The power of practicing silence periods – daily

Don’t let your frustrations affect what you love doing

Why add to your emotional baggage by judging others?

Inspirations for a simple, happy, purposeful Life…

Here’s why I relate to Girish Karnad’s approach to living – and why I celebrate the beauty and simplicity of his final journey!

 

While I definitely believe that there is a Higher Energy that nurtures all forms of creation, I don’t believe in the popular notion of God as a form/source outside of us, that is cloaked in the (unnecessary, avoidable) garb of religion! The Higher Energy I worship is Life itself – who I regard as my Teacher, which is the source for my very ‘being’ in the first place, and which is far more intelligent and compassionate than all its creations! This Higher Energy may be inscrutable alright, but that it exists is undeniable!

 

That’s perhaps why I find Girish Karnad’s outlook inspiring – his views on Life, God, religion and rituals mirror Vaani‘s and mine. To live a simple, happy, purposeful Life, we have realized, we certainly don’t need the three crutches that we are conditioned by family/society to cling on to – the popular notion of God, religion and rituals!

 

I believe there were no priests and rituals for Karnad’s final journey – just readings from his works! So amazing, so beautiful!

 

This excerpt from an article in today’s ‘Mint’ relevantly explores Karnad’s inspiration to live – and die – without frills!

 

Also, what you find below is a prayer I wrote to Life on my mobile phone in December 2007, when we were in the throes of darkness – the realization that we were bankrupt had just hit us and we were totally clueless on where to begin and what to do!

Ever since, I meditate on this prayer daily, surrendering to Life’s flow…

PS: Girish Karnad passed away on Monday, June 10, 2019.

Stop reacting to social media stimuli to protect your inner peace

Why Happiness is an intensely personal choice…

Why self-pity is debilitating

Why ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ are both morally irrelevant in Life

Awareness holds the key to intelligent living.

A reader wanted to know how to deal with suppressed desires and emotions. He cited his experience of being brought up in a conservative fashion and him not having touched alcohol all his Life. He agreed that he was old enough to be making his choices, but he felt his family would not approve of them. “So how does one deal with an urge to experience something without feeling guilty or fearing about being judged,” he asked.

I am of the view that everything in Life has to be experienced. But you must never let yourself be controlled by anything. You must be aware of what you are doing. So, drinking socially is okay. But being controlled by your drinking or drinking and driving is not okay surely. You must train yourself to make this intelligent distinction, every single time, with everything that you choose to do.

And please don’t suppress any emotions. The more you suppress something, the more it will want to break free and express itself. So, if you have an urge to try out something new – whatever – go do it. But do it being fully aware of the consequences of it controlling you. I practice a simple process of holding on to each debilitating emotion I experience, examining it, and setting it down. Anger, fear, sorrow, guilt, jealousy – whatever comes my way, I look at it closely and then I let it go. This way, nothing controls me. And since there is no resistance, there is no suffering.

Finally, please don’t make decisions wanting to please others. If there is something you want to do, you want to experience, you have to go do it. Or if you choose not to do it, for whatever reasons, don’t think about your choice again. Don’t try to keep flaunting your martyrdom – “Oh! But for my family, I would have been this way or that way!” It is simply not worth it. That way, you will feel depressed and will end up wallowing in self-pity.

That brings me back to the point about awareness. The key to intelligent living is awareness. If you train your mind to be aware, nothing can entice you, nothing will torment you or control you. Awareness makes Life simpler. It liberates you. Nothing is wrong and nothing is right, in a moral sense, in Life. So, do whatever you feel like doing. But do it with complete awareness of what you are doing, why you are doing it and what consequences are likely to follow. As Osho, the Master, says, “There is only one sin and that is unawareness, and only one virtue and that is awareness.”

Of Rithvik, Sandeep, you and me – and why comparisons are always wasteful!

Just let the song in you play – it doesn’t really matter what others play or have to say!

The past few days we have been doing a round of the free kutcheris on the Madras Music Season circuit. I don’t understand Carnatic music the way it should be – I don’t know how to identify ‘raagams’, I don’t know the nuances of the art form, I don’t know the compositions, in fact I know precious little about the genre. Yet I lose myself whenever I find any music moving me from within. Immersion, I guess, works for me with music, more than academic understanding, more than being a connoisseur. The concerts this season that I have so far been to featured the veteran Hyderabad Brothers and the young, happening, Sandeep Narayan and Rithvik Raja.

Sandeep and Rithvik have both been guests on my popular Bliss Catchers Event Series. Sandeep is a disciple of Sanjay Subrahmanyan; Rithvik has been learning from T.M.Krishna. According to me, both the young artistes are very versatile, hugely talented singers. But I often find people comparing them to their gurus and to each other. I find such comparisons really misplaced and quite unnecessary. Someone who was in the audience in Sandeep’s concert remarked that he’s “better” than Rithvik – and “that’s because Sanjay’s better than TMK”. A FB post remarked that Rithvik’s “soft-natured rendering” was “nothing” in comparison to Sandeep’s “aggressive” stage presence. Then there are those who lament about how TMK does more things than just sing. And how they hope “at least” Rithvik will stay the course on music. Of course, there are those who swear by TMK, and “therefore”, by Rithvik. They are quick to add that Rithvik will emerge as the numero uno soon!

To those soaked in the fever of the Music Season these comments may appear to be part of the usual sabha canteen banter. But to me they are symptomatic of a social trend, a malaise – which is to treat Life as a race, as a competition, where someone necessarily has to trounce someone to win; which also means that one has to always be better than the rest! I know Sandeep and Rithvik personally. And I see no such streak in them to compete at the cost of the other. I know their gurus too and I have never sensed that they may have inculcated such a crass urge in their disciples. Simply, to me, comparing people and passing judgment is truly the bane of our times.

Why can’t people just be allowed to be who they are? Each one is unique. And has an individual way of expressing themselves. Why don’t we celebrate that expression than invest time in analyzing and drawing meaningless inferences? This tendency to compare people does not restrict itself to the Carnatic music scene alone. In every walk of Life people are expected to be like others. Junior Bachchan, Abhishek, is always measured through the prism of his father’s greatness; just as Parineeti Chopra is often judged against Priyanka Chopra’s popularity and performances. Or consider this one: isn’t Asha Bhonsle a better singer than the more feted Lata Mangeshkar, because Asha continues to be relevant at 80+? Virat Kohli is always reviewed basis two benchmarks: Dhoni’s captaincy and Tendulkar’s batting genius. Already the hyper-opinionated janata darbar, a.k.a Twitteratti, is debating whether Ravichandran Ashwin can ever be better than Erapalli Prasanna or Bishen Bedi! NaMo’s chest-thumping is always seen as “superior” compared to Manmohan Singh’s dignified silence. To be sure, comparisons are not a new-age, social media phenomenon. Social media is only a new platform that makes comparisons, trial by public, judgments, both visible and rabid. As a child I was always asked by my parents why I couldn’t be like my cousins – who studied well, who got good marks and who never gave their parents any “tension”. Even now, in fact, I guess this issue rankles my parents, that I am unlike my “well-settled” cousins; that I am in debt and that I am yet to carve out a retirement plan or create assets (Read more on why my parents may feel so here: Fall Like A Rose Petal).

But why? Why does one have to be like someone else or be better than another? Why can’t one just be who she or he is?

A tragic fall-out of this tendency to compare people is that pretty soon, subconsciously, the urge to review yourself basis others creeps in; you start taking those social pronouncements seriously. If someone has more likes or followers than you have, you feel disillusioned. If you have more than others, you think you are the child of a bigger God! But please remember, either pole is a risky one to climb and hold on to: if you consider yourself better than someone, beware of hubris; and if you think someone’s better than you, beware of jealousy or depression getting the better of you! Bottomline: comparison is a zero-sum game; it ruins inner peace!

Going back to where I started, using the music analogy, let me just remind that there’s a song in each of us. And yours is unique to you, as mine is to me. So, why not just let it play? Won’t more original music, from more people, make our world nicer, merrier, happier?

PS: If you liked this blogpost, please share it to help spread the learning it carries!

Neighbor’s envy can never be a problem for you

Jealousy is as wasteful as worrying is. It can’t touch you and it can’t get you anywhere either!

A friend is launching a new business. He consulted me and Vaani on the idea and his launch strategy. At the end of the conversation, he thanked us profusely for our time and requested us to keep it under wraps. Of course, any new idea must be protected and preserved until it is launched. But his reasoning was different: “I am very wary of professional and personal jealousy. I don’t want anyone to cast an evil eye on my idea.”

Somehow, I can’t wrap my head around this ‘evil eye’ concept. Just thinking that it exists and that it can affect you is so regressive. No, I am not being dismissive about jealousy. I am only suggesting that we develop a mature response to it.

Let us understand jealousy first. Someone is said to be jealous of you when they wish or want what you have or they want to be who you are. So, essentially, it is in the eye of the beholder. Now, this is something very normal, very human.

You see someone having a nice phone or a beautiful car and you wish or want that phone or car. You think of it and say to yourself that it will be great if you owned them too. This happens to all of us, all the time. So just accept jealousy as a normal response to Life as it happens around you. In some cases, jealousy is accompanied by anger, resentment and insecurity. So, some people feel jealous more intensely than others. Some talk openly about it. Others cook within themselves feeling wretched that they don’t have what someone else has. Again it is only in the eye of the beholder. It is only what, and how, the person who is jealous is feeling. Now, if this person examines this feeling of jealousy closely, they will see the futility of it. Surely, wishing and wanting never got anyone anything – or anywhere! So, when they see the futility of being jealous, they will stop being jealous. Simple. And as long as they don’t understand its futility, they will keep cooking in it. Just as they will cook in fear or anxiety or worry. So, ultimately, the choice to cook or to let go, to be free, is the individual’s.

Now, if you are the subject of someone’s envy, you can see and you know for sure that you are only the subject. It is all happening to the other person, in the other person. Until such time that you don’t invite yourself to the party, you are free. But the moment you start imagining that the other person’s feelings will impact you, you are entrapped. That’s when you too will start cooking within – ‘Are things going wrong because so-and-so has cast an evil eye?’, ‘Will I lose what I have because someone’s envious of me?’, ‘How can I protect myself from jealousy?’…. – and lose your inner peace. Pause and reflect. How is such thinking productive? Is it serving any purpose? When you hold someone’s jealous attitude towards you and examine it, you too will realize its futility. Until you started giving it any attention, you were free. But now you are fearful, insecure, worried and anxious. Do you need to be this way? Isn’t all this avoidable?

Clearly, you can’t possibly do anything about what other people are thinking. But can’t you at least change your thinking and be free from wasteful emotions?

I don’t deny jealousy exists or wish that it doesn’t arise. It is a natural human response to, and in, Life. Like any other emotion it will rise. But if you understand that it can’t touch you or that it can’t get you anywhere, you will recognize its futility. So, when you don’t give jealousy any attention, it will slink away. Quietly. I let jealousy simply be. Whether it is arising in me or for me. I don’t give it any attention. So it doesn’t touch me or affect me. And I can tell you that Life is really beautiful, awesome in fact, without that wasteful emotion!