Life

 What is the meaning of "love" in relationships? Family is one of the most fundamental organizations in which human beings operate. Are families glued together with love? If that is so, why are there so many separations within the families? Why is there sibling rivalry ? Why is there a fight among the brothers that reaches the courts? Why is there a competition among the family members to snatch the resources?  But they stand with each other in crisis. If one member of the family falls ill, the others stand with him. If one member of the family meets with an accident, the others are there to take care. When one member of the family passes through tough times, the others come together to support them. The members of the family celebrate each other's achievements together. They gather to celebrate festivals. Definitely, they are glued together. Yes, there is no doubt that family members, in most cases, are closely bonded. But what is this glue made of? The nature of that gl...

 I often get surprised to meet people who are quite confident about their viewpoints and refuse to listen to the viewpoints of everybody else. You feel like breaking your head against a pillar while talking to these people. Life is like an AI engine . Whatever type of videos we watch often, the AI engine of YouTube throws more such videos into our YouTube reels . Slowly, one develops a distorted perception of reality .  Life is also like that. When we have very strong viewpoints, we refuse to listen to the people who have a different viewpoint. Slowly, such people maintain a distance, and we get surrounded by the people who have a viewpoint similar to ours. Thus, our viewpoints get confirmed every day that viewpoint appears to us to be quite universal. Slowly, we start rejecting the other viewpoint outrightly and we become prisoners of our own viewpoints. We become quite aggressive while telling our viewpoint, as if others are fools.  Is there any way out? Yes. Definitely...

Over the last four days, I have been observing the extremes of life. On the one hand, I met people who are quite privileged, and on the other hand, I also met those people who are in prison, or whose families have abandoned them, or who have been subjected to all types of brutalities of life. I wonder why so many privileged people become so narrow and adamant, while many who have undergone difficult times become so broad. Is it destily ? Or is it a choice?  Would any person who has passed out of college like to go back to his nursery class and again study there? Would any person who has come out of his village, got the exposure of the whole world, like to be confined to that village? Would any person who has come out of the well to experience the open sky ever like to be confined to the well? Everybody would agree that none of these is a possibility. Once we are exposed to the wider world, we never want to be confined to that narrow world. But why do people resist coming out of tha...

I came back to NADT for the reunion. It's a wonderful feeling to see people grow in different directions. We all started with NADT around 20 years back, and all of us have grown in many different directions. When we were in NADT together 20 years back, most of us were unmarried. Now, almost all of us are married and have kids studying in different grades. All of us were different when we started our journey, though the differences were not that explicit. Now, after 20 years, each one of us has travelled a long distance with those differences, and the differences are quite explicit.  Many of us tried to explore the meaning of life in quite different ways. A few got associated with a spiritual organization and are exploring the meaning of life with the help of the teachings of the Guru they follow, while a few are exploring different organizations. Everybody has interesting experiences to share. It's wonderful to listen to all these experiences.  I feel that all of us are he...

Today is Ganesha Chaturthi , the day when we pray to lord Ganesha . Lord Ganesha is first among the Gods. He is to be prayed to before any other God as per the Indian mythology . This has a very profound message and story behind it, which will help us recall the logic. Ma Parvati gave birth to Ganesha. She asked Ganesha to protect her personal space from intrusion. Ma Parvati is the creator of this universe. We, too, are creators of our own universe, which comprises our belief systems and mental stories about the whole of the world we interact with. We, too, have given birth to our own Ganesha, our intellect, that defends our belief systems, viewpoints, and the mental stories. The moment we encounter a different viewpoint or thought process, our intellect comes to our defence, and we argue to convince the other about our viewpoint. Everything was going well till Lord Shiva entered the story. Ganesha could not recognise Shiva and stopped him from entering the cave. Shiva insisted, but...

Each human being wants to be loved. Given a choice, nobody will choose fear over love. However, the fact is that we choose fear over love almost every moment of our lives. How? Why would I choose fear over love? It is because we do not understand what love means. We choose to study hard during our childhood. Where is this choice coming from? We talk to hundreds of students during our workshops, and find that in most cases, this drive to study hard comes from some fears. If the child is coming from a financially and socially challenged background, he wants to study hard to get respect in society, and if a child is coming from a well-to-do family, generally his drive comes from his desire to go abroad or get money to fulfil his desire. But, where is fear in this? Isn't the desire to get the fear of social disapproval at its core? Isn't the desire to earn money have fear of being uncomfortable at its core? Isn't the desire to go abroad driven by fear of being stuck here? The ...

 The day before yesterday, I went to a salon for a haircut . I realised that just some time back, hair was part of me, and once they were cut by the barber, it was just garbage to be thrown into the dustbin. In fact, we want to quickly wash them away after taking a bath. Leave aside hair and nails, we donate our blood, and once we donate blood, we do not carry the same sense of "I" with that blood. Today, medical science is capable of transplanting kidneys, liver, and even after that, the sense of "I" still remains the same. The transplanted organ also becomes a part of "I". In Vipassana , we are told to practice concentrating on the breath and observing sensations in different parts of our bodies. However, that's quite counterintuitive. Since childhood, we have been programmed to have that strong sense of "I". To react to every pain and take immediate measures to treat it. We do not wait to take a painkiller. The moment there is any pleasan...

I have been struggling for the last few days with my Chrome search engine . Earlier, it used to open with Google window, and my searches used to fetch very good results. Now it opens with Yahoo , which is not so good. I enquired on the internet as to what happened. I came to know that there is a bug that has set Yahoo as the default search engine on Chrome. I changed the setting to make Google my default search engine, but it got changed again, and slowly, I am getting used to Yahoo. Not so that Google is not there, but Google is not the default. Not so that I do not have the capacity to change it to a more efficient Google, but every time I open Chrome, I am in a hurry, and in such a hurry, I end up searching on the default browser . Today, we were discussing the reasons why some individuals get stuck within a frame. While contemplating the discussions, I realised that there is no difference between us and the browser. The human brain also has a default network that responds to situ...

We don’t owe our lives to anybody, not even to parents, friends, or relatives. Yet, we live in a society. We are not truly free in any manner whatsoever. We depend on parents for bringing us up, employers for employment, relationships for support, and friends for spending time together. We are also dependent on various institutions and organisations. Even this blog cannot teach you unless there is somebody providing internet connectivity, a laptop, and also an application called Blogger. In this complicated world, where is the scope for individual freedom ? Yet, in the very same world, there have been many who have chosen freedom. What is different in these people from others who spend their entire lives in mental slavery ? Who do not gather courage all through their lives to say no ever. To the best of my understanding, there is only one factor that distinguishes the free souls from the slaves. The free souls somehow get to see a ray of light in the dark, while the slaves inside the...

Yesterday, there was a discussion around expectations of the parents from their children and why it happens. I feel that the bigger question is "why do we have expectations at all?". We have expectations from the people we know, our relatives, friends, and children. We have given birth to our children and taken care of them all through their childhood, and therefore, we have a right to expect? We have stood with our friends in their tough times, and therefore, we have a right to expect? But this still does not answer the basic question. Why do we expect at all? We have certain experiences in life, and based on these experiences, we make some meaning of life. For most people, life is about comforts and pleasures . For some, it is about running away from certain fears. A person who had an easy childhood will like those comforts and pleasures to continue, while another person, who had a difficult childhood, would like to avoid the recurrence of those incidents. We make certain w...

Why was Hitler unable to change himself? Not so that Hitler was stupid. All of us have habit patterns. I like sweets. I know it is not good for my health, and yet when there is a craving for something sweet, I give up and take something sweet. Obesity is so common nowadays. Not so that an overweight person does not want to be slim. But he surrenders to his craving for food. Somebody surrenders to his craving for food, somebody to sweets, somebody to money, and somebody to powers. Isn't this one and the same thing? When it comes to decisions, we just follow the directions of our unconscious minds .  We have all heard of classical conditioning , wherein some mice are kept in a box with a low boundary wall. As scientists switch on, a light electric current flows through the box, and the mice become uncomfortable and jump out of the box. Then the scientists increase the height of the boundary slowly, and the mice are not able to run away due to the height. Slowly, the mice get used t...

 Yesterday, I had discussions with friends around free will vs destiny . When we look at the horoscope of a person, we can predict many life events of that person. But can someone predict, by looking at the horoscope, the center of life of that person? Whether his life will be driven by greed or love and compassion. I feel that it's a nightmare for the astrologers. If consciousness is like the Higgs field from which all the bosons and fermions take birth, and these bosons and fermions represent the material world, bosons and fermions would be bound by the nature of their constitution only as long as they are bosons and fermions. When they merge back into the Higgs field, they have complete free will. Free will not as a unit, but as a part of the whole. The whole of the Higgs field and a part thereof are equally intelligent. The whole of the consciousness and a part thereof are equally intelligent. When these bosons and fermions take the form of atoms , they are further bound by ...

Often, our inability to discriminate is a primary reason for our suffering. We suffer in relationships and justify the same, saying that we are emotional, while the fact of the matter is that we are weak and that weakness creates dependence, and that dependence results in exploitation, and we suffer due to that silent exploitation. Since we do not acknowledge our weaknesses, we never work on our weaknesses and grow weaker with each passing day. The same thing happens in organisations. We suffer because we are not competent, and therefore our employer takes advantage of us and exploits us. We give it the name of compulsion and keep justifying the same.  We often try to hide reality behind something else. We will not acknowledge the differentiation in society based on gender and caste, and try to justify the same in the name of customs and traditions. We try to hide the ill effects of preservatives in the packaged products with taste enhancers . "Good boy" is a compliment tha...

We had an interaction session with children in the last two days. It was really wonderful to interact with the children. We discussed their fears, ambitions, and dreams. It is so good to see their willingness to challenge fears. They are willing to examine their fear of separation from parents , judgment by society , comparison with peers , and fear of failure . They are willing to work hard to handle these fears. Once that openness to examine and willingness to work hard to develop capacity are there, they are going to handle all these fears sooner or later.  It seems strange that children are so open to examining their fears, while adults often become so rigid in admitting their fears. When we visit a doctor, we have to tell the doctor our exact feelings and symptoms so that the doctor can diagnose. If we pretend to be OK, how is the doctor going to diagnose? Most adults keep suffering and do not gather the courage even to admit that they are sick, leaving aside visiting the doct...

The present-day world is so obsessed with speed and targets. When Krishna says in the Bhagwat Geeta that we should focus on the work and not be bothered about results, what does he really mean, and how is the same relevant in the present-day world, over-obsessed with results? The world is so fast. We travel by flight and cross many oceans and countries in hours. In fact, the present-day rockets are trying to take human beings to Mars . We have already reached the Moon .  When we take a flight and set the destination as our target, we pass through so many cities. Do we actually experience any of those cities or countries? For example, while flying from Delhi to NewYork , one may pass through many countries of Asia and Europe . Do we actually get to experience those countries? No. But when we travel by train, we pass through cities and get to experience a little bit of those cities. When we travel by bus, we get to know a little bit more about the cities on the way. We decided to...

Today is India's Independence Day . Freedom and independence are the most fundamental prerequisites for growth and exploration. A slave can't decide his priorities. Similarly, a dependent person is often exploited by the person to whom they are dependent. The freedom we enjoy today is a result of the extraordinary sacrifices of many freedom fighters . It could happen when a few realized the value of freedom, and it was in fact so valuable to them that they were not afraid to risk their lives to get it back. There were many, even in that era, who believed in " chalta hai ". Why does this "chalta hai" attitude get ingrained in our psyche? Why don't we act when we see people littering on the roads ? Because cleanliness is not dear to us, and that's why "chalta hai". Why don't we act when we are in the midst of a discussion and someone hijacks the discussion and speaks rubbish? It is because we do not value time, and that's why "c...

There are times when we feel running out of options, and a sort of hopelessness sets in. It so happened with many of us during the COVID-19 times. We don't know what to do, and we feel so unsure. Most people are "worldly intelligent" and know how to find solutions. They make decisions in their life keeping the most fundamental principle of risk management in their mind, which says that "don't keep all your eggs in one basket". That's why they diversify their risk. They do not invest too much of their time and attention in one thing. They keep many relationships and switch over from one to the other for support in moments of crisis.  Some people are not so "worldly intelligent," and therefore they focus on one relationship, and that's why they are shattered in the moment of crisis. That's why many parents, who have focused their entire life on their only child, get shattered in the moments of any problem with that child. Does that mea...

We see numerous demonstrations of "love" at times such as Valentine's Day , Mother's Day , Father's Day , Children's Day , and Daughter's Day , among others. Have we ever analysed what these relationships mean to us? What are we seeking through these relationships? Some sort of security? Hope that these people will stand with us in the time of crisis? If that is the case, why are the cases of depression on the rise? Why do so many people feel "lonely" despite their Facebook showing so many friends? Why are children committing suicide? Why are people constantly stressed?  I feel that a fearful mind distorts reality. The fearful mind will either fight or flee. It will not stay and observe. For a fearful person, relationships are just a "tool" to help him respond to his fears: either fighting or fleeing. For example, we are all haunted by the fear of social disapproval . Most people make "success" their winning formula to fight ...