Why blame (an imagined) God for the inscrutable nature of Life?

The most intelligent response to Life is to stay stoic despite its upheavals.

“What do you do when you have a problem with accepting this God theory,” asked a young lady, when we were introduced to her (by a mutual friend) as Life Coaches and Happiness Curators, at a café the other day. She went on to say that she debunked the entire God “story” as proposed by Zeno, a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, who lived around the 3^rd Century BC. Zeno championed the belief that God determined everything for the best and holding on to that view was a virtue sufficient for happiness. Zeno’s followers were called Stoics – some of the more popular followers were Seneca and Epictetus. The lady said that it was impossible for her to accept that God controlled everything and so she felt that she could not accept the God theory as a pre-requisite for happiness. “How do I make peace with myself, when I am not able to accept a majority opinion or belief,” she asked.

I replied: “Simple. Replace the word God with the word Life. Now, consider this statement – Life controls everything and understanding this truth holds the key to happiness.” I then asked her: “Do you have a problem in accepting Life as a more intelligent energy than you?”

The lady replied: “No, I don’t. I surely feel the presence of a Higher Energy. But I don’t like the idea of God.”

“So, just go with what you believe in. Why do you complicate your Life by questioning the belief systems of others,” I asked.

The lady said she got the point.

Many people are like this young lady. They are spending too much time analyzing what needs no analysis. The truth is that there is a Higher Energy – call it Creation, call it God, call it by whatever name – that powers our lives. I have learnt to simply accept this truth and trust the process of Life. I realize that the best way to live Life is to, as Zeno championed, be stoic in the wake of Life’s upheavals. The Roman philosophers who followed Zeno too advocated the calm acceptance of all occurrences as the unavoidable result of divine will or of natural order. The second chapter of the Bhagavad Gita ends with describing the highest state of consciousness a human being can attain. Krishna, replying to Arjuna, says (presenting here only the relevant extract): “…He lives in wisdom, who sees himself in all and all in him, Whose love for the Lord of Love has consumed every selfish desire and sense-craving tormenting the heart. Not agitated by grief, nor hanker after pleasure he lives free from lust and fear and anger. Fettered no more by selfish attachments he is not elated by good fortune nor depressed by bad. Such is the seer….” The key operative part is to be “not elated by good fortune nor depressed by bad”.

In our lifetimes, we are seeing stoicism all around us as people deal with publicly visible tragedies – like the Las Vegas shootings or the questionable incarceration of the Talwar couple over the unsolved murder of their child, Aarushi. We also see people deal with their private tragedies stoically – a health challenge, a relationship issue, the passing of a dear one. There is immense pain for those who are caught in these Life situations. Yet we don’t see them beating their chests and wailing. They see no point in grieving and suffering endlessly. Instead, we see them, almost prayerful, moving on with their work, seemingly unaffected by the pain and grief. This is the highest spiritual quality individuals can acquire. In learning from them, we can find a better way to deal with our own, smaller, calamities.

So, God or no God is not the debate really. Seriously, why blame (an imagined) God for the inscrutable nature of Life? The most intelligent response to a Life that you can never make sense of is to accept whatever comes your way and to stay stoic, stay anchored. This is what Zeno told us centuries ago. And if we internalize that Life lesson, we too can be happy with what is!

A hairdresser and a Guru

When you are ready and willing, you will always be pointed in the direction you must take.

“Do we necessarily need a Guru to initiate us into Self-realization,” asked a reader yesterday. I have myself asked this question before; and I keep getting asked this question often too.

We must first understand the meaning of Guru. Guru really means ‘remover of ignorance’ – ‘Gu’ means ‘darkness of ignorance’ and ‘Ru’ means ‘remover, one who removes’. So, as I have experienced and learnt from Life, anyone or anything, that removes your ignorance, or helps you to become aware, or that which awakens you to a truth, is a Guru. So, a Guru is not necessarily a someone who has matted hair, is ritualistic, has a followership and has an ashram or a retreat. To me, a Guru, is a teacher. And since I am really, continuously, learning from Life’s experiences, I consider Life my constant Guru, my ever-present Teacher!

Now, to the next part of the question. I feel the word and the concept of ‘Self-realization’ is over-rated, and therefore, unnecessarily complicated. ‘Self-realization’ is simply the awareness of the transient nature of Life. I have written on writer Shreekumar Varma’s idea of happiness in my Sunday column, The Happiness Road, for DT Next. While conversing with Shreekumar, who is a scion of the Travancore royal family, he shared what his grandmother, the erstwhile ruler of the state of Travancore, used to say about Life: “I once had a kingdom, then I had a palace, then I had a house and now I have a room.” “This awareness”, pointed out Shreekumar, “is key to leading a simple, happy Life – that nothing and no one is going to be yours or with you permanently.”

I will add to his learning that this awareness is what ‘Self-realization’ is. Which is, you are not this body, you are not this human form, you are not the qualifications you have, you are not your position, your title, your bank balance, your relationship, your property, your grief, your worry, your health – you are none of those. In a basic, practical, simplistic context, you are just your breath. Everything and everyone who is around you is with you only because you are alive, you are breathing. Once you die, where does your breath go? It just becomes one with the Universal energy. I wouldn’t even complicate this discourse with the concept of soul, atman, and such – I am just sharing what I understand. To me, everything matters only because of this breath, only because of the fact that I am alive. Life is only jab tak hai jaan! This means, live your Life to the fullest, as long as it lasts. Utilize the opportunity of this lifetime within the lifetime of the opportunity. When you go, you are going to take nothing with you. So, don’t cling on to anything or anyone – practice detachment in every moment. This realization, this awareness is what ‘Self-realization’ really is. As you can see, it is downright simple.

Now, do you need a Guru to awaken you to this truth? The answer is simple. Do you need an alarm to wake up in the mornings or do you wake up on your own? Both possibilities exist. Those who are used to bio-rhythm, will be woken up by their body clocks. Those who need a wake-up call will respond to an alarm. And then, there’s the third category, those who are not sleeping at all, they are pretending to be asleep. They can never be woken up. So, a Guru really steps into your Life when you are ready and willing. As the Buddhist saying goes, when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. And that Guru will not necessarily be a scholar or a religious leader or a God-person. It need not even be a person! A book can be your Guru, a movie can be a Guru, a Life experience can be a Guru. And there can even be a combination of Gurus – different people, things, events coming together to remove your ignorance, to wake you up and to point you in the direction you must take.

A genuine Guru will not advise that you follow him or her, will not insist on any ritual or prayer, will not champion that you fear a God. A true Guru awakens you to understand the impermanence of Life, and therefore invites you to celebrate yourself and to be happy. A Guru is an enabler, who helps you unshackle yourself and sets you free.

I used to regularly visit a hairdresser named Ramalingam at the erstwhile Taj Residency (now Vivanta by Taj) in Bangalore. I was a lot younger then and had a lot of hair. I was also an angry man – aggressive, impatient and quite rabid. One day, when Ramalingam was working on my hair, I received a phone call from my accountant saying a particular client payment, which was overdue by six months, was unlikely to come in for another week. I just took off on my colleague over the phone – I raved, ranted, screamed and literally shredded my colleague verbally. Ramalingam stepped back as I went ballistic. And when I got off the call, I gestured to him brusquely to continue with his work. As he resumed, Ramalingam whispered into my ear: “Sir, losing your cool like this is no good. This is not the sign of a mature leader. You are a very capable man. But you are letting your anger ruin you. Intelligent living doesn’t call for big intelligence. It requires common-sense. If you can learn to be in this world and yet be above it, untouched by its pulls and pressures, then you are a true, evolved leader.” Ramalingam’s words strangely did not anger me or hurt me. In fact, they gripped my conscience and woke me up from my stupor. It has been over 15 years now. I am still a work-in-progress. But my journey of channelizing my anger and my spiritual quest – both – began that day sitting in that salon chair. I was Arjuna that day and Ramalingam was my Krishna. He was my first Guru – he removed a part of the ignorance that I was steeped in and, set me off on glorious path where I have experienced freedom, inner peace and happiness – despite my excruciating material circumstances. (Read more here: Fall Like A Rose Petal)

On this path, whoever I meet now or whatever comes my way, is a Guru. I know I have miles to go, but I know there will always be a Guru to light up the path, every step of the way.    

You must always do what you have to do to protect your inner peace

Sometimes, you may have to be firm and tell some people off.

Well-meaning organizations, who necessarily don’t have a budget to remunerate us, sometimes invite us to deliver my Fall Like A Rose Petal Talk. Since the opportunity is in line with our Higher Purpose of Inspiring Happiness we do accept such invitations and I deliver my Talk pro bono in such cases. But we do insist that our travel and logistics are taken care of. Recently, a host who, in our opinion, could have afforded to make our ground transfers more comfortable, was pushing us hard to accept mediocre arrangements. Further, the tone of the email we received was unprofessional and lacked dignity. We refused to accept the arrangements they proposed and canceled the Program. When I shared this instance with someone who was struggling to make a similar choice he wanted to know how we can make such a decision simple. “Doesn’t it appear that you are being finicky about making a small adjustment for a larger good? Isn’t there always this conflict,” he asked.

And I think his question is very pertinent. This happens to all of us, all the time, in all situations. The simplest way I have learnt to reason with this apparent ‘conflict’ is to ask myself if I am comfortable doing what I am being asked to do or what I am setting out to do. If I am not, I immediately withdraw myself from the scene, from the opportunity – whatever may be the context or whoever may be involved.

I have realized that if you don’t draw a line, even in seemingly ‘small or trivial’ matters, you will dither when it comes to making a choice with ‘bigger’ ones. Especially in close relationships where people start taking you for granted.

What do you do, for instance, when people close to want to have an opinion about everything you do. And they, if you are not wary, end up treating you like a doormat. You suffer them because you don’t want to be either petty – like them – or it’s not in your “intrinsic nature” to be “unkind” to people. Now, let’s get this right. There’s nothing “unkind” in asserting yourself so as to protect your inner peace and dignity. Whoever it may be – parent, sibling, child, neighbor, boss, colleague or friend – no one, no one has the right to treat you in a manner in which you don’t like or don’t want to be treated. Period.

So, be firm when you must. Just put people in their place. Protect your inner peace, because no one else will do this for you.

Some of the situations Life places you in will also require you to fight for justice. Often with people who are supposedly close to you. Don’t get clouded by sentiments about close blood relations in such cases either. I am not encouraging you to fight because it is the right thing to do. But what do you do when the situation created by people around you demands a firm response? A friend of mine recently called to say how his older brother, with whom he shares the ownership of the family business, was making it almost impossible for both of them to co-exist and survive. “Neither is he accepting a separation of the business and the assets, nor is he allowing me to lead it and run it well, nor is he running it efficiently. We are bleeding losses month-on-month. He’s challenging me to fight him. If I fight him I can at least save half the family’s fortunes – for my immediate family and for my mother and sister. But how can I fight my own brother? I am not interested in any fight,” lamented my friend. I told him: “Don’t let your ego – in the garb of compassion – come in between you and what you must do. Just do whatever you believe must be done in the interest of all parties concerned, without hatred, without anger, without any rancor.”

In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says to Arjuna: “Don’t escape from the war… because I can see this escape is just an ego trip. The way you are talking simply shows that you are calculating, you are thinking that by escaping from the war you will become a great saint. Rather than surrendering to the whole, you are taking yourself too seriously– as if there will be no war if you are not there.” Krishna says to Arjuna, “Just be in a state of let-go. Say to existence, ‘Use me in whatever way you want to use me. I am available, unconditionally available.’ Then whatsoever happens through you will have a great authenticity about it. It will have intensity, it will have depth. It will have the impact of the eternal on it.”

Such is Life. When you have to do something to ensure that your inner peace is not disturbed, you have to do it. And only you can do it. Do it also knowing, as Krishna says, that you are a mere instrument, a conduit for something that Life wants done through you! In doing so, you are not being unkind or rude. You are simply responding to a situation that has been created by someone and which you intensely dislike. So, don’t fall short, don’t fight shy. If you don’t do what you must do in such situations, you will cause your own suffering.

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Reflections on staying innocent and detached – courtesy: Boman Irani

Be ‘unmoved’ by both failure and success. For they are mere imposters.

Last evening we were at the Gollapudi Srinivas Memorial Awards ceremony where debutant director Jayaprakash Radhakrishnan won the Award for his multi-lingual film Lens (2015). It was a nice, warm event that, well, could have been shorter. For me and Vaani, it was Bollywood actor Boman Irani’s straight-from-the-heart talk that made the evening memorable. He shared his journey so far in Life and cinema. It was the simplest and most meaningful speech I had heard in a long, long time.

Boman talked about starting off as a child with dyslexia, discalculi and dysgraphia. He said everyone has to struggle at some time in their Life. Then they have to establish themselves with ‘the establishment’ in their chosen field, then they have to be free (and wary) of corruption (hubris, actually) and finally, when they perhaps realize themselves, there is a home-coming. It was touching to hear of his personal journey. But the most powerful takeaway for me was a deeply spiritual one. At 56, and now a grandfather, Boman believes he stays grounded because of some sage advice he got from a senior unit hand, Ikram Khan, during the shooting of Munna bhai MBBS (Rajkumar Hirani, 2003; Boman’s first Hindi film). Khan told Boman: “You will go very far, you will touch great heights, you will win many, many awards, but never lose your innocence. Because if you lose your innocence, you have lost your art. Then you have been corrupted. So, stay innocent.” Boman signed off with a flourish saying he was very happy and at peace for being an ‘innocent, old man’!

I am sure a YouTube link to the speech will be up soon. And I hope many people will listen to what Boman shared last evening. It is a very significant message he delivered.

I think all of us are corrupt to a large extent. Not in the conventional sense of the word, in terms of taking and giving bribes, alone. But in a far more prolific sense – all of us are corrupt to the extent of our material attachments – money, fame, recognition, property – and even of our not-so-material opinions and beliefs. We are constantly tormented by the fear of failure and the desire to keep succeeding, winning all the time. That’s corruption too. I believe the innocence that Ikram Khan talks about is the ability to enjoy the process of living, the journey of doing something. In Boman’s case it is the joy of acting. In someone else’s case it could be baking. Or in a waiter’s case it can be simply serving. Whatever profession or work it is, your inner devotion to it counts more than what material benefit you get out of it. Of course, money is important. But not beyond providing for your basic necessities and helping you save up for a rainy day. The problem with success is that it is both heady and fleeting. So, when you start getting what you want, when you start winning, even if you have struggled a lot for it, you begin to imagine you caused it. You fall into a mind-trap, believing that you are infallible and you will now stay successful – in a worldly sense with name, fame, money, power – forever. So, when the phase of success you are seeing evaporates and you taste failure, you can’t handle it. You become bitter. And depressed. This is why Khan recommends that you stay innocent. And I completely agree with him.

This is the essence of the Bhagavad Gita. Krishna tells Arjuna: “…Be unmoved by both failure and success, by victory and defeat…for they are mere imposters…offer whatever you do as an offering to Me…” Being ‘unmoved’ is a great state to be in. I have seen success and I have been corrupt, of the kind Khan and Boman warn us against. I have seen failure and continue to be a failure, per a worldly sense, having lost everything material and still having a mountain of debt to clear; so I have been plagued with anger, grief, guilt, self-doubt and self-pity in the past. But not anymore. I internalized the ‘stay innocent’ learning some years back and it has helped me immensely. Most important, it has led me to this ‘be unmoved’ state. So, this is my two-penny worth: if there is only one lesson you want to keep in mind about Life, let it be this one. Because, through retaining your innocence, when you realize that everything is impermanent then you will attain the highest level of human evolution – detachment.