Slowly you realize that Life can – and must – be faced!

When faced with multiple problems at the same time…

Life lessons on lasting a crisis phase

Stay in the now to find strength in a crisis situation

A great way to face any challenge in your Life is to find your center and drop anchor!

Last evening we had yet another edition of our popular by-invitation-only public event, The Bliss Catchers. I curate and lead this event series, which is hosted by the Odyssey Bookstore in Adyar, where I am in conversation with people who have gone on to do what they love doing in Life. Minutes before the event began, I discovered, I was not “feeling good about myself”. The past couple of weeks have been difficult for us as a family. We are huddling together to deal with a cathartic situation – which is, well, apart from,  and in addition to, our enduring bankruptcy. Just before the event began, even as the guests arrived, my mind wandered into the ‘catharsis zone’. I suddenly felt overpowered with thoughts of what was going on in our Life. I even told a friend, who enquired why I had not called him as promised, that “behind the strong sense of positivity that Vaani and I genuinely experience and exude, a tsunami rages on.” As we closed in on 7 pm, I stepped aside from the crowd that had gathered for the event, and dropped anchor – practicing mouna. Quickly, in a matter of minutes (given that I practise mouna daily), I found my ‘center’. Metaphorically, and in reality, a storm raged outside of me. But deep within, I felt good, at peace with myself, and engaged in the moment. To be sure, in the moment, in the now, there is no fear, no anxiety, no worry and no guilt or grief. Once anchored, I went on to lead the event and had a lot of fun doing it. The 90 minutes of the event had a therapeutic effect on me. This is the learning that I would like to share here: when you are engaged in the present moment, you can face – and survive – any storm.

The storms that ravage our lives – a debilitating health condition, a torturous relationship break-up, a business going bust, losing a reputation that’s painstakingly built, the sudden death of someone you love deeply – fill us with worry, grief, frustration and make us miserable. It may seem almost impossible not to worry or to grieve or to suffer. But there lies the best kept secret about intelligent living. In the now, when you are present, and engaged in the moment, there can be no worry. There is no cause for grief. And there isn’t any suffering.

You may wonder how this works. And if this really is true. Let me explain.

The way Life operates is that none of us can control what is happening to us. Life goes on happening. And all we can do is to respond to Life as it happens. Some of the happenings in your Life may shock you and sock you. You can find a million people to blame for your situation or you can even berate yourself for your plight. You can argue with reality – asking why things have happened to you! But be sure that all your fighting, all your resisting, will be completely futile. What I have learned is that Life’s crises are there only to help us find strength from within. That is the only place which is untouched by what goes on outside and that’s where you will be in total peace and feel infinitely secure!

The human mind is like a large ship in the ocean of Life. When a storm hits the high seas, an ordinary vessel will be tossed around and may even drown. But modern day ships have stabilizers. They help the ship navigate deftly through rough waters. Similarly, the human mind too can be stabilized by training it to be present in the moment. When it is present in the now, the mind is powerless. The mind works and thrives only in a yet-to-be-born future or in a dead-and-gone past! That’s why worry, grief and suffering don’t affect you in the present moment! And that’s how you, your true Self, can be peaceful, despite the circumstances that you are placed in and despite the storms that will often rip apart your material Life! Finding strength in a crisis situation in Life really means letting go of the past and not worrying about the future – while being aware that everything in Life is impermanent – including Life’s storms!

Every ordeal is an opportunity to evolve and awaken

How do you survive the onslaught of Life when everything that you thought was yours is taken away from you?

Where do you re-start Life from when you are left in the cold – helpless, hapless, battered, and bruised by Life’s blows? What do you do when you have nothing material left anymore with you other than perhaps the clothes you are wearing?

Some people have the support of their families and some don’t at such times. Either way, sometimes Life’s situations may be so numbing that there as only questions and no answers!

You may at various times in your Life have braved many a storm or perhaps may be going through one just now. When you sit back and think about the Life you have, you will realize that there is no other way to live Life than to accept what is, no matter what it is.

Here are simple tips based on lessons (also chronicled in ‘Fall Like A Rose Petal’; Westland, 2014) I have learned in my rather eventful Life so far:

1.     Accept the reality that you are in the throes of a crisis. Don’t resist the situation. Don’t wish that it didn’t exist. Simply accept it. Acceptance always delivers inner peace.

2.     Focus not on the strength of the storm but on your true self. Know that the storm will always be strong. It will be menacing. It will threaten to destroy you. By even thinking of its ferocity, you are only going to feel debilitated. So, focus on your inner self. Just mindfully watching your breathing can help. When you are mindful, always, you will find calm and inner peace. From that calm, you will gain strength.

3.     Always ask this simple question which can often lead you to profound answers: “Given the situation I am faced with, what is the best thing I can do to make things better for everyone concerned?” Employ key criteria for choosing what action you can take out of many possible options that may follow the question: your action must always be positive, constructive and ethical.

4.     In particularly complex Life situations which can often dog you for months and years, it is worthwhile to revisit Tip # 3 on a daily basis and choose your daily actions only basis those criteria.

5.     No matter how intense it is, no storm lasts forever. All storms have to pass. So, this one too shall pass. Just remember that.

This may seem too simplistic for you to even believe it works. But this is the only way it works __ no matter what you are faced with! Life’s challenges come in different shapes and sizes, in the form of storms of varying intensities. We cannot stop the storms because we don’t have the controls to Life’s mechanisms in our hand. But our facing each of them with humility, with faith and patience, can convert any ordeal into an opportunity to evolve and awaken!

To find strength in a storm, move to the center

As long as we are relating to external – often material and physical – reference points, we will not find inner peace.

People sometimes tell me that while they find the ‘philosophy’ advocating staying anchored and calm to be indeed powerful, in reality, they wonder if it is really possible to escape the ‘tyranny of everyday Life’. As in, everyone wakes up with the resolve to face Life and its challenges stoically, but they end up succumbing to the pulls and pressures of people and events. A friend recently told me, “If you can claim to be untouched by Life’s challenges, then you must also claim that you are God.”

I must confess, just to clarify, that I make no claims. In sharing my daily learnings here on this Blog, I am simply sharing. If it makes sense to them, some people draw some inferences from it. If it doesn’t, they read it and trash it. But one thing is for sure – I don’t share anything here that I have not experienced or learnt first-hand. And one of my key takeaways from Life is that it is indeed possible to live in this world, and yet be above it! Provided you are anchored and have found your center.

Osho used to tell a story of a Zen Master who was invited as a guest by someone. A few friends had gathered and they were listening intently to the Master when suddenly there was an earthquake.

The building that they were sitting in was a seven-storey building, and they were on the seventh storey. Naturally, they all feared for their lives and ran. Everybody tried to escape. The host, running down, paused, and came back to see what had happened to the Master. He was sitting still, on the floor, on the mat, with not even a ripple of anxiety on his face.

With closed eyes he was sitting just as he had been sitting before.

The host felt a little guilty. He felt cowardly. It does not look good when a guest is sitting while the host is running away. The others, the guests, had already gone down the stairs but he stopped himself although he was trembling with fear, and he too sat down by the side of the Master.

The earthquake came and went in a matter of a few minutes. Once the tremors and rumblings stopped, the Master opened his eyes and resumed his discourse which he had had to stop because of the earthquake. He began again at exactly the same sentence – as if the earthquake had not happened at all!

The host was now in no mood to listen, he was in no mood to understand because his whole being was so troubled and he was so afraid. Even though the earthquake was over, he was still in shock, in fear. He said: “Now please don’t say anything because I will not be able to grasp it, I’m not myself anymore. The earthquake has disturbed me. But there is one question I would like to ask. All other guests had escaped, I was also running down the stairs, when suddenly I remembered you. Seeing you sitting here with closed eyes, sitting so undisturbed, so unperturbed, I felt a little cowardly – I am the host, I should not run. So I came back and I have been sitting by your side. I would like to ask one question. We all tried to escape. What happened to you? How’s it that you did not feel like running?”

The Master said: “I also ran, but you ran outwardly while I escaped inwardly. Your escape is useless because wherever you are going there too is an earthquake, so it is meaningless, it makes no sense. You may reach the sixth storey or the fifth or the fourth, but there too is an earthquake. I escaped to a point within me where no earthquake ever reaches, cannot reach. I entered my center.”

This story is the essence of Zen.

It means that when you reach your center, nothing can affect you. No external event or development, in fact, no one can touch you. Your center has been, is, and will be with you. It is in you. In your center, you will find both perpetual happiness and inner peace. Even if you are physically in shackles, if you are anchored, centered, no one can take away your inner peace or make you unhappy. Know that only you yourself are responsible for your peace and inner joy.

I have shared many experiences of how I have been learning (to be sure, I am still a learner) to live in this world and yet be above it in my Book ‘Fall Like A Rose Petal’ (Westland, August 2014). Through these experiences I have come to believe that everyday Life is hardly tyrannical. To find strength in a storm, move to the center, to the eye of the storm, it is always calm there! If you learn to go within (through any practice of daily meditation or observing silence periods) you too can remain untouched by whatever happens outside of you!