Business to the Buddha

Search results for: “perceptions”

  • Perceptions, perspectives and expectations

    I was watching Mahabharat episodes. The epic is the best depiction of conflicts we keep on going through on a daily basis. The biggest conflict and learning is the shloka of Mahabharat that teaches the value of the action and no entitlement of the results. Dhritrashtra’s perception was he is the eldest so the throne belonged to him. Bhishma’s perspective was that he has to take care of the kingdom (even if the king is incorrect). Dronacharya’s expectation from teaching Kuru prince was to take revenge from Panchal king. Many in the epic knew that their opinions are based on ideology applied incorrectly in the given situation, yet they did not amend their ways. When the battle started everyone took side not based on what is right or lawful but which side my enemy is on. This is the result of these perceptions, perspectives, and expectations. The outcome was – people were fighting their own battles at the backdrop of Pandavas and Kauravas.

    Perception

    Aurora borealis

    When I was thinking about aurora borealis (or polar lights), I thought that such a phenomenon or any other related ionization must be happening at different wavelengths that are beyond the human eye’s abilities to see. Our incapability to see does not mean some things do/did not happen. Sound below 20 Hz and above 20,000 Hz exist, we humans are unable to hear it. Our senses and perceptions create our realities. I wrote last week “our past experiences – Sanskara – condition us”. We need to go beyond the conditioning to change our perceptions.

    https://business2buddha.com/2011/02/15/no-judgement-its-all-about-perception/

    Perspective

    In some of the satsangs of Art of living, I heard a few romantic Bollywood movie songs. Earlier when I had heard these songs I felt ok it is a romantic song sung by the lover for the loved one. However, when I heard the same song in a different setup it was as perfect in Bhakti too! These presentations of songs change my perspective, examples are in the below videos –

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpUjoqmTEqM

    The perceptions made these songs to be romantic songs however when I looked at these songs from a different perspective the meaning of the song itself changed.

    Expectations

    कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन ।

    मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भुर्मा ते संगोऽस्त्वकर्मणि ॥

    You have a right to perform your prescribed duty, but you are not entitled to the fruits of action. Never consider yourself to be the cause of the results of your activities. Bhagavad Gita, Chapter II, Verse 47. Effectively, we must do our actions as per need of the hour and do not be feverish about either the actions or the results.

    Conclusion

    https://business2buddha.com/2010/08/19/playing-golf-work-and-meditation/

    In Mahabharat, each person was living his perceptions, defining his stand in his own’s perspective and having different expectations. These three things blinded people. Isn’t it true that we live in the cage of our perceptions, perspectives, and expectations? Meditation can help change in all these three.

  • Perceptions

    Perceptions are our realities – however, how real are these perceptions? The reality persists until we get to understand the other side too. Long back, I met Sai Kaka and he told me very interesting lines explaining how we are stuck and how the “beyond” is experienced. If you look at many opinions and “-isms” you would realize that almost all are bound and jailed in the opinions of their own. What Sai Kaka told me was this –

    Sai Kaka

    Sanskar yukt chaitanya jab (संस्कार युक्त चैतन्य जब)

    • chintan karata hai to usko chitt kahate hai (1. चिंतन करता है तो उसको चित्त कहते है)
    • manan karata hai to usko man kahate hai (2. मनन करता है तो उसको मन कहते है)
    • nirnay karata hai to usko buddhi kahate hai (3. निर्णय करता है तो उसको बुद्धि कहते है)
    • asmita ka bhan karata hai to usko aham kahate hai (4. अस्मिता का भान करता है तो उसको अहं कहते है)
    • inme se sansakar nikal jaye to jo bachata hai vo shuddha chaitanya hai (इनमे से संस्कार निकल जाए तो जो बचता है वो शुद्ध चैतन्य है)

    This in English means –

    When a conscious filled with rituals (or say the lessons learnt about ‘way of living’)

    • thinks we call it mind (imagination)
    • contemplate we call it Mind [there is a difference between Chitt and man which I am not able to translate in English]
    • makes a decision we call it intellect
    • perceives pride we call it Ego

    Now when the rituals or ‘way of life’ learnt, get out of this conscious mind, what is left is the pure consciousness.

    I recalled these lines from Sai Kaka when I read the story of Prayer’s of the frog on Perception.

    Story from Prayers of the frog

    A monk was walking in the monastery grounds one day when he heard a bird sing. He listened, spellbound. It seemed to him that never before had he heard, but really heard, the song of a bird.

    When the singing stopped he returned to the monastery and discovered, to his dismay, that he was a stranger to his fellow monks, and they to him. It was only gradually that they and he discovered that he was returning after centuries. Because his listening was total, the time had stopped and he had slipped into eternity.

    Prayer is made perfect

    when the timeless is discovered.

    The timeless is discovered

    through clarity of perception.

    Perception is made clear

    when it is disengaged

    from preconceptions

    and from all consideration

    of personal loss or gain.

    ‘Then the miraculous

    is seen and the heart is filled with wonder.

    https://business2buddha.com/2014/03/10/amazing-isnt-it/
    I have written on Amazement/wonder read here

    Ashtavakra Geeta talks about Wonder, Janaka responds to Ashtavakra with astonishment. This veil takes time to cast-off. Our perceptions create our reality and we are stuck with that reality with our preconceived notions. When this perception, way of life, Sanskar is removed what is left is consciousness – pure bliss ( इनमे से संस्कार निकल जाए तो जो बचता है वो शुद्ध चैतन्य है).

    I have thoughts on the conflict of perception, in my mind that I shall try to put next week.

  • Perceptions create reality

    What defines something as good or bad, best or worst? Isn’t it all about perceptions? ‘Perception’ this word is made up from a verb “Perceive” which means – to become aware of through the senses. Is “something sensed” by sense organs actually truth? Let us expand the question stem, what is truth? These are some weird questions I had. Our perceptions create our reality. The reality is very relative in that sense.

    I had written the brief of this blog in Jan 2017, kept it as a draft. Now when I review the text, it reminds me of a story of The Prayer of the Frog. The book is in two volumes Volume 1 and Volume 2. If I try to elaborate perceptions and reality it would be very long. So read a story from the book, I shall write my longer version of thought some time later. In the mean time, relish this story –

    Half full, half empty, possibility thinking, optimism, pessimism… and a fearless heart.
    There was a loud knocking in the seeker’s heart. “Who’s there?” asked the frightened seeker.

    “It is I, Truth,” came the answer.

    “Don’t be ridiculous,” said the seeker. “Truth speaks in silence.”

    That effectively stopped the knocking—to the seeker’s great relief. What he did not know was that the knocking was produced by the fearful beating of his heart.

    The Truth that sets us free is almost always the Truth we would rather not hear. So when we say something isn’t true what we all too frequently mean is: “I do not like it.”

    ——

    Our perceptions create our realities, and many of the times we believe these are the “sacred truth” and most of the time, we mean – “I do not like the truth”. Because more often than not – the heart knows yet the mind does not want to believe or accept.

  • Perceptions and illusions

    Off late, I have – kind of – become forgetful. One of my friends shared someone’s phone number with me, a couple of days later, I bet with him that I ddin’t get that number. We checked Whatsapp, SMS, emails and not to miss address book too. I almost won the bet, thankfully it was not a monetary bet. I still kept on searching – in my “notes” app too I could not find. My friend told me the whole incident and I got a hunch, I think he did share the number! But to my utter surprise I could not find the number anywhere.

    Well, I asked him that number again, he was bit annoyed yet gave me the number. I recalled – he had shared such number once – though I did not remember the whole number. It made me think about what happened in this situation? This incident made me understand that many a times we take things for granted, we tend to ignore many things. When we ignore things we are likely to be bodily at one place and mentally at another – in some fantasy or illusionary world. Isn’t it? The illusion we create through such mental images either become our perception or mend it and thus our limited (or at times incorrect) realities are created. For example – my forgetting my friend’s sharing the number with me as “You didn’t share the number”. If such incidents are not realities how do we know what is reality? In fact I think we need to ask ourselves – what is reality?

    Life is simple – the illusions we assume as reality make it difficult. The fantasy we create are based on our perceptions or our belief of some reality. Our perceptions make our life difficult isn’t it? Let us say – an illusion – “our religion is under threat!” If a religion is one of the biggest in terms of number of followers – what is the threat?

    We are so preoccupied with our own illusionary world that we miss many small things needless to say important or that which are the realities.

    I suggested this topic for LBC, however for last couple of weeks I was not able to write regularly. You can read my fellow bloggers post on this topic at – Ramana uncelji, Shackman and Maria. I am trying to catch up with my backlogs of weekly blogs on spirituality, management and business.

    Related blog – No judgement – its all about perception

  • Reality Check: When Life Throws You a Curveball (and a Puddle)

    Reality Check: When Life Throws You a Curveball (and a Puddle)

    A few weeks ago, a scooter accident shattered more than just my collarbone. It cracked my illusion of control. I’m always been a confident, “in-charge” kind of person, a planner – “get-things-done” kind of guy, proactive with reflexes sharper than most.

    Just after the spill, the first blow was to my self-image. With reflexes honed from years of being a decent athlete (trophies gathering dust are proof, at least!).

    The Fall:

    Let me rewind. I was just in our society’s entrance ramp on my electric two-wheeler, the one with those big, supposedly stable 14-inch wheels – unlike most 10- or 12-inch options on Indian roads. I was barely going at a speed of 20 kilometers per hour (12.5 miles per hour).

    Bangalore’s water woes were on display again, a spill from a water tanker creating a slick patch right on the entry ramp to our society. It all happened in a blink. The scooter skidded, and before I knew it, I was on the ground, the impact jarring my right shoulder.

    Driving for almost 25 years, this was a first. It was funny and it was sad, quarter of a century, driven bike from Mumbai to Indore – a distance of 600 km – with just one stop. At least 60,000 km of riding two-wheeler experience on my back (this excludes experience of driving four-wheeler), it was funny that I fell at such a slow speed. It was sad that it happened even after full control, no highway, neither a vehicle ahead of me nor behind me.

    The pain in my ankle was immediate, but it was the throbbing in my shoulder that told a different story – a fractured collarbone. As I lay there, a question gnawed at me: Was this a sign of age catching up? After all, until recently, my reflexes had been my saving grace. I could even pick up and steady my daughter while teaching her to skate or cycle (you might have seen those dads saving their kids videos! I have done almost all that kind of stuff).

    The throbbing in my ankle seemed worse at first, but the X-ray revealed a fractured collarbone needing surgery and a metal plate – not exactly ideal for a guy who loves picking up his daughter and teaching her to skate.

    Beyond Reflexes: The Illusion of Control

    This initial worry about reflexes soon morphed into a bigger realization – the illusion of control. I kept replaying the accident in my head. How could I have fallen when everything seemed under control? The big wheels, the slow speed…it just didn’t make sense. Especially considering I’d been driving accident-free for almost 25 years!

    Digging deeper, a chilling thought struck me: Are we ever truly in control of our lives? Looking back, I thanked my lucky stars that there weren’t any other vehicles around. The worst case could be, a water tanker running over me! Had that happened, you probably had read my obituary and not this blog.

    Just imagine I had the whole Sunday planned. At 9 am, I was on my way home, 10 am this, 11:30 am that, lunch by 2 pm. In reality, at 10 am, I was in a hospital bed, unable to even lie down properly because of the backache (which, by the way, lasted two whole days!). I cannot imagine, the pain last very long even though I was on pain killers. The worst thing, I still cannot believe at such a controlled riding and slow speed, there could be such pain and problems. Life, it seems, has its own plans.

    This whole incident shattered my illusion of control, my tendency to plan smaller things in life, and of course, the nagging question of age. But in its place, it brought a well-known yet hardly practiced appreciation for the unexpected and the importance of living in the moment.

    These last couple of weeks were a reality check – a reminder that sometimes, life throws a curveball when we’re busy planning the perfect pitch.

    Image source – Photo by Kumpan Electric on Unsplash

  • Open you mind, experience beyond your beliefs

    Alexa play “bum bum bole”. This is a Hindi film song. The song teaches opening you mind, thinking, experiencing, and dreaming specially beyond your belief or knowledge. The song made me think in different dimension, questioning few things and conclude – experience beyond your belief.

    Source Youtube, original – from Movie Taare Zameen Par

    Alexa started playing bum bum bole song, Adviti was happy. Slowly she learned the lyrics of the song, for her the lyrics are not that very meaningful, yet she learnt singing few lines. She keeps on mumbling them while listening to the song.

    She started saying “bhala machhaliya bhi kyu udati nahi? Socho, socho na.”

    The above line is in Hindi, it means “think why the fish cannot fly, just think”. Somehow it came to my mind that fish can fly if we start calling a bird a fish ?

    I asked Adviti, how about it? She didn’t understand. I reiterated Adviti let me explain

    1. a bird can fly
    2. if I start calling a bird. a fish
    3. so the fish will start flying isn’t it?

    A creative answer to a question that asks you to think.

    I’m answering your question Adviti, you are calling a fish a fish so you are asking the question why can not a fish fly? If you start calling a bird a fish it will start flying 😀

    I think she will need some time to figure out this logic.

    Well this is on a lighter side however in reality our perceptions actually create our realities and whatever we think is based on our beliefs.

    The formless

    Recently a big public, judicial and political debate started in India. The row is of a Shivling in a mosque. Before we proceed further – Shivling is a representation of formless. It is a symbol of energy.

    Gyanvapi Mosque Banaras
    Gyanvapi Mosque Banaras Source Sunday Guardian

    One group – Hindus – is saying that it is Shivling and the other group – Muslims – is saying it is a fountain. Let the competent authorities respond or prove to what exactly it is. The point I want to make is – this is how our belief systems are, we see what we want to see there may be some different reality out there.

    If you dig deeper, Muslims theology states that the God is formless. Hindu’s Worship the formless in the form of Shivling. If you try to connect these dots conceptually the idea is same – formless. Method of praying or bowing to the same concepts of “formless” are different. This underling concept is still not clear to masses. Why create a fight for one upmanship? There are many more dimensions to the debate. I do not want to digress.

    Belief system

    Our beliefs blind us. In Ashtavakra Geeta, Ashtavakra says – you are seeing the rope as the snake because your mind is saying that it is a snake. this belief is making you feel the rope as a snake. Until you open your eyes and mind, you will feel the rope is the snake.

    Our religions are also the same, some people believe in something, other people believe in something else. What is correct or what is true can only be proved when we become more objective, think, open-up and willing to experiment.

    This is the reason I like Indic religions – specially Buddhism and Hinduism to a great extent. After reading few philosophical texts of Hinduism I see Buddhism as a subset of Hinduism.

    Experience beyond your belief

    Hinduism has given philosophy of Yoga, Meditation, Bhakti (devotion), Karma, Gyan etc. There are many ways to experiment and experience. The best part is no one asks you to follow a certain path or approach. You follow or practice what you feel comfortable with. In one family you may find members of the family following different paths Bhakti (Devotion), Yoga, and Meditation in some cases questioning everything and not following any. This chaos is perfectly fine in the family.

    Prayer beads - Experience beyond your belief
    Experience beyond your belief

    Out of all these methods, the key is – “experience”. Some paths gave recipe of experiments too.

    Patanjali discusses Yoga Sutra, Shiv Sutra discusses 100+ meditation methods, Narad Bhakti Sutra discusses Bhakti (Devotion), Ashtavakra Geeta tells open your eyes see it, Krishna summarizes everything in Bhagvad Geeta. There are Upnishads, the list is very long to complete, contemplate, try everything and experience. Pick your options.

    If I were to say something, here is my approach pick one in the beginning. I will recommend read Bhagvad Geeta. It gives you a wonderful summary of different paths. Try one or the other path for experience. Whatever suits you from within, go deeper in that path with additional text!

    Interestingly, what the end results is? It is experience. All these paths proposed by the Indian theology are science. They do not want you to believe what is written. In fact, all the titles written above most have question between a speaker and listener. Do not just blindly believe what is written, ask what you have in mind.

    Open your mind

    What every human-being needs to do is – keep aside the belief system and move towards the experience system.

    The takeaway is – open you mind, put aside your battle of belief, and fasten your seatbelts for the journey of experience.

  • Choices

    My daughter, Adviti is growing up. She has started asserting her liking and choices gradually. She decides what she wants to eat when she wants to change the song, and what she wants to wear. It is turning out to be a fascinating life lesson for me.

    We start making choices since childhood. I remember spending time with my niece Chinu when she started making choices. She liked watching Kung Fu Panda (movie) I enjoyed watching Kung Fu Panda with her, she also collected pebbles as I did as a kid.

    Smiling-Baby

    I believe some of our choices are involuntary, and some are self-made. Let me take an example – Adviti likes us chanting of Bhojan Mantra (video below) before meals because she has seen us doing it for as much as the last six months. I wonder if she understands it, or whether the rendition is clear. However, she loves it, and if we start eating our meal without the chanting, she forces us to chant the mantra. Possibly this is what Sanskar is. I’d call it an involuntary choice – I may be wrong though, she may be forcing us because she understands! When she changes the Youtube video – it is most likely a self-made choice.

    Choices, Liking and Love

    Though I found time now to write about it, however, I had been thinking about Adviti’s likes, dislikes, and choices for a while. Those who know me know that for my arrange marriage I met two dozen girls. Many rejected me, I rejected some. In these discussions, some accused me of – you are not proceeding further “because I am fat”; “because I am darker shade” etc. I had to respond to these because these were genuinely not the reasons. I will share few arguments that I shared with these prospective alliances.

    One, on complexion, I said, let’s assume I get to marry the fairest girl in the world. Every evening I come from the office. and we start fighting on a trifling matter. In that case, what is the value of the “fairness” to me? It is said that beauty is skin deep, isn’t it?

    Two, on complexion and shape, I said, let’s assume I get married to someone, she met with an accident, or I met with an accident resulting in a body deformity. Would the other person leave the better half who met with an accident? I had to take this example because one alliance had such an incident. I had to tell her that such things are possible after marriage too. A bad example but I took such an example.

    Lastly, on the shape, I said who is going to remain like this forever? With age, we all will be out of shape. why worry about it from now? One must be fit for a healthier life but one should not take serious decisions giving one-factor full weightage.

    Those long discussions (or at times long-distance discussions), in some cases the contest of mind vs heart, for alliances made me look at likes and dislikes little objectively. I asked myself – if I love someone because of face or shape or behavior (or family – yes Indian marriages are not just two people it is their family and extended family too) what if one parameter changes in the same person? In the end, I came to realize – choices are made (or someone or something is loved) because of the whole and not because of the parts. Check this section of an Indian movie – Nayak the real hero – where protagonist is explaining his “dream girl” and what that turns out to be by his father who is a cartoonist.

    If I love someone or something – I love that because of the uniqueness. The uniqueness includes possible flaws. If I had to respond to “why I love someone or something” what would my response be? If my response is because of X, Y, Z and A, B, C, etc. There may be more people with those same qualities. Would it be possible to love those others too? This question helped me realize the lower strata of love. This stratum is for love, liking, or choices we make in the material world. The spiritual world has compassionate affection – of the Buddha – for everyone or full devotion – Bhakti – for the loved one.

    The realization was that we make choices in the whole and start intellectualizing the choices part by part for bringing balance between heart and mind. This justification brings reasoning of “why” and “because of”. Most likely Adviti makes her self-made choices on the whole, once she grows older she too will start intellectualizing the choices to justify her liking.

  • “Greedy” monk

    Prayers of the Frog Volume 1 and Volume 2 is a wonderful story book. Here is another story from the same. This story connects the dots with perception that I had been writing. We do have some monks like this in our society. Do read the story for now.

    Monk

    Greedy monk

    Gessen was a Buddhist monk. He was also an exceptionally talented artist. Before he started work on any painting, however, he always demanded payment in advance. And his fees were exorbitant. So he came to be known as the Greedy Monk.

    A geisha (Japanese women who entertain through performing the ancient traditions) once sent for him to have a painting done. Gessen said. “How much will you pay me?” The girl happened to be entertaining a patron at that time. She said, “Any sum you ask for. But the painting must be done right now before me.”

    Gessen set to work at once and when the painting was completed he asked for the highest sum he had ever charged. As the geisha was giving him his money, she said to her patron, “This man is supposed to be a monk but all he thinks of is money. His talent is exceptional but he has a filthy, money-loving mind. How does one exhibit the canvas of a filthy-minded man like that? His work is good enough for my underclothing!”

    With that she flung a petticoat at him and asked him to paint a picture on it. Gessen asked the usual question before he started the work: “How much will you give me?” “Oh, any sum you ask for,” said the girl. Gessen named his price, painted the picture, shamelessly pocketed the money and walked away.

    • Many years later quite by chance someone found out why Gessen was so greedy for money. A devastating famine often struck his home province. The rich would do nothing to help the poor. So Gessen had secret barns built in the area and had them filled with grain for such emergencies. No one knew where the grain came from or who the benefactor of the province was.
    • Another reason why Gessen wanted money was the road leading to his village from the city many miles away. It was in such bad condition that ox-carts could not move on it; this caused much suffering to the aged and the infirm when they needed to get to the city. So Gessen had the road repaired.
    • The final reason was a meditation temple which Gessen’s teacher had always desired to build but could not, Gessen built this temple as a token of gratitude to his revered teacher.

    After the Greedy Monk had built the road, the temple and the barns, he threw away his paint and brushes, retired to the mountains to give himself to the contemplative life and never painted another canvas again.

    Read other such good stories and learn for yourself. I have referred to the book and its stories many times earlier too check here.

    https://business2buddha.com/2018/07/21/intentions/
    https://business2buddha.com/2018/07/08/perceptions-create-reality/
    https://business2buddha.com/2011/02/15/no-judgement-its-all-about-perception/

    Essence – A person’s conduct generally shows what the observer imagines it to show.

    Again this boils down to perception.

    https://business2buddha.com/2020/04/06/perceptions/

  • New Year resolution

    Our experiences shape our world. We tend to behave in a manner based on how we have experienced some similar situations earlier. These experiences can be inaccurate too because we may have limited knowledge of the situation. This limited knowledge based inference may create a limited world view for us, because we get conditioned by our experiences and therefore responses. Our past experiences shape our judgments, should we have a new year resolution that we wont be judgmental about things around us? You might have experienced with some people, they take everything in a wrong direction. You might question yourself that how to help this person understand other perspective, isn’t it? Remember this personality type might have been a result of their past experiences.

    Judgement-elephant-by-blind

    Let me explain this with a very recent incident with my daughter, she is not even 2 years, she speaks monosyllables only. My daughter used to cry in a peculiar manner. We found it bit funny and I started imitating it. Whenever she cried I imitated it. She looked at me and started pointing my crying to her grandmother (my mother) or her mother (my wife). Once, I did it in front of our guests to show them how she makes a pout and points finger at me. All this while we have been thinking that she is trying to say that – I am imitating her and they should stop me from doing it.

    However, recently I realized she does not know what imitation is as such. This clicked to me that all this while she was trying to convey to my mother or her mother that something is wrong with me and they should help pacifying me (because I was also crying). She does not know what copying means! She wanted a genuine help for me from Grand-mom or her mom.

    There is a saying in Hindi / Sanskrit – Yatha drishti tatha shrishti. You will see the world as you perceive the world. That is – what you perceive the world to be, you will see it that way. Most of the times it may be a partial truth. Your perceptions create your reality.

    I made fun of Adviti by imitating her; I did not understand the follow up as her genuine concern. We thought it is her complain that someone is imitating her, though it was her concern to offer help. We laughed and within a weeks she has stopped crying in that manner or when she has any concern. With kids we have to be very careful to inculcate right behavior to make them sensitive and caring.

    Related blogs

    Many people take a New Year resolution every year, this year what if we have a resolution that we would keep experiential barrier aside and would see the world as it is. Our experiences are the veil through which we see the world; the clearer we keep our judgment about situations better it is to have a response.

  • How to get out of the comfort zone?

    Last week I wrote the biggest lesson that I learnt with Professor Tomas Lopez. Simple summary of the lesson, we’re conditioned to think in certain manner. It cause more trouble to our daily situation then anything else. I was fortunate to have been reminded of this problem of mine (our mind) by Professor Mankad too – read here. Professor Lopez put me out of my comfort zone many a times. Getting out of comfort zone is very important if you want to earn some pearls in life.

    Here is a short story of loss, that one must avoid in life. This story is from the book – Prayers of the frog Volume 1 and Volume 2. An awesome book with short stories and life lessons.

    Awareness

    An oyster saw a loose pearl that had fallen into the crevice of a rock on the ocean bed. After great effort she managed to retrieve the pearl and place it just beside her on a leaf.

    She knew that humans searched for pearls and thought, “This pearl will tempt them, so they will take it and let me be.”

    When a pearl diver showed up, however, his eyes were conditioned to look for oysters and not for pearls resting on leaves.

    So he grabbed the oyster which did not happen to have a pearl and allowed the real pearl to roll back into the crevice in the rock.

    From the book – Prayers of the frog V1

    The author concludes – You know exactly where to look. That is the reason why you fail to find God.

    prayer-of-the-frog

    It happens with all of us, we look for happiness in something other than what we have in hand. This is where we end up being unhappy. Many a times we know the answer to – “When will I be happy?” Yet we miss the path to the goal. In fact, when we achieve the goal; our goal post has already changed. This is the problem of our mind, we are never calm, even before we reach somewhere we find the next destination. Here the destination can be as easy as the next venue for dinner or as ambitious as next company, job, or car. What we need to change is our way of thinking.

    Our life experience and circumstances programs us to become a certain individual over time. Be it the diver of the above story, or me or you. We must ask a question to ourselves – are we ready to get out of our comfort zone?

    How to get out of the comfort zone?

    Our comfort zone is the worst enemy of our possibilities. As was the case with the Digger. I think we can get out of comfort zone by some of the ways such as

    1. Getting into tough spots with choice – life is a trouble… only death is not I was put in those situations by Prof Lopez
    2. Awareness in actions, if you had read my blog on conditioned mind, you would understand the context
    3. Get out of your ego, do something that does not conform to your definition of YOU. Read how Mumbai brushed my ego
    4. Learn from past experience (slingshot example), yet try things without getting bogged down by your past experiences
    5. Remember our perceptions create our reality, do not limit yourself with those limited perceptions of yours
    6. Keep things simple as ABC – story from Prayers of the frog
    7. Think and know, you are nothing in front of the creation, why limit yourself, why feel low, embarrassed even before trying?

    The Buddha also went beyond his comfort zone to be enlightened. In fact he had put his everything on the gamble. Let me know which one you can relate to? Or what you think is even better method of getting out of comfort zone, it would interesting to learn.

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