Articles - Asian Age

My Articles in Asian Age
Uday Acharya
www.linkedin.com/in/udayacharya
Managing Trustee, Vidya Vaaridhi Trust
Promoting educational, cultural and spiritual activities
http://sites.google.com/site/vidyavaridhivedanta
Managing Director, Mindflex – The Learning Organization
Training with a Heart
www.mindflextraining.com
A-101, Mani Bhavan, 11th Road, Chembur, Mumbai 400071
uday _ acharya at hotmail dot com

Asian Age articles by Uday Acharya
Dasahera published in Mumbai Age on Oct 24th 2004

Diwali published in Mumbai Age on Nov 7th 2004
Guru Nanak published in Asian Age on Nov 21st 2004
Vedas published in Mumbai Age on Nov 28th 2004
Meditation published in Mumbai Age on Dec 5th 2004
Christmas published in Mumbai Age on Dec 19th 2004
Looking back published on Dec 26th 2004
Looking ahead published on Jan 2nd 2005
The Trial by Fire published in Sunday Asian Age on 12th December 2004
Makar Sankranti published in Sunday Asian Age on 9th Jan 2005
Guru Gobind Singh published in Sunday Asian Age on Jan 16th, 2004
LIKING AND LOVING MYSELF - II (Judgments) in Sunday Asian Age Column 30th Jan
2005
LIKING AND LOVING MYSELF - III (Friendly Inner Voices) in Sunday Asian Age Column
6th Feb 2005
LIKING AND LOVING MYSELF - IV (Affirmations) in Sunday Asian Age Column 13th Feb
2005
Self Esteem in Sunday Asian Age on 20 Feb 2005
Sattva, Rajas, Tamas in Sunday Asian Age Column 27 February 2005
Shivaratri in Sunday Asian Age on 6th March 2005
Other Articles
PAYING MY DUES (1997)

March of the New Age into the new millenium (2001)
THE YEAR 2000 (1997)
Spiritual Moorings in Leadership (1999)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Looking Back
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The year is nearing its close – another year gone by in our lives. The years have a way
of registering their passage – especially after age thirty. When I think of my life half
spent, the words of Robert Frost comes to mind: “But I have promises to keep And
miles to go before I sleep And miles to go before I sleep.”
New year eve - an opportunity to look back and take stock of the past year. The year
was an eventful one, began with a lot of hope and ended as a mixed bag – some
fulfilled promises and many lost opportunities. Some resolutions kept, many best
forgotten. Not really much different from the previous years. Perhaps we have sleep
walked, or stepped on the escalator of life in reverse.
Each year would be special if we kept on ticking the goals we set and reached during
the year. Some of the saddest statements I have heard any one make are – “If only I
had …” , “I could have become…”, “I wished to…but.” Why do we come in the way of
our own dreams and achievements? Is it because of lack of trying? Is it because we do
not trust ourselves? Or is it because we are living in the past?
Somewhere within each of us is a set of voices that keep arguing against each other
endlessly in circles. Susan Jeffers speaks of the chatterbox – a set of memories from
the past which we have incorporated within us. These voices hail from our childhood
years and are memories of old events as understood through the child’s fragmented
perception. The voices come in pairs, as in “I want to…, but I can’t”, “You have to…,
but you won’t”, “I love you…, but I can’t tolerate you.” The voices also threaten
doom as in “if I do, I am dammed, if I do not, I am finished.” The chatterbox is
characterised by the words ‘should’, ‘must’, ‘always’, ‘never’, ‘can’t’ and
‘shouldn’t’.
The chatterbox is an expert in fragmented thinking and breaks up any situation into
different points of view. Instead of putting them all together, it views them each in
turn as absolute and irreconciliable with the rest. Rather than resolving issues, it
aggravates situations until we are thoroughly demoralised. Ultimately we react by
listening to the loudest voices and do what they tell us to. Often our best intentions
and dreams are brought to dust by our ‘friendly and oh so familiar” chatterbox.
Alongside the chatterbox comes another set of voices that come from the deepest
part of our unconscious. These voices are the promptings of the better self – the
higher power within us. These are the voices of trust, acceptance, harmony, courage,
faith, love, esteem, balance, honesty and compassion. are holistic, integrating and
healing by nature. The higher self reconciles fragmented thinking into a larger
integrated whole. It is responsible for all that is best in us – it gives us awareness,
creativity, will power and conscience that, according to Stephen Covey, combine to
form our inner power.
The chatterbox makes us superficial, ineffective, fearful, helpless, suspicious,

desperate, tyrannical, and cynical. It is easy to be swayed by the chatterbox – it
affirms our fragmented childhood beliefs and makes us feel ‘right’. To let go of the
chatterbox is to lose the security of being ‘right’. We need to invoke the higher self
to choose courage over false ‘security’. This is the only way we can let go of the past
and renew our commitment to a better life in the present. This is the message of new
year’s eve.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Christmas
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Some 2000 years ago, it is believed, the son of God appeared on earth as the child of Mary in a stable
in Bethlehem. Christians all over the world celebrate this joyous event as Christmas. They welcome the
baby Jesus with prayers, mutual exchange of gifts, and festivities.
According to St Luke, the first census ordered by Caesar Augustus took place while Cyrinus was
governor of Syria. Joseph, together with his wife who was with child, went to register for the same
from Galilee in Nazareth to the town of David, which is called Bethlehem.
It was there that Mary brought forth her firstborn son, wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him
in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. Shepherds nearby were visited by an
angel and told that a saviour was born that day in the town of David who is Christ the Lord. They
made haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the babe lying in the manger.
According to prophesy, a child was to be born who would become the king of the
Jews. Wise men called Magi came from the East to Jerusalem searching for “the
newly born king”. They had seen his star in the East and followed it in the hope of
worshipping him. King Herod summoned the Magi secretly and ascertained from them
the time when the star had appeared. He asked them to make careful enquiries
concerning the child and inform him accordingly.
The wise men of the East were led by the star to the place where the child was, and
they fell to their knees and worshipped him. They offered him gifts of gold,
frankincense and myrrh. Being warned in a dream, they went back to their country
without meeting King Herod. Herod, feeling tricked by the Magi, angrily ordered all
boys of 2 years and below killed. Jesus survived and went on to become the founder
of a new religion and church that has survived to this day.
Christmas is associated with Santa Claus who is also known as Father Christmas. Santa
comes flying from the North Pole in his sleigh pulled by reindeer. He slides down into
houses through the chimneys and packs gifts for children in stockings for Christmas.
Does Santa really exist? A letter written by an eight year old to the The New York Sun
in 1897 elicited this response: “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as
certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist…. How dreary would be the world
if there were no Santa Claus!….There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no
romance to make tolerable this existence. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance,
can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory
beyond…..Thank God he lives, and he lives forever….”
Susan Branch has a recipe for Christmas: “Fill your house with equal parts of Love,
Peace & Hope, Add the Joy of Children & the Strength of Older People, Season with
the Music of Laughter & some Mistletoe Kisses, Warm before a Crackling Fire & serve
with Tidings of Comfort & Joy!”
Christmas is family time. It is all about giving, sharing, goodwill, and glad tidings. Like
Diwali and Id, Christmas has become a national festival in which all the communities
celebrate and rejoice. It is a time to drop the walls and to reach out to each other in
friendship and brotherhood. So here is wishing you all a merry Christmas and a happy
new year.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Trial by Fire
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Chhandogya Upanishad refers to a trial by fire to determine whether a person

speaks the truth. The accused person was considered to be innocent if he remained
unscathed and guilty if he was burnt. Whether such a test really existed is irrelevant -
the idea is that truth prevailed in the end. An ancient lie detector test!
In times of crisis, would I be willing to take the test? If indeed I were guilty, would I
have the courage to own it up? What would I do if I were accused of something that I
am not guilty of? What if someone betrayed my trust and put me in the wrong? The
only thing that could sustain me in these moments is the trust of the people who
believe in me, and my own faith that ultimately truth and justice will prevail.
I would have to move an appeal in a higher court, and learn not lose heart. Spiritual
faith would have to sustain me even when everything is lost – for my conscience would
be clear and the strength would come from within. In the Ramayana, Sita had to face
the test of fire to prove her truth. She even had to prove herself again a second time
by choosing to shun human justice and resort to divine judgment.
Much of what we believe about the world is based on faith. We believe democracy,
judiciary, media, and spiritual mentors. Our economy runs on trust - the day we lose
trust in the rupee or the government, we will see anarchy and chaos. And if we lose
faith in the scientists, all research will be viewed with suspicion.
It is the faith of significant people in our lives that encourages us to hold on to our
beliefs when we feel helpless and are losing hope. But what would happen if there
were a crisis of faith and when the people whom we believe in, heart and soul, come
under the cloud of suspicion? What happens when our deepest trust and commitment
is shaken, and we are in a dilemma – to believe or not to believe? What if we are in
doubt and do not even know what to believe in?
Here is where we need to believe in ourselves. Rather than be swayed by the crowd,
we need to stand apart and listen to our conscience rather than to our fears. We need
to reinforce our confidence in the people whom we trust, and reassure them to
withstand the test of fire. We need to tell them not to lose heart for truth will out in
the long run. We also need to encourage them to speak the truth and own up their
faults, if any, rather than hold on to false pride. We need to understand that people
are human and can make mistakes, hence there is no shame in confession other than
facing the consequences of the mistake.
Ultimately, we need to grow away from our need to hold on to role models, to think
independently and take the reins of spiritual leadership in our own right. Spiritual
growth culminates in taking responsibility for everything that we think, believe, feel,
and do. We need to guide ourselves and not be led blindly. As long as we go by our
conscience, we will have the moral standing to have our voice heard by all. We will
also have the humility to acknowledge our faults wherever we are wrong. Strength
comes from aligning ourselves to the truth rather holding on to beliefs at all cost.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MEDITATION
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Meditation helps you get in touch with yourself - the simple, uncomplicated self, free
from the various roles that you play in life. It is also a form of quiet prayer in which
you invoke your higher self, the one who supports, encourages, inspires, motivates,
and guides.
Meditation involves two aspects - one, unwinding yourself of all complications, and -
two, recharging yourself to reach your potential. Meditation is also contemplation. It
involves familiarising yourself with the understanding of what you essentially are, as
revealed in the scriptures.
Meditation in general involves learning to relax physically and psychologically,

directing the mind towards prayer, contemplation or just plain silence. Try turning off
the lights and shutting the door of your office during lunchtime. Loosen your tie and
belt and shoes, turn the chair away from the table. Just spend a few minutes in
silence with yourself. You are scheduling an appointment with a Very Important
Person, - Yourself.
Close your eyes and visualise that you are going on a vacation to a hill station or
seashore. Visualise the beauty, the coolness or warmth of the surroundings, breathe
in the pure air with pleasure, and just let go, - relax!
Chant your favourite mantra. This may be something that has been given to you by
your teacher or one that has been part of your family tradition. Repeat it in your
mind over and over again until you feel deeply rested. The secret of the mantra is in
the silence sandwiched between the two chants. The more you stay with the chant to
the exclusion of other thoughts, the more you enjoy the silence. Silence is restful. It
energises you. It makes you composed and removes stress. Try it out. Today. Right
now.
Meditation helps in making you aware of the inner world that is much removed from
your day-to-day world of transactions. It shows you that there is a core of calmness
within you that remains even when everything around you is stormy and fluid.
Meditation also helps you harmonise the inner and outer worlds so that you enjoy a
state of flow, wherein your actions, thoughts, and words seem to arise spontaneously
and in an integrated way.
Yoga, Transcendental Meditation, Vipasana, Zen, etc., have meditative techniques

that are geared to heightened awareness, focusing, centring, relaxing, objectivity and
non-involvement with distractions, flexibility of thought and concepts, prayerful
attitudes, etc.
The Bhagavad Geeta describes meditation as placing the mind in the self (Aatma), to
the exclusion of all other thoughts. It talks about the meditator seated with head,
neck and torso all aligned and erect, attention directed towards the place between
the eyebrows. The seat is not too high or too low, and made by spreading kusha grass,
deerskin and cloth one over the other. The meditator does not fast too much or eat
too much, and is moderate in sleep and waking. It talks of the mind as fickle and hard
to control, but which practice and dispassion (i.e. objectivity) can master.
A prayerful attitude helps in meditation, whereby you invoke your Higher Self, and in
the process bring to surface the innocent, trusting aspect of yourself. Keep all
problems aside for the moment and let divinity into your heart. There is a non-
demanding attitude and you open yourself to all situations - "this is how the world is,
and this is how I have to take it." The serenity prayer says it all - "Lord, give me the
serenity to face the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and
wisdom to know the difference."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Makar Sankranti
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sankranti, or Makar Sankranti, is the auspicious time in the month of Magha

when the Sun moves towards the north. 'Sankranti' means 'transition'
indicating the sun's transition from one zodiac to another. On January 14
the sun enters Makara (Capricorn). Makar Sankranti heralds the auspicious
Uttaraayan period of six months.
The festival is dedicated to the Sun. Farmers welcome the end of winter and
prepare for a bountiful harvest. People pray for grace and blessings of the
gods for spiritual progress and prosperity.
Sankranti is associated with the legend of 'amrit manthan' - where gods and
demons churned the ocean to get the nectar of immortality. People take a
holy dip at Prayag, Ujjain, Nasik, and Haridwar where drops of this nectar
as said to have fallen while being distributed. Dips are also taken in the
Ganga and Yamuna, specially at Banaras and Gangasagar.
Sankranti is celebrated as Pongal in the Tamil Nadu Rice is cooked in milk

and allowed to flow over to represent prosperity and wealth. It is the time
for cleaning the home and burning the waste to symbolise destruction of
evil. Fresh harvested grain is cooked and the entire village partakes of it.
Birds and cattle too are fed to acknowledge their contribution to the
community.
Being a harvest festival, bonfires and feasts are the main thing common to
all the celebrations. Lohri in northern India signifies the harvesting of
the Rabi crops. Harvested fields and front yards are litup with flames of
bonfires, around which people gather to meet friends and relatives and sing
folk songs.
It is celebrated as Bihu in north-eastern India. In Maharashtra tilgul

(laddoo made of sesame seeds and jaggery) is distributed as a sign of
goodwill and friendship. In Karnataka and Andhra, people exchange pieces of
sugar-cane, molasses, pieces of dry cocoanut, peanuts and fried gram. In
Gujarat, the event is celebrated by flying kites and everyone, young and
old, participate in kite-flying competitions.
The Bhagavad Gita refers to this Uttaraayan period as the bright half of the
year representing the path in the soul's onward journey after death leading
to higher worlds, in contrast to the darker period or Dakshinaayan which
represents the path leading to lesser worlds. Both these paths lead to
desirable worlds and their distinctions are relative with the first being
more desirable than the second. The two are referred to as Deva Yaana
(pathway of the gods) and Pitri Yaana (pathway of the ancestors)
respectively.
Obviously, it is one's good deeds that are responsible for gaining these
higher worlds, and the time of death is only indicative of the merits
(karma) earned by the person during his lifetime. These paths do not apply
to the person who lives by evil, nor to the enlightened person (jnaani) who
is completely released from the bonds of karma.
The Mahabharata epic relates the story of Bhishma who had fallen prey to
Arjuna's arrows on the tenth day of the war. Bhishma was blessed with the
boon of being able to choose the time he wished to die. Bhishma chose to
live for a few days after the 18 day war, so that he could die during the
auspicious Uttaraayan period following the sun's passage into Capricorn.
Stories from the puranas and epics are generally cited to inculcate shraddha
or faith in the spiritual practitioner. The episode of Bhishma's self-chosen
time of death adds to auspiciousness of the Uttarayan period. People go for
pilgrimage to holy spots to earn grace, whereas noble souls visiting these
places add to the sacredness of the spot.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Looking Ahead
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Nature sometimes stops smiling and starts frowning" - Swami Chinmayananda.
What does one do when 9/11 happens on 26/12 .when a tsunami hits us under
the belt without warning? What happened this time was close to home, and it
could have easily happened to any of us. But for the grace of god.!
Like sand castles built on sea shore are all our achievements and lives too.
Seen from the cosmic standpoint, all human accomplishments pale into
insignificance. When seen from the human standpoint too, what matters is
not how long we lived or what status we commanded. What really matters is
how authentically we lived pursuing universal human needs rather than
jockeying for status and power, or trying to catch up with the Joneses.
Catering to the human and spiritual side in us seems to be more fulfilling
than material achievements that are merely footnotes in the chapters of
history. It doesn't matter whether you are Bill Gates or Aziz Premji at
times of such tragedy. What will matter is how you responded to the
magnitude of the suffering.
Abraham Lincoln in his letter to his son's teacher writes - "teach him to
sell his brawn and brain to the highest bidder, but teach him also not to
put a price tag on his heart and soul!" What does it matter if a person has
conquered the whole earth if he has lost his soul? The Bible mentions
idolators who worshipped the Golden Calf. The golden calf represents
anything that satisfies our ego - greed, lust for power and pleasure, etc.,
but which ignores the issues of conscience and genuine human needs. Ego is
the false idol that prevents us from reaching our highest achievements - the
sense of harmony that comes from a life well lived.
When you are lost in contemplation of a beautiful flower or lend a helping

hand to a person in distress, you are in touch with your best self - the
higher self in you. The higher self responds with all that is best in the
human being - joy, compassion, courage, sacrifice, helping, sorrowing,
healing, and renewing. There is also a universal element to the higher self.
Nationwide excitement at winning a cricket match is an aspect of the
universal higher self as much as national mourning at the loss of a beloved
leader.
The higher self helps us address our genuine needs. Security, physiological
and biological needs, emotional and self esteem needs, need to connect and
reach out to society, and the need for spiritual self transcendence, are
universal needs. The intensity of these needs may vary from person to
person, but if these needs are unmet, we experience deprivation. We try to
compensate by worshipping false gods - the "golden calf". We drown ourselves
in activities that make us temporarily forget that we are needy. We become
addicted to work, relationships, money, power, drink, drugs, and even
religion.
It would help to take an honest stock of our motives and behaviour while
making new year resolutions. We could use the powers of the higher self,
like awareness and conscience, to plan a life style that is genuine and
fulfilling. Through the powers of independent will and creative
visualisation, we could walk the chosen path, avoiding or overcoming
obstacles in our way. We could use the power of faith and prayer to help us
cope with tragedies in our lives. Our lives could become rich emotionally,
spiritually and in all ways.
Every new year comes to us as an opportunity to plan and achieve such a rich
and fulfilling life for us and our society.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Guru Gobind Singh
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Born in 1666, Guru Gobind Singh grew up to become the last in the line of
Sikh gurus beginning with Guru Nanak. He was the son of Tegh Bahadur Singh
and lived in the time of Aurangzeb. Guru Tegh Bahadur died a martyr in the
imperial capital of the Mughals. Just nine years of age, Gobind Singh was
formally installed as the tenth Guru in the succession.
The young Guru resolved to fight the imperial forces rather than be
overwhelmed by his father's death. He instilled the spirit of the
saint-soldier in his followers and urged them to fight for justice and the
right to live in freedom. His strength and courage was exemplary even during
his early years and he is credited with killing a tiger, fighting face to
face, with his sword and shield.
Besides his training in martial arts, he was also a poet. He held court with
poets and rewarded them generously. He was well-versed in music and a gifted
singer. Through his spiritual poetry, he spread the message of love,
equality, good conduct, and worship of One Supreme Being.
He emphasized the chanting of God's name (Naam). "Naam is the priceless

Jewel that the perfect Guru has; if one dedicates oneself in love to the
true Guru, He lights in one's heart the Light of Wisdom, and Naam is then
revealed."
During the annual Baisakhi festival in 1699, the Guru appeared before the
assembly with sword in hand, asking for volunteers ready to offer their head
as sacrifice to the Guru. At the third call, Daya Ram from Lahore arose and
walked behind the Guru to a tent nearby. The Guru returned with his sword
dripping with blood, asking for more volunteers. Four more persons responded
one after the other in the same way offering their heads.
The Guru then explained to the gathering that if they wanted to lead an
honourable life of freedom, they would have to maintain purity of character
and be prepared for sacrifices. He exhorted them to aid the helpless and
fight the oppressor, have faith in One God and consider all human beings
equal, irrespective of caste and creed.
The Guru said that the Sikhs would be called as the 'Pure Ones' (Khalsa).
Every male Sikh would be a called a 'Lion' (Singh) and female Sikh a
'Princess' (Kaur). He initiated the five volunteers, honouring them as Panj
Pyaare (Five Beloved Ones). He invested them with authority and himself
received initiation from them. The master had submitted to them and turned
into a disciple.
The Sikhs were asked to observe the five K's, i.e., to keep uncut hair
(kesh), carry a comb (kanga), wear loin cloth (kachha), wear a steel bangle
(kara), and carry a knife (kirpan). They were to live like ascetics and
fight like soldiers.
The Sikhs fought and survived many battles against the mughals and local
Rajas. The Guru himself escaped from Anandpur after a three-year siege but
lost all his four children, - two dying in battle and two others being
buried alive by Nawab Wasir Khan, governor of Sirhind. Subsequently, the
Guru too became victim to assasins sent by Wazir Khan, and died fighting in
1708.
Before breathing his last, he asked Sikhs to look upon the holy scripture,
Guru Granth Sahib, as their guide. "The Guru's spirit," he said, "will
henceforth be in the Granth and the Khalsa. Where the Granth is with any
five Sikhs representing the Khalsa, there will the Guru be."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LIKING AND LOVING MYSELF - II
Judgments
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My judgment of myself sets me up for life - it lays down my destiny. If I do
not feel I am worthy of happiness, I will not endeavor to work for it; I may
even sabotage the possibility of happiness. And when I fail to fulfill my
needs, I start doubting my own abilities, and feel more unworthy. I feel
unloved, incapable, hopeless, bitter, jealous, reactive, and vengeful. I
withdraw into my shell and let life pass me by. I am only a spectator, and I
have no stomach to participate, for I have lost confidence in myself. I do
not see myself deserving of success, and I cannot stand failure. I only hold
on to the security of the familiar and the known, and desperately avoid any
new situation. I depend on others to take care of myself, or I look to their
approval by doing things for them or by pleasing them.
If I have no self worth, I may even try to escape from myself, or cease to
be true to myself by hiding behind a social mask. I create a new personality
to deal with the world, all the time knowing that the person inside is
different, isolated, lonely unwanted, unloved. I take recourse to external
achievements, possessions, relationships, activities etc. to compensate for
the emptiness within. I may even take to aggression and belittling others to
escape from my bitterness within. All because I make a critical judgment of
myself not necessarily based on facts.
What is the basis for my judgments about myself? Much of it is learnt at

home. I came into this world as a new born baby - a bundle of joy and a
world of promise. I saw the world as a vast playground, waiting to be
explored. I was cradled, fed, loved, cherished. I was a baby then. As I
grew, I picked up new beliefs through my parents. Directly or indirectly,
they let me know whether I was strong or weak, capable or helpless, good or
bad, active or lazy, an asset or a burden.
At times, my parents nourished me and guided me with encouraging words and

practical advice. They made me see that I was important just being myself in
spite of limitations and mistakes. They cherished me and accepted me, and at
the same time gave me tips on developing my skills and abilities. They
became my friends and well wishers and made me feel good about myself.
At other times my parents smothered me with their concern for me, or

criticized me for my faults and mistakes. They were afraid that I would not
make it on my own, that I had to be constantly watched over, protected,
corrected or punished - so that I wouldn't get into trouble or embarrass
them. They doubted my abilities and disapproved my methods. They labeled me
'lazy', 'stupid', 'incompetent', or 'poor darling', 'mama's boy', 'delicate
precious one', etc. At such times I accepted their statements as facts and
behaved accordingly - making it a self fulfilling prophesy.
I grew up learning to deal with the world in the ways my parents had trained
me - my judgment about myself had become my destiny. Depending on my
background, I learnt either to ignore my feelings and perceptions, discount
my abilities and strengths, feel sorry for and critical about myself, or
positively, I learnt to trust my feelings, acknowledge my needs, assess my
abilities and work on my limitations, taking difficulties in my stride. I
learnt either to be ashamed of myself or to honor myself.
(cont...)
-----------------------------------------------------
PAYING MY DUES
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Service is the rent we pay for our room on earth and I'd like to be a good tenant” -
Eddie Cantor
I often wonder - what have I done to deserve all the things I am fortunate enough to
enjoy in comfort and freedom ? I tend to consider all that I possess as resources given
to me in trust. They are given to me with the implicit understanding that I employ
them wisely and return it, duly multiplied, back to the universe from which I came.
I do not see life and its comforts as end products to be consumed and done with. I
prefer to think of them as credit extended to me - something similar to the perks
enjoyed by a manager, who in turn is expected to create wealth for his company or to
fulfil a mission for his organization. The good things of life that I enjoy is payment for
my efforts in rebuilding the universe in the way it was designed to function - as
infrastructure for the growth of individuals within the sphere of harmony and oneness.
I am not unlike a soldier employed in the service of the universal government - there
is no external enemy - I have to discover the enemies within.
The scriptures talk about the debts we owe to the gods, to the manes, to all living
creatures, etc. In the Bhagavad Geeta, Krshna calls that person a 'Stena' (Thief) who
enjoys the gifts of the gods without giving back anything in return.
Is there anything I as a single individual can do make the world a better place to live?
Why should I bother when no one even cares? What would happen if all my efforts go
in vain? And would I not be neglecting my personal goals in the long run?
The truth is that I live in a small world, where everyone's co-operation and
contribution makes the earth go round. As Gandhi would have it - the world is large
enough to provide for everyone's need but not for everyone's greed. I need not change
the whole world. If I care about the smaller world round me, my every little action
can make a difference.
What is expected of me as a member of the human race? To be part of a community is

to:
Be available to my community in times of need

The link ed image cannot be
display ed. The file may hav e
been mov ed, renamed, or
deleted. Verify that the link
points to the correct file and
location.
Enrich it with my knowledge and resources (without necessarily impoverishing

location.
myself)
Maintain the sensitive ecological balance of my environment
location.
Use and recycle the community resources optimally

location.
Set standards of excellence in my field and become a positive role model in my

location.
community
Set priorities in my life that does not exclude the world around me
location.
Encourage and sponsor local talent and develop human resources for the
location.
community
Find inexpensive and convenient ways of contributing to the community like
location.
donating blood, eyes, time, talent, expertise etc.

Subsidise services for special categories of people like senior citizens, etc.
location.
Participate in action-cells for handling internal disputes, ensuring appropriate

location.
discipline, redressing grievances and counselling activities

To keep surroundings clean, and highlight public messages regarding hygiene,
location.
safety, etc.
To make available information about help facilities in the neighbourhood
location.
To create public opinion and educate the community against social evils and
location.
injustice through public awareness programmes

To highlight organizations and persons of excellence, and give public and private
location.
demonstration of appreciation for individual initiative and good work

Take courses or sponsor persons to take courses that enhance community skills
location.
Create a sense of history, meaning and oneness among the community through
location.
cultural activities, sports, exhibitions, workshops etc.

Create accountability in the community members in all dealings and transactions
location.
affecting the community,

Inspire the community to interact with other communities for cultural exchanges,
location.
sharing of ideas and thoughts and information.
It is interesting to note that the same activities that contribute to the good of the
community also double up as self-developmental activities. These help me to get in
touch with my own power and internal resources. It is a paradox of life that - I realize
and actualise my potential when I have a worthwhile cause to live for , when I invest
in a vision that is larger than life.
Setting targets are important in orderr to motivate myself to achievement. Targets

however can be more satisfying when the goals are dear both to self as well as to
community. Often the smile on another's face that I contribute in bringing about,
makes me glow from within.
"To value oneself and, at the same time, subordinate oneself to higher purposes and
principles is the paradoxical essence of highest humanity and the foundation of
effective leadership." - Anonymous
The human spirit always rises to the occasion, - it is at its best facing challenges or
adversities. But this is true only when I am mentally and spiritually prepared to face
challenges in life. If I do not consciously search and discover challenges to be faced , I
will never be ready to take on the challenges when they eventually and inevitably
discover me. There is no necessity to wait for a problem to occur, if I can anticipate it
and prevent it from happening in the first place.
Major accidents happen everyday, but it requires an event close home to really strike
home the magnitude of such tragedy. When it happens to others, I say - 'too bad'.
When it happens to me, .....? I am shocked at the insensitivity of the society to my
plight when I am in trouble. Yet I am the same person who generally goes about
unconcerned when others are in the same situation.
A friend of mine recently died in a road accident on the Bombay-Pune highway. I

found it terrible to console his widow . I was angry at the unnecessary and avoidable
loss of life - and the fact that hundreds of lives are lost every year on the same
highway. Couldn't something be done about it?
Couldn't we do something to enforce the traffic rules, make the roads more safe for
driving, and inspect vehicles for safety measures? What is it that prevents us from
taking action? How many more lives are required to be lost before we sit up and take
notice?
I talked to my friend about this. He sympathised with me, saying my anger was an
emotional reaction. Perhaps he was right. I was very much upset. My friend came to
me a few days back visibly agitated, and told me - "My phones have been dead for
over a month. I wish that all the telephone users could come together and take up the
matter with the consumers' court. That is the only language MTNL understands." I
smiled.
The world today has become too big and is changing too swiftly for any single
individual, organization, or government to manage. I cannot expect that problems will
be solved by the people out there. I am part of the show, and I cannot shrug off my
responsibility. The minimum I can do is to see how I fit into the picture, and see how I
can help. I cannot just stand watching when things go wrong or when injustice is
being done. Today it is them, tomorrow it may be me.
We all breathe the same air, share the same resources, susceptible to the same
diseases, and troubled by the same events. We are all in the same boat, and we
cannot afford to rock the boat. And we cannot afford to allow others to rock the boat
either. We are one people, one world, one universe. Either we sail together or sink
together. There is no other way. The choice lies with me.
"If you think you cannot do very much, and that the little you can do is of no value,
think of these things: A tea kettle singing on a stove was the beginning of the steam
engine. A shirt waving on the clothesline was the beginning of a balloon, the
forerunner of the Graf Zeppelin. A spider web strung across a garden path suggested
the suspension bridge. A lantern swinging in a tower was the beginning of a
pendulum. An apple falling from a tree led to the discovery of the law of gravity." -
Anonymous
-----------------------------------------------------
March of the New Age into the new millenium
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As a Vedanta teacher I have always encouraged the students of my class to listen to a
variety of teachers. I tell them - "Listen to them all. When your are sufficiently
confused by their differing points of view, come back to me to put it all together for
you." Today, these students keep me on my toes with their pointed questions about
the new age. They are not content with standard replies - they want me to discuss
articles, books, and concepts and how they all fit into the larger picture.
As a teacher and observer of society, I have been seeing over the years a growing
awareness and enthusiasm among people about the new age. The advancing new age
has broken through quite a number of barriers and helped people to become more
open to the inner world of mind and spirit even if they may not be overtly spiritual. I
have many new age enthusiasts including reiki practitioners and pranic healers
attending my Vedanta talks. I myself was skeptical of phenomena like ESP, etc. until I
met persons, friends as well as strangers, who seem to read my mind like an open
book. Only recently I willingly had my aura read - a phenomenon that I would have
scorned just a few years ago.
Sometime back, I wouldn't have known what a tarot card is. Today Rohini, a friend of
mine, arranges exhibitions in which Tarot cards among other products are sold over
the counter. Practices like Reiki etc. were looked upon with skepticism a few years
ago by the average person and considered as placebo treatment. What possible
connection could be there between one person's energy and another person's health?
Today I have reiki and pranic healing enthusiasts in my Vedanta talks, and they get
positive responses from the people treated by them who say they are healed to a
significant degree.
The new age has always been with us through the centuries in one form or the other.
The Aztecs, the Mayas, the Red Indians, the Aboroginies, the Indians, and Africans
share much in common in terms of life after death, worship of deities and ancestors,
seeking divine guidance through charms, chants, and rituals, etc. Some form of
magical thinking has always been part of our lives. We cross our fingers, touch wood,
chant Hanuman Chalisa. We wish good luck and say prayers for each other.
How does the new age differ from the old? To trace this, we need to make a
distinction between the ancient pre-classical ages and the recently past classical age.
The preclassical age viewed the universe holistically - the earth was an organic whole
in intimate contact with all its subsystems, living and non-living. Every thing in nature
was seen as parts of a larger entity linked with one another to form a living organism.
Modern ecological studies seem to validate this concept through the Gaia hypothesis -
the earth is a living sentient being. This wholeness included the body-mind unity.
This wholeness included the body-mind unity. It was Decartes who introduced the
cartesian division and created the split between matter and mind. Soon, science took
over the charge of researching matter - and mind was left behind as it could not stand
up to the rigourous requirement of science - observation, experimentation,
generalisation, and exactness. Science kept objectivity on a pedestal - any
experimental finding should be shown to be consistently verifiable under laboratory
conditions. Newton's laws supposed time and space to be absolute and consciousness
had no place of its own in a 4 dimensional physical universe.
The success of Newtonian classical physics was evident in new discoveries - both in
the outer universe and in the inner world of the atom. The world was deterministic
and the human being was only incidental to it. Darwin showed that humans evolved
from physical matter, and mind too became subsumed under matter. Psychology, in
its attempt to be scientific, adopted the objectivity model of science, and developed
the behaviouristic model. Pavlov showed that mental activity is determined through
conditioning - under proper conditions, the mind can be taught to respond in a
desired way by carrot and stick policy. Thus we had the full blown classical age in
which the universe worked like clockwork and nature was nothing but a giant machine
which went on its job diligently regardless of sentiments.
The New Age is so called to cover the ongoing convergence of different ancient and
modern mystical traditions and practices that stand out in relief amidst the drudgery
and routine of our day to day life. Contributing to this new age are the paradigms of
modern science characterised by Theory of Relativity and Quantum Physics that
highlight the central position of the observer in every observation. Schrodinger's Cat
in the box is neither dead nor alive...it is probably both, until I open the box and
collapse the probabilities one way or the other.
Time and space crumble in the light of experiments that reveal non-local signals - a
phenomenon known as action-at-a-distance. Paired electrons have been shown to
respond to each other even when separated from each other by infinite distances.
The implications are significant - action at a distance allows all psychic phenomenon
through the back door!
Psychology now goes beyond behavioural model with Trans Personal psychology
speaking of invoking the Higher Power within ourselves to guide us through our fears
and complexes. Extra sensory perception is a topic that finds mention in a standard
textbook of psychology today.
Hawking's black holes and search to understand "God's Mind" appears to lead science
into the realm of mysticism and metaphysics. Physical phenomenon can be subsumed
under a few basic forces of nature - electromagnetism, gravitation, and the strong
and weak forces within the atom. There is a new wholistic approach to science in
which an attempt is being made to unify the four forces of nature. Till recently
gravity defied this unity. However, now equations seem to allow gravity to enter into
the alliance - a grand unification. Today, the theory of everything seems to be a
tantalising prospect!
In the celebrated principle of uncertainty, Heisenberg states that it is impossible to

determine the exact position of a particle and its exact momentum simultaneously.
The newest branch of science is the chaos theory of mathematics which states that in
non-linear system, it is impossible to predict the course the system will take even
when all the initial conditions are known. Every measuring instrument is inherently
subject to some marginal error, and in a non-linear system like the real world around
us, the least error can lead to a major change in consequent outcomes.
Non-linear systems involve multiple factors, and a small change in any one factor can
throw all our predictions awry. A butterfly fluttering its wings in the Atlantic can
possibly create a cyclone in the Pacific. Small wonder we cannot predict even the
weather over the long term!
What does this have to do with the new age? Simple. In our non-linear universe, even
a small effort can go a long way!
What do all these have to do with the new age? Simple. In our non-linear universe,
even a small effort can go a long way! Humans are not non-entities entrapped in a
mechanistic world. The mind is not entrapped in the physical body. Our minds seems
to be part and parcel of the universal mind not subject to time-space limitations.
Guided by the Higher Power, we may be able to create the best of worlds for
ourselves. We can invoke the powers of the universe and align ourselves to the basic
oneness of the universe. Simply put, we are waiting to create our own miracles! We
can move from cynnical thinking to magical thinking!
The current new age movement seems to have its roots in the peace protest
movement of the 60s. The Vietnam war was at its height and the youth of America
rebelled at their government's involvement with the war that seemed to have no
justification. Many conscientious objectors conscripted for war preferred to face
arrest rather than fight in Vietnam. The young people protested against the
establishment and its symbols. Long hair, flowing dresses, and drugs became their
new symbols. Eastern religions, yoga, and gurus became the order of the day.
Transcendental Meditation became popular through its association with the Beatles
group.
The movement grew beyond mere protests however. Many secret societies like the
Rosicrucians and Freemasons who believed in mystical practices came out into the
open. In the east, Tantra and Tibetian Buddhism caught people's imagination. The
Theosophical society of Annie Besant popularised ideas of astral travel and pointed
out close similarities between the mystical traditions of the major world religions.
The gnostics, sufis, and yogis represented the common spiritual aspects as opposed to
the superficial differences between religions. Books like Shakti Gawain's "Creative
Visualization" and James Redfield's "The Celestine Prophecy" heightened the tendency
in people to look for creating their own magic. Unexplained coincidences in day-to-
day life became proof of a divine plan in and through the working of the universe.
Fritjof Capra's "The Tao of Physics" revealed many parallels between scientific nd
mystic thinking.
The internet today has opened up a whole new unknown world of the spirit and
information and resources are exchanged at the speed of light. Old superstitious
practices gained a new lease of life with spiritual healers coming into the scene in a
major way. Today Reiki and spiritual healing are household words. Astrologers and
tarot readers advertise in newspapers. Crystals, beads, pyramids, and yantras are the
new lucky charms used by the well-heeled. Auras and pastlife regression are spoken of
without the batting of the eyelid. Books on intergalactic travel and spirit guides are
listed under non-fiction category in bookstalls. There is a magic mantra easily
available now for every desirable outcome. Consultants practicing Vastu Shaastra and
Feng Shui have made it to big time. Nothing, absolutely nothing, is secular anymore!
The rush for new age solutions is rooted in our reaction to the materialistic
orientation of society. A few years ago, we were sadly declaring - "nothing is sacred
anymore!" We have become generally cynnical of everything representing the old
world. We are cynnical of political institutions, of economic and social practices, of
love and human decencies, of art and culture and even religion. Everything including
national awards and honours can be got for a price. Nothing buys like money. People
are used, rather than being loved. We have learnt to use people and love things. With
families breaking up, the nuclear family unit today is shrinking towards "I, me,
myself.
Nothing comes guaranteed today - our jobs, our savings, our traditions. Our minds,
our health, our security, all are being invaded by multiamedia and multinationals. We
have been deeply wounded and have no one help us heal. In a fast changing world, we
are like the people struggling in a sinking ship. The buzzword is - "look after yourself,
each one for himself."
The old world represents insecurity, rigidity, and stress. A CEO in a multinational
company, knowing that I do workshops on Handling Stress, told me that stress
management was passe today. What people really needed was to tide over loss and
pain in times of job insecurity and company takeovers - the need of the day was
healing and recovery. My friend should know, since he was poised to lose his job a
second time within few months.
Does it mean that the New Age is a mere knee-jerk reaction to the stress of modern
living? Not really. The New Age presents an alternative to the old way, - someting
which is more humanistic and spiritual in approach. The avid enthusiasm with which it
is being welcomed may be perhaps a bit overdone. And where there are seekers,
there are always middlemen to make a quick buck by promising us the world. In the
long run however, when the dust is settled, the real picture will emerge.
There is a quantum change quietly taking place in and through the din and bustle. The
movement is towards wholeness and wellness and balance. Self Esteem, trusting
relationships, social contribution, and inner harmony and growth, are the keywords of
this movement.
What we see superficially is conflict in terms of thesis and anti-thesis. The balance
will come in terms of convergence and synthesis. We need both practical as well as
magical thinking. Rather than find fault with thesis or anti-thesis, we will do better by
coming to a closer understanding of both, through respect, accommodation, and
reason. The outcome looks promising - a saner, kinder, more responsive, and
healthier quality of life. What results will be a healthy menu of alternatives that we
all can partake and enjoy.
Healing is one of the areas where the new age has really specialised. The spiritual
element associated with healing is very evident in the programme for recovering
alcoholics and their families. The Higher Power is invoked for healing, even though
the concept of God may differ from person to person. Some of my psycho-therapist
friends are researching into spiritual roots of religion in order to arrive at meaning,
harmony and healing. It is practically impossible to pinpoint the line where pschology
stops and spirituality begins. Meditation, visualisation, prayer and energy channeling
are among the various tools that people ask to deal with and recover from their pain
and their diseases.
The new age speaks of patterns in our lives that are meaningful even when they seem
accidental and random events. My friends tell me of the pattern of events, each
leading to another, that have directed their lives towards new meaning in their lives.
In my own case, an idea that I expressed to my friend Lata led to publishing a monthly
journal edited by her. The project was enthusiastically sponsored by my friend Harish
as he shared a similar vision. This journal lasted only three months, as if its purpose
was only to introduce me to Kavi at Chetana Bookshop.
Kavi was about to start the website, chetana.com, for marketing books on Indology
online and wanted me to respond to querries on Hinduism and Spirituality through the
website. Answering a variety of questions on the "Guruji" section of chetana.com gave
me great insight into the minds of people from different continents and helped me
reach out to them and their needs. The website in turn led to meditation workshops
and public talks at Chetana, and to interviews with BBC, Times of India, and Life
Positive. Evidently the hand of destiny was leading me from one event to another, to
experience the lessons that I needed to learn and to grow.
I find a new openness among people who are genuinely interested in knowing more
about spirituality. Self help books and spiritual literature have proliferated and
people are willing to try out the unfamiliar, rather than be apprehensive about it.
Practices like meditation, yoga, mantras, mysticism etc. cut through religious beliefs
and are serving to unite people of different religious traditions with one another.
There has been an awareness that we are all fellow seekers looking for the same
things, no matter how different we look, dress, or pray. A new religion fo the spirit is
emerging that is inclusive of differences rather than exclusive.
Personal accounts and allegorical stories are serving to popularise spirituality. Articles
in the journal "Mustard Seed" and in the column "Speaking Tree", give testimony to the
efficacy of the new age. The Chicken Soup series of books have done as much for
spirituality as the zen stories popularised by Rajneesh or the "One Minute Wisdom"
anecdotes of Father Anthony D'mello. The tendency of the movement is upwards,
towards a birds eye view of spirituality.
The higher we rise in our wisdom, the more we see ourselves as connected to each
other. There is enough wisdom in our world today which together to resolve most of
the persistent problems that plague the world today.
Fragmented till now, the wisdom is now converging and is being made available to all
sections of society.
The new age is all set to connect people of different religious traditions with one
another. The recent world religious conference represents an attempt to distill the
best principles from all religious traditions. into a framework for a world religion
without borders. My own teacher who participated in the world meet noted that all
the delegates appeared to be talking some sort of Vedanta. Mutual respect and non-
interference in each others' religious practices and beliefs seemed to be on the
agenda of all the non-proselytising religions represented there. As our differences are
marginalised and common principles identified, the world will come to a oneness of
the spirit which is ultimately the spirit of Vedanta.
A survey of world religions show that there are different forms of prayer. The world is
a manifestation of God, the Spirit. All forms of prayer are valid, since the Lord is
immanent in and through all forms. God is one, not many - many gods are merely
representations of a universal God who is both immanent and transcendent. This is
the vision of God in Vedanta.
God in heaven is representative of the universal spirit who is pervades in and through
all creation. The animist form of worship and the image worship are both as valid as
worship in the church or mosque, as far as prayer goes. The universal spirit is not
someone remote, he is constantly with us, present in and through our every thought.
This seems to be the hidden message of the new age.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE YEAR 2000
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Son, what is FAX? My father asked me some 4 years ago. I hazarded a guess. "It’s some
thing like telex, dad. They send documents over the phone. Last year my dad was
sending faxes to his client in Muscat. Last week I asked my friend Harish at his
computer institute, "How does multimedia work?" My niece Ujwala came home the
same day and said knowingly - "We had multimedia in school today. The computer was
speaking in a woman’s voice reading out words in the dictionary".
Generation gap? No. Information gap! We are in the same world but worlds apart.
Everyday is a new day. Every minute brings in new inventions. The world as we knew
it yesterday is extinct. Welcome to the brave new world. See if you can catch up.
Year 2000 is here.
The year 2000 has special significance. For some, it is supposed to signal the advent
of Maitreyi, reincarnation of the Buddha. According to others, it is the beginning of
the Satya Yuga, the era of virtue and gooddness. According to Nostradamus the
prophet, the end of the century will witness the war of the worlds, after which will
dawn an era of peace and unity in the whole world. Whether or not the above
predictions come true, it is a fact that the year 2000 lies on a threshhold of historical
proportions - signalling great turmoil, growth and intense change, - a point of critical
mass and takeoff velocity, a turning point in the life of humanity.
Times have been changing never as fast before. Technology like CNN, internet and
mobile phone, has made it essential for a person to look at the familiar world in a
new light. Problems of the world are no longer out there - they are right here with us
in our drawing rooms. Information brings in a flood of data that we have to process
and manage. We require a perceptive mind to sort out the essentials from the extras,
facts from the opinions.
Society is changing, - political and social institutions, education system, business

houses. In not understanding these changes, we are likely to stumble blind - out of
touch with the real world out there. It is as if the lights have gone off and we are
stuck on a road all dug up and pulverised. We are unable to handle the present
changes rippling through society and ripping it to shreds.
Our outdated views are like dinosaurs fast being consigned to history. We need new
perspectives and paradigms that are more realistic and valid. Change is forcing us to
relook at our beliefs and to radically change them if we have to survive and emerge
successful. We have to let go our excess baggage of beliefs in order to travel light.
According to Arthur Toynbee in "A Study of History", decline and cultural breakdowns
in civilizations are preceeded by social indicators like alienation, mental illness,
violent crime, social disruption and religious cultism, all of which are seen in our
present civilization. Loss of flexibility is an essential element in this breakdown -
social structures and behavior patterns have become rigid and society can no longer
adapt to changing situations. However despite this, society’s creativity is kept alive
by creative minorities who appear on the scene. The dominant forces refuse to hand
over their leading roles and helplessly try to unravel the Gordian knot as best as they
can. It is left to the creative minorities to take initiative and cut the knot asunder.
(According to myth, the prophesy ran that whoever loosen the knotted rope devised
by King Gordiaus of Phrygia would become the king of the land. In the end, Alexander
took out his sword and cut off the knot with one stroke.)
In the "Third Wave", Alvin Toefler talks about the major revolutionary changes that
shook our world. The ‘first wave’ of change swept us thousands of years ago from the
stone age into the agricultural society. The ‘second wave’ was the industrial
revolution which changed our society from a feudal society to an industrial society.
The ‘third wave’ of change is with us now - that of the information revolution. This is
the age of Bill Gates and the service industry, where software is growing in
prominence over hardware, and human intelligence and creativity are considered as
inexhaustible source for future development and progress. Third world countries can
choose to leapfrog from the third world to the first as is the case with the South east
nations like South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Hongkong etc. Other countries like India
are changing at a slower rate - with all three waves co-existing as evident from the
differences between Bangalore, the software capital, Bombay, the industrial capital,
and the hinterlands of the country which is still belong to a feudal society. Countries
that missed the second wave ended up as third world countries, whereas the
industrialized nations became the rich first world countries. Countries that miss the
third revolution will end up as the forgotten nations, consigned to the dustbin of
history.
Year 2000 !..... where the old and the new intermingle, where hopes and frustrations
co-exist, where creativity is confronted with rigid mindset, where authority is
questioned but responsibility feared, where information is abundant but insight
limited - this then is the paradox at the beginning of the new century.
Many of the beliefs of the previous centuries that we took for granted are no more
valid:
That science and Technology could handle all our problems, that there was a magic
location.
pill to cure all our diseases of body and mind;

That the world would always be the we have known it to be - Time, Space, Matter
location.
were absolute and indestructible;

That we could keep on digging into the earth and exploit its riches infinitely; live
location.
forever on the bounties of nature that include the environment, forests and the
animal kingdom.
That men would always control the world, being more practical, outdoor-types,
location.
wiser, stronger and dependable, whereas women were unpredictable, emotional

delicate, weak, dependent and impractical;
That big was beautiful, - institutions and organizations could grow bigger and
location.
stronger without limits;

That only the fittest would survive the heat of competition - either you were the
location.
road roller or else you were part of the road;

That the political, social and economic systems were dependable - the people in
location.
charge knew what was good for us;

That unlimited consumption was the dream of the century come true - we would
location.
have more and more goodies and a greater choice as long as we could afford the
cost;
That it was essential to measure yourself up against your neighbour to compare
location.
your social standing - it was shameful to be poor, ignorant vulnerable;

That beg, borrow or steal it was important to get ahead and steal a march on your
location.
competitor and neighbours - if you were smart enough, you could get away with
anything including murder.
That what mattered was what society told you as per the images in the media - the
location.
lifestyles of the rich, the presentation of personality package, the hardnosed

business skills of the industrialist, the perfect loveliness of the body beautiful, the
promise of perfect love and perfect spouse, the appeal of power and control, the
ideal city set amidst an artificial concrete jungle;
Some changes came slowly - like the struggle for independence of countries under
foreign colonization; the discovery of ultimate oneness of matter and energy in
science; the spread of literacy and awareness of the world, the campaign against war,
the struggle against orthodoxy and superstitions; nuclear and chemical weapons; the
efforts to prevent pollution and degradation of forest resources, the feminist
movement against unequal treatment and sexual harassment; etc.
Other changes took us by surprise, unawares and unprepared. The ‘73 oil crisis; the
collapse of the Mexican economy; the break up of the USSR; the integration of Europe
into one community; the computer revolution, the internet and the millenium bug;
Kasparov’s loss to Deep Blue in chess; 24 hour satellite channels, CNN, MTV, and
videogames; Remote control surgery through satellite, gene splicing and cloning of
animals and humans; AIDS, recurrence of Malaria and Plague; criminalisation of
politics, rise of regional and communal political parties, international terrorism and
criminal networks, gang wars, drug trafficing, child-prostitution and sexual abuse;
etc.
The population explosion, the exponential growth in information, the global economy,
uncontrolled growth of industry and consequent downsizing, the consumeristic
demand for luxuries over necessities, and many more factors caught the social,
economic and political institutions napping. New responses were called for, and this is
where smaller, and consequently more flexible institutions took up the challenge
through initiative, creativity, learning, and constant updating.
Today the rigid black and white thinking is giving way to creative colourful thinking,
where there can be more than one right solution to different problems. The old win or
lose competitive thinking is yeilding to a win/win cooperative attitudes. The male
dominated world is gradually becoming a balanced world where women have a
greater say in business, politics, and other prominent fields. The left brain (logical,
rational, linear) thinking is being counterbalanced by the right brain (artistic,
intuitive, lateral) thinking to converge into what is now called whole brain thinking.
Individual initiative and networking brings about as great change, if not greater, as
governments and industries - and more and more of the government’s social welfare
programmes are being handed over to private non-governmental organizations in the
interest of better fund management and optimum utilization. Citizen’s committees
are taking direct action to successfully deal with pressing problems that has been
pending for decades.
How are we to deal with the changing conditions in our life? What are the necessary
things that we must do to avoid the problem of "Future Shock" as Alvin Toefler terms
it?
Understanding change is the first step. Knowing why they are happening, and how
they effect me, is essential. To see if this is what I want, and if not, what are the
things that will move me towards what I want, is another step. Does my plan of action
fit into the scheme of things as a whole, is evaluation. And effective follow through in
action, is the final step.
In terms of personal growth and inner maturity, the present changes hold a lot of
promise. There are any number of personal, religious and spiritual development
programmes available today. Even business and management have jumped on to the
human resources development bandwagon with a rich dose of meditation, yoga, trans-
personal psychology, nature retreats, etc. apart from their regular personality
development and business skills schedules. When the outer worlds fail to deliver the
promised utopia, we turn to ourselves, moving inwards to our spiritual core. It is
there we have to seek for answers, and it is there we have to discover ourselves as we
really are, as we really want to be.
Some of the skills, activities and attitudes required to live beyond the year 2000 AD
are shown below:
Self-awareness exercises, getting feedback from others.

location.
Verifying beliefs and reality testing, sorting facts from fiction.

location.
Participating in Self-help groups and growth activities.

location.
Balancing of needs (physical, emotional, intellectual, spiritual). Living in multi-

location.
dimensions, leading a whole life.
Reading habits (on a wide range of topics and interests).
location.
Having a mentors who guide you from above.

location.
Leadership of thought - looking ahead into the future, redefining goals. Having a
location.
vision and purpose in life.

Ability to switch standpoints - creativity, sense of humour, asking ‘why’ and "why
location.
not’?
Risk management - ability to deal with insecurity, uncertainty, and loss.
location.
Upgrading skills, learning new skills, cutting wasteful habits and superfluous
activities.
Emotional Management and Emotional Intelligence. Ability to connect to others
location.
through empathy and openness.

Recycling - creating wealth from waste.
location.
Ability to profit from good advice - listening skills, asking questions, curiosity.
location.
Organizing information into meaningful messages –

location.
Multidisciplinary learning - Integration of disciplines to fit holistically.

location.
Skills in communication, team-work, delegation, synergy.

location.
Analysing breakdowns and bottlenecks through system analysis.

location.
Networking - everyone has a network of which he/she is the most essential central
location.
link.
Ability to use time creatively and purposefully.
location.
Developing habits of Trustworthiness, Initiative, etc.

location.
Getting in touch with your inner Self through prayer, conscience, meditation etc.
location.
and many more.
Year 2000! What about it? Is it so special - 2000 years in a universe that by scientific
estimates is 15 billion years old.? According to Carl Sagan, if every billion years of
Earth history compressed into the span of a single year, all of recorded history
occupies the last ten seconds of December 31. "But because I have arranged it that
way, the first cosmic year has just ended. And despite the insignificance of the
instant we have so far occupied in cosmic time, it is clear that what happens on and
near Earth at the beginning of the second cosmic year will depend very much on the
scientific wisdom and the distinctly human sensitivity of mankind." Carl Sagan in THE
DRAGONS OF EDEN.
We stand poised to go back to the stars from which we were born. We can also choose
to extinguish ourselves mindlessly and go back to the dust from which we came from.
Our choices at this moment in time will determine whether we succeed in uniting
humanity and reach greater heights of glory, or engage in mass weapons of warr and
self-destruct, extinct, - unknown, unsung, lost in the maze of history.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Spiritual Moorings in Leadership
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Faith Popcorn in her book on modern trends in Western Society – CLICKING, has this to
say, “The bad news is that our society is adrift, but the good news is that it’s still
afloat. Even though we have been getting tossed about like flotsam and jetsam on the
sea of life, we are managing to renew our spirits by grabbing on to a line of hope.
After a decade or two of materialism and meanness, we’re looking for simpler ansers.
This new Trend about inner spirit is called Anchoring. The most important part, the
core of Anchoring, is taking comfort in what was safe and secure from the past in
order to get ready for the future. Spirituality is at the very heart and soul of the
Anchoring Trend.”
Today even business and management have jumped on to the human resources
development bandwagon with a rich dose of meditation, yoga, trans-personal
psychology, nature retreats, etc. apart from their regular personality development
and business skills schedules. When the outer worlds fail to deliver the promised
utopia, we turn to ourselves, moving inward to our spiritual core. It is there we have
to seek for answers, and it is there we have to discover ourselves as we really are, as
we really want to be. Ultimately we have to find a balance between our inner and
outer worlds. Spirituality and Individuality complement each other as a matter of
fact. The more we extend ourselves in our capacity as an individual, we are growing
and learning. And the more we look into our inner core, we get the wisdom to deal
with our external world.
The anchoring trend is especially true in the modern Indian who seems to have lost
touch with his culture and apes everything western, from movies, dress, lifestyle as
well as management paradigms. It would do the present day Indian manager proud to
go through ancient manuscripts and look for insights from history and spiritual
traditions; to discover the abundance of insights into leadership and fundamental
principles of management as set down in books like Artha Shastra, Mahabharata etc. A
systematic study will reveal that there are no old principles or newly discovered
principles – Principles are something timeless and are there to be assimilated by one
and all – whether they were passed down through tradition from olden days, or
rediscovered by enterprising thinking yound persons of today.
Leaders of men are made, not born. Who is a leader? Obviously the one whom people
follow. If there were no followers, there would be no leaders. And what make people
follow a leader? His charisma? His charm? His persuasive powers? His personal power?
Gandhi was a leader. And so were Subhash and Shivaji. What did they have in
common? They all had a cause. They were motivated. They had a vision and were
prepared to go out on a limb to realise it. they were willing to give their all to make
their dream come true. “Great things are done by people who think great thoughts
and then go out into the world to make their dreams come true.” – Ernest Holmes.
An effective leader is the one who makes proper use of his human endowments in full.
“The primary human endowments are: 1) Self-awareness or self-knowledge, 2)
Imagination and conscience; and 3) Volition or will power. The secondary
endowments are :4) An abundance mentality, 5) Courage and consideration, 6)
Creativity, and 7) Self-renewal. All are unique human endowments; animals don’t
possess any of them. But they are all on a continuum of low and high levels.” –
Stephen Covey, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.
Our scriptures and historical works give us great insight into the nature of leadership.
They teach by example, presenting role models like Rama, Krishna and the like.
Rama, like Gandhi, personified strength along with extraordinary moral fibre. In
choosing to live in the forest for 14 years, Rama chose to put his sense of duty ahead
of the pleasures of kingship. With the might of his arms and trustworthiness of
character, he turned around the misfortune of losing Sita into an opportunity of
winning new friends and of extending his influence beyond the seas.
Krishna the diplomat and negotiator established an empire of dharma by effecting

practical solutions for insurmountable problems, neutralising the machinations of the
crooked Shakuni and others, through his thorough understanding of human nature and
holistic perspective of life. He was a management guru of epic proportions, who with
his presentation of Upanishadic insights and practical no-nonsense approach,
influenced the mindset of Arjuna, Yudhisthira and others and changed the course of
the Mahabharata war.
Bhishma, the grandsire of the Kuru family, whose military skills were unmatched, took
charge of the kingdom and managed the affairs of state through the ups and downs of
the royal family and sacrificed his own personal interests for the larger good of the
kingdom. Hastinapur enjoyed total security and peace under his guidance. At the
same time, he valued good counsel and kept at his side advisors like Vidura the wise
for guidance in spiritual and ethical issues.
Vishwamitra for his perseverence, and Vyasa for his vision of a cultural and moral
renaissance, have become heroes for all times to come. Vishwamitra is an example of
the person who, unfazed by his long bouts of interrupted and uncompleted Tapas,
believed in himself and his capacity to overcome all odds. Working constantly to
overcome his personal limitations like anger, lust, etc. he passed the ultimate test
when the greatest of sages, Vasishtha himself, acknowledge him as “Brahma-rishi”.
Vyasa took on to himself the role of uniting the divers peoples of the Indian
subcontinent through integrating the different scattered vedic traditions into four
Vedas that are an encyclopaedia of spiritual and religious thought. Not satisfied, he
involved the common masses through the the eighteen Puranas that contain stories of
gods like Vishnu, Shiva and others, highly inspiring and devotional in nature. And who
can forget the epic Mahabharata that he gave to posterity which, while entertaining
the readers, is a complete education in itself in the art and science of life
management.
The Artha Shastra of Chanakya, like the Mahabharata is a mine of information

regarding Leadership, Management, Statesmanship, Economy, Administration, etc. it
describes an ideal king and management of a large kingdom, through the help of
ministers, treasury, army and allies. Chanakya highlights the qualities that make an
excellent ruler. These are grouped as Abhigamikah gunah – qualities that inspire
confidence in others and make the ruler easily approachable, such as nobility of birth,
piety, and truthfulness;
Prajnagunah – qualities of the intellect, such as ability to understand, to think
independently etc.; & Utsahagunah, qualities like bravery, quickness of decision,
strength of mind and so on.
Apart from the above, personal qualities like eloquence, boldness, memory, etc. are
also recommended. These qualities make for proactive nature essential for any
leader. With these, a person is equipped to undertake any enterprise and make it a
success.
A subhashita in sanskrit says it very well.
Udyamam Saahasam Dhairyam

Buddhis Shaktih Paraakramah,
Shadete Yatra Vartante
Tatra Devaah Sahaayakrit.
(Endeavour, daring, fortitude, wisdom, strength and valour – where these six reside,
the gods too lend a helping hand.)
Another subhashita highlights the proactivity required for achievement:
Na Daivam Iti Sanchintya

Tyajet Udyogam Aatmanah,
Anudyamena Kastailam
Tilebhyah Praaptum Arhati.
(May one not, relying on mere destiny, abandon self-effort. How does one extract oil
from sesame seeds without effort?)
To sum up the above qualities in modern terminology, an effective leader possesses

the following:
a) Over-all Perspective - clear thinking, fact-orientation, ability to analyze

cost/benefit
b) Purpose – desire and will to make the necessary changes
c) Self Esteem – belief in one’s own worthiness and power to initiate change
d) Self Discipline – personal comforts secondary to long-term results

e) Acceptance – confronting fear of failure and loss
f) Personal Integrity – openness and trustworthiness,
g) Learning – ability to take stock and profit from others’ experiences/feedback
h) People skills – ability to communicate and cooperate with others
i) Adaptability – creative approach in handling situations
j) Perseverance – sustained effort and the will to win
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Self Esteem
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Too much self-esteem is bad", said my friend the other day. "Because it
amounts to ego, and ego is unhealthy." "Really?" I asked.
"Yes. thinking too much about yourself is selfish - you stop caring for
others. you become a difficult person to deal with - you see everything
through your ego lens. you have ego hassles because you need to change
reality to suit your convenience, which means controlling people against
their wishes, taking decisions without consulting others, using people for
your own ends, and turning red when you do not get desired results. every
situation becomes a threat to your image - if you succeed, you barely
survive; if you fail, you lose face."
"That is true", I replied. "But isn't the above description applicable to

the person with low self- esteem rather than high?" "How is that?" she
asked. "Well, the person who feels threatened by loss of face and
experiences ego hassles is basically someone who needs to keep up the facade
in order to feel OK. it seems that his self-esteem is dependent on the image
he projects rather than on what he really is. His ego is the bubble that can
be pricked sooner or later. he needs to protect his self-esteem from
anything and anyone who threatens his competence and worth. He finds it
difficult to admit mistakes and to being wrong, because he would be left
with nothing to hold on to."
Does this mean that ego is a sign of low self-esteem? Not necessarily. Ego
comes in many avataars. There is a healthy ego, an aggressive ego, a fragile
ego, and a futile ego. These four personalities represent the four
life-positions of transactional analysis respectively: i.e. I'm OK You are
OK, I'm OK You are not OK, I'm not OK You are OK, and I'm not OK You are not
OK. Of these, the first type represents high self-esteem.
The healthy ego is possessed of realistic thinking which is appropriate to

context. It is assertive without being aggressive. The person is aware of
her strengths and weaknesses and works with realities rather than against
realities. She is willing to learn and experiment and is open to correction.
Without standing on ceremony, she is willing to admit "I could be mistaken."
She is willing to accept herself with her limitations without condemning
herself. She is willing to work her problems through by taking appropriate
responsibility. She knows her limits and lets go of wasted efforts while
focusing on what she can do rather than worrying about what she can't. she
is magnanimous in victory and graceful in defeat. Failure is not a tragedy -
it is just a lost opportunity. And life is full of opportunities.
The aggressive ego and the fragile ego are characterized by fragmented
thinking. For them, the world is black and white, and there is only one
strategy adoptable for every occasion. While the former keeps demanding and
battling for favourable results, the latter hopes for, but lacks the will
necessary to create those results.
Both the aggressive and fragile egos tend to blame the situation when
frustrated. While one is inclined to anger, the other tends to self pity.
Success is seen by the former as self-made, and by the latter as due to
luck. While the former is non-accepting of his weakness, the latter is
non-accepting of his strengths.
Letting go of ego in spirituality means overcoming ego hassles, and that is

achieved by developing a healthy ego able to review and renew itself in
harmony with reality. Life becomes a wonderful teacher and living becomes a
rewarding experience.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Shivaratri
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Shivaratri is the night of prayer - prayer for light, for knowledge, for
deliverance from sorrow, for fulfilment of human life. The night represents
ignorance, and Shiva is the one who delivers us from bondage. The devotee,
in full faith, surrenders to the Lord of the Universe and the Lord in turn
blesses the devotee with immortality. The devotee merges with the Lord to
become one. In metaphysical terms, the ego has dissolved and merged with the
universal self.
Spiritual growth consists in moving from Tamas through Rajas to Sattva. My

ego is made healthy and positive through right attitudes and holistic
thinking. Opposing fragmented beliefs are resolved and integrated into
wholesome wisdom. In the language of the Tao, opposites complement and flow
into each other in an unending dance that constitutes the whole.
My maturity comes through gathering flowers of different cultures and

beliefs and weaving a beautiful garland of wisdom for all to profit and
enjoy. An intelligent person learns from his own experiences. A wise person
learns from others. The remaining people happen to be the others ...! Not
only do they not learn, they also become examples for others how not to
live.
Sattva is the measure of integration that has taken place my life as a

result of assimilating experiences and learning from them. This integration
is possible at different levels; as an individual; in a relationship, in
teams, in the community, and also at the global level. To the extent I am
able to integrate myself with my surroundings, I am able to subordinate my
ego to the larger self. I am able to let go of my personal ego and identify
with the greater whole. I no longer want to profit at your expense. I would
rather share my profits with you and enjoy the resulting goodwill. I no
longer want to win over you - I want to win with you. In Sattva, 'We' is
greater than 'You' or 'I'.
If I identify my ego only with my personal material needs, I become

sensitive to personal slights, real or imagined. I become ego-cantered -
seeing the entire world through my personal coloured glasses. The problem
with this scenario is that I lose touch with reality! Isn't this a
definition of insanity? This is generally how the scriptures describe ego or
'ahankaar'.
However, when I expand the scope of my ego to include you, I am open to

seeing through your eyes, and I can show you what I see. I can help you to
understand how I feel and what I need. We can walk in each other's shoes to
see where it pinches. We can enhance each other without losing our
individual freedom. We surrender our personal egos to the larger ego without
losing our individuality. We enjoy a relationship of synergy - two plus two
is more than four. WE are greater than EITHER of us. We have discovered a
self that is higher than us.
The highest self that my ego can include is the universal self - call it
God, or Universe, or the Higher Power within me. Surrendering my ego to that
universal self is not a sacrifice. Rather, it makes me fulfilled. I can let
go of my personalisation and hurts, and enjoy the reality out there without
distorting it in any way. There is a greater sense of trust, peace,
acceptance, and freedom. There is neither I nor You. The whole universe is
one family. Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam. The promise of Shivaratri is that of
deliverance from the fragmented ego when I choose to surrender to the
universal Self.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Article for Sunday Asian Age Column 27 February 2005

Sattva, Rajas, Tamas
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Three types of personalities are vividly described in the Bhagavad Gita -

Saattvik, Raajasik, and Taamasik. Every person is a combination of all these
three natures - Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas. Sattva accounts for insight,
perspective, and balance.
Sattva involves long-term holistic thinking, in contrast to Rajas and Tamas

which involve fragmented thinking. Rajas accounts for 'make or break'
decisions -based on short-term goals, Tamas accounts for inconclusive
thinking, based on ignorance, confusion and lack of trust.
The Saattvik person values harmony, learning, health and happiness, He is

committed to improving the quality of his life through awareness,
responsibility, and assertiveness. He lives purposefully, has self
acceptance, and values integrity.
The Raajasik person sees situations in terms of likes and dislikes, and
takes things personally. The Raajasik person chooses between aggressive and
passive behaviours, depending on which have the greatest chances of success.
The Taamasik person is out of touch with all of reality. He sees everything
in life as hopeless and pointless. There is no learning, no growth, - only
bitterness, emptiness, and the sense of uselessness. The person exhibits
confused behaviours - tends to be led, to avoid people, or to rebel most of
the time.
Spirituality consists in growing away from Tamas through Rajas towards

Sattva. This process involves commitment to awareness, honesty, courage, and
hard work. It is easy to complain, blame, and give excuses for failure. On
the other hand, it takes great courage to admit that I am on the wrong
track, and to take responsibility for getting back on the rails.
Spirituality consists in searching for and recognising objective realities
rather than holding on to my subjective beliefs that define my ego boundary.
My early childhood beliefs about the world and about me are responsible for
my personality. I made decisions about how to respond to my world, based on
these early beliefs. My main purpose as a child was to survive all odds,
which I managed to, either as a winner or as a loser. My childhood beliefs
and decisions reinforced each other to become the defining boundary for my
ego. I chose my philosophy of living based on the best chance of survival -
win/win, win/lose, lose/win, or lose/lose, and accordingly developed
healthy, aggressive, fragile, or futile ego respectively.
Because my beliefs and decisions reinforced each other, it was difficult for
me to be different. I grew up with my blind spots, failing to notice where
reality contradicted my beliefs I became adult in age, but was trapped in a
child's mental perception of reality that had no connection to my present
reality. The more my beliefs were at variance with reality, the greater
became my confusion and desperation. I needed to be right and to hold on to
my beliefs at the cost of reality, because my early childhood beliefs had
become my reality. I became a victim of my own childhood perceptions.
Fortunately, I am not condemned to remain a victim. As an adult, I can open

my eyes and examine my beliefs through reality testing. As an adult, I am
better equipped to survive without having to be a loser. I can reassure
myself and be compassionate to myself whenever I feel confused or desperate.
I can open up to new learning that can change my life for good. I can
develop new skills that can make a qualitative improvement to my destiny. I
can subscribe to healthy beliefs that are in concordance with reality. I can
develop a healthy ego that involves high self-esteem and win/win thinking.
This is, in essence, the wisdom and promise of Sattva.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Article for Sunday Asian Age Column 13th Feb 2005

LIKING AND LOVING MYSELF - IV
Affirmations
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To listen to the friendly voices requires commitment, patience, courage, and

faith. Unless I choose to believe that I am OK, capable, and worthy of love
and happiness, I cannot change. Even when dark clouds of doubt and disaster
loom on the horizon, I need to choose to believe in myself , to commit
myself to raise myself by myself. I need to be my own friend, not my own
enemy.
"All of us have self-doubts at the beginning of some undertakings whether we

are doctors lawyers, engineers, teachers, students, poets or salesmen. Where
does faith and belief come from? From within ourselves. We are faith. We are
belief. We are also doubt and unbelief. We as individuals must make the
decision where we want to go in life, to be the big self or the little self.
We must think of our faith and our belief as wings that can make us soar to
our destination, to achieve our goals and reach self-fulfillment no matter
how critical our times may be. With doubt and unbelief our creative wings
are clipped for the moment and we can't get of the ground to rise above our
self-imposed dungeonIt is our moral responsibility to rise above them to
make something of ourselves through faith and belief. These characteristics
are eternally within us waiting to be recognized waiting for action."
Maxwell Maltz - THOUGHTS TO LIVE BY.
To believe in myself, I require to face myself squarely and honestly. I need

to know what I really need in life - they have to be my chosen goals, not
something imposed on me by society. Unless I know my priorities, I am just
drifting in life. I need to have a dream which I can realise. I also need to
wake up in order to make my dream come true. To reach that, I have to pay a
price, - in terms of dedication, discipline, perseverence, and hard work. I
assess realistically my abilities that will help me get there. At every
stage in my life, I can keep developing and enhancing my skills through
learning and training. I need not choose to remain a victim when I can train
and prepare myself to meet challenges in life.
Every day as I get up from my bed, I can remind myself - I have a dream, and
it is up to me to fulfil it. There is much to be done and there is little
time. I will make the best use of this day to achieve, learn, share, relate,
grow, and stretch my limits. I will also appreciate the blessings this day
brings to me - health, wealth, well being, friends, joys, experiences,
insights, maturity. I will take difficulties in my stride and make things
right when it feels wrong. I welcome pain as a learning experience, and
endeavor to become a master instead of a victim. I will not allow this day
to go in vain.
In my journey of life, I have with me only one steady and constant companion
- myself ! I am the only one I have to myself. How well do I know that self?
Have I made friends with it? Do I like and love myself? The answer lies with
me. Am I for myself or against myself? Am I here with a solution or am I
part of the problem?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Article for Sunday Asian Age Column 6th Feb 2005

LIKING AND LOVING MYSELF - III
Friendly Inner Voices
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"We are told by our parents, and other adults, what we can and cannot do. We
are told what we are good at and what we are not. We are told how we look.
We are told what to expect, what to believe in, how to act, and what to do
or not to do. Because, starting out as children, completely dependent on
others, it is important to our survival to listen and to believe what others
say, we learn to accept what others tell us - and we learn to believe it." -
Shad Helmstetter in WHAT TO SAY WHEN YOU TALK TO YOURSELF.
Is there anyway I can break free from the conditionings of my past

programming and be my own person? It is obviously a tall order. Habits and
beliefs die hard. Awareness is the first step. Am I happy with the way I am
right now? Is my life lived to my satisfaction or is life just passing me
by? Do I respect myself and take care of myself, or am I used and abused by
everyone including myself? Does meaning in my life come from pleasing others
and gaining their approval, or do I have my own approval? Does my worth come
from my achievements or am I intrinsically worthy just by being a human
being? Do I try to meet my needs by honestly working for them, or do I just
sit back hopelessly or manipulate others to fulfil my needs? Am I inimical
to myself or am I a friend to myself ?
In the book THE INNER ENEMY, - Dr. George R Bach & Laura Torbet list the
various friendly and enemy voices that we have internalized from our past.
Among the allies are the adventurer, comforter, voice of reason and
commonsense, the confidant who listens and accepts you, the optimist, the
fan who admires you, the go-getter, and the dreamer who draws up
possibilities and designs creative solutions . All of them are positive
voices and encourage you to achieve and offer hope and comfort whenever in
need. Among the enemies are those that distract you from enjoying yourself,
doubt your abilities, rub salt into your wounds, discount your achievements,
overindulge you,doubt the love of friends, make you pessimistic and scared,
keep you invalid, cause you to blunder and procrastinate. Though some of
these appear friendly, they derail you from your purpose, keep you helpless,
hurt, and lost.
At every moment, I am surrounded by voices from my past - messages I chose

to hear from my younger days. All of them are not inimical - many of them
are friendly, helpful, cheerful and encouraging. I may have chosen to listen
selectively to certain messages in the past. Perhaps many of them were
depressing and critical, some others pitying and scornful. I stand at
crossroads now, with a power of choice. Which are the messages I choose to
listen to, pay attention to, or invoke? And what are the messages I choose
to let go, tune out, and ignore? Am I clear as to who are my friends and who
are not my friends? Everytime I label myself as angry, bad, lonely,
incapable etc., am I stating a fact, or is that an inimical message I chose
to identify with? Do I care to listen to the feedback from my friends who
keep harping on the fact that I am really not that bad?
------

Articles - Asian Age

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Articles - Asian Age

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

My Articles in Asian Age

Managing Trustee, Vidya Vaaridhi Trust

Promoting educational, cultural and spiritual activities

Managing Director, Mindflex – The Learning Organization

Training with a Heart

A-101, Mani Bhavan, 11th Road, Chembur, Mumbai 400071

uday _ acharya at hotmail dot com

Dasahera published in Mumbai Age on Oct 24th 2004

PAYING MY DUES (1997)

The chatterbox makes us superficial, ineffective, fearful, helpless, suspicious,

The Trial by Fire

The Chhandogya Upanishad refers to a trial by fire to determine whether a person

Meditation in general involves learning to relax physically and psychologically,

Yoga, Transcendental Meditation, Vipasana, Zen, etc., have meditative techniques

Sankranti, or Makar Sankranti, is the auspicious time in the month of Magha

Sankranti is celebrated as Pongal in the Tamil Nadu Rice is cooked in milk

It is celebrated as Bihu in north-eastern India. In Maharashtra tilgul

"Nature sometimes stops smiling and starts frowning" - Swami Chinmayananda.

When you are lost in contemplation of a beautiful flower or lend a helping

He emphasized the chanting of God's name (Naam). "Naam is the priceless

What is the basis for my judgments about myself? Much of it is learnt at

At times, my parents nourished me and guided me with encouraging words and

At other times my parents smothered me with their concern for me, or

What is expected of me as a member of the human race? To be part of a community is

Be available to my community in times of need

Enrich it with my knowledge and resources (without necessarily impoverishing

Use and recycle the community resources optimally

Set standards of excellence in my field and become a positive role model in my

donating blood, eyes, time, talent, expertise etc.

Participate in action-cells for handling internal disputes, ensuring appropriate

discipline, redressing grievances and counselling activities

injustice through public awareness programmes

demonstration of appreciation for individual initiative and good work

cultural activities, sports, exhibitions, workshops etc.

affecting the community,

sharing of ideas and thoughts and information.

Setting targets are important in orderr to motivate myself to achievement. Targets

A friend of mine recently died in a road accident on the Bombay-Pune highway. I

In the celebrated principle of uncertainty, Heisenberg states that it is impossible to

Society is changing, - political and social institutions, education system, business

pill to cure all our diseases of body and mind;

were absolute and indestructible;

wiser, stronger and dependable, whereas women were unpredictable, emotional

stronger without limits;

road roller or else you were part of the road;

charge knew what was good for us;

your social standing - it was shameful to be poor, ignorant vulnerable;

lifestyles of the rich, the presentation of personality package, the hardnosed

Self-awareness exercises, getting feedback from others.

Verifying beliefs and reality testing, sorting facts from fiction.

Participating in Self-help groups and growth activities.

Balancing of needs (physical, emotional, intellectual, spiritual). Living in multi-

Having a mentors who guide you from above.

vision and purpose in life.

through empathy and openness.

Organizing information into meaningful messages –

Multidisciplinary learning - Integration of disciplines to fit holistically.

Skills in communication, team-work, delegation, synergy.

Analysing breakdowns and bottlenecks through system analysis.

Developing habits of Trustworthiness, Initiative, etc.

and many more.

Spiritual Moorings in Leadership

Krishna the diplomat and negotiator established an empire of dharma by effecting

The Artha Shastra of Chanakya, like the Mahabharata is a mine of information