Dr. Wayne Dyer - My man!

Ever since I started following him, I've been in total awe. Reading his works is inspiring. To watch him in action is a treat. At 71, he is as young and active as ever. There is this calmness that surrounds him.

His words are simple but effective. They may appear trivial, but has deep meanings. The best thing about him is the real-life examples he gives that make you realize, more than understand what he tries to convey.

I watched his movie, "The Shift" a couple of days back and totally loved it. It describes the shift in life, from being ambition-oriented to meaning-oriented. These days I often tend to think "What next?". I go to school, then college, get a job, get married, have kids and what next? Where am I heading towards? What is my purpose? What am I meant to do in this life?

Having worked for 5 years in the past, I somehow didn't have a sense of satisfaction in what I was doing, except for the fact that I was paid. What is it that I'm destined to do then? It is with all these questions that I watched the movie and was amazed by an example that Wayne gave.

(Sorry, if I don't communicate it as effectively as he does)

When you are in your mother's womb, you don't do anything, meaning, there is a Force that does everything. The Force acts on you, and you surrender to it. You don't struggle or resist it. Then why is it that you do all that once you are out and start growing. Why don't you just surrender?

This is exactly what the most-popular verse in Bhagavad Gita says too.

sarva-dharman parityajya

mam ekam saranam vraja

aham tvam sarva-papebhyo

moksayisyami ma sucah

Abandon all varieties of religion and just surrender unto Me. I shall deliver you from all sinful reaction. Do not fear.

Though I'm still not clear, atleast I know(hope I know) in which direction to move.

When can I surrender? Only when I ditch all the ego I have. Wayne said EGO is "Edging God Out"(love this). Ego is the false-self. It is basically the feeling of "I" am doing and "I" have the power to control what "I" am doing. I know what all this means, but all the confusions arise when putting everything to practice. The key is "Let go, let God".

Watch this album of the movie.

"Life is not a race, you don't have to run. You might as well slow down, take a look around, instead of chasing everyone.."

I just started reading Wayne's blog and am liking it.

Another video of Wayne that I loved.

"You don't criticize a gift......" Wow!

For those who are not familiar with him, do get to know him. You'll fall in love.

Nothing happens overnight

I happened to read this book "Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho, last month. A lot of people have told me that it was one book that nobody should ever miss, glad I read it finally. Better late than never.

I loved the way the author approaches whatever he wanted to convey. The outline of the story is very simple. It is about how a boy finds his treasure. But it has a lot of value in it. This, and the other book I mentioned in my first post "Excuses Begone", imparts a lot of similar values, but I like this book more. This was story-like, as opposed to the other, and you are forced(motivated) to finish reading it, only then will you know what the treasure was and where he found it.

This shepherd boy who lives in Spain, dreams of a treasure at the pyramids in Egypt, but doesn't know if it is something that he should go in search of. After meeting up with a dream interpreter and an old king, he decides to go in search of the treasure. For him to go to the pyramids, he has to sail to Africa and then cross the Sahara desert, which wasn't an easy task then. He reached Africa, all his money got stolen at a bar, he met a crystal merchant and started working for him, hoping to save some money and go to the pyramids. He worked there for a year, met a person at the warehouse who was going to Egypt on a caravan and set out on his journey. After a long and deadly journey, they reached the oasis where they stayed for a couple of months(due to tribal wars) and he set out again with the Alchemist, long after which he reaches the pyramids.

What fascinated me most - The boy didn't even know for sure if there existed a treasure at all. It was a risk that he took. Of-course, throughout the journey there were lots of instances when he thought he would go back home, but he chose to seek the treasure. One of the reasons, "I always was a shepherd and can go back and be one anytime". I could really put myself in this situation. I was always working(job), and could go back to it anytime. But the time that I have now is to find what I am really passionate about and proceed in that direction. I hope I succeed.

And I know that success doesn't come overnight. I cannot start doing something today and expect to see the "positive" result tomorrow, which the boy in the story never did. He, going in search of the treasure was by itself a huge risk and the time that he patiently waited and worked for it fully knowing that there are all chances for him to fail, is completely laudable, unlike me, who was flipping through the pages of the book restlessly, hoping that the boy would get to the treasure ASAP :)

A standing example is Anna Hazare. I read about him only after his recent "Fast unto death", but apparently he has been working for this cause for several years now, and it all finally paid off. I salute him!!!

The author doesn't impose anything on you, you can believe what you construe, and I adored this idea. A lot of very important things are portrayed very subtly, and I'm sure I missed a lot of what was said. Knowing what to expect from the book now, a second reading might be of a greater help.

No-internet ???

I always used to wonder if I would even survive a day without cribbing, if there was no internet.

The world-wide-web(WWW) was built in 1990 and slowly started gaining popularity henceforth. I consider myself a proud survivor of both the pre-internet and the post-internet eras.

If I have to take a bus to go out, I make it a point to check the bus schedule online, so I don't end up waiting at the bus stop forever, specially with the less-frequent buses. There is this iphone-app called "One-bus-away", which makes life still easier, it gives me a real-time update of each bus, almost like a countdown. Eventually all this is going to be of no use without the internet. I might have to wait for longer hours, difficult if its cold/windy/raining, but its manageable, I guess. Even if I have to take a car, I still have to look at the maps online for directions.

I have all my family and friends spread across the globe, so usually connect with them on video-conferencing(skype). The regular calling card works only for India-calling, so skyping is really of great help to stay-connected. Without the internet, I might have to pay the extra price of investing on an all-world calling card maybe, but I would have to talk consciously, so the bill doesn't take a huge toll on me. Hmmmm, getting tougher...

Planning to go out doesn't happen without checking the weather on the internet, which by itself isn't reliable totally, but at-least I get an idea on what to expect.

Thinking of those days when physically buying audio cassettes were the only way you could listen to music, and I used to give my mom a tough time asking her to buy me the cassette as soon as a film was out. Now, all we do is go online and hit the download button, and have hundreds of songs downloaded in no-time.

Gone are the days when I used to wait to watch a TV show on the TV per se. Its getting difficult to remember which show/movie is aired when, and also the advertisements are a big pain. There are numerous websites that lets you watch everything soon after they have been aired on TV. Its good, because I can catch up with them when I really feel like. Not forgetting to mention "youtube", you name it, youtube has it :)

The same is applicable to movies. If I all of a sudden feel like watching a movie, a lot of good prints of good movies are available online(not the just-released movies obviously) for free or for a reasonable monthly subscription charge.

Internet shopping, specially for electronics, is the easiest. Before buying anything, I look up on lots of reviews online which have really been helpful to compare and choose. Also I get to mention the exact specification I need, and it all gets shipped at my door. I have even sent gifts like cakes, fruits, flowers by ordering them online. Booking train and flight tickets online and looking up on flight stats have become an integral part too, and because of all these online experiences, we save a lot of time and energy spent on physical shopping and standing in queues.
Online banking and bill payments add to all this to make life easier.

Encyclopedias were a priced procession for me as a kid and I used be the proud owner of more than a couple of them. With the advent of wikipedia and a lot of other sites that house e-books, who cares of encyclopedias anymore.

I remember when I was young, my aunts who lived abroad, used to send photographs by post(mail). They took multiple copies of each picture, so they could send it to other families as well. They put all the photographs carefully in an envelope, on the top of which they wrote "Photographs inside, do not bend" and we used to wait for these, we were crazy of photographs as kids. Its hilarious to think of all this now, our kids are going to call us stupid, if they knew this was what we were doing 20 or so years ago. It became easier to take digital photographs attach them and send a single email to multiple recipients. But its the easiest now, with "facebook"(I can sense you should be laughing hard now).

Emailing pictures is considered a time-sucker now. I just have to upload a whole bunch of it on facebook, and I have the whole world commenting on them. The good thing is, everyone in your network gets to know what you are upto and you don't have to keep updating them individually. And all those public discussions really add spice. I recently caught up with a lot of very old school friends, and its kind of a nice feeling to see how they look like and what they do, after 15 years. With the advent of facebook and twitter, I almost stopped following the news as such. People talk about the most-current happening, and facebook has become a one-stop-place for everything. I tend to check the facebook update even before checking my email. Even without making regular phone calls or sending regular emails, I feel have this feeling of staying connected.

I can think of many more, but am writing just the obvious ones.

I am not ashamed to reveal that I chose this topic to blog on, only from the internet :))))))

Having said all this, I doubt if I would be able to relive the pre-internet era.

So, here I am, contradicting my previous post. I have become so "attached" to the internet that I consider my previous post invalid. Sorry for putting you through all the trouble of reading such a silly, stupid and senseless previous post ;)

"Attachment"less

Attachment has a very broad scope, from being attached to an object, a house, car, money, place, event, to people.

Attachment limits one's capabilities. Example, a doctor can't(usually) give the same kind of treatment to his son, that he gives to a stranger, because of attachment. This analogy applies to everything else.

Examples:

A job interview - How about attending a job interview and not giving a damn about really getting the job? I think I would perform more efficiently and be less nervous(which is what is required), as I don't care if the result is gonna be otherwise. This also means, performing one's duties to the best of one's ability, without being worried about the consequences(the essence of Bhagavad Gita).

Writing an exam - How about writing an exam without keeping in mind the marks you wanna be scoring? I had never done this all my life(I wish I had). All I used to care, was about the important questions, the model papers, writing answers in terms of the answer key, etc., rather than really concentrating on the knowledge part of it. I did score very good marks, which is the only thing that mattered at that point in time. When I think of it now, 12 years after I did my schooling, I consider myself a loser, for having gone behind marks, and not giving my best shot at attaining as much knowledge as possible.

What we think we desire today, might be right very temporarily, but may not hold good on a broader perspective, like my previous example. The irony is, in the present, we don't even have the slightest idea of that broader perspective.

The best way out, is to live an attachment-free, desire-free, anger-free and contentment-filled life.

The more you desire to have something and attain it, the more attached you are towards it, and you feel all the more bad when you tend to lose it. The more you desire to have something but not attain it, you still have to go through the pain of not getting what you wished for. Don't you think its even better not to desire for something, so you won't be attached to what you get?

Living a non-attached life doesn't mean you are going to live a zeal-less life. Your life is still going to be all fun and adventurous, and in addition it is going to be less-complicated, which will, in-fact, give you more happiness. Consider you have planned a fun outing with a group of friends after a very long time and you have been long-anticipating that day. How would you feel if the plan doesn't workout because one of them couldn't make it? I would experience one of these two - anger, if the reason for his non-showing was lame, and pain, if he still had a valid reason. Either way, I'm gonna be affected. My being attached to this whole event will make me feel worse. Isn't it better to stay non-attached? It means, if my friends show up, I'm gonna have all the fun under the sun, if they don't, I don't really care :)

To sum up,

mayi sarvani karmani sannyasyadhyatma-cetasa
nirasir nirmamo bhutva yudhyasva vigata-jvarah

Therefore, O Arjuna, surrendering all your works unto Me, with mind intent on Me, and without desire for gain and free from egoism and lethargy, fight.

-Bhagavad Gita 3:30

After 28 years...

The last time India won a cricket world cup was even before I was born, and it happens again today. Though I could watch the live match only in bits and pieces, the feeling is beyond imagination. Though living in a country far far away, the heart always stays at home.

If I, who was a mere spectator catching the match on my computer, could feel so tensed, imagine the tremendous pressure mounting on the whole team, specially on the skipper Dhoni. Dhoni is beyond imagination a composed guy. Its very rare for him to show extreme reactions, be it joy or pain, that too in the course of a game like cricket. I wonder how he handles the pressure of such kind of matches with such ease. He truly is a big inspiration.

The team spirit that the guys showed was evident. Apparently this victory wouldn't have been possible without the feeling of oneness in the team, each of them were focussed on nothing but getting the cup home. Fantastic!

Even though Sachin's contribution in today's game wasn't really significant, every member of the team was happy for the most outstanding player, who has played for the country for more than 20 years and yet this was his first world cup victory, that too at his home ground. What more could anyone want, but of-course in one corner of the heart we wanted him to complete his 100 100s in one-day cricket. With such victory today, we'd better feel more than gratified for what was achieved today.

I remember of times when Dhoni, was highly criticized for the team's poor performance in a lot of matches(dont remember which of them or when), despite the fact that he did win the T20 world cup. He was condemned for a lot of his decisions. He did take a lot of crucial decisions in the last couple of matches in the world cup, like replacing Ashwin with Nehra/Srisanth or he batting in the upper-middle-order today, which he mentioned during his captain's talk. He said his decisions luckily worked out, in a very sarcastic tone. I would not be surprised if people criticise him again, forgetting the world cup he got for the country after 28 years. Success is not permanent(in-fact nothing is). Please respect it.

Not to forget what Sangakara spoke. He said he was disappointed, but happy that the better side won. Not sure what, but there was something in him that I thought, made him look very dignified and poised.

I heard some people saying that the 1983 and 2011 calender are the same. Not sure whether to call it time or destiny or the team's hard work or the combination of destiny and hard work at the right time, that made them taste success. Like we've always heard, nothing comes easy :)