Worship the design

If it is meant for you, it will flow into your Life!

Prayer is a celebration – in gratitude and in humility!

You have to go through what you have to go through

The truth about Life

#twitternama 19 #Lifein140characters

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.

 

Don’t just look for the Universe’s signs – tune into them!

If you have been created, you will be provided for.

The other day an unenviable situation stared us in the face, details of which I cannot share here. But it will not be an exaggeration to say that we were dealing with something grossly worrisome.

In such times, I do lean on my practice of mouna (silence periods). I also rely on my awareness to help me banish worry. But given the intrinsic nature of the human mind, worries, like most other thoughts, will arise. Over time, while I have understood the futility of worrying, I often am foxed by my mind’s urge to solve a problem situation. And when a problem defies a solution, worry sets in, naturally. I have to then summon all my spiritual strength for me to order my mind to calm down. What helps me immensely, in situations like these, is the Universe sending me signs that I will be looked after, provided for and cared for. And, unfailingly, the Universe sends me those signs – every single time!

So, even as I grappled with an imponderable the other day, I received an email from a friend. It was random mail. The mail itself had no evident reason to either reach me or appeal to me. Except that it contained three magical words:  “Whatever happens, happens”. I leaped at those words and held on to them. That was the Universe, sending me a calming thought, a sign, as always, even as I grappled with my reality.

People often ask me how do we make sense of the inscrutable continuum of Life? And I always tell them that if they are tuned to the Universe’s energies, the Universe will always send them signs. I only have my lived experiences, and my learnings from them, to share. And experiences are always deeply personal; often logic-defying. I talk about several such instances in my Book (read more here: Fall Like A Rose Petal). And here I am sharing one more instance today. So, how does it happen? How does it work? And does it really work?

Conceptual clarity, surely, can be helpful here. I believe that we have all been created on this planet. Yes, biologically, we are the result of a physical activity that transpired between two people – people who we know as our parents. But all of us have been born without our asking to be born. So, we are created. I am of the firm belief that if we have been created without our asking for it, and if we have survived so far, without our knowing or understanding what Life is all about, and if we are given a situation now to deal with, we must trust the process of Life – that we can deal with that situation, we will be directed to a solution, we will be provided for. If we approach Life with this humility and perspective, we will be able to pick up the signs that the Universe is sending us – signs that will help us last one more day; or survive until the next point when we need, and when we will receive, another reassurance.

Honestly, we must learn to live without reassurances. Because in reality, if you reflect deeply, we have all been always given whatever we have needed. But the fickle human mind craves for reassurances. And the benevolent Universe is always willing to send you signs. You can receive those signs though only when you are tuned in. Are you?

Your Life, just the way it is, fits in perfectly into the Masterplan!

Life is molding us continuously to fulfill a larger cosmic design.

Many times in Life, you encounter situations when you feel you cannot go on. You think you would much rather die than undergo this ordeal called Life. You want to give up. When every door seems to shut on you, when darkness engulfs you, when you see no way out and you are in the throes of despair and fear, check your pulse. Listen to your heart beat. Hear yourself breathing. If you are alive, it means it is not over yet. Stop looking for external signals for hope and revival. Look within. Feel Life’s energy thriving in you. “That which does not kill us makes us stronger,” said Friedrich Nietzsche, the 19th Century German philosopher and poet. Know that this is true. This is what Life is all about – indeed, there is a lot of Life after a crisis!

Life isn’t about winning or losing. It isn’t about acquiring and owning material assets. Life is an opportunity to experience uncertainty in each moment, it is an adventure. Don’t look for a pot of gold at the end of the journey. The journey itself is the reward. Every experience in Life teaches you something. Focus on the experience, focus on the learning from it, and don’t really bother too much about the result! If, at the end of the day, you have had a million experiences in your lifetime and have learnt from each of them, you are the biggest millionaire around! It is through the experiences that we are put through that Life keeps on molding us to fulfill a larger cosmic design, a Masterplan.  And remember, Life’s Masterplan for each of us has no flaws!

So, when you are enduring a difficult phase, focus on the experience and what you can learn from it. Embrace the uncertainty, don’t hate it. Only when you do this will you see how perfectly you and your Life – the way you are, the way it is – fit into the Masterplan!

There are a lot of Tim-like opportunities and Shaktimans waiting for us

If we make an effort, however small it may be, to touch another Life, we will live meaningfully!  

Reading the news this morning of Shaktiman’s (the horse in Dehradun who lost a limb after he was brutally beaten up by a local politician over a month ago) passing saddened me. A Life so unfortunately, so heartlessly, snuffed out.

Tim Mahoney & Shaktiman Picture Courtesy: Internet

The Shaktiman episode assumed a political overtone no doubt. And people took to social media to express their angst too. Understandable. But the story also leaves us richer with the learning that every aspect of creation gives us perspective on Life’s larger design, it’s purpose. Because, among the many who shared their grief over Shaktiman’s plight, two people actually went to work on it. Jamie Vaughan, an artificial limb expert, who was treating Shaktiman after one of his legs was amputated following the incident, posted, on Facebook, the requirement of a prosthetic leg to be sourced from Virgina and shipped to India urgently. Jamie, who works for an NGO treating animals in Bhutan, was hoping that someone traveling to India would volunteer to carry the precious cargo to her for Shaktiman. But Tim Mahoney, a former Bank of America employee, decided to do something better. He traveled from Kentucky to Virginia, picked up the prosthetic limb and traveled 12,000 km to Dehradun, at his own expense, all for a “call of heart”. Both Tim and Jamie had never known or met each other. Both of them were trying to help the distressed and injured horse – obviously expecting nothing in return.

I read about Tim’s compassion in the Times of India a few days ago. Ever since, I have been thinking of how this reminds us about how much we can do to help Life around us. Truly, I believe that with all that we have, we can do a lot, lot more, within our circle of influence. We don’t have to travel 12,000 km necessarily. What Tim’s selfless, magnanimous gesture does is it inspires us to pause and to think.

All of us are created compassionate. We become self-obsessed because either we are busy fighting our own battles and insecurities or we are busy earning a living. I think if we step out of our shells and look up, there will be a lot of Tim-like opportunities and a lot of Shaktimans waiting for us out there. Make time for someone today, go make a difference!