How about ‘inventing your covfefe’?

You are confident when you simply are who you love being.

A young man came to meet me some days ago. He confessed that he has low self-esteem. And that, he said, was forcing him to be tentative in almost all situations. Often this tentativeness was translating into insecurity and fear. He wanted to know how he could be more confident of himself.

The only way to be confident of yourself is to not bother about what people have to say. Simple. If there’s something you have to do, go do it. When you do something, when you present yourself to the world, naturally, there will be several opinions that will be thrown up about you and what you have to say or do. If you fear those opinions, you will be tentative, therefore, you will lack confidence. Over time, this tentativeness will cripple you. You will become phobic – not wanting to express yourself freely and fearing judgment all the time.

The way to deal with such a situation is to first understand Life. The fact is that you are created special – you are gifted and talented in your own unique way. And this lifetime is really an opportunity to express that talent. When you don’t express yourself freely, you are not living fully. You are living an incomplete Life. This incompleteness, this lack of fulfilment is what manifests itself as a lack of self-esteem and self-confidence. Some people, like the young man I met, are acutely aware of this state; most people blunder along not knowing they are even living incomplete lives.

The way to regain self-confidence is to go do what gives you joy! Only doing what you love doing, only expressing yourself fully, freely, without inhibitions, can give you joy. And when you are truly happy, from within, then you are really not concerned about what people have to say about you. So, in essence, self-confidence lies in just being who you are. When you are the way you love being, without a care about what people think or people say, you can only be happy, you can only be confident.

Have you heard the birds sing? They sing without a care about whether anyone hears them sing or what they think. They sing because they want to sing. They sing to express themselves. The birds don’t have a self-esteem or self-confidence problem. Surely, we humans can learn from those humble birds?

Or, without appearing to trivialize the discourse, if you want to learn from another human, learn from Trump. When he tweeted ‘covfefe’, he surely didn’t bother about public opinion. He simply expressed himself. He still doesn’t care what people think of him and the word he invented! Perhaps, ‘inventing your covfefe’ can be a metaphor for being yourself and being confident!?

 

The American Presidency holds out a great lesson in detachment

Why suffer holding on to anything?

Watching the inauguration of the US President on Friday last, I could not but help reflect on the beauty of the American democratic system. Every 4~8 years it promotes the effective practice of detachment – not just for those administratively connected with the Presidency but for all American people. As Michelle and Barack Obama’s Executive One helicopter took off from Capitol Hill, I felt, the moment was poignant. “That’s it. The Barack Obama Presidency can never be back. America has to let him go. No choice,” I remarked to Vaani. I felt a lump in my throat, as did Vaani, as did perhaps so many millions of people across the world. But such is Life when it comes to the American Presidency. Which is why I feel it holds out a great lesson in detachment to all of us.

We often think of detachment as something which is beyond the reach of common folks like us. We think of it as the exclusive prevail of more evolved, spiritually-inclined people. But I think different. Each of us is capable of understanding and practicing detachment. All we need to do is to celebrate the impermanence of Life itself. If you are born, death is certain. So, when Life is impermanent, transient, why cling on to anything? In a way, one of the most powerful positions in the world – purely going by the worldly definition of power – has a limited-period tenure, between 4~8 years. So, why suffer wanting to hold on to anything – least of all material?

I believe that the key to happiness is to be detached – from what you possess, from what you want, from what haunts you, from what possesses you, from what worries you and from all who you love or dislike. If you can immerse yourself in whatever you love doing – painting, cooking, gardening, reading, singing, cleaning, whatever – without regard to either space or time, then you can call yourself detached. Then you can only be happy!

In a way, I guess guided detachment helps. Like in the case of the US Presidency. During the early months of our bankruptcy (read more here: Fall Like A Rose Petal), I found it very difficult to stop worrying. It seemed such a natural, normal, thing to do. When you don’t know what to do, you end up first worrying that you are clueless. Then you start being fearful. And you are soon pinned down and held hostage by your fears and your worries. It’s an ugly state to be in. I hated being that way. Then through my daily practice of mouna (silence periods), I learnt to postpone worrying. The more engaged I was in the beauty of the present moment – however imperfect it was, it was always beautiful – the more I was able to detach myself from my worries and fears. I told myself that we were waging a war. And to fight that war, Vaani and I needed to be in top gear – physically, emotionally, spiritually. So, every evening we came home battle-scarred, but we refused to let the pressure get to us once we sat down for dinner. This is how I trained myself in the art of detachment.

Detachment doesn’t mean you are irresponsible. Nor does it mean inaction. It simply means you are smart enough, intelligent enough, not to take Life so seriously that you stop enjoying the journey because you are obsessed with the reward – a reward that you cannot anyway take with you!  

 

What the upcoming Trump Presidency teaches us about the futility of angst and bitterness

Arguing endlessly and being bitter is not going to change any reality.

Suddenly, the US of A is divided. Shockingly polarized. I have been to that great country so many, many times. And I love the people there immensely. Our son lives there, just as several members of our extended families do. Yet, I have never seen so much division out there, ever.

Just look at your Facebook feed and you will know what I mean. So many, many, many people hate Trump and fear ‘his’ America. Yet, an apparent majority sentiment against him, and all the fear-mongering and protesting, isn’t going to prevent Trump’s inauguration on January 20^th next year. His election is an act of people’s will, of a duly laid out constitutional process. No amount of debate is going to change it. No protests are going to make things any better or different for the protestors.

Free speech is enshrined in most democracies in the world. And USA’s is a beautiful, thriving democracy. Yet, even as people are expressing themselves freely, there’s a great deal of angst and intolerance that’s visible, palpable. Political ideology has divided people at a social level. And that’s a sad thing to happen. I believe a conversation that cannot allow a candid, calm and constructive discussion is not a mature one. What we all have to recognize is that whether someone supports one leader or the other, the core issue here is that everyone want better leadership. Each one feels the person he or she is inspired by is a better leader. Now, if you don’t support someone’s choice of leadership, discuss and debate about the leader and leadership – don’t rubbish the person you debate with hoping to win an avoidable, vitriolic argument. This serves no purpose. Actually, honestly, even social media posts serve no purpose in such debates. But they do serve as a means of expressing ourselves freely. Such expression must be respected and any personal or acerbic remarks must be avoided ideally and surely expunged!

I have learnt that arguments over anything – not just over a political or academic or religious or ideological viewpoint – serve no purpose. They end up raising the decibel level and increasing acrimony. An argument is really an ego game. It is always fought over who is right than what is right. Interestingly, at a deeply spiritual level, even right and wrong is relative. What may be right to someone may always appear wrong to someone else. Or what may be right now to someone may appear to be wrong to the same person at another time. So, when what is right is debatable, what’s the point in deciding – that too, over a painful, often wasted, argument – who is right?

Osho, the Master, explains this beautifully: “Life is not divided into black and white – a lot of it is more like gray. And if you see very deeply, white is one extreme of gray and black is another extreme, but the expanse is of gray. So one can see it as white and one can see it as black. It is as if a glass is there, half full, half empty. Somebody says it is half full and this is the truth and somebody says it is half empty and this is the truth… and they start fighting. All arguments are more or less like that.”

The upcoming Trump Presidency offers us all a chance to evolve into being more tolerant. There’s an opportunity here for us to learn to avoid the urge to belligerently argue. And stop wanting to be right and to be seen as right. If you have an opinion that is fair and constructive, and if you think all parties in the discussion will have the maturity to accept it, express it. If you believe that maturity is lacking in the forum, exercise your right to not participate. Ideally every perspective shared in a discussion must be constructive and must create value. If you can’t ensure that, it’s a simpler and intelligent response to just remain silent.

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Modi, Trump, whoever, whatever, your inner peace comes only from acceptance

Whatever it is, it is what it is!

Our world has changed considerably in the last 24 hours. For us Indians, Prime Minister Modi’s announcement of demonetizing Rs.500/- and Rs.1000/- currency notes, in a bit to snuff out the black money menace, means some days and weeks of being unsettled before we get used to a new way of buying, selling, earning and paying. And out there Donald Trump has gone on to win a bitterly fought election to emerge as the next President of the United States. Now, I am no Modi fan. Plus I anticipate huge issues with the execution of the roll-over to a new series of high-denomination currencies in the coming weeks in India. I am not even sure last evening’s move will strangulate black money, corruption, terror-financing and counterfeiting. So, I didn’t quite like what I heard when Modi unveiled his grand, ambitious plan to ‘wipe out’ the parallel economy. And I have been seriously hoping that Hillary Clinton would win. So having Trump as US President for me, like for several million others, is a shocker.

But with close to half a century of being around and at least a decade of understanding Life better, I have understood that it is always what it is. The sooner we accept any new reality and move on, the more peaceful we will be with ourselves and our world.

So, in this time of upheaval, I will lean on these epochal developments around me for spiritual perspective and growth. Intelligent living, as I have known and understood it, has only two tenets. 1. Just be. 2. While just being, be at it.

‘Just be’ really means being in the moment. And whatever is in the moment is what it is. Always. Arriving at this state of awareness does not take time or practice, it only takes a moment of awakening. Looking at just these two developments since last evening (IST), there’s a great opportunity to awaken to be accepting of what is. Consider this carefully. No matter what you think or do, Life has an independent mind and operates on its own. When you realize this and when you let Life take you on its own course, you just are. Then, you don’t resist, you don’t fight, you don’t agonize and so you are peaceful. But letting Life flow at its own terms does not mean stopping to do what you must do. This is the action that the Bhagavad Gita talks about, this is the duty.

So, in the current context in India, as I see it for myself, one way of doing this duty is to partner with the man Modi and his team and give the new process my time and support. And if I oppose him tooth and nail, then I must take on the process that an elected government has engineered and begun rolling out. Just sitting there and complaining will serve no one’s purpose – neither mine nor for the cause that I am complaining for. As for Trump, at least for people in India, there is no choice. He is the choice of a majority of the American people. Period. So, we must all simply go along.

Life’s constantly reminding us through all our experiences that the key to sanity, inner peace and happiness is acceptance. I don’t appreciate Modi’s communal agenda or his Hindutva ideology; I can’t forget what his leadership did to, and about Godhra, in 2002. But as I observed in a blogpost here on the day after he and his party won that mammoth mandate in May 2014, if this is our Life, so it is. If he is going to pull off a massive ‘cleansing’ of India’s black money stables, then, wow, he needs everyone’s support. Including mine. If he can’t then the world can crucify him. For now, I don’t see a role for myself as either commentator or complainer. I see myself as a contributor, who for the larger good of India, is willing to set aside personal preferences and play ball – sincerely, to give a well-intentioned effort a chance.

I glean an important learning from Life here. After all, Modi, Trump, whoever, whatever, your inner peace comes only from acceptance. And so, for your own inner peace, in any new situation, participate if you can, collaborate if you can, work on changing the reality if you can, but begin first with acceptance!

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