Ten things people do uselessly ...

Most people, in order to appear ‘useful’, do many things uselessly. They make a fool of themselves by

1. Creating confusion by trying to understand things 
2.  Staying ignorant in their endeavor to know
3. Making a mess in their effort to take control 
4. Failing miserably by working hard 
5. Remaining miserable in pursuing happiness 
6. Exhibiting their poverty in their show of power 
7. Demonstrating their frigidity in talking about love 
8. Creating noise by speaking about silence 
9. Heightening chaos by doing meditation and 
10. Showing their limits by trying to explain God.

Anyone who claims to be different may please leave a comment behind. Would love to set-up a call to experience his / her real usefulness.

Who says slavery has been abolished?

A MUST READ FOR ALL THOSE IN THE CLUTCHES OF NEW AGE SLAVERY.

For those who hide their blindness behind shades, their lameness behind the chairs they sit and their poverty behind their pay checks.

And also for those who are guilty of abetting slavery by subordinating themselves to be enslaved by the callousness of institutional authority, selling their conscience of Being Human to feed their greed.

Invest the blind with a semblance of authority, and they will pluck the eyes of all the seeing,
even the eyes of those who labor hard to make them see.

Give a slave his way but for a day, and he will turn the world into a world of slaves. The first
he would flail and fetter would be the ones who toil incessantly to set him free.

All world authority, whatever be its source, is counterfeit. Therefore it clicks its spurs, and
brandishes the sword, and rides in boisterous pomp and glittering ceremony that none may dare
look into its false heart. Its shaky throne it mounts on gun and spears. Its vanity-swept soul it
decorates with fear-inspiring amulets and necromantic emblems that the eyes of the curious
may not behold its wretched poverty
 
Such an authority is both a blind and a curse to the man who craves to exercise it. It would
maintain itself at any cost, even the fearful cost of destroying the man himself and those who
accept his authority, and those who oppose it as well.

Because of their lust for authority men are in constant turmoil. Those in authority are ever
fighting to maintain it. Those out of authority are ever struggling to snatch it from the hands of
those who hold it. While Man, the God in swaddling-bands, is trampled under foot and hoof
and left on the field of battle unnoticed, unattended and unsolved.
 
So furious is the fight, and so blood crazed the fighters that none, alas, would stop to lift the
painted mask off the face of the spurious bride and expose her monstrous ugliness to all.
Believe, O monks, that no authority is worth the flutter of an eyelash, except the authority of
Holy Understanding which is priceless. For that no sacrifice is great. Attain it once, and you
shall hold it to the end of Time. And it shall charge your words with more power than all the
armies of the world can ever command; and it shall bless your deeds with more beneficence
than all the world authorities combined can ever dream of bringing to the world.


For Understanding is its own shield; its strong arm is Love. It neither persecutes nor
tyrannizes, but like unto dew it falls upon the arid hearts of men; and those who reject it, it
blesses no less than those who drink it in. Because too certain of its inner force, is has recourse
to no external force. Because too fearless, it shuns the use of fear as a weapon for imposing
itself on any man.

The world is poor – ah, so poor – in Understand. Therefore does it seek to hid its poverty
behind the veil of counterfeit authority. And counterfeit authority strike defensive and offensive
alliances with counterfeit forces; and the two put Fear in command. And Fear destroys them
both.

Has it not always been that the weak would combine to protect their weakness? Thus world’s
authority and world’s brute force go hand in hand under the lash of Fear and pay their daily tax
to Ignorance in wars and blood and tears. And ignorance benignly smiles on all and says to
them, ‘Well done!’
~ An excerpt from The Book of Mirdad, by Mikhail Naimy 

If this excerpt stirs you in your comfort zones and makes your blood boil in the crib of complacency then launch the missile of Understanding to touch all those enslaved and enslaving around you with the war-head of Love.

This applies to all institutional authority - starting from familial, to social, to regional, to religious, to political and of economical.

This is a reality gifted to us to rise to the occasion and call upon Understanding with its strong arm of Love - for self and the other - to deliver both the slaves and the masters (who are themselves also slaves) unto freedom.


"... fight for liberty, not for slavery" - Charlies message to the world

Step out or get evicted ... you really don't have a choice !!!

Ever since I have had a glimpse of my Home - the space where I came from and the space that I belong to - I have been, out of sheer joy and wonder, creating spaces for individuals to experience the bliss of Homing in. The idea is that while we all physically stay in this colorful world of play, we don't carry it in our minds. Instead we get in touch with a longing for the Home that we have all come from and for once turn around to look in that direction.

Very often when such spaces (public programs) are announced and individuals are invited to come and experience the space, I feel amused to see so many of them blatantly procrastinate, wanting us to believe something that, in the heart of hearts, they also don't. The familiar politically-correct excuses so often so many of them resort to, sound something like “Not this time. May be the next time”, or “I wish I could. Had I not made a commitment to …” or even “It’s a wonderful program. I wish I had the time / money to afford it”.

We know and deep inside they also know they shall never make it. They don’t want to. My promise to show them the truth, comes to them as a threat. A threat of being evicted from the wayside inn where they have settled down and made their homes in.

The story goes something like this.

One stormy night, when you were on your way to the Home, feeling scared and lonely, you decided to stop over for the night in a wayside inn. It was a great relief to find warm dinner, a cozy bed and most importantly shelter from the inclement climate. You woke up in the morning and found a wonderful sensual landscape around you. The breakfast spread was also pampering. The voice of Thomas Jefferson echoed in you and egged you to extend your stay in pursuit of happiness. After all, isn’t that a fundamental right of yours? You extended your stay one day at a time till suddenly you found yourself having made a home out there. You even started involving yourself in the affairs of the inn. You were involved in housekeeping, guest relations, F&B and even wanted to keep an eye on the P&L. No one wanted you to do all this. But you wanted to seek relevance, to justify your extended stay. You got busy in what you called your ‘responsibility’, knowing deep inside that you were redundant. You started collecting items to enhance your creature comfort and before long, the clutter left hardly any space for you to move even.

Many a times there were door knocks announcing calls from your Home. You either ignored them or pleaded being busy. You never procrastinated the call of greed or desire: you never held back your anger or need to lech or indulge; your blaming someone or being one-up. You never postponed anything that brought instant gratification to you and yet you kept on summarily ignoring and rejecting the calls from Home. You have been feeling guilty and to pacify your sense of guilt you have been visiting God-men and showing allegiance to them by taking memberships of their cult. You are ashamed of your ignorance and indulgence and to let the world not know about it, you have been frequenting workshops peddling esoteric tools, tips and techniques for ‘spiritual growth’. You have done and are doing everything to make sure you are not dislodged from this pseudo home of yours that you have created in ‘pursuit of happiness’.

My promise to co-travel with you Homewards comes across to you as a mortal threat. I can see through your designs and have no need to pull you out of the inn where you have made yourself comfortable. That’s is not what I am here for.

Your eviction any which way is inevitable. It’s inevitable for two reasons:   (1) You are encroaching upon a space that neither you belong to nor belongs to you. Actually, it belongs to none. It is an illusion of belonging pulled over your eyes to help you avoid the sufferings beyond which lies hidden the signposts to the way to your Home and (2) This life of being human that you were gifted with was not meant to be an end in itself but an opportunity for you to keep looking and not settle in till you find your way back to Home.

So, the first principles of existence will make sure that you are dislodged, you are evicted. It’s already too late. There is not enough time. And the choice lies with you – either to voluntary step out and resume the journey of a voyager or be thrown out in the open to find yourself threatened with extinction.

Be love, be alive.  

Mystics to metrics - are you ready

Mystics and metrics have conveniently been slotted separately. With an obvious allergy towards the ‘soft’, the mystical, by the macho number-crunching business managers.

It is quite possible though, that, at times, may be, bored with their futile chase of metrics, some corporate honchos would have secretly in the privacy of their closets wished that they had chosen the mystical path. To some sort of nirvana.

At other times, they would have, at the end of a draining ‘metrics-driven’ day could have also flirted with the mysticism of things. Through books (evidently best-sellers which have achieved their metrics) or TV channels or even a discourse by a self-proclaimed over-hyped guru.

Yet, one wouldn’t’ have in the craziest of their dreams ever considered that the both – mystics and metrics – can co-exist. Never ever imagined that the numbers that they are meant to reel out to sound (un)real may also be linked to the not-so-understood mystical ‘real’ reality. Never dreamt of one being respected and loved for being a Corporate Mystic – one who silently seems to carry with her the magic of making things happen without much effort and is valued and respected as one who always seems to be where one is meant to be.

The root of metrics, measure and maya is the same. In different ways it refers to the transient reality, the illusion that we live with, in our day to day life. It also refers to the space in which we are meant to engage with and experience the ‘play’ or the ‘leela’ and eventually from which get mystical glimpses of the Truth.

Mystics and metrics - one is not divorced from the other. In fact one is the way to the other. While metrics is all about matter and form of creation, the mystic is about the formless source of creation. The two realities are connected by the umbilical cord of life. It is only in moments of deep reflection and expanded consciousness that one can not only sense but experience the formless, the Home of all creation.

In this world of rampant change and chaos, the only sensible way of understanding how things work and get a wise understanding of the process, is to take a step back from the measurable finite to connect to the immeasurable infinite and get a perspective of things from that center point of existence. Nothing changes here. The Truth that one experiences in this realm is absolute, permanent and inert. And standing here, in the very vortex of life, one can not only comprehend the measurable transience in the periphery but also influence the same. This is how one bridges the Mystics to the Metrics.

Some possible applications of this approach in the business world are values leading to sustained value creation, organization purpose becoming a measurable differentiator, innovation becoming a way of life, amongst other. 

Would love to hear from you your experience of traversing from the mystic to the metric or even the reverse.

Relationships die to bring love alive.

Relationships die to bring love alive.

I have learnt to celebrate death of relationships. Every time a relationship dies the post-mortem report reveals the cause of death as asphyxiation. Asphyxiated, or what we commonly call as, choked by the structures, meanings, definitions and rituals that got dumped on the relationship. You or me may not have done it deliberately yet we cannot absolve ourselves from being responsible for the death.

After a brief mourning, some guilt trip and a short bout of self-pity, from behind the clouds of remorse, I see rays of hope shine. Hope of re-creating a bond of relatedness with the same person. After all, it's the relationship that died, not Love on which it was founded. And with the death of this relationship the immortal, immutable Love has come alive. Bringing with it the hope of building a living, breathing eternal bond of relatedness.

I am willing to release my past. And with it I am willing to release my need to be needed, to make you happy at any cost, even if it means feeling taken for granted by you. This way I would have made you look up to me as a source of happiness and come to me whenever you needed it, only for me to do whatever it takes to make you feel happy and make me feel needed.

I am now willing to also release my need to be understood and valued, my need to play "poor me" and helpless and my need to be gullible and feel unfortunate.

I am grateful to you and many others who have come close to me in the name of love, ending up looking and behaving alike. I am grateful to all those who have come close to me and very mysteriously behaved almost identically in relationships with me. I am grateful to them for, in the ways they have come across, they have actually held a mirror for me to see some of my chronic patterns (obviously driven by the needs that I am now willing to release) that not only limited my growth and freedom but also locked them in some kind of a toxic dependency.

I am now ready to renew my bonds of relatedness with you. A bond that will allow enough space for us to make choices and be responsible for the outcomes, as individuals. A bond that will trust and respect our individual abilities and wisdom to be or not to be self-respecting, sensitive, spontaneous, committed and authentic. If you choose to be unhappy, I shall uphold your choice with the same love with which I shall also uphold your choice to be happy. If I choose to feel taken for granted, I shall uphold my choice as my choice and will not make you responsible for it.

It's the same you, the same me, the same space, the same chores being done together and yet I know you are finding me and my behavior kind of strange. If I seem to be aloof, I have stepped back with contentment to create more space us to play. If I seem to be cold, I am actually being compassionate for you to look, listen and live more consciously. If I seem abrupt, I am responding; if I seem intense, I am baring myself. I am holding you in an embrace that is strong enough for you and me to feel the warmth of togetherness and loose enough of us to breathe. I am suddenly seeing, besides you and me, another complete entity surfacing. Us. A sublime, joyful entity made of Love and relatedness. An entity that was never born and shall never die. Free to grow and evolve, as time flies.

"Every human being has been conditioned to think and behave in certain ways - conditioned genetically as well as by their childhood experiences and their cultural environment.

That is not who they are, but that is who they appear to be. When you pronounce judgment upon someone, you confuse those conditioned mind patterns with who they are. To do that is in itself a deeply conditioned and unconscious pattern. You give them a conceptual identity, and that false identity becomes a prison not only for the other person but also for yourself." 

~ Eckhart Tolle in Stillness Speaks

This blog is dedicated to you ... the ones who have come close and related to me, in some way or the other. 

This is also dedicated to you ... the ones who are finding themselves stuck in relationships - neither being able to come out not take it forward. As a Transformational Coach and practitioner of Conscious Healing, I shall be glad to accompany you in your struggle and enable you to heal your lives and relationships. Please feel free to write to indroneil@iprodigy.net if you feel like reaching out to me.

Five ways to practicing Conscious Living

In Japan, there was once an old monk who lived alone in a small meditation hermitage in the mountains. He went about his daily chores with a careful grace that reflected his inner peace and clarity. He had, however, one peculiarity. Every now and then, for no apparent reason, he called out his own name. By this simple action, it is taught, he brought himself back into the present moment, re-establishing awareness whenever he noticed that his mind had drifted him into forgetfulness.

Although it is not necessary for us to adopt that monk's method of practice, this story illustrates the obstacle we face when we try to arouse awareness in daily life. Though we may sincerely aspire to be awake in every moment, doing so is difficult because of the power of habit and forgetfulness. Therefore, rather than expecting to achieve continuous awareness immediately, we begin by developing awareness around a small number of routine tasks. Then, as we become more skilled at maintaining awareness, we gradually incorporate more aspects of daily life into the practice of Conscious Living.

It is important to understand that to develop awareness in daily life we do not need to go around with an empty mind. Rather, we strive to be awake and centered in the present, clearly knowing at each moment what we are doing / thinking. For instance, if you are walking down the street to the bus stop, know that the body is walking. If thoughts, plans, or memories come into the mind, be aware of them. When you come to an intersection, you know it and can decide whether or not it is safe to cross.

Naturally, thoughts, plans, and memories may come up while we are engaged in an activity, but these need not be an obstacle to awareness. The obstacle of forgetfulness arises from our habitual tendency to get lost in a jungle of thoughts, one leading to another without conscious direction or purpose. If it is necessary to plan for the future, then by all means we should do so, and make the best plan possible. But we should plan for the future with awareness and clarity, rather than just by daydreaming.

Through the practice of Conscious Living, you come to realize that a good portion of thinking is habitual. The restless mind fills with idle chatter to keep it occupied because it does not know how to be at rest. Unfortunately, all this clutter stifles the mind, keeping it from developing important and meaningful insights. Through awareness, we can thin out the jungle of thoughts, discarding a lot of the trivial and useless chatter so that we can experience greater clarity.

When we are practicing Conscious Living, we still experience thinking, seeing, hearing, feeling, and other mental and physical activities, but we remain centered on whatever main activity we are involved in at that moment. When trivial thoughts come into the mind, we let them go, because there is something more important and meaningful for the mind to be involved in - the present experience. If something important comes up that needs to be thought about and it is a suitable time to be thinking about such things, then we can, of course, think about it. When we do, this new thought becomes the present activity for the light of awareness. Like sunshine, the light of awareness shines on each thing so that it becomes clear.

It's a good idea to begin your practice of Conscious Living by choosing to shine the light of awareness on four or five routine daily activities. Performing these simple tasks with awareness helps you develop a better appreciation for what the practice is trying to achieve. Here are a few suggestions for how to get started:

Breathing

The rhythm of our breathing changes with our momentary state of being. When we are lost in the maze of thoughts, depending on the nature of thoughts, the breathing takes up a pattern. In order to restore conscious awareness it is advisable to, as often as possible:

1.       Take in three deep breaths, filling the space up to your shoulder and gently release your breath.

2.       Experience / feel your in-breath and out-breath at the tip of the nostril as you breathe naturally.

3.       Watch your breathing slow down.

4.       Slow deep breathing slows down your ageing process. The elephant, which is believed to have a long life span, breathes seven times only in a minute!

Brushing Your Teeth

How can you make the act of brushing your teeth a practice of meditation? There is no need for you to brush your teeth in a stylized manner using some special technique. You need only center yourself and bring the mind into the present by thinking, "What am I doing?" Rather than just moving the brush back and forth mechanically, you encourage the mind to be fully involved in the act of brushing.

So begin by intentionally deciding that you want to transform this routine activity of brushing your teeth into a practice of meditation. For these few minutes, relax into the present moment and brush your teeth in a natural way but with awareness.

1.       Pick up your toothbrush ... is it your toothbrush?

2.       Apply the toothpaste ... how much toothpaste do you use?

3.       Begin to brush your teeth ... which teeth do you brush first?

4.       Continue to brush your teeth with this sort of interest, being aware of how much pressure you are applying and what area you are brushing, making sure that you actually brush all the teeth.

5.       Of course, thoughts will come into the mind, but because there is awareness, you will notice the thinking. If what arises in the mind is just trivial chatter, let it go, and come back to brushing your teeth, keeping your mind and body together throughout the activity.

Showering

Showering is a most pleasant and relaxing daily activity, but most of the time we do not really experience it. While the body is in the shower, the mind is busily someplace else. But not any longer! Next time you take a shower, make sure that the mind is taking a shower with the body.

1.       Bring your attention into the present moment and notice the pleasant feeling of the water on your body.

2.       Allow the warmth of the water to soothe and relax the muscles, relieving all the built up tension.

3.       Keep the mind with the body as you soap up, enjoying the fragrance of the soap and the smooth feeling of it on your body.

4.       When you rinse off, let all the cares of life fall away, just like the soap that is being rinsed away.

5.       While drying the body, encourage the mind to be there, experiencing and enjoying the feel of the towel on the skin.

6.       Whatever thoughts, memories, or plans pass through the mind, simply know them and deal with them as seems appropriate. Again, you may find that most of the mental activity is just habitual chatter. Let it go, and continue to enjoy these pleasant moments.

7.       After showering in this way, not only will you be physically cleansed and refreshed, but you will also feel mentally refreshed, centered, and clear.

Walking

Many people take up walking for health reasons, but all too often, the result is "mindless bodies" walking for exercise. Why not make better use of this activity? It is also possible to develop awareness during an ordinary daily walk. Going for a pleasant stroll in the park can be an excellent opportunity for developing Conscious Living.

1.       To make your stroll a meditation, simply walk in your usual way, but encourage the mind to walk with the body.

2.       Relax into the present moment, allowing the mind to become quiet and to enjoy the pleasure of rhythmic movement.

3.       Your mind and body are together, peacefully walking, enjoying the walk.

4.       If you are walking in a park with trees and flowers, notice the beauty of nature by staying fully present to what's around you in each moment.

5.       Whatever goes through the mind, just know it as mental "stuff." Is it really worth bothering about? Is it important enough to take you away from what is right here, right now? If there is something really important that you need to think about, then do so with awareness. But if what's running through the mind is just trivial, leave it behind and continue to enjoy the walk.

When the mind and body walk together in this way, not only do we benefit physically, but we realize how wonderful it is to be awake.

Washing Dishes

Most people do not like washing dishes and do so with a lot of negative thoughts and feelings that make the chore a miserable experience. Other people wash dishes in a half-hearted way, mainly daydreaming, which results in many chipped and broken dishes. One meditation teacher told me that he could assess the general quality of meditation among the students by the number of chipped cups in the kitchen!

Since we need to wash dishes, why not transform this mundane task into an opportunity for meditation? Again, center yourself, and bring the mind into the present by being aware of what you are doing now:

1.         Feel the temperature of the water in the sink ... is it hot enough?

2.         Add detergent ... how much are you using?

3.         Wash each dish ... have you scrubbed every surface?

4.         Rinse each dish ... how clean is it?

5.         Since the mind has also been washing the dishes, the dishes get washed more carefully.

6.           When you have finished, clean the sink and enjoy the feeling of having completed a task and done it well.

Many of the chores you do around the house can be used in a similar way to practice Conscious Living. Doing so takes no extra time and requires no special conditions. Washing the car, gardening, sweeping, vacuuming, painting, and many other activities can become part of your meditation practice. All you need to do to transform these chores into meditation is to establish and maintain awareness while doing them.

Driving

I once saw a cartoon strip that illustrates the habits of today's drivers perfectly. A man is driving a car along the highway. In each consecutive panel, the man is doing one extra thing in addition to driving. First, the man is just driving; then he is driving and listening to the radio; next he is driving, listening to the radio, and eating a sandwich. Finally, he is driving, listening to the radio, eating a sandwich, and talking on a cellular phone!

Perhaps we're not as dangerously busy as this man when we drive, but how often are we really aware of what we're doing at each moment? Next time you drive your car, try practicing Conscious Living for a little while.

Turn off the radio and relax into driving in a wakeful manner.

Driving requires that you remain aware of many things in a continuously flowing way, so you need to stay in the moment. If you are driving with awareness:

1.              You will know your speed ... are you within the speed limit?

2.              You will notice the car ahead of you . . . are you too close?

3.              You will keep an eye on the rearview mirror ... what is behind you?

4.              If there are traffic lights coming up, you will see them . . . are they red or green?

5.              Many thoughts will pass through the mind, but you'll continually bring your attention back to the present and drive with awareness. Even if the thoughts seem very important, this is not the time to practice awareness of thinking! It is too dangerous. When driving, it is best just to drive.

Eating

Most of us like food, talk a lot about food, and sometimes spend a lot of money to eat in expensive restaurants. But how often are we actually present to the full experience of eating? Part of the reason we do not pay much attention to eating is because it often takes place in a social setting with conversation and other activity going on. If you are having dinner with a friend who wants to discuss something important, it certainly would not be appropriate for you to be overly interested in the taste of your food. There is a time and place for everything.

However, when you have an opportunity, try this exercise in mindfully eating.

1.       Choose an apple or some other fruit of your liking and sit down comfortably so that you can enjoy eating this apple.

2.       Begin by peeling the apple with a knife, going around carefully so that the peel comes off in one long, continuous strip.

3.       You will quickly discover that if your mind is too busy or distracted, the peel will not form one single strip. So bring awareness into the activity of peeling.

4.       Having peeled the apple, slice it and eat one slice at a time.

5.       Feel the texture of the apple as you chew, savor the flavor, and swallow each mouthful before eating the next slice.

6.       No need for a running commentary; simply discard the unnecessary chatter and be fully present to the experience of eating this wonderful apple.