I understand

Criticism--I feel that it's a quality that we all love to inculcate. Everywhere there is a mad rush to cut others short and there is no knife stronger than criticism to do this. Whenever we  are angry, upset or impatient we love to spill a few harsh words that are going to break hearts. Obviously, harsh words never killed anyone, but they do kill our spirit, our heart and our optimism. I can't say I don't criticise, certainly I do it too, at times out of the years of habit, but over all I have discovered that doing it is not the best way to get things changed. What criticism does? It traps you in a circumstance that you are trying to escape and don't want to happen. Accepting a situation is the best way to handle it because the energy that's spent in avoiding it can be very well used in accepting it. And when does acceptance begin? Just the point where resistance ends. Hence, when we say, "Why I get trash all the time? Why people are nasty to me? Why no one loves me? Why I have to put up with idiosyncratic bosses? Why I can't be organised even once?," we create patterns that's going to trap us and we will find those patterns continuously repeating in our lives.

And these patterns repeat because by our thoughts we invite them. I always believe in small miracles and they keep happening with me, because somewhere someone wants to reinstate my faith in my belief. I might hear you asking, how do I chuck criticism when people are so sloppy, ill-mannered around me. I have to tell them that they are not right and if I don't criticise, how am I going to do it.  

The answer is that we are so trapped in criticism that we believe this can help people improve. Had it been so there wouldn't have been any need to criticise, because if we look everyone is right in his/her circumstances. In fact, there are no wrong people there are just different circumstances. It's how you look at things, but we are so much in love with our own yardstick that we try to measure everyone against it. Can one size fit all? Can everyone wear your dress? Of course not, then how can your standards be right for everyone. The best instance of this is driving on highway--where anyone driving at a speed less than you is a moron and at a speed more than you is a maniac.

In order to leave criticism you got to be accepting of people and as they say charity begins at home. You have to learn to accept yourself and everything the way you do. Allow your inner heart to flower, which has diminished because of years of criticism that you've heard from your parents, teachers, family, spouse, friends or boss and each time when you heard it something died inside you because you felt that you were trying your level best and still you can't make others happy.

Stop judging yourself from others yardstick and stop judging others from your yardstick. Start from today with the words--I understand and see miracles happen around you and everywhere.

Five rules which should be thrown to the dustbin

Since I’ve started writing blogs the basic problem I confront is what to write when I open the page. So many thoughts keep jostling the whole day in my mind to find space on the blog, but the mind goes blank the moment I am striking keys of my computer. This time I though I will write a blog on Five overrated qualities that should be discarded immediately. Here I go (these don’t gel well with me but you are free to form your own opinion)




MULTITASKING



Since I am a learning to quieten my hyperactive mind, I often withness the way it goes about. The moment I am at a task, my mind will immediately inform me of a pending job and I would leave the task at hand to do the pending job. While I am at it there would be another job that would flash in my mind and immediately I will drop the task at hand to do something else. This process goes on for an hour and at the end of it I am having five unfinished tasks at hand wondering why I am not good at doing things, and where did the time fly?Actually, there are researches to prove that when you multitask your efficiency goes down and most of the times you end up with a job that’s not up to the mark. Still, multitasking is regarded as a coveted virtue.



SLEEP LESS



Same is the case with sleeping less. In fact, it’s often worn as badge of honour as the person sleeping less is supposed to be accomplishing more in his every day life. I clock in my seven to eight hours of sleep everyday but I never disclose this to my friends because most of them are sleep deprived and I could smell jealousy when I speak that I am sleep satisfied.



WORK HARD



When I was a kid I would often hear my dad say that he earned money by the sweat of his brow. My dad was a banker and I would wonder why couldn’t he get the fan fixed so he doesn’t have to sweat so much. We are taught that we should work hard. But somehow with the adjective hard I can sense an element of pain like you’re doing something that you are not relishing. We should insist on working smart not working hard. Moreover, enjoying what you do is more important because then it's no longer work. When I introspect I feel that if I’m able to drive I’ll go to work because I enjoy what I’m doing.



LOYALTY



I just hate this word. Loyalty belongs to the British era because this word subjugates your mind and you are made to do something that you don’t like. Any relationship should thrive on love and affection. There is no greater force than love but loyalty is like chaining you to something that stinks. I would like to have an attitude of gratitude but not loyalty.



YOU CAN’T HAVE YOUR CAKE AND EAT IT TOO



I always feel like asking why can’t I? Since ages we have been tutored into believing that life is all about compromise, to get some you lose some, but life is generous, giving and nourishing. Find hard to believe! At first even I did thinking that I am underpaid and overworked that how can life be generous? Life works on a separate philosophy which is it gives you more if you trust it and to do that you’ve to thank it for what it has given you. But when you say I don’t, it mirrors your belief in life and you actually don’t get. Getting slightly complicated… Actually, even I am in the process of deciphering it.

New set of rules for life

 

Whereever you go or whatever you do you're are handed a guide book that helps you learn the skills fast, but life. Isn't it strange that life comes with no rules and guidebooks. We got to make our own. However, the way we view life is usually through the lenses that our parents, friends, spouse or family has given us. What does this imply? You are living your life through a set of rules which are not your. And you want your life to yield results as per your expectations. Just think, can a typewriter function as good as computer. You would even find the query silly, then how can� you live a life king size with rules borrowed from someone else? You got to create your own rules and debunk the ones that� have been handed down to you.

 

Life is simple. You got to give what you want to receive. It moves in circles. And there are no wrong people in life, there are just wrong circumstances and these people are victim of those circumstances.

 

I have set rules for my life and they are as follows--

 

 

1. I will approve myself. I will no longer be my worst critic.
2. I will thank God for his blessings. There are many people who would like to trade place with me.
3. I will not dwell on what I don't t have. This way I send out negative vibes in the atmosphere.
4. When God created me he had a purpose in mind. He loves me and is there to help me around. I will feel his grace and love all the time.
5. I will develop an attitude of gratitude.
6. I will be generous with people and this includes--a smile, a generous remark, and simple things like Thank You and Please to everyone.
7. I will do one thing at a time and dwell in the moment.
8. I will try to forgive and forget past, because anger hurts only me, no one else.
9. I will appreciate my body which tries to help me all the time, just the way it is.
10. I will keep an open mind and allow it to absorb new ideas, principles and thoughts.
11. I will believe in miracles.
12. I will trust in God.

I will fumble and make mistakes while learning new rules and allow it to happen as a part of the process of learning, because I am doing my best.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Meanderings of human mind

Since my days are not as hectic at work as it used to be, I have picked up habits of successful people that is going for long walks, brooding internally for the last four or five months and these days I am into meditation.

When you go for chanting, mentally you are chanting but when the outer cacophony of noises subside you can actually hear the inner turmoil which is if not less then equal to the outer cacophony. It's like being stuck on a jammed road where everyone is honking or you are there at sea shore and there are waves and waves coming.

You can then feel that your mind tries a lot to dictate you, it has a reservoir of memories which it can pull at an instant and then it will tell you how to react. Basically, we all have an interfering mind and it interferes a lot with our happiness by dictating how to react when. I always wonder that when the human beings intrinsic nature is to be happy why attaining happiness became dependent on stimulus which is always short lived. A stimulus can be a bigger house, a bigger car, a bigger bank balance, prettier you (plastic surgery), better behaved children, outstanding results of kids and so on and so forth. If you pause to ponder you will realise that all these achievements as we label them are so short lived and once you are through with them you are in hunt of another stimulus to keep yourself happy and the process goes on. In this hunt of happiness, we mostly accumulate unhappiness because when you are in the process of collecting possessions you might succeed you might not!

But I began with how mind reacts during meditation. I sat with my eyes clammed shut and my mind will speak--Last night the curry the maid cooked was not right, she hasn't learned a bit to be moderate with salt. And, YOU have warned her so many times. Hush! I say, Here I am into meditation and you are thinking of salt in the curry. The mind will persist, But, You know so much salt is not good for your husband, he has high blood pressure. I say, I know but I'll think about when I am through with meditation. Now can we please go back to the meditation. And then I start focussing on my heart beat. There will be complete silence of 5 -10 seconds before mind pops up a question. Since it's hard to rein in the mind, I give in.....

A prayer

There is a blog I follow called Insight. I read something interesting there and it caught my attention. The blog says that prayer should be the steering wheel of our life. Instead we have made it the spare tyre that we use when we are in crisis.

How true? May be that's the reason why we encounter troubles. In the mainstream of life, which usually whizzes by in moments that are hard to fathom and details not needed mostly, we skip on the essence which is connecting to the Almighty. Have you felt the super charged atmosphere of prayer? And this feeling evades religious boundaries. I connect to Almighty in a Sufi song, in a bhajan or in a simple prayer. But somehow I am not able to bind my prayers in a format. I find it stale. My prayers are conversational and I talk to God as my creator. Somehow I feel that serving humanity is also a prayer