Total Recall - Nature

My fascination for gardening has always been there. I guess it’s in the blood. As a child, I would go and bury seeds after eating fruits and wait for it to germinate. No camera’s No mobile!!. The excitement of seeing its progress every morning was very very different. We had no idea about the technology of composting or anything called NPK. Every peel from the kitchen and dried flowers from God’s idol would go the soil. Leftover food would either go to the regular Amma….Thai ….wala Beggar (a traditional call beggars give to the women  while seeking alms in Bangalore) or it would be mixed in the water and fed to the cow (Lakshmi).

Every morning Laksmi and her owner would come  inside the building to deliver milk – fresh and straight from under the belly!. We as kids would fight over tying her to our gate. While the man would milk her, she would be busy shitting. My mom would leave no opportunity  to collect the dung – a natural fertilizer and toss it in one corner of the soil in our garden. Effortlessly fruits, flowers and veggies were produced in the garden. Each one of us would take turns to pluck the flower for my dad’s daily prayers.

The most beautiful part was that not only we survived on these produce, but also the did birds , squirrels and innumerable creatures in the garden. They happily nested and reproduced. Those days we didn't find any of them greedy. Whether it was guava or papaya (with loads of seeds in it), pomegranate or Plantains, everybody got their share fairly. Our garden was loaded with colorful butterflies and honey bees without any effort. I don’t even remember if we ever bothered to add any extra nutrients to the plants.

Today, while my mom who is in her late 60’s, is happy gardening not just inside the building but also in the neighborhood, I am struggling with  few pots ,mealy bugs ,maggots and constant menace of high flying pigeons in my apartment……..

I guess my mom’s secret still lies in the kitchen !!!

Art – A matter of the Heart

Art is a creative expression of one’s thoughts, feelings and emotions. It is the manifestation of what a person wants to say to oneself and the others around. Art is a limitless representation of love, sacrifice, jealousy, hatred, sarcasm, disgust, joy and many other emotions. Art is a wonderful way to express feelings and to feel the beauty around.

People have the tendency to misinterpret art as work of lines and colours. However, it goes beyond pulling a few lines and beyond dabbing of multiple colours on a piece of canvas. Writing, dancing, singing, interior designing, fashion designing, acting are just a few of many forms of art. While some art forms use words as a medium of expression, some use music as base. Some use creative expression of gestures and body language and some colours. Art knows no rules, no logic and most importantly no boundaries.

An artist uses his or her boundless physical, mental and spiritual faculties to generate masterpiece of an orchestra, dance, portrait or a simple recipe. An artist is someone who follows the Heart, believes one’s own instincts and breaks traditional rules to realize his/her goals. He/she thinks what ordinary people do not and follows the path least travelled. An artist creativity comes out in the form of shades and lines, tones and colours, postures and gestures or prose and poetry. It is the quality of living in one’s own world that positions artists apart from the rest of the world. Many a times, we see a passionate singer hum songs with closed eyes, a passionate dancer  rehearse gestures and passionate artist draw crazy lines oblivious of the  surroundings.

Patience, perseverance and practice are the three virtues that keep an artist going. An artist needs to practice a long time before he/she attains perfection. The wait can be days, months, years or decades. An artist apart from hard work should learn from failures and persevere through difficult times. Success does not come easily, but criticism does. An artist needs to breathe his work every moment. It should become part of his existence and this is possible only through practice and continuous improvement. Patience, perseverance and sustained practice over a period of time makes a Master, which is why great works of art, are called Master pieces. A master not only inspires but selflessly imbibes his or her skills into others with unending love for his or her art forms.

If you look at the world as a vast canvas, you will notice that the beauty lies in the irregularities. Sunrise and sunset never look the same on two days. The moon constantly waxes and wanes. All trees, flowers and leaves come in different sizes, shapes and colours. The skies are clear and blue on one day but cloudy and grey the next day. Come to think of it – no two human beings are similar. When the creator did not put a structure to what he created, it makes no sense restricting any form of art within boundaries of definitions and traditions. Art in any form is defined by the beholder. The meaning of art may vary from person to person depending on what touches one’s heart. Experiencing art in its totality lies in immersing oneself within the feelings and emotions that manifest and engaging oneself in dialogue with these emotions and feelings. Art cannot be bound by a structure. It  simply has no rules. ART is a matter of the HEART!

"Choose - but not to lose"

Aristotle, the great Greek philosopher, said, "Man is a social animal. He who lives without society is either a beast or God". Actually, man is by nature and necessity, a social animal, He needs people in his life at every step to care, share and nurture self.

One of the most important and most difficult things in life is managing relationships.  It is simply because you cannot be a sutradhar (puppeteer) to control any relation. Whether the relationship is good or sour, you cannot be alone responsible for it. Whenever you encounter a problem, you think in your own perspective, strategise and control other’s actions. You expect others to follow your way which can lead to frustration in any relation. There are many ways to gain control of such situations.

Firstly, If you can’t change a relation, it is better to accept it as it is. This will in fact take care of most of the problems. Secondly, It is also not a bad idea to change yourself to suit the needs to solve your problems. All this looks good to read. But, how much of it is feasible in your real life is a question that needs attention. Let us look at a couple of perspectives to this issue.

It is important first to redefine the problem and then look at it from an external perspective, dissociating yourself as a character within the problem. When you start looking at the problem from a different perspective, it gives you a broader, less emotional vision. It is also important to remove the external negative forces which influence the problem. That gives a completely ‘objective’ look to the problem, devoid of emotions, devoid of personal judgements.

Another way of tackling a problem is to find its root cause. It may be stressful, but this will help solve many more mysteries to the problem.

If a situation is due to the actions of one person in the family, you tend to tolerate that person as an obligation or duty towards  family. It might seem impossible to remove this person out of your life due to emotional obligations. But how far are you willing to go with this person and how much can you tolerate? If this person was not part of your family, would you still tolerate?

If you believe that your family is forever, then you must remain loyal to all in your family and spend a lot of time with them.  If you’re fortunate enough to have a close family that is genuinely supportive of you, that’s excellent! In this situation, you will find the closeness of your family to be a tremendous source of strength to fight any problem.

On the other hand, if you find that family relationships are incompatible and hindering with your personal and professional development, then this can be extremely disempowering. The best way is that you need to look deeper in your roots of values and belief system. You need to redefine the meaning of relationships. As I always say trust and expectation are the two things you need at every point of life. This will help you understand your expectations with your family. Many a times a small communication will help you resolve most of your conflicts in relations. A candid dialogue always helps clarify perspectives of parties involved, thus eliminating unintended interpretations and judgements that lead to conflict.

As Anthony Robbins says” The way we communicate with others and with ourselves ultimately determines the quality of our lives “.

Either you should transcend the problems and find a new way to continue your relationship without meaningless conflicts, or you should accept that you’ve outgrown the relationship in its current form and give yourself permission to move on to a new definition of relationship.

As you say goodbye to a problem, you are also saying a good bye to an old part of you. Once you have decided that you have outgrown any relation, you need to get rid of the negative thoughts and mental conflicts related to that relationship. The real reason behind the negative thoughts could be a deep attachment to the problems. By removing the negative thoughts, you also remove  negative  people out of your life – not just physically but also in thoughts. Most of the times,  your mental state reflects the change in your physical world.

You are what you think. If you don’t like the situation you think you are in, then stop thinking about it immediately. Whenever you get in to any problem, you always tend to find a fault in others and hold them responsible for your miseries. For example, if a family member is dominating you, you feel your life is too much controlled by that person. Instead of finding a solution for the problem, you tend to blame your destiny and in turn you develop a stronger resistance towards the problem. If another person exhibits controlling behaviour towards you, you may be unable to change that person. However, if you feel you need more control in your life, then you can actually do something about it directly without needing to control others.

Trust me, there is a wonderful life waiting for you and you are the master of it. Whether you resolve conflicts or let go of it, this whole process helps you understand yourself better. As you get clearer about your conscious inside, you can handle yourself much better outside.

What appears to be the end may really be a new beginning!!!

Simple Mind

Life would be simpler if we accepted everyone at face value. I always wonder what it must be to live life simply - just simply, without thinking too much. Its become so much of a habit for our mind to analyse emotions , thoughts, intentions around every behaviour of others. Its become so difficult even to accept someone’s laughter or a smile without the urge to mentally probe and wonder if he is actually happy or faking it. Its not easy to even celebrate the success without wondering if it is really worth. The most critical one is that, the mind refuses to accept the written facts too.

We take a longer time to take any decision because our mind doesn’t accept the sweetness without a tinge of bitterness. Basically we are not used to experiencing only sweetness in life - It seems just unrealistic for something to be good or positive in an absolute sense. Our brains love to solve complicated things or rather love to complicate things as they work 24/7. Do we call this intelligence?.When we start analysing the gestures ,emotions ,we eventually tend to get hurt deeply. Many times we fail to discern between the truth and perception.

It is important to understand the difference between thinking deeply and suspicion. Our brain does not understand the difference because all it knows is to follow the program fed into it. I have also seen that we are many times misunderstood for suspicion when we actually are too concerned. But too often we do not realize that we hurt our loved ones  just by showing our concern. We tend to loose out on large things for small things which are important to us but may be miniscule in a particular context

Actually accepting all things at face value would certainly simplify our life. But it is easier said than done. The issue is  - how do we train our brains? Can we simply ignore emotions in some one ‘s eyes. If we do so ,what would be the difference between us and other living beings?

At times, we are at cross roads of our life. We do not know which path to take. It makes our life more complicated. Our brains anyways love to complicate things . We do not realize that the solution is so simple and easy, yet the complexity created by the overtime efforts of our brain makes it hard to understand.

I think the key to make our lives better is the Simplicity. Bringing simplicity in our life is not  an easy thing to do but it is not impossible. Simplicity not only includes simple food and living but the most important one is simple thinking. I do believe our food says who we are and our living says why we are. Simple thinking is what makes us what we are. Two major factors that help simple thinking is TRUST and EXPECTATION.

Trust is the DNA that runs through any human relationship. Bonding between two happens only when there is trust. Your life becomes much simpler if you trust yourself and people around you, most importantly your loved ones. Our life would be  much simpler if we are able to understand people and trust them to be who they are . Instead we trust people to be who we want them to be, and when they’re not we tend to get hurt and complicate our minds.  So, hold the hand of the person whom you love rather than expecting them to hold yours...

The other factor is Expectation. Expectation starts right from our birth - first people expect from us and by virtue of that, we start expecting from people, as we grow and learn from them. Our brains gets so used to it that for every behaviour, something has to be expected. If not anything - atleast  emotional reciprocation. Just take a minute off, drop expectations from your mind and continue with your work - trust me, life becomes much simpler. If  you don’t expect, you will never be disappointed as it is rightly said in Bhagavad Gita “Do your karma, without expecting results. Results will follow as a consequence of your Karma”. Expectations are most often related with emotions. We always tend to expect others to behave the way we want. This makes our life more complicated. Not to expect anything from anyone is the key to Simplicity.

Expectation is often misunderstood with goals . Goals are necessary for us to work harder. Goals helps to follow the right directions. Many a times, people are too unreasonable to themselves by setting unrealistic goals and expecting to achieve them. Goals many times helps us find our purpose of life. Simplicity  will surely help us to  have a positive outlook of our life, and accept people at their face value yet understand their emotions and not imposing ours' on them. Being simpler in actions and thoughts is the key to heart.

Not to forget Mahatma Gandhi’s quotes “Live simply so that others may simply live”.

Change - The way of life

Change is the omnipresent law of life. Change is a constant event in our lives . Look around you and there is change everyday, every moment around us, including our self.  Change spares none - be it people or things associated with people. Change could be for a good job, a loving relationship, money, health or  spirituality to bring peace of mind. These changes in turn bring about a change in place , life style, thoughts, actions and people.

Change is happening every minute of our life - then why are we so worried about the change? We are so worried about changing jobs, places, houses and other things in our life. The word 'change'  haunts our mind so much that we don’t let go of worst things we are used to living with, even if we are offered the best  of things. It is like “known devil is better than an unknown angel” ,which actually means that we know we are going to have an  angel in place of devil  with change but we refuse entry to that angel, simply because we are grown so used to the comfort zone offered by the devil!

Two major factors are associated with change. One of them is RISK. Risk is something that many of us are not willing to take. Too often we do not realize that risk, like many other things is omnipresent. Whether you walk on the street or sit under a tree or stay back in your house, you carry risk with you. Risk is like our shadow, sometimes it is in front of us scaring or sometimes it is at the back quietly following us. It really depends on us were we would like to place it. By avoiding risk, you are only refusing to acknowledge the presence of it! The truth is - it is there. Just because you close your eyes and refuse to see it, doesn’t make it non-existent.

The next one would be FEAR, the fear of losing. Most of the time we fear losing good things while changing for better. Being positive about change always helps. It is important for us to understand our goals or motto in  our life with greater clarity. Finding courage and having faith that things will work out brings positive change in life on its own. Everyone acknowledges that change is part of their life , but very few accept that is reality of our life.

I have a different perception about change. I relate to change not just as a transition or tranformation. For me, change means adding a new life, a new meaning to me. Change is the birth of new ideas. Change is the key to invention,  innovation and exploration. As someone rightly said “Your life does not get better by chance, it gets better by change.”

To bring any change in our life, we need to change our attitude, our perception. We need to understand the result of the change. Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.

Change can be very stressful but remember it can also bring success and happiness along with it in our life. There is nothing worthwhile in this world that has not gone through pain be it birth of a new baby, a new idea or a new nation! Remember the pain, trauma and rioting that India had to go through in the run up to our independence. Hence it is very important for us to be ever ready to change quickly and again and  again. As Winston Churchill said “To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.”

Not to forget Gandhi when he said "Be the change you want to see."