In Feudal Japan, “Samurai” were warriors who protected their Lord/Master and were called “Ronin” upon passing away of their Lord/Master. The underlying warrior remained the same but just the nomenclature changed since they did not perform any specified role anymore.

When people give prime importance to “doing” over “being” complications arise and you feel lost/inferior if you don’t do something respectable in the eyes of the society. Very few can move away from this trap of allowing “doing” to define you since almost everyone is in the same trap. So they keep “doing” as per dictates of their ego not knowing that bliss is possible by simply changing the context of life and not the content. Changing the context means transcending ego – “being” instead of “doing”…

So where ego is the master, it is better to be a Ronin than a Samurai. 

“Confirmation Bias” is the tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of one’s existing beliefs or theories. Most people work through this paradigm and denounce what doesn’t fit their opinions – hence the conflict between Hindu Muslims, bhakts and non bhakts, Bulls and Bears, etc continues unabated. 

There are whole new worlds out there waiting to be experienced if only we can step out of our limiting beliefs.  

Welcome to the concept of omnipotence 

For one to be right the other needn’t be wrong,

For one part to grow the other needn’t shrink/die,…

We are all Divine and hence omnipotent – we need to start living it and experience a completely different world of possibilities which starts with realising the Divinity within…

In is the only way out…

Everyone needs a break, especially from oneself. If you observe, from the moment you wake up to the time you go to sleep you attend to your habits of what you do, how you behave, what you eat, how you sit,….This is dependent not only on yourself but also your surroundings, you behave differently when at home, at office, on vacation…you behave differently when around different people…But a combination of all these varying habits is what you term as “I” which is not a constant, it keeps changing as per situations.

In Accounting, Zero–based budgeting (ZBB) is a budgeting method that requires all expenses to be justified and approved in each new budget period – wherein you make forecasts based on absolutely zero past overhangs – this provides a perspective of the future possibilities without the limitations of the past/legacy. Similarly, you need to do a zero base budgeting for your own life to disconnect from your past and think of where you want to use the energies that you have been granted for the remainder of your life. If you like the possibilities that this exercise throws up, then choose one that resonates best with your wisdom and work towards it one day at a time and have the acceptance to forgo all the other possibilities that cannot be accommodated in your plan….

Bribing a traffic ​cop for a traffic violation, 

Cheating on your spouse, 

Accepting/paying money for ​winning contracts,

​Adulteration of milk, paneer, other items,

Buying pirated books…

Usual things happening on a daily basis and we seem to have accepted them as a part of ‘normal’ life and people who don’t accept all this are termed ​’Raja Harishchandra​’ & viewed as not ‘worldly wise’…​Most people want the world to be black and white but in reality it is many shades of grey…​

​It reminds me of a question by a friend that if we know that the world is filled with corruption should we teach our children how to deal with it & live in a corrupt world or that corruption shouldn’t be tolerated? The answer is actually a bit of both but acceptance and non-tolerance rarely stay under the same roof, so the struggle continues…

Here I take a leaf from my fathers approach to his career as a Police Officer wherein he told all his juniors that I will not indulge in corruption and till you work with me do not indulge in it, what you did before or after is your Karma. So you have to steer yourself away from indulging in corruption but be aware that it exists in varying degrees so also know how to deal with it…

There is no right or wrong answer here, it is just where you draw the line….

Zero assumes meaning only being placed after the number, but if placed before some number it is meaningless. Where you place it in your life determines the quality of it. 

Zero(The Source) is always behind the number(Ego), but most people attempt to place it after and chase it as a number to be achieved to acquire riches/power/fame which post acquisition holds no value but by then you are already addicted to the chase and then can’t seem to stop. It is like running downhill at full speed since it is easier than stopping and returning back uphill to find out why you started the chase in the first place. 

This process of stopping and turning back to move uphill is ghar wapsi – Return to Source which has no meaning in social terms and yet the most important thing for anyone to do. Are you prepared to stop and turn back?

​Just came across this final email that Steve Jobs sent himself in his final days of battling cancer and it reminded me of “Ubuntu” – The African concept that signifies “I am because We are”. If we understand this and choose our goals and desires accordingly, then it will be a life well lived. 

The paradox of life is everyone likes a grateful, humble, ever helpful person but no one wants to be one…despite realising that you are playing a limited overs match and you could be bowled out any time, not by your choosing but simply that its game over…It is not about what match you are playing, it is how you are playing it that makes all the difference…

What would be your final email to yourself?

You know it’s time to wake up and smell the coffee when…

You are buying things that you don’t need but buy them anyway since they’re available on discount….

You are preferring chat/screen time over real time with family, friends, nature….

You think that deleting history in textbooks would make it disappear…

You realise there is corruption everywhere but think it is not your problem…

You are only complaining about the problems but aren’t doing anything about resolving them…

You know what is to be done but just don’t do it…

But what do you do when you wake up and smell the coffee?

Everyone invests in self, a few think of family, even fewer think of the society and very few think of the environment.

The way to change the world is to reverse this chain of priority – start a daily SIP(Systematic Investment Plan) by investing efforts into actual initiatives that would improve, in however small a way, the environment, society, family and self… then possibly there is still hope for you and the world… 

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