Reflecting on a beautiful, slow, Victoria ride over home-made filter ‘kaapi’

Slow down when Life slows you down.

This morning as I sipped my coffee, I thought about the movie that we watched last night on TV. It was the 1972 classic Victoria No. 203 (Brij, Saira Banu, Navin Nischol). Seeing Saira and Navin ride the Victoria, Vaani and I reminisced about the time in the late nineties when we rode it too. We were hosting Jack Canfield (of Chicken Soup for the Soul) at the Taj Mahal hotel at the Gateway of India. And we were staying in a suite in the old wing of the hotel. After our event with Jack was over, in the middle of the night, we set out to ride on a Victoria. It was a slow, beautiful, memorable ride along the magical Marine Drive.

And then I thought about our Life now. From being high-fliers, in a worldly sense, we have apparently been grounded and consigned to a slow Life in the past decade.

Yet, there’s a huge learning from this phase. Which is that, in such times in Life when the journey becomes awfully slow, we must realize that Life is inviting us to enjoy the scenery. But most of us don’t have the attitude to see it that way. At least I didn’t look at Life from that point of view when our bankruptcy struck us in 2007. But I soon discovered that refusing to slow down and instead struggling with and complaining about the painfully slow pace, I was missing the magic and beauty in our Life. There was so much time I had now to spend time with Vaani, to think about the true meaning of Life, to celebrate Aanchal’s growing up years (Aash was already away at college in Chicago by then)…but no, I wasn’t enjoying what I had; I was pining for something else, something which wasn’t even there.

When I reflected upon my struggle, I discovered that the problem lay with the way I had led my Life up until then. Running from event to event, crisis to crisis, trying to make ends meet, earning-a-living, busy working harder than ever before, meeting targets, paying bills, raising children and doing everything else except living mindfully. And then as often happens with Life, the game changed. We were put in a spot where we could not move; we were check-mated.

In our case, it is this numbing bankruptcy. But anyone can find themselves in this “slow spot” right now! It could be a health issue, it could be a career stalemate, it could be a relationship tangle or it could be a legal quagmire. In such times, there may be a tendency to worry and to wish__pray, plead, hope__that why can’t Life fast-forward, why can’t we get back to ‘normalcy’? So, if you are bogged down in an ICU, you wish you could be back in the hustle-bustle of everyday Life. Or if you are caught in the midst of legalese, you just are hoping why don’t you win all your claims and are free to be away from all this disputing and arguing? Interestingly, Life’s not a handmaiden that will do what you please. At times, it just may not move.

Know also that there is no fast-forward button or option in Life. So, when you are pushed to a corner by the cosmic design, the best thing to do is to not worry about not moving. Be happy you can breathe. Because being able to sense your breathing is normal. Running so hard that you don’t even have the time to notice you are breathing, is not normal. Imagine you are climbing a steep mountain in a vehicle. As it negotiates the sharp hair-pin bends, the engine is finding the going tough. So, the vehicle is down to an agonizing crawl. Now, you can worry about that pace and concentrate on the dreary drone of the engine, or you can look out the window and see what the scenery looks like. This is what enjoying the scenery is all about.

“Smile, breathe and go slowly,” advises Thich Nhat Hanh (called ‘Thay’), the Vietnamese Buddhist monk – and among my favorite spiritual teachers. Just being mindful of your being alive__to experiencing whatever you are going through, be it pain, be it joy__is what can make the slowdowns in Life more meaningful. Do all the things that you can joyfully in whatever state you find yourself. And don’t worry about what you can’t. If you are immobilized by a health issue enjoy the ‘grounding’ with a family member who is nursing you; pining to be able to run around will only cause agony. If you are cashless enjoy being able to live without money; hoping you had money will only aggravate your suffering. If you are caught in a relationship problem where there is much misunderstanding, enjoy practicing patience and forgiveness; craving for understanding from the other person may only accentuate your pain. Thay champions mindful living as a cure to all our ailments coming from merely existing. “Life is available only in the present moment. Even drink your tea, slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world, the earth revolves – slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future,” he says.

So, that’s what I am doing this morning. I am, while still reminiscing about the beautiful Victoria ride from 20 years ago, savoring every drop of the brilliant coffee that Vaani’s brewed for us. Ah! Life’s slow…but Life’s beautiful too!

Zen while dusting cobwebs and cleaning toilet bowls

Mindfulness is the key to inner peace.

Today we spent a large part of the morning cleaning up around our home. Vaani and I simply love house-keeping. Indeed, it does make us happy.

In fact, to me, personally, house-keeping, is a meditative practice. It is not a chore. Yes, it does become a challenge when you have to juggle with your other schedules and have to try and fit in quality time for house-keeping. But I have realized that I am very mindful when I am cleaning up around the house. I go about it calmly, methodically and, however physically strenuous it may get at times, I enjoy the process. I love doing the dishes or cleaning surfaces, I invest time to get the toilets to be squeaky clean and generally love the idea of having a dust-free home environment – something that’s so difficult in Indian conditions and so requires being at it continuously, consistently!

I have discovered that when you are mindful of whatever it is that you are doing there’s great inner peace and joy. And no work or task is menial or burdensome as long as you don’t treat it as a chore. In fact, immersion really means being completely involved in, engaged in, and mindful of whatever it is that you are doing. Of course, it is possible that you may not always like to do some things. But when you don’t have a choice – and you have to also do what you dislike doing – if you choose to be mindful, you will get through that task or activity even more efficiently than when you are resisting it.

The Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hahn, a.k.a Thay, says it so beautifully: “In mindfulness one is not only restful and happy, but alert and awake. Meditation is not evasion; it is a serene encounter with reality.” The essence of what he has to say is contained in the last phrase – ‘it is a serene encounter with reality’.

Most of the time, almost all of us, resist our reality. We don’t like what we are going through. Or we dislike what we have to do. Or we are so engrossed in dealing with our ‘extended’ realities that we miss the magic and beauty of everyday living. Thay recommends that we must awaken to the reality in each moment. And not just to be stuck with our ‘extended’ reality. For instance, if you keep worrying about a relationship issue you have, and keep mourning the fact that you are unable to fix it, how will you enjoy a sunrise? So, in this context, your stagnant relationship is your ‘extended’ reality. But the more immediate one is the sunrise. Enjoy it, says Thay, because soon it – the moment bearing the sunrise – will be gone. Meditation is really what the art of living is all about – the ability to value each moment, cherish it, be joyful in it and move on to the next moment with undiluted enthusiasm.

How can you enjoy a moment when it is painful, you may wonder? What if someone is dead? What if someone’s betrayed you? How will you cope with a moment when you are wishing it away? That’s why Thay prescribes a ‘serene encounter with reality’ – he says, don’t resist, don’t fight, instead accept, what is. Accepting what is, is the best way to inner peace. When you accept your reality, you begin to experience joy in the moment.

The human mind is like the human body. It can be trained. I have trained my mind by practicing both silence periods (mouna) and mindfulness – immersing myself in what I do. Over time, I have learnt to banish worry (despite the daunting circumstances my family and I are faced with; read more here: Fall Like A Rose Petal.) and just be in the moment. Often time, cleaning around my house gives me that sense of equanimity. Through my own experience I know that if you immerse yourself in whatever you do, you too can be happy, despite the circumstances!

‘Just being’ is all about experiencing each moment with your heart

It connects you to the source of your creation.

A friend remarked that he found me to be in the ‘zone of happiness’ all the time. Indeed. I choose that zone because it gives me an opportunity to ‘just be’ – be non-worrying, non-frustrated and non-suffering. This, to me, is happiness.

‘Just being’ is an opportunity available to everyone. All the time. But many of us see ‘just being’ as inaction. And so we imagine that it will breed inertia and make us vegetables; we feel that staying busy is important. You can be running on a treadmill and you could still be in the same place. Staying busy is just that. It doesn’t get you anywhere. Vietnamese Buddhist guru Thich Nhat Hanh (Thay) teaches this so well. He calls ‘just being’ non-action, not inaction. “Sometimes if we don’t do anything, we can help more than if we do a lot. We call that non-action. It is like the calm person on a small boat in a storm. That person does not have to do much, just to be himself, and the situation can change,” he says.

I lean on Thay’s teaching for my everyday living. I practice ‘just being’, as follows:

1. Being in the moment, engaged, mindful. Thoroughly involved. Which is a lot of action.
2. Being involved with also doing what is possible, what is right and doing it well, in that moment, and yet being detached from the outcome.

When 1 and 2 are happening simultaneously, where’s the question of passivity or inertia or remaining grounded? You are soaring. Despite the storm, despite the chaos, you are soaked in grace, energy and momentum!

‘Just being’ is mindfulness. In fact, the Chinese character for mindfulness, nian, reveals its meaning. The upper part of the character means ‘now’ and the lower part means ‘heart’. Literally, the combined character means the act of experiencing the present moment with your heart or ‘just being’. ‘Just being’ connects you to the source of your creation, it helps you drop anchor and find peace in whatever you do, wherever you are!

Experiencing Zen with a cup of green tea

When you are merely activity-driven, you are never present in the moment!

We met a young lady recently who is obese, has hypertension and complained of her inability to stay focused. As we sipped some filter coffee, she tucked into a badushah (a sweet doughnut!). But even before she had finished eating it, she had checked her phone a few times, she had looked around the café and exclaimed that her Life had become monotonous, predictable and dreary. She confessed that she is simply not able to prioritize and manage her time and tasks effectively; she wondered what she must be doing to fix her “poor attention span” problem.

Many people are in this young lady’s situation – grappling with their home and work schedules, unable to find time for themselves, coping with lifestyle-related challenges like diabetes and hypertension and, overall, just going through the paces of Life, never really being able to live it fully! There’s only one way such people can “re-invent” themselves. They have to learn to be mindful. It’s not a method, it’s an art – and it can be mastered with understanding and practice.

Mindfulness is the ability to just be, to be in the present moment. Many a time, we keep doing stuff – cooking, cleaning, driving, smoking or eating. We don’t concentrate on what we are doing. Our mind is elsewhere. Our activities then are just chores. Our actions are not mindful, they are really mindless, mechanical. Which is why we are unable to “see” that some of what we could be doing is “ruinous”. We know, for instance, that smoking is ruinous, over-eating is ruinous, not exercising is ruinous, worrying is ruinous. But we go on doing these things. Mindlessly. Which is why observing your own Life, and viewing it dispassionately as a third party, helps. When you observe yourself you will realize how mindlessly you go through your days. You simply are going through hurried motions. You are not present in any of your actions. You are merely activity-driven. You are never in the moment. For instance, you are working overtime to send your kids to school – but never pausing to celebrate and enjoy their innocence. You are rushing to finish your bath – but are never enjoying your body. You are eating in a rush – but are not tasting and relishing your food. You are texting away madly – but are never celebrating how much smaller the world has become thanks to Facebook and WhatsApp. You go on worrying endlessly – without realizing that worrying doesn’t solve any problem and only keeps you away from enjoying whatever you have! It is only by being mindful in each moment that you can really understand what about you needs to change.

Try a simple exercise in mindfulness. Make yourself a cup of green tea. And drink it patiently enjoying every sip. Feel the tea energize you as it enters your body. Don’t let your thoughts wander. Be focused on experiencing the tea travel within you. Examine how you felt while drinking it. This experience of being one with the tea, this feeling, is what mindfulness is all about. This is what is Zen. Practice this in everything that you do. When cooking, focus on the recipe and its preparation, on the aroma, on the taste! When driving focus on the road and the joy of navigation; if the traffic is messy, don’t complain, just soak in all that you observe and be grateful for your ability to see, to drive, to own a vehicle or simply to even be in a vehicle – compared to so many others who don’t have all that you do! When on Facebook, celebrate the opportunity to connect with the world, your world. Every time your mind wanders, to a past event and makes you feel guilty or to a future event and makes you anxious, bring it back to attend on whatever you are doing now. Remember the human mind is like the human body. It will resist any change first. But repeatedly bringing the mind back to focus on the present, you can train it to let go of the past and to not indulge in the future.

Please don’t treat this suggestion of the “green tea experience” as a one-off experiment in Zen. Every once in a while step aside from your Life and observe yourself. As a third party. You will then discover how much you have to change for your Life to change! Conversely, only when you are fully present in each moment, are you alive in it. It is only then that you are living the moment fully. When you live each moment fully, you will realize its value. And through this realization, you will be able to transform yourself – your priorities, your work, your health and your Life!

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Reflections from a conversation with a man who believes Life = Money

Not all of the time you have in this limited-period offer called Life is relatable to money.

Yesterday I met a former employer of mine. He’s a billionaire who has, interestingly, filed for bankruptcy in one of his lines of business. I had worked with him as his EA over 20 years ago. He seemed to have heard of my financial troubles and had reached out to me wanting to understand where I was in Life.

When we met in his palatial sea-facing suite in a prominent five-star hotel, I presented him a copy of my Book, Fall Like A Rose Petal. Browsing through it, he told me that my problems were too small. And, according to him, a lot of my problems endured because I had not “understood how to live my Life”.

He hastened to explain that Life conforms to a simple formula: Life = Time (measured as a lifetime; also that we are a product of the time we go through) and Time = Money (because a majority of the financial transactions and economic models in the world are constructed around this theory); so, logically Life = Money. He theorized, alluded to and concluded that if I understood this formula about Life, I would emerge “successful” instead of being a “failure”.

I smiled back intently at him. I told him he was entitled to his view of Life. But my view of Life remains that we are all a product of the time we go through, so, yes Life = Time; besides, Life is a limited-period offer. But while Time may equal Money in some contexts, but it is not relevant in all cases.  For instance if you have to choose between an important business engagement and being at your child’s birthday, and you choose business, then you would have made money alright, but you would have lost a precious moment forever; you would have lost an opportunity to be, to be happy, forever! So, time must be invested judiciously – indeed to earn a living, but, important, to live fully, happily. I reminded my former employer that I was earning a lot of money back then when I was working with him, and on a few occasions I was even following his formula of Life = Money, often skipping important Life milestones for business reasons. But while I made money, I was unhappy living the Life I was. For the record, I had quit working for him when he denied me a two-day break to travel back to India, to Chennai, to celebrate my son’s 6^th birthday. I didn’t buy his Life = Money equation then, nor did I buy into it yesterday when he re-propositioned it to me.

The gentleman chided me for my inability to see “reality”. He strongly felt that I must see a psychiatrist. And he wanted me to follow a method, a set of rituals that he had borrowed from a TIME magazine article, to be happy so that I could be successful. I continued smiling at him. He was keen to know why I was so amused. I said I wasn’t amused. I was smiling because I was happy. In fact, I declared: “Sir, I am both happy and successful. So, thanks, but no thanks, for your advice!”

Not one to give up on anyone so easily, he asked me to define happiness and success. I said: “First, I don’t believe there are any methods or mantras to live Life. Happiness is just being in the moment. I am swimming in an ocean of problems Sir, but in the moment that is now, I am with one of the most richest Indians. In the hour that I have spent with you, the rich and famous, the powerful kingmakers and networkers of India have been calling you. But you called me. You offered me your warmth, your compassion, your time and such fine coffee. I am celebrating each moment I am spending with you. Which is why I am smiling all through our conversation. I am deliriously happy. This is how I live my Life from moment to moment, choosing to be happy with what is, in each one of them. So, happiness is to just be – to be immersed in the moment. And true success is to learn to always be happy despite the circumstances.”

Our interesting conversation ended on that note. He of course held on to his view. And wished that I would see his point of view to find happiness with, and in, material and financial success. I merely smiled back at him while I bade my goodbye.

On the Uber ride back home I reflected on the meeting and the learnings it offered with Vaani.

There’s an old Zen saying that goes like this: “You don’t step into the same river twice.” This saying reminds us that Life is ever-flowing. A moment that’s lost is lost forever. So, in every moment, if you make a choice to be happy with what is, with whatever is, you can live your Life without regrets. Surely, as long as you are alive, there will be problems you will encounter in Life. And there will be pain on account of those problems. But you will not suffer when you choose to be happy despite your circumstances. This choice to be happy is a personal one – and you can make that choice when you recognize that Time is not always = Money and that this lifetime is also the opportunity each of us has to make our lives happy, meaningful and memorable – one moment at a time!

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The simple secret to inner peace

Living in the moment is not rocket science. It is the most practical thing to do.

We met a young man at a Sai Bhajan the other evening. He said I looked very peaceful.

I replied, “I am peaceful. Not that I don’t have problems. I have far too many of them. But I am peaceful because I cooperate unquestioningly, unresistingly, unconditionally with what is, with the present.”

He said, “That’s great!” He then asked: “Which means you don’t do anything to change your current reality?”

I replied, “Of course, I work hard on changing whatever I wish was different about my present. But I don’t allow frustration to set in because I have tried and have not got the outcomes that I wanted.”

The man seemed convinced with the perspective I shared. But even if he wasn’t, he will soon discover that there is no other way to inner peace. As Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh would say, “Peace is the way.”

I have learnt this from struggling with my Life – and through it – for the longest time. You cannot do anything about the past, it is dead, it is gone. You cannot do anything about the still unborn future, it is yet to arrive. So, all you can do is to simply live in the moment by cooperating unconditionally with whatever is available, whatever is happening. When you live this way, you can only be happy and at peace – no matter what circumstances you are placed in!

Patience is the secret to experience inner peace

Do something each day that makes you come alive!

At the breakneck pace at which our daily lives travel, weekday mornings are simply a magnified version of the turmoil in us. Being patient on a work-day morning, therefore, may seem like a feat. In reality though, whether it is a weekday or any other day, patience is the only way to connect with Life’s beauty and magic!

A business associate who leads HR in a large client company called me unusually around lunchtime some days ago. I was perplexed. Normally this gentleman would text me or write me a mail. I did not pick up his call as I was at lunch. He sent me a message saying that he was just calling to say hello! I called him back!

Answering his phone he said: “Sir, this morning when I came to work, our server crashed. I had tons of work planned for completion today. We also had to work on hundreds of appraisals and issue increment letters. The IT folks told me it will take all day today to restore operations to normal. I was first very angry. Because I wanted to finish all that we had planned. Besides, I have to travel on work from tonight. Then I said to myself ‘What’s the point in getting angry? Let me just take it easy!’ So, I said, let me call and connect with people who I had not spoken to in six months. I decided to call just so that I reach out. If they are available great. If not, they would know I tried connecting! After just a few calls, a feeling of calm overtook me. My anger disappeared. I felt alive in re-connecting with people.”

My friend here has just stumbled upon Life’s greatest secret: that taking Life as it comes is better than expecting it to go to clockwork precision. There really is no point in fighting Life. Because it is a zero-sum game: you can’t win against Life and Life was never playing to win! Life’s beauty lies in things as they are, in people as they are, in events as they happen. When things don’t go your way, accept them for the way they are going! This attitude will ensure that you practice patience in each situation__however stupid or serious it may be.

We all go through mad, manic workdays or simply, some bad-hair days! The traffic snarls. The heat, and the rains, in India can be cruel. Everything, everyone can be driving you crazy. When things don’t go the way you want them to, do something, whatever, that makes you come alive. Being patient with Life is the secret to experience inner peace. It is in fact the only way to live intelligently.

Demystifying ‘just being’ – and how to ‘Fall Like A Rose Petal’

People often imagine that ‘just being’ means inaction. Just the opposite is true – ‘just being’ is a lot of action, for there is a lot to do, simply being present in the moment!

I met a friend the other day who said he was worried that all his efforts at getting business into his company were coming unstuck. He complained that no matter how hard he tried or how many sales calls he made, he was simply not getting orders. I smiled at him and said, “I can empathize with you. I am in the same boat. That makes it two of us!” “That’s my real fear,” he exclaimed in reply, “I worry that my Life too will become another Fall Like A Rose Petal story.”

I laughed. I said there was nothing wrong with the Fall Like A Rose Petal story. Just like everyone’s got a story, I too have one. And I have shared it in my Book (published by Westland) of the same name. My Book’s title is inspired by a story that Osho used to tell his followers…

A Sufi Master used to say to his disciples:

A rose petal, so delicate, but so strong, doesn’t hesitate about where it is falling, where it is going, whether there is any earth to find, to rest, to go to sleep, to die… Simply Trust. Do not the petals flutter down just like that?

So, I explained to my friend, by wishing something away, you can’t prevent Life from happening to you the way it wants to.

My friend said: “I don’t think you are doing enough. I think you have resigned to your fate. I don’t want to be like you. Every man makes his own destiny and you make that by putting your 150 % into a situation every single day! But I must confess that I am getting frustrated when my efforts are not yielding desired results.”

I didn’t want to discuss fate and destiny with him. However, while agreeing with him over making each day count, I made my point that sometimes, in Life, 2+2 will not equal 4. In such times, being in the now, in the present, being mindful is the only way to anchor in peace. Being mindful, living a Fall Like A Rose Petal Life, does not mean inaction at all. I told him that it means two things:

1. Accepting the moment for what it is, being in the moment, engaged, mindful. Thoroughly involved. Which is a lot of action.
2. Being involved with also doing what is possible, and doing it well, in that moment, and yet being detached from the outcome.

When 1 and 2 are happening simultaneously, where’s the question of passivity or inertia or remaining stuck? You are in flight! You are soaring. Despite the storm, despite the chaos, your sails are filled with grace, energy and momentum!

The reason though why many people see ‘just being’ as inaction is because they have this view that they are in control of their lives. So, they believe, that ‘just being’ will breed inertia and they will vegetate. So, they feel the need to stay busy and feel important that they are doing many things! This state is where almost everyone finds themselves at some point or the other in Life – running on a treadmill, where you are doing a lot of running, but are still in the same place! ‘Staying busy’ is just that – it doesn’t get you anywhere and leaves you drained, frustrated and beaten! Whereas ‘just being’ gets you to enjoy the magic and beauty of Life, while keeping your energy reservoir within you brimming over!

Vietnamese Buddhist guru Thich Nhat Hanh teaches this so well. He calls ‘just being’ non-action, not inaction. “Sometimes if we don’t do anything, we can help more than if we do a lot. We call that non-action. It is like the calm person on a small boat in a storm. That person does not have to do much, than just to be himself, and the situation can change,” he says.

Know that whatever’s happening to you now is part of a larger design that is creating your future. The funny thing about our present, our now, is that it is already happening. Which means we can’t wish it away. The only way to deal with it is to accept it, to live it, to stay engaged with it. Just as we enjoy when what’s happening is what we like, we must learn to appreciate whatever’s happening even if that’s not what we wanted or expected or like! This is mindfulness. This is ‘just being’. This is what Fall Like A Rose Petal is about! It helps you connect with the source of your creation, helps you drop anchor and find inner peace no matter what you are doing, or where you are, or what circumstances you are dealing with!

You have to go through what you have to go through!

From wanting your Life to be different, just learn to love what is.

Last evening we met a friend who opened up to us about his Life. He said he had been out of circulation for the last three years because he was dealing with his own challenges – his business was not doing too well, his wife had separated from him, his children had gone away on their own Life journeys and he was literally coming back to an empty house every night. He said he didn’t know what to do. He was not sure if he must have an affair or hit the bottle or take up a sport or simply sulk. He said that as long as he kept asking ‘why’, ‘why me’ and ‘why me now’, he kept feeling miserable. But his quest for answers led him to inspirations – Osho, J.Krishnamurti, Thich Nhat Hanh – and those in turn led him to reflect on the true nature of Life. He says, “I soon found that happiness is a choice. I realized that I can’t always get what I want. So, I decided to live with and love what I have – my loneliness.” Once he accepted his current reality, our friend told us, he felt great peace within and soon he ended up finding more focus in whatever he was doing. His business is now picking up and he’s happy the way he is and with the world around him.

Our friend’s experience there is a beautiful example, a reminder of sorts, of how each of us has through our own unique Life paths. You have to feel lost in Life first before you go on to find yourself, find inner peace and happiness. Nobody can escape this aspect of Life. You have to bear your own cross, you have to face your demons and you have to go through what you have to go through.

It sure is possible to love what you want in Life. But how can you love what you don’t want? How can you love death? How can you love a grave illness? How can you love betrayal in a relationship or a financial loss? How can you love sorrow, fear and anxiety?

To at least accept, even if you can’t love, what you get in Life, you have to understand Life deeply. Actually, Life is pretty simple – it’s just not in your control! You have been created without your knowledge. Without your asking to be born. Your creation has been a magical event. But you have not known it. You have been created as an embodiment of the Universal Energy. But you hardly see yourself as that because the labels of your name, your religion, your education, your economic strata in society, your profession, your income, and many more such labels, have been stuck on you. These labels are the cause of all your desires. Each of your wants is a consequence of your having to live up to the reputation of the label that dominates your Life at a particular time or moment. For example, in reality, you don’t need many of the things that you buy and possess in Life – like a swanky car, a large apartment in a premium neighborhood, expensive jewellery, a club membership and such. But you have them around or desire them because you have a social standing to maintain. Society has packaged you in such a manner that you are acceptable to them. Who you truly are has been buried deep below several layers of those labels or masks. Beneath all of them is the non-wanting, non-desirous, accepting you. So, to be happy, you must just peel off the masks and labels that you wear for society’s sake, and get to the real you.

Wanting your Life to be one way or the other is what causes unhappiness. The truth is that you never caused your Life. And you can never control it. When you internalize this truth, you will discover that it changes the way you look at Life – from wanting Life to be different to loving what is! You will then realize that you can live fully and be happy despite your circumstances!

 

Glenfiddich, the Gayatri Mantra and my awakening!

If we can focus on the essence of a religion or ritual, than merely being dogmatic about it, we will awaken.

In response to my blogpost yesterday on the value of remaining detached – both materially and emotionally, a reader reached out to ask me this: “Sir, is the poonal (the cotton thread worn across the shoulder by Brahmin menfolk, who deem it to be ‘sacred’) an attachment? Or is it a ceremonial identity for those born into a sect?”

Now, I am not going to answer this reader’s questions in specific. But I am going to share what I think of being born a Brahmin; and having given up wearing a poonal, what I have understood about being prayerful, being spiritual versus being ritualistic and religious.

I come from a very conservative Palakkad Brahmin, Iyer, (Palaghattan) family. My upanayanam (sacred thread/poonal ceremony) was performed when I was 13. While, for some inexplicable reason, I took to liking the Gayatri Mantra, even though I never understood its meaning then (just to clarify, I never asked for, nor was I taught, its meaning), I loathed the practice of doing sandhyavandanam thrice daily. Looking back, I feel it wasn’t about the practice, it was the draconian manner in which it was forced upon me that got my goat. As an adolescent, I had more worldly, more physical, more spirited matters to deal with in my body and mind, than to explore the spiritual aspect of living. I simply resisted the whole idea of being Brahmin and having to imagine that I was ‘intelligent, exclusive and exalted’.

Here I was, getting the lowest grades in my class – I was in fact thrown out of PSBB, KK Nagar, by the venerable Ms.YGP, for scoring 8/100 in Geometry in a quarterly. So, far from intelligent, I felt like I was a duffer. Second, all I wanted to do was hang out with friends, watch movies, smoke, have girlfriends and talk about and do stuff that all adolescents indulge in. But no. To do any of that was sinful, I was told. Because a. I now wore a poonal and b. I am Brahmin. I began hating the idea of being Brahmin and privileged even more. So, somewhere, along the way, I gave up doing sandhyavandanam (citing time constraints), but the poonal stayed on – possibly because of the fear-your-God-else-you-shall-be-punished orientation that I had received all through my childhood.

I grew older wearing the poonal. I did stuff that was deemed sacrilegious wearing the poonal – which is, I ate non-vegetarian food, drank alcohol, smoked tobacco and had sex! But the poonal stayed on. And, as they say, history, repeats itself. So, at 13, my son, Aashirwad, had his upanayanam. Vaani and I were liberal with him though. He had a choice to wear his poonal or do sandhyavandanam. Nothing was forced on him. And so, he made a choice not to do either! I don’t think I ever sat him down and helped him understand the meaning and significance of the Gayatri Mantra though. Life just went on for all of us.

Over time, thanks to our bankruptcy, and the cathartic experience that we are going through, I leaned more towards spirituality and started moving away from religion and rituals. This journey was smoother for me perhaps because of my early resistance to being a ‘privileged Brahmin’ and my intense distaste for rituals. I preferred to understand Life than be driven by tradition. So, Osho, Rumi, Gurdjieff, Gandhi, Eknath Eswaran, Kabir, Thich Nhat Hanh, Khwaja Moinuddin Chishty, Shirdi Baba, Sathya Sai Baba and Vivekananda, appealed to me more than the pantheon of Hindu Gods that I have been brought up propitiating. I understood that Life really meant living, not earning-a-living. And living meant celebrating each moment. I realized that happiness and inner peace were intelligent choices available to each of us and that God is within you and me, who must be loved, not someone who controlled you from the outside and who must be feared.

I understood the real meaning of the Gayatri Mantra. There are several ways it can be explained. But two flavors appeal to me the most:

One, Swami Vivekanananda’s single-line Twitter-friendly version: “We meditate on the glory of that Being who has produced this Universe; may He/She enlighten our minds.” (Note – I added the ‘She’ to this to celebrate gender equality!)

Two, what a sage seeker once shared with me:

“Through the coming and going, and the balance of Life,
the essential nature, which illumines existence, remains.
May all perceive through subtle intellect
the brilliance of enlightenment.”

Consider both versions of the Gayatri Mantra’s meaning. Is there any religion in it? Is there any parochial Brahmin supremacy enshrined in it? Then why, why is it preached, promoted and peddled as a Brahminical virtue?

One night, in the summer of 2011, when Aash was down here in Chennai on vacation, both of us sat down to polish off a bottle of Glenfiddich (that Aash had bought for me from his first part-time job’s salary). The ladies of the house had retired. And soon father and son got talking about Life, Purpose, spirituality, religion, rituals, God and almost everything that remains inscrutable to us mortals. I shared with Aash how much Osho has helped me live a fuller and happier Life. And then I talked about the Gayatri Mantra – sharing the two meanings, that I have presented above, with him. I also told him what I thought of the wasted idea of Brahminism – of how important and relevant just being is compared to being ritualistic and religious.

I then poured myself one more drink, and declared emphatically, that what the world needs more is Humanism, not Brahminism. I said we need no more of religion or rituals but we urgently need compassion and spirituality. Aash stopped me short and said, in a dead-pan tone: “But Dad, you are still wearing your poonal, right? Doesn’t all this sound a bit hypocritical to you?!” I looked back into his eyes. I set my glass down, peeled off the tee-shirt I was wearing, removed my poonal, and politely discarded it in the trashcan in the kitchen!

To me, that night was nirvana, enlightenment, moksha – whatever! That night I detached from an idea that had been bothering me from my adolescence – an idea called Brahminism that was based on religion, community, caste and parochial thought! Since then I have abstained from religion – as it is practiced today – and from all rituals. I feel freer, I feel happier and I feel at peace with myself.

This inner peace and joy helps me deal with my Life much better. In the last 5-odd years I have been enjoying my journey of this lifetime more than I have ever for 44 years before that night. I am so much more happier despite my excruciating material circumstances. Maybe this is the enlightenment that the Gayatri Mantra invites us to embrace. At least this is the essence I have picked up – and I don’t see any reason why the whole world shouldn’t be knowing and learning this!