I couldn't help notice this while returning from the gym today.
I always use my bike or car to go anywhere. I use elevator to reach my office in 6th floor. And to compensate for the sedentary life style I have go to gym and use treadmill and cross trainer!
In olden days people just walked to work, used all their muscles to do their work. So work was not about just earning the bread but a lifestyle in itself. They had so nice interwoven work and life that nobody really felt the need of work-life balance. Whereas we have compartmentalized everything - work, commute, work out etc. And we focus on efficiency and in each task separately and we want to optimize them to the maximum. Yet, they expended almost zero (external) fuel to maintain themselves. Now I waste twice the fuel (one set to reach to work comfortably and another to burn the fat accumulated due to this comfort!) ! And we say we are XYZ% productive than our ancestors!!!
Monday, July 6, 2009
Friday, May 15, 2009
Whatever happens, Happens for good
I was always inclined towards thinking "whatever happens, happens for good'. For many years it helped me live without worrying/thinking too much. Smooth life. But now after seeing some recent events in my life my belief it has increased multi folds. Even if I had planned my life and had all the ability to create it I don't think I would have made it like the way it turned out by itself!
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Being Righteous - the biggest killer of love
Yesterday night I did not get sleep. So instead of forcing myself to sleep I got up at 5:30 and went to jog.
After finishing the jog, I sat on the banks of Ulsoor lake and started to think about my last blog entry - Universal Love. When writing the blog I was so much called by that possibility of love. But afterward I got back to normal routine of me, me & me. Today when I was thinking of it, it occurred to me that when I have 'self righteousness' love gets lost. I cannot love someone or something (including work) when I am full of I am right and it/him/her shouldn't be that way. Just by realizing this, I won't be easily giving up being right. It's almost like second nature. Only me enrolling myself into the possibility will help. So just as it is hard for me to readily accept others as they are and what they do, so it is for them to mend their ways to be acceptable by me.
Thinking all these I got up and started walking. While on the way I told myself, 'Just be okay with whatever people do. There is nothing called right or wrong. Whatever they do is what they do. Their actions are based on their basic nature'. I remembered an example my uncle gave me once. He said ' Cotton is soft and white. If you burn it it will be brittle and black. You have successfully changed its property (and behavior), but it is no more cotton'. How true! You cannot have apple and the pie too. We are like 'I want X in you but not Y'. Life is a package deal - you get all or none. But what we do is to try to customize it - all the time. We forget that if we take something out of life, it's no more Life.
So as I started heading home I made up my mind that today I will live such that everything is okay with me. It felt good. I came home. As I was parking my bike I heard loud and irritating noise of drilling machine my neighbour is using to renovate his house - something that has been going on for 2 months. Immediate thought I had was ' What the heck! It's 6:30 am and this guy already started that damn machine. Grrrr...'
So much for the noble thought that had crept in just few min before. One external disturbance and everything went for a toss! Wah re mera mann!
After finishing the jog, I sat on the banks of Ulsoor lake and started to think about my last blog entry - Universal Love. When writing the blog I was so much called by that possibility of love. But afterward I got back to normal routine of me, me & me. Today when I was thinking of it, it occurred to me that when I have 'self righteousness' love gets lost. I cannot love someone or something (including work) when I am full of I am right and it/him/her shouldn't be that way. Just by realizing this, I won't be easily giving up being right. It's almost like second nature. Only me enrolling myself into the possibility will help. So just as it is hard for me to readily accept others as they are and what they do, so it is for them to mend their ways to be acceptable by me.
Thinking all these I got up and started walking. While on the way I told myself, 'Just be okay with whatever people do. There is nothing called right or wrong. Whatever they do is what they do. Their actions are based on their basic nature'. I remembered an example my uncle gave me once. He said ' Cotton is soft and white. If you burn it it will be brittle and black. You have successfully changed its property (and behavior), but it is no more cotton'. How true! You cannot have apple and the pie too. We are like 'I want X in you but not Y'. Life is a package deal - you get all or none. But what we do is to try to customize it - all the time. We forget that if we take something out of life, it's no more Life.
So as I started heading home I made up my mind that today I will live such that everything is okay with me. It felt good. I came home. As I was parking my bike I heard loud and irritating noise of drilling machine my neighbour is using to renovate his house - something that has been going on for 2 months. Immediate thought I had was ' What the heck! It's 6:30 am and this guy already started that damn machine. Grrrr...'
So much for the noble thought that had crept in just few min before. One external disturbance and everything went for a toss! Wah re mera mann!
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
What is Life - Living with contentment or chasing the dreams?
Of late I am getting this basic question - Is life about knowing and living or is it solving a series of problems?
We all have millions of wishes and wants in life. And not all of them are fulfilled and most of them seem unaccomplishable. We will not be happy if we have these unfulfilled wishes. Then how do we live? Do we devote our entire life to keep fulfilling these wants/wishes one by one, by removing the obstacles that prevent us from fulfilling these? or do we invest our energy in understanding how to live with what we have, since anyway this wish list is a never ending one?
I think the typical western approach to life has been of the former one while that of easter the latter. Is this why we easterners tend to ignore the problems and 'adjust' while a westerner wants to conquer it and move on. But throughout your life if you keep conquering when will you get time to rest your mind and be calm?
Of late I am finding no interest in doing anything. When I started thinking deeper I started realizing that I don't have a bigger motive or a bigger problem to solve. For last few years I constituted myself as a 'possibility of empowerment'. I said my life is all about empowering myself and the world around me. In living that way there was a goal to achieve, or at least I could create goals that I would strive after. In last few months 'empowerment' is appearing as a fix I came up with, a fix to life which was otherwise worthless. By declaring myself as the one standing for empowerment I could attribute some value to my life, make it worth living. In doing so I think, though I created a context, at the background was the fact that if not empowerment my life is worthless. That's why I called it a fix and not a context created to live.
So when I figured out that what I need is a bigger challenge, a bigger problem to solve, I started thinking, what if that problem is solved or if I find that problem no more calling [me into action]. Will I be blanked out again? What is the basic approach to life?
But as I write this I am remembering the words of my coach(es) - that a created context is not real. It's just a context that lets me take actions, keeps me working, keeps me satisfied with myself and my life and ultimately lets me have peace of mind - moment to moment. So it is time for creating yet another context, one that calls me into some action. I want to go to primary school and teach young children, just to be around them, learn from them, be with them.
As I write this, over and over I am being called into the possibility of love - pure universal love. It is interesting fact that in my Landmark courses when somebody declared love as a possibility I told myself that this (love) is one thing I will never create as a possibility. To me it looked just next to impossible - but now I am being called by it. And with it I am also feeling compassion to fellow dwellers. And as I complete this I can see my breathing has is following a gentle rhythm, as if I just came out of meditation !!!
We all have millions of wishes and wants in life. And not all of them are fulfilled and most of them seem unaccomplishable. We will not be happy if we have these unfulfilled wishes. Then how do we live? Do we devote our entire life to keep fulfilling these wants/wishes one by one, by removing the obstacles that prevent us from fulfilling these? or do we invest our energy in understanding how to live with what we have, since anyway this wish list is a never ending one?
I think the typical western approach to life has been of the former one while that of easter the latter. Is this why we easterners tend to ignore the problems and 'adjust' while a westerner wants to conquer it and move on. But throughout your life if you keep conquering when will you get time to rest your mind and be calm?
Of late I am finding no interest in doing anything. When I started thinking deeper I started realizing that I don't have a bigger motive or a bigger problem to solve. For last few years I constituted myself as a 'possibility of empowerment'. I said my life is all about empowering myself and the world around me. In living that way there was a goal to achieve, or at least I could create goals that I would strive after. In last few months 'empowerment' is appearing as a fix I came up with, a fix to life which was otherwise worthless. By declaring myself as the one standing for empowerment I could attribute some value to my life, make it worth living. In doing so I think, though I created a context, at the background was the fact that if not empowerment my life is worthless. That's why I called it a fix and not a context created to live.
So when I figured out that what I need is a bigger challenge, a bigger problem to solve, I started thinking, what if that problem is solved or if I find that problem no more calling [me into action]. Will I be blanked out again? What is the basic approach to life?
But as I write this I am remembering the words of my coach(es) - that a created context is not real. It's just a context that lets me take actions, keeps me working, keeps me satisfied with myself and my life and ultimately lets me have peace of mind - moment to moment. So it is time for creating yet another context, one that calls me into some action. I want to go to primary school and teach young children, just to be around them, learn from them, be with them.
As I write this, over and over I am being called into the possibility of love - pure universal love. It is interesting fact that in my Landmark courses when somebody declared love as a possibility I told myself that this (love) is one thing I will never create as a possibility. To me it looked just next to impossible - but now I am being called by it. And with it I am also feeling compassion to fellow dwellers. And as I complete this I can see my breathing has is following a gentle rhythm, as if I just came out of meditation !!!
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Day 50-59 - Reasons, Reasons, Everywhere!
Day 50-58 -Jog. Skipped.
Day 59 - Jog - done.
Whole of last week I gave into my reasons and skipped the jog. I also noticed that there was absolutely no 'josh' to do anything. Again work was seeming boring. What a waste of time?
Once slipped, it took more than a week to come back to normal, joshful life. Unless I take charge and break the pattern Life is waiting for dis-empowering reasons to occupy it and make me feel victim and powerless. What a shame! Even knowing all this makes no difference when I get into 'its' grips.
Day 59 - Jog - done.
Whole of last week I gave into my reasons and skipped the jog. I also noticed that there was absolutely no 'josh' to do anything. Again work was seeming boring. What a waste of time?
Once slipped, it took more than a week to come back to normal, joshful life. Unless I take charge and break the pattern Life is waiting for dis-empowering reasons to occupy it and make me feel victim and powerless. What a shame! Even knowing all this makes no difference when I get into 'its' grips.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Day 47-50 - Granting being
Day 47 - Jog - done
Day 48,49 - Jog - missed due to travel
Day 50 - Jog - missed for Art of Living
For last few days one thing was bothering me. I have a friend who sometimes shares about some breakdown at her workplace. The moment I hear about it I feel sorry for what she is going through and would want to make a difference to her. And I think that I know where the root of this is or if not I would get to know it and resolve the issue for her. So I start and go on either probing further or giving some analogy or asking her to see the problem from a different perspective etc. Within no time I get into 'gyaan' giving mode. And I start talking more and giving her less or sometime no chance to speak. That's when she [I think] gets irritated and stops me saying 'enough of gyaan'. Then I suddenly realize that unknowingly I have entered the gyaan mode and I feel bad for doing that.
On Saturday when I was looking at this I got few insights. I saw that when my friend came to share the breakdown I would think that she is suffering it and that she is not capable of overcoming it herself. And I would say that I can help her overcome that. Though my intention was to make a difference the place I was coming from was that she is incapable of handling this situation. I think all she wants is a buddy who would listen intently so that she can share her heart out. But I, instead of being a buddy, would become the coach, without even being asked for coaching.
I also noticed that she was not sharing that to get it resolved by me. In fact she would say that she would feel bad that day but would be okay by the next day. But I was not okay her being that way. I wanted to make her suffer free. But it also meant that I was trying to fix her that way of being - suffering for a day and thinking next day it would get over. I was not granting her way of being. That was at the root of it all.
Once I saw it I could let her be that way. I could grant her being. Now I can just listen to her, without giving any gyaan and without getting bothered by what she is going through. As of this writing I am realizing that just by listening I can let her empty her concerns. Apart from listening intently I will be a clearing for her getting what she wants out of the sharing. And if she wants coaching I am available for that and I am sure that then it would not occur as gyaan to either me or her. I am feeling so peaceful now!
Day 48,49 - Jog - missed due to travel
Day 50 - Jog - missed for Art of Living
For last few days one thing was bothering me. I have a friend who sometimes shares about some breakdown at her workplace. The moment I hear about it I feel sorry for what she is going through and would want to make a difference to her. And I think that I know where the root of this is or if not I would get to know it and resolve the issue for her. So I start and go on either probing further or giving some analogy or asking her to see the problem from a different perspective etc. Within no time I get into 'gyaan' giving mode. And I start talking more and giving her less or sometime no chance to speak. That's when she [I think] gets irritated and stops me saying 'enough of gyaan'. Then I suddenly realize that unknowingly I have entered the gyaan mode and I feel bad for doing that.
On Saturday when I was looking at this I got few insights. I saw that when my friend came to share the breakdown I would think that she is suffering it and that she is not capable of overcoming it herself. And I would say that I can help her overcome that. Though my intention was to make a difference the place I was coming from was that she is incapable of handling this situation. I think all she wants is a buddy who would listen intently so that she can share her heart out. But I, instead of being a buddy, would become the coach, without even being asked for coaching.
I also noticed that she was not sharing that to get it resolved by me. In fact she would say that she would feel bad that day but would be okay by the next day. But I was not okay her being that way. I wanted to make her suffer free. But it also meant that I was trying to fix her that way of being - suffering for a day and thinking next day it would get over. I was not granting her way of being. That was at the root of it all.
Once I saw it I could let her be that way. I could grant her being. Now I can just listen to her, without giving any gyaan and without getting bothered by what she is going through. As of this writing I am realizing that just by listening I can let her empty her concerns. Apart from listening intently I will be a clearing for her getting what she wants out of the sharing. And if she wants coaching I am available for that and I am sure that then it would not occur as gyaan to either me or her. I am feeling so peaceful now!
Friday, February 27, 2009
Day 45, 46 - Why I miss my jog? - Take 2
Day 45 - Jog - done.
Day 46 - Jog - missed.
Today I registered for Art of Living course starting from Mar-3. This was something that I have been wanting to do for almost 4-5 years now but somehow never happened. Today I took the action, knowing very well that I have to attend a conference from Mar 4-6 and that I might get delayed to conference. Something from deep inside told me to just jump in and I did!
--------------------------------
Two days back I wrote that it's the feeling of cool breeze that I was missing, that made me give my jog a slip. Yesterday morning I went to jog. But I did not really enjoy it. And today I missed it!
Yesterday night I came back late from my seminar and slept at almost 12:30. Before sleeping I was feeling tired and was thinking if I could manage next day's jog. Today morning I got up at 5:30 as alarm rang. I was not at all feeling like going to jog. So I went out in my balcony to feel the cool air and I did feel it. Yet it was not motivating enough to continue. I thought that may be it was the heat or may be the fan running all the night that is making me feel tired and I came back and slept off.
Today evening I was thinking as to why I did not go to jog and why I did not enjoy my jog yesterday. I looked at what made my day-before-yesterday's (Wednesday) jog so enjoyable that I did not have yesterday. I saw one thing. Tuesday evening before sleeping I was feeling very light. I had a feeling of accomplishment, a sense of leaving nothing incomplete. And that gave me the freshness for Wednesday. Whereas both yesterday and day before that I was not satisfied with my work.
I thought 'May be this feeling of incompleteness is at the source'. It's not that everyday I will complete all the work and feel being completely accomplished. But me distinguishing the source of why I was not feeling like jogging gave me an access. And as I write this, even today I did not complete what I set out to, in fact I did hardly anything. Still I am all charged up for tomorrow's jog. I can feel the difference between yesterday night and tonight. I hope this time I got it right :)
Day 46 - Jog - missed.
Today I registered for Art of Living course starting from Mar-3. This was something that I have been wanting to do for almost 4-5 years now but somehow never happened. Today I took the action, knowing very well that I have to attend a conference from Mar 4-6 and that I might get delayed to conference. Something from deep inside told me to just jump in and I did!
--------------------------------
Two days back I wrote that it's the feeling of cool breeze that I was missing, that made me give my jog a slip. Yesterday morning I went to jog. But I did not really enjoy it. And today I missed it!
Yesterday night I came back late from my seminar and slept at almost 12:30. Before sleeping I was feeling tired and was thinking if I could manage next day's jog. Today morning I got up at 5:30 as alarm rang. I was not at all feeling like going to jog. So I went out in my balcony to feel the cool air and I did feel it. Yet it was not motivating enough to continue. I thought that may be it was the heat or may be the fan running all the night that is making me feel tired and I came back and slept off.
Today evening I was thinking as to why I did not go to jog and why I did not enjoy my jog yesterday. I looked at what made my day-before-yesterday's (Wednesday) jog so enjoyable that I did not have yesterday. I saw one thing. Tuesday evening before sleeping I was feeling very light. I had a feeling of accomplishment, a sense of leaving nothing incomplete. And that gave me the freshness for Wednesday. Whereas both yesterday and day before that I was not satisfied with my work.
I thought 'May be this feeling of incompleteness is at the source'. It's not that everyday I will complete all the work and feel being completely accomplished. But me distinguishing the source of why I was not feeling like jogging gave me an access. And as I write this, even today I did not complete what I set out to, in fact I did hardly anything. Still I am all charged up for tomorrow's jog. I can feel the difference between yesterday night and tonight. I hope this time I got it right :)
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