Life’s Master Plan is at work 24 x 7 – no matter what you do or don’t do!

…And it has no flaws!

A very good friend of ours is enjoying time with his infant grandchildren. When I connected with him earlier this week, after many months, I remarked, “Wow! Isn’t it wonderful to be a grandparent? We are still getting ready to be empty nesters. But you have already been there, done that, and now, your Life has come a full circle as the family is together again with the next generation coming in as well!” My friend laughed. He then said, “AVIS bhai, one small correction. No one’s been there. No one’s done anything! Life just happens to you.”

Indeed. This has been my belief too. I may have said “been there, done that” to my friend more as a manner of speaking, but I totally, completely, resonate with the “Life happens to you” perspective.

I have another friend who is a famous CEO. He went into a depression for a few years when he lost his entire business empire and he went bankrupt. He subsequently bounced back and is a thriving business leader today. When my own business and financial challenges began (read more here: Fall Like A Rose Petal), in early 2008, I visited him in Hyderabad for getting his perspective on dealing with a bankruptcy. At the end of our conversation, as I got up to leave, he pointed to a plaque on his desk. It contained a quote from Yogavasishta Ramayana which read: “Whatever (is) to be done, I do. But in reality I do not do anything.” He told me: “Just follow this principle. You can never escape pain in Life, but, with this principle, you can avoid the suffering.”

The quote and my CEO friend’s advice did not make much sense to me then. But almost a decade down the line, I am wiser. I have come to realize that the truth of our lives is that we have to do what we have to do, and yet Life will keep happening to us; ultimately, Life’s Master Plan is what prevails and so we must learn to be unfrustrated with Life, with what we get, with the outcomes of our efforts. Or simply, Life’s Master Plan keeps happening to us, irrespective of what we do or don’t do, and this Master Plan has no flaws!

This learning is now ingrained in my spiritual DNA, if I can call it so. Even this morning, in a state of absolute cluelessness over a very urgent situation, that demands immediate hands-on leadership, which we can’t provide just now owing to lack of money, I meditated on this learning. I let go. And I surrendered. I am not just feeling a lot better, I am convinced that Life will take care of us – just as we have been taken care of all this time.

All our suffering, I have realized, is because of this misplaced notion that our Life happens because of us. I am reminded of what music maestro Ilayaraaja said once in an interview to Radio Mirchi: “Thaan sapitta unavai thaane jeernika sakthi ulla manithanai yen munnal niruthungal!” It means, “Show me a human who has the ability to digest their food through their own ability.” The import is that if you believe that Life happens through you, and not because of you, and that Life happens to you no matter what you do or don’t do, then, and only then, can you live in peace and be happy!

Zen and the art of being unfrustrated with outcomes

To be unfrustrated when you don’t get the results you want is a skill that you can teach yourself.

A gentleman asked me the other day: “It must be so frustrating AVIS to endure a bankruptcy for such a long time. Why do talented and ethical people like you have to go through a tough Life?” I smiled back at him. My reply: “Talent and integrity don’t ensure a crisis-free Life. The nature of Life is such that it is one continuous adventure. You just have to deal with whatever comes your way.”

I feel people unnecessarily complicate Life by imagining that they should be free from problems, challenges or crises. To be sure, Life never promised anyone a hassle-free ride. In fact, Life makes no promises. We humans bring our expectations to the party and then we invite suffering into our Life when those expectations are not met. When Life makes no promises, and when you expect something out of Life, and that expectation is not fulfilled, and you suffer, who is to blame? Of course, you have only yourself to blame. So, simply, drop all expectations and Life will be a lot easier to deal with.

In “Gandhi The Man”, Eknath Easwaran (1910~1999), writes about how Mahatma Gandhi drew great inspiration from the Bhagavad Gita to keep the focus only on his efforts and to learn to be detached from the outcomes. The Gita says: ‘Do your allotted work, but renounce its fruit – be detached and work – have no desire for reward and work’. And Gandhi internalized this learning thus: “This is the unmistakable teaching of the Gita. He who gives up action falls. He who gives up only the reward rises. But renunciation of fruit in no way means indifference to the result. In regard to every action one must know the result that is expected to follow, the means thereto, and the capacity for it. He, who, being thus equipped, is without desire for the result, and is yet wholly engrossed in the due fulfillment of the task before him, is said to have renounced the fruits of his action.”

I meditated, during my daily mouna (silence periods) sessions, on this learning for weeks on end some years ago. And over time I cultivated the ability to stay detached from the outcomes of my efforts. Vaani helped me through this process. This is how both of us have been able to deal with our Life with great equanimity.

Internalizing this learning has helped us immensely to remain unfrustrated when we don’t get what we want despite our very sincere efforts and all our integrity. When you are unfrustrated then you see any challenge only as an opportunity to learn patience and to retry. Which is why, when people often ask me, when do I think we will get out of our bankruptcy, I always reply, “I know we will be out of this. I just can’t say when.”

To be unfrustrated is a skill that can be learnt with practice. It requires training your mind to engage with only the present moment, with only the efforts. Simply, when there is integrity of Purpose, when there is relentless, unsparing effort, when you trust the process of Life, then you can never be frustrated with the outcomes!  

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Faith and Patience are great coping devices

There will be times in Life when you can’t solve your problems. This is when you must learn to trust the process of Life!!!

A member of the audience at one of my Talks  recently made this observation: “I am very inspired by you and Vaani. Both of you have phenomenal trust in each other and have demonstrated the power of resilience. But how I wish your story had a happy ending, how I wish your story had turned around for all the positivity you both exude. Then your story would have been a lot more inspiring!”

Aha!

Vaani and I too wish the same outcomes. Not so that our story is inspiring, but so that we end up repaying all our debt and become debt-free. There’s a huge responsibility that we bear in us, every single day, of repaying our 179 Angels  (creditors) the USD 1 million dollars that we owe them. There’s a line from a Tamizh classic (I not well versed in Tamizh literature, so I am not sure of the source – if anyone can enlighten me on the source, you are most welcome; will be grateful for the learning!) which goes like this…‘kadan petraar nenjam pola’…translated loosely, it means ‘like the heaviness in a debt-laden person’s heart’. While we have learnt the art of not allowing our spirit to be smothered by the weight of our problems, both professional and legal, and our debt, we still wake up every single day with an awareness of this enormous responsibility. We try to get our business back on track – meetings, proposals, networking, presentations…we keep doing a lot of stuff, a lot of new stuff too…but we remain unfrustrated when our efforts don’t bear the results we seek. To be sure, over the last 9+ years, our efforts have come unstuck more times than they have yielded any profitable outcomes. And, through this catharsis, this has been our big learning. Sometimes in Life, talent, integrity and hard work will not get you what you want. So, this is when you must keep the Faith and learn to be Patient. Faith here is the ability to trust the process of Life – that if you have been created, you will be provided for, you will get all that you need and you will be cared for and looked after. Patience here means the ability to keep the Faith even when there is no evidence to support that you will get the results that you are toiling towards.

Clearly, Faith and Patience are not capable of solving your problems. Your problems will either sort themselves out over time, in their own timeframes – not necessarily within the deadlines you wish or strive for – or your efforts will lead you to solutions over time. Yet, Faith and Patience are great coping devices. They help you and me, anchor within, find inner peace and be happy, even as Life works at its own pace, in its own time. Our learning and experience is also that if you have found inner peace and have learnt to be happy despite your circumstances, you can face anything, absolutely anything, in Life! Which is why we don’t wish for anything, anymore. We simply put in a 100 % every single day, go to sleep happy and content that our efforts have been true and genuine, and wake up the next day to go back to putting in another 100 % effort. We know that someday, we trust Life enough for knowing this, we will eventually get to what we are working toward!

 

Grace arrives when you are unfrustrated, non-suffering and happy

The presence of Grace can be felt, you can never understand it though!

Over the weekend, a young friend and I were having a drink at a party. The young man said, “AVIS, you shouldn’t mind me saying this, but I think you are very privileged. You don’t have to slum it out despite your grave and often excruciating circumstances.”

I helped the young man understand that his perceptions on both fronts were misplaced. We are neither privileged not have we really escaped slumming it out. At many times, over the past 9+ years, we have been hanging there, at the edge of a precipice, workless, penniless and often with no idea of what more we need to do or of what will happen next. So, if slumming it out means being on the streets and without food, water, clothing or shelter, well, we haven’t yet have had to do that. But if slumming it out means living off a grant at most times, living in a compassionate relative’s apartment, rent-free, receiving material stuff – like gadgets, clothing and money – from friends and sometimes, even rank strangers, well, we have done that. And we continue to survive precisely this way. Occasionally some work will come and give us something to survive till we reach the edge of yet another precipice and then someone, something, will always haul us up.

It is not as if we have not tried for employment or marketed and sold ourselves well. We have. But this is one phase in Life in which our efforts on all fronts, to earn an income, have not produced the results that we must ideally have seen. Yet, miraculously, we have always been given a hand and have been heaved up, or have been given wings, so we can fly; that explains why we have not come crashing down every time we found ourselves in a precarious, impossible, end-of-the-road situation.

This ‘irrational, illogical’ presence in our Life, that has been holding us up, to me, is Grace. I have no other word to describe this experience of getting whatever we need to survive yet another day. So, Vaani, I and our precious family, are soaked in Grace. Undoubtedly. I am not sure though why we are and am not even sure if we deserve so much compassion from people who come and help us every single time. All I can say is that Vaani and I, through this experience, have realized that if you have been created, trust the process of Life; and when you trust, you will always be provided for and cared for, you will receive everything that you need. In fact, I see my God in each of the people who have touched our lives in their own special ways so far. They continue to show how humanity thrives beautifully, in abundance, in a seemingly self-obsessed world. And each time this happens, I feel humbled and small.

Now, to be sure, Grace is not exclusive to us. I believe in Ramakrishna Paramahamsa’s (1836~1886) saying thoroughly: “The winds of Grace are blowing all the time; but you must hoist your sails to catch them.” Hoisting your sails, I have learnt, means letting go. When you don’t know what to do, just trust Life. So, Vaani and I don’t question anything, anymore. We simply flow with Life.

Let me share a recent instance. We got a call from a friend who said he wanted to help us by having us lead a series of workshops for his managers. He is a CEO. And if he reached out proactively and offered to use our services, he certainly did that because he valued what we had to offer. He even promised us an advance payment on the fees that we had quoted. When we did not hear from him for several weeks, despite our follow-ups, we stopped calling him. Interestingly, we met him the other day at an event in the city. He was very cordial, very warm, and yet he did not show any signs of wanting to renew the conversation on the business opportunity he had promised us. I sent him a WhatsApp message that evening asking him if he planned to kick-off the proposed engagement. I know he saw the message but he did not respond. Around the same time, an acquaintance, reached out and said he wanted to help us and offered us some money. I took the money gratefully. Now, how do you explain this? Isn’t it bizarre? You don’t get what you think you justly deserve but you get what you need – somehow, from a completely unpredictable, unforeseen quarter!!!

Vaani and I, however, have stopped analyzing. We make our efforts sincerely. But we remain unfrustrated when the results don’t add up. This unfrustrated state, to us, is what hoisting your sails means.

I don’t think it’s a great privilege to be unable to solve your problems yourself. I don’t think having to depend on someone else for your everyday survival is a very easy thing to handle. From experience, I can tell you, either situation is very, very, very, very painful. But it is a blessing to be soaked in Grace. And that blessing comes when you choose to be unfrustrated when things don’t work out the way you want them to. When you are unfrustrated, you are non-suffering. When you are this way, you can only be happy, despite your circumstances. And perhaps Grace always chooses the unfrustrated, non-suffering, happy kind to bless?

No matter who’s listening, if you are lovin’ it, simply play on

Do what you love for your sake, it seriously doesn’t matter if others value what you are doing or not!

Last evening we were at a book launch event. The event had three parts – a formal part with speeches, a music concert by a young band and cocktails/dinner. Once the formal part was over, the master of ceremonies invited everyone to stay on for a musical treat. The refreshments, we understood, would be served after the concert.

The band was introduced: Baradwaj Raman on the Veena, Sabi on the Blues Guitar and Vetri on a unique Peruvian percussion instrument called Cajon (pronounced kahon). The trio were awesome. They fused classical Carnatic compositions on the Veena with blues rhythm on the guitar and the Cajon’s Afro-Peruvian beats. Unfortunately, someone seems to have whispered that the bar was open and slowly, over one song, many members of the audience slinked away to an adjoining hall. We were just a few left in the audience now. And one of the organizers gestured to the band to wind up after playing one last number. But the band pressed on. They enjoyed the process thoroughly – of playing together, being immersed in their music, even as some of us – the few who were still in the audience – soaked in some fantastic renditions of great classical compositions! Baradwaj (he’s the grandson of Veena legend S.Balachander) is an upcoming artist, just as Sabi (he’s the official blues guitarist for composer G.V.Prakash) and Vetri (he’s a disciple of Drums Shivamani) are. But by no means was their performance amateurish. So, those in the audience who preferred Johnnie Walker over the concert did so because of their lack of courtesy to the performing artists than anything else.

Even so, the bigger, spiritual, learning for me, came from the reaction of the three members of the band. They were unmindful of who left or who stayed, they played for the joy of music, for their inner joy and for the joy of their being who they are.

This is a great spiritual quality. If you examine your Life objectively, you will realize that most of the time, a lot of what you do is dictated by what you think others (will) think about you. While social niceties are important, you don’t need to strive to be gratified by fulfilling them alone. In fact, nothing other than your inner joy can truly gratify you. So, when something like what happened yesterday happens, well, you just carry on, you just go on playing. Simply, you can’t control the maturity levels of the people around you. You can’t demand they do what you believe they must do. All you can and must do, in any situation or context in Life, is do what you have to do while choosing to be unruffled and unfrustrated by what’s going on.