On being non-suffering

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!

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

How to ensure you are not stirred, even when you are shaken!

There’s no point asking why things happen to you. Truth is, there are no answers!

Early this morning, I was on the weekly Southern Spice radio show (on Radio Zindagi 1600 AM), that’s popular in the Tristate area on USA’s East Coast, with RJs Subha, Venky and Sridhar. I was talking about how it is possible to ‘Help Yourself To Happiness’  despite your circumstances. Subha wanted to know how we can try to reason why things happen to us.

I often get asked this question. I have asked myself this question too for a long, long time. The truth is, among all the questions that you ask in Life, ‘why’ and ‘why me’ are the most wasted, pointless questions. There are no reasons for why things happen to us. Life is just a series of events, happenings.

Ideally, we must not approach anything with logic in Life. I firmly believe that there’s no logic to Life – for you can’t ask questions of Life and expect to get answers! Yet, look around you, isn’t Life sheer magic? But because logic is so ingrained in us, as part of our educational conditioning and knowledge-fabric, we ask ‘why’, we ask ‘why me’, we want to know the cause and effect of everything and we reason with Life’s happenings by trying to connect the dots. Even if we can’t say for sure why something is happening to us, our human, logical, analytical, mind, goes back and tries to connect the dots backwards. And we gloat over and glorify the fact that we have found the reasons for why Life happened to us the way it did. But, if we pause to reflect, we will see how pointless such analysis is. Isn’t it enough you know you have a problem and have to deal with it? How can you solve any problem by asking ‘why’ and ‘why me’? Isn’t ‘How’ a better question to ask when you seek resolution to a problem?

What comes between you and your happiness is all this avoidable, wasteful analysis. There is no Life for each of us, at any time, before the present and beyond the present. Your Life is always happening in the now. Yet you allow your mind to drag you into the past and hold you hostage there or you allow yourself to be terrorized by worries of a future which is yet to be born. Interestingly, if you drop the ‘why’ and ‘why me’ questions, dealing with Life becomes instantaneously simpler. Because when you don’t question, when you don’t resist whatever’s happening, you can only engage with it. Engagement means being available to, being accepting of, just being with whatever is. When you just are, you may be shaken, but not stirred, you may be under pressure, but not beaten, and you can be happy no matter what is happening to you!   

Uncertainty is the nature of the game, of the adventure called Life

The very uncertainty that we fear is what makes Life magical and beautiful.

At a learning forum for managers the other day, one of the speakers championed the need for today’s business leaders to develop the ability to lead through uncertainty. He said that most decisions have to be made today not knowing what will happen. Some of those in the audience disagreed with him. They argued that decisions cannot and must not be made when you don’t know what will happen. The debate continued well past the keynote presentation and spilled over into the drinks and dinner conversations as well.

A senior business leader who was next to me said leading in uncertain times was a very scary experience. “Not many can do it,” he observed.

I disagreed with him. I pointed out that fearing uncertainty is never the appropriate response. I believe that not just managers, everybody on the planet is (and must be) capable of dealing with uncertainty. Uncertainty is unfolding afresh in each new moment and we must face it by looking it in the eye.

Why are we running scared of uncertainty when the very nature of Life is impermanent, fragile, uncertain? In fact, there’s a certainty about death – if you are alive, you will die, for sure, some day. But just because you are born – and alive – does not mean you will go on living. There’s no certainty about Life! From the time you came out of your mother’s womb your entire Life has been a journey through the uncertain. It’s your upbringing, your education and your reference to economic parameters (read a pay check and/or a bank balance) that makes you believe that you are secure and can be certain about the way your Life will pan out. Because you have been raised in a protected environment by your parents and family, because you have been progressing through your academic career in a linear fashion – moving from class to class in a predictable manner – because you got employed soon after you graduated from college; for all these reasons and more, you have come to believe that Life’s happening the way you envisioned it for yourself. You have almost concluded that Life is a straight line! That’s when Life socks you with a pink slip or with a heart attack or a break-up or a death! That’s when you wake up, shocked and dazed, and begin to “fear an uncertain future”.

When you live out of fear, resisting the uncertainty that surrounds you, you will not grow. You may grow older. But you will not grow from within, you will not evolve. Because fear debilitates. It limits. Every aspect of Life is uncertain, unsafe, dangerous – there are so many diseases you can contract and die or your house can be burgled and you can be murdered or you may meet with an accident on the road or your plane may crash mid-air or someone could hack your bank account and siphon off all your hard-earned money…Anything can happen if you actually consider what all can go wrong with your Life. But if you start letting the fear of uncertainty rule you, you can be sure to have ruined your Life.

There’s hope though! You can let go of all your fear and embrace uncertainty. Since uncertainty is the essence of Life, when you embrace it, you are actually uniting with the Universal Energy. That Energy empowers you and gives you the true sense of security – which no insurance scheme, no amount of money and no amount of physical protection ever can. Then a pink slip will not torment you. Then not-knowing-what-will-happen-next will be part of the game, of the adventure called Life.

So, I believe that anyone can lead through uncertain times. Anyone can take decisions even when they don’t know what to do – because leadership is really about seeing what is and mobilizing an appropriate response. All you need to be able to do this, lead through uncertainty, is to understand Life better. Yes, uncertainty can be unsettling and scary when you first notice it. But if you drop the fear, the same uncertainty becomes beautiful – you will realize that Life was always uncertain. This awakening is what makes Life magical. To experience this magic you must learn to live in the moment, soaking in whatever the moment has to offer, in a “not-knowing-what-will-happen-next” mode!

Life’s beauty and magic lie in its uncertainty and unpredictability

In Life, you must always ask yourself, “Am I ready for everything?” instead of asking, “Is everything ready for me?”

The way we are brought up is however that, everything, always, has been ready for us. When we were born, we have been pampered, looked after and cared for. When we went to school, the teachers tended to us. Our daily wants and needs were always kept in readiness by our custodians, guardians and parents. Resultantly, we have got used to things being ready for us at all times. When we start our working lives too, in our first jobs most certainly, things are kept ready, at least in the beginning. So, when the honeymoon in Life is over__really, past 20, when early adulthood arrives__we face the true colors of and adventures in Life. This is where, we must really be ready for everything. But because we continue to be in the “Is everything ready for me?”-mode, we stumble, struggle and suffer through Life.

Let go! Stop expecting things to be ready or a red carpet to be rolled out and Life to mollycoddle you. Instead, embrace the uncertainty, the unknown in every moment. Meet Life with that spirit of adventure, a daring, in every moment. And liberate yourself from your daily strife and struggle. When you are ready for everything that Life throws at you or for everything that Life pushes you into, there’s an ‘aha‘ in every moment. Life is a seductress that is drawing you into the unknown in every moment, promising you instant bliss, and you are stuck here__with logic and rational questioning__asking why isn’t everything ready for you anymore?

Trust Life fully and willfully get seduced. Only when you surrender to Life, being ready for everything, will you see how beautiful the Life really is. It is in its uncertainty, in its unpredictability that Life’s beauty and magic lies! As Jalaluddin Rumi, the 13^thCentury Persian poet says,”I didn’t come here of my own accord, and I can’t leave that way. Whoever brought me here will have to take me home.” Be ready for everything, then any road you take will take you home!

Stop complaining, rejoice in the beauty of Life

If you stop complaining, you can see the magic and beauty of Life! 

Having to use auto-rickshaws in Chennai is no easy task. Most auto-rickshaw drivers lack sensitivity. They are rude. They ply only when you agree to pay over the meter. And almost all of them violate every single traffic rule – they break traffic signs and are sure to enter one-ways from the opposite direction! Over a period of time, I have stopped fighting (with) these guys. I greet them with a polite thank you when they stop in response to my call. I begin the conversation saying, “You turn on the meter and I’ll pay you over that amount when I alight at my destination.” As I engage the vehicle for the journey, I do insist that the auto-rickshaw driver goes per my directions and follows all traffic rules – including not speaking on the mobile phone. Nine times out of 10 this approach works. The only time I fail to get an auto-rickshaw driver to buy in is when he is headed in different direction from where I want to go.

This morning, as I flagged down an auto-rickshaw, the driver went past me and stopped in front of a couple who too wanted to engage him. They were within ear-shot of me. I could make out that the driver was haggling with them for a fixed fare as against plying per the meter. The driver refused to take them on board. Instead he backed up and came to me. I went about the conversation the way I normally did. I was calm and firm. The driver agreed to drop me to my destination. And, surprisingly, refused the tip over the metered fare saying, “Saar, I normally get people who refuse to pay me anything extra. Since you started by thanking me and offered to pay me extra, I want to thank you for being nice to me. Please pay me by the meter only.”

This approach has helped me transform not just the way I experience auto-rickshaw drivers. It has also helped me stop complaining about things around me, and in my Life, that I am currently incapable of fixing.

It is so true in India that we have millions of things to complain about. The state of our roads, the power situation, the garbage on the streets, the insensitivity of road-users that compounds our traffic woes, the mosquitoes, the rate of crime, the attitude of law enforcement agencies – these are among the several issues that affect us gravely, and in the face, on a daily basis. And, of course, if you are in Chennai, the auto-rickshaw drivers are sure to leave you irritated and fuming! As I started using auto-rickshaws more frequently, and as I found a way to deal with them efficiently, I found myself complaining less. About everything. I realized that when we have a problem with a situation, we must either fix it – if we can – or simply keep quiet.

Complaining doesn’t help. It only increases our stress levels and makes us bitter with Life. Much of the rage and insensitivity that we see on Indian roads is a result of pent up anger that comes from incessant and unresolved complaining. People who go on complaining about this or that or the other are never at peace. When we are not at peace with our world, and with ourselves, we cannot see the magic and beauty of Life. To be sure, there is beauty in every context or situation in Life that is available for us to see. It is available 24 x 7. Amidst all the ruthlessness we see around us, there is a lot of kindness and compassion which is still there. For all the disrepair that we human beings cause our cities, the sun and the moon and the stars still continue to rise and shower us their grace and brilliance; the birds continue to chirp and make music despite all the cacophony below. But, of course, we will be able to see all this beauty, experience it and rejoice in it, only when we stop complaining.