What should/shouldn’t others do? You will find most people being eloquent about this but when it comes to doing it themselves they would find justifications for being the way they are or simply blame it on the situation or other people. 

This is a problem that has existed forever with humans, it’s easy to blame others but not easy to change yourself. Over the ages wise counsel has been left through the medium of holy books such as the Bhagavad Gita, the Bible, the Koran, the ten commandments,… If you notice, all these are recommendations for adhering to a personal code that would take you closer to God/Liberation and an interpersonal code that promotes social well being since all of us are in it together, this is “Dharma”. Unfortunately people with malafide intent have used these guidelines to create their own interpretations and further their own ends and this is the beginning of religion which parted ways with Dharma. Resultantly we are experiencing a broken down social order and we remain far away from personal liberation/god.

What does one do in this situation? In my view, working towards your personal liberation by following a personal code that upholds discipline, organised thought and determination is essential along with an interpersonal code that upholds social well being and most importantly the personal / interpersonal code must not conflict with each other. Any of the holy books would give you these codes but to uphold them in spirit is up to you and that is the purpose of life – to align yourself to the code, not to find a way of justifying your misaligned choices… 

Dharma is Dharma, drop all the prefixes/suffixes (Hindu/Muslim/Sikh/Christanity….) and live by the principle of personal liberation/interpersonal well being and leave a legacy of a spiritually strong and socially harmonious legacy for the generations to come….

Picture this – children playing a game in the courtyard and fighting over who is right/wrong as per the rules of the game, the parents trying to resolve the dispute since things might get violent and the grand parents simply watching all this with a smile, having been there, done that and knowing that it’s just a game and whatever the outcome the family would be dining together that evening…

Life is as simple – there are those(Children) who play the game of chasing power/wealth/fame, then there are those(parents) who feel that their intervention is necessary for resolving the disputes arising in the game since they feel responsible for the children and then above all are those(Grandparents) who know that none of this really matters…. You will find such people throughout life and the role that they play depends on their maturity and acceptance that life is nothing but a game being played by eternity, of eternity, for eternity. The Grandparents mindset is a product of experience of having been children, parents and knowing that nothing is permanent except change… 

You have to get the Grandparents wisdom(by sheer experience or listening to the wise) which is nothing but detachment with love and yet be young at heart to play the game of life. Keeping young at heart doesn’t mean that you have to be childish, it means that you have to be childlike. Know that you are playing a game of life that may not (most probably won’t ;-)) turn out in your favour and still accept the result as lovingly. Grandparents love all present – the children & parents, yet choose to remain detached from the result of the game without taking sides…

Life is simple but we complicate it. Nothing is “Expected” of us, it is our imagined expectations of ourselves and others that creates problems in the first place. We are just a miniscule piece of energy experiencing life in this world which is itself insignificant as compared to the universe. Our intellect urges us to try to figure out the reason for all this creation but in the process we ignore the most simple principles of life & complicate things for ourselves & others.

Everything is temporary – including your time in this world, your body, mind, and everything that you see around. You are a visitor, at best who has been given a suit(body) and a mind(cognitive & communication) abilities. You want to find out why instead of doing the work you were sent here to do in the first place – your karma. The intelligence that has created this wonderful creation knows what it’s doing, it doesn’t need our esteemed advice. 

If you simply accept that you have a car – first learn to drive it without hurting others and enjoy the car & the sights around. Keep it simple – live by a simple code that helps you and all others experience their short time called life in as good a way as possible. You can’t make others happy if you are not happy yourself. Being happy is living simple. Just switch the paradigm of your life from getting to giving. Takers may eat better but the givers sleep better.

Life is for giving & forgiving and not for getting & forgetting…

Clarity / intensity of intent and the will for execution are critical success factors for any endeavour. A Buddha or a Hitler possessed both, only the direction & focus of the intent was different…

The good part is you can choose the direction and focus of your intent. The not so good part is that you have to fight with all your other inherent tendencies to establish it. Your focus is always on various things of value to you whether power,wealth, fame, sensual indulgences, emotions, intellect, spiritual which may or may not be in line with the direction and focus of intent that you may want. To align this distracted mind and body is one of the results of practicing Yoga consistently.

They say a habit forming period is 21 days or 90 days, but a character forming period is 12 years. Hence one Tapas is 12 years and all the Sadhus practice consistently for 12 years before dipping into the Ganga as a symbol of completion of one Tapas during the Kumbh Mela that happens every 12 years.

I wish there were an easy way of aligning character or forming habits but unfortunately, there isn’t. You have to choose your intent, focus carefully and use all your will to keep practicing it consistently and only then perhaps you will be able to harness the tremendous strength of the Shakti(Consciousness + Energy) in you. Shakti favours only those with a clear intent and will to see it through whether it is for the well being of all or not doesn’t really matter to it but it should to you since history is replete with examples of use of Shakti towards a good cause and a bad cause, why not choose the good one?

Remember what you choose to focus on with body, mind, spirit happens… 

“Time management” is a misnomer. Time actually can never be managed since it is a man made construct that keeps ticking in a predetermined order. It is what we do in that time that can & must be managed.

In the words of H Jackson Brown Jr. “Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.”

Time is a constant whilst energy is variable. You must have observed that if you do what you love, you have all the energy at your disposal and you even lose track of time. All people who achieved something of significance pursued what they loved or poured love into what came their way, that is the simple secret of success and energy management.

So don’t manage time, manage energy. Time was never yours and never will be but energy is yours and you can choose to direct it.

Your energy is currency, spend it well, use it wisely….

Some animals/birds are territorial whilst some are nomadic, that is just the way of things. Who teaches some birds to fly thousands of kms in the same route, who teaches tigers to be territorial? There is a scheme of things for everyone which has perhaps evolved as a natural cycle of evolution or simply hardcoded in the DNA.

What are humans? Territorial or nomadic, both? We have been nomadic in our earlier years when hunting, gathering necessitated wandering. Then some settled and started farming and then more settled and now we have cities with people falling over ourselves. Are we really settled? Comes in the industrial revolution, advances in science & technology and now Artificial Intelligence. All are attempting to make life more comfortable and predictable. Noble intentions, but the side effects are not necessarily good – population explosion, environmental pollution & degradation, complex political and social systems that cannot be reconciled except with violence…The gap between the haves and have nots is widening. There are parts of the world wherein people are dying of starvation and then there are parts of the world where people don’t know what to do with themselves and their resources.

Advancement in Artificial intelligence is making human work more and more redundant. Possibly it may solve the problem of food, clothing and shelter in future but then what do we do with ourselves? This challenge is galloping towards us at a furious pace. There are people who are simply fighting advancement of technology, there are some that are living as close to nature as possible but most are simply accepting the advancement of technology and its effects as a fait accompli.

We are living in this bizarre, disconnected world and yet it is in our hands to change it if we wish to. What do we choose? Where do we start? How do you change something that is completely beyond your control? You can’t change the world, you can only change yourself and in doing so perhaps change the world…

Be the change you want to see in the world…

Whether you believe in life after death or not, doesn’t matter. What does matter is ​whether​ you live life fully. Now what does living life fully mean? All of us have faculties: body, prana, mind to experience life. Stands to reason that we keep them in excellent shape to enjoy whatever life brings our way. That’s the first way to live life fully.
Having a well tuned car without knowing where you want to head is useless. Hence the next is the intent that we choose to pursue, the relations that we keep along the path of life. The intent is governed by our dominant Guna. 
If sattva ​(Good/Positive side of the force in Star Wars Lingo)​is dominant, then the intent would be for the well being of all, being selfless, sharing & giving would be normal actions resulting from such intent. 
If Tamas ​(Dark/Negative side of the force in Star Wars Lingo)​is dominant then accumulating more of only what you like​(Wealth, Power, Fame)​​, indulging the senses, lazing around would be actions emanating from such intent. 
Rajas ​is​ just the activating Guna that utilises the energy at your disposal towards sattvic purposes or tamasic purposes. 
​Irrespective of what your dominant Guna is, you can choose to change it and consistently choosing the change would establish the change.​
So the long and short of it is how you use your energy and towards what purposes would determine your karma and life would bring​ back to you,​​​ whatever you practice- that is the unfailing law of karma. Sooner you align yourself with sattva, the better for you in this life and​ all​ the others to come. Again, your believing it or not will not change anything, your actions will….
​Remember ​saints ​a​re sinners who d​on’t​ give up…
​Happy Makar Sankranti​/Pongal/Lorhi

Integrity is doing the right thing when no one is looking. We assume various roles in our daily lives and we play them seamlessly like accomplished actors. Are we consistent in our responses? Do we respond in the same way to everyone/everything? No. We behave differently with people/situations of significance or value in our lives and differently with others. We maintain a private face and a public face and in doing so lose the essence of our true being…

Equanimity is when you have established yourself in a state that you no longer have to behave differently in different situations or with different people. You can be equanimous if you realize your true nature as a direct experience, equanimity cannot be faked. When you realize that there is nothing to be got or lost, you automatically are at peace with everything/everyone.

Observe this role playing in your own life, you would be amused/surprised to see the different ways in which you respond/behave with different people/situations. This continued observation itself would give you the reflection of your nature which when deepened would give you a perspective of the Self underneath. Equanimity/peace then would be a by-product of the process of observation and the consequent awareness…

2020 brought us a lot of pain

but then, learning is a painful process…

No pain, no gain…

Sharing a few learnings to carry over to 2021…

“Caring” is essential for our own soul…

“Sharing” was how life was always meant to be…

“Daring” is a must, to accept and make changes…

“Letting go” is the path to freedom not accumulating…

Remember the past is not to be forgotten, it is to be learnt from…

Wishing you and your loved ones a joy filled 2021

Finally it is happiness that all of us seek. We adopt different​​​ methods of getting it but the goal remains the same. The mistake we make in the pursuit of happiness is that we consider it to be an individual pursuit. As the pandemic has reminded us, we cannot truly be happy or at peace unless everyone around us is happy and at peace. 

We are so bothered with having happiness for ourselves that we tend to overlook at what cost it is coming to us. We make ourselves believe that we are working hard and that we deserve the indulgences that we term as happiness. It is true to a certain level that you are entitled to the results of your efforts but also give a thought to the ones who have not been privileged or deserving or simply don’t have the means to obtain the opportunities that we have got.

As we celebrate Christmas Eve today let us imbibe the teaching of Jesus Christ and open our hearts in making opportunities available to others less fortunate. In giving is living. Only then can we be truly happy & peaceful.

Sharing a profound learning for Universal peace as translated by Master Nan from Confucius’s “Great Learning” essay.

The ancients who wished to illustrate illustrious virtue throughout the world, first ordered well their own States.

Wishing to order well their States, they first harmonized their​ ​families.

Wishing to harmonize their families, they first cultivated their​ ​persons.

Wishing to cultivate their persons, they first rectified their hearts.

Wishing to rectify their hearts, they first sought to be sincere in​ ​their thoughts.

Wishing to be sincere in their thoughts, they first extended to the​ ​utmost their awareness.

Such extension of awareness lay in the investigation of the​ ​underlying matrix of mind and matter.

The underlying matrix of mind and matter being investigated,​ ​awareness becomes complete.

Awareness being complete, thoughts then become sincere.

Thoughts being sincere, hearts then become rectified.

Hearts being rectified, persons then become cultivated.

Persons being cultivated, families then become harmonized.

Families being harmonized, states then become rightly governed.

States being rightly governed, everything under heaven then comes​ ​in balance. ​