Be Happy and cheerful!

Everything life offers is prasad—blessed by the gods. Good and bad experiences, people who love you and those who hate you, are all sent here to teach you. Go on to achieve your highest potential. Look for the highest in others. Know your purpose on earth, the highest that God created you to become. Question injustice. Stand up for those who cannot fight, speak for those who have no voice. Speak gently and with love. Receive this prasad, compliments, gifts and encouragement with grace.

Bhutha bhavya bhavat prabhu hu. When the Lord of the Past, Present and Future holds you in the palm of His Hand, why worry?

They say, don’t be (HALT) too Hungry, too Angry, too Lonely or too Tired. If you are able to handle or prevent these four states of being, you will not be swept away into actions you will later regret. The capacity to control and soothe yourself, as one would handle a frightened horse or a hysterical child, is an essential coping skill. To deal competently with loss, failure, insult and distress are major issues that face a person whose HALT is out of sync. Positive self-talk helps in such situations, be prepared to sacrifice, to wait and do not rush to gratify every desire. Continue with your life’s work and you will be healed. A high-tolerance level when faced with frustration is due to the capacity to motivate oneself. Motivate yourself to heal.

Be Aware of Your Stress

Stress is destructive. Stress is ageing. Stress is a killer. Thirty-six chemicals pour into the blood—lethal chemicals like adrenaline and histamine. Blood rushes through the heart, blood pressure and pulse rates shoot up. The rate of breathing increases. The body gets ready to fight or flee. Digestion is switched off. All parts of the brain, except the primitive ‘lizard brain’, are switched off.

The force of blood-flow in an enraged person causes minute tears in the tender fabric of the arteries. Fatty deposits find a convenient place to park themselves to repair the tears, and cholesterol, the plaster of paris of the body, slowly builds up to occlude the artery. Soon the tender flexible artery becomes stiff and hard, preparing the stage for a heart attack.

The good news is that there is hope at the end of the tunnel as people are becoming aware of the stress epidemic and are making conscious choices to not become just another statistic. A fundamental shift in leisure time and spending priorities has taken place in recent years. This includes higher budgets for movies, personal fitness, meditation, holidays, adventure sports and fine arts. You have a much better chance of doing what you love as an artist, sportsman, musician or film maker today than ever before. Meditation and pranayama provide a way of reducing the automatic and violent reactions to stress. You can actually control autonomous systems like heartbeat and pulse rate, which were thought to be outside the individual’s control.

Happiness is a choice

Contentment with whatever you have is the greatest path to happiness. Comparison with those better than us makes us discontented. Comparison with those who are worse off makes us proud and arrogant. Shanti or a peaceful, calm mind, suffused with affection and compassion, makes our field a happy one while spreading like a fragrance to embrace all those around us. Everyone has only two choices—life-enhancing and life destroying. An event is not as critical as is your reaction or perception of it. It continues its life inside you, a nuclear landmine of memories that wreak far more destruction than the actual event. The more mindspace you allocate to unhappy memories, the more time you spend in the past while being a spectator in the living present, the more you miss the joy the present moment offers. At any given time, the past should not inhabit. The ability to planning our future,  should be devoted to a rational planning exercise, not aimless daydreaming that nibbles at your day like a rat in a godown of rice. All of us need a tender, loving caretaker within who nurtures us, not an internal drill master who victimises us in an insulting and disparaging tone, sucking out all our energy, enthusiasm and happiness.

Time for Growth and Learning

How to solve problems in the great textbook of life? There is no use solving problems in other people’s books. Concentrate on passing your own exams. Your life provides you with a chance to achieve the highest in yourself, by using pain as stepping-stones to enlightenment.

No one can avoid bad times, but you can ensure that you look at this time as a time for growth and learning. When the mind -numbing pain that immediately follows loss has subsided, you can take proactive steps to provide emergency attention to heal your body, mind and spirit.

Pour music into your soul. Touch people who love you. Explore new places. Reach into great books and study alternate futures. Pamper yourself and ask your loved ones for hugs.  Meditate. Be silent. Plug into the universe. Let go. Let God catch you. Your sankalpa or intention must be pure. Be clear about your goal. Be non-judgmental. Love and seek to understand with tenderness. Learn and immerse yourself in knowledge. Learn all you can about your chosen field from books, internet, from people, competitors. Remain focused. Never give up. Never, ever.

Steps to Increase Your Happiness

The world is in your drawing room, it is clamouring to change your life with more and more sophisticated toys. As a popular saying goes, ‘What separates the men from the boys is just the price of their toys.’ Simplify and go home to what you really need.

The world is like a buffet counter at a five-star hotel. Let’s not grab everything on our plates. Let us be choosy, so that we may avoid spiritual indigestion and physical exhaustion.

 Let us replace stress with positive emotions that engender joy. Let us increase our Happiness Quotient (HQ).

Finding a job you love is one of the ways you can immunise yourself against heart problems.

A good marriage is a protective shield against heart attacks.

Merely avoiding negative emotions is not enough; one should consistently cultivate the positive emotions of love, compassion, courage and peace.

Stabilized Growth

Building a life is not like putting up a building, but more like growing a tree: slower, organic and evolutionary. It cannot be done in a hurry. Like Nature, human development, in order to be healthy, has to follow a slower, more stable timetable. Those who seek to speed it up beyond a point will have to pay the price. The price may be of their own lives. Many have died to live up to some unrealistic modern myth of yuppiedom and success.

Genetics may enable us to accurately identify those who have a predisposition to heart disease, and take defensive action like following the Zero Heart Attack Path well before there is a problem. Interventions where the heart can repair itself with help from genetics are under discussion. But the fact is that each one of us can find a powerful ally in Mother Nature to repair our ailing hearts. We can do it naturally and happily with help from our families and friends.

We must also never forget that knowledge without values is the abyss into which mankind may unknowingly fallen.  You do not have to be a bean counter negating your soul for a few rupees more.

Relaxation Technique for your life

Music has the power to purify the emotional field like nothing else.  Pranayama helps you sing without losing your breath. The mindspace becomes sweetly harmonious and no harsh words can be spoken there. Here is a quote from Rabinranath Tagore’s Geetanjali:

“I touch with the edge of the far-reaching wings of my song, thy feet which I could never aspire to reach”.

Every day we should choose the sounds that allowed into our field. Perhaps we could set a song for the day in our mind. Those who met us would see the sparkle of that song in my eyes and feel the rhythm of its harmony in our, limbs. Why should we allow foul language into our mind?

‘Shabdh or sound is Vani Saraswathi, the Goddess of Learning. Words are sacred to her. Choose to say beautiful words, to hear lovely words. Banish harsh, angry and foul language from the inner spaces of your heart. A sure happiness killer is stress, hence beware of it. 

Create a Green and organic Environment

You can create a sustainable environment around you. This happens when you treat the Earth like a friend. Replace whatever you take from her with love. We need to stop doing many things to achieve a sustainable, clean environment. No Plastic bags, no empty shampoo sachets. Carry a cloth bag.

Each of us has a personal responsibility to fulfill. Each of us has a personal duty to do something to spread the message. Use all communications for life changing, life affirming activities, Stop complaining. Do…do Something.

The Carbon footprint is measured by the CO2 or other greenhouse gases created by an object, person or action. Each of us needs to aim at a lower carbon footprint. MCAfee estimates that 78 percent of all incoming e-mails are spam. 62 trillion spam messages are sent every year! The turning point is here. If we do not read the warnings, revolution is at our door. Let us not be caught unawares. We can still save planet Earth ourselves by being proactive.

Life –Ultimate Class Room

We have so much waiting for us. Each of us comes into the world with a need to learn many things. Life is the ultimate classroom. Each of us has different problems to solve, tests to pass. Events will swirl around us uncontrolled, regardless. Our response is something we can control. Choose to say beautiful words, to hear lovely words. Banish harsh, angry and foul language from the inner spaces of your heart. Perhaps you could set a song for the day in my mind. Those who met us would see the sparkle of that  song in our  eyes and feel the rhythm of its harmony in my limbs. 

Social Bonding

No man is an island, but a part of the Main,’ said the pensive poet John Donne.  Man is a social being, and interpersonal intelligence is the ability to understand other people.  It is to be able to see what motivates them, how they work and how to work cooperatively with them.  Interpersonal intelligence is the inward sense of being able to understand oneself, to form an accurate model of oneself and to operate that model effectively to live life.  Professor Howard Gardner of the Harvard School of Psychology told me that the two aspects of personal intelligence, interpersonal and intrapersonal, form the most important foundation for a happy, fulfilling life.  To those who define success as happiness, these two elements can be the bedrock of a happy life.

Sensitive people can empathize with others.  They can understand the feelings of others as though they were feeling it themselves.  This skill involves being able to pick up subtle verbal, tonal and non–verbal signals from others.  Charismatic leaders are able to reach others by breaking the barrier that exists between people.  A charismatic speaker can make thousands of people react like one mind.

The Upanishads say that the divine spark or life force exists in all—the leader, the leper, the judge and the criminal.

The concept of a life force is recognised in all cultures. It is called Chi by the Chinese; Light, or Holy Ghost, by Christians; Prana by the Hindus; Mana by the Kahunas and; Bioplasmic Energy by Russians researchers.

Toward an Innovative Workplace

The lack of resources forces us to innovate:

§ Tough times help us adapt.

§ Tough times force us to think outside the box or even eliminate the box.

§ Everything changes—people, products, companies; men, materials, machines, methods, markets and money (the six Ms).

§ Creativity is the spark and innovation the fire in the fireplace, which cooks and bakes.

§ Creativity involves four components—the Creative Person, the Creative Process, the Creative Product and the    Creative Climate or environment.

§ An environment replete with the positive emotions of love, peace, bravery and compassion provides a positive climate, which nurtures creativity.

§ Creativity training at IBM, whose motto is ‘Think’ resulted in producing the largest number of patented inventions.

§ Innovation should be part of everyone’s job description.

§ Vision and leadership are necessary to inspire a widespread commitment to innovation.

§ The lack of collaboration between departments stifles innovation.

§ Motivation of employees and innovation complement one another.

§ Team work drives innovation.

§ The ability to thrive in an environment of rapid change is essential.

§ Money and resources are essential lubricants of the innovation process.

§ Conformism and stereotypes hinder creative problem solving.

§ Innovation should be focused on specific business goals.

§ An open atmosphere ensures greater productivity.

§ Efficient meetings are a trademark of innovative organisations

§ Innovation centres drive innovation.

Learn to Deal with Others and their Feelings

A drug addict once explained the difference between sympathy and empathy. He said, ‘You can never feel anything but sympathy for me and what I need is empathy.’ The he said, ‘Empathy is the capacity to feel my pain in your heart.’ To be ‘socially tone deaf’ * can lead to a life littered with broken relationships. Develop the capacity to pick up subtle verbal, tonal and non-verbal signals from others. Learn also the ability to send out soothing, nurturing signals to others, thus creating a positive interpersonal field.

Unlike in a magnetic field, where positive attracts negative and vice versa, a positive, emotional and spiritual field, attracts positive people and events and, in addition, transforms even a normally negative person into a positive one.

‘How can I develop this skill?’ I ask. ‘Practice working with people and listening to them with the same attitude as you would towards a beloved child, or respected parent. Your word, tone, your very glance should be completely focused on the person. Don’t dilute the interaction by playing with your Blackberry, talking on your cellphone or fiddling with your laptop. When you are with someone, pay complete attention. Anything less will only elicit a lukewarm response. Those who can create positive fields around themselves attract and build lifetime relationships.’ 

Nurturing work place

Many of us spend most of our time at work. If we do not enjoy our work, if we feel overwhelmed by it, it will surely damage us. The constant pressure of negative emotions causes inescapable damage to our arteries and other delicate tissues. It also slows down the body’s capacity to repair this damage.

To work at something you love, to be ‘self-actualized’ in Maslow’s terms, is to protect yourself against dying young. As Khalil Gibran wrote, ‘What is it to work with love?... It is to weave the cloth from the strings of your heart, as though your beloved were to wear it.’

Politics can make the blood boil with suppressed rage and unexpressed anxiety. ‘Fast tracking,’ being a corporate star, will extract the inevitable price of damage to arteries if you are not ‘mindful’, if you are not aware of the impact of everything you do on your system.

Reisman speaks of the ‘lonely crowd’. Loneliness, a sense of exclusion, is a poison that can cause illness as easily as a virus or bacteria. Loneliness is the most lethal of modern diseases. For example, newly widowed women have a higher rate of breast cancer than married or single women.

Nurturing work place

Many of us spend most of our time at work. If we do not enjoy our work, if we feel overwhelmed by it, it will surely damage us. The constant pressure of negative emotions causes inescapable damage to our arteries and other delicate tissues. It also slows down the body’s capacity to repair this damage.

To work at something you love, to be ‘self-actualized’ in Maslow’s terms, is to protect yourself against dying young. As Khalil Gibran wrote, ‘What is it to work with love?... It is to weave the cloth from the strings of your heart, as though your beloved were to wear it.’

Politics can make the blood boil with suppressed rage and unexpressed anxiety. ‘Fast tracking,’ being a corporate star, will extract the inevitable price of damage to arteries if you are not ‘mindful’, if you are not aware of the impact of everything you do on your system.

Reisman speaks of the ‘lonely crowd’. Loneliness, a sense of exclusion, is a poison that can cause illness as easily as a virus or bacteria. Loneliness is the most lethal of modern diseases. For example, newly widowed women have a higher rate of breast cancer than married or single women.

Healthy home nurturing positive mindspace

A healthy home would be a healing space, a nurturing positive mind field. It can be a place where all wounds are healed. Alvin Toffler wrote ‘The family is the giant shock absorber of the family to which the bruised and battered individual returns after doing battle with the world!’ If your home is not a sanctuary but a battle-field do something about it. Get help, maybe professional help. Reserve time for laughter and happiness—schedule time for it, like you do for your work.

Have a rule to avoid difficult topics during meal times or bed time. Music, if is soothing, can be a powerful force for peace. The very walls absorb the vibrations of the music. Mantras can do the same for your home. I sometimes feel that if music can be infused into the mindspace so that it plays quietly in your mind, as the background to your day, it can have a really soothing affect. Avoid violent, depressing programs. Just as you would not allow a terrorist into your home, do not allow such programs into the sacred space of your home. You surely are the protector of the field that exists in your home. Make your home fragrant with incense. Clean and sparkling and beautiful. Respectful of the sacred forces that can animate your home.