Some insights on routine life

Tea, toast and today’s news, and you get a synopsis of changing world. I always bothered; the daily appearing changes are actually resulting from small changes every day. In past 10 years I’ve witness a lot of change in me and in my surroundings. I believe this will hold true for most of us. I am not debating here on quality of change like good or bad. But, even with acceptance of this fact, I get confused while looking at my recent past in the form of a typical day, a typical week or a typical month, I found everything constant, repetitive and continual. When the change actually happened?

I met a person, of my father’s age, retiring from his job, has made a home, supported his children, make them successful by a mediocre, repetitive, constant and continual job in a government organization.  At 60, is he satisfied? How satisfied will I be if reach 60?

There is no harm in repetition. It trains your subconscious to perform in auto mode. You may not be innovative, but you will be less strained and more relaxed person. But the other part of life’s truth is that we have an active life of approx 60 years in which around 25 years are consumed in educating and training ourselves. Do we early have enough time to achieve everything we really want?

The aspirations are always bigger than the capacity of time available, which is why it is called aspirations. But there are some people who, repetitively and continually challenge the capacity of time. For them, their aspirations are continual accomplishments. We have such examples in every field; name any; sports, arts, business etc.

Accomplishments are always balanced. Otherwise, it’s merle money or result. I believe in a balanced approach to life; challenging your capacity of time for all your professional and personal aspirations. If your personal aspirations like your love life, hobbies etc, trigger a balanced personality in you, your professional accomplishments provide a unique identity. In real terms both are complementary. Without one, the other can appear once in a while, but not in routine.

Which category of love you are in?

In my previous two posts Unconditional Love and Beauty of Full Moon, I’d discussed two aspects of love; one, its unconditional which does not seek anything in return  like mother nature and two, you need to be crazy to be in real love like Kalidas’ passionate affection for Ratnavali.

Think of a painter who is mixing various colors to produce his or her thoughts on canvas.  The unconditional love, passion along with a little craziness is evident in his or her real work. He or she remains in unconditional love with his work until the work becomes his or her profession. And at this point he or she starts demanding return in the form of appreciation and rewards. So; unconditional love; when exposed to desires converts into conditional love.

The above example is not ‘love of convenience’ in which we choose the most convenient option available to us. Most of us will fall in this category…Well our tailor made professions are the example. This is for people who take so called sound decisions. The beauty of love of convenience is you never realize when you are in real love with your selected option.

Take a case of ‘Chota Hathi’ (an elephant) who is separated from his family and forced to live with a man called ‘Mahavat’, who keeps and train elephants and uses them for his living hood. The ‘Chota Hathi’ was not happy with this hectic schedule of work coupled with undernourished food. And a day came when the ‘Hathi’ got a chance to escape. But he did not do that. He was in love with the ‘Mahavat’. This is love of no choice. In this you fall in love with one who is closest to you irrespective of his or her characteristics. There could be some debatable examples like love of a son towards his father, religion, community, country etc.

I am not going to discuss “love for all”. Instead I will site “love for self” which is actually inherent characteristics of human being. I’d advocated this in my post SELF CONCEPT.

Well; there is lot to explore on love which will appear in my subsequent posts on the topic.

Slow and Steady

I’d been taught from my childhood and experienced too, that slow and steady wins the race. Undoubtedly I agree that its true but what is the most important word in this saying; ’slow’ or ’steady’.  We will agree that it is ’steady’. So what about ‘fast and steady’?

If slow and study can win the race, fast and steady will definitely win. The only thing to debate here is how ‘fast’ can you manage with steadiness? We will agree the peak performance is not steady, thats is why we name it a peak.

In one of the discussion with my boss we argued about change and concluded change slowly by injecting 5 ml of dose for an incremental improvement. I thought in my mind why 5 ml? why not 100 ml thats too every time consistently. The doubt was who will decide the pace?

I got some cues to resolve this doubt. The environment around us is changing and if this 5 ml is doing equal to or more than that its fine. The pace will depend on time bound objective but it will require consistency. Because if you have to win you have to steady. Along with objective, slow or fast can be decided by the individual capabilities of maintaining consistency.

Just a thought.

Beauty of Full Moon

Have you ever observed beauty of full moon?

In Indian literature you can find a lot of writers and poets who has endorsed the beauty of moon as the best in the world. There are two assumptions, one the beauty is feminine in nature and other, though it is not spotless, still nothing is comparable. On feminine beauty of moon, Bollywood has its own stand in their typical romantic songs. Here again the beauty of moon is at top.

There is another fact that moon is also known for is ‘crazy behavior’. The word ‘Lunatic’ means the same. Is there any correlation between ‘Lunatic’ and ‘Beauty’?

You must have heard story of Tulasidas, the great poet writer of ‘Ramcharitmanas’, a Hindu holy book in which the character of Lord Ram is portrayed as the best in human mankind. Tulasidas had a beautiful wife named Ratnavali. He was so deeply attached with the beauty of Ratnavali that he could not afford to be without her even for a moment. Once, Ratnavali went to her fathers place for some day. During those days of separation, Tulasidas could not control his emotions and went to see her in very difficult weather. In those days, in India, even for a married couple, meeting openly used to be treated against mannerism. So, Tulasidas, thinking of Ratnavali, tried to get in her room without knowledge of anyone, through a window which was above the ground level. It is told that he could not even recognize a cobra on the wall and used the same assuming a rope to get into the room. It was embarrassing for Ratnavali, seeing her husband so crazy about her beauty; she scolded Tulasidas reminding his craziness and referred her body just as lump of flesh and blood. That incident changed Tulasidas for ever and he become ascetic.

There is no doubt that beauty attracts. When it involves your emotions we term same as love. But let us not attach love with beauty in this discussion. In the above story Tulasidas was crazily in love with beauty of Ratnavali and a small logic explained by her changed his emotions for ever.

Full moon, representing best of feminine beauty, or otherwise, if attracts our attention is natural. And like Tulasidas, if not for a longer time, even for a second, we become crazy while encountering beauty, it’s normal. By this logic love at first sight and being lunatic is no different. It can be assumed that being in love needs a much more passion and emotion than what we can define with logic because with logic we can not understand love.

Law of Conservation of Happiness

In a zeal to achieve something we lose a lot on the way. Is law of conservation of energy applies in life too? The energy is happiness in this hypothesis. So happiness neither can be created nor could be eliminated. Though it can be transformed from one form to another. I had witnessed some examples of high flying executives of corporate world getting heart attacks in very early stages of their life. They are pretty successful in managing their profession but not so in managing their personal life. Unhappiness of so called successful people can be seen in their sluggish desire to maintain a healthy work life balance.

If happiness is energy, containment can be termed as static energy. If one goes towards a dynamic life loses its static energy and gain kinetic one in the form of accomplishments. Being contain is not the solution to conserve the energy as being healthy and maintaining a happy family are also accomplishments.

Now if the total energy is constant, so happiness in this hypothesis, how to increase happiness? you need to convert static energy around you into dynamic opportunity for you and thus increasing the total balance. The other way could be to reduce negative energy and allow it to flow outside your area of influence into the universe.

Who Am I?

Rene Descartes, a French philosopher once said: ‘I think, therefore I am’. I am thinking so my existence is established. The next question which bothers me is “I”. What is “I”? Whom we refer as “I” when we say “I am”? If I try to put my doubt simply the question is slightly different than “who am I?” Surprisingly a lot of work has been done to find out answer of the question “who am I”. The most difficult looking question has some ready-made
answer in various books and articles. Then there is a devil in me who asks a question, why are you bothered to discover who r you? How does it matter? Enjoy your life when you know the end is certain. Sometimes, devils’ also get philosophical.

It looks very confusing but in reality it’s very simple. As long as I am happy and enjoying my life, nothing matters. Nice conclusion but have I ever thought that lot of things matter simultaneously to make me happy.

Then I thought of myself. Something others will also agree. I can not withstand indefinite wait. Success makes me happy. Incomplete tasks; both personal and professional, bothers me. When I lie, for any reason, I feel tensed. There are lots more similar things to list down. If I have to derive something from above, being happy is easy. Simply wish that you do not have to wait, you are always successful, you never lie and you never leave any task incomplete. Most of people will say it’s impossible. Bhagvad Gita has its saying too on this, that is, define your Dharma, the goal and do your karma for your Dharma, involved positive action, without bothering results. How one should define Dharma? Again we will have to resolve the purpose of our life or in other words the answer of the question who am I.
Back to “I think, therefore I am”. How many of us think that they really think? If I make a theory on this philosophy it would be: “My existence starts with the thinking and quality of the thinking defines our identity. And if I can find my identity, “Who am I?” is answered.”

GOLDEN LEAVES

I saw a young man in hurry to catch the local train with a purpose. Then I saw a young boy moving his buffaloes in open field to feed them and enjoying alone by playing with a cricket ball. I also sew a sweet young couple moving along a village road, calm and cool without any talk. I see lot of similar and different people moving around with and without a purpose with some or other emotion without demonstrating any. Then I ask few questions to myself. Who among those are happy? Who among those going to create history? Who among those is both successful and satisfied with his or her success? Who among those inherited a lot to make his given identity and who’s going to create the same?
Then I saw a huge vegetation of forest land with dry but golden leaves waiting to disappear just before fall. I got some clue and some of my answer. The trees and disappearing golden leaves signify completion of a life cycle and transformation into a new one. End is not the right word so I am using completion which is destined. Good or bad, fruitful or fruitless the trees will lose their leaves. However; just before disappearing, leaves become golden representing prosperity which seems to be notional but actually not. Philosophically completion is good as it is followed by transformation and reincarnation and sets a fresh start. So in the end (actually at the completion) everything is good. All of my questions remain insignificant at this conclusion. Is that what Bhagvad Gita says as ultimate detachment?
I tried to derive the answer from Bhagvad Gita itself. The building block of human life cycle, philosophically, can be categorized into inherited wealth (money, language, religion, society etc. at the time of birth), learning (knowledge, attitude, skills, insights etc), Application of learning (KARMA), Wealth creation (Knowledge, money, language, religion, society etc) and finally dissipating wealth. In the whole process there is no physical gain. That’s why Gita questions attachment with physical gains. There should not be any confusion with inactivity. As there is a gain, the golden leaves, and the base of reincarnation, called spiritual gain. Spiritual gain comes from KARMA, the right activity for right purpose, the DHARMA, the ultimate goal. (DHARMA is not religion specific; it means the ultimate goal of human being). To know KARMA, adequate knowledge and adequate health is required to apply knowledge. This is where inheritance becomes important which is basically BHAGYA, the luck and it’s not in any one’s hand. So the only thing left is KARMA to gain real wealth. So the sights I mention in first paragraph have no difference. The real difference if can be measured with spiritual gains it would have been very easy to answer all my doubts. Even though, if I assume happiness close to spiritual gain, it’s almost impossible to decide by just watching. The rural boy playing with cricket ball and buffaloes could be happier than the chairman of a multi billion dollar company. Its difficult, so no measurement, no confusion. At the completion every things going to look like same, like golden leaves. Let’s gain a better root to make sure the new leaves waiting to sprout is more beautiful and healthy.

Centering

Recently I had some discussion on centering with one of my seniors and discovered few insights which is worth sharing. Centering is a process of meditation in which one can concentrate all his knowledge to attain wholeness. This wholeness could be adequate enough to solve many personal or social problems. To elaborate more lets take an example of process of puzzle solving. Most of the puzzles can be resolved up to one missing data to get before final answer. It happens because we evaluate our options from some or other point of view at a time. In the process of juggling with puzzle, I am sure most of us have experienced, a stage comes when one start thinking on more than one dimensions and point of focus converts from some or other point of views to universal point of view and that is the time when one see the answer. This is the time when one sees the missing link and solves the puzzle. While centering is also the ultimate stage is when all of one’s knowledge becomes available at one point. So what? Is not it amazing to just think that you can access all your accumulated learning, insights and experiences are available to solve your problems? This is centering.

We carry different personalities which are developed in the course of our life. So we have different level of knowledge with different learning, experiences and insights. And believe me all of us have accumulated adequate knowledge to solve any of our problems. However; it’s almost impossible to use all your knowledge at one point of time. Centering through meditation is nothing but collecting all in you at one point and attain the feeling of completeness or wholeness.

The ultimate stage of centering is the point when attains all knowledge. In Hindu mythology it is often referred as “Bramha Gyan” which means knowing the Bramha, the creator of universe, the God. This is the position when one attains detachment from everything. It can be simply explained as if one knows everything, nothing remains significant. However; since gaining knowledge is a process, the centering is also a process. That is why we worship the image of Lord Shiva who is always in Yoga, the meditation or centering.

All the technical, social or philosophical discoveries are the result of centering only. It’s nothing but using your available knowledge to discover the unknown. Look around and think about all innovations and creativity, is not it scientific? If centering is a methodological process all of us can be innovative and creative. All of us can discover undiscovered and ignite multi revolutions at all levels, be it the world, the country, the society or the organization.

‘Bhagya’ and limitations of ‘Karma’

I had some busy months and few excuses of not writing. Actually it’s all about reflections and for last few weeks I was not able to feel any substance in my thought until two things happened to me. One was “Dasvidania” a Hindi movie and two; was my recent visit to one of the shopping mall in Mumbai.

‘Dasvidania’ is a movie about a person who knows that he’s gona die in next three month because of stomach cancer. And he make a list of ‘things to do’ for his rest of life. One by one he makes and completes ten wishes making his end a happier one and leaving his surroundings with a sense of accomplishments. The fact that provoked my thought is that none of us know how much time is available to complete the ‘things to do’ of life. And almost all of us even do not have ‘things to do’.

The second incidence shook my long debated believe in law of ‘Karma’. In the shopping mall there is a place specially marked for children where they got every thing to fun like jumping, dancing etc. And I saw a young boy on wheel chair, probably because of disorder from birth, staring at those of similar of his age, who were in fun, dancing and jumping. One could very easily see the helplessness in his eyes. What Karma makes him so? Why there is no level field for all?

The simplest answer is ‘the life is like that only’. We may decide our own actions but we need sound mind too to make us capable of doing so. My actions are ‘Karma’ and my sound mind is my ‘Bhagya’ or luck. There is limitation to law of ‘Karma’ as there are number of factors which we can’t decide. These factors are father, family, language, primary education etc. These are paternal assets we get as ‘Bhagya’, the luck. And if we are lucky enough to have sound mind we can decide the ‘Karma’ of our lives.

KARMA YOGA

If you believe in Karma, you would not do anything just out of habbit.
Bagavad Gita says your Karma decided fortune of your future course of life and beyond. Quality of Karma becomes top most concern as our duty. Gita also says Karma should always be directed towards duty of Dharma. Literal meaning of Dharma is religion. But its significant is above that. It is basically your ultimate goal as directed by your purest inner self. So Karma should always be for a very positive purpose and so it should be carefully designed.
Most of us will agree that more than 99% of our Karma come just out of our daily routine or habit without any purpose. Very few of us takes care of a very long term objective while deciding education or career. Our bringing up comes under a high supervision of our parents so something we can blame to our surroundings; but not all. When we start taking our own decisions we must be clear about our ultimate goal or a long term perspective of our duties. It is true for our smallest activities too. We must carefully choose our talk, letters, comments based on relatively bigger objective. It can be done by self awareness and a live consciousness while in action.