The power lies within

Like all of us he was born free. However, unlike most of us he chose not to fall into the trap of environmentally imposed captivity. He shied away from taking competitive examinations, defied his parents and elders in not choosing the career they thought would make him rich and successful and landed himself a job which made him stay with the IT industry for 18 years.

All along he kept his dream alive and despite all the professional pressures kept escaping into pursuits that would bring him closer to his dream each day. And today, having chosen to step out of the illusory comfort of the corporate, seven years back, he lives a life of fulfillment and joy, still flowing and un-carving, refusing to succumb to the temptations of getting type-casted by the world as an expert or authority in applied human behavior and related subjects.

There are broadly three factors which are responsible in hardening and carving of the soft pulp of possibility that we are born with:

1. Parents and elders’ expectations which though imposed with the right intent often leads to an emotionally and spiritually hollow future. 
2. The academic pursuit which freezes one with the guilt that if the education acquired is not utilized in one’s profession, it will be a waste (as if it is not a waste any which way).  
3. The work experience which tends to make one believe that he or she is an industry, domain or functional specialist and therefore doing anything different would dilute the specialty. 

Life a gift 

Besides these three factors there is this overarching illusion of pursuing happiness through success as a fundamental right, not realizing that life and everything that comes with life is a gift and cannot be pursued as a matter of right. In fact, like sleep, more we work towards acquiring it, the more we get away from it. 

The current economic context demands un-carving. Un-carving and re-carving from a developer to a back-end process executive, a business analyst to an insurance agent or an investment banker to software architect.  

For those who are affected with the sudden need to un-carve and re-carve, more than the pain of rejection and worthlessness what could be bothering them is the perceived loss of professional relevance.  

The reality of relevance is however very different. The roles we take on in our lives – either stereotypically or archetypically – are ‘outside-in’ reactions. The prevalent socio-economic script tends to show up certain opportunities, to address which, there is a whole lot of investment in terms of strategy, time and effort for career planning. 

Never for once we stop to look inside and try to figure out

• Who am I?
• Where am I going?
• What am I doing here?

Never for once do we try to explore what could be the purpose of one’s existence, the innate preferences one is rooted and the innate potentials one is meant to grow towards. Yes, every growth in nature is heliotropic – growing towards the sun. And the sun – the ‘tat savitu’ – that we as human beings grow towards is our innate purpose, preferences and potentials – The Power Within. 

Maybe the disruptive climate that is here today and that which has been confronting us every now and then, is to awaken our consciousness of this power within and push us to embark on a journey of discovering the same. 

  

Discover one self

Once we have discovered this power the true inner relevance of an individual comes to light as one brings to life one's dream, rooted in the generative power of the individual. The road block to such discovery is our own smallness, powerlessness and worthlessness acquired as conditionings over millions of years across several generations.  

To able to move forward in this journey the first step therefore is to bring these conditionings to our conscious awareness. The second step is to accept these conditionings, which are lurking somewhere in our unconsciousness as an integral part of the unique ‘in-divi-duality’. The third step is exploring in the heights, through the power of affirmative and generative thoughts and words.

There are two beliefs which forms the cornerstones of this process of discovery –

1. In the world of perceptual reality all existence is dyadic - the day and the night, the birth and the death and the substance and the shadow. At no point in time can we, through this reality, view even a speck of sand in its entirety. The absolute reality however is non-dyadic which transcends the dimensions of time and space.  
2. All creations embody the true likeness and image of the creator just like the drop and the ocean – ‘tat twam asi’. Only when grounded in this belief one can be prepared to explore and discover higher than realized levels of participation and performance in human lives.

This article of mine was published in Deccan Herald on December 24, 2008. The original article may be downloaded from here.

De-mystifying Intent

About three years back, a protege of mine, came to me to declare with a sense of joy and pride that she had finally manifested her intent to be rich and famous. She announced with much elan that she had landed herself an envious assignment with a consulting major which would be taking her places (which also meant away from the miseries she was going through at that point in time) and will get her a fee which was more than ten times (in dollars) of what she could earn otherwise in India. To my astonishment, instead of feeling elated, I sensed a tinge of sadness in me. I don't know why. Infected by her enthusiasm and hoping and praying for the best to happen in her life, I held back my feelings and left her with my good wishes.

We weren't in touch for a long time until we bumped into each other a few months back. It took me some time to recognize her. Her attractive eloquent eyes were sunken and had dark circles around. The characteristic glow on her face had given way to a sickening pallor. The near-hour-glass shape she used to flaunt once had turned into that of a barrel. I instantly knew something was wrong. With concern, I whispered into her ears as I held her in an affectionate hug, "Good to see the prodigal return." And that was enough for the dam to break. In tears she described how her life was in a complete mess. Her relationship with her 'significant other' got screwed up so badly that she had to leave her home and family. She had landed in a legal battle with her partner which was draining money from her coffers like a receding tide. She had no one to turn to as her 'friends' and 'family' had distanced themselves. She was a complete wreck - socially, economically.

I instantly knew how it could have all happened. A pathological philomath she would be seen attending almost every other training program which had to do with ways of becoming rich and famous, quickly. She had also attended a rather expensive session on The Law of Attraction and The Secret and felt she had the answer. Inspired by the law, and driven by her greed, she did everything to manifest her desire, only to lose all of that and much more, coping with unfortunate events that had to come in her life to balance out the disharmony she caused for herself by manifesting something that had distracted her from her purpose of life. Yes, The Law of Attraction had become a Law of Distraction.  Savita (name changed) is not the only one to have been a victim of 'the law of distraction' and glorified greed mistaken for intent. There are many. Thanks to indiscriminate dissemination of mystical knowledge (which is called 'guru-mukhi-vidya' in India) and unguided practice of the same.     

Intent is a single-minded, self-affirmative and purposeful thought, directed towards
achieving a specific outcome, which galvanizes all energies and garners all support, magically, towards fulfillment.
The three words that qualify Intent and differentiate it from a greed-led egoic desire are:

1. single-minded - it's not another passing wish, 
2. self-affirmative - it's not a fear-led sponsoring thought and, most importantly,
3. purposeful - it's fulfillment justifies the very reason for the intendor's existence and contributes to the fulfillment of the Universal intent

The outcome that the power of pure intent drives is not conceivable by the logical mind. It is incredulous and exemplifies the power of divinity, dormant within.

In the above unfortunate instance and many such, where utmost misery has followed a flash of success, though there is lot of power and specificity packed in the thought, it is quite likely that the thought did not arise out of a inner sense of purpose. Most often than not, logical outcomes are envisaged and manifested outside-in, more out of desperation and a need or greed to get out of where one is. Leading to a temporary mirage of fulfillment, followed by mysteriously painful experiences.

So, what could be the reason for such painful experiences? How come they get manifested even if one has not consciously thought about them? 

To understand this mystery, one needs to have faith in the Cosmic Principle always working towards guiding us away from the path of perishment towards the path of purpose. The Existence is always re-organizing itself to make corrections and restore harmony systemically, even if it means causing hurt and pain, locally. Like a stone that, by coming in the way to cause hurt and pain, helps us to change our course of journey, so does a seemingly unfortunate event. Blessings in disguise, they are meant to bring us back in touch with our purpose of existence, thereby allowing Existence to fulfill its own purpose.

Misfortune often also serves as a catalyst to igniting of our intent. Real-life stories like that of ABCL and Mr. Amitabh Bachhan are testimonies of that.

Now, how do you think now that works? Feel free to leave your responses behind, if this speaks to you and reachme@indroneil.com if you intend to make a miracle happen in your life, without the risk of being hit by misery.