Fulfillment

Modern civilization focuses a lot on acquiring wealth and enjoying the luxuries of life, simply because it has become easily possible for anyone with a professional degree to tread that path. While wealth and luxury is not anything wrong, there is a portion of life that needs to be looked at.

Fulfillment.

Your heart senses emptiness whenever you do things only for the sake of doing. You feel a drain in Energy and you attribute it to just making your living and say “I am supposed to do this to earn my living”. An article on Lonely planet couple of months back made me to think on this term fulfillment and it took me 2 months to understand it to an extent that I can write it here. The article was about an Italian cook who simply said “If I had the money to live, I will cook for free”.

Would you do what you love to do for free?

A recent episode of “Who wants to be a millionare” equivalent in Tamil aired with Actor Arvindswamy as the game player. He was largely a modest man that none of us knew him about. He made a simple statement towards the end, “Whatever you have or you achieve will rot someday including yourself, what matters is with whatever you have and whatever you are, did you make the best, did you have a fun and fulfilling life?”. Ask yourself and look around what you have. They will all decay someday. So go and make the best use of them right now, Don’t postpone your fun!

Let me point to our modern day problem. People are so mixed into the daily affairs that they fail to differentiate between mundane tasks and fulfilling ones. Here is a surprise for you, Every task that you do has an aspect that can give you fun, even if it is really mundane. For example, my job requires me to do Excel and Powerpoint work. While it may sound boring, it is actually fun when you look at how you can think and put your own formatting and presentation. It is a like creating an art on a canvas, free to do the way you want. The requested data didn’t change, but the paint and brush are mine.

By all means, fun is the one that leads us to fulfillment. When people say this hindi phrase “Mazaa aagaya” (means “Had fun”), it means they loved doing something that striked a chord in their heart and made it quiver and the simple phrase popped out as a form of expressing that. Fun is the simplest and basic form of having fulfillment in life.

Yes, you may ask what about ambition and charity.

Ambition or what people call Aim in life is just to give a serious face paint for the basic and core aspect of necessity – “Fun”. It is mostly influenced by successful people. You can find a hell lot of folks in the world who are influenced deeply by Bill Gates and Steve Jobs and then they formed their “Aim” in their life. What they don’t know is Gates and Jobs had fun in doing what they did and they never really would have thought their ambition was to get here. They may have been lead to this place step by step. So don’t rush yourself as well. Fulfillment is not about ambition. If you want fulfillment then think deep into your childhood. You will know that the things that you do to have fun gives you a good night sleep and pushing yourself for a career and ambition makes you lose sleep. If you slept well, it means  you did something fulfilling. Fulfillment is larger and beyond than Ambition.

What about charity? If you do this because you have extra money it is meaningless. But if you are able to sense someone in need and provide them with that, without a need to be recognized for your name to appear in a placard, that would give you happiness. This is also actually a kind of fun because it excites in a way for just doing it and not expecting anything in return. You just did it and you did it purely from your own will with absolutely no influence from others and also not because you got some extra cash this month. This is fulfillment, otherwise it is just a celebrity show off.

My friends, all these days, every single one of us have been looking for nothing but Fulfillment and giving several names to it. Some are after ambition, some think charity, some think family, some think career aspirations. At the end, none of them alone will purely give you any permanent fulfillment. The permanent fulfillment is only in the way you see and handle your life. Whatever you do, it has a serious aspect and a fun aspect. The fun aspect gives you fulfillment while the serious aspect keeps you straight and focussed. Both are needed and if you can direct serious aspects to your brain and let the heart see the fun, you will have a fulfilling life in whatever you do. You will not go after fulfillment once you begin to see this. I hope I made some sense.

Have a fun and fulfilling life.

Time

Time is not the clock. Clock is used to measure the time with numbers. Year, Month, Date, Hour, Minute, Second give us a certain feel that time had a start and definitely there will be an end. But we neither know the start nor the end. Time as such is just an experience of our life externally and a corresponding feeling of that situation internally. The experience of life keeps changing but it is repetitive. Perhaps Time is cyclical. Think about it, everything is cyclic – Day and night, the 4 seasons year after year.

If time was linear, the Earth would have been on a clean long endless straight super highway with no traffic jams and all our clocks would have been an infinitely long inch tapes instead of circular devices. So what makes time look linear. Our age. Our body ages linearly with cycles of time. Our experiences mature as we move along several cycles of time. Our response to the external forces are different each time based on our past.

If Time was not cyclical, we may never have the same or similar opportunity again in our life. We might as well live a life of repentance and guilt for our committed mistakes and never redeem ourself. It will be depressing and hopeless. Time will test you in cycles and time will give you the luxuries of life and take away in cycles, good and bad all of it in cycles. What will matter will be our reaction to the same or similar looking situation again. If God meant for you to learn empathy, you will be faced with that situation again and again until your perspective of the person is altered.

If time was really linear, we wouldn’t have to do the same thing over and over again. Same breakfast, lunch, dinner over and over again in cycle. Work, Money, Hobby, Vacation in cycles. Hindu belief is this cycle extends to birth and death, incarnations after incarnations.

So if Time really worked in cycles then is there a point in our life where one cycle ends and another cycle begins? Is this a point of hyper jump when we can slip out of the never ending Time cycle into another dimension where time comes to a standstill and we simply exist in harmony for ever without the need for anything in life, without even feeling the compulsion of the passing time? Is that the real freedom? Is that a hidden dimension we have glimpses of once a while without our knowledge and get pushed back into the cyclical Time to face our weaknesses and continue our learning. Do the events like Mahasivarathiri, contain these points of hyper jump?

Where do I begin? Where do I end? What time it really is? and What really is Time?

Only Time can tell!

Pain

No Pain, No Gain. This is one of those universal Mantras. But what is the level of pain that one can tolerate before we break down. Sadly, we find out the limits only after we break down, when it is too late.

Let’s briefly classify the causes of pain as known and unknown.

Pain can come to us in any forms. One of it can be from a stressful day at work, or over stimulating by watching too much TV, overeating or generally overdoing something. But since these kind of pains are known to us, It is possible to regulate them. But think of the pain that can be caused by unknown factors, a death of a loved one, an accident, an unexpected long day at work. These can be some of the unknown causes which we cannot control.

Pain is inevitable in life. Anything and everything in this world would ultimately lead to some form of pain. Even as I type this, my fingers would pain a little after I finish. But that didn’t stop me from typing because my objective of experiencing this pain is so that I can express something useful to the world. Pain is not all bad then. The key to pain, is channelizing it for the right purpose. We have no right to cause pain to others, but if we can give a little bit of pain as a medicine to others, for their own development then it is not wrong at all. For example, if you want to teach a student on a particular subject, you can give him an assignment which would pain him to search through materials, collect the points and format it into an assignment. That pain for that student is necessary for his development.

So what is bad about Pain then, if pain is anyway inevitable?

There comes a point in life where we get blinded by selfish motives that we are not even aware that we are causing pain to others. We may ourselves be experiencing some pain and we would simply be subjecting others to that pain, in a sadistic way. That is unwanted pain. Pain that you would cause to a lot of people to satisfy your ulterior motives, your childish, selfish and perhaps egoistic motives.

One way to solve this problem is to become aware of the consequences of your action just like how you would predict the chess moves. There is pain in everything, but why should we become the cause of the pain to others and to even ourselves, when that pain is not developmental in nature. When you become aware of the consequences of your action and when you determine that there is unwanted pain in it, ask yourselves why would you still want to perform that action?

When there is no unwanted pain in this world, there will be real world peace.

The Money Resolution

Resolutions are made every new year and then broken into pieces, buried and forgotten. Unrealistic resolutions are the cause of this every year. I started 2012 with a completely ridiculous resolution of developing a six pack and buying an Enfield classic 350. There was no pack and no classic.

2013, Realism is the key to successful resolution is what I found and along with that a mechanism to remember it every day and take real actions. To remember the resolution I simply created a list called “New Year resolution” in Wunderlist app (which I will try to review) and added an action item in the same app to read this list every day. This will solve the forgetting problem. The One resolution that I thought I could share with you all is Money. The problem is Money itself but more than that the problem is we don’t realize that fully.

Money is like water that likes to flow and spread. As long as you have Money in your account or as cash in your wallet, you will be tempted to spend it. If you feel wise and don’t spend it, it will find its way out through some other means like impulsive and unnecessary purchase, illness or worst cases theft. You may know this by experience.

Let me highlight the keywords – Flow, Necessity.

Regulating Money’s flow and tying the spending to necessity can make you the master instead of being enslaved by Money’s power. Chanakya Neeti quotes this in one of the passage. Money has power, blinds us and puts us into unnecessary spending and attracts unwanted elements, if not handled wisely.

Regulate the flow, by creating systematic investments every Month/Quarter/half year. Depending on your income choose RD, FD, PPF etc., For example you can Open an one year RD every Quarter or Half year for a certain monthly amount. I had been doing this already but the difference is it will be systematic and it will also be with an awareness of “Regulating the flow”, and not investing or locking the Money out of fear.

Write down a wish list of necessary things to buy. Spend your money on what is needed. You will feel good about and would have successfully directed your money for the right purposes. Those that are not a necessity tie it to a reward. For example, if you delivered a project successfully, go ahead and get your iPad. You will feel motivated. If you bought an iPad with neither necessity nor a reward, it will only blow up your ego and leave you with a sense of emptiness or without fulfillment.

Remember, the moment you get to a point where you will have excess money it can go two ways. You will be tempted by its power and do crazy things like open an IPL team or you will feel that you have achieved and want to see the value of life beyond Money. Directing your money for the right purposes and realize your dreams is a choice.

Ultimately, the power of your will is stronger than anything else and our goal is to have our Will at the strongest, so Money can never enslave us into a vicious and ridiculous lifestyle.

Remember the forgotten

Hello All. The last post I wrote was somewhere in July 2010. This is a solid 2 years ago. November of 2009, I had returned back from US and a change of place had a deep impact. My priorities changed, my routine changed and in effect I had forgotten so many of my habits of the past. Many a times, I would come here to write something only to get pulled by the world into something else.

As I sit here with my 12 days old Chicken pox, I had nowhere else to go but stay at home and recover. I am almost recovered now and in the process, I began to see myself inside. I saw the things I had forgotten, things that I used to do, things that I relished and enjoyed doing it just for the sake of doing. I had forgotten all that I used to do with no strings attached.

One of it is this blog. The world of Maduraiveeran. I want to make a comeback. I want to see what difference can a 2 year break do to my writing. May be my topics will be different, may be my ideas and opinions would have changed, but I am sure the core of it, essence of my expression is probably going to remain the same. If I write one blog post, once every week, then I am happy.

I am remembering the forgotten. I am recovering.

Patanjali’s Keys to a Peaceful Mind

I came across a simple and profound line as I was reading one of the most loved literature in Spirituality – The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, Translation and Commentary by Swami Satchitananda.

This sutra was powerful enough that it can stand alone by itself and be applicable to each and every one of us, regardless of what we are currently doing.

The Sutra goes:

By Cultivating attitudes of friendliness toward the happy, compassion for the unhappy, delight in the virtuous, and disregard toward the wicked, the mind-stuff retains its undisturbed calmness.

Just 4 keys and we got our peace of mind all the time:

Friendliness:

By default we can set the state of our mind to Friendliness. If we find a happy person, who is better off, then instead of avoiding him/her out of Jealousy or shamefulness, we can become friendly. If we are friendly to a happy person, he/she is going to share the happiness and probably lift us to that state. Hey, if we are friendly to someone who has a car, he can give us a lift to work. Wouldn’t that make us happy? (and of course, It is not just about the happiness from money, but happiness in general).

Compassion:

Nobody wants to be unhappy. But at some point because of our ignorant choices we experience pain. To such a person, instead of blaming them for their pain, we can try to understand their pain and be compassionate to them. For example, we can be compassionate to a sick person, instead of pointing out his mistakes. He probably knows that already. There is no need to increase the pain.

Delight:

If we see a person like Mahatma Gandhi, we can be delighted. We can see the nice qualities they exhibit and try to adopt them to an extent in our life. This might come easy because, we are easily inspired by popular personalities.

Disregard:

No one is born wicked. We can always be Friendly or Compassionate or Delighted towards any person. But if we come across any wickedness, then the best thing to do is to disregard them. Any amount of advice will just fly off their head and may probably pull us into their rut.

We do not need to be associated to any form of religion or spiritual path in order to follow these for our peace of mind. A slow transformation of attitude of our mind with these 4 keys, is bound to do wonders.

If we practice this like riding a bicycle then we don’t need to remember them, it will just come to us automatically. No one can take away the peace of mind that we deserve.

Our Peace is our birthright.

Many Thanks to Sage Patanjali and Swami Satchitananda for a beautiful Commentary.

Teacher and his Teachings

There was once a teacher living in a small village. His teachings were simple:

Love and be Joyful

People had deep respect for him and adored him very much. The village had transformed into a heaven under his moral guidance. People helped each other, treated each other with equality and respect. There was brotherhood all around.

One day …

The teacher died. His time was over, his body was no longer suitable to live and he left. People were sad. They were depressed and hurt by his demise.

They took a vow to celebrate such a great man’s birthday every year with a holiday.

Years passed. The man who kept the thread of fraternity was no more available to keep that thread alive. People forgot the thread. They forgot love. They forgot equality. They forgot respect. They forgot Joyfulness.

But they didn’t forget the teacher. They promptly celebrated his birthday every year. They even made sure every organization and school declares holiday during his birthday.

They love the Teacher every year during his birthday. But they forget the teachings to love the person right next to them.

Who is important? The Teacher or his Teachings? It can’t be both.

Silence

This blog has been under a long silence. It is not surprising to me because there are breaks in life and sometimes they are short and sometimes they are long, very long. But what really is Silence?

Is it that you don’t speak any word and that means silence? Or is it that you don’t express anything and that is silence? or does silence mean no noise or no sound? So is that the way this blog has been under silence? But if that is the case, why do I still get hits and some people read it and even leave comments? Just because I didn’t blog for a while, did this blog stop expressing? It was silently expressing. It had nothing new, but its past has been reverberating the walls of blogosphere for a while.

Why am I saying all this?

It is difficult to explain and express Silence in a few paragraphs, but I am attempting this here. I don’t care if this attempt fails miserably, because I have already agreed that it is difficult to explain silence.

When you stop speaking for a while, you slowly start seeing and feeling your body even more than when you speak. You start performing activities with your body by paying attention to your body. But a lot of times this attention span can fluctuate. Sometimes you concentrate very well, like when you are out on the street to take some photographs, but sometimes you just do certain things for the sake of doing like filling a document at work.

Why is this difference?

The difference is our mind. Our mind naturally tends to move towards something that we desire, something that we like, something that we love. So if you love photography, you work with all your senses, mind and heart that your body responds to it automatically. But when you do something that you don’t love, you leave it to the brain while your mind wanders. Mind is a thought machine that can keep running infinitely like a never ending Indian Soap serial. Your mind will think about anything from next meal to the next movie that you will watch.

So if your mind keeps working after you stopped speaking and after your body is done with its activities, is that really silence?

No, if your mind is working out thoughts constantly, it means it is not observing silence. Mind is a part of you that also needs to rest like any other part of you. Mind has to be silenced as well. So, we sleep and we feel great the next day. Sometimes even as we lie down and sleep we keep having dreams and nightmares and we are not really in a sleep state. We end up waking with a bad headache or perhaps wanting to curl back and sleep more.

Silence is thus the state when all of your words, actions and thoughts completely stop.

What would that feel like? For a person like me, it is very difficult not to think. I just keep thinking one thing or the other. How else do you think I come up with such stupid blog posts! A lot of books and resource on the internet can help you find the definition but Silence can only be explained by experiencing it.

If you go by the definition for Silence that I gave above, you can look for it within you and try to find it. Because, in silence there is peace. Your mind is not working, especially not working conflicts of decisions coming from head and heart, which is probably the worst battle that Humans ever fight. The fight within.

How do we stop it and how do we experience it?

The answer is you don’t try to stop it. Because if you try to stop it will come back again with more power and more variations. It is practically uncontrollable by your force. So the answer is find the gap between words, actions and thoughts.

- When you speak, take a pause between a sentence or a few words and enjoy that pause. There is silence in it. Because when you pause your speech there is a tiny moment of blankness before you restart your thoughts, form the words and speak.

- When you perform an action, pause between steps and relish that pause. There is silence in it. For when you stop your action, there is a tiny moment of blankness before you work your mind again and go to the next step.

- When you think, pause between thoughts and meditate on that. There is absolute silence in it.

That is real Silence. The Silence within you. And when you experience it more and more you can feel the silence lengthening and it will give you new thoughts that give answers to your problems and probably a solution to put your thoughts to rest, probably a solution for the problem you were thinking about.

Ever wonder why you feel so great when you listen to some great music? Your conscious mind stops having thoughts and starts loving the music. The silence in you lengthens causing you to be more at peace. This applies to all things you love. When you do what you love, you do it with very less thinking because everything that you want to do just comes to you with no effort. You exert no additional force to think, you just let it flow. You only think that you are thinking while in fact your mind is actually allowing free flow of creative thoughts through the gaps of silence.

A lot of answers can actually be found by feeling that gaps of silence. Experience that silence, that is real silence. External silence is temporary, internal silence is with you all the time even when they are playing loud devotional songs with jarring speakers in your street.

Silence is indeed Golden.

This is just a summary of message that I inferred by reading from a few resources. This is not mine, but this is everyone’s!

You There?

Vishesh, the Swami Smileyananda has tagged me to do a Tag of his own called Smiley Tag. The objective is to spread the smile and I took it literally by doing a post based on Smileys. I actually had done this post sometime back and kept it in draft for a long time. I waited for the right moment, but completely forgot about this post until now. I think It was meant to be posted for Vishesh’s Tag.

When people Instant Message you at work with a “yt” which means “You There?”, the way someone answers to that question can tell a lot about the situation. Let’s see what they are:

HAPPY STATE

“yt”

“Yes, what’s up! “

- A descriptive answer followed by a smiley. This respondent had a good tasty lunch and probably got a pat in the back from the boss or got a raise or going out for a fun party in the evening. He is just happy about something and he is much obliged to answer your questions.

I CAN ANSWER YOU

“yt”

“Yes, What’s up!”

- The person is not really in a good mood, but can take a few questions from the requester. This person is vulnerable to spiral down to Case 3 if not handled properly.

BUSY NOW, THIS BETTER BE SERIOUS

“yt”

“Yes!”

- For “yt” all I can say is I can acknowledge my presence. If you are planning on asking any questions for help, it better be serious. Don’t say “I need to borrow a post it, can I come to your desk”, because these questions can spiral him down to Case 4.

CRISIS, NO MORE QUESTIONS

“yt”

“s”

- Just one letter abbreviation of Yes. That’s it – s. The person is busy doing a lot of other things. It is really not advisable to ask anymore questions to the person unless you are the boss or boss’s boss and so on. Simply acknowledge his presence and move away, other wise you will push the person to Case 5.

BUSY WORKING MY A** OFF

“yt”

- The person doesn’t respond. He/She simply turns on the busy indicator on the Instant message client indirecly indicating to scram and not to bother. Do not dare to walk to this person’s cube, wait for the person to get back to atleast Case 3.

A Comic with all of the above emotions of “You there!”

Of course this applies only at work and not for Gtalk and Yahoo IM clients

If you like to spread the Smile, go ahead and take this as a Tag and do your own post that will make people Smile

Pictures from: http://www.wikimedia.org

Randomize(Things) * 25

Amrutha has tagged me to write 25 Random things about me.

What is Random? Is it something that is not in particular, that doesn’t belong to a category, something that you just pick with no reason associated with it?

But here is a truth, That particular thing is a Random thing only until you pick it. But the moment you pick it, you have it in your hand and you know what it is and you know how to categorize it. A Random thing that you picked is not Random anymore. It is sort of like Quantum Physics.

The Random thing that you are yet to pick can be anything from Freedom to Boredom, but the moment you pick it, you will be able to see that it is your Kingdom. You have a specific thing in hand now, not a Random thing.

Anyways, Here are 25 Random things from my life which became specific after I picked.

1. As a Kid, I once tried to look under the Godrej Bero (Armoire) and got my head stuck there.

2. Once, when my uncle was sitting in the living room, he pulled my head out, from under the Godrej Bero. Somehow I can relate this with point 1.

3. I used to be afraid of Rats, that my Grandma used that fear of mine to feed me (Not with Rats, but Just Food, Not Rat Food, but Human Food)

4. In those days, a candy used to cost 5 Paise or 10 Paise. That became my salary if I help out on a chore at home.

5. The First Rajinikanth Movie that I ever saw and liked was “Murattu Kaalai”.

6. The First Kamal Hassan Movie that I really liked was “Vikram”.

7. I used to make cricket ball out of a small stone and wrapping Paper on top of it, very tightly.

8. I used to play cricket on the terrace of our house with my homemade Paper ball. The ball was very durable until you hit that out of the terrace into the ditch in the road.

9. I once went into a dreamless deep sleep state when I was alone in the house. Calling bell, Violent shouts and Knocks on the door didn’t wake me up. People had to break in and wake me up. As a prize for doing this, I was given coffee.

10. I used to be among the shortest in school, but somehow I became relatively taller in College.

11. The first Six I hit was in my 6th Std, No one could believe I was capable of hitting Six, including me.

12. I learnt to dance from my Younger brother, who was a Natural dancer.

13. I wanted a Younger Sister who I was going to name as Kavitha. I consider all the Kavitha’s that I come across in my life as my Younger sister, except the older ones.

14. I was a Car Crazy Kid. I used to have a Sack full of Toys that were variety of cars.

15. I have the fear of Unknown. I am beating this fear by trying to know as much as I can.

16. When I used to live alone as a Bachelor, the moment there is a Power cut at night I used to come out of the house and sit in the balcony, unless I am in deep sleep.

17. I learnt the Guitar for 3 months and then quit. I still have the wish to learn to play someday.

18. I once won an impromptu competition to sit still for 1hour in school during Yoga Class. I have no idea how I did that, because I am unable to do that now!

19. My First Crush was when I was in 12th std, over a 11th std girl.

20. My Second crush was when I crushed a lemon with my bare hands for making Lemon Rice as a Bachelor.

21. My First car was a Fiat Palio which I sold before coming to US.

22. My First cell phone was an Ericsson world phone, which I lost in an Autorickshaw in Bangalore.

23. My First jeans was a local branded jeans named – Hara.

24. This blog is my second innings.

25. I found my Humor sense in this blog.

If I equate 1 Random thing to 1 year of my age, I am still left out with 5 years. Instead of writing 5 more things, I will just tag 5 people whose blog I read, but I don’t have them in my blogroll yet, because I am terribly lazy!

They are – Gauri, Chutneycase, Anu Ramakrishnan, Inbavalli, Kavi.

The Philosophy behind Recession

This is most probably what is going on everyone’s mind right now. “A Recession! Why God Why!”.

Why should this happen to us! There are already a lot of people who are very poor and struggle for even a single meal every day or for weeks, and now we have people losing jobs. The world is now consisting more and more of hungry and jobless people. Even those who are fortunate enough to have jobs are upset because their buddy, who was working with them for 10 years is no longer there with them.

Why is this all happening and what exactly is the lesson behind the recession.

From an economists point of view one would point to unwise business strategies as the reason and the lesson is to spend wisely from here on.

But if we think deeper, there is actually more of a philosophy to be learnt from this recession than just economics.

The Object of Illusion.

Everything that is materialistic exists because we need it, we want it, we lust for it. The electronics company makes 50,000 mp3 players because there are atleast 50,000 people who want it. But now due to recession there are probably only 30,000 people who are looking to buy these devices. A common man looks at this as a bad thing because it reduces the circulation of money. But think further. What if there is not one single person, ready to buy mp3 players, not because they are cutting on spending, but because they have given up the lust for such a device.

MP3 players will no longer exist.

Consider the house that you bought a few years back for $200,000 in a quite residential area. It was a beautiful house and you thought that it was definitely worth 200 grand and will probably be worth more in the future. But with this downturn you just discovered your house is worth much less. So how much is your house really worth? Here is the answer in 2 points that is very difficult to digest:

1. Your house is only worth how much a buyer is willing to pay for it and it can also be just ONE DOLLAR!

2. If there are no buyers willing to buy, your house is not worth anything in terms of money.

But here is an interesting thing, Your house is worth all of it for the memories and good times that you have there. So doesn’t this mean that your house being worth $200K was just an illusion? You see, that is why our ancestors were not willing to sell their homes not because they are attached to the monetary worth of it, but because of the memories and good times they had there.

The concept of money that we have is just an illusion!

I am not asking you to give away all your belongings and become a saint, all I am telling is if you are able to realize that the money that we made is just an illusion, you will no longer need to become a saint, you will already be in the path of one. This is easier said than done. It is a Journey into the reality and It won’t be easy but the only way to see it, will be to take up the ride, and travel, perhaps with rest stops.

Everything Belongs to Earth.

Now that we have identified money is an illusion, let’s go back to our house. How was that built? Did God build your house as a gift to your good work? Nope! Your house is just a complex physical and chemical composition of Mother earth that a stranger built it for you in exchange to an illusionary object called money. So the house is just actually Earth! It belongs to Earth! You just bought an illusionary object with an illusionary concept called Money. What kind of an illusion is this! The one that will completely blind us I guess.

Again, I am not asking you to sell your house or not buy any house in the future or give it away and live in caves. If you are able to think and realize that everything you own, including your own body ultimately belongs to Mother nature, Mother Earth to be specific, then it doesn’t matter if you have a house or not. Why do we struggle for it then, when the whole of Earth naturally belongs to us? If you are willing to accept this idea, then you are ready to take up this journey upon you.

A Living example of this would be Bill Gates. He is the richest and now he gives away his wealth and the world is becoming better because he has probably realized this. He has taken up the Journey of the real life, after completing his illusionary life. Bill Gates was born to be Bill Gates. When you realize it, you will also know that you were born to be you. You don’t have to struggle to become like Bill Gates, You just need to be you.

You will now see Life from a completely different perspective.

You will now understand that Recession is just another illusionary state created from things that were already an illusion. You will have a lot of questions, but they will be answered. Time has the answers for everything. When time answers you, your twitter messages will begin to look like mine

Of course, you will not be able to think of any of these without your survival. Once you take care of your survival needs and once you are able to take care of your survival needs as you go, your journey will be much more smoother. This is exactly why we donate goods to those who don’t have. We are helping them survive and think beyond survival.

In Indian customs, the idea of giving food and water to guests is to satisfy their survival needs. Once their survival needs are taken care of, they will be able to see the things around them beyond all illusions.

All of this is just my humble opinion. Your thoughts are welcome in the comments.

The Purpose of Life is to undertake this journey of breaking out of all these illusions.

Tag: Tamil and Hindi Songs

I love music. I believe music of any form puts us in touch with our inner self and gives us a sense of freedom. Reema has tagged me to list some music that I love. Music is always fun.

I grew up listening to some English songs, a lot of Hindi songs and a boat load of Tamil Songs. While Tamil songs were the main form of music I was listening to, my uncles introduced me to the world of RD Burman, Manna Dey, Kishore kumar in the Hindi World. My friends in School and College made sure I got some earful of Bryan Adams, Guns n Roses, George Michael.

My music love is from the 80′s, 90′s and the present time, though I prefer the oldies too (the ones that came before I was born).

This tag is about picking the songs that you loved and I will be listing 1 song each from the 3 periods of Time I have been in this Planet.

80′s:

Ilaiyaraja ruled the Tamil world. His melodies were more of a fashion statement. He brought freedom, love, compassion, happiness, sorrow in his songs, in a very unique style.

Ilaiya Nila from  Payanangal Mudivathillai (Journeys never end)  is one of the best from those times.

90′s:

Things had to change and it had to change because of one man – A.R.Rahman. The musical Genius was absolutely splendid right from his 1st album – Roja.

Thee Thee from Thiruda Thiruda is a mind blowing love song. This song is almost 20 years ahead of its time.

Latest:

Apart from A.R.Rahman and Ilaiyaraja we have some decent music directors in Tamil like Yuvan Shankar Raja, Vidhyasagar and Harris Jayaraj. I am going to pick one song from the lot and the only reason for picking this song is this is my daughter’s favourite. I think she likes Surya. She smiles wide when she sees him on screen.

Adiye Kolluthe from Vaaranam Ayiram.

If I have to call 2 Hindi movies that brought me into the world of Hindi Movies are Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak and Tezaab. I really love this song.

80′s:

Kehdo ke tum from Tezaab

90′s:

Aamir Khan is a versatile actor. Rangeela is one movie where he surprised me. It was a role I never expected to see him in and play it with such an ease.

Mangta Hai Kya from Rangeela

Latest: (well almost)

Continuing on my belief that Aamir Khan is probably the only lead Bollywood actor that acts well (apart from character artists like Naseeruddin shah, Om Puri), I like all the songs in Dil Chahta Hai, but this one is the best.

Jaane Kyon from Dil Chahta Hai.

What’s your list? Would you like to share? Go ahead take this as a tag and put it up in your blog, if you got an interesting list. It can be any of the Indian Language.

Interview of an Ordinary Man

I believe that every living species in this universe deserves to be interviewed in its own way. Because, with respect to that living species, a lot of important events happen around him/her, which is definitely a worthwhile information to share with his/her fellow living beings.

Aparna is interviewing me with the following questions and as a blog friend, I am very much glad to answer her interesting questions.

1. Which actor and/or politician would you like to meet? What would you talk to him/her?

There is not really anything in particular that I will like to talk to any person, because I believe what is more important is to hear whatever the person wishes to say rather than what you want them to say. And So …

I would like to meet one Actor – Superstar Rajinikanth. Spend one full day with him in his office. There is a lot of humbleness to be learned from this legend.

I would like to meet M.G. Ramachandran ( I know he is dead, but there is no other politician I would like to meet from the current times). Spend one full day with him in his office. It is known that he doesn’t allow any of his guests to leave without having food with him. There is a lot of Hospitality and Kindness to be learned from him.

Other than an Actor and a Politician there are people that can give us a lot of life lesson. I would like to meet a Buddhist Monk in a Monastery and live there one full day leading the exact same life that he does. I would also like to invite him over to my home in Madurai and spend one full day with us. There is a lot of life to be learned from him.

2. What is your opinion about the occult?

There is nothing called Supernatural. Everything is natural. Supernatural is just a perception of humans who cannot explain something. The realization has to be that everything including us is nature. Existing with the nature, respecting ourselves and the life and things around us, is the true purpose of life.

3. What have you learnt from your kid?

How to lead my whole life moving forward. A Kid is a reflection of yourself and when you are able to see that, you will begin to love everything in life.

4. What do you think is the best – Barney/Elmo/Barbie/Lego blocks/ cars/trains/ the box any of these came in – or wait…your mobile for your kid? ( you could replace or rephrase this question )

The best toy that my kid has ever got is not Barney or Barbie or the Blocks. They are just material toys that can be interesting for a year or so, but would run away with time. The best toy that my kid has ever got is me and my wife.

This is also one thing that I learned from my kid. Often, we are stuck in a rut to find the best toy that the kid will love to play or learn with, but we forget that we, as parents, can be the best toy ever for the kid to grow up with. I certainly believe she loves to go on an elephant ride with me better than just punching some buttons in her toys. The best thing about parents is, they never get boring, they last a lifetime and they need no battery replacement.

20 years down the time, when my daughter is old enough to read this post and understand what I meant by this, and comes to us and hugs us and whispers “I Love you Dad and Mom”, we will know that she has realized that her best toys in her life were her parents.

5. What is the advice you would give to your younger self – say when you were a teenager? (I liked this question from Teeni)

Considering how I am now, There is no need for me to go back to my younger self and give him any advice. I will let him face the bumps, hardships of life and end up where I am right now, because it all turned out to be just fine. In a way I am happy that it happened that way, so there is no need and there is no point to change what happened before.

Now, I would like to interview my readers who are interested. If you are willing to take this interview, please do the following steps:

1. Pick any one of the question from the above 5. Just one question and not more than that.

2. Answer that in any way – 1 word or 1 line or 1 paragraph or a nice 15 mark essay with diagrams and flowchart.

3. Publish it in your blog or put it as a comment (If you don’t have a blog) or start a new blog and publish it(because, this could be a good reason to start your blog).

Looking forward to hear from you. Thank you for reading this.

Love and Peace.

The Valentine Light

Light, originally uploaded by ubababu.

Let the Light of Love Shine on you. Happy Valentine’s Day!

PS: You can checkout my Flickr stream on the Sidebar, or just Click here.

Commentakshari

Did you like to play Antakshari while going on a trip during school or college? We used to love it because, whenever we cannot think of a song for a letter, we just sing “Tunuk Tunuk Tun, Tunuk Tunuk Tun, Tunuk Tunuk Tun, Tanana!”.

This particular tag reminds me of that game, where you sing a song starting with a letter the previous person ended with. The rule of this tag is similar to this:

You are assigned a letter by the person, when you leave a comment and the person has to write 10 things you like, that starts with that letter.

I am assigned the letter ‘R’ and these are the 10 words I like that start with R.

RAIN

I love the smell of the ground when the first drops of rain fall. I love the rain that falls for an hour and disappears after that to reveal a mild sun through the clouds. It is a very pleasant feeling. It is like the nature wanted me to cool down for a little bit.

RISK

Sometimes you need to take risks to get what you need. While I don’t like to call myself a big risk taker, I like to take risks when it really matters, when I feel that I am supposed to take that risk.

RIVER

It is a unique property of water to blend with the shape of its surrounding. When water flows in the plains over sand, rocks and plants, a beautiful phenomenon called the River is formed. The sand and rocks might not be beautiful by itself, but when the water drapes around it to form the River, it is simply amazing.

REFINE

There is always room for improvement. So, I keep myself open and refine as and when I can.

REFRESH

A nice calming cool shave and a face wash or warm shower or a evening cup of tea is always refreshing. But refreshing is more than physical. So I like to empty my mind of whatever I have been thinking once a while, that way I can allow fresh thoughts to emanate. That doesn’t mean I forget, it is just that I clear my cache and browser history and start afresh once a while. It is refreshing and I like that.

RESOLVE

A problem has to be resolved and I like it when I have to resolve. I do not like it when I don’t resolve or if it doesn’t get resolved.

RANDOM

Because everything around us seem to happen in a Random fashion. I like Random and I dislike it at the same time and that makes that word very special.

RAILROAD

I like to look at the rails during the train journey. I like the way it splits and joins. It is like, it is alive and does all this as the train moves.

RESPONSIBLE

If I take a task, I like to take the responsibility of doing it on myself. That is the only way I can do it whole heartedly and give my best.

REJECT

It is not a very positive word. But it can be of tremendous importance when used in the right sense. The challenge of creating something is not in knowing what you need, but in rejecting all that you do not need. Once you master the art of identifying and rejecting what you do not need, you will be able to create what you need. I am not a master at this, but I try to do this.

Now, It is your turn. If you would like to play “Commentakshari” you can pick the starting letter of the word from your comment number. For example, if you are the 3rd commentator, you can pick the first letter of the 3rd word in your comment. If you do not have a blog, you can write your words in the comments section. If you do not like to play “Commentakshari”, you can comment on my post but you are free to reject it and move on.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to All!