Hope and Change

Hi Friends
Last year I attempted to share some of the thoughts. Over this long period, What I did was to go into a silent mode and started to find some answers to the questions that came into me. Now Im back. The search is still on. Now there is a greater realisation is that the process of questioning is what is the key to find answers.

Many things changed from where I left this last year. Circumstances changed. Newer surrounding and the people I had related have also grown. This is forcing me also to change...... the process that every butterfly goes thru before it becomes one.

Change is always the exciting thing that happens around us. It creates so much of emotional roller coaster.....it makes you more stronger.....it raises new quesetions....it provides answers to the questions.... it is a budle of excitement for some....a bundle of anxiety and nervousness for some....

In the past there was one famous email chain that was doing rounds.... about four candles.....and from what i remember the last candle stood for HOPE.....

It is so true....

The HOPE that makes the change journey an excitement or a trauma.

I had my own share of experience in this regard over the past 12 months...

Days filled with HOPE.... Days that were completely dark filled with fear and restlessness....

Thank god, it all seem to be over now... The HOPE that helped me to sail through this tough journey..

Well - hello again after 90 days..

What I touched upon in my last post is about emotions. That is the core reason why I could not continue writing this for the past 3 months. It is a puzzle. I went on a little bit of a silent mode. Attempted to find some satisfactory answers in silence.

It was also true that during the time I left this page in July, there was a lot of restlessness. The restlessness led to frustrations. Tried to keep the CPU without much of tasks, in a 'safe mode'. Honestly the results were no great.

So, Im back again.

See you soon.

I wanted to talk about two of the personalities and ended up with only one in my last part. Will touch about the second individual at some time in future.

The week has just gone so fast - Watching the heavy rains at Mumbai. It is an amazing city. Despite the chaos and confusion, it works. There was a huge traffic jam, water logging etc. And one of the newspapers covered what a private company jumped into the action of having to transport people through a boat across two sides of the water logged bridge. People come together in the crisis times. They keep their barriers aside when it comes to handling crisis. I think it is the basic human quality that we all have - in times of need, we step up and start helping in every possible manner. We have seen it on the stories around Tsunami hit. We have seen how the city came together when the tragedy last year occurred.

There is an emotional trigger when a crisis hits us - we keep all our personal differences and selfishness aside for a moment and start contributing in the way that we can - physically, financially, etc.

In your own personal circumstances also you'd have seen examples of how people come together. I have seen in few situations where a death in the family brings people together, keeping the differences aside.

Emotions and Reactions are always a big puzzle. People have their own perspectives on things. I was recently watching one reality show - supposedly on the lines of moments of truth program - in its Indian form. The participants are asked a series of questions and their answers then get validated through a polygraph machine to ascertain whether it is true or not. If the response get validated through the machine, the contestant gets a cash award.

I saw one episode where a middle aged man - was questioned on variety of subjects incl sex. One question on whether he believe one of his wives were with him for his wealth or for love for him, he responded saying for wealth. The questions were on some of his personal preferences and perspectives. There were very difficult questions and this gentle man was brave enough to answer most of them and you know when he failed - it was a very simple straightforward question on whether he believed he was the best father for his daughter.

Our inner thoughts and emotions are always a big puzzle!

My view is YES. Some of these experiences do play a major role in shaping up the personality. In the past few days I had faced some very new challenges.

Challenges in understanding people - as always. Had some interesting insights into a very new dimension of thought patterns.

Had few great moments of truth - facing the the unexpected behaviours and reactions of people which is triggered by the situations. Most often, I see people mixing the situations, issues with the personalities. I do believe there is a line of correlation - however, in the process of growing up and staying objective, we tend to forget being objective. Emotions play a major part. Sometimes it even breaks relationships momentarily.

I continue my search to get answers.

I happened to come across two interesting individuals

A guy who was almost always happy. Had his own clear perspectives on his current situation and the way he was expecting the future to evolve. Very clear in thoughts and even more clearer when he lives tough moments. I admire him. No this is not due to lack of motivation or aspiration. I saw a great sense of contentment. I know him for long years and one significant aspect that I admire about him is - He has always remained positive and calm. There were moments which could have made him feel sad - say a lack of recognition, few failures, few dreams getting shattered. But neither did he take it to his heart - nor did he show his disappointment. Being known him for 20 years, I could still not understand how this is possible. He is not a saint. He had his own worldly desires - Savings, Property, Career Success etc.

I personally think, this probably is a a sign of winning our emotions and staying as winner - In a sustainable manner!

I am yet to see anybody else who sees him in this dimension!

Sometimes I wonder, that using a medium like this serves as a great outlet and leaves a wonderful sense of satisfaction.

Data and Experience in shaping personality

At the early stages, all sorts of confusions exist around us. Remember the example of Srini in the earlier episode. Sometimes, what we accumulate as data in our mind has a very rare reusable value. However when we are at the moment - we do not have a choice of what to take in and what not. A helpless situation!

Is it only what we read and hear that transforms into a data inside? Obviously No. We also accumulate various things that we SEE in our memory. It is believe that things that we SEE have an increased power of being registered in the mind and hence the teaching techniques around audio visuals. 

Remember the recent movie slumdog millionaire - this aspect of experiences and visual impacts were captured in an excellent way when the hero tries to answer the questions by recollecting his early days.

The supercomputer inside all of us works non-stop!

The pity that I was thinking about is how much of such data collected - say in the first 15 years apart from the periodical exams which uses the 'academic' data being reproduced. One exception could be the sports/arts where a repetitive practice leads to perfection and excellence. Most of the data comes handy in shaping up of our personality over the years.

Our Srini, in his early days was living in not-so financially rich condition. His new dresses were always confined to once or twice a year. His new books were only a second option when could not find a friendly senior who passes it on to him. He has never gone in a school picnic, and never know what happens. 

Do you think any of these experiences and exposures play a part when our friend grows up in Age?

Identity

Our hero Srini is just in the process of evolving

The realities of living outside known places - i.e., our own home sets in few weeks.

The life takes him through an emotional roller coaster - now with a set of new people who we be with - friends, teachers, etc. An element of wider thinking sets in. The process of acquiring knowledge through questioning, reading, discussing and observing starts to take its shape with life in the school. A phase of information overload.  

A period where Srini starts living to the tunes of others expectations  also begins. Every time there is a test, there is an expectation from Parents that he should win, he should get first mark, he should get centum, Teachers expect him understand everything that is taught to us and perform in the tests. Be it the education or sports, this phase is probably the beginning of the external forces trying to influence. Especially when Srini himself does not know what he want.

Srini is not unique. He is you. He is me and he is in all of us!

Im not trying to criticise the surrounding - this is absolute reality of what kind of circumstances prevail when we grow (especially given the educational system that is prevalent in the place I live). I have observed in some other parts of the world, the life could be slightly different.

In this part, Srini feels bad for becoming a 4th rank during his mid-terminal exam. He says he did his best. The gap between Rakesh (his class mate, who became first) and srini is about 5- marks. Srini's mother was upset with this.

Srini has never felt confident in language subjects. This time, he was the class topper, leaving his dear rival Rakesh behind by 10 marks. Sir was very pleased with Srini's performance. 

Srini also plays good foot ball. He practices every day, and his father wants him to play for the state. Unfortunately he fell ill during district selection match and he could not make it. He lost an opportunity this year.

What this phase really does is - for a beginning, others try to place their expectations and dreams on ourself.  We start living with specific targets and derive a sense of satisfaction/success or disappointment with our own performance in relation to others.

We start benchmarking our ability in relation to others (ranks and medals). 

Should we enlighten our next gen to start competing with themselves at some stage? Should we consciously groom our next gen to avoid a sense of comparison?

Actually, I admire the game of golf for the same reason. It is probably the only game where you start competing with yourselves, for an ongoing improvement. Some form of performing arts and even writing  brings in this flavour to some extent.

Parallely, what also grows is data in our hard-disk. Scientific, historical and geographical (and etc) of data that we keep adding year after year. In one single direction - only additions. 

When did you last attempt to clean up the data? 

Does the volume of data and the quality of your hard disk (to retrieve data) signifies how learned you are?  

Does the number of years of structured education lead to others considering you as 'educated'? How important is others perception on you?  Are there moments of truth which shapes our personality? 

Jumping Lane

I remember reading somewhere that about 64000 thoughts cross our mind every day. There is no single moment where in our normal course that we are without thoughts. Thoughtlessness occurs to some extent when we sleep. All the beginning of meditation that I have come across starts with a very simple point of focusing on your mind or on a single thoughts. This way, at some stage, with practice and with the right guidance, we can feel the thoughtlessness. And that stage when it occurs at your will seem to be a higher stage in meditation - a samadhi state. When you start accepting things around you as they are - never trying to influence them or never allow them to influence you. You - mean the thoughts that cross your mind. The magic of getting to this have been explained and experienced by many learned saints and gurus - Some start with nama smaranam (repetition of god's name), nama sangeerthanam (through music praising god), tantra, mantra (repetition of ancient mantras on specific gods), etc and the list goes on.... include even the most inspiring 'zen', way of attaining enlightenment.

What  the thoughts lead us to? What does it comprise of? Why?

In my own experience and based on the people who I interact - thoughts are essentially surrounding :  a dream state, a fear of unfortunate thing happening, a planning for next minute, an emotion relating to the past (Anger, Happiness, Sorrow, Guilt, Regret, perceptions of others, etc). If you start watching your thoughts for few minutes and start writing down what flashes your mind, you will be able to relate to what I am referring here. Very few things that relates to the 'present'  - Here and Now. 

Even while writing this piece, my thoughts revolve around how the reader will think while reading this. This is just an example. 

The downside of analysing and thinking how your thoughts are inter-related, as an observer, beware - you could end up in a state of observing yourself - a Dual role. The person who thinks and the person who observes what the thoughts are. In some of the old sayings, the detachment like the example that I mentioned is what is preached as a way to enlightenment. A detachment of yourselves from your own self (your body, mind, your surroundings and your possessions). 

Because "YOU" the soul is beyond all these.  Let me turn the question to myself for easier articulation.

I am not just this physical body. Im not just the one who is known by 'neighbour'. Im not just the roles I play - as a father, husband, co-worker, subordinate, friend.  Im not just what I possess - a person owning this house, this PC, . Im also not just what the knowledge I acquired through education and experience. Im not the failures that I was part of - Im also not the successes that I was part of.

'I' am Beyond all these. 

Unfortunately, even while we introduce ourselves we very easily start with our 'name' an identity of this existence. When we describe someone, most often we start saying he is tall, he is well mannered, he is rich, he is well qualified, etc.

It has been a quiet Sunday! Lots of food, rest and sleep. I saw a crow this morning - what a peace of mind in its face - Very simple day for him too.... Had food and started flying......Will he think of what would happen for the lunch?............or the thoughtlessness and living in the NOW brings him all peace? The question continues!