Happiness is not a goal

You can’t pursue or find happiness. You simply awaken to it.

I read this interesting column, Why happiness is the wrong goal, by Manu Joseph in the Mint on Saturday. Manu is a very good writer and I respect him. But with this piece, I am afraid he appears to be, in all that he is trying to say, missing the most elementary point.

Happiness is not a goal. Period.

I must confess that there was a time in Life when I too thought of happiness as a destination, as a goal that had to be pursued. In fact, for most of my 20s and right up to my mid-30s, I kept telling my friends that I would be happy when I turned 40. My reasoning was that because we had married early – when I was barely 21 and Vaani was 22 (she is a year older than me) – and because our son Aashirwad was born in the second year of our marriage, both Vaani and I would be “done with our worldly responsibilities” by the time we were 40!  So I would often remark: “When I am 40, Aash will be 18; I would have made a lot of money and I would retire, play golf and be happy!” Now, when I think back, I realize I was so naïve. Of course, we had Aanchal joining us in the sixth year of our marriage, so my “logically-argued happiness goal ended up being pushed further”!!! But, important, look at the way our Life has panned out – we went bankrupt as we entered our 40s (in 2007). (Read more in my Book here: Fall Like A Rose Petal) And we have spent most of the past decade without work or money. We still have a truckload of existential problems and legacy issues to deal with! Yet, through this experience, we have understood what happiness truly is.

Together we have realized that accepting, embracing, what is, is happiness. It is a state of being – when you are non-worrying, non-frustrated and non-suffering. Non-worrying because you have learnt not to allow your mind to race into the unborn future, non-frustrated because you have realized that having talent and integrity don’t always mean that you will get what you want and non-suffering because you have learnt not to ask ‘Why Me?’ when you get what you don’t like or don’t want in Life. When you are non-worrying, non-frustrated and non-suffering, there is no pursuit, there is nothing to be gained, nothing to be lost. You simply are.

This state of being, no matter what your circumstances are, is happiness. You don’t find happiness, you don’t discover it, you don’t pursue it. You are the happiness you seek. In essence, you help yourself to happiness by awakening to it!

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If you are tuned in you will always get “the message”!

Life is very benevolent, very compassionate.

Last evening, Vaani and I wanted to go meet someone. The meeting was not obligatory or confirmed. But we thought we would take a chance. We walked in one direction for a while but at a point where we had to cross an important intersection we found two hurdles – incessant traffic and a huge puddle of water after some heavy showers earlier in the hour. So, we decided to hang a right and walk down the pavement to see if we could cross the road at some point. But a traffic snarl and more water on the road made crossing over difficult. Soon, we found we had walked further away from our intended destination. With a slight drizzle beginning to come down, we thought it best to abandon the plan to visit this person and instead hailed an auto-rickshaw to get back home.

The auto driver was unusually respectful. He didn’t haggle over the fare and offered to drive us home. At one of the traffic lights, as we waited, he turned around and asked us if we could connect him with an institution or individual who can support the payment of his son’s college fees. He showed us documents in evidence of his son’s academic progress. The boy, it was evident, is faring very well. But the fee was overdue by two weeks and he risked being rusticated. We kept talking with the auto driver on the rest of the ride. When we reached our home, while I paid him the fare, Vaani told him not to either worry or feel despondent. She went on to tell him, briefly, the story of our son Aashirwad’s miraculous graduation in 2012 from the University of Chicago (Read more here: Fall Like A Rose Petal). After sharing the anecdote with the auto driver, Vaani told him to hang in there. She said, “If he has come this far through college, he will complete it. Whatever is ordained alone happens. So, keep up your efforts, a way will soon be born.” The auto driver thanked her profusely and said that he was very grateful for “the message”.

And that’s what our auto ride last evening was really all about. It was about delivering “the message” of hope and faith to the man based on our own experience. Consider this – we were not even headed in the direction where we eventually met him. We had no plans of returning home around the time that we did. How often does one feel like chatting up with an auto driver in Chennai? Perhaps, his courteousness made Vaani share our experience with him. Over dinner, both Vaani and I concurred that he was just ordained to receive “the message” that Life was giving him – and we were the chosen messengers.

In my Book, Fall Like A Rose Petal, I do share several anecdotes where the Universe, Life, has sent me messages through people, events and things. For instance, I recall that dark day in April 2007 when I was standing in a lane off Haddows Road in Chennai, opposite the bank where we had an account; our first cheque had bounced for lack of funds and with no income stream, I felt it was all over for us. Just then a car moved into the vacant parking spot ahead of me. And four words on a sticker on the car’s rear windscreen delivered me “the message” – the sticker read, “Never Ever Give Up”! I can’t say what would have happened had I not received that message that morning. But see what receiving that message has done to me, to us – it has helped us not just survive, but also grow and evolve through a tumultuous decade, despite our excruciating circumstances!!!

I have understood that the Universe, the Cosmic Design, Life, is very benevolent, very compassionate. You will always get what you need – and that includes messages or signs that reassure you, that clarify, that answer your questions or that which simply point you in a direction that you must take. If you are tuned into Life’s energy, by anchoring in faith and patience, you will pick up those signals, you will receive those messages – at the right time, at the right place, through the most unlikely messengers; and only you will be able to see or sense those messages. Others around you will not be able to understand these signs. And in the event that you fail to see or pick up those signs and messages, they will be served again and again and again. Until, of course, you eventually get it! That’s why I feel that Life is very benevolent, very compassionate.

 

Reflections on Life and parenting over an empty nest

When they must go out to follow their bliss, simply let your children fly away…

Yesterday went in a blur. All day Vaani and I were reminiscing the growing up years of our children Aashirwad and Aanchal. The four of us are very close to each other. Yet Aash has been away from home for 9 years now and Aanch too left yesterday.

As parents, we both are experiencing a completely empty nest for the first time. Surely, we are not the first set of parents to feel this way. And undoubtedly we are not the last. Feeling the emptiness at home, however, has been an interesting, learning experience.

Over a drink last evening, I marveled at Lebanese American writer-poet Khalil Gibran’s wisdom and insight. His unputdownable verse – “Your children are not your children, they are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself, they come through you but not from you, and although they are with you, they belong not to you…” – is what is helping us accept our new reality. Besides, as we are realizing, being an empty nester brings a spiritual flavor to one’s role as a parent.

I now recognize that parenting is not just a responsibility. To be a parent is actually a blessing. Because it gives you an opportunity to mold another Life by inculcating values in your child. And then when the child is ready for the world, you give your child wings and let her or him fly away. That’s how you learn to practice detachment in Life.

In Vaani’s and my case, we see another very beautiful dimension playing out. Which is that since children are Life’s longing for itself, Life always steps in to take care of them, even if you as a parent can’t contribute in a given context. As parents, we have not been able to support the college education for either Aash or Aanch. Our enduring bankruptcy leaves us numb each month – we never quite have enough even for our monthly living expenses. Yet, through this past decade that we have been bankrupt, we have had Aash’s under-graduate Program at the University of Chicago funded through remarkably generous people. (Read more here: Fall Like A Rose Petal) And now Aanch’s grad school tenure is being covered by a very benevolent sponsor who is paying her tuition and related costs. What this essentially means is that Life really takes care of and provides for all that it creates. From this experience, Vaani and I have learnt that if as parents we let go and don’t let our insecurities or ego come in the way of our children’s aspirations, Life will always unquestionably, undeniably, give them what they need.

Also, as we are learning from Aashirwad’s experiences over the past two years, when children go away to pursue their dreams and build their Life their way, they are bound to face challenges. Naturally, as parents, we want to protect our children. But what we are understanding is that you can’t do anything to change your children’s Life design. If they have to go through a catharsis or a challenge, they have to. There is no escaping it. But please don’t conclude that a Life challenge is a curse or a punishment. It is Life’s way of coaching someone to be stronger, wiser and happier. The earlier we recognize this truth about Life, the more equanimity we will have as parents.

Bottomline, we only have one key responsibility towards our children – we must guide and inspire them to be good human beings. We must raise them with the right values and let them go wherever their bliss takes them. While we can pray for them, we can’t prevent Life from serving them crises. So, there’s no point in pining for them or worrying about them or wanting to keep them with us so that we can protect them – because, however hard we may try, we can’t ever live their lives for them!

Loneliness is an integral part of the suchness of Life

So, don’t hate it. Embrace it, celebrate it!

In response to my Blogpost yesterday, on what I took away from K.S.Narendran’s book – “Life After MH370”,   a reader wrote to me saying he could relate to Naren’s sense of loss and loneliness. The reader, who is 60+, is estranged from his wife and his children are too busy with their own lives. He wrote, “I feel lonely and I feel isolated.” “How does one deal with being left behind, and with loneliness, when the world chooses to move on,” he asked.

That’s a very important question.

As I write this Blogpost, our daughter is preparing to leave for her Master’s Program overseas. Our son has been living abroad for over 9 years now. So, Vaani and I are getting to be empty nesters. I don’t think any amount of perspective is sufficient to deal with separations. When it happens, when the time comes, you do get weighed down by it. But if you are aware, if you understand what Life is all about, you simply learn to accept it and move on in your own way. And that’s what Vaani and I are learning to do.

It may appear that dealing with children going away to live their lives and dealing with a permanent loss or separation are two different things. But a sense of loneliness, of being left behind, is perhaps the same – no matter what the context.

I have realized that whoever we are and however closely we relate to our immediate circle of influence, we must prepare ourselves to experience loneliness. The nature of Life is such that people will come and go out of our lives. Whoever is in your Life will soon, some day, be out of it. While some people will stay temporarily and leave, some of them will stay for long and leave after making a significant impact on your Life. And some departures and separations may also well be permanent. Such is Life. There is no escaping this reality.

Intelligent living requires that we accept this suchness, this truth, about Life. This acceptance may not quiet help us avoid the pain of separation or help us escape the tyranny of loneliness, but it definitely will help us cope better. I remember this beautiful song Na Jaane Kyun from Choti Si Baat (1976, Basu Chatterjee, Vidya Sinha, Amol Palekar, Lata Mangeshkar, Yogesh, Salil Chaudhury) which talks of the pangs of separation poetically! But although the mind will protest and make it difficult for you to accept your “new normal” and move on, it is only acceptance that can aid in the process, that can heal you, that can help deal with the void in your Life. So when you feel lonely, accept that feeling unquestioningly. Also be understanding of your world, of the people around you – don’t complain if they get busy and leave you alone; they have their own lives to live!

Anything that you fight, anything that you resist, will persist. So, don’t fight your sense of loneliness. Embrace it and appreciate it as a non-negotiable reality. When you respect this reality you will realize the futility of clinging on to your past. If someone is dead, so it is. If someone’s left you, so it is. By clinging on to what is over, to however close the relationship may have been, you are only inviting unhappiness and suffering into your Life. So don’t wish that what is true about your Life is not true. The truth can never be untrue just because you don’t like it. Accept what is, feel your pain, feel your sense of loss, feel your loneliness, and also examine the futility of consistently, continuously, feeling this way. The moment you understand its futility, your loneliness will dissolve.

Bottomline: you came here alone and you will go alone from here. Your loneliness is an integral part of the suchness of Life. So, don’t hate it. Embrace it, celebrate it!

Reflecting on a beautiful, slow, Victoria ride over home-made filter ‘kaapi’

Slow down when Life slows you down.

This morning as I sipped my coffee, I thought about the movie that we watched last night on TV. It was the 1972 classic Victoria No. 203 (Brij, Saira Banu, Navin Nischol). Seeing Saira and Navin ride the Victoria, Vaani and I reminisced about the time in the late nineties when we rode it too. We were hosting Jack Canfield (of Chicken Soup for the Soul) at the Taj Mahal hotel at the Gateway of India. And we were staying in a suite in the old wing of the hotel. After our event with Jack was over, in the middle of the night, we set out to ride on a Victoria. It was a slow, beautiful, memorable ride along the magical Marine Drive.

And then I thought about our Life now. From being high-fliers, in a worldly sense, we have apparently been grounded and consigned to a slow Life in the past decade.

Yet, there’s a huge learning from this phase. Which is that, in such times in Life when the journey becomes awfully slow, we must realize that Life is inviting us to enjoy the scenery. But most of us don’t have the attitude to see it that way. At least I didn’t look at Life from that point of view when our bankruptcy struck us in 2007. But I soon discovered that refusing to slow down and instead struggling with and complaining about the painfully slow pace, I was missing the magic and beauty in our Life. There was so much time I had now to spend time with Vaani, to think about the true meaning of Life, to celebrate Aanchal’s growing up years (Aash was already away at college in Chicago by then)…but no, I wasn’t enjoying what I had; I was pining for something else, something which wasn’t even there.

When I reflected upon my struggle, I discovered that the problem lay with the way I had led my Life up until then. Running from event to event, crisis to crisis, trying to make ends meet, earning-a-living, busy working harder than ever before, meeting targets, paying bills, raising children and doing everything else except living mindfully. And then as often happens with Life, the game changed. We were put in a spot where we could not move; we were check-mated.

In our case, it is this numbing bankruptcy. But anyone can find themselves in this “slow spot” right now! It could be a health issue, it could be a career stalemate, it could be a relationship tangle or it could be a legal quagmire. In such times, there may be a tendency to worry and to wish__pray, plead, hope__that why can’t Life fast-forward, why can’t we get back to ‘normalcy’? So, if you are bogged down in an ICU, you wish you could be back in the hustle-bustle of everyday Life. Or if you are caught in the midst of legalese, you just are hoping why don’t you win all your claims and are free to be away from all this disputing and arguing? Interestingly, Life’s not a handmaiden that will do what you please. At times, it just may not move.

Know also that there is no fast-forward button or option in Life. So, when you are pushed to a corner by the cosmic design, the best thing to do is to not worry about not moving. Be happy you can breathe. Because being able to sense your breathing is normal. Running so hard that you don’t even have the time to notice you are breathing, is not normal. Imagine you are climbing a steep mountain in a vehicle. As it negotiates the sharp hair-pin bends, the engine is finding the going tough. So, the vehicle is down to an agonizing crawl. Now, you can worry about that pace and concentrate on the dreary drone of the engine, or you can look out the window and see what the scenery looks like. This is what enjoying the scenery is all about.

“Smile, breathe and go slowly,” advises Thich Nhat Hanh (called ‘Thay’), the Vietnamese Buddhist monk – and among my favorite spiritual teachers. Just being mindful of your being alive__to experiencing whatever you are going through, be it pain, be it joy__is what can make the slowdowns in Life more meaningful. Do all the things that you can joyfully in whatever state you find yourself. And don’t worry about what you can’t. If you are immobilized by a health issue enjoy the ‘grounding’ with a family member who is nursing you; pining to be able to run around will only cause agony. If you are cashless enjoy being able to live without money; hoping you had money will only aggravate your suffering. If you are caught in a relationship problem where there is much misunderstanding, enjoy practicing patience and forgiveness; craving for understanding from the other person may only accentuate your pain. Thay champions mindful living as a cure to all our ailments coming from merely existing. “Life is available only in the present moment. Even drink your tea, slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world, the earth revolves – slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future,” he says.

So, that’s what I am doing this morning. I am, while still reminiscing about the beautiful Victoria ride from 20 years ago, savoring every drop of the brilliant coffee that Vaani’s brewed for us. Ah! Life’s slow…but Life’s beautiful too!

Family matters most in a crisis

In today’s Podcast, I talk about why families must bond and come together in times of crisis. I share from my own experience, while relating to a Malayalam film “#JSR” I watched recently. If there ever is a “Kingdom of Heaven”, then your family holds the key to it!

Listen time: 6:52 minutes

The story behind why my Book is called “Fall Like A Rose Petal”

There’s an interesting story behind the title of my Book Fall Like A Rose Petal. I share that story on my Vlog here. Viewing time: 6:55 minutes