Quotes Tagged "life-lessons"

In today’s hyperactive social media-led environment, it is likely that a lot of pressure builds up within you to also want to be “seen”, to be “counted” among the others. It is possible that you feel distressed when people don’t talk about you or your work. You may also perhaps be agonizing over the fact that people who you think are creating far less value are more popular than you. Relax. The Purpose of your Life is not to be famous. Your fame is worthwhile only when it is relevant to posterity – when your work, and your Life’s message, lives on long after you are gone. So, just chill. Put your head down and focus on creating unputdownable value, doing meaningful work, than brooding over why you are not garnering attention and followership on social media! You will then see how happy you really are with what is!

The essence of Life is to be able to live with uncertainty, accepting it for what it is, embracing its inscrutability, without trying to dissect it, analyze it or justify it. Life’s beauty lies in facing it as a series of adventures. The endgame is always clear: your Life will end some day. But what will happen in the meantime, what kind of twists and turns will you encounter, what challenges will you be faced with? It is these myriad, often unpredictable, possibilities that make Life interesting. So, don’t resist Life, don’t run away from it either; turn around, face it and go with its flow…doing this does not make your problems disappear, nor will it make your passage easier, but surely, Life’s complexity gives way to a simple awakening, a realization. It is what it is. And accepting and living with what is, is Happiness!

This, I have consistently experienced in Life – that no matter how grave the circumstances are, it is not over, to use a cricketing term, until the last ball is bowled! So, even if it seems like a dead-end, a no-go situation, celebrate being alive. It may be dark all around you, there may be no light visible at the far end, everyone, and everything, may appear to be going against you…but do not give up yet. The only evidence that things will turnaround is that you are still alive. And that is a huge, huge, blessing! For, if you still have the gift of this lifetime, then anything is possible! So, bow your head down in complete surrender, in eternal gratitude and give in to Life, just flow with it! This is how you last through a numbing crisis!

Bliss has a funny, inexplicable, often bizarre, magnetic pull. To draw you into its fold, it will conspire to create opportunities and circumstances that will make you sit up, take notice, make choices, change direction and destination. You will be often left with a this-is-the-only-choice situation. Why? Because yehi hai right choice baby! Because Life wants you to arrive at the point where a new Life is waiting for you!

Everyone has a reason for saying or doing what they do. So, don’t judge people without knowing their story. You don’t have to agree with them at all, but don’t judge them, don’t label them. Let them just be. If they interfere in your Life, draw a line and tell them to step back. But, again, don’t black list them just because they differ with you. When we judge people we agonize more than them – because we are cooking in our views of them. They continue to be who they are – because they believe what they are saying or doing is right, that it is justified. So, why invite suffering in your Life by giving them so much importance? You stay focused on your inner peace. Don’t let anyone disturb it – not even your views of others!

As long as you are in the game, anything is possible. So, stay engaged with Life. No matter what you are faced with, no matter how dark it gets, no matter how impossible a situation appears to be, just go with the flow. You see, everything is happening for a reason. Just because you don’t see the reason, it does not mean there is no reason. And what has to happen, will happen, no matter how hard you pray – for it to happen or not to happen! So, just keep going, keep walking, taking one day at a time. There is no specific method or mantra for intelligent living – staying in the game, going with the flow, is the way!

There are only 2 things about Life that you can be sure about. 1. Of course, that you will die someday. 2. Life never ceases to amaze you, surprise you. Now, when you are amazed and surprised with Life giving you what you want or even more than that, you don't have a problem. But if Life amazes you and surprises you with what you don't want, what you don't like, you suffer. But the truth is that Life has not done anything different. It has only continued to amaze and surprise you. The problem is not with Life then. Your suffering comes only from your expectations. So, drop all your expectations, embrace your mortality and live fully as you will die any moment. When you live this way, you will be anchored no matter what is happening to you!

There are two states in Life: Existing and Living. You exist when you are unhappy and are merely floating around like deadwood. Living is a constantly evolving state…over time, and through your lived experiences, you graduate from just being to experiencing immersion to dissolving…momentarily, you too have experienced losing yourself, dissolving in devotion (in bhakti, in prayer), in sex, in music, in dance. But you have the option to remain dissolved forever, to be lost in what you love doing…when you attain that state, that is your Bliss experience…

For making your Life meaningful, you must think beyond economic parameters and constraints. The focus should always be on how can I make my Life count and be useful? And not on the fact that it costs so much money to make it count. If you can answer what makes you come alive, if you have an opportunity that will help you live every moment of your Life fully, in bliss, and if you have found the means to sustain yourself without upsetting your immediate circle of influence, primarily your family’s economic ecosystem, you must go do it. Don’t think too much. Just go, live!

Be focused on your Happiness. Deciding what not to do, because doing it doesn’t make you happy, is as important as knowing what to do. You often arrive at doing what you love doing by choosing not to do stuff that makes you unhappy!

How would you do what you are doing if there was no reward, no goal, no measure of Success or Failure attached to it? How would you perform if you only focused on doing something for the joy of doing it? When you live Life, working only for joy, then neither Success nor Failure can hold you hostage. Of course, please demand a premium for your service or offering in the commercial market, but please don’t fall into the trap of valuing what you do only on economic or material parameters. When you enjoy the journey and realize that it is the only reward, you will never be keyed up over the outcomes. This is the way to a perennial state of Happiness, to Bliss!

A painful situation arrives in your Life simply because it was meant to. It is never because your “energies are negative” or that you are being “punished for past sins”. Your pain is here to teach you Life lessons. Which is why extraordinary pain is a sign of grace, of a great teacher arriving in your Life to transform you, to make you resilient, wise and happy!

Permanence is an illusion. Nothing lasts. When this awareness arrives in your Life, you awaken to Happiness – to embracing what is, to finding meaning and Purpose in what is and to be content with what is.

How can you be happy when you are sad? Good Question there. Happiness and sadness are not opposite states. Your intrinsic, natural, state is happiness. Sadness interferes with your being happy when you get what you don’t want or when you don’t get what you want. A break-up, a pink slip, a health challenge, death of a loved one – all these, and more, will naturally make you sad. To feel sad when sadness arises in you is neither abnormal nor avoidable. In fact, don’t even try to escape sadness. Hold it, observe it keenly. When you understand the futility of being sad, you will let go of your sadness – on your own. Sometimes, you may need help, from a friend, a parent, or a sibling, or a therapist. But unless you understand that your feeling sad endlessly is what is ruining your happiness, you will not bounce back. Happiness is, therefore, an intensely personal choice.

Just as you would build and use stamina to be a champion sportsperson, you need to deploy Resilience to face challenging Life situations. Resilience is like the Bluetooth feature on your smartphone. You need to activate it to use it. And you activate, you deploy, the Resilience from within you by anchoring in Faith – by trusting the process of Life. So, no matter what you are dealing with, don’t run away from Life; turn around and face your fears. Know that you have the staying power in you to get through Life. Know that if you have a problem, you will also have the means, the mechanism, to deal with the problem even if you can’t always solve it immediately!

Extraordinary pain in Life is not a sign of past sins catching up as some would want you to believe. It is, interestingly, a sign of extraordinary grace arriving in your Life. Pain is inevitable – you don’t get to choose it; if it was a choice then, well, all of humanity would like to avoid any pain. So, painful episodes just happen in Life, but they happen only for a reason. And that reason is always revealed in hindsight, upon deep reflection. If you think back, you will discover that any event that caused you pain, only left you stronger, wiser and happy. That’s the grace I am talking about. Pain, in essence, helps you evolve. It hurts you surely, but doesn’t harm you, and, unfailingly, leaves you blessed!

Purpose, Vision and Values are crucial to the journey of Life. Why are you doing what you are doing (Purpose), where are you headed (Vision) and what guiding principles (Values) will you never compromise on? When you are clear about these aspects of your Life then the result does not matter. Yes, there will be times you will get what you want, but that Success will sit lightly on you. And in the times when you don’t get what you want, Failure will not torment you, it will not weigh you down. Being unmoved by both Failure and Success is the only art you need to master to get through Life; this is what leads you to being happy despite the circumstances.

If you are not coming alive each day when you wake up, if you are dragging yourself to work every day just to earn a living, you are perhaps then intensely, seriously, unhappy with whatever you are doing. Instead of subjecting yourself to all this misery, on the altar of a deceptive sense of economic security, pause, reflect and re-examine your priorities. Ask yourself what will make you deliriously happy? And simply go do it! Then, as you will discover, doors will open…always!

There are three parts to your Life at any given moment. 1. The part where a complex problem situation is either totally or immediately unsolvable; so, over time, you intuitively learn to isolate this part while still dealing with it. 2. The part where all the existential drama happens – everyday grief, anxieties, stresses, suffering, worries, frustrations…stuff, often linked to the first part, that continuously keeps puncturing your happy state. 3. The center – your center. This is where you are in sync with the Universe’s, divine, energy; this center is your deeply personal oasis of happiness. Just as there’s complete calm at the epicentre of a cyclone, there is absolute stillness within you. You must find that stillness, that silence, you must find your center. Only then will you be unmoved by the other two parts of your Life. It’s from your center that your art flows and that’s where your Happiness lies!

We are all Life’s children because, to borrow from Khalil Gibran, we are a manifestation of Life’s longing for itself; we are only delivered through our parents into this Universe! So, Life’s reason for creating you presents itself again and again and again, in myriad forms, until you have identified, awakened to and embraced that reason. That’s why, there is almost always, inevitably, a connection between your earliest influences and aspirations and your Bliss, with what you eventually end up wanting to do in, and with, your Life!