Open up the palms of your empty hands in surrender…

There is no logic to Life, it is all magic!

Magic!!! How a ring became a pumpkin!

Suspend all scientific reasoning and simply see how beautiful each moment is.

A friend and I got together for a drink last week. He told me that he had concluded that Life is meaningless, that it has no logic. He has been through a bitter divorce. And he has recently lost his job. He said, “I loved my wife dearly. But she wanted to reunite with her boyfriend from college. I gave my heart and soul to my company. But just because the industry we operate in is going through a downturn, I was laid off as part of a sweeping job-cut policy. There’s no logic in Life at all yaar, AVIS!”

Unwittingly, my friend has stumbled upon the biggest secret about Life. That it has no logic! To me, Life’s full of magic though!!

To see the magic in you, in your Life, around you, you must stop being an adult, abandon all logic and just see everything with a child-like wonder.

While our logical temperament has been honed by years of education and social conditioning and while it has helped us grow our careers, it has really stunted our evolution as individuals. Consider your own Life. You too, like me, like my friend there, have problems. And, logically, you want those problems resolved. So if the problem is financial, you may want your income to go up and your expenses to come down. Logical thinking. But what do you do when your efforts at boosting your income come to a naught? You get depressed. Depression leads to scarcity and negative thinking. If your problem is a relationship, you will want to sit down and resolve it. But the other party is just not interested. You grieve. You suffer. If your problem is your health, logically, medication should work. But the doctors are wringing their hands in despair, because they say their efforts are not working. You start believing it’s all over. In all this logical thinking, in all three contexts, you are tormented, you are anxious and you are not present in your every waking moment. You are living in your problems.

And this is where you are missing the magic of the present. Of the myriad opportunities that Life is still offering you. Remember that despite all the problems you are faced with and are seemingly drowning in, Life is flowing, unraveling itself. Magically. There’s magic everywhere. In the rising sun. In the chirping birds. In the smile of a child. In the few friends who are still standing by you. In the fact that you have a home, food to eat and someone to call family. When you are allowing yourself to be gripped in the stranglehold of your problems, you are missing all this magic.

Your being wedded to your problems may appear to you to be very logical – after all, you want to solve your problems. But there are some problems that you cannot solve. Only time and Life can heal and solve them. This is why being stuck demanding to understand Life’s logic kills your ability to see all the magic. As American author Nora Roberts says, “Magic exists. Who can doubt it, when there are rainbows and wildflowers, the music of the wind and the silence of the stars? Anyone who has loved has been touched by magic. It is such a simple and such an extraordinary part of the lives we live.”

I experienced this extraordinary part of my Life yesterday – one more time! Vaani and I were at a wedding last evening. As we awaited our turn to greet the young couple, we saw a picture from their engagement show up on the LCD display – they were exchanging rings. I remarked to Vaani that I had never given her a ring in all our Life together – not even at our wedding, 28 years ago! So I quipped that I would get her a cheap, plastic ring for Rs.10/- because that’s what we could afford now! (Read more on why we can’t afford anything better here: Fall Like A Rose Petal) Vaani smiled back at me and told me this with a straight face: “You know what, get me a pumpkin instead, I plan to make sambar tomorrow!” We both erupted laughing even as other guests looked on, amused.

That moment, that was sheer magic! Such moments are waiting to happen to you too. But are you tuned in? You don’t have to do much. Simply, love the Life you have! Know that it won’t last forever. Abandon all logic. Then, and only then, will you see the magic – and beauty – in Life!

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Go be the best at whatever you love doing, money will always follow

To follow your bliss, all you need is to decide what you want from your Life. Nothing else is either necessary or matters!

I curate a monthly Event Series at the Odyssey Bookstore in Chennai called The Bliss Catchers^TM. Each month I invite guests who have gone on to do what they love doing. I talk to them to understand how they have followed their bliss. Last evening, as the June edition of the Series wound down, a member in the audience asked me if following your bliss was really possible when one had financial and familial responsibilities and commitments? Besides, he added, if someone’s bliss – like traveling – required money, won’t it be important for that person to first save up that amount and then follow their bliss? Which means, is following one’s bliss then the exclusive privilege of a select few?

I am often asked this question. So, I was hardly surprised when it came up again.

First let us understand what bliss really is. In recent times, American mythologist and author Joseph Campbell (1904~1987) has demystified bliss and has made it both understandable and accessible to those who are ready and willing to follow what they truly believe in and come alive with. Bliss is definitely not what you attain sitting under a tree. It is who you are. It is what makes you come alive. Which is why Campbell says follow your bliss. So to someone it may mean cooking, to someone else it may be gardening, to another it may be traveling and so on. Another way to know what your bliss is, is to ask yourself what would you like to be doing in your Life if money were no object. If you didn’t have to worry about earning money or paying your bills, what would you want to do? That which you so absolutely love doing is then your bliss.

However, in the real world, you can’t escape money or materialism. So, how then can we pursue what we love doing without upsetting our material ecosystem? There is no straightforward method or answer available here. Just as bliss is uniquely personal, so is the way to follow it. To each one their own. So, at best, we can try to follow a simple thumb rule though.

Decide what you want from your Life. First understand what your bliss is by asking what you would be doing if you didn’t have to earn money. Then, examine your current reality and ask yourself: Are you working for joy? Or are you working for joy and profit? Or are you working only for profit, only for money?

In any context and in anyone’s Life, all three scenarios are possible. You must address all three before you decide which one you prefer. Obviously, a no-brainer is that the best scenario is when we can get both joy and profit from the work we do, from the bliss we (wish to) follow. But if you are stuck in a job or business that gives you only profit and money, and if you want the money more than your inner joy, then there is no point grieving over the lack of joy in your Life! And if you are experiencing joy doing the work you are doing, and are not making enough money from it, then don’t grieve the lack of money in your Life! Either you can try and bring joy into your Life if you have only money or bring money in your Life if you have only joy! Be clear. Be decisive. If you want a different scenario from what you currently have, remember you have to change your Life! Be clear about what you want, and go for it. Please don’t complain, please don’t whine, pine or grieve. So, really, following your bliss is not a limiting philosophy or idea. You limit yourself with your thinking, with your arguments, with your logic, fear and insecurities. Period.

If you examine your Life, all your unhappiness comes from not doing what you want to do or from doing what you don’t want to do. So, to do what you love doing, you must decide what you want from Life. Like so many, many others have done. Look around you. You will discover that almost every story of world-class performance and success (in purely real-world, material terms), in any field, conforms to this philosophy. Simply then, if you want to be happy, if you want lasting inner joy, go be the best at whatever you love doing. Money will always follow.

Logic kills the magic in Life

Sometimes in Life, when you can’t understand what’s going on, a good thing to do is to let go and experience how magical Life really is!

To see the magic in you, in your Life, around you, you must stop being an adult, abandon all logic and just see everything with a child-like wonder. While our logical temperament has been honed by years of schooling and social conditioning and while it has helped us grow our careers, it has really stunted our evolution as individuals.

Consider your own Life. You, like me, have problems; why, everyone has problems! And, logically, you want those problems resolved. So if the problem is financial, you may want your income to go up and your expenses to come down. Logical thinking. But what happens when your efforts at boosting your income come to a naught? You get depressed. Depression leads to scarcity and negative thinking. If your problem is a relationship, you will want to sit down and resolve it. But the other party is just not interested. You grieve. You suffer. If your problem is your health, logically, medication should work. But the doctors are wringing their hands in despair, because they say their efforts are not working. You start thinking about death. You believe it’s all over. Despite all your logical thinking, in all three contexts, you are tormented, you are anxious and you are not present in your every waking moment. You are literally cooking in your problems. And this is where you are missing the magic of the present. You are missing seeing the myriad opportunities that Life is still offering you.

Remember that despite all the problems you are faced with and are seemingly drowning in, Life is going on and will go on. There’s magic everywhere. In the rising sun. In the chirping birds. In the smile of a child. In the few friends who are still standing by you. In the fact that you have a home, food to eat and someone to call family. When you are allowing yourself to be held hostage by your problems, you are missing all this magic. Your being wedded to your problems is logical. But logic kills magic. American author Nora Roberts says, “Magic exists. Who can doubt it, when there are rainbows and wildflowers, the music of the wind and the silence of the stars? Anyone who has loved has been touched by magic. It is such a simple and such an extraordinary part of the lives we live.” So, love this Life. Know that it won’t last forever. Then, and only then, will you see the magic in it!

Abandon all logic, see the magic around you!

Logic buries the magic in the Universe. It prevents us from seeing how beautiful each moment is.

To see the magic in you, in your Life, around you, you must stop being an adult, abandon all logic and just see everything with a child-like wonder.

While our logical temperament has been honed by years of schooling and social conditioning and while it has helped us grow our careers, it has really stunted our evolution as individuals. Consider your own Life. You, like me, have problems. And, logically, you want those problems resolved. So if the problem is financial, you may want your income to go up and your expenses to come down. Logical thinking. When your efforts at boosting your income come to a naught, you get depressed. Depression leads to scarcity and negative thinking. If your problem is a relationship, you will want to sit down and resolve it. But the other party is just not interested. You grieve. You suffer. If your problem is your health, logically, medication should work. But the doctors are wringing their hands in despair, because they say their efforts are not working. You think death. You believe it’s all over. In all this logical thinking, in all three contexts, you are tormented, you are anxious and you are not present in your every waking moment. You are living in your problems.

And this is where you are missing the magic of the present. Of the myriad opportunities that Life is still offering you. Remember that despite all the problems you are faced with and are seemingly drowning in, Life is going on and WILL go on. There’s magic everywhere. In the rising sun. In the chirping birds. In the smile of a child. In the few friends who are still standing by you. In the fact that you have a home, food to eat and someone to call family. When you are allowing yourself to be gripped in the stranglehold of your problems, you are missing all this magic. Your being wedded to your problems may appear to you to be very logical – after all, you want to solve your problems. But there are problems that you cannot solve. Only time and Life can heal and solve them. This is why being stuck with logic kills magic. American author Nora Roberts says, “Magic exists. Who can doubt it, when there are rainbows and wildflowers, the music of the wind and the silence of the stars? Anyone who has loved has been touched by magic. It is such a simple and such an extraordinary part of the lives we live.”

So, love this Life. Know that it won’t last forever. Abandon all logic. Then, and only then, will you see the magic – and beauty – in Life! 

You control nothing – and yet you are the Master!

You are a Master the moment you realize that you can never be one! Or, more simply, you can be in control of your Life when you realize that you don’t and can control nothing! This understanding is all that there is to spirituality!  

Most people don’t see spirituality as the flowering of internal awareness. They don’t get it that its essence lies in understanding an irrefutable paradox about Life __ that the less you believe you control, the more you are in control!

People often see any spiritual perspective as ‘beyond’ them because they are so caught up in the quagmire of worry, anger, guilt, sorrow, suffering and the ‘earning-a-living’ syndrome. They have an ostrich-like mentality _ their heads are buried deep in their ill-formed beliefs. Their minds are closed although there’s so much grace, so much abundance, freely available. Kabir, the 15^th century weaver-poet asked us to think: ‘What if a fish said it was thirsty?’ Wouldn’t that be the most stupidest of situations? Won’t you tell the fish to go re-examine its brain? How can a fish be thirsty when it is always in water? Quite similarly, the human mind is being foolish by seeking peace outside and by not looking within. By not allowing this flowering of awareness to happen from within. So, you conclude that you can’t be at peace, you refuse to look within and choose instead to be enslaved by your self-imposed limitations. Only when the awareness within you blooms, only when you understand that you can be in control while controlling nothing, only then will you see the Master in yourself.

This understanding is elusive because, while being profound, it is, at the same time, too simplistic. That’s why, it doesn’t come to everyone __ especially when  they are employing their education, their logic, in trying to make sense of Life. The truth is Life doesn’t conform to any framework or rules. Least of all your logic. So, Life is simple__and uncomplicated__when you simply accept its paradoxical, often inscrutable, nature.

Look around you. Everything is illogical. Everything is contradictory to what you have been taught, what you have been brought up with or grown up on.

• Consider this – People behave thanklessly. There’s no dignity for human Life. Ethics and integrity don’t always make you successful anymore. You are encouraged to be worldly-wise than be honest and sincere. You find that trust is impossible to place and impractical to earn. Yet all these symptoms of a decadent world are true of people, even if they are from within your close circle of influence, whom you have no control over. You just can’t control what others do. Yet doesn’t all your grief come from wanting them to be different?
• Consider another context – A close friend of mine worked very hard. He was sincere and a genius with his craft __ marketing. He grew up the corporate ladder fast. Because there was none like him in the business. For a man with average qualifications, he earned substantially. He had only one son. And he was saving up for his son to be studying in an American University. Then one day, a few years ago, his 16-year-old son was killed in a car crash by a drunk driver. His son was not drunk. The driver was. I still remember what my friend told me when I visited him to condole his son’s passing away: “I wish I had known this would happen. I would have then spent enough time with my son rather than spending that time earning money for him!” It is so bizarre. A hard-working father saves up for his only son__only to lose him so tragically?

How can you, despite all their education and logic, ever prevent what happens in Life? But you can surely choose how you respond to people and to Life. You can be grateful, you can be human, you can continue to be ethical, hard-working and honest. You may not earn as much as the others do, but you can sleep well. And doing all the things that you are comfortable doing, you can feel good and peaceful __ within you! This is your personal paradox and you must learn to accept it, appreciate it and live with it! You must, for the sake of your own inner peace, know that you cannot control anyone or anything outside of you in Life. If you can control anything at all, it is just how you live, how you relate to and how you respond to what Life throws at you!

I may have shared this before. There’s this story of the Buddha. The Buddha was passing through a village. The people of that village were against him, against his philosophy, so they gathered around him to insult him. They used ugly words, vulgar words. The Buddha listened. Ananda, the Buddha’s disciple, who was with him, got very angry, but he couldn’t say anything because the Buddha was listening so silently, so patiently, as if he was enjoying the whole thing. 

Then even the crowd became a little frustrated because he was not getting irritated and it seemed as if he was enjoying.

The Buddha said, “Now, if you are finished, I should move – because I have to reach the other village soon. They must be waiting just as you were waiting for me. If you have not told me all the things that you thought to tell me, I will be coming back within a few days, then you can finish it.”

Somebody from the crowd said, “But we have been insulting you, we have insulted you. Won’t you react? Won’t you say something?”

The Buddha said, “That is difficult. If you want a reaction from me, then you are too late. You should have come at least ten years ago, because then I used to react. But I am now no longer so foolish. I see that you are angry, that’s why you are insulting me. I see your anger, the fire burning in your mind. I feel compassion for you. This is my response – I feel compassion for you. Unnecessarily you are troubled.”

So beautiful, isn’t it? Another’s thoughts and actions are not in your control. What happens to you in Life is not in your control.

This is the state we must all ascend to. When you awaken to this reality, you will discover that you are in control ONLY of yourself! That you control nothing and yet you are the Master! From that clarity, bliss is born! Then everything that matters fills your Life__love, peace, good health and joy!