Liberate yourself – forgive!

The art of unclinging

As long as you are alive, anything is possible!

Celebrating 100 ‘Fall Like A Rose Petal’ Talks

My first ‘Fall Like A Rose Petal’ Talk was hosted by two of our dear friends at their home in Chennai on December 2nd, 2012.

 

The Talk was way ahead of the Book itself (which released in August 2014). In the Talk I share how – through the numbing experience of our bankruptcy – Vaani and I conquered fear to become fearless, how we overcame self-doubt and self-pity and anchored in faith, how we dropped anger, grief and guilt to forgive ourselves and those around us who had been judgmental and how we found our true Self, our Higher Purpose in Life, and found happiness, when we were actually totally lost and clueless!!! This cathartic experience led us to understand the value of Reflection, Resilience and Resourcefulness in Life. We have learnt to be non-worrying, non-frustrated and non-suffering, and so, we have learnt to be happy despite our (any/excruciating) circumstances.

 

To us now, while we are still eons away from resurrecting our material Life and beginning the process of repaying our creditors/Angels, “Inspiring Happiness” is our raison d’etre, our ikigai – this is what we wake up to do every morning. This is why we curate and host four, free, public events on this theme across Chennai.

 

Recently, the head of a large organization invited Vaani and me to share our ‘Fall Like A Rose Petal’ journey with his team. He felt our message of deploying the power of Reflection, Resilience and Resourcefulness was very relevant to work and Life in any context; it helps people understand what personal leadership is all about. In delivering our Talk for several batches of his team, we have completed 100 ‘Fall Like A Rose Petal’ Talks (the actual count stands at 110) between 2012 December and now. 

 

Vaani and I remain soaked in gratitude and are humbled by this opportunity, through the experience of our bankruptcy, to have learnt what happiness truly is and what it does.

 

If you would like to hear the Talk, you can watch it here.

If you would like to order the Book, please order it here. 

 

Ping us if you or anyone you know would like to host this Talk for any audience that cares to pause and reflect on Life!

Why self-pity is debilitating

#twitternama 4 #Lifein140characters

There is no conspiracy to “pin you down” and “finish you off”

Find your center, so you can be unmoved by the turns, tumbles and upheavals of Life.

Someone who listened to my Podcast on Monday asked me how I avoid identifying myself with my problem situation – my bankruptcy. “Don’t you feel deprived and incomplete living the way you are for the past decade,” he asked.

That’s an interesting question. My response is that, yes, there was a time, early on in the bankruptcy (Read more here: Fall Like A Rose Petal), when I felt there was a conspiracy to “pin me down” and “finish me off”. As long as I believed in this conspiracy theory I felt like a victim, I felt like I was hounded. I suffered. This was in the period 2003~2005.

But through daily reflection, in my mouna (silence) sessions, over the next three to four years, I realized that my suffering was self-inflicted. I understood that, undoubtedly, I had a huge problem to deal with. And I had to face it, I had to deal with it. There was no way it was going away merely because I wished it weren’t there. This quality of acceptance helped me to stop suffering. This is how I stopped feeling like a victim.

So, to be sure, our bankruptcy is where it is. There is a lot of pain, it is often intense, but we don’t suffer from it. We make our efforts to claw our way out of our situation but we remain non-frustrated when the results don’t simply add up. Important, we are non-judgmental about our efforts. Just as we are not bitter that things have not worked out for us.

Vaani and I have learnt that there is no conspiracy out there to fix any of us. Life is a cycle. What goes up comes down. And what’s down goes back up again. When we are down in the cycle, we may feel like Life is being unfair. But the way to avoid feeling like a victim is to find our center. As long as we are in the periphery of the cycle, we will be subjected to the up and down movements, to the turns, tumbles and upheavals. But if we are at the center, we will be unmoved.

Finding your center means understanding the true nature of Life. Which is essentially to celebrate its impermanence. Everything, absolutely everything, including Life itself is transient. Everything will change. Everyone will change. And everyone and everything will be taken away. Know that your suffering comes only because you cling on to people and things and expect them to be there forever. When you understand this irrefutable truth about Life, you will be free. You too will then stop identifying yourself with your problems – because you now know that they will, over time, go away. You will stop thinking that you are being victimized. This is how you too can learn to be happy despite your circumstances!