Business to the Buddha

Tag: focus

  • Anand Utsav

    Anand Utsav

    Bangalore-Ashram

    I recently attended a course of the Art of living foundation – Anand Utsav. Anand Utsav is a Hindi word (rough translation “festival of bliss”). Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (Guru ji) himself guided the course via webcast. This has been happening for last couple of years in the month of August. I could not attend Anand Utsav earlier. This time, the moment I got message, I was determined to attend it.

    Sri Sri Ravishankar, Art of living, Guruji
    Guruji

    I am associated with AoL for a long time now, whenever someone asks me about the happiness course (basic course or part I course as it is known), I say only one thing – “Before you die, do Sudarshan Kriya at least once.” There are two reasons for this statement. Firstly everyone has a unique experience because everyone’s life circumstances and situations are / have been different. Further, something inside changes profoundly. Something that is not easy to define. With both these points, I can only say – do it before you die.

    So, when I attended the course, thankfully, I had plans of vacation in subsequent week. The course finished on Sunday, I attended office on Monday (a typical chore day) and came the much awaited vacation. It was interesting because during our routine we may not be able to identify or sit back and reflect. During the vacation I could reflect. In my case typical Monday was same, the usual chasing the clock and running to office without contemplation. Tuesday morning we had to travel out. My daughter, Adviti, is an infant. When you’ve infant at home, everything moves as per the infant’s schedule.

    We had a plan to start at 7 AM but we started at 7:40 or so. We were late, however it was different from being late on any other weekdays. I knew when we’re late there will be lot of traffic on roads, the Mumbai traffic which irritates me almost daily (can make any sane person insane), was not a problem for me that day. There was no rush to reach somewhere, almost daily it is a race to reaching office. We are running an endless race daily as professionals. This race is in many shapes and forms, right from boarding our regular train, acquiring a seat in bus, owning the dream job / car / home / kid scoring certain score or getting the deal signed by prospective client.

    This day there was a difference in my approach to things and situations around me. Few things that made me get frustrated soon, were not making me like that. I looked at the sights on / around highway after a long time with such ease, amusement and astonishment as I did this time around. I was centered / focused from within.

    When we reached Mumbai again, I lost wallet, all my credit and debit cards. I had given it to my wife, she forgot it on a counter. She panicked, I did not. With full composure, I handled Adviti, consoled Simple (my wife) and walked where she felt she misplaced the wallet. I inquired and got the cards back full 15 minutes later. Any other day, I might have got more restless than Simple but this day I was not. Even Simple was surprised.. This time when I attended Anand Utsav this something changed in me. I was like this a couple of years back (I remember my MBA days), centered, peaceful and in control. Things changed a lot for me, I needed to attend Anand Utsav long back – Better late than never.

    Honestly, you must attend the Art of living Happiness Program once. Just go with the flow, sit in the course, follow instructions until the last day, ask every question that you have on the last day. Do not interrupt yourself from any instruction. Just do as directed without bothering for anything – not even the results. If still you are not sure to attend the Happiness Program – read the blog again – do Sudarshan Krita before you die.

    My Anand Utsav (festival of bliss) is continuing will you join me? I am sure you would thank me for this blog post later :).

  • Unifying heart, mind and actions

    At times after office, I take my daughter – Adviti – for a walk. It was such usual day when after office I took her to the nearby market area where there were seats to sit and gaze the moving vehicles leisurely. She enjoys watching buses, whenever I see her look at bus or point at moving buses I start singing a nursery rhyme – “Wheels on the bus go round and round…”. Recently, this outing taught me – once again – how can one unify heart, mind, and action together.

    She is generally very observant – as with any infant – she also gets completely engrossed in the observation. This one day, I rediscovered and realized a very cliché known fact. She was sitting on a bench, watching the buses and enjoying the sight. After a while, an old man came and sat. A decent looking, in his mid-60s or early 70s, an old man who was new to both of us was sitting next to us. Adviti started feeling uncomfortable and started crying. I told her, see Advi he is like Aba (dadaji). She is too young to understand it. She kept feeling uncomfortable for some time. I tried diverting her attention and again showing her moving buses and singing the rhyme. The old gentleman too tried talking to her and pacifying her but to no avail.

    After a while when it was a bit irritating to the nearby people, I took Adviti to another bench. When we sat at new nearby she repeatedly looked at the gentleman intermittently. However, this time around I could divert her attention to the original purpose of our visit – leisure visit to the market, looking around vehicles and causal amusement.

    When she was happily looking at vehicles and had forgotten the incident, I revisited the event in my mind. Until she was focused she was completely engrossed in the activity. The moment she got a distraction she lost all her fun and joying. This happens with us also a lot of times. We get distracted with some or the other thing. It impacts our productivity in the office our personal life when we start looking at others rather than concentrating on what we do and enjoy doing. Small incidents teach us a lot.

    Earlier I had written on focus. I had put a point in that blog – “Distractions are felt if you are not centered”. The corollary is equally correct – If one is distracted it is difficult to be centered. I always feel that the solution for this is meditation and spirituality. Meditation helps improve awareness which eventually makes it easy to bring together the heart, mind and action together.

  • Entanglement of a langot (undergarment)







    I heard/read a story when I was a kid, I think in some Osho discourse or book. Well, I have been thinking about writing this for a long time, but I didn’t remember the whole story so I called my gateway of last resort (Ramana Rajgopaul uncleji – he blogs here). “Gateway of last resort” is a Computer Networks term, when every other link fails send data packets to gateway of last resort, is how any router is configured.

    Actually, he is very different person – you (I mean, I) can speak with him on any subject matter (from Sex to Super-consciousness). He guides with different points of views and references (he speaks great sanskrit, speaks Shlokas of different scriptures and mind you – he is an MBA from IIMA OK!). By the way he is 70 year young; young because when I talk to him I feel as if I am an old man, he is full of life as young as a 15 year old can be. Coming back to the story…

    Entanglement

    There was a saint, ascetic. He used to live outside of a village as used to happen in old day India. He owned only 2 langots (Nappies, or undergarments), nothing else. One he used to wear while other is washed. As any Indian saint could be – he was fed by villagers. Once, one of his langot was nibbled by a mouse. So villagers gave him cat to shoo away mouse/mice. In some days our saint realized that he needed to take care of the cat and to feed her he needs something. Villagers gave him a cow for feeding milk to the cat.

    Well, now he needed someone to take care of his cow, he hired someone to take care. The story goes something like this – this hired person needed monthly salary so saint started teaching as well. Slowly, this saint – an ascetic – becomes a family man. This langot converts an ascetic to a family man…

    This is how (may be not because of your undergarment) all worldly entanglements are woven around our life.

    Life is like this, we try to do something and end up doing something else. May be to take care of a langot (business, family, self) your whole focus changes. So, take care of your purpose otherwise you would be entangled such that you would run around in paraphernalia than the focus.

    Oh yes, this story reminded me of Novel by Herman Hesse – Siddharth. Ramana uncleji has also written a story on similar lines here.

    Related blogs –

    What more you need?

    Why are you doing what are you doing?

    Race – never ending