Business to the Buddha

Category: Buddha

  • 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.

    http://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.

  • Gratitude – clap your hands

    A few weeks back I had a chance to meet an Art of Living faculty. During his discussion with us, he said to be grateful. Be grateful to what you have and life will be full of abundance. There were wonderful examples and stories he shared with us. It was fascinating to listen to him. I remembered this discussion on gratitude and Prime Minister Mr. Modi’s suggestions for clapping and applauding many unknown people in healthcare or essential services sector who are selflessly working day in and day out. Show your gratitude – clap your hands.

    Have you ever thought of those who pick up your dustbean everyday morning. The sweeper, the cleaner or for that matter the car washing young man of your society. Many of us may not even know the names of these people whom we pass-by every morning. However, bad is the status of cleaning in Mumbai – compared to Indore, my home town – but it works at its own level of efficiency. Is not it? Should not I be grateful to this cleaning system too? Yes there is room for improvement, yet grateful to the existing levels of cleaning.

    http://business2buddha.com/2015/07/12/gratitude-by-coincidence/

    Gratitude – an example

    Last week, I went for a haircut to a nearby saloon with my father. Since, I was with him, it was nearby and finding parking was difficult I took two wheeler. While returning, my hair were oily, we lived nearby so I took it for granted and did not wear helmet. Murphy’s law kicked in. Police was challaning, I was charged INR 500/- (roughly $70) for not wearing helmet.

    This is another story that I paid the challan outstanding within 15 mins on Mumbai Traffic Police App, ICICI Bank has cut the amount from my account and yet Mumbai Traffic Police App shows the challan is unpaid. On a lighter note a lesson – do not use the app to make challan payment.

    Coming back to the story, I told the police sir I live nearby – literally 300 meters from here, I am coming after a haircut and my hair are oily. So I did not wear the helmet, it is in my dickey. He replied – it is for your safety, you should have worn it. He didnt budge, completed the process. I asked now can I go without helmet it is just 300 meter! He replied what is more important – your head, you and your fathers safety or helmet getting oily? You can go you be a better judge, no one is ahead to cut another challan for you.

    http://business2buddha.com/2018/02/06/driving-in-india/

    I was upset, my father told me he was right. My father always wear helmet (it was even when there was no one wearing it about two decades back). He continued – you should have worn helmet. I made payment on the app instantly and gave it a thought later on. That policeman was not wrong, he was doing his duty, he could have done his job and let me go. However he was kind enough to politely remind me – what is more important “your safety”. This lesson costed me 500 rupees. Though I am rarely that careless, in last 24 years challaned second time. Once for stopping ahead of stop line on signal which where stop-line was barely visible. I felt bad but grateful later on for the policeman – I even wonder if I would see him back in life (I would not want to too :)). Small cautious act can go a long way. In current times it is home quarantine during Coronavirus spread. This small act of individuals can go a long way for the whole society.

    Gratitude – clap your hands – be grateful to the unknown

    Gratitude

    Today is the day when we have to be grateful to the healthcare and essential services professionals. Prime Minister Mr. Modi has said that we have to clap for these people whom we have not seen, not known. They are doing their best to help us fight the biggest challenge our generation is seeing. The graveness of Coronavirus cannot be ignored – especially when there is no known vaccine or medication for that. It is immaterial whether we are sick or healthy, rich or poor, youngster or senior citizen. We must be thankful to these professionals.

    We miss-out on thinking about so many people working on so many things on a daily basis. Some are directly associated with us many are not – be it the local trains of Mumbai or bus or Metro trains services across many cities. If you work in a stockbroking company, you may be taking a local train to the office. Your boss or the owner of the company is not. But to come to work in the owner’s company the employee needs to take the local train. Unknowingly or indirectly the local train driver is adding value to the stockbroking company’s owner. Many a time’s people do not consider this list for gratitude.

    Be grateful

    There is a good amount of research on this – check Harvard articles. Gratitude is a virtue, one must inculcate it. You are alive, be happy about it. Someone told me a couple of days back, you woke up you are fortunate, respect that you have got time and today to live. Especially we must be happy, restrained and grateful at this tough time when the world is facing the pandemic of Coronavirus.

    Be happy today; be grateful for so many known and unknown people and things in your life. Take care and do not forget to Show your gratitude – clap your hands on 22nd March 2020 at 5 PM for 5 minutes.

  • Coronavirus – Lock down? Stop and introspects

    Coronavirus has put many people across the world in a lock down situation. Many cities in Europe, China and US are standstill. In India also, some states govt or cities authorities have closed malls, cinema halls, schools etc. Who have got the luxury for them, it is a great time to sit at home to stop and introspect. People should not become couch potato at home and watch Netflix / Youtube day in and day out. This is a time to sit and introspect, what I did and what is my take? Here it is.

    Phylogenetic analysis of Coronavirus

    Introspection

    I started off with asking a question to myself – have we become dinosaurs of current times? Animals evolve, even the virus evolves check this last para of CDC website on Coronavirus – “…coronaviruses … can evolve….” This research by The Lancet states the virus has evolved and closely related – 88% – to two bat derived virus. Imagine how fast the virus is evolving from 2002 to now. It is an amazement that the tiniest virus evolves. How about human beings? How are we evolving? We’ve improved our healthcare system from outside, is this healthcare restricting us from developing our inherent immunity that has been there in every organism naturally? If your belief system does not allow you to accept the theory of evolution be it. However, this evolution is evident scientifically and being researched and discussed on the science fraternity widely.

    Dinosaur’s extinct one fine day, we are still struggling to hypothesize how this happened? Is it a possibility that something like Coronavirus happened with them too? I do not intend to scare with conspiracy of dooms day. My thoughts are still on introspection, we have developed a lot of technologies. Example is mobile phone, I have a 6 GB RAM mobile, I hardly require such configuration, My father has a smartphone too, he only accesses calling feature and one fitness app. Our technologies have grown multi-fold; many of us we do not even know how to use these. During this lock-down of cities, people are going to waste time on entertainment and create havoc on social media. Instead, we must spend this time with self sitting silently. It could be above conspiracy theories war, economy, healthcare and evolution.

    Conclusion

    I introspect on evolution and meditation. We spend time on how we can remain fit. Here is an interesting research done by Oslo University on a Breathing technique (Sudarshan Kriya) taught in Art of living courses. The research says Yoga Changes your Genes (Oslo university, Norway) and improve your immune system. Until the natural selection helps human beings evolve, practice Yoga and meditation it will help you – as the research states that “…changes in 111 genes expression patterns were observed, improving immune system…”.

    I leave you with this thought – stop, meditate and introspect.

    Image Source – The Lancet “Phylogenetic analysis of Coronavirus”

    Disclaimer – I am associated with the Art of Living foundation and practicing Yoga, Meditation and Sudarshan Kriya from 2004 onward.

    Related other blogs –

    http://business2buddha.com/2013/07/06/yoga-secular-or-not/
    http://business2buddha.com/2019/04/06/the-observer/

  • Coronavirus and questions on wealth

    On the wake Coronavirus and market bloodshed, I leave you with some question this week. These questions are directly related to Coronavirus and on wealth. Our sense of defining wealth – and at times success – need a contemplation. To begin with let me share a story with you:

    Church

    Once a man won a lottery worth ten lakhs (1 million) rupees. When his wife heard this news, she was worried, how should she break this news to her husband. The man had a weak heart and a sudden such news might give him a shock or he might even suffer a heart attack due to sheer excitement. So, the wife went to a priest requesting for help. The priest said “Don’t worry, I will come with you, and together we’ll give him the news”. Next Sunday, priest went to the lottery winner’s home and asked him “My child, suppose by the grace of God you won a lottery of ten lakh, what would you do with it?”

    The man answered, “I will give half of it to the church Father.” No sooner the priest heard this, he had a heart attack.

    Wealth should bring peace. Being wealthy should not bring arrogance, hostility, jealousy, disgust or boredom.

    Coronavirus and questions on wealth

    Wealth should not be something that becomes a reason for happiness or sorrow or a cause of shock. We live in such an artificial world that a virtual belief in wealth governs so many things. Recently I read worldwide markets are down and names of people who lost millions because of outbreak of Coronavirus. The shares are down and thus many people are losing their unrealized profits; some have lost the previous day’s profits and squared off at lesser margin. What to do with riches that are dependent on outside influences. A virus hits the world and (for no faults if yours, you become poorer) the wealth is wiped out.

    I leave you with some question this week – what is wealth? How money / wealth should keep you? How should it affect you? Why do we define wealth the way we define it? Should we’ve a different way of measuring wealth? Should we revisit our definition of money / wealth?

    Relevant other blog

    http://business2buddha.com/2012/10/14/currency-for-the-future/
    http://business2buddha.com/2016/03/13/kanhaiya-to-mallya-why-lessons-from-buddha-prevail/

    Story source – Commentaries on Shiv Sutra by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, The Art of living foundation.

  • Managing Emotions

    Rioting is an antisocial activity. Most of such activities are emotional outburst and inability of managing emotions. One must look for alternatives of discussion and proper method of reaching out to authorities to drive home the point – provided your point has merits. If your opinion has no merits, you’d get to learn the larger perspective and understand appropriate reasoning. If your opinion has merits you get to reach a consensus.

    Most of the times, rioters are more interested in creating problems rather than getting to a solution. In fact riots are more politically motivated rather than actually a problem in society. The Delhi violence (I wrote on Paris Attack earlier) reminded me one an incident in my life.

    The story

    It was a winter’s morning in the year 1999. We read news that previous night one of the students of our college met with an accident and passed away on the spot. Those days, there was no WhatsApp, mobile phones were expensive and limited news local channels so news spread next day. A friend read name of deceased recalled this student had joined recently and was from our part of the state – Malwa (a region in MP). There was natural – read regional – connection for us. We spoke to some other friends of ours who were from the same region. These friends were very closely connected with the student. In fact, at the time of accident, he was riding bicycle of one of these friends. All in all, we were about 10 students very close to the dead friend of ours – we knew him personally, stayed together, from same cities and he used cycle of one of our friends. Naturally we were emotionally attached and angrier than many other students.

    We went to the college, students were angry. It was an unfulfilled demand for quite some time that across both the entrance gates of our college plus other colleges on this road there should be speed breakers. Students were planning protest (about 50 or so). They blocked the road just outside our college. In this crowd 4 of the 10 friends were there. This road blockade turned violent within no time, one of my friends got a wooden stick (god knows from where). They attacked the very next bus they saw. Some threw stones and my friend went and started breaking windshield, windows of bus. In fact he cared less if any stone thrown at bus hits him. My friend came back towards the college gate. Passengers sitting inside the bus somehow ran for life at the very next opportunity. Besides, the driver, an old man was also hurt and his hand was bleeding. Some local antisocial elements too joined the protest plus the violence. Someone brought kerosene and put one wheel of bus on fire.

    When I saw my friend had wooden stick, I warned him to leave it, it is a peaceful protest. When he started running towards bus with intention to attack bus, I kept on shouting – don’t do it. The moment I, few friends and other saner students saw violence, we left the site. Soon local police came on the site and dispersed the protestors, antisocial elements and took control. They booked some students also.

    Since, the deceased friend was using my friends bicycle and was neighbor of his, police had asked him to go to the hospital, identify and help them with informing deceased family etc. So, the emotionally charged friend who attacked bus, bicycle owner friend and one more went to the Govt Hospital of the city. The emotionally charged friend was ashamed when he saw the same old man in the hospital for treatment. [Those days, police case based medical treatment used to be managed mostly by Govt Hospitals].

    Learning

    The world indeed is round; whole world came full circle for the emotionally charged friend of mine. He was sorry, never accepted it verbally though, but was not ready to accept his mistake of emotional outburst. I think until today he has not accepted his mistake [I remember at least after 5 years when I asked him about the incident he did not accept he was wrong]. When someone resorts to violence the things get worsened at times to the point of no return. The speed breakers were never constructed, a cause completely lost.

    Take an example of Delhi riots, media is not reading out a small paragraph of Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), it is an amendment to offer citizenship, it is not about taking citizenship of a particular religion. Our constitution has a problem of not defining minority accurately, when and how a religious group should be defined as minority. When a community should be considered as minority; when it is 10%, 25% or 50% of total population? The riots are politically motivated, no one wants such unrest. These riots may worsen the chances of reaching a more balanced resolution to CAA. The way it happened during our college – no speed breaker was constructed, people got hurt, public property (bus) was gutted and a day wasted – same may happen in this case too. Though, CAA protests are more politically motivated than people’s emotion driven. The worst – Indian leftist media is adding fuel to fire. The media has more so become a harbinger to cause trouble rather than be impartial.

    It is good to have emotions. Yet emotions are good to have a resolve to act responsibly and get some solutions out. Emotions – when taken to extreme – become problem rather than opportunity to do something good for self or society. Humans have an ability to manage their emotions. Managing emotions require awareness; awareness comes from understanding oneself better. Awareness also helps one to take logical steps and actions. Lastly, easiest way to improve awareness and thus managing emotions is meditation.

  • Interdependent co-arising in long run

    Last week I was in the US. I spoke with a friend of mine he is a professor in a college in USA. We discussed many things, what got our attention was the dependence of many moving parts of our society such that everything impacts everything else. This is nothing but interdependent co-arising.

    Related blogs –

    Vaccination and interdependence (pulse polio elimination initiate of Govt of India)
    Societal impact
    Interdependent co-arising a farmers example
    Entrepreneurship
    All interdependent co-arising related blogs

    We discussed the school system of USA, how the impact of 2008 great recession is going to impact funding of schools in coming time. The story is like this – during the collapse of late 2007 early 2008, birth rate in USA reduced. This is researched and published fact refer here “…the college-going population will drop by 15 percent between 2025 and 2029 and continue to decline by another percentage point or two thereafter…”. The researcher states birthrate as the factor, quote from the same source “…When the financial crisis hit in 2008, young people viewed that economic uncertainty as a cause for reducing fertility,” said Grawe. “The number of kids born from 2008 to 2011 fell precipitously. Fast forward 18 years to 2026 and we see that there are fewer kids reaching college-going age…”

    After 17 years when expected students those who could go to college have reduced this is impacting overall finances and the operations of schools. Look at the impact, how one things affects other. This is interdependent co-arising. What goes around comes around, impact on education may cause other impacts example – job market, sustainability of businesses and resulting in another possible economic crisis – it is a loop.

    Abstraction of this scenario

    You must have heard – if a butterfly flutters its wings in Amazon forest, it may cause a hurricane in Japan. We at times miss the power of small things and ignore them. This understanding of sensitivity of impact of one thing on a larger scale makes a person compassionate. Currently the world needs compassion more than the mad rush to reach somewhere. In the long term, impacts are what are left behind not the individual goals we kept in our mind.

    Image source – NeedPix

  • Time – thoughtful Welcome 2020

    So, another year of our life passed! Everyday we are living, in another words everyday every living thing is dying too. The only uncertain thing in life is – “which would be my last breath?” This thought of uncertainty must make us feel that every moment we are living is a gift. Every moment, the time in itself should be a welcome moment. Here I am to help you read a section of Yoga Vasistha The Supreme Yoga (a discussion between Lord Rama and Sage vasistha). What better day to write this to you and make you too think about welcoming the 2020 thoughtfully?

    Yoga Vasistha starts with Dispassion of Rama and his long speech / question regarding life. I am yet to complete reading the book, however I could not stop posting this part of the book for two reasons – appropriate time (end of this year / beginning of new year) and just read this chapter.

    Vairagya Prakaran (Dispassion)

    Rama:
    …All the hopes of man in this world are consistently destroyed by Time. Time alone, O sage, wears everything out in this world; there is nothing in creation which is beyond its reach. Time alone creates innumerable universes, and in a very short time. Time destroys everything.

    Time allows a glimpse of itself through its partial manifestation as the year, the age and the epoch; but its essential nature is hidden. This Time overpowers everything. Time is merciless, inexorable, cruel, greedy and insatiable. It is the greatest magician, full of deceptive tricks. This Time cannot be analysed; for however much it is divided it still survives, indestructible. It has an insatiable appetite for everything – it consumes the smallest insects, the biggest mountains and even the king of heaven!

    Even as a young boy plays with a ball for his pastime, Time uses the two balls known as the sun and the moon for its pastime. It is indeed Time alone that appears as the destroyer of the universe [Rudra], the creator of the world [Brahma], the king of heaven [Indra], the lord of wealth [Kubera] and the nothingness of cosmic dissolution. It is indeed this Time that successively creates and dissolves the universe again and again. Just as even the great and mighty mountain is rooted on earth, this mighty Time is also established in the Absolute being [Brahman].

    Even though Time creates endless universes, it is not wearied, nor does it rejoice; it does not come, nor does it go; it does not rise, nor does it set. Time the gourmet sees that the objects of this world have been ripened by the fire of the sun, and when he finds them fully ripe he consumes them! Each epoch of Time is decked, as it were, by the lovely jewels of colorful beings for the pleasure of Time that playfully wipes them all out.

    To the lotus of youthfulness, Time is the nightfall; to the elephant of life-span, Time is the lion. In this world there is nothing, high or low, that Time does not destroy. Even when all these are destroyed, Time is not destroyed. Just as a man after a day’s activity rests in sleep as if in ignorance, even so Time, after the cosmic dissolution, sleeps or rests with the creation-potential hidden in it. No one really knows what this Time is.

    Time – thoughtful Welcome 2020

    We have become slaves of time. We rush to office seeing 7:30 AM, have lunch at 1:30 PM (at times when not hungry too) and so on. I remember writing recently – this too shall pass. Yes, we shall be consumed by time as Rama says in his dispassion. It is an opportunity that when you are celebrating the new year, think about some serious thoughts in life regarding work, fun and spirituality.

    Source: The Supreme Yoga, Yoga Vasistha

  • How to transform society?

    We’ve seen a lot of ups and downs in last few years across the world – be it social unrest, terrorist attacks, individual gun attacks or rapes. There are good things also happening, however as an evolved and superior generation, are we really up to our own marks? The answer to this question for me was “no, we can do better”. Naturally the answer followed with another question how can we improve ourselves and transform society? This question needed a bit more understanding of the so many unpleasant issues.

    Starting 2010 we have been social uprising in Middle east to terrorist attacks in Europe or teenager attacking in school or a recent rape and killing of a girl in Hyderabad India. We can divide these incidents as individual and group incidents. Incident where a single person is involved, we can call it Individual and group where a group was involved. Society is made up of collection of individuals. In society we have groups of people who are insane and they are more active, thus we end up have bitter incidents more in our society. I believe for improving the society we must work at individual and group level both. The Buddha also said – there is cause of suffering and a way out.

    Why are social problems there?

    As a whole we as a society have become identified with race, religion, region, social status etc. This at a subconscious level makes us identify ourselves with a limited identity. We are human being and just by chance we are Indian or European or Christian – we need to understand this. Further, if we believe or feel deprived that would be manifested and would come out.

    As an individual and as a society we can give what we have. If I ask you for 100 dollars, you can give it to me only if you have 100 dollars or more. How can an individual or society be peaceful when individuals and groups are stressed? The stress manifests itself in different forms – be it gun attack, terrorist attacks or rapes. A society that feels it is unfairly treated – whether it is right or no – will created unrest, possibly terrorists. This needs a solution.

    Art-of-living-logo
    The Art of Living

    I do social service under Art of living foundation. I have conducted meditation sessions for people. My personal experience seeing the participants pre and post meditation and the participant’s experience itself makes me feel that everyone must meditate. Since, I have personal experience of Art of living courses, I can vouch for the difference it makes to people, in fact the prison program has transformed prisoners too. Have you heard of a Bandit Angulimala? He was a dreaded terrorist, The Buddha transformed him too? Many people are far better than him. Meditation has immense power to transform.

    How to improve society?

    • First thing we must do it, good people must be more activity and get more attention / coverage by media too – This is what Guruji (Sri Sri Ravishankar) says.
    • We humans must go beyond our limited identity – be it the ego or social identity (race, religion or region)
      • Stop comparing yourself with others
      • Get out of your superiority / inferiority complex
    • Know your freedom is till your nose not beyond that. This can help you understand that you do not have right to kill, steal or rape.
    • Accept diversity, anything written / spoken which signify hatred must be discarded; even if that comes from any authority book. Guruji said something similar recently.
    • The easiest is – attend an Art of living Happiness program.
    • Meditate, I have decided to make a difference by helping people meditate.

    Ethics cannot be taught in class to be followed in life. Ethics need to be imbibed, my personal experience is that teaching of ethics and being happy with oneself can be imbibed by a meditative mind only. If you need help in learning meditation reach out to me. If you want to attend Art of living course – go here.

  • 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.

  • This too shall pass

    I like Jab we met movie. I have written about it earlier too. Something happened recently that I remembered this movie again. Two of my friends discussed about issues one with girl friend and other with wife. There were conflicts, which relationship does not have conflict? So, we discussed – I am not a relationship counselor though – the troubles and concluded that few things are going to be there, however one must look at the big picture of life than the one of incidents. I narrated part of the movie Jab we met to them. I did not even bother to ask if they have watched it or no, I was too concerned to drive home the point.

    Plot – Jab we met

    Spoiler – part of movie the plot disclosed here. Shahid Kapoor’s girlfriend marries someone else, he is dejected and wants to leave everything. He boards a train where he meets Karina. Karina is in love with someone and wants to runaway to marry him. Shahid starts liking Karina’s carefree attitude and living in the moment. I believe one who is in love starts enjoying everything around. Karina is that person fully in love with Tarun Arora and willing to leave everything behind for Tarun. Things don’t workout as expected by Karina. She starts living on her own without connecting with family, completely changed personality. Shahid tries to bring her back to her family. She has lived like this for 9 months now. Tarun comes back in her life, when Karina wants to leave him. Now, Karina is confused, she understands that Shahid loves her. Shahid tells her – when you will look back in your old age this 9 month time period would be nothing when you have lived a long life with Tarun – which you always dreamed.

    Blogs based on movies (long list)

    Utsav movie – must love what she has and accept the love showered on him
    Kung Fu Panda – …there is no secrete ingredient, you must believe the soup is special…
    Kung Fu Panda – are we in control of our lives? Or it is just an illusion of control
    The Matrix – Morpheus is the best person to learn few things in life
    Ice age – We’ve been living our life like Scrat, there is something more beyond the cornseed
    Gulal – Brexit, Ambitions and unification – I wish in future we would not be driven fear and selfishness and, in future we would see such union and countries coming together to prosper together
    Kung Fu Panda 2 – Peace of mind comes from practicing it, not running behind things, possession for a peaceful mind
    Mehboob ki mehndi – Song Jane kyu log mohabbat kiya karte hai… and its limited interpretation of love, less possession less possed
    Rang De Basanti – Ek Omkar Satnam I am just “an insignificant nothing”, but the mind doesn’t accept it
    Guide – Duel Between Mind & Heart
    Seven years in Tibet – Religion is poison
    Network (1976) – What we see in news or opinions are they real or there are ulterior motives of someone that drive us
    The Matrix – Taking the red pill
    Salam Bombay – Our hoarding never ends, the way protagonist is trying to save 500 rupee
    Ice age 2 – we all exist like the Scrat in the mids of the fish trying to save our corn e.g. ourselves, job, loved one

    Lesson

    The suggestion is so important for everyone in life. We get angry, upset, depressed and frustrated for so many things in life. Solomon was advised – this too shall pass. We get entangled in life for so many things and at times for years we carry those grudges. Effectively we end up spoiling our present and our future for those trifling things. I know it is easier said than done. In fact those trifling things are so big issues for us at that point in life that we make those issues the center of our existence. This must be avoided. We must move on and be in the present moment. There is a great way to do that – meditation.

    It is not that I did not commit mistakes in my personal life. There is a learning curve. You Must Learn from the Mistakes of Others. You Will Never Live Long Enough to Make Them All Yourself. The examples of my friends were personal life examples, however, it happens with us in our professional life too that we end up getting upset, frustrated and angry for some or the other reason. Be it personal life or professional life, one must learn and practice meditation for a calm and peaceful present and a good life.