Wonder, Wisdom, Wealth and Wholeness

The Me

2010-01-27T04:53:00.002+05:30

All attempts to "indicate" in words the indefinable infinite source of us all create more markers in a journey that isn't.

Why sustain the illusion that there is actually a fixed place and a multitude of pathways to get that illusive place called nirvana, moksha, graceland?

When, before the beginning and after the end of time, there is nowhere to go, nowhere to hide!!

When there is nothing "real" about "maya"?

When there is nothing but a

"Seeing of our blindness"?,

"listening to our deafness",

"tasting our own blandness",

"speaking our own dumbness",

"touching our senselessness" and

"minding our mindlessness"?

And in this embracing of current reality, it simply dissolves away!

A choiceless Awareness arises or rather shines through

And then we realize the timeless truths

The wisdom of the sages through the ages

Ihaiwa, Ihaiwa -- here only, now only

Tat Twam Asi -- Thou art that

Aham Brahmasmi - I am Brahma is me

Khalawida Brahma -- The whole is Brahma

The journey that begins with Kohum? - Who am I

Ends when one realizes the destination is Sohum -- That I am!

And then Srushti shines -- the Divine Nature within and without!

Blessed by the eternal Shankar and the serene Shailaja -- the Shiva and Parvati

Ably challenged into Being Love by the Chandrasekhar and Shailaja -- the moon bearer and his consort

And the Ganesha - lord of wisdom, the jidnyasu, Dances on

Weaving the fabric of magical insights in multiple languages

Always inviting "eternal light" into the "ephemeral darkness"

What a truly amazing trip this round around the "Ananda" spiral is turning out to be..

Anil Shankar Paranjpe --> Actualising Sacred Potential --> Ananda Silence Peace

From Having to Doing through Being to Source

-- All the time becoming the BEING!

The Smile that never ends is Breaking out

Being Disciplined --> Being Love --> Being Whole

my life's work

2010-01-08T03:32:00.002+05:30

Life is a path we create as we tread it – this is I hold to be a fundamental truth.

The individual and the collective are on a march towards greatness – always in a spiral, never in a straight line nor in loops. The spiral of Ananda – wonder leading to dawning of wisdom which ushers in true wealth. This leads to fleeting experiences of the Reality of Wholes – a network of wholes ultimately leading to the source of it all – the deep void, the silence that is before the beginning and after the end – the Wishwa Yoni.

As I am becoming increasingly clear, I have been, am and will continue to be a student of “Life”!

It started with the foray into the field of Process Improvement for software, graduated into an inquiry into the science of organisational learning which led into the world of “Architecting Value generating systems”. Currently I am seeing the transformation space as leading directly to this Discovery of Divine Designs.

We all are essentially on a journey of discovering divine design and then living the disciplined life of a sadhak-senani to eventually become a Raj-Rishi. In the institutional space this “ultimate destination” appears to be “Co-creation of Conscious Communities”

Books like Goal, The Fifth discipline, The Living company, Birth of the Chaordic age, Zen and the art of Motorcycle maintenance, etc are vehicles of the Western thought to bring about excellence in our working lives.

Based on direct personal experience, and engaging with Illumine Knowledge Resources Private Limited, as well as the subsequent forays at two start-ups and into facilitation with Athanor, I am convinced that the lack of a deeper basis for living, is the source of great trouble in the individual and social life.

I believe that Oriental culture at its roots contains the principles relevant to the current times. These have to be integrated into a whole with the “developmental scientific and engineering” work of the Occident! I see that the need is to take these principles and architect the new age practices, which are by design, value creating and at the same time liberating for the individual.

Performance at all levels comes from available Capacity and paradoxically all capacity comes from prior performance! Often a lack in performance is caused by “invisible” gaps between our beliefs and our actions (espoused theory vs. theory-in-action).

I am interested in the ongoing work of aligning the actual daily practices with the various guiding frameworks (informal or formal). This is the “discovery” of the latent capacities which leads to sustained performance.

Thus my life’s work with individuals, teams and organisations is to be a Capacity Discovery Coach.

Cycles of waking and dozing off

2009-11-27T06:41:00.002+05:30

What a funny cycle this is. One day you feel you have all the answers. Then as the cliche goes "the questions shift".

Then "I" slide back into sleep. Fear grips. Teachings are tossed. Meaning is lost. Darkness is near complete.

The heart screams. Sometimes threatens to stop. Yet, He does not let go of me. Instead I let go of me?!

And It Awakens, again!

This time it feels so different. And yet I have to remain watchful -- not to intervene, not to wake up again?! So that It remains awake!!

Here I be

2008-01-11T15:46:00.000+05:30

I am noticing a deepening, a mellowing -- almost like a rebirth that is happening. There is a "slowing down", actually a dropping out of the frenzy.

Is it just age catching up or is it another layer of ignorance dropping away?

Is there a growing clarity between being committed and being driven? Between "letting happen" and "making happen"?

The slow, inexorable death of the me, mine and all the familiar but deadly (!) mis-identification?

I could just sit and watch the sunlight on the grass, come through the foggy / hazy air. Watch people go about their lives. Feel the "restlessness" inside my body and my thinking! Watch the smile catch the lips, spread across my face, into my eyes and my entire being.

Grateful to be here, now! Nowhere to go, nothing really to do, to prove, to accomplish!!

Just a deep and complete acceptance of here-now!

Next Step? (December 25, 2007)

2008-01-11T12:16:00.000+05:30

Paper – blank, smooth, inviting

Is so after a long arduous journey

much like the land below

fields, homes, rivers, mountains, roads

all signatures of the Maker

Fueled by sunlight, air and water

Rooted by and in Mother Earth

All held in the Infinite Space

The mystery of time

the illusory foe-ally!

The magic our human ability

to think, to feel

to read, write,

speak and reflect

Delusions of the pattern making mind?

Fed incessantly by the sensory apparatus

An old habit

perpetuated by civilizations since time immemorial?

There is a lot of shaking and moving

Thanks to the turbulence of “updraft” of rising air

The pen is not flowing (at this height?)

Literally and Metaphorically

The Unshakable sense of fatigue

The hesitant but growing expectation

of the deeper unfolding that lies ahead

The looking back brings awe and gratitude

Mixed with regret at “silly mistakes”

and “giving into fears”

The insights gained must be lived and shared

For the journey thus far to be worthwhile

and more significantly to enable rapid unfolding

This is the time

To let GO and let God

Drop all expectations

All thinking, planning

Just Be Love!!

BE LOVE (On August 18, 2007)

2008-01-08T10:52:00.000+05:30

Long time no see
Actually right now hardly “see”
More than a month of action flurry
tilting at windmills – inside and outside
in a great deal of hurry

Becoming flush with the pulsating must do energy
Eagerly moving out to make happiness happen
Little realizing that rather than enlightening
the other were left screaming
scalded by the brutal directness
the total absence of niceness
the burning insistence
on facing
on shedding masks
on owning
on claiming
on becoming alive
right here, right now!!

Am I here
to heal (my self)
to make whole
to reveal the abundance
to unveil a life of love and surrender
which is both the source and the path?
Then can anger and force be a weapon?
When I fight with what is,i.e. Reality
Blindingly obvious who loses and how?!

So is it time to embrace power
to let go once and for all this shore
Is it time to face the mother of all fears?
This lunatic core belief of that there is a real me,
who has a purpose, a mission to make a better you?
That there is a finite window of opportunity for change, for evolution?
The illusive reality of time and space, and of course you and me?!

An effective coach indeed,
the raw energy certainly feels good
fulfills the bottomless void of the monkey mind
gives a sense of purpose and of direction
but ultimately, after all is said and done,
leaves me a prisoner of me!

So is it not time for next wave of Grace?
For the ultimate (?) Divine Embrace
the letting go of “me” and “mine”
The letting come of real gyaan
The essential vi-gyaan
The reality of WonderWW

You are being freed
because you are ready
to shoulder the awesome responsibility
what else is there to do
who else can I be

Be Love
Be Divine Love
Acceptance, naah!
Letting go, Naah!!
Celebration and just be!
Let happen
Light rather than heat
inspire, invoke and let it be
only work is you
loosing you, finding Him
24 by 7, everywhere

Silence
Gratitude
Action as Divine Expression
A 24 by 7 Celebration

Reflections of “awakening”? (On September 17, 2007)

2008-01-08T10:49:00.000+05:30

It is 4:30 AM

Nearly a month of hurricanes and typhoons

in the emotional space

A month of movement

of accomplishment

of progress and inevitable regress!!

On the expression of anger

the near and dear have been always in danger

the realization is that outbursts

have neither been effective or efficient

if change was the objective!!

It is a game of expectations

which you can't ever win!!

If you win, you want more

If you loose, you still want more!

The original motivation was / is to create, to participate

It gets warped via schooling

Society gives rise to the me

and inevitably the divide of other and me

the wedge that divides

the mother of all conflicts

there are twin forces of conditioning

fitting in – be like the norms

and standing out – become someone different

fulfill your potential they urge

together they ensure

the routine chaos

of socially acceptable and respected living

when you wake up

to being had, to being used

Your conditioned natural response

is to blast at the immediate prison walls

that changes nothing

the wall generator remains intact

making other walls grow

and consumes 5 life-minutes per flare up

a total loose-loose preposition, if there ever was one!!

So, if one is stays the course (permitted to stay?)

One reaches the end of terra-cognita

there there is the actual awakening

the seeing

That Love

Unconditional acceptance

is the only valid stance

in all situations

with everyone

the ultimate 2 inch leap of faith

Divine love, here I be

Genuinely life is a self-fulfilling prophecy

Why not change the script?

By unplugging from the ruling socio-political-economic matrix?

And tuning into the celestial jazz ensemble

A moment-to-moment celebration

of Live

Of Living

Of Loving

of ONE LIFE!!

Accept / transcend (On October 1, 2007)

2008-01-08T10:45:00.000+05:30

Accepting what is
that is the sagely universal advise
they say
the surest road to peace

then the mind rebels
it sees many improvement possibilities
it wants to do something
to address the blatant injustice!

The common refrain
if all of us did nothing, we could still be in caves
can't just accept
sit and do nothing and let things be

sensible, intelligent, activist
brilliant terms to make a willing change artist
blinded and deafened to true acceptance

how does real change happen?
in temporal, spatial dimension
because the changeless source is beyond forever!!

change is a perception
change is a manifestation
Change is a comparison
[perceived only on the background of the eternal changeless one]

comparison needs an ideal and a standard
we measure the actual against the ideal
and then we feel great or lousy

In the act of measurement
what happens is a judgment
judging “what is” to be either Good or Bad

And the “world” begins
We wants comfort, freedom from pain, only light
we want “infinity” here and now!!

But how do we
become wise if do not accept our dumbness
become wise if do not accept our sadness
become wise if do not accept love our boundaries

The opposites make a whole
what is and what can be
maketh a perceptual whole

the source beckons
through the dance of opposites
whole choices that is Life

nothing happens
without loving what is
bringing forth
by letting go and letting GOD

Love (November 1, 2007)

2008-01-08T10:43:00.000+05:30

How far afield of the design am I?
Is the lack of excitement leading to “depression”
Which, then is triggering aggression and frustration ?
All the intellectual gymnastics not withstanding
the perpetual gnawing of inadequacy??

What, if the messes are perfectly designed labs?
What if the alarm bells inside need such obvious triggers?
GOD with four hands, remember?
Notice,What you notice?
No Objective Reality out there?
It is all a “projection”!

So if I am the reliever of Stress,
then I will need a lot of “distress”!
So “Crisis” situations is what will abound
with fear, anger, naked raw emotion
jungle instincts, fight for survival

What if magic and abundance are my gifts?
24by7 happiness is my Shadow?
I am the Party?
Every breath a Celebration?

So if there is no-one else out there
There is no Process, other than Mine
What am I saying when I speak of flow and Learning?
“Loving what is” is the only work!
Nothing “specific” to-do, to change-to!
Letting Happen!!

When I look for purpose, I become robotic!
To discover the “Divine” is the sole human purpose
We may get there in our own unique ways
It is “meaning” that we live for!!

But, is “meaning” out there?
Is “meaning” a discovering of resonance?
An awakening to my Dharma
“fitting in” to my designated Calling?

As if there is one grand design?
Infinite possibilities – an illusion or a reality?
Choices – whole and lifetime ==> confusion?

Flow == uninterrupted success and interruption == learning space?!
OR
Loving what is== Seeing the Grand Design
and
Being Love== Living the design??

Illumination of Ignorance (On November 1, 2007)

2008-01-08T10:39:00.000+05:30

Bottlenecks, breakdowns and oh yes breakthroughs!

A life of struggle, of heroic persistence

Another strategy, another mechanism

of the Matrix?

Suffering, patience, struggle

Working hard and smart

The “surrender” to the dream

The “living out” of the passion

The reference to the Divine Design

The invocation of the Divine

The conquest of the Evil

A dance of and in Duality!

The “fundamental” ignorance

of me and the other

Who notices “What is”?

Who loves “What is”?

Is there a time and space?

Do “I” have a body, a mind, the senses?

What is this intellect?

Who is Aware?

Who is writing this?

Senses and brain ==> pattern recognition

Discovering Design when there is none?

Leverage, framework, possibilities

Axioms and Theories

all a figment of imagination?

Co-Arising, is this what it is?

With the birth of “me”, the world begins?

Big Mystery – Just who is at home?

What's the name of this game?

What's the game?

What's my next move?

The only ignorance “I”

must find “me”

Beyond the having and the doing

Discovering the Being!!

Masks and faces (On October 14, 2007)

2008-01-08T10:35:00.001+05:30

We have to “un”mask
many times over
till we see the face
only to realize, alas
it is yet another, multi-faceted mask!!

What a shock to know
that you forever project
a believable face
what a hilarious farce!!

A game of the five senses
in synch with the multiple intelligences
“Buddhi”is what keeps “maya” going
till the “sources transmission” starts receiving

Who transmits?
Who receives?
What a trap this is!
me and the other
be it bovine or Divine!!

A higher - a lower
A good - An evil
forever the dance of the dual
particles with opposite spin
together forever
but, yet, not the “Source”!

Love and hate
Gain and loss
Pain and Joy
Real and illusion
Always the dual expressed points to the One source!

Silence – not the opposite of noise
Peace – not the opposite of battle/ conflict
Love – not the opposite of hate
Awareness-- not the opposite of ignorance

No words, no description
No re-cognition of the Source
Breaking down
of all deep walls
of expectations and of regrets

Ah! freedom – the full and final!

AL(L)ONE (On October 14, 2007)

2008-01-08T10:34:00.000+05:30

Death of a dream
Birth of a “deep” scream
tears rush down in a stream
washing away the hard pain

waking up to the “loving real”
releasing the load of expectations
the source of anger and depression
settling in to the eternal loneliness and Oneness!

Physical, is not real, just surreal!
Emotional is hell when attached to the physical.
Heaven when yoked to the Spiritual
The upheaval is complete!

Death, be it of an illusion
brings forth a certain wistfulness
a wishing for different “outcomes”
But as they say, life comes in “wholes”

There will be hurt and conflict
along with the happiness gift
moving together and then adrift
two ships on the ocean of Life

Loneliness is the partner of mis-identification
Me male, She female,
attraction and repulsion
Pushing buttons, finishing lessons
Life times traversed in one verse!!

Harshness, brashness, aggressiveness, assertiveness
all the male hardness
Sulking, criticizing, complaining, resigning
all the female cunning
The negatives and positives all canceling

Zero and infinity
two ends of the tunnel of Possibility
Just a shift in perspective
from old illusion to new contact with the Real!

Let Go
Let God
Be LOVE
No One
AL(L)One!

Excitment and Resistance (October 2, 2007)

2008-01-08T10:32:00.000+05:30

There is often a restlessness
A nameless urgency
a need for speedy shifts
a deep impatience

Is it the seeing of the possibility
that triggers this “make happen now” energy?
As if a baby has discovered a brand new toy
and anybody who holds back is an enemy?

Is there only a Move and Oppose?
whither are the Follow and Bystand
The essential other axis in human dynamics?
To move the conversation from
debate to Dialogue?!

This “here and now” energy
Is anything but compassionate
it seeks to carry everyone
like a sweeping tsunami!

Tectonic shifts within
the bottom of the ocean moves
forcing the water to follow
the innocent shore gets the Tsunami!!

So can anything be done
to “safely” release the energy
the same one that causes the tectonic shifts
without holding back the required shifts?!

restless earth
impatient mind
inherent in the fabric of the manifest
in the eternal cycle of birth and death

Creation for some
Destruction for others
Birth of a flower is death of a bud
Form shifts ,the source is Eternal!

Attachment to form
that makes death so painful
it is the same “ignorance”
that causes “urgency” and the “resolute resistance”

This Day (October 13 2005)

2008-01-08T10:25:00.000+05:30

My eyes are feeling tired and heavy
My stomach and guts are in a churn
I can so easily fall into the dark and dreary
But I sense that with commitment things are about to turn

There is a traveling and staying away from home
There is a string of broken promises / failed plans
There is a rising concern about the balance-of-payments at home
There is a large gap between performance / realities and potential / possibilities!

In face of all this
I seem to be waiting for an insight
A sign, a symbol from the Divine light

3.5 years plus since I stopped being an employee
Much explored, much understood, much more to perceive
The critical must-do is to be true

Learning to plan, to execute the plan
to reflect on the Outcomes
to participate in the design
of the life one is here to Live!

Home with Savita where my heaven is
Seeing Srushti blossom into a young lady
Nurturing Sohum into a healthy and fun boyhood
Being Present and Being Loving!

Friendship (Circa Feb 2003)

2008-01-08T10:14:00.000+05:30

What a day and it is only half done

So much spoken, so much shared

It is like spring cleaning

Deep Cleansing through simple sharing

Twists and knots they vanish

when someone listens

and there is a deep silence

of a deep connection

A connection which transcends time and space

A connection which always existed – eternal

This is the gift of the day

and what delicious irony

such a flow and a glow

with a person whom I always knew

but she is ever new!

Thank you, is too small a phrase

Too contrived between friends of the real kind

but then how do I express my gratitude?

to this miracle that happened today

It is our attitude!

Dude!

Life of/for grace

2007-11-20T09:48:00.000+05:30

An unending stream
of forms
of birth and death
What then is life?
And therefore non-life?

The ability to self regulate
the ability to self replicate
A stable pattern in a sea of chaos?
Order which maintains itself in the face of Entropy?
The evolutionary impulse of the Universe?

How alive are we?
Caught in deadening routines?
Either sticking with them or rebelling against them?
Are we reacting and seldom acting or responding?

What do we regulate for?
Compliance or pride?
What do we replicate for?
Habit, pleasure or just can't help it?
Was entropy any worse?

Forever receiving
Seldom giving
Rarely happening!

The pattern of me
preventing the higher pattern of we?
the pattern of me and mine
preventing access to the source Divine?

The magical space of Wholeness
leads to the Wishwa-yoni -- the mother of all possibility
Accessible through the disciplined journey
of staying in the state of Wonder!

Not knowing
Just Being

Musings on change and perception

2007-11-20T07:01:00.000+05:30

Oscillations around a center pass through the center, albeit momentarily. Chaotic movements are through the entire possibility space and by definition there is no center, no direction, no pattern!
How do we perceive movement? There has to be a frame of reference with respect to which things shift.
Does this frame exist in "reality"? Where does it reside then? Who is the I who is perceiving?
Doesn't the knowing-through-reading set up expectations?
The entire construct of thought appears to be an activity of symbol manipulation within some arbitrarily larger frame of reference. A hierarchical traversal through some predefined / pre-created symbolic space!
Is awareness then an insight into the deep process by which the "world and I" co-arise? Who can be correctly said to be aware and what is it aware of?
Or is this very question another thought pattern keeping the reality unaccessible?
The perception of as real of "I" which factually is open to serious challenge has to be the mother of all illusions! Who is the me who claims to do, be, have, feel?
Thus

Can I ever know reality?
Is there ever a Divine that is other than my essence?

It appears that society needs duality to persist, including the futile questing for insight into reality!!

The Real Action

2007-08-20T05:32:00.000+05:30

Long time, no see
Actually right now hardly “see”
More than a month of action flurry
Tilting at windmills – inside and outside
in a great deal of hurry

Becoming flush with the pulsating “must do” energy
Eagerly moving out to “make happiness' happen
Little realising that rather than “enlightening”
The “others” were left screaming
scalded by the brutal directness
the burning insistence
on shedding masks
on facing (ones fears)
on owning (ones life)
on claiming (real responsibility)
on becoming alive
HERE AND NOW!!

I wonder out loud and in much personal pain
If, I am here to heal my self,
to make whole
to reveal the abundance
to live a life of love and surrender
to become one with the source and the path
then
Can anger and force be my weapons, ever?
When I fight with reality,
with what is,
Blindingly obvious who looses and how!!

So I ask, is it time to embrace “Power”
to let go once and for all of “this shore”
Is it time to face the mother of all fears?
This lunatic core belief that
there is a real me
who has a purpose, a mission
to make a better you?!
that there is a finite window of opportunity?
The seductive reality of time and space?
the myth of the other and of the me?

An effective and efficient coach indeed,
The raw energy of insight feels good
fulfills the bottomless void
of the monkey mind
Perpetuates the illusion of purpose and direction
But ultimately and actually
When all is said and done
Leaves me still very much a prisoner of ME!!

So is it not time for next wave of Grace?
For the ultimate Divine Embrace?
The letting go of me and mine?
The letting come of the essential Jnyana?
The genuine living in “Whole pieces”?!

Then I hear
with joyful tears
“You are being freed
because you are ready
to shoulder the awesome responsibility”

I realise, I see
What else is there to do?
Who else can I be?
BE LOVE
BE DIVINE LOVE
Mere Acceptance, naah!
Letting Go, Naah!
Celebration and just be
let happen
light rather than heat
inspire, invoke and let it be

Only work is you
Loosing you
Finding Him
Silence
Gratitude
Action as divine expression
a 24 by 7 celebration.

A Home coming - the eternal movement - Unfolding and enfolding

2007-07-26T06:16:00.000+05:30

From	Via	To
Alone	Relationships	All-One
Ego-system	Ecosystem	“One” System
Products	Services	Liberating frameworks
Wanting	Giving	Flow-through
Doom and Despair	Hope and Aspire	Devote, design and Do
Hoard and Manipulate	Give and receive	Gift and lift
Cost saving	Profit Generating	Value creating
Consume	Prosume	Partake in the Divine Play
Memory and knowing	Insight and Wisdom	Being and Happening
Ignorance and denial	Acceptance and Knowing	Being and Celebrating
Labour and Capital	Knowledge	Divine inspiration

Actualizing Possibilities (AP)

2007-07-26T06:02:00.000+05:30

Straddling worlds

Bridging spaces / healing all gaps

Revealing the mystery by reveling

in the healing Wholeness

The underlying Oneness

The timeless, formless Divine

That Celestial Being

The very breath of the Becoming

The maker / the magic of all miracles

The energy and source of all rituals

The core of all religions

The message of all symbols

The inspiration of every Mystic

You are here, now, (as always)

Breathing, experiencing, re-membering

Enjoying the ebb and flow

of the eternal connect

the essential Oneness

Wonder

Wisdom Wealth

Wholeness Wellness

Working relentlessly

With a smiling untiring heart

A devoted journey-man of the Divine

A Being, A Becoming

A happening

A torrent to wash all dirt and quench all thirst

A fire to bring inspiring light and energising heat

Doing Whatever it takes

Read, write

Rave and rant

Push and Cajole

Threaten and Inspire

“Awake, arise and stop not till the Goal is reached!”

What else is there to do?

How / Who else can I be?

The less there is of me

The more there is of HIM

Yes!

I am He!

Now

Here!!

Evoking Excellence -- In-Out-In Spiral

2007-07-19T19:00:00.000+05:30

Evoking excellence is all that a good coach focuses on

The belief being that coach is just chiselling away, at the individual / team / organizational ignorance.

Excellence lies-in-wait to shine through -- when we are ready!! Really ready!

The only real Coach is the "Divine" -- all others her vehicle agents.

Evoking excellence is actually a dynamic engaging the individual, the team and the organization. The picture below attempts to pictorially depict the acts at each level and their interplay. More on this at a later date.

Paradigms and Choices

2007-07-08T05:47:00.000+05:30

• Paradigms – ways of viewing the world
– All models of reality are “flawed” – some are more useful than others
– Paraphrasing Einstein and Kuhn
• Problems we perceive around us can not be solved by the level of thinking which created them – Einstein

•“Beautiful Distinctions” is an apt description of what follows.
–The “From” is the commonly held world-view
–The “To” frame is for me, a gift, of a “shift to a more enabling and ennobling perspective”

Business
• From
– Ways to generate even more wealth for the affluent

• To
– A contribution to the world-at-large as a token of gratitude to the Universe

Organization
• From
– A machine, designed and maintained for wealth creation

• To
– A purposive community for contribution (where one of the outcomes could be personal wealth)

Success
• From
– Achieved by “my personal” intelligence and efforts which inevitably fuels arrogance

• To
– Gift from the Universe to encourage me to do the right thing right thus nurturing humility and responsibility

People
• From
– Resources to be used to generate wealth

• To
– Partners to be supported in their quests for meaning and contribution

Identity (Who am I)?
• From
– Intelligent, knowledgeable (software) professional

• To
– A person committed to contribution -- blessed with intelligence and feelings!

What's really important?
• From
– Working relentlessly towards pre-set / desirable financial targets

• To
– Working with commitment towards genuine contribution and the resultant excellence

Time
• From
– Something which we always have “little or none of” because there is so much to do

• To
– A precious commodity we create by doing the right things for the right reasons in the right spirit

How to handle a difficult situation
• From
– Appease, Manipulate, Find an easy way-out

• To
– Authentic engagement, do the right thing, trust the universe (BE LOVE)

Secret of Performance
• From
– Fear of failure
– Comes from existing capability

• To
– Inspiration and commitment to excel
– Comes from capability which is “created” out of the desire to perform

What nurtures intelligence at work
• From
– Clear targets and continuous challenges

• To
– Loving acceptance and a will to learn -- individually and collectively

Leadership
• From
– Drive (subtly or explicitly) others to do what is "required“
– Be a hero

• To
– Creating conditions for excellence to flourish
– Be a faithful servant of the “vision”

Managing
• From
– Planning and tracking work of others to completion

• To
– Inspiring and nurturing others to meet their commitments

Innovation
• From
– Triggered by the fear of survival
– Need of the hour

• To
– An outcome of the desire to serve a need out there -- that requires me to solve a real problem
– A natural consequence of the “desire to serve”

Split-model (US-India)
• From
– Necessary evil to be managed for cost purposes

• To
– Opportunity to create a new level of collaborative excellence via a real marriage of the best of both cultures

Start-up
• From
– Frenetic fight for market win “anyhow”

• To
– Inspired innovation to deliver a novel value preposition

Inexperience and youth
• From
– A curse of the split-model that has to be some-how handled

• To
– An opportunity to shed “old rules” and co-create a community of commitment

Architecture (of systems)
• From
– Something to be talked about and done only when we have the luxury of time

• To
– A core requirement to deliver excellence consistently in our chosen field

(Software engineering ) principles / practices
• From
– Platitudes to be mouthed and/or “crutches” not required by the really intelligent folks

• To
– Part of a "my" tool-set to be a responsible practitioner

Employee retention
• From
– A difficult act to be managed with any and all means available

• To
– A happy outcome of an authentic community

Appraisals
• From
– Necessary evil to distribute goodies in some believable manner

• To
– Framework for nurturing genuine contribution

Recruitment
• From
– A way of ensuring availability of appropriate resources at all times

• To
– A way of inviting new members to the community of commitment

Top View of the World

2007-07-06T09:58:00.000+05:30

What do I see?

I see a world which is full of possibility -- a never ending path towards the Light. It feels like a journey through space and time.
In reality it is an unfolding, a shedding of ignorance, an emergence of the latent understanding here and now which appears as a journey for a being trapped in an illusion of being a body-mind complex, an individual
Every breath I take it, is gift of the divine. How can there be any other space than gratitude? Tears of Joy are washing away the eons of encrustration....how enlightening -- bringing in light and making "me" lighter.
So much to say and yet no words are adequate. And yet without words how does once share? Words means symbols -- words in a language, music, painting, pictures, whatever.
Actually the need for communicating in symbols continues as long as the illusion of the individual exists. After that who is communicating to whom for what reason?

Oneness just is!

Action Map for the rest of my life

2007-07-03T15:37:00.000+05:30

This is a visual representation -- an initial one of what I see I am here to do

Over the last few years there is a growing awareness that wherever I look, there exists a huge gap between the "normal world" and "the plausible world". Take any field, and what one sees, experiences is that the state of practice is far behind, what already exists at the frontiers of awareness of the pioneers of that field -- what one can call the state-of-the art.

Another way of putting it would be that the technology-in-use is always behind the most advanced theory or actually even early prototypes based on that theory

There could be many reasons for this gap. There is a requirement to first acknowledge that such a gap exists. Coaches and leaders get us out of both denial and despair into the world of action!

Much inertia needs to be overcome, serious responsibility claiming has to be done inside before the outer journey can begin. Hardly ever can be done alone -- need some help -- divine or divine-in-human-form.

I see more clearly now that my role is to be "present" to anyone -- person or organisation, including myself - who is deep in confusion and seeking clarity (more on this loop later).

Hardly ever there is a need for new theory / new know-what. What is often required is to put-into-practice that which is already known...that is some bridge needs to be built between what-is-commonly-held-to-be-true and what is actually true at a higher vantage point.

At least until one grows to see the illusory nature of limitations -- the walls are out there because they are in here!

No matter how advanced the state-of-art is there is always the world of infinite possibilities lying beyond. So while in comparison the State-of-art may look and feel like heaven, compared to the daily living hell, there is still many a wondrous places left to discover!

Every state-of-art eventually would become state-of-practice and from that vantage point one would want something even better. So once unleashed from the chains of self-imposed limitations, there is no holding back -- a never ending trek through the Divine Landscape of challenges and blessings

An infinity of infinities awaits. And yet it is possible, entirely humanly so, to regress into living hell at any point in time. What one needs is discipline, devotion, and deep Surrender. Paradoxically, they are both causes and effects.

On Global Warming – initial thoughts

2007-06-27T11:34:00.000+05:30

Earth, our only home, is facing the grave crisis of Global Warming. There are two schools of thought – both agreeing that global warming is a reality – crucially holding different beliefs about what is causing it. One group, an increasingly vocal minority, firmly believes that human civilization and especially the industrial model of development is the root cause. The other group, consisting of the silent majority and the captains of current industrial model, insist that any and all changes are part of natural cycles, the world has experienced many times in it's long history.
The “natural cycles people” refer to the multiple ice-ages and varying sun-spot activity as evidence to debunk, what they consider alarmist cries for change in the way we live! There is data to suggest that Solar activity has indeed increased in the last 100 years or so. Indeed the world has gone through more than one ice-age and related massive ecological changes.
However, if recorded climate data of last 400 years is seen, then it is evident that the 14 hottest years recorded, have been in the last fifteen years! This can not be explained by “natural cycle”. A tipping point is being reached (if not already crossed) as far as the finely tuned global weather system is concerned.
There is more than enough evidence to show that the greenhouse gases released in the air as a result of industrial civilization are trapping the heat in the atmosphere and causing the surface temperatures to increase the world-over.
The current model of industrial development leads to massive urbanization world-over. People choose to cluster around means of livelihood -- which today are these huge mega-cities with their industrial-commercial complexes. These lead to clearing of forests, growth of paved surfaces, large amount of construction – urban sprawl. The normal materials used not only have no capacity to participate in the recycling that natural ecosystems do, but make a bad situation worse by the way they reflect and trap heat!
The CFC fiasco is well established. What we used routinely for cooling our hot homes and commercial establishments was actually puncturing the ozone layer, up there, and resulting in increasing UV radiation reaching the surface of earth! Folks in Australia are paying the heaviest price in terms of increased incidence of skin cancer.
Nuclear fuel was being pushed as the silent, renewable energy source. We have seen the after effects of Chernoybl in the recent past and also of the Hiroshima / Nagasaki twin bombs. We still have no way of safely disposing the deadly toxic / radioactive waste.
There are folks in the ecological movement who believe that a technology will get invented which will help us live the way we do and yet not create all this waste. The problem they think can be solved by just 2R – reuse and recycle.
My personal opinion, and that of many others of the Deep Ecology view is that it simply is too little, too late. The third R is required – Reduce!
Reduce consumption immediately. We are producing far too much waste. In fact there are already probably twice as many humans as the earth can sustain. The number of species dying off daily is staggering.
Actually the global warming is the most visible sign of the pain that mother Earth is experiencing. We have indeed become the cancer which is consuming the host. Unless we change our ways, one of the two things is inevitable – either we as a species will be wiped out and something new will take our place or we will take down the planet with us!! Either way “business-as-usual” is a surefire way of killing ourselves, certainly our children and the possibility of any meaningful life for their children!!
Enough studies, everywhere have shown what needs to be done, how and why. The issue is not about what to do but choosing to do what we know we must do. We must reduce consumption, choose a more sustainable life-style all over.
Today's economy is predicated on growth – on all of us, and more of us consuming more and more! Our modes of production create far more waste than useful goods. The linear model of industrial civilization is taking us straight to our graves!
We have enough money in totality to feed and clothe everyone. The key issue here is the concentration of the most in the hands of the few. The rich are getting richer in money terms, the poor even more desperate but the unacknowledged tragedy is that our shared home, Mother Earth, is infinitely poorer and increasingly getting worse!!
What is required to tackle the global warming and the underlying grave ecological crisis is to live sensibly, with sensitivity, making sustainability as the focus. We owe it to ourselves, the generations to come to make this big shift. NOW is the time! We must embark on this journey so that we create (Actually restore is more like it) the home that this earth is meant to be for all living beings – not just humans!
The Mother earth is much stronger than us. If we choose to heed her alarm bells, in the form of massive climate changes and species extinction, great. If we don't, this industrial-commercial exploitative civilization will simply be wiped out. For evolution ruthlessly experiments – that which sustains life as a whole continues, everything else is just more material to be recycled in the infinitely regenerative processes of the Natural (Divine?) systems.
Choice is clear – we change course now or die as a civilization!!

What truly guides me?

2007-06-27T06:45:00.000+05:30

Question

What truly guides my life in the daily living vs. what I like-to-thing does?

Insight

“Daily living” -- it is so many moments, at times one continuous flow, at other times very much a disjointed and strange string of distinct events
This is a hard question, simply because I am asking it of me! Surely my views will be biased. However, so would anyone else's view about how they see me in-action! Essentially will be an exploration into “apparent” theories-in-use. Mode of a model, twice removed from Reality. Yet, worthwhile to explore as through this passes the path to “moksha / liberation”
A few times now, but far more than never, much more frequently earlier, my emotions drove me. Be it anger, fear, infatuation, pride, etc. Anyway that is what e-motion is does – gets me moving! Otherwise I have been heavy on “knowing-in-the-head”. Action, if and when taken, was mostly taken reluctantly – no way-out, compelled-to, grudgingly!! Often out of the space of “accomplishing” -- drive to do coming from the need to somehow fill the void within. Was / is a painful place to be in – for self and others, but apparently the only path available before the light dawns – we are human beings and not human doings!!
The many books I read have been a huge influence. So have been the many “gurus” -- real and ephemeral. In some sense always searching for the one perfect answer to all of life's questioning! Never satisfied with superficial explanations. Till the understanding reached a space which words simply can not describe. So all models are indeed flawed, any description indeed never what it seeks to describe!
Now there is a receiving and a deep sense of being guided – gently and firmly! There is a new found sensitivity, a certain relatedness with all that is and will be and has been. A breaking-down of the boundaries of the tiny “I”. A letting go and letting God in a very practical and yet profound way.
I smile more often, though not a permanent state yet! My heart is filled with gratitude, with appreciation, with awe at the perfection of the GRAND DESIGN. The doing now, is more of a happening, a flow so precious and so uplifting, that the Being is aware and awake like never before.
There is a certain deep peace, a space where one can live the zillion paradoxes of life – to know that whatever one does is of utmost consequence (to my personal evolution) and at the same time completely inconsequential to the large evolution! And yet these two are not really separate. AS THE CELL EVOLVES SO DOES THE BODY AND VICE VERSA!
So layers of mystery are revealed and there is unending gratitude and Love. There is complete owing of the “shadow”, thus allowing even more of the Divine Light to shine! Joy by enjoining! Loving What is! Participating in the evolution that is wanting to happen. Experiencing the Oneness and celebrating the co-creation that is happening daily! (in-the-small and in-the-large)

Problem Solving to “Learning and Doing”

2007-06-23T20:46:00.000+05:30

Question

Why do I get stuck in “problem solving” rather than “relentlessly learning and doing”?

Insight

What a delicious question, especially when it was asked – about a year or so back. Life then was appeared to be so full of problems – situations very different from “expectations and plans and dreams”. Reality was stridently refusing to comply with my wishes. How could this be so?
Must be something wrong out there – has to be! Wait, may be, just may be
it is all because, I am all wrong in here!
Either way what can I do to ensure that things are different? No point blaming others; no point kicking myself – easier said than done!!
When a deer is transfixed by the stare of the lion or a person by the headlights of an on-coming car, there is a fright that freezes! If instinct, is alive, and the “time-to-die” is not here, the deer/person reacts and jumps out of harms / deaths way!
Every situation is not “life and death”.( though often we nearly kill ourselves by making it so!). It is actually the little irritants which bug the hell out of you – completely destroy your neat little plans for you life!
But wait, if I have the space within, to recognize the patterns (first I need the eyes to see as well) I can see the role I play in experiencing the reality the way I do. From there can I take the leap-of-faith and see life for what-it-is – a faithful mirror on one hand, reflecting in circumstances, situations, relationships, “who and where you are” and at the same time, on the other hand, a store-house of possibilities, an every present invitation to participate in the Divine Dance of Unfolding!
If you blessed with Grace, you can actually jump from seeing problems as things to be avoided, things to be dealt with wily-nilly, to verily being gifts, that are meant to help you shed your chains and become free, then you are free! As M. Scott Peck says, once you accept that Life is difficult, then it no longer remains so.
And if this is indeed so, then what else is there to do, but “relentlessly learn and do”? Actually it is more like “gratefully, devotedly, discover and let happen”!
“Relentlessly Learn and do” has too much of I still in it. But that I is the once which can take me to the true identity, true indivisibility - Oneness
Welcome to Lila / Maya / Mara – as a gateway to heaven within.
See, just see, how precious problems are – far more than opportunities in “work clothes”. They are nothing but spaces to touch Divinity!

Enjoy and Learn

2007-06-22T10:32:00.000+05:30

Question

What do I enjoy? What lessons am I willing to learn?

Insights

Enjoyment, as I understand it right now, is a state-of-mind, produced by being truly present to whatever is! Pleasure, on the other hand, is a poor substitute, which depends on expectations being met or external objects!
With age / maturity there is an increasing possibility of experiencing joy in even suffering! May be especially in suffering?!
Of course, there have been times when enjoyment seemed inappropriate – situations where apparently seriousness was called for. May be there was some confusion about frivolous fun and deep enjoyment which comes from en-joining!
My friends, especially Raj and Bhushan, have suggested, that I should be doing what I enjoy. Hence actually the questioning! I think any answer is driven by my understanding of who I am.
I can literally see all the different answers through the years of this life-time. Now the quest has shifted to more being “here and now”. Hence, more often than not enjoyment is becoming the steady-state – the space which comes from deep acceptance, from a faith that Divine is taking full interest in my journey! So today, often, mostly, I enjoy whatever I do (and not do)!
Being with individuals in times of confusion and clarity; working with communities to discover the shared purpose, the path to it and doing the walking to get there; being one with Mother Nature; enjoying the gift that every breath is; feeling the feelings; deeply accepting the failures; the aliveness of the children; the amazingly simple questions of Savita; her and our struggles; works of art; sports; the unfolding of the “Next Step” world over; the breathtaking stories of the brave souls who are pioneers in all fields – the list is unending and so is the grateful Joy!
Lessons to Learn – all, each and everyone, harder the better!! The deeper the darkness, the more welcome is the penetrating light!
Simple things and deep truths – no difference really. Bring them on, am enjoying the challenges, loving the churn, grateful for the gift of understanding, celebrating with every breath this eternal journey of Discovering Deeper Devotion to the Divine in the daily deeds of lovingly living the life Given!

Not what but how and why

2007-06-22T09:45:00.000+05:30

Question

Why is the inner voice saying, does not matter what you do, but how and may be why you do it is of utmost relevance?

Insight

Long time got invested in learning the lesson that the quest for a single purpose for my life was futile (Twice-over!)

-- in the sense that there is no one activity / area of work to dedicate oneself to like that for a Great organization
-- and more deeply, in the metaphysical sense that for any human the purpose is indeed the same – Discover Divinity and Live from there!

So the light has dawned that the activity per-se is not that relevant. Nothing above or below (my dignity) in this world! All things come from Him! Everything is Sacred!
Another driver was “recognition / approval”! So it couldn't be any activity but those which were acknowledged to be in and difficult! Extension of childhood quest for identity!!
Each detour taught me what I needed to learn at that point-in-time. Probably what I willing to and capable of learning at that time!
Realized that ego satisfaction is an impossibility. The nature of the beast is such that any accomplishment, at best, yields momentary satisfaction. Then there is the swelling (not growth) and thus wanting more / difficult goals to chase. Ego – good servant, terrible master!
So if one is able to stay in the space of Sacred Service then anything one does will be an act of love, a prayer, an offering. Obviously, then whatever is the outcome (success or failure) is then a gift, a blessing, the ultimate Prasad!
The act of doing is also vital. Very easy to slip into old habits and get fixated with outcomes. One then is in constant worry mode and leaks energy like crazy. Instead, if one can stay “in process”, “in the here and now”, remain aware of every little detail, then nothing can be boring or done out of compulsion!
Actively choosing and staying centered, noticing what one notices and enjoying the zillion little daily “moments of truth”
Thus every moment become a place an opportunity to Discover Divinity while remaining fully aware of one's humanity!

Normal Ambitions and such like

2007-06-22T08:43:00.000+05:30

The Questions

Why do I not have normal ambitions and goals?
Why is normal a curse, a place to be rejected and simultaneously coveted (at least admiration of the normal folks) ?

The insights

Just what is normal really? Is it the pursuit of a well paying, respected career? Chasing achievements of money, of power, of position, of recognition?
Normal --> means that which most do or that which is as per some accepted standard (norm)? Majority is certainly a place I am wary of, often! Not necessarily my cup of tea/coffee!
Actually is there any reality to the statement -- “what majority does?” At the level of activity, huge variety exists. How do I know what their motivations and compulsions actually are? Am I just judging that normal is selfish, chasing money, feeling good, or driven by concerns of security, driven by fear?
May be that is just the accepted way of putting things? May be we all just chase a myth (or two) all our lives, not noticing what we have been blessed with?
So if normal is becoming practical, fitting-in then I certainly am not normal! Thank God for that!
Certainly God has placed me in circumstances where I can afford to chase the illusive dream(s). Gave me parents who were (and are) cool about the hundreds of U turns and apparently aborted journeys! Gave me a wife, a life partner, who manages the details and at the same time keeps me genuinely grounded – connected to the daily realities of Life!

Actually, am being normal in the sense of living as per a norm – Norm of being happy, discovering the mysteries of life and diving deep in the Divine to become intoxicated in Love and the spread it around. That is what guides me these days

Answer to "Why reject normal and at the same time covet the acknowledgements?
In days of my youth, which still surfaces, I have judged and judged harshly, others and self when fears are blatantly getting the better of the individual!
Now I think I know better. Back then it was a relentless pursuit of self-worth which requires me to be better (in comparison) and at the same time requires others to acknowledge me being better! Just the routine and normal dance of conditioning -- “fitting-in and standing-out”!

Vision - some Insights

2007-06-05T09:19:00.000+05:30

Vision -- what is it?

The ability to see clearly
Not a "clever" statement

See here represents the "ability to sense"

Where does this ability come from?

The body
The mind
The intellect
The spirit

The spiral of Living is thus

This is why Chaos and order are an internal dance -- a "lifting" spiral of life

This is what Sri Aurobindo talks about in Integral Yoga and what David Bohm talks about in his "Wholeness and the implicate order"

On the new economic revolution

2007-05-20T18:45:00.000+05:30

New economic manifesto (Arthakranti) is the new manifesto..
the new manifesto of the real freedom struggle.
(www.arthakranti.org)
The first one was about political freedom from an invading nation

We gained that freedom through peace and non-violence
And the leadership of a Mahatma
Of a Gandhi who touched the heart of millions
Because he genuinely identified with their reality
He lived it not just talked about it
A true servant leader

A leader of men and women
Who wore a Dhoti around the waist
Another piece of cotton draped around his shoulders
His stick carried him everywhere
Or was it the relentless energy to fulfill the purpose

He too was a deeply spiritual man
A man who forever “experimented with truth”
A man who walked his talk
A man who truly understood the pain of the other
A man who did not just weep tears
But move a whole nation to overcome its fears
And walk the high road to freedom

A long hiatus of the “non-aligned” “Socialistic path
A mish mash of doctrines
Butchering the design
Corrupting the systems all around
A recipe for a slide into a deep abyss
Almost it was too late

But then rushed in the era of liberalisation and the globalisation
Not becaue we were ready
But because we could not affort to be isolated
You see, beggars can not be choosers

So the IMF, the world bank,
The coca colas and the McDonalds licked their chops
For the huge market – the Indian billion
Was suddenly fair game
So started the new journey
Of the new tyranny
Of the new slavery

On the one hand there was the real possibility
Of access to truly world class produce and service
There was the ending of the lousy goods and the mute acceptance
The ending of the “protected field”
Looked good for the rich and the moneyed.

Ah but what a price to pay
For the latest stuff that money can buy
Destruction of the Indian way!

On Arthakranti

2007-05-20T18:37:00.000+05:30

Globalisation is here to stay,
MNCs and FIIs with deep pockets dominate the market play.
All business, yes everyone, big or small,
Must compete to stay afloat in the global mall.

No more the option to level the field with government subsidies,
(Thank god) It is the end of (second-rate) domestic monopolies.
For you and me – no more the safety of high interest bank deposits,
No social security, rapidly vanishing retirement benefits.

And yet, there is an ever expanding tax net,
Income, sales, excise, direct and indirect.
The tragedy is that government coffers are forever empty,
Instead there is ever spreading cancer of black money.

How can then the common man feel good at all?
You and I, search for a miracle, a breakthrough in this breakdown
Is there a glimmer of hope in the weary eye?
Is there a new dawn rising in the dark sky?

Is the future really going to be bright?
Much has been talked and tried,
There have been many a broken promises, election-time and otherwise,
But wait --- A design for an economic miracle is in sight

The miracle cure for the ailing world is here
(http://www.arthakranti.org)
From rags to riches --India shall have her rightful place in the Global village.
You and I can live an honest, principled, prosperous and peaceful life.

There will be a new revolution from a Global market

to a home called Earth

– a true Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam

Prayer for passage

2007-05-19T16:00:00.001+05:30

I am at this critical juncture
Most of the time feeling like a tyre-tube with a puncture
An old nail of “Self-doubt”
Keeps piercing
Till I become flat – within and without

Receive mails, respond to some
Pending actions is a long list
Doing some, but “reluctant / frightened” to do most
Physically very unfit over the last few weeks
Worries and self-criticism take a heavy toll
It is like a mist, which I create through my own breath
And then fight to clear off.

This seems to be the big dragon
Which I must learn to face without weapons or armour
Love myself with all my shortcomings and fears
Me, of little faith and much arrogance
Tuning out more frequently and severely from the Divine Guidance
Then tuning in, staying true and feeling the blues!

Wanted to be the wisest
The challenge is to be wise
Searching for that illusive peace
That sense of well being and well doing
Getting swept by the fears and anxieties
Unable to face, often freezing and then fleeing

Have had experience of flow
Of great blessings and the loving glow
Right now feel cut off from the creative source
Focused on what is missing rather than what is
Unwilling to allow the emptying
Panicking and seeking escape into feeling good

All through life, especially work-life,
One seems to have walked through in sort of a daze
No real purpose, it appears till the CEL idea hit
Then lost the way
In power play
And after that in the search for the illusive (impossible?) security

What will I do? What will I contribute
Dialogue – listen, speak, inquire
Integral philosophy
Explore trek and music
Play and dance
The vision of “master class”
Will replace the endless struggle for safety and security
For impossible guarantee

Time to be me –
in full glory of the GOD who breathes in / for me!!

I pray for passage
I pray for my birth
I free myself from the burden of knowing
I am true and loving
Totally accepting the shadow
Releasing myself from the conditioning
I give-in to the compelling voice within
I cease the need to know-everything
I am tuning-in GOD!
Clean the cob-webs and send your light in!!

Looking inside, looking ahead

2007-05-19T15:57:00.000+05:30

What a time this is / has been
Of being stripped of all pretenses
Of facing all the lurking monsters
Of melting down
Of near-panic and withdrawing into a shell
Of denying life by denying death
Of seeking comfort, stability, security in the world outside
When the real answer lies deep inside

No such thing as (dis)comfort, (in)security, (in)stability
Games, our memories and our thoughts play
Realising the magnitude of the challenge,
The knees buckle, the heart nearly gives up,
The brain freezes over, the “not good enough” voices take over

AND THEN
A light begins to reach the closed eyes
Like a bud opening to the “risk” of flowering
Freely giving what it has – no comparisons, no hesitation

Conditioning -- what strengthens it is our own thinking
What a perfect, a nearly perfect trap
No escape from self
Only Love, to melt away
The encrustation of eons

Divine, sublime – at one level mere ideas for the mind
And yet the very substance of life
Mystery has to be revealed,

not explained and not understood

Trust we don’t, strut we do
All it leads to is a rusty us
Worn out, fragile,
Always seeking to look good

rather than be good and do good

Ah! The alchemy of life
To take matter and make it breathe and grow
To self-organise!

Words always point but stop well short of the ultimate
How else can it be?

Magic, love, flow, creation
Shadow, fears, stuck, desperation
What a dance!
Heart wrenching, exhausting, too much to handle!

But then wise men say, you invite challenges for your own growth
And God never gives you anything you can’t handle

So there
Dare to LOVE
Live On Vital Energy!

This is me

2007-05-19T15:51:00.000+05:30

At this point in time and with my blindness about me of course!

Here at this delicious, delicate and definite turning point stands a man
A man who has allowed himself to be broken by the gentle hands of the Universe
Not once but for real, many times
and yet only one time

A man who remains an only child of his biological parents
A man who lived life exactly as it occurred sensible to him
A man who now has grown up to have the sense to listen to the deeper calling
A man who intends to serve this deepest calling
“To be a friend in the eternal journey of being and becoming”

A man, a person, a being, a becoming!

As Krishanji said, “You are the World”
As the “Flame of awareness” burns brighter and deeper
The warts of the ego drives and the samskars of centuries burn to a crisp
Sometimes willingly and gladly
Many times (foolishly may be) with a great deal of anguish

What a blessing the last 45 years have been
Through all the twists and turns and ups and downs
Through the thick and the thin, through all the storms
– real ones and the teacup ones!

Being buffeted between a value system here and a philosophy there
A wanderer and many times a wonderer
but most of the time a worried warrior
How many false battles and how many lost causes

But always, great friends and phenomenal coaches and guides –
GURUS in the full sense of the word..
so many have helped in lifting the veil of inner darkness
and yet one always was alone!
And yet many more darknesses remained to be faced
But now with the light of life in the eyes
And the song of “Unconditional love” in the heart

Soul, Atman, call it what you will
But that inner light
The universal personal guide
Beckons and directs.. sometimes gently sometimes strongly
But forever forward in the journey of awakening

The east and the west
The Hindu and the Christian
And all the other shades in between
The north and the south
The wealthy and the needy
And all the other shades in between
The Happy and the harried
And all the other shades in between
The wise and the otherwise
And all the others in between
All are me and I am the whole spectrum

From a worm to a butterfly through the gooey mess inside the cocoon
From the tadpole to the frog to the beautiful prince
From the becoming to the being!
What journey this has been
The journey of awakening and sleeping and waking up again!

And this is where I am
In the eye of the thunderstorm
A servant of the force that sustains us all
A midwife, a child, a mother, a father
A wondering traveler
A grateful living being!

A devotee of the Lord’s lotus feet!!

This day (October 13, 2005)

2007-05-19T15:49:00.000+05:30

My eyes are feeling tired and heavy
My stomach and guts are in a churn
I can so easily fall into the dark and dreary
But I sense that with commitment things are about to turn

There is traveling and staying away from home
There is a string of broken promises and failed plans
There is a rising concern about the balance of payments at home
There is a large gap between possibilities / potential and realities / performance

In face of all of this
I seem to be waiting for insight
A sign, a symbol, a push from the Divine light
Three and half years since I stopped being an employee
Much explored, much understood, much more to perceive
The critical, the must-do is to be true

Learning to plan, to execute the plan
Learning to reflect on the outcomes
To participate in the design of the life one is here to live

Home with Savita is where my heaven is
Seeing Srushti blossom into a young lady
Nurturing Sohum into a healthy and fun boyhood

Being Present and Being Loving!

On Wonder and Wisdom (from the Internet)

2007-05-15T20:03:00.000+05:30

Wisdom begins in Wonder – Socrates

Money can help you to get medicine but not health.

Money can help you get soft pillows, but not sound sleep.

Money can help you get material comforts, but not eternal bliss.

Money can help you get ornaments, but not beauty.

Money will get you an electric earphone, but not natural hearing.

Attain the supreme wealth, wisdom and you will have everything

Strings for Living

2007-05-15T19:32:00.000+05:30

Live Simply
Think Deeply
Act Swiftly
Appreciate Completely

Love Deeply
Speak Softly
Listen Genuinely
Smile Broadly

Weep heartily
Thank whole heartedly
Apologize Sincerely
Dance Freely

Sincerity + Silence + No Preference = Divine Voice

Thought of my mind
Emotion of my heart
All is Yours
Whatever You do with me
Whatever comes to me from You
Will lead to Divine Rapture!

LIFE = Living + Integrating + Facing+ Enjoying

From Measure, manipulate, money, make-believe
to
Wonder, Wisdom, Wealth and Wholeness

Wonder --> Wisdom --> Wealth --> Wholeness
(And back again)

Do remember this mantra!
At all times!
For all situations!

What is Fitness?

2007-05-11T17:55:00.000+05:30

What effect does Diet have on the well-being of ones physical state, emotional state, intellectually capacity and spiritual Sadhana?
Till when is this a significant factor?
What is the “appropriate diet for a seeker? And then what is an appropriate diet for a “peaceful” warrior?
Actually the larger question is what enables a fitness on all dimensions – a wholesome fitness such that one truly engages with life – steadily and surely responding to challenges. What makes us fit to Encounter Life?
Surely there is food, there is what we drink – the quantity, the quality and the frequency. There is also the rhythm of the day – time of waking and time of sleeping; times of studying and times of meditating; times of “working” and times of “Spacing out”; times of prayer and times of sheer play.
There is the languaging, the expressing of ones inner life!
There is the taking in of various inputs, through various media
Somewhere in all of this is the wholesome engaging with life. A living differently that makes a difference – in ever widening circles of influence
This then is the manifestation of purnatva, of Wholeness in daily life

On Money

2007-05-11T17:52:00.000+05:30

I was reading some-time back
An article in “Times of India”
containing interviews of industrialists
on state-of-Pune Roads.
The sum and substance as I recollect,
was we must have good roads in the city
as it is bad for the image, travel time increases, injuries increase, etc.
The key message appears to be,
if we want our city to attract investment
then we must pay attention to infrastructure.

May be I am over generalizing,
but isn’t the same thought process at work, at the national level.
Look good, (may be even be good?!)
so that an appropriate “investor” finds you attractive
so that he/she INVESTS.

Even using sustainable energy
has become good business
after oil prices have gone through the roof.

Again money is driving the change
but are the fundamental patterns of greed changing?

The only “working” solution on pollution and traffic in cities
is healthy public transportation system.

Of course, one can argue against the need to move “bio-mass” when thoughts can move at almost no cost across the globe.

Alternatively,
a network of self-contained communities
may reduce the need for transportation and all the associated complexities.

The human world we know it today,
is structured
around the pattern of consumption and ownership.

The more we consume, the better it is.
The more we own the happier we allow ourselves to be.

Money comes in here
both as a measure and a store of “Value”.
It is designed to be a “yard stick”
and it in itself
becomes our most valued possession.

So what is “Value”?
Do we Value the same things as our forefathers did?
Do we Value the same things through out our lives?

What are the “Exchanges” we partake in
to survive as biological beings?
No one wants to die
– for we have this abiding belief
that this body is really all that matters.

If you see the physical comforts we crave,
the whole world seems to be screaming
for a “pain-free” life
of “splendid style”
– some foolish notion of perfection
– achievable through acquisition of things we own!

The way the society is structured,
so the logic goes,
each one of must contribute
and must comply – more or less.

Everywhere around us
the “manifested” attention
seems to be on stuff money can buy
– better home, clothes, food, toys –
standard-of-living – standard of consumption,
including increasingly expensive education!

Is society to serve Man
or man to feed the Social Machine?

What does it mean to possess money?
Is it a possibility of exchange?
Is it a sense of misplaced richness / greatness?

Money has become the de-facto measure of man.
It is the only commonly accepted denomination
of everything social!

Social identity today,
for most of us,
is driven by money we have,
we are making or can make!

A bit like saying
how much oxygen can I own?
Do I own any at all?
Who is the I who owns anything?
What do I consume?

Technology centric living demands money.
What is the measure of value in nature?

What will we see
if we look at the life of a cell
within this gross body, I call me?
Is that “life” merely “incidental”?
What does it mean to be “multi-cellular”?

Where is the “whole” embedded?
So are “we” parts / members
of a nested sets of larger wholes? Wholons?

The way we live today,
are we becoming like cancer cells,
ignoring the health of the whole,
by feeding and replicating
the all-consuming, greedy, selves?

What is death and what is life?

Money is big for “social” animal.
Today it appears to ensure biological survival
besides emotional!

On Plans and intentions

2007-05-11T17:40:00.000+05:30

How often have “I” stated that I shall do a certain thing or be in a particular state? How often have I been able to keep my word? May be 50 percent of the time, at best! Why?
Where do the promises, the plans, the intentions actually come from?
As a reaction to current circumstances, out of a need to reduce the discomfort, to maximize my gain?
Or as a genuine insight into contribution I must make to ensure the desired outcome?
For instance take this plan to write and take a writing break. What is all this about?
Is it a genuine response to an impulse within – which seeks to communicate to self and others the essentials of life?
Or Is it an ego drive to feel important?
To give vent to many a thoughts
or
is it to see with a fresh pair of eyes such that the freshness a reality for-ever?
There is a lot to be said about the power of intentions. A clearly held intent often is the pivot around which a situation, a life, even entire societies change.
Life throws so many swinging Yorkers. You can spend a life-time digging them out. Instead if the intention is to win, by scoring runs, then like Sir Viv Richards, you can step up and tonk the meanie for a big six over extra cover!
All it takes is a clean hit through the line
You need to step-up
Trust your ability and your judgment
Stay totally fit (heart and body, mind and soul) all-the-time so as to perform whenever called upon!
This is feasible if you have a healthy image of your self and your role in life. To stay fit, requires either real attention, vigilance 24 by 7, or sheer Grace (One can argue that even the capacity to be vigilant also is a sign of Grace)
Plans are outputs for a process called planning. For a plan to stand a chance, there has to be a clarity about the desired outcome, the current reality as well as a sound theory, an “approach to design” of getting from Current Reality to Desired Future.
And this is never enough! As you start acting on the plan, it in itself triggers a dynamic which changes the “reality”, besides the own inherent dynamic nature of Reality!
So plans often have to undergo many a changes but that is what planning is all about!
Plans can be useful filters to sift “noise” from music. However, there is always a case for paying attention to the noise as well. It is only then “new, emergent music” breaks through, changing our very notions of music.
So intentions are actually Goals which give us a direction for our movement – our unfolding, our growing, out maturing – Not just accomplishing a task!
In other words, there are outcomes, which appear desirable, even required, from where we stand and what we know!
Plans are then, more like maps we build to navigate the terra incognita between “here” and “there”.
Now one can plan “from here to there” or “from there to here”, i.e. From the known to the desired via the unknown or From the desired through the unknown to the known!
Another way to look at it is that this is not a journey in space or in time but an unfolding in the space of our minds, in the eternal now.
It is a journey only because we think of it in this way. It could also be seen as creating conditions for the desired “unfolding” to happen.
A bit like what happens in Nature, where the collaboration – together laboring of the seed and environment is required to make the tree happen
The seed has every intention of becoming a tree!
Does it “will” into existence suitable conditions including where it falls?
Do all seeds, germinate to full blown, adulthood?

Certainly not. What happens to the “failed” once? Do they not contribute by becoming manure that enriches the soil, which helps the successful seeds in their journey?!
So isn't a “failed” plan, but a key ingredient in the plan that “succeeds”?
What is success? Is it always reaching the envisioned goal? Or it is developing the sensitivity to course correct not only the journey but also the very goal?!
Like right now, there is a deep questioning, around the world, about the consumption driven, “I”-centric, control driven, Nature-dominating, world-view prevalent for at least few hundred, if not few thousand years. (Affluenza as it is so aptly named)
Back to plans and intentions and direction of “planning”
The purpose of “purpose” and “goals” is to give a direction to our travels, our explorations, may be even a meaning significant enough to get us to travel in the first instance!
But no journey can be truly undertaken if we do not know where we are, at least in relation to where we want to go, if not in some absolute sense.
Also required for the journey is preparation in terms of our readiness, our fitness as well as the equipment and supplies we are willing to carry.
This preparation is driven by the “road map” and the road, planned and actual, in turn is shaped by the preparation. (Ah, the inescapable circularity of life!)
The road taken is sometimes, (rarely, very rarely,) as per the proposed map, mostly taking us to the “chosen” destination and then often enough, for the perceptive, aware traveler, into completely new vistas and journeys
The notion of arriving at a destination is an interesting one. It is related to this whole business of Goal, of an ideal, of a preferred place other than where one is!
May be the whole journey is about being the “newer” me by becoming all the intermediate “me” ?!
Hence "planning as learning" is a correct, appropriate way of going about life .
Planning in present-continuous is therefore everything, synonymous with the very act of Living.
Plans which are intermediate, working maps, are useful in navigating through distractions – within and without.
However, typical of God’s design, this instrument, the plan, can become a deadly distraction if we forget that the map is not the territory and even a bigger one if we forget what Krishnaji said so beautifully, “Truth is a pathless land”
So we become less and less of who we are conditioned to be, sometimes becoming who we desire to be,
At all times seeking to be who we fully Are.
Which is in totality to be JUST BE!
So the intention is to BE! And then the plan has to be a device to warn us when are merely becoming as per latest fashion rather than being!
So What is this dance of being and becoming, the so called eternal dance?
Is it a shedding of ignorance, at a pace we can handle?
Is it a slow dawning that beneath all conditioning, the “Reality” was always accessible, always livable, if we could shed our fears and our cravings for security.
Accessible the moment we BE(come) Whole.
We cease the journey of individualism and become indivisible
Whole! Purna! (Via wonder, Wisdom, and wealth)

On Rage, Anger, Blindness

2007-05-11T17:36:00.000+05:30

There are instances where someone, anyone will do something which I do not agree with.
When I express my disagreement, often strongly,
because of the way I say
and because that is what they are also struggling with,
the situation rapidly descends into an all too familiar mess.

I see them become defensive,
I get angry, that makes them more so.
I quickly slip into dealing with images of their dumbness
and negate the very real help they are trying to offer
and it quickly becomes another brick in the wall.

Connection with self and Divine is in shambles.
Am I living out of memory?
Already parroting theory while questioning all other theory?!

Gurudom here I come
and now on the precipice of self flagellation.
The endearing humanness is on the wane.
Where is the lightness of Wonder?

Problem to be solved
versus Mystery to be revealed
versus Discovering Divinity moment to moment

DDM2M implies complete acceptance of what is
– without this there will always be conflict
and therefore the reactions of anger etc.

Acceptance of “what is”
IS Love!!

On “Independence day”

2007-05-11T17:31:00.000+05:30

Supposed to be a special day for a place called India – the day we claim we got independence, political for sure – from the imperialist British forces.
What is a nation? Is it the geographical boundaries or its currency or its people or its contribution to the world-at-large? Or is it a shared grand illusion?
An Illusion that meets many ends of many folks.
Creates a greater identity for most.
Gives ways in which we claim ownership of a piece of God’s creation.
A mechanism to create semblance of an external order.
A way in which the “finest” acts can be canalized in the service of an “ideal” – of a just, a strong, a caring “Nation-state” which promises to look after the safety and security of its citizens and their properties.
History says that we lived in groups since time immemorial. We call ourselves social animals – as if the rest are not.
The idea of a nation as a geo-political entity, appears to be a logical limit to the size of the group – stretch it to the be the world and it appears, that unless there are aliens out there, this is one size too large!
We are impelled by the search for an identity, which is more permanent and greater than our physical selves.
The need for biological security, for the continuation of our bodies, is a very basic instinct. Given that we are physically much weaker than most around us, survival must have driven the growth of the intellect. Or may be that was the grand design experiment – can “subtle” overcome the gross? – may be that indeed is the story of all Life.
To take inanimate matter, in a world which in its natural state, is always “running down”, and to create the intricate web – called Life, what brilliance!!
This need for survival, leads to social clustering, as it does in many a “meek” animal. In any social setting, there is a natural tendency for coordination. This leads to innovations like language, norms, communities, villages and inexorably the nation-state, a concept which has divided us humans as much it has united us humans!!
Turning to the concepts of independence and freedom –
Who can be free? Who can be independent? And freedom and independence from what?
Are independence and freedom equivalent?
Independence implies not be dependent on anybody else
Freedom implies no bondages of any kind

On “Emptiness”

2007-05-11T17:29:00.000+05:30

Over the last few days there has crept over me a certain stillness, a certain silence.
The doer in me gets restless.
The worrier in me seeks to take over and goad me into the all too familiar “Doom Loop”.
The Doer screams, “Man the only way out is to do something, do anything! Look at the pending work-stack!”
There is the new understanding
about self, the world and the unfolding!Something old is dying, something new is birthing
It is that twilight zone, zone of emptinessA land neither here not there
It is like the space between the inhalation and the exhalation (or between the exhalation and the inhalation?!)
It is truly a “Pregnant Pause”
Appears empty – empty of pre-conception, of knowing, of ego, of I
But is full of HIS PRESENCE!

Intellectuality versus Spirituality

2007-05-11T17:20:00.000+05:30

On why high intellect is a curse by itself!

The intellect allows one to perceive with great clarity a whole lot of complexity. This is the very purpose of the gift!

It is one of the key intelligences – the one around “analytics” and “articulation”

Last few centuries of education, due to the design of the industrial era, has emphasized this aspect of human capability at the expense of other capabilities

All “progress”, i.e. conquest of nature, thus far has been due to this intellect.

Inevitably, the “linear thinking”, seemed to be winning for many decades!

…till its very success forged a closer inter-linkage between hereto distinct communities!

Like, an inevitable law of the universe, the cause of growth becomes the seed of Death!

Hence in this technology centric world of today, right in the midst of the miracle of the Internet, is a growing search, restlessness for a deeper quiet, a resting place, a Home!

A search for the one thing available in abundance – Love!

The land of Divine!

On Arrogance and Ignorance

2007-05-11T17:10:00.000+05:30

Arrogance is a stance I take when I need to feel good about myself in a situation, at any cost
I try to be “better”, at least appear to be better, in a situation by comparing with others
Comparison of one image with another – my memory of me with my memory of the other!
Nothing can be more tragic!
This whole arrogance trip, springs from the “Ignorance”
Ignorance of being One with the Divine
And naturally of the absence of a real Other!
So ignorance gets a man to become arrogant!
Also diffident, excited, down, angry!
All states, which take one away from Love and Compassion!

On meditation, spiritual practice and such likes

2007-05-11T17:02:00.000+05:30

There are so many techniques available, passing fads and all, to “Transcend” the mind.
All need the mind, to transcend the mind!
So neither the mind, nor the body can be “unwilling” for this transcendence to happen.
Yet so much of the prevalent practices are based on “overcoming” these lower / grosser bodies!
Why? I wonder!
Guess, part of this is stated in the early reflection on “What is real?” or may be that is the root of this misdirection.
Create a divide called “sacred” versus “spiritual” and then spend lifetimes “transcending” this “self-created” ignorance!
What is then Divine?
If everywhere around and inside, is all the time “That” then what is so special?
Why does it have to be special?
Isn’t this need for “special”, “higher”, a mere extension of the fragmentation, of lack of an intrinsic order?

What is Real? What is this idea called Progress?

2007-05-11T16:59:00.000+05:30

If everything, is in essence, Divine, then what is Maya?
Folks have said, through the centuries, that the physical is unreal, because it is ephemeral, changing!
It has created the unending quest for the Real, for the Eternal!
An unending conflict between “What is” and “What is possible” ( Actually “What is desired”)
Tied to this, naturally is this whole notion of Progress!
Thus progress involves (requires?) the notion of the Ideal, and of course of the Striving towards it!
The whole of thought and society born of it is, driven by the centrality of this notion of progress, of improvement.
The west – searched outwards
The east – searched inwards
But
Both at some fundamental level, rejected the Now, the What is, the Present!
Both searches ran their full course, to pay homage to the “Ultimate reality” as they perceived it. But never reconciled this and the other baby dualities in any meaningful way.
West looked for better Science, and the East for better Religion
So I wonder what is real? What is progress?
And therefore
Do we really Learn?
There are theories and philosophies-a-plenty.
There are even more methods and a still larger set of tools.
All with a claim to fame – large or small, of “Liberating” us only if we adopt it as the “key”!
Big time Contradiction!
How can any model hold a dynamic, living, infinity called Reality?
How can there be a journey in time and in space to a place called Now and here?!
Every thing and non-thing is real. The body is real, so is this whole mechanism of thought called mind and the alleged source called the Spirit
Why create divides and spend life-times healing them?
Is this what Adi Sankara had seen in Advaita?
How can those born of a sexual relationship between man and woman, reject the reality of Sex?
Why do they engage in this schism?
Why do they declare “all things bodily” are unreal?
Transcendence, is different, radically different than negation!
Not, “Neti, Neti!” but “Ehiwa, Ehiwa” is the mantra! Not “not this, not this” but “here only, here only”
It is about becoming aware (of ignorance) and not about gaining any new knowledge!
It is the fundamental Unlearning that produces any useful Learning!
How can there be a directional Journey, in a cyclical universe?
A cycle of birth --> growth ---> death ---> reform ---> birth…
Ending of form is visible, so that is real too.
But the “IS” continues and therefore that is real too!

God with Four Hands and a Smile

2007-05-11T16:58:00.000+05:30

Hand 1: Gentle Caress with a Lotus
Hand 2: Conch -- Direct personal call over the Celestial Cell!
Hand 3: Mace to give blows to wake us up from our ignorant slumber
Hand 4: Sword: Terminate…Sorry! Must come Again after a sanity break…Severe Undo!
All this service with a Serene Smile
Evolve my Child, Evolve!

Appreciation

2007-05-11T16:56:00.000+05:30

Every achievement is His Grace
Every set-back an even greater showering of Grace
She sends Signals
If we tune-in we would be Home!
We tune-her out!
We tune-in to our Fears, Desires and Greed!
We tune-out Our Need!
Our basic need for Her Divine Love
This is the only appreciation we need
This is available 24 by 7!

Mumukshu Unraveled

2007-05-11T16:53:00.000+05:30

Mumukshu is one who seeks Moksha.
Moksha is indeed about Liberation. But from what?
Not from cycle of life and death (Effect)
But from Ignorance (cause)!
Ignorance of What?
Ignorance of the primal knowledge that you are His!
Once you are free of ignorance you can be “His/Her” Agent for Eons
That simply is the real Goal!

Here we go

2007-05-06T20:55:00.000+05:30

Was almost five years ago this time of the year, when I was searching a name for the "solo consulting / capacity discovery" work that I had set out to do then, this trioka of Wonder, Wisdom and Wealth was gifted. It looked like an eternal spiral to me then.

Sometime later I realised that the axis and the goal of this eternal movement is Wholeness -- the discovery of the oneness of all that is. So much to learn and unlearn -- wonder is the only action! Gratitude the only "response"