Life

" Purpose of life " is something we are trying to discover through the spiritual journey . A few years back, I designed a Google survey and sent it to a few friends to discover the most common conflicts in midlife . One of the most common responses of the people was that they were confused about the purpose of life. Having achieved the target milestones in their careers and families, they had little to look forward to. I see most of them today after 4-5 years. All of them have set new targets for themselves. Some have made health and fitness their priority, while others are investing their time and energy in spiritual pursuits. A friend shared a video this morning that's basically about Zen 's understanding of life's purpose. It says the ego seeks the purpose of life. Life is all about living in the present moment rather than discovering its purpose. It reminds me of the story of the frog in the well, told by Swami Vivekananda at the Parliament of Religions in C...

One of the biggest boons we all have is " limited awareness ". We can see the things that are larger than a particular limit. Think of the scenario where we can see everything clearly, however small. What if we could see the viruses and bacteria inside the food? Would we be able to eat that food? What if we could see the small microbes on the floor? Would we be able to walk? What if we can see the dust particles in the air clearly? What if we could read the minds of the people we live with? We would probably not be able to tolerate them. What if we could see our past lives? It will be difficult for us to live such a shallow life again and again. At the same time, there is a lot of premium to "awareness' in almost every spiritual tradition. Doesn't it appear to be contradictory? Why would we try to be aware of the things that are going to give us pain? When we talk about awareness, it comes in two types. First, awareness of the external world; second, awareness of...

 Life is the sum total of the choices we make. Ram 's life would have been different had he chosen not to go to the forest. The life of Krishna would have been completely different had he chosen not to leave Brij for Mathura. My life would have been different had I not listened to Narayan ji , my CA, when I was working in a CA firm after appearing for my CA final exam, to prepare for the civil services. I never heard of the Civil Services before that. Our choices related to friends, education, career, marriage, kids, and lifestyle all have a huge impact on who we are. In fact, we are so different because we made different choices at different points in our lives. But what about the situations? It was only because Kaikeyi asked the two boons that Rama had to make a choice to go or not to go to the forest. It was because Kansa called Krishna that he decided to leave Brij. It was only because Narayan ji spoke to me that I had to make a decision. We come across different people in o...

 A seed is well protected within its cover. We see so many different types of seeds in our kitchen, some of which even survive for months without much struggle. The grains of wheat may remain safe in that drum inside our house for months. However, when a grain is sown into the ground, its struggle starts. Now it will look for the water and food and spread its roots inside the soil. It will have to struggle against the insects, wind, and the rough weather. It's not as safe as inside the drum, yet the opportunities for its growth have manifolded now. Inside the drum, its fate was decided. Within a few months, it will be ground and become food for somebody without realising its fullest potential. However, it has to face all the challenges on the ground to realise its potential. Having faced these challenges, it has the opportunity to emerge from the soil as a plant, interact directly with the Sun, and grow to its fullest potential. Our ego is also like that grain of wheat. Usually, we...

Why did Duryodhana not have any remorse despite being so unfair to the Pandavas , while Arjuna was quite unsure about hitting an arrow at his cousins? What made Arjuna so sensitive while Duryodhana so insensitive? Is sensitivity a curse? The ego , like skin, forms a protective cover around us. As skin protects us from viruses and bacteria, the ego too protects us from many things. When we see so many people dying hungry for food, the ego tells us that we are different from them and we have the right to accumulate money in our accounts even if so many people in this world are dying hungry. We remain immune to the comments of others and reject them at the outset. We remain immune to the actions of the people around us, and often our ego ridicules them as illogical. As we grow spiritually, we open up. We dare to remove that safety cover of the ego. As we open up, all types of influences impact us. Because we do not ridicule or reject them at the very outset. The problem with the ego is ...

One good thing that I like about the government service is that your roles keep changing. Today I was looking at the transfer and posting orders and realised that soon after the order, the roles of so many of us will change for the next two years. It's so easy to see this change of roles. In fact, none of us has an option to ignore it. You have to perform the duty assigned to you. Yes, I see that people get attached to their positions and start playing inter-division politics . We get a position for just 2-3 years and become attached to it. The moment we get out of that position, we realise the stupidity of falling into another trap. We can't see the reality, even though it is so open before us. We sit and sleep in our room every day, and yet if somebody asks all of a sudden about the colour of the bed sheet, we won't realise because our attention isn't on the colour of the bed sheet. Similarly, we might have spent a day with a friend, and if someone asks us what dress...

 So many laws have been enacted worldwide to regulate human relations. There are laws around almost every aspect of human behaviour, such as laws dealing with crime, contracts, relations, possession of property, liabilities, nuisance, corruption, dowry, marriage, succession, partnerships, companies, tax, security, and so on. The entropy of the legal literature is so huge that I don't think that any AI engine in the world as of date would have access to the entire legal literature of the world. Every day, thousands of decisions are announced, and none of us has the capacity to be aware of them all. Despite so much jurisprudence, have we been able to resolve the problems of humanity? No. In fact, the more laws are made, the more people find loopholes therein. The law-breakers are always a few steps ahead of the law-makers. This cat-and-mouse game may go on forever, but we have probably missed a very fundamental aspect of human behaviour. While watching the web series Chiraya , my min...

While reading the Constitution of India and the legal debates and case laws, I realised that so many legal battles have been fought around freedom of expression and liberty. In fact, the entire freedom struggle was around freedom and liberty. We should have the right to manage our own affairs, to have our own representatives in Parliament, and to freedom of expression and the right to live a dignified life . This has been the struggle of all the countries that have fought their battle for freedom.  I'm surprised to see how easily people give in to social pressure . The freedom of expression, the right to a dignified life, and the right to make choices : these are all surrendered to social pressure quite often. How many of us would speak what we feel on any issue if we are surrounded by people who have a different opinion on the same issue? All of us have experienced a simple instance where, at a wedding, the music is generally loud and relatives who have come from distant places...

Are we the roles playing in this world, or are we the souls who are capable of playing different roles? This is a fundamental question because all subsequent questions, such as those about morality, responsibility, guilt, right, wrong, and the like, flow from it. Generally, while living our lives, we take guidance from our roles. If we are in a family, we want to protect our family. Similarly, we define different roles and rights and wrongs associated with them. I was reading Jurisprudence yesterday for my law examination, and I came across a beautiful concept called the " Grudge Informer Dilemma ," proposed by the German legal philosopher Gustav Radbruch . A lady passed on the information to the Nazi government, and the husband was executed by the Nazi's. Post the change of the Hitler regime, a prosecution was launched against her, and she argued that she complied with the law of the land, and that's why she should not be held guilty. Radbruch argued that when positi...

All of us are quite aware of the role we play in this world. I am a father, mother, son, daughter, employee, student, teacher, boss, friend, and so on. But do we remember that we are somebody else behind these identities? Today, while sitting in meditation, I realised that these roles carry so much weight on our soul that even when we close our eyes to begin the inner journey , the journey of "who am I?", these roles continue to play in our minds. The thoughts about the future, office, relationships, etc do not leave us.  Then what is the way out? How do we get to see the reality beyond these roles ? While interacting with each other in this world, we obviously have to stick to these roles. When we interact in society, we have to remember these roles. While doing our work in the office, we can't suddenly say, "I will not treat my boss as a boss because that's just a role." Since we play these roles day in and day out, we become confined to them. Our existenc...

I wonder if we give away the most precious things in this just to get something that has little utility. I feel pained to see the way precious resources are being wasted. We have made our rivers so dirty just because we do not want to make the effort to treat effluents before dumping them into the rivers. We keep throwing the garbage everywhere, and literally all the roads are full of polyethene and packaging papers. All the cities are full of the stench from dumping grounds at their entrances. Groundwater is getting contaminated. Due to our foolishness, we have given away the most precious things, such as clean water, air, and the ecosystem, to get that extra comfort. All these things are still visible. One thing that hardly catches our attention is the freedom of leisure . Earlier, we used to have that time to talk to friends, sleep under the stars, and sit silently in our own company. Nowadays, we don't have time for two reasons. First, we are busy chasing our dreams. The dre...

Can slavery ever choose freedom? Can the ego choose love ever? Can a servant choose to start entrepreneurship? Yes, of course. They can. However, it does not generally happen. People who get used to the security of a job find it extremely hard to set up their own ventures, and only one out of many thousands dares to do so. Similarly, it is very difficult for the slaves to get the mindset of freedom. Only a very few Indians could dream of being free in British-ruled India. Years of slavery kill their dreams also. Slavery gets into the blood of a human being, and he accepts his fate to be a slave. He does not think of something like freedom; day-to-day survival is the most important thing. Similarly, years of living with the ego at the centre of our lives leave hardly any scope for us to be free.  Can "I' ever love? It seems almost impossible. So long as "I" and "you" exist, where is the question of loving? Love means merger . How can two people merge while...

What is our greatest fear? Different people will give different answers. A child may answer that his biggest fear is losing his parents. A student may answer that his biggest fear is failure in the examination. In fact, many of us dream of failing examinations even after getting into the job. An adult may have the biggest fear of losing his job. Somebody may have a fear of losing a relationship. Some of us may have the greatest fear of being turned into a laughing stock at a social gathering. An industrialist may have the greatest fear of losing his business empire. A politician may have the greatest fear of losing power. A person fighting against cancer may have the greatest fear of death. But how many of us have the fear of wasting life ? As discussed above, we are afraid of different things. As children, we feared losing the toy we considered our most prized possession. While playing cricket, we were afraid of losing the ball. Today, we understand the futility of that fear. As a chi...

 Yesterday, I had an opportunity to interact with a few children and women at an NGO in Nagpur . I went there for the second time. It was really a thought-provoking session for me. The girls there are away from their homes, and in most cases, they either do not know their families' whereabouts or, even if they do, their families are not willing to take them back. They are struggling to be on their feet somehow. They have real problems. Some of them are unable to read or write. Some of them are not in good mental health, yet all of them are determined to do something and improve their lives. 3-4 girls are preparing for a nursing course , one girl is doing a B.Sc., and one has done a  BCA . Some are doing the beauty parlor course . I told them that their story is actually inspiring for so many people living in the world of bureaucracy , which I belong to, and who feel depressed over small issues without having an iota of an idea of the real problems of the world I asked the gir...

While walking, I just saw a couple sitting on the pavement. Slight disappointment on their face with the male smoking and the female sitting as if feeling helpless. They really looked constrained for resources. On the other hand, we often see so many people who have all the resources available to them sitting constrained. I fail to understand why they feel hopeless and constrained despite having a sound body, a skilful mind, and enough resources to do something or the other. I find no reason for that helplessness except that they just want to feel helpless. Probably, they do not want to work hard, and feeling helpless looks like an easy option. Some experiments were conducted on mice in which they were kept in a box with low boundaries and given an electric shock. All of them jumped the boundary and ran away. Slowly, the boundary's height was increased until they could no longer jump over it. After some time, the " learned helplessness " set in: they couldn't jump the...