If you don’t feel “Mehfuz”, you are missing the blessing in being human!

Insecurity is a sign of inherently mistrusting the process of Life.

On the way to a coffee place that we frequent, we see a beautiful bungalow that has the name “Mehfuz” (pronounced “Mehafooz”) written on its gate. “Mehfuz” means “the secure, the safe” in Arabic. Every time I see that word a sense of serenity pervades me. It is such a reassuring feeling…the energy that “Mehfuz” creates when you say it to yourself! If you understand Urdu or Hindi, you will feel that sense of security that the word conveys, even as you merely read it and infer its meaning!

When you deeply reflect on it, “Mehfuz” communicates how secure the whole Universe, all of Creation in fact, is! There is magic and beauty in the rising and setting sun, in your being loved and in your ability to be loving, in the roof over your head, the food on your plate and the clothes that protect you from the elements. This is the security that the natural order of your Universe offers you. These are unmistakable signs that you are “Mehfuz”, you are safe, you are secure – that you are being taken care of, looked after and provided for!

Yet, if you feel insecure about Life, if you find it hard to trust the process of Life, if you succumb to worry, to fear, to anxiety, how can Life, or anyone, help you? The primary cause for insecurity in Life is when you don’t know what lies ahead – when you don’t know if there will be respite from a debilitating health challenge, when you don’t know if you can unentangle a relationship mess, when you don’t know if you will have enough money, when you don’t know if your children will find good vocations and settle down and when you don’t know how so many, many other open-ended Life situations will pan out. Instead of asking what will happen, ask, why do you want to know what will happen? You must know the answer to every question, you must have the solution to every problem, only if you are causing all your Life to happen, if you are, well, the Creator. But Life happens not because of you, but often, in spite of you. Besides, your own creation as a human being, with no apparent manufacturing defects, is a miracle. For perspective, just consider what would have happened, how would your Life be, had you been created as the swine that gives the flu instead of being the human that gets the flu? Simply, the order of the Universe is that you are who you are, you have what you have, you have not got what you don’t have yet and what wasn’t meant to be yours anymore has been taken away from you. If you understand this truth about your Life, you will not hanker for security and you will not succumb to insecurity.

A question you need ask yourself is, do you feel secure, do you feel a sense of inner peace, when you pray? Or when you visit a place a worship? If you do, then why do you feel insecure when you are out of it – out of the prayer, the worship? Isn’t the whole Universe a Higher Energy’s manifestation – for your joy, for you to experience? If you can’t feel “Mehfuz” in your Universe where everything, everyone has been created by this Higher Energy, that’s more intelligent and compassionate that all its creations put together, then, you are missing the blessing in being human! Insecurity, therefore, is a sign of inherently mistrusting the process of Life.

I will leave you with Mirza Ghalib’s (1767~1869) couplet that, to me, sums up the need for each of us to feel secure, feel safe, being who we are, with where are and with what we have! Ghalib writes: “Ghalib Sharab Peene De Masjid Mein Baith Kar, Ya Woh Jagah Bata Jahan Khuda Nahi.”  It means: “Allow me to drink in a mosque or tell me a place where God isn’t present?”

Your story is your Life path. Let the path unfold, you just go wherever it takes you.

Live your story. Live a Life that matters.

Over the weekend, I was invited to share a transformational moment of my Life at a story-telling session. Now, I am often invited to speak at forums and events. And I almost always share my story. Even through the workshops that Vaani and I lead and anchor, we share stories – both from our own personal experiences and of what we see and learn from Life around us. We also encourage participants at our workshops to share their personal journeys so that they can bond and function better as teams. But this story-telling session that we attended on Sunday was different. It was structured, time-bound story-telling. It was a beautiful experience, hearing so many, intensely personal, stories from rank strangers.

So, there was the retired principal of a corporation school – he talked of how he learnt to live intelligently and serve selflessly from his own students, most of them coming from broken homes; they came only for the lure of the noon-meals the school offered, as it was the only meal the children got daily! There was a man who shared his story of remorse and guilt – over shamelessly demanding a dowry from his millionaire father-in-law, turning an alcoholic thereafter – and how he found love and meaning in his Life, thanks to his wife forgiving him and showing him so much compassion and understanding. Then there was this young, TamBram lady who rebelled against the institution of marriage and who was given an apartment to live separately by her conservative father – she talked of the various people she ended up living with in her apartment and what she learnt from each of them.

This experience only corroborated what I have always believed in: understanding personal stories matters a lot in relationships. I read somewhere, long, long ago, that behind every beating heart is a personal story. And, I have learnt from Life that, if you understand that story, relating to – or choosing not to relate to – the other person in a relationship becomes that much simpler.

Most relationships, across all contexts and not necessarily limited to a romantic liaison between two people, become messy because, after the initial phase of getting to know a person, there is no effort by either party to understand the other. Knowing their stories helps. Our part-time helper at home, for instance, came late to work today. Now, it is normal for us to imagine that she, like most other housemaids like her, is playing silly and truant. But when Vaani paused to hear her story, it turns out that she’s being repeatedly physically abused by her drunkard husband. I am not saying that we can solve someone’s problems by knowing their story. But knowing someone’s story surely helps us deal with them with empathy and compassion. We may or may not choose to engage with a person after hearing their story. And that’s fine. But at least we can avoid imagining and perceiving the person to be something that he or she is not.

For a person who shares a story, the experience of sharing is a therapeutic one. I can vouch for this. Over the last few years, Vaani and I have healed greatly through being open and sharing our story – through my Book, my Talks, events that we curate and through this Blog that I write daily. So contrary to popular perception that sharing our stories makes us vulnerable, I would say, sharing our stories helps us experience the warmth, compassion, love and kindness that makes up the Universe!

But, most important, your story shapes you – it refines you, makes you stronger and helps you evolve. It leads you to live a Life that matters. But for that to happen, you must embrace the experiences that come your way, without resisting them, and be prepared to go through your own adventure. So, when your story unfolds, when you path begins to appear, just offer yourself to be led by Life. You can be sure that, over time, you will arrive where you must – and where you belong!

The Universe is always showing you signs, leading the way – but are you tuned in?

If you are tuned to the Universe’s Energy, you will see always see – and follow – the signs that are meant to guide you along the way!

A young student reiterated this learning to us yesterday. Tawheed Sayyid is just another MBA student at first sight. He hails from Haripad in Kerala and is currently interning with a social entrepreneur in Chennai. Now, I know Kerala pretty well. I went to college in Kollam between 1982 and 1987. Though times have changed, I personally believe that while most people from that state are very creative, their potential often goes untapped and underutilized, more so if they go to college there, given the conservative, myopic, socio-political environment that they still grow up in. So, when I first met Tawheed, I was not surprised – he seemed the typical, quiet, meek, introverted kind. But when Vaani and I got to know him better, we discovered that he had, 5 years ago, lost 30 kilos over six months, dedicating himself to a fitness plan that he had found online (www.nowloss.com). Now, we found that inspiring. How does someone, who was just 17 (then), motivate himself to do something as remarkable as lose so much weight?

So, Vaani and I invited Tawheed over for a coffee. He is fasting this Ramadan season, so he didn’t even touch a drop of water. But his story left us with so much food for thought.

He says it all began when he consistently flunked in Math in his early school years when he lived with his parents in Abu Dhabi. So, by the time he reached the 8th grade, it had become imperative that he needed special tuition for Math. His parents put him under the watchful eye of an Indian teacher named Raji. Tawheed says that when he went to Raji’s home for the first time to enroll for his special tuition program, a quote by Swami Vivekananda, on her door, caught his attention and imagination. It read: “All power is within you; you can do anything and everything. Believe in that…Stand up and express the divinity within you.” Tawheed says the quote had a magical impact on him. It made him question himself. And push himself. Besides, Raji too told him that she was not going to exactly make him more proficient in Math than she was going to make him believe in himself. So, the journey began for Tawheed, in believing in himself, and by the time he reached the 10^th grade, he had started scoring 80 % marks in Math – from sub 33% levels or the “Fail” grade as we commonly know it! Armed with this self-belief, Tawheed decided to go on a weight loss program. The motivation was purely adolescent in nature – his elder brother’s wedding was coming up and he wanted to “look good” by then. He stumbled on the online program, worked on it diligently, started avoiding elevators and climbed all 15 floors of his building several times a day, ate in moderation and in a matter of a six months, his weight had dropped from 105 kilos to 75 kilos. Tawheed will finish his MBA program next summer and is thinking of an entrepreneurial venture that hopes to marry people’s obsession with their smartphones with their intrinsic inner goodness, their empathetic nature – and in the process make the world a better place. Bravo!

Tawheed is just another student but what sets him apart is that he picked up, he actioned on, the signs the Universe showed him to get to where he is today – the Swami Vivekananda quote, Raji’s championship of self-belief in him, working out with the www.nowloss.com plan that came his way and his internship in a social enterprise that is making him think of making a difference apart from just wanting to make money.

And this Vaani and I have seen so many, many times in Life, if you are ready and willing, the Universe will always send you signs. It may be a car sticker, it may be tangential remark you may hear, it may be a movie dialogue, a song, the title of book or a newspaper headline. I talk about many such experiences in my Book ‘Fall Like A Rose Petal’ (Westland) too. I once had a random member of my audience walk up to me after my Book Launch event at the Odyssey Bookstore in Adyar, Chennai. She thanked my profusely for what I had shared that day – she said it changed her attitude to Life completely. I asked her how did she come to know of me and my Book. She said she was buying snacks from a roadside thelavala that evening and her pakodas came wrapped in a newspaper that had a mention of my Book and the Launch program. She said she felt an instant connect with me and what I was possibly going to share. I felt the Universe had brought her to where she ought to have been that evening.

The basic premise on which Life operates is simple – all that you need is always available. But you must be looking in the right direction. Often we end up looking in the direction of our wants or, worse, we are not even looking – we are complaining, grieving, suffering over what we don’t have. Staying tuned with the Universe’s Energy simply means staying connected with abundance, with the Higher Energy that has created you and me, with the Energy which powers the Universe. As long as you are living your Life logged into this access point, anchored to this Energy, it will always show you the way. Young Tawheed’s story is a gentle reminder that this principle works handsomely. And it is not something original that I bring to you. It is the most elementary of all Life principles. The Zen Masters would often say that when the student is ready, the teacher shall appear. I’ll just tweak that slightly and say, when you are tuned in to the Universe’s energy, you will find your way, no matter how lost you feel you are.

So, look up from all that’s causing your suffering. Please look up. There’s a benevolent light waiting to guide you onward – and inward! Just see the next sign that comes you way and follow it. It will take you to where you must arrive and where you truly belong!

The Big Temple, a simpleton tour guide and a spiritual lesson

The more we believe that Life happens because of us, the more we will find inner peace elusive!

Over the weekend my sister-in-law and her family had arranged for Vaani and me to travel with them to visit the famous Brihadeeswarar ‘Big’ Temple in Thanjavur. Built 1006 years ago, the Temple is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. My brother-in-law had engaged a tour guide Raja, a small man in his late 50s. Raja not only regaled us with the history of the Temple, he also peppered his commentary with wacky humor. But what’s remarkable is that he found a spiritual context to every aspect of the Temple’s story. In summary, he told us that the most important, the biggest, temple was really the human body that housed the soul – the jeevatma! “For this jeevatma to be united with the paramatma, the Creator, the Source, the Higher Energy that powers our lives, we humans must dissolve our ego, our anger and stop being attached with the material aspects of this illusory experience called this lifetime, or maya,” he said, adding, “That’s all there is to realize the God within. You don’t need to visit any temple, you don’t need to seek God outside of you. You just find your God in you.”

Hearing Raja say this was a humbling experience. Here was a man with buck teeth, short, dark, wearing worn out sandals, and speaking a smattering of languages including Tamizh, English, French, Marathi, Hindi, Kannada and Telugu. He wore a single rudraksha bead around his neck and had smeared his forehead with sacred ash, vibhooti. He is the quintessential tour guide you will find hanging around tourist spots in India. He’s also the sort who you would not normally want to engage because you fear being taken for a ride. So, Raja was the last person who I expected to be spiritual. But don’t you, so very often, find beauty in the most unexpected places in Life? Not being the religious sort, my interest in visiting the Big Temple was purely to soak in the marvelous architecture and the history associated with it. Even so, with Raja sharing nuggets of spiritual wisdom, I found our tour of the Temple very enlightening and awakening.

Personally, I can relate to the idea of dissolving one’s ego and anger and practicing detachment. Through our own experience of our ongoing bankruptcy I do know how much I have evolved along the way. There was a time, up until 15 years ago, when I thought intelligent living was all about applying your intelligence – your logic, your education, your reasoning – to your Life. Now I know, that it is about being intelligent enough not to want to control Life. You can’t control Life. Period. Life happens through you, for you, but never because of you and often inspite of you! When you take Life as it comes, living in the moment, you realize that anger and frustration are impediments to your inner peace. Through continuously training your mind, you can learn to rein in your anger. This way, when you are at peace with yourself, you discover Life’s true, transient, nature. You realize that everything arrives in time and everything departs when its time is up. This awareness that nothing is permanent only helps you dissolve your ego even more.

The bigness of the Brihadeeswarar Temple – its scale, its grandeur, its engineering, its celebration of the indomitable human spirit of creativity, from thought to finish – reminded me, yet again, of how small all of us really are in this big, vast Universe. Yet we like to brag about our most insignificant achievements and consider ourselves as being very important in the scheme of our things. I guess you require a Big Temple, and the wisdom of a simpleton, to help you realize that there is a lot more to Life than just you!

 

Nothing is out of step, nothing is out of place!

Celebrate the imperfections in Life.

What you see as an imperfection is abstract art from a cosmic view point. Everything is exactly where it should be, the way it should be and your view of it too is exactly what it should be.

We all hate imperfections, don’t we? A rushed shave in the morning that shows up by noon as a darker, more evident stubble. Imperfection. A poor old, homeless woman on the street, out in the cold and seeking help. Imperfection. People in a corrupt administration using up government funds allotted for AIDS prevention to buy cars and furnish their apartments. Imperfection. A spouse who fails to understand you. Imperfection. A boss who hates empowering and recognizing any subordinate. Imperfection. Everywhere that you see, you will find these evident signs of imperfection. You may think that it is a cruel, sadistic world and you may wonder how the Universe thrives despite these imperfections. But if you had the capacity to understand the intelligence that powers the Universe, you will see that every little thing, everywhere, is thought through and so, everything is really in its place, the way it should really be!

This past week Chennai has been getting some very bizarre amounts of rainfall. For instance, on Tuesday night, it rained 5 cm of rain in under an hour. Everyone here, still dealing with the ghosts of the December 2015 floods, thinks something’s wrong because the North-East monsoon is still a few months away. And obviously something is wrong! Except that the actions that led to this radical climate change are not natural. They are, in fact, nature’s way of protesting that we are not being responsible. So, in effect, climate change is the price we pay for our callous attitude towards our planet. I see the whole Universe operating as a live example of ‘you reap what you sow’. Or what goes around, comes around!

And so the imperfections in your Life, in society, in the world__from a skin ailment to female infanticide to global warming__are really outcomes of our own doing. While the casual observer will not see the connecting pattern behind each imperfection, the one who is awakened, will see and seize the opportunity to learn and course-correct. This is why imperfections must be celebrated. Because they are teaching you, me and successive generations the way to intelligent living. So, nothing is out of place, nothing is out of step and all that you see wrong in your world is the Universe’s way to lead you to what’s right for you!

You are truly blessed if you have genuine folks in your Life

There’s more to Life than money. If you look around you, the most genuine people are those who truly care for who you are and not what, or how much, you have.

Yesterday we were invited to a Tarot card reading session by one of our friends. At the end of the reading, which was conducted by our friend’s friend – someone who we didn’t know at all – when we asked to be allowed to pay for the professional charges, our friend told us that there wouldn’t be any charges. She said: “Sometimes we are guided to not charge some of our guests by our Masters and guides. Both my friend and I received the same ‘instructions’. So there wouldn’t be any charges. It is the Universe reaching out and blessing you!” Both my wife and I were moved by this gesture of compassion. Our friend, and her friend, need not have been so genuine. But they chose to be who they are. It is people like them who make the world so beautiful and Life worth living and looking forward to.

Vaani and I have found this to be true of all people who are genuine. They are ever so willing to trust you, help you and be there for you – unconditionally and often without you even asking for their support.

I remember one afternoon, three years ago, I was sitting in a café and working on the manuscript of my Book – “Fall Like A Rose Petal – A father’s lessons on how to be happy and content while living without money” (Westland, August 2014). I didn’t have much money on me. Just enough to have a green tea. I had ordered one and was writing feverishly on my laptop. It was well past lunch time. I was hungry but I did not have either the money to order lunch nor did I have money to go home (in an autorickshaw) and come back to resume my writing. Suddenly, a waiter brought me a soup and some carrot cake; when I expressed surprise, he pointed in the direction of another table where a friend was seated (we had smiled and greeted each other from a distance) until a while ago. My friend had apparently paid for my meal before leaving and requested that I be served. I was humbled. I wept as I ate my meal and as I thanked this friend over SMS.

We have found that for each person who does not trust us, or does not believe that we are going through a serious situation, there are several hundreds more – both friends and often times rank strangers – who are willing to help us with their compassion and understanding. We have come to realize that Life is not about what you own or how much you have. Your true wealth, which none can take away from you, is about how many of the people you know are genuine folks. And to have them in your Life is, to quote my Tarot reader friend, a big, big blessing!

Finding the real you!

To be free from stress, pressure, worry, pain and sorrow, you need to go within and find the real you!

There are three layers of each of us. Imagine yourself to be a Russian Matryoskha nesting doll which is a set of wooden dolls of decreasing size placed one inside the other. The first, outermost, you which is attached to all the material things in Life__that which is also trying to possess, protect and control all these things. The second, immediately inner,  you which recognizes and is aware of a larger cosmic design__but still leans towards possession, protection and control of all the things acquired in a lifetime. The third, the core, you which does not see itself as separate from creation and in which your Godseed really is. All the pressure, the stress we take on ourselves is because we are playing on our Life’s surface layer! Think about your worries, for example. You worry about your house, your car, your job, your business, your bank balance, your insurance claim, your Visa__and such. And any threat to any of them causes you to be under pressure, be worried, be stressed. As you advance in Life, with age and experience, you realize that there’s more to Life than material things and see a larger cosmic design, you appreciate it, and so your focus__and perhaps concerns__begin to include more meaningful things like your health, your family time, your passions, your causes or your beliefs. You feel you need to ‘invest’ in the quality of your Life than focusing only on the ‘quantity’ of whatever you have in Life. This phase is what is erroneously, and historically, called the “mid-Life crisis”. Please know that this is NO crisis. This is the biggest opportunity. Because someone, actually Elliott Jaques, a Canadian psychologist, called it so in 1965, we have believed it to be one! Hence while we see that our lives are perhaps pre-designed, we are worried about our time on this planet ticking away and so rush to go on to further control, further possess and further protect our lifetime’s acquisitions. Instead of reaching outward one more time, which we already know is the source of much pressure and stress, try going one layer below. The third you, your core doll in your personalized Matryoshka nesting doll set, is where you will find complete peace. Arriving here is when you will find no pressure, no want, no worry, no sorrow, and complete, unadulterated bliss. This is the layer that insulates you from all the chaos and turbulence in your Life. This is when you can feel__and therefore say__that you are capable of living in this world and yet being above it! Or when you can claim to live in the world but not be of it, as the Bible says.

This really means that when you are the outermost doll, which we all are, when we are emerging into early adulthood with starry eyes, dreams, wants, aspirations, lusts and desires, you are individualistic. Your worries are about you. Your wants are about you and your loved ones. But when you go deeper, to the next doll, you do see that things have been happening much beyond your own control and imagination. You see the design. You may deny it. But you can’t claim to have been untouched by it. It is only when you encounter the third doll, the real you, that you see how you are Creation, the Universe and the God, that you have always been seeking!

Just Believe

For anything to happen, you must first believe it will happen.

In any situation there will always be a certain amount of unpredictability associated with it. But whatever be the odds, stay with your belief that what you envision, what you want will happen. Even when it doesn’t on first attempt, keep believing. Be at the core of your belief and it will happen.

However, be sure, your belief will be tested. The world may laugh at you. But you have to keep believing. The tragedy happens when you get swayed by popular sentiment and start believing in the opposite. Then naturally the opposite will happen. Let’s say you are obese. Overweight by 30 kilos. And you start on a diet. People will laugh at you and will keep reminding you that you cannot do it. Now, you have to decide. Are you going to believe in yourself and what you envision for you or are you going to believe what others say and let go of your pursuit?

Know that whatever you believe in, will happen. From a diet to a career opportunity to the love of your Life to curing yourself of a life-threatening disease, just believe. But don’t hold yourself to ransom with a deadline. Allow things to happen in the natural course, over time. Deadlines are good and important – but when you decide when something should happen, and it doesn’t, for whatever reason, you lose hope. And depression sets in. You surely don’t want that.

It is the same law for everyone and works just the same in any situation. The way it works is simple – the Universe picks up your energy and manifests your deepest desires for you. Which is why, even if the world were against you, if you believe in something, the Universe will deliver whatever you believe in to you. The other way of looking at it is this – the world is full of people and their opinions; but the Universe thrives on energy, not people. Naturally, undoubtedly, energy is more powerful than people! So, what are you believing in for yourself today?

Eat well! Eat happily! Eat gratefully!

Every time you eat a meal, eat it heartily and happily, and please do remember to thank the Universe for it!

Last night we dined at Rajdhani – a Rajasthani thali restaurant. At the end of the meal, when the check arrived, I was amazed to see what they call their thali. They call it the Happiness Thali! It made me think. Isn’t every meal an opportunity to be happy and grateful to the Universe and its wonderful creations? Haven’t so many people toiled to make the meal possible for you? Isn’t the ability to have a meal, and digest it, a miracle – for, aren’t there so many people who are sleeping hungry or are having digestive disorders or are, sadly, dying of starvation?

The problem with most of humanity that is able to have a meal whenever they want – which includes you and me – is that they take the meal for granted. These days, even at meal-time, we don’t spare our mobile phones. Our meals are had with no or inadequate attention to the food. It is almost as if eating is a chore. Which is why there are so many lifestyle-led health complications that people face.

The right way to eat is to be mindful of each morsel, to enjoy the flavor and taste of what you are imbibing, to chew each mouthful and take it in slowly. As you do this, remain completely grateful for what you have. Even if you can’t count your blessings for all that you have in the other departments of your Life, feel humbled and grateful that you have this meal in front of you now. Know that unless an entire army of people – from the farmers who grew the crop to the workers who processed it in factories to the traders who sold it to you to your employer who pays you wages to be able to buy your groceries monthly to your family which gives you reason to have beautiful mealtimes to the person that cooked your meal to your parents who brought you into this world – had worked for you, you won’t be having food on your table.

Having food to eat is a miracle. Every time you witness it, be aware, and celebrate it. Eat well. Eat happily. Eat gratefully! 

A lesson in ‘trusting Life’ from an inspiring mother

Trust Life! Know that if you have been created, you will be cared for, looked after and provided for!

Malvika Iyer (L) and Hema Malini Krishnan (R)

Last evening we heard Malvika Iyer speak for the first time! Malvika – remember, I had written (some weeks back) about this young lady with an unbeatable spirit who is also a bilateral amputee – touched our hearts with her story. She left everyone in the audience with the strong message, personifying it in every sense, that the only disability anyone can have is a bad attitude. She attributed all her strength to her mother Hema Malini Krishnan, who, she says, has never made her feel deprived or disabled in any manner. “At home, I was never treated as if there was something missing in my Life, although I don’t have both my hands. I was raised as any other teenager would be in any other home. My mother always told me that I must pursue whatever I believe in and never once did she say, ‘but you can’t do this because you don’t have hands’,” says Malvika. So, naturally, the audience was in awe of Malvika for sure, but they were even more keen to hear Hema speak.

Hema finally obliged. She epitomizes trusting the Universe, the ‘Creator’ as she says, trusting Life, implicitly. “When the bomb blast happened in 2002 that took away Malvika’s hands and changed our lives completely, indeed, we were gripped with fear of the unknown. But I was sure that we will make it. Malvika was just 13 then. But I believed that she would lead a normal Life. Though at that time, her legs were also badly injured. People ask me where my courage and conviction came from. Simple – my point is that if we have been placed in a challenging situation by Life, we will also be given the means – physical, financial, spiritual – to deal with it. I simply trusted the Creator. And I went with the flow. People often ask me what will happen of Malvika after me. And I again answer that I am only an instrument to help Malvika. I am here for a fixed tenure. When my turn is over, Life will arrange another instrument. I know this will happen. I trust the Creator. I have learned to accept what I have been given.”

Everyone in the audience was moved by Hema’s perspective. Her faith is unwavering. And this must be our learning too. 

Most of our worries and anxieties come from wondering how things will turn out in our lives. We survey our own limitations – which are anyway imagined and never logically proven – and conclude that something or the other is impossible. Our perceived impossibilities dictate our attitude. Which is why we are sulking, brooding, complaining and grieving about our lives. Even for a moment, we don’t wish to acknowledge that there’s a higher intelligence that powers the Universe. Our education makes us believe that we are intelligent and creation is dumb. So we ignore the biggest miracle that we are born human, without our ever asking to be created or born, we ignore the fact that the whole, magnificent, inscrutable Universe has been created, by this higher intelligence, ahead of us and we ignore this lifetime’s blessing to explore and experience creation’s myriad miracles. All we are obsessed with is our view of our problems and our view again of our inability to solve those problems. Nothing can be deemed as more foolish an approach to living.

Every time you feel despondent over mundane, or lesser challenging, situations, think of Hema’s trust in the Universe, in her ‘Creator’, that makes us accept her child’s special condition and yet encourages her to inspire Malvika to live a full, complete Life with no limits. Every time you are complaining that you don’t have this or that, think of your attitude as your biggest limitation, your disability. Think of Malvika, who doesn’t have hands but has the zest, the will and spirit in her to live a Life without limitations! Fundamentally, we must learn, despite all our education, not to intellectualize Life. We simply can’t. Life has a mind of its own. And we must simply trust it. There are only two ways to approach Life. If there’s a problem that your education, logic or science can solve, stop worrying about the problem – because it can be solved. And if you are dealing with a problem that your education, logic and science cannot solve, stop worrying about the problem again – because you cannot solve it! Simple. What you cannot solve, trust Life to solve it. And trust Life to give you the strength to deal with the problem if it can’t be solved.

If we pause a moment and look around we will find that our lives are blessed compared to all that people are facing and enduring around us. When you appreciate and value the blessing called this lifetime, you will start living – and you too will start trusting Life.