No pot of gold at the end! The journey is the reward, celebrate it!

Happiness must never be postponed or forsaken for any ‘thing’ or person.

At a meeting yesterday, we talked about our Program, Help Yourself To Happiness. Someone pointed out that it was a very important Program for young folks who are faced with a “quarter-Life” crisis. All of us agreed.

I thought about this conversation for a while after we had finished the meeting. I shared with Vaani my observation that people of this generation were facing a “quarter-Life” crisis while our generation (from the 1960s) predominantly dealt only with a “mid-Life” crisis.  Indeed, it may well appear that a “what-is-the-meaning-of-Life” crisis is arriving early for the millennial generation. Surely this is not something to worry about. In fact, if our search for meaning is happening early on, that much better. This really means people will sort themselves out faster and will have that much more time to lead qualitative, happy, lives.

I realized only when I was 38 (in 2005) that all I wanted to do, for the rest of my Life, was to inspire people to happiness. Even then it has taken me over a decade of consistent practice, of being happy despite the circumstances, to reach the point, in the past few years, when I can share my learnings with others. I am keen to help young folks understand that Life is a limited period offer and that the most intelligent – and appropriate – way to live it is to be happy doing only what you love doing. I want to help them appreciate that while you can’t predict or avoid the upheavals in Life, you can surely sail through the turbulence better, without suffering, despite the pain, if you are happy.

So, I am delighted if people are asking existential questions early on in their lives. What is the meaning of Life? What is my Life’s Purpose? Am I living or am I just earning a living? What is all that I am doing adding up to? These are beautiful questions. These are seeking questions. And everyone must ask them. Only when you ask these questions will your seeking spirit awaken to lead you. Therefore, it is always better that these questions are asked early in Life, and you allow yourself to be led only by what makes you happy. This way, you can spend a larger part of your Life simply being happy!

Now, does this mean our generation was foolish enough to allow so much time to pass before we asked the most important questions of our Life? Before we understood what matters most and why? I don’t know about others. But I certainly squandered the first 30+ years of my Life thinking success was all about name, fame and money. It was only when I understood the impermanence of everything material, including Life itself, that I awoke to happiness.

I have realized that there is no treasure at the end of the rainbow. There is no pot of gold. I have understood that happiness is not a goal. It is not a destination. So, it must never be postponed or forsaken for any ‘thing’ or person! In Life, the journey is the reward. And the happier you are on this journey, by being non-worrying, non-frustrated and non-suffering, the more you will enjoy it.

So, just imagine what a beautiful world it would be if everyone was encouraged to appreciate Life this way early on. This is the way Osho beseeched us to embrace. This is the way that J.Krishnamurti championed in all his KFI schools, particularly at Rishi Valley. When more people help themselves to happiness, then, the answer “happy” – to the ubiquitous question that is unfailingly asked of all teens: “what do you want to be (when you grow up)” – won’t be startling anymore! So, let ‘em bring on the crisis. The earlier they know that the journey is the reward, the better. Then they won’t squander their precious lifetime chasing a non-existent reward instead of celebrating the magical journey!

A missing cuckoo, a wary manager and the art of ‘high-performance’ by ‘just being’

Blending spiritual awareness with everyday action is intelligent living.

The other morning Vaani and I sat in our balcony reading the newspapers. Suddenly Vaani pointed out that her favorite cuckoo, that normally sat on a specific branch on the tree in the neighbor’s backyard, was missing. Then, in a few seconds, she heaved a sigh of relief and declared: “There’s the cuckoo…seems to have shifted from one branch to another!” I love Vaani for this ability of hers to pause and drink in Life from around her. She manages to see magic and beauty in small things, in unexpected places – a bird here, a flower there, in a puddle of rain water, in a cloud formation… When Vaani was at Rishi Valley, where her parents taught for 25 years, she had the privilege to learn the art of just being from J.Krishnamurti (JK), who founded the school. JK would take the children in the school for long walks and teach them to observe Life. ““See Life as it happens, observe keenly, there’s great value in stopping the doing and simply watching….” JK would tell us,” said Vaani, even the other day, after she found her friendly neighborhood cuckoo.

This morning a manager told me that when I am addressing her team, I must not talk about spirituality. I found this request rather strange. And I asked her why the embargo. Pat came her reply: “Oh, spirituality champions doing nothing! I don’t want my people to turn non-performers!”

I laughed heartily. I know people often get confused between spirituality and religion. But this is the first time I was hearing someone say that spirituality was anti-performance. Let me clarify and reiterate that all Life is spiritual. And if there is one way to make your Life deeply meaningful and valuable, it is to embrace spirituality and learn the art of high-performance by just being.

Is it possible to do nothing? Doesn’t doing nothing amount to inaction? So, when you don’t act, when you don’t do what you must, aren’t you failing in your duty? And if there’s nothing to do, nothing to achieve, what’s the purpose of Life?

Any seeker will encounter these questions. They are perfectly normal, logical questions. The answers to these have to be understood at two levels: at the spiritual, inner awareness, level and at the everyday action, practical, level.

First, let’s view it from an inner awareness angle. Rinzai, the famous Chinese mystic, considered a Master in Zen Buddhism, has said famously: “Sit silently, doing nothing, and the grass grows by itself.” By this Rinzai does not mean you should do nothing forever. He calls for a deeper level of observation, of just being – every day; the level of observation that Vaani learnt from JK, that forced her to look up from the newspaper and search for her cuckoo friend. Everyone’s in a tearing hurry to get things done. There are the dishes to be done, groceries to be fetched, the kids to be dropped and picked up, meetings to go to, deadlines to be met, targets to be achieved, bills to be paid, mortgage dues to be settled….and on and on…you go. From one commitment to another. From one small crisis to another. Hours, days, weeks and often months have gone by rushing until you realize that you need a break. Phew! But a break has come to remind you again you must accomplish a set of things you always wanted done. Go to the spa, change the upholstery, get the air-conditioners serviced or have the whole house re-painted! And just in case you managed a vacation, it is always about “seeing” whatever you can in the “limited” time that you have. Again it’s a rushing of a different kind. Rinzai says, drop everything, and sit silently. Just observe. See how Life goes on. Be silent. Thoughts will come and go. Let them. Bring your attention back to your present – to the now. You can sit in your balcony and see the crowded street below or the clear blue sky above or you can go to the park or you can go to the beach or even to the mall. Go somewhere. But you be silent. You be only a witness. You just be. Then, says Rinzai, you will see the beauty of how nature, how Life, works on its own.

This is what just being and doing nothing can help you with. It will help you experience the magic and beauty of Life. It is through being silent that you realize what inner peace is. It is through inner peace that you become aware of the true nature of Life. That Life goes on not because of you, but in spite of you. When you have realized this, then everyday living becomes stress-free and, in fact, meaningful!

Next, at a practical level, you must never abdicate your responsibilities. You have to continue doing what you are doing. You may have a job, you may have a business, you may just be a home-maker, you may be a student – whoever you are and whatever you have to do, keep doing it. If you don’t like what you are doing, change it. Do something else. Philosophy and spirituality surely cannot pay your bills. You have to earn an income. But don’t earn to pay your bills. Earn from what gives you joy. Then you won’t think of your Life as a drudgery. And if someone’s earning for you, do something with your time that makes you joyful. Don’t sit and complain about Life and say you are bored. So, from an everyday action point of view, keep doing whatever you must do. Just don’t complain. Don’t hanker for results. This is what sitting silently, observing Life, for a while each day can help you understand.

When you combine spiritual awareness and everyday action, you learn to live intelligently. Completely at peace with yourself and your immediate world. Because your rhythm’s in harmony with the Universe’s, whatever you need, the Universe always provides you with. In this zone, you become the most productive and whatever you do works out just great. This is how you become a high-performer by just being!

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

 

Expunge any practice that disrespects women from the face of the planet

Any home or family that alienates its women is regressive.

I was shocked to read a friend’s post on Facebook yesterday. She was attending a wedding in the family. And she was disallowed by a family elder, ironically a lady, from participating in the ‘mehendi’ ceremony, because she (my friend) had lost her husband a couple of years ago. In another episode, a friend who is pregnant and is due to deliver in a month, said her family wants her to postpone her ‘maike’ visit (to her maternal home) because a distant relative had passed away on her husband’s side – so until the period of mourning was over, she could not ‘carry the stigma/shadow of grief and death’ into her own home. In another horror story we have heard, a woman was disallowed from inviting her divorced sister home, by her mother-in-law, because a young, divorced woman was “capable of corrupting the minds of the men” in the house.

For heaven’s sake, we are in 2016! Well into the 21^st century! And we still have such cruel, crude, primitive, biased thinking that is prevalent?

I believe we have an urgent need in each family to examine how our women are treated. I think more than in workplaces, we need a policy in our homes to ensure that women are not harassed in the name of God, religion, rituals, tradition and culture. And as in the case of all three women, whose stories I have shared here, it is often, unfortunately, women who either directly try to alienate other women or partner in such alienation. When I was much younger, I rabidly fought a lot of this discrimination against Vaani (and her family) by my own mother – but I lost out every single time. This is one of the principal reasons why I choose to remain detached and distant from my side of the family – to protect our own inner peace and sanity. I wish I had been stronger then. But at least over the past decade or so, I have been championing this thought that any home or family that does not give equal opportunity and respect to its women has to be condemned unequivocally.

Last year when my father-in-law Venks passed on, and we were readying his body for cremation, the priest asked me if any of Venks’ grandsons were around. This, as I understood it, was to light the source fire from which, notionally, the funeral pyre would be lit. I told the priest that two of Venks’ grandsons were on their way from different Indian cities and they planned to reach the crematorium directly. Since the source fire (in an earthern pot) had to be lit at home, I suggested that my daughter, Venks’ granddaughter, be allowed to light it. But the priest would just not agree. We got into a dignified but vocal debate on gender equality that lasted several minutes. Finally, I backed off, because I didn’t want to hold up the proceedings that were being led by the priest in partnership with Venks’ son, my brother-in-law. However, when it came to bid the body goodbye, all of us were asked to notionally ‘feed the body’ (vai-ikku arisi). I invited my daughter too to do it. The elders in the family and the priest didn’t quite appreciate this. For, per them, unmarried girls must neither feed the body nor see it off. Not only did Aanchal take my cue and ‘feed Venks’ body’, she and Vaani accompanied the cortege to the crematorium and literally saw Venks off. I am very proud of the choices my wife and my daughter made. After all they were close to Venks too.

I must confess here that although social norms, banal traditions and dogmatic rituals are all stacked up always to favor men, it is the women who are more resilient that us men. I say this from my own experience of fighting our crisis – without Vaani on my side, I would never have made it this far. And in almost every story around us, whenever I have met sensible, sensitive, compassionate men, I have always found them acknowledging this truth. The other day I was chatting with Gregory Jacob from Dubai (his family’s story of surviving a traumatic phase of bankruptcy is now a famous motion picture in Malayalam – Jacobinte Swargarajyam – in which Nivin Pauly plays Gregory’s role). And Jacob had this to say: “Amma is the backbone of our family, she is the warrior queen, she has been the pillar of strength for all of us. I guess we men aren’t really fireproof after all!” I can’t agree with him more.

I don’t want to preach. I just want to make a plea. Let’s be the change we want see around us. Let’s get rid of any thought, practice, ritual, tradition or custom that alienates a woman. And let’s start from our own homes!   

 

 

Look up from your ‘busyness’ to see the beauty in each moment

Stand, stare, pause, reflect…slow down and soak in Life. Don’t keep running, with no time to stop and smell the roses, as if Life were a race.

Hari and his friend

Yesterday, on our morning walk we saw a milkman feeding a stray cat. We paused and asked him why he was doing that. He beamed a big smile, said hello, introduced himself as Hari, and explained, “I just found her hanging around this neighborhood everyday as I made my deliveries. One day I offered her some milk. And since then we have become good friends. She comes by whenever I am here. I enjoy seeing her and feeding her. Poor thing, all she needs is some care and milk!”

Hari’s random act of kindness is so inspiring. It made me think. How often do we do something like that – which is to pause and care for someone who does not have anything to offer us in return?

Further down our walking route, my wife Vaani, an ardent lover of nature, birds, flowers and, in fact, of Life itself, pointed to a tall tree and its fall colors. I looked up, Indeed the patterns that the morning light was weaving through the leaves uplifted their colors. Vaani, who schooled at Rishi Valley, where her parents were teachers, said J.Krishnamurti (the philosopher who lived between 1895 and 1986; he founded the Rishi Valley School and The Krishnamurti Foundation) taught her, and her sister, “the value of mindfulness and observation”.

It’s been 28 years since I have known Vaani. Initially, I could never understand why she always got so excited when she saw a tree or a bird or a flower. But over the last decade or so, ever since I was forcibly evicted from the rat race – thankfully, mercifully – I have also learned to pause, observe and reflect. I have learnt to appreciate Life better by slowing down. There’s great beauty in each moment, I realize now, provided you look up from your ‘busyness’!  

Besides, beneath all the chaos and grime that hold a big city in a stranglehold, there are still ordinary folks like Hari who teach us how to be compassionate and there are people like Vaani who remind us that it is possible to find beauty in the most unexpected of places.

The greatest wealth in Life is be able to enjoy the gift of this lifetime. In trying harder to run faster to get to a destination you think is your ultimate one, you are missing out on the scenery and the opportunity that each moment is offering you. I am reminded of W.H.Davies’ (1871 ~ 1940) poem Leisure. What he wrote back then is still so, so, relevant: “A poor Life this if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare.”

Get off the “becoming treadmill”, just be!

Stop competing, drop all comparisons, and you will live happily ever after!

We were having tea with a friend who was visiting us with his family after many years. Our friend was schooled at the famous Rishi Valley School, founded by the thinker-philosopher J.Krishnamurti (1895 ~ 1986). It’s a school that spurs the spirit of inquiry in children and lets them enjoy the process of learning than drive them to acquire knowledge that can showcase them as achievers to society. Our friend told us how much he valued the Rishi Valley way and said that his whole Life and career had been blessed by his experience of learning at that school. Naturally, we asked our friend’s children, who were in high school in Doha, Qatar, if they ever wanted to go to Rishi Valley School. Our friend’s daughter answered that question. She said: “I love Rishi Valley and the ambience there. But I don’t think Rishi Valley prepares you for the real world.” Her mother, our friend’s wife, piped in, “Well, schools like Rishi Valley don’t make you street smart.”  

What could have been an intelligent conversation sadly ended there as samosasand dhoklas were served and everyone got distracted in the direction of all the food and tea.

But I couldn’t stop thinking about the observations that were made that afternoon – one by a child and the other by a parent! And I wondered if we really need to be street smart and prepare ourselves for the real world?

Think of what the real world really is: a place where everyone is busy running a rat race, where the spirit of inquiry and learning is stifled very, very early on in Life and people are only keen on their GPAs and placements, where top draw salaries are a means to acquire all material comfort and where innovation and enterprise and sacrificed on the altar of quarterly earnings and wanting to be seen as the number 1 and not necessarily striving to be the best! Competition has become the very basis of Life. No doubt competition, like in sport, brings out the best in a person. But to obsess oneself with competition, being street smart and constantly compare with others can ruin the joy of living. In fact, Krishnamurti has said, “Real learning comes about when the competitive spirit has ceased.” And he has also said, “The ability to observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence.” So, in effect, in the so-called real world that we have created today, there is no more learning. We have lost all our learning ability trying to grow our earning potential. And, obviously, at the cost of not employing our intelligence, we have begun to love, and therefore cling to, things and use people, whereas, it should be the other way round!

It is this obsession with comparing with others, with competing with a desire to vanquish others, that has made our world, this real world of ours, such a cold place to live in. Driven by the hunger to be successful you have stopped celebrating your uniqueness. Instead of just being, you are on this ‘becoming treadmill’ – wanting to become someone else or wanting to become like someone else. Running on a treadmill has an inherent pitfall – you keep running harder no doubt but, in the end, you are still at the same place! Comparison with others, being in continuous, endless, competition, breeds ambition. No problem with being ambitious. But when ambition makes you combative, restless and subconsciously violent – where you are fighting continuously with who you are because you are wanting to be someone else – then your inner peace and happiness are destroyed.

Krishnamurti urged us to look at nature. He used to say that the flowers bloom for the joy of blooming; the trees don’t compete with each other, they simply enjoy each other’s presence and growth; the sun rises and sets because it simply has to – there’s no attitude to nature’s magnificence. Osho, the Master, went a step further to clarify: “All that is divine is non-competitive – and your being is divine. So just sort it out. The society has muddled your head; it has taught you the competitive way of Life…when you are non- competitive, only then can you be yourself. This is simple.”

So stop trying to become – something, someone. Just be. Then, whether in the real world or not, whether street smart or not, you will always be happy and at peace with yourself!