I , Me. My

 

It is Monsoon season. In Ahmadabad it has become hot and sultry. Some days it rains and some days it is humid and hot. One day early morning I was walking along the road. Early morning there have been good showers so the road was wet and there were poodles of water at many places. I was walking near a poodle and  saw a car moving forward which would have splashed water on me while passing through the poodle. Immediately I tried to distance myself away from the poodle as far as possible, but to no avail as the speeding car splashed some water on me.  To move away from the poodle was an instant reaction.   We are conditioned to see , how the events happening around us impact us. This is a trait needed for survival when humans were still a part of the jungle. Now in the civilized society that we live , still we continue to behave in the same way. Evaluating events as how they impact us. Is it not?  Have you ever thought of this?

Let us say your spouse gets big promotion. What is your instant reaction? How this is going to affect me? Will she be required to travel more or locate to a new place? How I will manage family in her absence? What should I do to achieve more success in my own career? And so on and so forth.

Your son, who is excellent academically in school decides to pursue an off-beat career say Bharat Natyam Dance. ( a form of ancient Indian Dance) What reactions you feel? How this will be seen by society? What will people say and how can I answer them?  How he will be able to earn money? Do I need to support him even in my old age?  And so on…

You are at checkout in the supermarket. An old woman is ahead you who is checking out. She fumbles while keeping the things on the desk of clerk and also fumbles when taking out money and making payment? Her slow movements bother you. Is it not? What you think? Oh again it is going to be delayed. You feel restless and would like that the woman should move fast so that you can also check out fast.

There are innumerable things/ events happening in your daily life which you evaluate as how they impact you.  You behave and expect others to behave as if the world is revolving around you. You think you should be given importance. It is always me and mine. Is it not?

 Prof. Srikumar Rao says “ Even your altruistic intentions are frequently tainted. You want to do “good in the world” and to “give back” but it is important to you that you also be recognized for your actions. You want your jokes to be laughed at, your contributions to be acknowledged, and your advice to be solicited and acted upon.”

 This is what Prof. Srikumar Rao says living in a me centered universe. To know how much you are me centered Prof. Rao suggests an exercise. You are calling a colleague/ customer/ partner to explain something or talk some important matter. When you set up a call, record the conversation. After the conversation is over, count how many times you have used, I, me and my. This will give you an idea what we are discussing.

 You may say nothing wrong in that. Yes. But once you  expect that world should behave the way you want, you set up yourself for stress, frustration and anger. We all know that results of the action we perform are not in our hands. You do something and expect A to happen but many a times B, C ,D E ,F happens. Yes there are certain times when A happens. And then you feel good but this lasts for miniscule time and you are again back on your tread mill.

Prof. Rao indicates “ All of the stress in your life results directly from your fixed notions of how the Universe should behave and from your inability to accept the merry diversions that the universe takes from your agenda….All of us want the people in our lives -spouses, ,children, siblings, relatives, friends, neighbors, bosses and co-workers- to behave in particular ways that we determine. We have specific- though often hidden -expectations for them all. We even want our pets to behave in expected ways. But they don’t conform to what we want.”

So what should you do? Drop all expectations about the out come of your actions. Is it possible to drop the expectations? Oh! This will rob you of motivation to live. What can you do? If you see carefully, the stress, the frustration, the anger is caused due to attachment with the desired out come. We should drop the attachment to the outcome. We should try our level best and see what happens. If out come is as we desired, we can celebrate and if not, we can learn from the experience and move ahead.

How do you do that? Assume that the pandemic has made you jobless. You are now actively searching for the job. You have prepared your CV and shared it with job hunters. You get a call for an interview. You think the job is a good fit for you. You search the information about the company on net, get your self as much information as possible and prepare for the interview. You appear for the interview in hope to land the job. But somehow you don’t get the job. What you do? You may feel bad for sometime but you forget that and start your search again. Is it not? What did you do here? You were perfectly aware that the outcome is not in your hands and you do not ruminate on the result but learn from it and move on. Can we do this in all our activities. Is it possible to maintain this attitude of dispassion about the result? In Gita Krishna has exhorted that a man does not have the right to fruits of his action. He has right only for his action. Which means actions are within the control of man but not the results. If we can follow this in our life we can work without stress, a joyful life. Are there any hacks for this? Let me know what you think, how can we practice this?

This philosophy has also important underpinning of present moment awareness. We can do what we can in the present and forget about the future. If we focus on the process/ activity with all our might, chances are we may achieve what we want to achieve.

“ At some point you just have to let go of what you thought should happen and live in what is happening.” Anonymous.

Gratitude

 

It was a cloudy morning in Ahmadabad. I woke up and decided to go for my morning walk. The sky was overcast with Monsoon clouds. Atmosphere was hot and sultry. It could have rained at any point of time. I walked out of my society campus on the road laden with trees on both sides. At the corner a milk parlour was doing brisk business. I walked on. Suddenly I remembered an exercise from the book E Squared by Pam Grout- The Volkswagen Jetta principle. The exercise tells that if you start looking for a thing you will see it. Pretty obvious . Is it not? I decided to look for a car “ Nexon” on the road and count how many of these cars I can see during my morning walk. “ Nexon” is a compact car made by “TATA” which has got the highest safety rating in the crash test. Because of its safety features the car has got my attention and sometimes I dream of driving a “ Nexon”. But this fondness drove me to look out for Nexon. The moment this thought came to my mind and at that instant an olive green Nexon drove past me. What a coincidence? I started counting the cars on the road. Being a morning hour the traffic was meagre and very few cars were on the road. During my walk of nearly an hour I could spot 8 Nexons on the road. How wonderful? Was it pure coincidence or something else I don’t know but I proved to myself, that whatever you start focusing attention on, starts to increase. How wonderful it would be if we start focussing on the good in people, in the happenings around us.

I remembered the Law of Increase from Prof. Srikumar Rao’s book. Law of increase states that” whatever you are truly grateful for and appreciate will increase in your life”. Many people tell you to be grateful. There are lot of apps, journals available in the market so that you can record things you are grateful for. I also had downloaded an app for noting down the things I am grateful for. But the initial euphoria faded away within few days. The process started becoming mechanical. There was no emotion of gratefulness while noting down the things. Have you ever experienced this? How can we bring that emotion, that feeling of gratefulness in our lives?

On one morning I was listening to rag Brindavani Sarang sung by Pt. Bhimsen Joshi. (Can be heard here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrJHLHNvbN8) The song is prayer for the supreme lord. Panditji’s divine, full male voice and the raga created an ethereal effect on me. I was transported to a realm where it was all blissful. The experience lasted for nearly an hour. I was full of serenity, calmness and joy created by the music. At that point I became grateful. Grateful to the universe for it has   given me this wonderful body, these ears through which I can listen to such a divine music. Here the emotion of gratefulness was so full to the brim that it made my eyes moist. Then I started recollecting things that I am grateful for. The list started really increasing and with it my feeling of gratefulness also. I found a trick for being grateful.

 My suggestion will be if you want yourself to be in that grateful emotion- Listen to your favorite music, eat a dish which you like when you are hungry, see that mesmerizing sunset or listen to the waves of sea.  And feel those beautiful emotions. And in that start feeling grateful for your life and little things that make you happy. This will make your practice alive and free of mechanical boredom which sets in if you try to push yourself to feel grateful for things in life. The feeling of gratefulness should emerge from bottom of your heart and should envelop you completely. When you start feeling in such way you will find that the day and life is really wonderful.

How can you become more grateful? How can you smoothen out your daily interactions? When you are having a casual conversation with someone, are you there fully?  Or is it that your mind is occupied with certain other things to do or are you in rush? How can you make such interactions filled with happiness? Prof. Rao suggests a way out. He suggests that the next time you are interacting with anybody wish that person good silently. When you are in the hallway for a washroom break in your office, someone greets you. Look into his eyes and genuinely return back the greeting. Wish him good silently. You are purchasing a newspaper from a vendor wish him good silently while paying him his money. This is the extension of gratitude practice. If you do this deliberately throughout the day you will find that your emotional tenor has improved and you start feeling good about yourself.

Do you have a toxic boss in your life who pushes your buttons all the time? Or anybody else in your life who makes you feel bad, every time you meet, so much so, that you start dreading, meeting with this person.   Our instinctive reaction is to avoid as far as possible such persons. Of course if he is your boss, then you can’t avoid him but you see that the interactions are business like and are at minimal. Every time you have a meeting with such person you feel drained, frustrated or angry.

 Follow here the strategy given above. Wish that person good silently and sincerely. I understand it is very difficult to wish good to a person who is making you feel bad.

Why should we do such practice?  Every time we are the ones who are feeling bad after the meeting and not the other person. This exercise is for us to feel better. If we try this thought experiment before meeting the person, we will feel different. Try it out and see for yourself what happens.  

Some time back my colleague from the office where I worked met me. While chatting casually he mentioned about a forthcoming meeting where he was supposed to meet another officer from a different department with whom he felt he was not comfortable. He felt that the other person is judging him unnecessarily and harshly and this impression he used to carry in the interactions with him. I suggested the above exercise to him and asked him to try this sincerely. He did follow the advice and to his astonishment he found that the interaction that followed was very good and he did not feel anything which he used to feel early. After some time, both of them became good professional colleagues.

The only requirement is that this exercise of wishing the person good should be done silently and with a sincere heart.

“Wear gratitude like a cloak and it will feed every corner of your life” Rumi.