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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Mithas dil me ho aur cup me nahi, to baat bani,

Khushi dene me ho lene me nahi, to baat bani,

Muskurahat khul ke bat​i jama​yi nahi, to baat bani,

Kya khoya aur kya paya ye socha tak nahi, to baat bani,

Zindagi se pyar karo jung nahi, to baat bani,

Kuch mera na tera ye samjh gaye, to baat bani

Everyone would agree that the first principle of co-existing peacefully as a society is “First, harm no one” which is the Hippocratic Oath that all Medical Practitioners have to take and also the first tenet of Yoga – “Ahimsa”, but why restrict it only to Medical Practitioners and Yoga Practitioners? Does this not apply to all? It does, but how many choose to follow it? The ones who do are declared saints/Mahatma and are revered but the principle is not embraced, resulting in a broken society/world wherein we know what to do but we simply won’t.

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​Looking at the current state of affairs wherein the entire world is in war  with each other whether economic or otherwise, with a world leader moving around threatening sanctions in order to reconcile warring parties and expecting to win a Nobel Prize for it, I think we have really lost the plot and have to admit that our collective intelligence to peacefully co-exist has failed. So either each one of us sincerely embraces this simple principle of Ahimsa or we may have to finally hand over the reins to Artificial Intelligence since ours isn’t working….

We are living in the age of information overload and ChatGPT is used to glean through tons of data and present a synopsis but this actually handicaps us in a sense that we forget using the faculty of analysing. There is a reason that we were made to mug up tables upto 20 in school, which was made redundant by use of calculators. We have been given faculties with powers beyond our imagination but we choose to uphold convenience & ignore the loss of abilities… 

What use is information if it does not help you in obtaining knowledge which is gained by experiencing the causality(cause-effect) of implementing the information and what use is knowledge if it is not converted to wisdom which is gained by change in habits by the results experienced in the knowledge phase and what use is wisdom if it does not help you in experiencing the essence of “This too shall pass”….

You simply can’t jump from school directly to PhD, each one of us has to pass through each stage of information – knowledge – wisdom and beyond, there are no shortcuts to maturity. 

A person seeks to meet God and approaches a Saint with the request. The Saint says he will arrange for the meeting and just asks him to write down on a piece of paper who he is so that the Saint could tell God who wants to meet him & when would He like to meet. The person writes down his name, title, place of residence and gives it back to the saint. The saint asks him if his  name, title and place of residence were any different would he be any different and the person says obviously no. Then, says the saint, please find out who is asking the question and when you find that out, God would have already met you.

As Ramana Maharshi said “Your Self Realisation is the greatest service you can render the world.”

Expressing life in terms of “Doing” is largely a Western thing whilst “Being” is largely an Eastern thing. However, as they say “grass looks greener on the other side”, the West has taken up Yoga/Zen/Tai-Chi seriously and the East has taken up chasing power/wealth/fame in terms of “development” seriously and the circus continues…

The concept of “doing” something before you die was captured beautifully by the movie “Bucket List” (Things you want to do before you die/kick the bucket) that was released in 2007 with brilliant performances by Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson. Everyone must prepare a bucket list since it helps in lending focus to your energies for the remainder of your life and also reminds you that life has an expiry date that is unknown to you.

As you tick off the items on your Bucket list you realise that it was never about “doing” and that you are going around in circles and that is when you value “being” that is finding the “Stillness” within you. This is a process of maturity which can’t be hoodwinked – you have to go through “doing” and mature into “being” and there is no guarantee that you will mature in this lifetime – so whatever stage you are in, be in the moment and enjoy it

Whatever you are chasing in the material world, you will eventually get only to know that it did not quench your thirst but only increased it…

The only rule that works here is “This too shall pass”…Then what remains? That which you were before you were born and that which you will be after passing on… Be that and all chases will drop…