both the intake of food and the burning of fat deposits. Similarly, there are two things common in the mindfulness journey: the making and the burning of fixations.  Every day during our interactions, we keep developing new fixations. We drive on the road, look at the cars of new brands and models, and desire a new car. Slowly and gradually, this desire gets converted into a fixation. Similarly, we meet a friend who is settled abroad, and he tells us all the good things about being abroad. We develop a desire to settle abroad, and slowly, that dream gets converted into a fixation. The world is full of many such temptations, and the temptation we get fixated on becomes the fulcrum of our lives. We have developed many such fixations during our childhood that still influence our decisions. In the journe...

All of us have fears. Fear of falling ill, fear of losing our jobs, fear of being insulted, fear of losing reputation, fear of an accident, fear of losing family members, and so on. Basically, we have a fear of undesired consequences and situations. That means we want "desired" consequences and situations. Why are we so afraid of undesired consequences and situations? Because we have not made ourselves capable of facing those situations.  Most of us are afraid of failing in the examinations, while many great scientists dropped out of school or never did formal schooling. Examples include Albert Einstein, who struggled with traditional schooling but made groundbreaking discoveries in physics, and Leonardo da Vinci, a polymath who excelled in various fields without formal university training. We are afraid of losing jobs, while many world-famous entrepreneurs left their well-established jobs to start their own businesses. Some prominent examples include Falguni Nayar of Nykaa, ...

Yesterday, I watched the movie "Kesari" and that forced me to think about why some people develop so much hatred to kill thousands of people. For some, even killing a mosquito who is sucking our blood may be difficult, and some carry our genocide. What makes them disconnect that much from fellow human beings? How much these human beings must be suffering internally within that close space, inside which the cries of thousands of human beings do not reach their ears. Why did Indians support the British officers in their exploitative and inhuman behaviour against their fellow Indians? There may be many psychological explanations for this. In fact, the movie has tried to demonstrate one such possible explanation: Dyer was bullied very badly in his childhood by his Indian colleagues due to his stammering. However, so many kids are bullied in their childhood, yet they do not turn into monsters. Turning into monsters requires complete disconnection from life, uninterrupted powers, a...

 We all want to be "comfortable" in life. We want to have a comfortable home. We buy a home loan to buy a comfortable home, and spend almost 20 precious years of our lives just to repay the home loan. We want a "comfortable lifestyle" and become almost slaves of our employer due to our dependency on our salary. We want "comfortable relations" and to maintain that "comfort", we become quite inauthentic in our behaviour. We have a lot of grudges against our relatives and friends, and yet do not express them, and remain inauthentic. These inauthenticities make our relationships hollow like the termite spoiling the wooden furniture. In the moments of crisis, these relationships shatter, and we feel cheated. We want "comfortable talks" and therefore everybody avoids telling "uncomfortable truths". We never get to see our reality, and we continue to live with our own mental stories about ourselves until some crisis strips us of our ...

All of us come to this Earth for a limited time. We are given "body and mind" as an instrument to explore. While the upkeep and maintenance of this body and mind are essential, the primary purpose of "life" is to use these tools to explore. After all, we do maintain and upkeep our cars by getting their annual service done, getting them insured in case of accidents, supplying regular fuel to them, getting them washed and cleaned, yet the primary purpose of a car is to help us travel from one place to another. We use cars to travel to the destinations we know. We also use cars to explore destinations unknown to us. Travelling to the known destinations is fun. While driving to the "Road frequently travelled", we get to encounter different scenes not seen before. We get to see different terrain, climate, and weather. We move from the plains to the mountains or vice versa. We get to see the beaches. Sometimes we drive on the long, lonely roads. Sometimes, heavy...

 Indian society is so fixated on settlement. Parents want their kids to be settled soon so that their responsibilities are over. What is the meaning of "being settled"? Most parents feel their kids are settled when they get a decent degree, a good job, marry, and have two kids. At each of the stages, there is a lot of "violence" that kids have to face. If the kids want to study the subjects of their choice, parents often ridicule their choices for not being "good" for their early settlement. After the degree, again, kids have to face offensive interactions, often asking about the job and the package. The entire existence of the children is evaluated in terms of the package they get in their placement. The kids who fail to get a job in the campus placements are considered to be failures, and often their parents consider it a social stigma and often hide these facts. On the other hand, the parents of the children who got fat pay packages boast around as if i...

"Emotional Intelligence" is a term coined by Daniel Goleman. His book titled "Emotional Intelligence," written by Daniel Goleman, was my first book outside the syllabus, which I read in 2003. This morning, I was discussing with Jigya, my younger daughter, why Newton could observe the falling apple quite differently while so many people would have been watching the same phenomenon for centuries. Probably, because different thoughts often occupy our attention. Our minds are generally in an auto mode wherein there is a constant flow of thoughts. We keep thinking about the past and the future, and an endless thread of thoughts keeps our minds occupied. There are very few occasions when we are actually in the present moment, observing the phenomenon. That's why most of the wonders of nature remain unnoticed. At best, we just click a photograph and then forget. We are so busy with our thoughts that hardly anybody gets inspired to explore the nature of reality. A few s...

The well-known psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has coined the term "flow". He explains that flow is a state wherein we are so engrossed with the work at hand that we lose awareness of time. He has written a book titled "Flow" and explained that most geniuses in different fields of science, arts, and sports experience the state of flow on their occasions. On the other hand, we often experience stress and work pressure. Are we doing more work than scientists like Einstein or Newton, sportsmen like Michael Phelps, or artists like Vasco da Gama? Definitely not. Then why are we so stressed, and these people were in a state of flow? Krishna in the Bhagwat Geeta has given one simple "mantra" for the state of flow. He says that we should concentrate on "swadharma" and not think of the "results". It is often criticized that if we do not think of the results, how will we get the motivation to work? Since childhood, we have been told that we ...

 Yesterday, I came into contact with a few people associated with a cancer hospital, and I asked them what the best way out is for the people suffering from terminal cancer who have no scope of recovery. Treatment of cancer is costly due to expensive machines and the short useful life of the machines. I asked them about the possibilities of shifting to alternative therapies such as naturopathy. As I understood from their replies, at the terminal stage, there is a lot of suffering because the cancerous cells are growing and constantly hitting the healthy part of the body. Therefore, they administer morphine to reduce the pain. At the last stage, it is all about minimizing the pain. On the other hand, a few years back, I read the book "Dying to be me" by Anita Moorjani, a person of Indian origin who got cancer, and her treatment took place in Singapore. When doctors told her husband that she was not going to survive beyond a few hours, she had a near-death experience where she ...

There are all types of addicted people in society. Some are addicted to drugs. Drugs are one of the most difficult addictions to handle. The addicted person experiences extreme withdrawal symptoms in the form of extreme body aches and breathlessness, and therefore, it is very difficult to be free of this addiction. Similarly, many people are addicted to liquor, and similarly, they also become restless when they are deprived of liquor. Some people like me are addicted to sugar, and sugar also has withdrawal symptoms. Unfortunately, sugar addiction has the approval of society. Wherever we go, people offer sweets and since we are already addicted to that, we have to be quite mindful to say no to sweets because first of all, the mind is craving for the sensation of the sweets on the tongue and then by saying "no" we have to give a solid reason as well. The easiest option is to say "yes," and that is how the addiction continues. Since the side effects of sweets are not a...

The actions of any great personality in this world are guided by love, compassion, and freedom. It is because of "Awareness" of the real nature of "self". As we become aware of our true nature, we feel "free". Our true "being" is free of all the identifications because all the identifications exist in the domain of ignorance. Due to ignorance, we feel insecure, and due to that insecurity, we try to identify with something or the other to feel secure, depending upon the "mental stories" we listened to since our childhood. Some feel secure with social validation, some with relationships, some with friends, some with money, and some with powers. Some feel secure by believing certain concepts of "God" and believing that "God" will help in the moments of crisis. Some believe in the theory of Karma and keep accumulating "good deeds" in their bank account to remain safe in the moments of crisis. Some feel secure w...