There truly is nowhere to reach, nothing to prove and nothing to achieve in Life

If you think deeply, the journey is the only reward!

We met a friend over coffee yesterday. He was curious to know why we curated free public events across the city regularly. He was one of our guests at the Heart of Matter – Happiness Conversations event last Saturday and his question is justified. He asked: “You didn’t make a naya paisa out of such a high quality event you developed and delivered. Why do you do what you do?” To be sure, we are often asked this question. So, we are never surprised.

For Vaani and me, our Life’s Purpose is Inspiring Happiness. My Book Fall Like A Rose Petal, my Fall Like A Rose Petal Talk , the public events we curate, this Blog that I write daily, the value we create for our clients through our Workplace Happiness Firm A V Initiatives, are all part of this journey of living our Purpose. Yes, we do try and monetize whatever we can, whenever an opportunity arises. But we also recognize that not everything in Life is about making money or about being successful in a worldly sense. So, we immerse ourselves in qualitative opportunities, that come our way, where we can inspire people to be happy despite their circumstances. We consider ourselves blessed to be useful even when we are unable to be successful, for the moment, with starting to repay our creditors, climbing out of our bankruptcy and becoming debt-free.

This paradigm shift to being useful, even when there is no money involved, versus always wanting to be successful, has been very rewarding and truly liberating. There’s great joy in simply doing what we love doing, without any sense of wanting to achieve something, to earn something or to prove something. Life is very simple, very beautiful, when you realize that it is the journey that is the reward.

I learnt this lesson way back from a close friend.

My friend is much older than I am; he’s 76. I will call him ABB. He’s the consummate networker, yet he’s a very genteel person – someone who goes out of his way to help people. He has served the Indian Air Force and post his voluntary retirement, he has been a very active member of the corporate circuit in Hyderabad. He’s been an office bearer of many an industry body or management association. And has been a champion of several voluntary causes in South India. I have known him for over 2 decades now. And he has always left me inspired with his energy and enthusiasm. Even so, he’s extremely modest about his achievements and truly believes that he’s just an ordinary person – which is why I have chosen not to name him, but have just used his initials, so as not to embarrass him. Once when I asked him, why he did so much with often no evident returns, he told me : “I am not looking at name or fame. If some work or request comes my way and I feel like doing it, I do it. I have nothing to prove, nothing to achieve, nothing to grab!”

I took away a profound learning from his simple expression: “Nothing to prove. Nothing to achieve. Nothing to grab!” The way we are conditioned – both by our upbringing and through social demands and pressures – we are always doing just the opposite. It is almost as if, if you are not driven, you are wasting your Life. And the word “driven” itself is misunderstood. It has come to mean – prove yourself through your feats, your achievements, your assets, your wealth, your estates. Whereas, we should have been driven by an urge to live fully, to enjoy and celebrate the gift of this lifetime. But in order to prove ourselves, we are postponing living all the time. Osho, the Master, explains the fallacy of living this way and champions living enlightened: “Enlightenment is not an achievement, it is an understanding that there is nothing to achieve, nowhere to go.” Beautiful!

The key to intelligent living lies in internalizing ABB’s and Osho’s philosophy. It means to live Life fully, doing whatever you can with whatever you have in each moment, not really worrying about what you are achieving. When you begin walking, often, the road unfolds on its own. When you let go and live, driven by the urge to live fully, and not by material goals, always, Life takes care of all that it has created. And that includes you – and me! When you realize that Life is not about achieving anything, but is about experiencing everything that comes your way, you can say you are awake, aware and enlightened!

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Kaadhalikka Neram Illaya?

Live and love your Life fully – because you have only so much time left here!

A friend who called me yesterday wanted to know how the ‘romance’ between Vaani and me has stayed alive – although we have been together for close to 30 years. He said, “As the years go by, people say they get into the rut of everyday Life and claim there’s no time for romance!” He went on to pun on the famous 1964 Tamizh film by C.V.Sridhar ‘Kaadhalikka Neram Ilai’ (English: No Time To Love; Muthuraman, Nagesh, Rajashree, Sachu, T.S.Baliah) and asked, “Everyone says ‘Kaadhalikka Neram Ilai’ but you seem to make the time! How do you both do it?”

Well, there’s nothing special we do. We just wear our Life on our sleeve (in today’s context, sleeve includes Facebook!!!) and live it 70MM! That’s it. You get what you see with both of us.

Again, let me reiterate that there’s nothing special about what we do. I feel the romance between two people is dubbed private quite unnecessarily. If terrorism and violence can happen openly, if trolling can happen openly, then why can’t people profess their love for each other openly? I believe there is no stigma attached, and must never be either, with expressing ourselves openly. After all, it is only through our love and companionship, that Vaani and I are able to journey along through our cathartic times. Besides, when everything material has been taken away from us, what we have left is only our love and togetherness as a couple and as a family – including our strong bond and friendship with our children, Aashirwad and Aanchal.

But Vaani and I go beyond us, or our children; we also love Life! We totally believe that there is magic in each moment. And so each moment must be fully lived, appreciating and valuing what is, loving what is. For instance, on our walks, Vaani will stop by a flower in someone’s yard and admire it. She will point to the birds chirping and celebrate those sounds. We both love movies, so we watch whatever comes up on TV. And invariably, each movie, irrespective of language, has a spiritual, Life learning. We pick it up. We read something in the papers, we will research it, learn from it. When we talk about our problems, we will address them squarely without judging them, without hating them. So, in a sense, there’s a romance there too – as in, we say, “The problem is here, we can’t wish it away, what do we do to deal with it with equanimity?”

There are some times when we are in unenviable situations and contexts, like I was on a radiologist’s table, being scanned, some years back. If I had the condition that the surgeon was suspecting, I needed an emergency surgery. And we had no money, no health insurance. So, if the worst happened, I would die. The moment this realization came into me, my fear and insecurity dissolved. I just started smiling. I was in a way admiring the moment and the Life I had lived. I smiled also because I was confident that should I die, Vaani will pick up from where I going to be leaving. So, this is the romance, the love we both have for not just each other, but for Life itself. This is what keeps us not just going, but thriving, with enthusiasm, with Life! (PS: The scan results pointed to a different medical condition that did not require surgery but need only a dose of antibiotics!)

I don’t think anyone should complain about time as scare resource in any context. It is uniformly available to all of us. After the breath we take, time is what is available without any prejudice to anyone, uniformly. So people who complain about lack of time to do what they want to do are kidding themselves. If you want to do something, you will always find the time. My humble plea to people is that don’t postpone loving, don’t postpone happiness, don’t postpone living! You can wait for eternity to solve all your problems and then start living, loving and thriving. Or you can keep journeying through Life romancing its every moment. We prefer to love Life and live it fully, happily, despite our circumstances. So, we find the time, anytime, to celebrate each other and what is. To be sure, what we have, what is, constitutes our ‘perfect’ Life. For all of us – for you, for us. Because it is always what it is. As the Buddha says, “When you realize everything is perfect, you will look up at the sky and laugh!”

I just did that! 🙂

So, if you don’t have time to love, review your priorities. Because there’s only so much time you have left here and you had better utilize all that time intelligently! Surely, when you do that, you will realize, kaadhalikka mattum thaan neram irrukku! Meaning, there’s time only to love – to love Life and to live it fully!

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This lifetime is a limited period offer

Value the opportunity in (and of) this lifetime. There may not be another as far as we know it!

        

I met someone recently who said that while he valued being an Indian, he valued owning an American passport more. He said, “With an American passport you can travel to most places in the world. With an Indian passport, you have to keep seeking visas to enter many countries.”

I don’t disagree with his logic. Of course he has a point. But I guess to be born human is the biggest opportunity that we often fail to recognize, let alone value. This human Life is the most valuable passport we can ever ask for. Wayne Dyer, one of the most profound thinkers of our time, passed away last week at 75. I have learned a lot from him and have benefited immensely from imbibing his philosophy. He often used to say: “Stop acting as if Life is a rehearsal. Live this day as if it were your last. The past is over and gone. The future is not guaranteed.”   

Think about this deeply. We have all been created, we are born, without our asking. For all we care, we may well have been created as the swine that gives the flu than be created as the human that gets the flu from the swine. So, to be human, to be alive and to be able to read this post means a lot. It means that you are more blessed than several million other people on the planet – who don’t have vision, education, literacy, a computer or access to internet. Your lifetime is a limited period offer. Value it, avail of it, use it, live it fully while it lasts.

Live and savor the experience of this lifetime

Learn to love whatever is happening to you.

Live for the experience. Don’t live for comfort or for an easy Life. Don’t live hoping for no problems. Don’t live expecting something or the other. Expectations always bring agony when they are not met! Just live for the experience. And you will always live happy!

If you examine the source of all your unhappiness, it always boils down to one thing. Your Life is not what you had expected it to be, therefore, you are not happy! Now, where does this thinking come from? Perhaps, from a naïve perspective – from a futile expectation that you were created to live in comfort, in the security of a good job, an assured income, an ever-present and ever-caring family, meaningful relationships and to be in perpetual good health. Nothing can be farther from the truth and you cannot be more ill-informed. When did Life guarantee any of these ‘ideal’ conditions or anything that you want? Life guarantees only the experience of this one lifetime. And it is within this experience that we must find happiness.

So, the simplest way to live will be to experience and savor each moment, each phase, each episode in your Life. Some of it to your liking. Some of it not to your liking. But whatever it is, know that it is always what it is!