A CISF Inspector named Siddarth – and a lesson in Buddhahood

It is the lack of empathy that makes our world a cold, unfriendly, place.

Since I am a public speaker, and I do often get invited to address audiences, I have been asked by my doctor to nurture and protect my vocal cords. So, I have now begin carrying a collar mic with me. This mic runs on 9V battery power. I have to carry spare 9V cells so I am never short of one.

Yesterday, at the airport, a CISF (Central Industrial Security Force – mandated with airport security in India) Inspector disallowed me from carrying the extra cells. We got into a discussion over the matter. Although I was upset, and initially angry too, I let it pass. I heard what the gentleman had to say. He patiently explained to me that he didn’t have a problem with me carrying one cell in the mic, but he would not be allowing the “extras” to go with me.

We spoke over the matter for about 10 minutes. We spoke in Hindi. At the end of it, he thanked me for my “badappan” – magnanimity – in understanding his point of view. And I thanked him for his courtesy and patience with my situation. All through the conversation, he wore a bright, friendly, look on him. He was calm and never intimidating. We parted ways shaking hands and wishing each other well.

This Blogpost comes close on the heels of an unfortunate episode where Indigo staffers allegedly manhandled a passenger – a story that continues to be shared virally and debated across India. Even otherwise, I have often found people at airports, across the world, being particularly uncharitable to security personnel. Both in terms of opinion and attitude, most passengers tend to consider security folks painful to deal with. In the past, I too have been grumpy whenever I have been ‘randomly’ selected, isolated and ‘patted down’ by TSA staff in American airports or when CISF people have asked for my laptop bag to be re-examined. But, over the years, thanks perhaps to my personal evolution and given the high-risk and vulnerable environment that prevails globally, I have learned to understand – and not interpret or imagine – the motives of airport security people. They have taught me empathy.

For instance, Siddarth, the CISF Inspector I dealt with yesterday, told me this: “Hamari koshish bas yehi hai ki hamari nigrani mein koi negative episode na ho jaye. Aap sab bhale logon ki suraksha hamara zimma hai.” – “Our endeavor is to ensure passenger safety and that nothing negative/untoward happens under our watch. We want to protect all you good people out there.” He added, “When passengers get upset with us for doing our jobs diligently, my staff do feel demoralized. But I tell them – forgive them. Keep calm and keep treating every passenger the way you like to be treated!”

I loved that lesson in empathy and Buddhahood. Treat others the way you like to be treated. The essence of empathy lies in understanding – and not in interpreting or imagining. Not just in the context of airport security and dealing with people in uniform, who are merely doing their duty, but in all situations, empathy is a great quality to nurture. You don’t have to necessarily agree with everyone’s point of view, but you can surely see that point of view, and understand the rationale behind the other person’s choices and actions.

It is the lack of empathy that makes our world a cold, unfriendly, place. What we need today is global heartwarming – more patience, more understanding, more empathy. We need more Buddhas, like the CISF Inspector Siddarth!

Suffering is avoidable

On pain and suffering

Demystifying Englightenment

You are exactly where you ought to be in Life!

Everything, absolutely everything, happens for a reason.

Newspapers this morning report that the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has attached the properties and assets of a, now infamous, multi-level marketing (MLM) firm. A friend had messaged me last evening asking me if we were engaged with this firm in the past. He had noticed news breaking on the networks of the ED’s action and was connecting the development with our own story. Indeed we were engaged by this firm as consultants – as reputation managers – back in 2002~2003. That engagement changed our Life forever. I talk about, without naming the firm, this experience extensively in my Book, Fall Like A Rose Petal. In a way, the primary trigger for our bankruptcy can be traced back to this engagement and our ethical decision to separate from the firm. But, as I shared with my friend over WhatsApp yesterday, “No bitter feelings! Such is Life!!”

A few years after we disengaged with this firm and when we were in the throes of our fully-blown bankruptcy, a senior official from their side reached out to me. He wanted to know if we would be willing to consult with and advise his company again. The India operations of the company had by then come under investigation by the ED and local law enforcing authorities. So, the invitation was to consult for them outside India, out of Malaysia. I politely refused the offer. The official knew how grave our financial situation was. So, he dangled many a carrot.

And when I didn’t take the baits, he sent me this SMS message (I still have it saved in a Word document; I reproduce it verbatim from there): “AVIS – Wake up and smell the coffee. The interest rates will cripple. The banks will be after you. You will drown. Something will give way. Maybe Vaani will. She may give up on you. Maybe the kids will never forgive you. I am your well wisher. I have seen Life. Sharing my learning from business and financial disasters with you. I mean well my friend. Whether or not you take our offer up, take charge of your Life. Before it is too late.”  

Of course, I thanked him for his courtesy and replied: “Vaani and I are soulmates. We are in this together. I don’t need to ask her this. I know this. And you will see us rise from the ashes. Like a Phoenix.”

My friend’s message of last evening and this morning’s newspaper reports brought back memories of this experience. My biggest blessings are Vaani and our precious children Aashirwad and Aanchal. I am eternally grateful to Life, that despite what we are going through, we thrive as a foursome. Of course, we are a long, long way off from rising from the ashes. But seriously, there is no rancor, no aftertaste of what happened and where we find ourselves today. Indeed the choice I made, based on our core value of integrity that Vaani and I hold so dear, to separate from this firm, altered our Life irrevocably. But I only see all that has happened as part of a grand cosmic design.

Because we separated from this client, to whom we had a 60 % revenue exposure, we had to bring in debt to fund working capital requirements and expansion plans. Because our business income did not match our plans and projections, the debt ballooned and culminated in our bankruptcy. Because we have been bankrupt for over a decade now, our debt of Rs.5 crore remains unpaid to our 179 creditors, and our Life has been so, so, so painful and materially dysfunctional. Yet, because of all this, we learnt the value of reflection, resilience and resourcefulness. Because of all this, we learnt that it is possible to be fearless, face Life no matter how daunting it is and be happy despite the excruciating circumstances. Because of all this we have awakened to our Higher Purpose of “Inspiring Happiness” among all those who care to pause and reflect.

The singular, big learning in Life I have had is this: everything, absolutely everything, happens for a reason. Every event that occurs, every individual you meet or connect with, has a role in your Life’s screenplay. There is a not-so-apparent, but unputdownable, conspiracy for things to happen to you, and people to come into and depart from your Life, in such a manner that you are where you are in Life just now. So, roll with the punches. Don’t be bitter with anyone or anything. Nothing could have happened differently to you. Everything’s happened exactly the way it should have. Everything’s perfect, just the way it should be. And you are exactly where you ought to be in Life!

 

Why your ‘drunken monkeys’ need taming

Enjoy the power of now!

We were at a house concert recently. Rajasthani folk singers from Barmer, who are called Manganiyars, were performing. It was a privilege to listen to them live, at such close quarters. A lady sat next to me. She kept requesting the singers to sing a song of Reshma’s (a Pakistani folk singer who was born near Bikaner, Rajasthan), particularly, the number Lambi Judaai from the film Hero (Subash Ghai, 1983, Laxmikant Pyarelal). The Manganiyars politely declined to sing the song requested by the lady saying they don’t sing film songs. But the lady kept extolling Reshma’s virtues – she started to discuss Reshma’s voice, the music of Hero and the haunting impact the Lambi Judaai song left on the listener. All this, even as the Manganiyars went on to perform more native songs from their community. The lady’s banter was very distracting for me. So I moved away from her and immersed myself in the Manganiyars’ performance. A few songs later, I tried to check on the lady. She was still singing paeans in Reshma’s praise. She was simply not present in the Manganiyars’ concert! 

I found a very important spiritual takeaway from the lady’s behavior. She is, to me, but a metaphor. She reminds us that we are all often never present in our nows. Our human mind thrives only in the past or in the future. Which is why it drags us back to the past – which is dead, which is over – or pulls us into imagining a future – that is still unborn, yet to arrive. But Life is always happening in the present moment, in the now. So, when we obey the mind, we are missing living in the moment. We are missing the beauty and magic of Life. This is what was happening to the lady – she was missing the scintillating, live performance of the Manganiyars, she was clinging on to Reshma and to Lambi Judaai – not that they are bad memories, but in the present moment, they were clearly irrelevant!

In Buddhism, the mind is referred to as the Monkey Mind. This is to emphasize the point that there is a constant churn of thoughts, most of them unsettling in nature, that is happening in the undisciplined mind. With a mind that is steeped in anger, grief, guilt, fear, anxiety, worry and such wasteful, debilitating thoughts, where is the opportunity to live in the moment? One Buddhist scripture quotes the Buddha even describing the mind thus: “The human mind is like a drunken monkey that has been stung by a bee.” This is so apt. So powerful a metaphor that I can totally relate to.

The mind is powerless in the present. So, when you are trying to relax, for instance, watching TV or a sunset, the mind will remind you of a sunset that you watched with your girlfriend. And your thoughts will go to a time in the past that is so painful because your girlfriend and you had a messy break-up. Or it will drag you into the future, to a worry about some unpaid bills and the lack of cash to meet them – which includes not being able to pay for your DTH TV connection coming due next week! When your mind wanders, it will stop being in the present. So will you. Which is why all of us are leading incomplete lives – lost in mourning about the past or worrying incessantly about the future. This is why we suffer.

I have, over time and consistent practice, learnt to tame the drunken monkeys in my mind. To expect thoughts – the drunken monkeys – not to arise in your mind is futile. As long as you are alive your mind will be churning out thoughts. Intelligent living is the ability to tame the drunken monkeys and make them powerless by staying in the present. This then is the state of no-mind. We must try to be in this state for as long as possible each day. That’s the only way to not be held hostage by the past or be fearful of the future. That is the only way to live in the now!

Making pain powerless

In any situation or context, you can choose not to suffer!

 My Rheumatoid Arthritic condition has struck again. This time it has come with a vengeance – seizing my lower back in painful spasms. Yesterday, I was at the beach, in Mamallapuram, ahead of delivering my signature Fall Like A Rose Petal Talk there at Eli’s Kitchen. As we walked on the beach, I was in terrible pain as I took each step. But we were shooting some test shots for the cover of my next Book. So, I endured the pain and posed for the camera every time I was asked to. When climbing the stairs leading up to Eli’s Kitchen, I found the stabs of pain unbearable. I did not even sit down when I was invited to lest I am unable to spring up immediately when it is time for me to deliver my Talk. But soon, I was telling our story, sharing our learnings, answering questions from an audience, most of them expats, on happiness, love, compassion, Universal Energy, miracles and courage. In the 90-odd minutes that I shared, I did not experience any pain whatsoever. It must have been there. But my bliss overpowered it handsomely!

That experience last evening, yet again, reiterated in me the learning that immersion in the now always makes pain powerless. If you look deeply at whatever is causing you pain at the moment and stay in this moment, immersed in the now of reality, your mind will not even report the pain. This state is called Buddhahood.

Buddhahood is not an out-of-bounds state that is the prevail of an exclusive few. It is available to anyone. 24 x 7. And it is free. It is a truly liberating state. It comes with awareness of your present, of your now. So, in an extraordinary painful phase, when you are attending only to your pain, you miss, or you are absent from, the rest of the Life that is happening to you. But when you immerse yourself in the moment, like what happened with me yesterday, you are soaked in grace, in your bliss. That grace makes your pain powerless. This is not just true of physical pain, but works for emotional pain as well.

Simply, pain is powerful only when you give it the license to cause you suffering. And you suffer only when you wish your pain weren’t there in the first place. But pain is pain. It always comes uninvited, without checking, and at a time that it chooses. Which is why the Buddha famously said that suffering is optional while pain is inevitable. Osho, the Master, went a step further – he called suffering a human invention! So, don’t try to avoid or resist pain. Just don’t give it any attention. Choose not to suffer from it. Instead immerse yourself in everything else that’s happening to you, and you will make your pain powerless.

 

An autism-blessed Buddha and an education-afflicted ‘ashadu’

True intelligence and distinction lies in your Buddhahood!

At a grocery store the other day, a couple we know had brought their son along with them. The young boy has autism. So, he is often reflective and lost in his own world. Someone seeing the child, smiling curiously at the ceiling, remarked in Tamizh to another: “Ashadu Sirikkarthu!” Loosely translated, it means, “The idiot is laughing!” Of course, it was a very insensitive, inhuman comment. And the person to whom the comment was made quickly whispered a firm admonishment. So, I did not take up the issue with them.

But the inappropriate remark kept me thinking. I concluded that the real ‘ashadu’, idiot, was not the autism-afflicted boy. It was the person who made that comment. Because only an idiot will see Life so insensitively, so inhumanly. To me, the young boy is a Buddha. He has, unwittingly perhaps, learnt the art of living with equanimity, in total bliss, happy being who he is. His autism is a blessing. All of us, educated, intelligent, all-faculties-intact folks, only aspire to get to that state which the young boy has already arrived in. Many of us even fail to understand what this Buddhahood is all about. We wrongly imagine that it is about religion and ritual. We think being educated and financially well-off means we are better than most people around us. But the truth is mere education and knowledge do not necessarily guarantee wisdom. Hear what Osho, the Master, has to say about this. It is brilliant: “Our whole education is absolutely unaware of the fact that growing up is a different process than growing old. Even idiots grow old; only Buddhas grow up!”

Academic education, in fact, when overdone, and over-relied-upon, is a disease. An affliction, that comes in the way of intelligent living! Which is why, I am all for Buddhahood. To be sure, each of us is capable of it. Except that we have to grow up. And for that we have to first awaken. Growing up clearly is not about knowledge and qualifications. It is about going within, connecting with your source, your core, your Self. When you delve deeper you will find value in the silence that will greet you there. And the peace that you discover inside you, in that silence, that peace makes you a Buddha.

So, in effect, the more educated you think your academic qualifications make you, the more wealthy you think your material assets make you, the more experienced you think you are because of your professional body of work, well, these mean nothing from a Life-fulfilment point of view. These only mean you have grown older. It only means you are now a bigger idiot! Being educated, being financially wealthy, being a subject matter expert are not sinful – but imagining that you are, therefore, better off than others is sinful! True intelligence and distinction lies in your Buddhahood. To attain Buddhahood, you must simply un-cling from all that its worldly, all that is perishable, and see the light, metaphorically, in the sky. As Gautama Buddha famously said, “When you see how perfect your Life is, you will look up at the sky and laugh!”

Well, isn’t that what the young boy in the store was doing? Pause and reflect: are you capable of looking up at the sky and laughing with such equanimity and honesty? When you do that, you too will be a Buddha. Until then, just be accepting of the ‘ashadu’ that you are!

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Just be who you are: don’t hide your suffering and cook in it!

Don’t suffer in silence thinking it is a very cruel world out there. It clearly is not.

Through her Facebook post last evening, a young friend wonders if sharing your story of pain and suffering, and making yourself vulnerable, is worth it. She fears that it could prove costly. Instead, she believes in suppressing her suffering and smiling in pain.

From our own experience, I would say, doing just the opposite can be very liberating. Wear your Life on your sleeve. Be vulnerable. And the compassion of the Universe will nurture you, protect you and take you along.

This learning forms the essence of my Book Fall Like A Rose Petal. Sharing this learning, and inspiring happiness by encouraging people to just be who they really are, has become our raison d’etre – for Vaani and me.

What we have learnt is that the world is full of compassionate, loving, helpful people. Someone, somewhere is always there to help us onward, to last one more day. Of course, there are those who will judge you. A few others may even dump you. And some more may just choose to avoid you. But they are a minority. A lot of people are really like you and me – caught in similar Life situations, trying to grapple with pain, trying to understand how to get rid of their suffering. So, this majority, believe me, understands, appreciates and is always willing to lend you a shoulder or give you a hand.

Even as I am writing this blogpost, we are working on a short film promoting our Life Coaching Program – Let’s Talk Happyness – which is being made at zero-budget. Because we seriously don’t even have money to cover our living expenses. But our financial handicap has not prevented us from pursuing the idea with two young film-makers who we met recently. When we told them our story, they spontaneously offered to do this film. A friend offered us the venue. And another friend is offering us her studio for dubbing. All of this pro bono. Nobody is judging us. Nobody is doing this out of sympathy either. Everyone is doing this because they know what Life is and what it means to be caught in a tight spot and be vulnerable. They empathize – truly!

We must understand three things about Life in order to appreciate that being vulnerable is not wrong, and certainly not dangerous; it, in fact, is a very normal, logical, intelligent, thing to do. 1. Pain is inevitable. You clearly cannot control what happens to you in Life. And some of what happens will always cause you pain. 2. But you suffer from pain only because you wish that the pain were not there in the first place. For instance, a headache never causes suffering. A headache is just painful. It is your desire, your want, that the headache must not be there that causes your suffering. Therefore, suffering is a human creation; it is optional, it is avoidable. 3. Whatever you suppress, or resist, will persist. Suppressing suffering and smiling in pain is just martyrdom. By doing that, you are only multiplying your suffering.

So, if you are having a Life challenge, a crisis, an enormous, extra-ordinary amount of pain, or whatever it is that you are dealing with, go out there and tell the world about it. Don’t worry about the judgments a few people are likely to pass. Don’t give such people the license to prolong your suffering. Don’t try to live two lives: one to hide your suffering and another to cook in it! Just be who you are. The Life you have is the only one you have! So, be open and declare courageously: Yes, I have intense pain, I am in a shithole, I am messed up, but this is who I am. Help me if you can and I will humbly take all that you give me compassionately. If you can’t help me, then please excuse me; what you think of me, my choices and my situation doesn’t really bother me!

Try this approach, of wearing your Life on your sleeve, and see what a beautiful world it is!

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Extraordinary pain is a sign of extraordinary grace pulsing through your Life

Only when you are lost in Life can you find yourself!  

Snatches from three conversations that we had yesterday come to my mind as I sit down to write this blogpost. A couple we know is building a new house. They find the burden of having to get the relevant approvals from the local civic body “nightmarish” – “Sometimes, when we pause and reflect, this trip to own a house seems so pointless!” A friend feels lost having been ‘dumped’ by his wife and having to literally “re-boot” his Life – “I don’t know what to do, where to start!” And a top manager at a large organization, whose husband is a very successful businessman, says she’s “trapped” in a job that she “hates” – “I am just biting my lips and enduring this suffering because I have no choice.”

Each of these people, like so many, many, millions out there, is trying to make sense of Life in their own unique ways. Nobody has any answers to Life. Life itself offers no explanations, no justifications, no reasons, no meanings. It just spews out experience after experience!

Now, the experiences of the people we spoke with yesterday appear to pale in significance when you consider stories of families who have lost a dear one or are raising special children or have someone who is dealing with a terminal illness situation. But no one’s story is ever less significant. The truth is, it is indeed Life’s inscrutability as experienced by you, it is your personal journey, that shapes your view of Life.

During my mouna (daily silence periods) sessions, in the early stages of our bankruptcy (that we are still enduring; read more here Fall Like A Rose Petal ), I struggled a lot. I was asking a lot of questions of Life – why, why me, why me now, what is the Purpose of my Life, why should all my talent and integrity be subject to such an intense ordeal by fire, why is God absent while this whole drama is playing out, and what is the meaning of all this? Quite obviously, I got no answers. But over days and weeks and months of mouna, I realized that the best way to live Life is to stop looking for answers or for meaning in Life.

I remembered Osho, the Master, teach this: “Meaning is a human invention. There is no meaning to Life itself, it is beyond meaning. One simply lives, for no other reason; one lives for Life’s sake. Then Life is not a means to something else, it is beautiful as it is. In fact, it simply is. Look at it, Life is full of poetry. What meaning does a rose flower have? What is the meaning of a night full of stars? What is the meaning of all that you are surrounded by? There is no meaning in any of all this.” And the Buddha’s teachings added this: “The inner emptiness is so beautiful, don’t stuff it with junk, leave it as it is.”

When I meditated on these perspectives during my mouna sessions, I discovered that living out of my emptiness, asking nothing from Life, living moment to moment for no other reason, just enjoying being alive, is what intelligent living is about. Intelligent living, I realized, was not applying my intelligence to my Life, but to love and celebrate the intelligence of Life, of creation, itself. Osho helped me along futher: “It is more than what you can ask for! What more meaning do you need? Is breathing not enough? Is the chirping of the birds not enough? Is the green and the red and the gold of the trees not enough? Is this vast existence with all its splendor not enough? Do you still want some meaning?”

I read these teachings over and over again. That’s how I discovered that your Life’s journey is uniquely designed for you to find yourself. Only when you lose yourself can you find who you really are and what you are here, on this planet, for. This lifetime is actually a minefield where you get blown to smithereens  by a landmine that you have stepped on, because of the choices you have made, only so that you can gather yourself again and find yourself to be stronger, happier and more content than ever before.

So, every time you feel lost, empty, beaten and defeated in Life, celebrate. Because extraordinary pain is not a sign of your past sins catching up or Life conspiring to fix you. It is a sign of extraordinary grace pulsing through your Life.  

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