Meditation is not about religion or a God. It is about connecting with your own godliness.

It is your mandatory daily recharge, revive and repair time.

My daughter and I spoke over a WhatsApp call this morning. She shared notes with me from her grad school orientation program. As part of the schedule, she had an hour’s introduction to meditation as a concept and as a practice. I feel it is a fascinating idea to introduce meditation to young people. If you learn the art of stilling your mind, if you can be unmoved when standing in the middle of the whirl of Life, then you are living intelligently.

I remember as a young teenager, when I was studying in 10^th grade at Nutan Vidyalaya in Gulbarga, Karnataka, my entire class went through an orientation program on Transcendental Meditation – a form of meditation propagated by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (1918~2008). I can’t remember now whether I liked my first experience of meditation or not, but what I do remember is that my mother admonished me for “embracing wayward practices” and, worse, she accused my school of “thrusting the occult” on students. I realize now how wrong and ill-informed my mother was (and surely still is).

Meditation is an absolute must to still the mind and anchor it. The mind thinks up 60,000 thoughts on an average daily. And the mind thrives only in the dead past or in the unborn, yet-to-arrive, future. Which is why we often are feeling angry, guilty or grieving about the past or we are feeling anxious, stressed out, worried or fearful about the future. Meditation is simply about mindfulness – about bringing your mind’s fullest attention to the now, to the present moment.

However, as I discovered through my own evolution, most forms of meditation insist that you first silence the environment around you. That didn’t work for me. Because I was then (for the past decade) and I am even now living in a state of total chaos. The daily pulls and pressures on me (and on Vaani) are intense.  So, I could never find “that place” outside of me that was calm and quiet. Which is why I embraced mouna – or the practice of observing daily silence periods – the moment I found it. Mouna, I discovered, is like spirituality – it places no unreasonable demands on you. You just have to be silent for a full hour every day. Let whatever is happening around you happen – you be silent! And this practice has helped me immensely. I learnt not to respond to stimuli around me. I just remained silent – no matter what – for an hour daily. Over time, I trained my mind to be still and focused only on the present moment. This has taught me how to be fully aware only of what is. It has been a truly liberating, awakening experience.

Any form of meditation is sure to work when practiced with diligence and with full immersion. Please choose what works for you. But please don’t think it is about religion or about a God. It is about the godliness in you. It is your holy communion with the Higher Energy. Just like your mobile phone needs recharging to function, meditation is your way of recharging, reviving and repairing yourself, by connecting with the Universal source!

PS: You may like to look up other posts on this Blog where I talk about mouna and detail its practice and benefits.

 

You invite suffering when you are impatient with a Life situation

Neither impatience nor denial is going to solve a problem or make it go away.

A lady we know is embroiled in a legal dispute over her property with her siblings. Her matter has been pending in court for over 25 years. She said she was at her “wits’ end” and wanted to know this: “How much more patient must I be?”

I shared with her my perspectives on patience with solving problems.

When confronted with a problem the human mind responds typically with impatience – you want it solved in a jiffy, immediately. Or the mind wants to live in denial, it wants to run away from the problem. What we must realize is that both responses are wasted. Neither impatience nor denial is going to solve a problem or make it go away. Only when you accept a problem, only when you start living with it, does the problem – even though it may drag or linger on – reveal its teachable point of view. Every problem we face is teaching us something about ourselves. And only through learning from our problems do we evolve into better leaders of our Life.

In the lady’s specific case, her problem was not just that she was fighting over property with her siblings. It was also that she was fighting over it in an Indian court. So there’s being impatient is absolutely futile. She has to recognize that a resolution will take long and possibly may not even arrive in a lifetime. When she is in that state of acceptance – and clarity – she can either let law take its own course or opt for an out of court, mediated settlement. Not will to go with either choice will only cause her suffering. Which actually explains her current frame of mind, what she is experiencing right now.

More than anything else Life, teaches you patience by throwing you in the deep end of the pool or by hanging you from the edge of precipice. Yes, you have a choice to be impatient with Life. But when you are impatient, you are suffering simultaneously. Patience with a Life situation does not mean your problem will be solved immediately or that it will go away. It only means that you will not suffer, it means that you will learn to endure the pain while working diligently on resolving the situation.

 

What you are going through is no reflection of who you are or of your ability

Never allow yourself to think that you are worthless just because you have been rejected.

We met a gentleman the other day. A seasoned IT professional and a very sensitive human being. In his early 50s now, he has been asked to leave an organization that he had barely joined a few months ago. This was the third job that he was having to quit in the last three years. We were informally counseling him on how he could cope with this phase of his Life. Although his age and experience had imbued in him the maturity to know that such phases do happen to all of us in Life, he broke down a few times during his conversation with us. He confessed that he was deeply hurt by the manner in which some people were treating him. He was suddenly finding that all his experience and professional abilities were being viewed warily. He had been repeatedly rejected by his last three bosses and employers. All this was hurting him and he was finding it difficult to hold himself together.

I can relate to and empathize with this person’s situation. I too have struggled with being rejected. It really, really hurts; especially when you have put in your best, when you are being pushed to a corner and are told – without logic or reason – that you are not good enough. But over the years, through severaI experiences, I have learnt to deal with the grief that follows rejection. I have realized that grief is a very self-serving emotion. All it does is that it makes you depressive. Yes, it is natural that when you are rejected by someone, you will feel sad. And depressive. But wallowing in that depression is of no use. It will pin you down. It is like being locked up in a coffin that’s dumped into the sea. Now, you – and I – are no Houdini to stage a great escape. So we sulk, pine and suffer.

There’s a way to deal with rejection though. That way is to never take the act of rejection or the person rejecting you personally. Let’s understand, accept and appreciate that everyone is entitled to their opinion, their choices and their decisions. If someone exercises their prerogative with reference to you, they have only done what they are entitled to. Their choice need not necessarily be viewed as a judgment of your ability or character. Well, it may be possible that you can learn from the experience of being rejected and you may want to improve yourself. But in any case, don’t let the experience of getting rejected get to you. It is just another situation in Life where you have the opportunity to develop and demonstrate strength of spirit and character. Don’t get obsessed with rejection and use it as a benchmark to measure yourself. What can help you is your moving on and trying again. Chances are you may get rejected again. Then you move on again and try one more time.

All our lives have fragmented phases when things don’t go according to our plans. Unfortunately, there’s no Life Defragmenter that you can run to fix such phases. You have to endure such phases patiently. Feeling frustrated, humiliated and sorry is of no use. Instead remember that what you are going through, whatever is happening to you, is no reflection of who you are or of your ability. With time, every phase passes, everything changes and nothing lasts – not even tough times! 

 

Profit from happiness

Someone asks me what my biggest disappointment is. On this Podcast, I talk about the futility of feeling disappointed and share how each one of us can drop all expectations and profit from happiness.

Listen time: 5:44 minutes

On ‘The Happiness Road’ with V.R.Devika

My conversation with champion of Indian art, culture and Gandhianism V.R.Devika for my ‘The Happiness Road’ Series that appears in DT Next every Sunday. Read the conversation on the DT Next page here. ‘The Happiness Road’ is also my next Book. Photo Credit: Vinodh Velayudhan 

“Happiness is a decision”

Mention Devika’s name and people will relate her to Gandhi, to the charkha and to Indian art and culture. Yet, to me, Devika is a champion of intelligent living – she lives by tenets that protect her inner peace and happiness. “When I was younger, I did wallow in self-pity and succumb to worry. But some years ago, when I had to go through a biopsy to rule out cancer, I told myself that I would face whatever came my way. My condition was not malignant – thankfully. But the experience taught me to overcome uncertainty and insecurity. I made a conscious choice then to be happy no matter what the doctors were to report. Therefore, happiness is a decision you take and it is not dependent on your circumstances,” says Devika.

Devika, Vaani & AVIS

She firmly believes that her entire Life has been serendipitous. She lives in an apartment that has been gifted – ‘with no strings attached’ – to her by a good friend. She has travelled to many countries to deliver talks and presentations – all of them on invitation. And every time she has needed work, someone has come along and given her a project that’s cut out just right for her. “How can you be unhappy when you have so much grace, so much abundance in your Life? I know I am one of the luckiest people in the world,” she confesses. She reveals that over the past several years she has created her own way to deal with debilitating emotions like worry, anger and anxiety, whenever they come calling: “I look into the mirror and tell myself that I am not going to let such feelings linger. I shift my attention to what I have instead of focusing on what I don’t have. I constantly remind myself to be grateful and content. That’s how I sustain my happiness.”

Devika reiterates that to be happy you have to be decisive. “When I was young, I was sexually abused by a powerful member of my family, my brother-in-law (who is no more). For years I pitied myself and lived in fear. But when I was in my 40s, I came out and told my family about it. Almost immediately, I stopped pitying myself. The secret to happiness lies in stepping out of whatever makes you unhappy,” she explains.

“Be decisive, be happy!” – that’s my key takeaway from the conversation. Surely, it’s yours too!

The story in DT Next’s print edition.

 

What do you do when you don’t know what to do in Life?

When you are clueless, let go and flow with Life.

I woke up this morning not knowing what to do about a situation that we are dealing with as a family. We had sat up late last night thinking through and brainstorming. But a solution continues to evade us.

Vaani and I are not new to either such no-go situations or to cluelessness. Over time, we have learnt to deal with them with equanimity than with panic or by worrying. So, I sat at my desk and surrendered to Life. I said, “Look here, I don’t know who you are or what you are. But I know you are a Higher Energy. I know you are more intelligent than I am. So, I will be led by you, I will be guided by you. I surrender.” I have always experienced that such a private conversation within myself, with creation, with a Higher Energy, has helped me. It helps me anchor and move to my center. And when I am anchored to my center, I am unmoved, no matter how furious the storm around me is.

In the eye of the storm, the epicenter of a cyclone, there is no destruction. Because there is no chaos. There’s only peace. And the strength of a storm emanates from its core. The epicenter of the storm is also its power center. This is science. I have learnt to apply the same logic to Life’s storms also. And it works big time, for us – for Vaani and me.

So, when I don’t know what to do, I let go and flow with Life. I know this flowing to be my Faith. I know that we will be looked after, taken care of, provided for and shown the way. I don’t know where the path is taking us but I always believe that it will eventually take us to where we must arrive. Taking that path and trusting it implicitly, to me, is putting my Faith to work. And that’s what I am doing, yet again, today…

A Life lesson from Vishal Sikka’s decision to step down

Remember: you always have the choice to step away from whatever is making you unhappy!

As I sat down to write my daily Blog this morning, I was notified of a newsbreak on my phone. Vishal Sikka has quit as MD and CEO of Infosys. While his resignation letter to the Board of Infosys is detailed, his decision appears to have been driven by the fact that he was “unhappy over baseless, malicious, personal attacks” on him.

I am not going to opine on the business issues that led to Vishal’s departure. In his email to the Infy Board, Vishal does indicate having discussed his decision with his wife Vandana. And I believe that the couple may have talked at length about how the “continuous drumbeat of distractions and negativity” at the Board-level, over the company’s recent actions and performance, were impacting Vishal’s inner peace and happiness. Possibly, his final decision may have been made on wanting to be free from all those factors that made him unhappy.

Even if there were other considerations, I feel Vishal’s choice to walk away is a mature one. I would like to share here what I am learning from his decision.

Often times in Life you may find yourself in situations when you are answerable to people around you. However much you may try to explain your position, you may not be able to convince everyone – especially those who are either constantly asking more questions or those who are keen to interpret than understand what you are saying. At such times it is really not about who is right and who is wrong, or what is true and what is false. What really matters is how you are feeling in the midst of all the acrimony. If you are feeling pinned down, unhappy and wasted, remember, you have a choice to step away. Stepping away is not failure. It is not defeat. It is an intelligent choice. You can still fight the good fight from a distance. You can still, if you are keen, prove yourself. Stepping away from a fractious environment, however, helps you preserve your energy and keeps you anchored.

So, Vishal’s choice, to me, is worthy of respect. It reiterates my belief that if something – or someone – makes you unhappy, you can always say no, and walk away. That’s one way to preserve and protect your inner peace and happiness.