There's More to Life Than Striking Deals

Apr 26, 2004, 12.00am IST

If you really want the best deal in life, stop making deals. Yet, your very demeanour should be such that your client is simply bowled over. This is not a trick.

The deal will happen if it's necessary; it won't happen if it's not. It is for the well-being of both parties, so it must be needed by both of you. Once we're in this world, there are transactions, personal or otherwise.

Let's say you're in love. If you are not fully involved, you will try to strike a deal. Once a bachelor who had been wooing an attractive woman for long mustered the courage to propose to her.

"There are quite a lot of advantages to being a bachelor," he began, "but there comes a time when one longs for the companionship of another being. A being who will regard one as perfect, as an idol to be worshipped and treated as one's absolute own, who will be kind and faithful when times are tough and hard, who will share one's joys and sorrows."

To his delight he saw a sympathetic gleam in her eyes. She nodded in agreement and then said, "I think it's a great idea! Can I help you choose a pup?"

So to get mileage out of a deal, you have to first assess the level of intelligence of the other party. If you just give of yourself and see how both of you can be benefited from the deal, then whenever it is possible, it will happen.

Of course, deals are subject to many other conditions such as market situations, economic conditions or the world situation, but if you establish your inner way of being and are doing the best you can do, then what has to happen, according to your capability, will happen.

What you can't do won't happen anyway. Even if you break your head it won't happen, but that's okay.

However, if your whole life is about making deals, you will be miserable. The devil is always making a deal with somebody. God never made a deal with anybody.

Maybe you haven't attained to your full Divine nature, but at least in this case let us imitate God for a while. God doesn't make deals. Deals will be offered to you in so many ways. In a way, everybody is just a businessman.

Everybody is trying to pull off some deal: some in the market place, another maybe at home, in the temple, and others even with their spiritual process, but everybody is trying to pull off some kind of a deal.

When you get a good deal, you are civilised and nice but if a deal goes bad, you yell and scream.

You need not be a super human being capable of doing everything. If you don't do what you're capable of doing, that's when it's not okay; that's when you have failed.

So don't worry about always pulling off deals, deals and more deals. Just learn to offer yourself, which is the best possible thing that you can offer to the whole situation. Then naturally people will take it if it's what they need.

Whether you talk to a taxi driver for a minute, or you talk to your boss, or speak to your client, husband, wife or child, every transaction is affecting your life.

Now the problem with you is that you hold one transaction above the other. You involve yourself more with one and less with the other. It won't work like that. All these things are needed for you to have a fruitful life.

Why don't you just fall in love with the whole situation? Then, work becomes effortless.

Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev

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Time to celebrate, it's Christmas

Dec 25, 2009, 12.00am IST
M P K Kutty.

Christmas is a time for celebration. It is also a time when we are infused with a kind, forgiving and charitable spirit that enables us all to have a good time.

In the midst of all the festive celebrations, exchange of gifts and merrymaking, the purpose of the birth of Jesus Christ in a manger in Bethlehem might get forgotten. It was not the intention of Christ to launch one more religion, but to empower people to live the abundant life mindfully.

All was not well with the world when Jesus was born on earth. On going through the Sermon on the Mount delivered by Jesus, it becomes clear how far removed we were from holistic living. Life was by no means free of deceit.

Three factors cloud the life of an individual, According to the Bible these are: the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life. Sin is implicit in all these and the so-called fall of man is a result of the Original Sin and this distanced him from God. It is the contention of the faith that Christ came to reconcile man with God. His death on the Cross on behalf of all of us accomplished this purpose to some extent. Christ’s birth, death and resurrection were part of a plan for the transformation of man so that he could be liberated so as to live to his full potential.

Jesus presented to people a set of values that seemed to be in contradiction with the standards followed in the world. In the words of Malcolm Muggeridge: “It was the poor, not the rich who were blessed, the weak, not the strong who were to be esteemed; the pure in heart, not the sophisticated and the worldly, who understood what life was about. Righteousness, not power, money or sensual pleasure, should be man’s pursuit. We should love our enemies, bless them that curse us, do good to them that hate us, and pray for them that use us, and in order that we may be worthy members of a human family whose Father is in Heaven.”

Man’s body, the Bible points out, is the temple of God and the Spirit of God dwells in him. When a person accepts Christ, this Spirit comes to work within and takes over his life. This opens up immense possibilities. The man who is led by the Spirit of God or the Spirit of Truth becomes filled with His love and power.

Thus empowered, the faithful find it possible to love unconditionally. This tallied with the deepest yearning of the human heart to love and be loved. St John emphasises that whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.

Christmas is a celebration of life. A historian wrote: “Jesus of Nazareth, without money and arms, conquered millions more than Alexander, Caesar, and Napoleon. He shed more light on things human and divine than all the philosophers and scholars combined; without the eloquence of the school, He spoke words of such wisdom such as were never spoken before and produced effects which lie beyond the reach of orator and poet. Without writing a single line, He has set pens in motion and furnished themes for more sermons, orations, discussion, and works of art, learned volumes, and sweet songs of praise. Born in a manger, and crucified as a malefactor, He came to control the destinies of many.”

Christmas, therefore is more than just a time to eat cakes and exchange gifts; it is also a time to reflect on how we need to uphold the standards of the One who came to give us the abundant life.

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Exploring the nature of true realisation

May 28, 2009, 08.00am IST
DEEPAK RANADE.

Whatever events unfold outwardly, there is a continuous passive act of observation of these events. This plain awareness is what animates the intellect, thoughts and every aspect of existence; it also gives rise to the illusory self, to the identification of each individual as a separate body form.

It also affirms this identity as the real self because the body is the most tangible proof of existence. We can touch, feel and react with this tangible instrument. The ego is addition of many layers of likes, dislikes, preferences and priorities to this mind-body form. The sense of separateness. Of being one of a kind. Of discreteness.

The more we endeavour to attain salvation, the sense of separateness only gets reinforced. All chemicals such as alcohol and drugs induce a state of disconnect. A fleeting disconnect with the surroundings. This disconnect is pleasurable as it blunts the sensibilities and makes the individual immune to any unpleasantness of daily living. But it also fortifies the sense of separateness. This feeling of disconnect and indifference is momentarily blissful. These chemicals are addictive because they give an illusory, fleeting glimpse of 'spiritual' experience similar to the state of realisation.

The so-called chemical disconnection is 'exclusive'. In the sense that it refurbishes the sense of separateness but isolates the individual. The state of realisation, however, is inclusive. This inclusive disconnection is an all-pervading sense of oneness, in which any connection is superfluous. Connection or disconnection is relevant only in duality or an illusion of duality. Once this illusion of duality vanishes, what remains is unity. An impersonal awareness.

Realisation shifts the identification of the self from the mind-body form to just plain awareness. Like a drop of the ocean. This drop, when separate from the ocean, will become acutely aware of its independent existence. The drop can see the ocean separately and this separateness gives not only itself, but also the vast ocean a separate identity as well.

When the drop merges in the ocean it does not destroy the physicality of the drop. The drop just merges and loses its separateness. It becomes one with the ocean. Till the point of impact, it still maintains its identity, but at the moment of impact, the drop seemingly disappears. That state of merger can thereafter not be perceived, because perception was of the drop. When the drop ceases to exist, who or what is there to perceive?

The disconnect that occurs by inclusion is everlasting, beyond any time-space considerations. Compassion for all life then becomes the effect rather than any imbibed virtue. The sense of unity is not even an experience because experience implies the existence of an experienced. And we all are conditioned to believe that realisation would mean probably seeing some divine light, or hearing some soulful music or a tremendous state of happiness and so on.

The merger automatically dissolves the ego. It also liberates one from all desires and lust for sensory gratification. The body will eventually live out its destiny, but there would be no sense of doer-ship. There would be just a residual observer who transcends even joy and sorrow. The unqualified awareness celebrates a sense of 'am-ness' unadulterated by expectations and longing.

The intangibility and dissolution of one's identity can scarcely be expressed by any means of communication. The final moment of oneness can be experienced only when all layers of misconception are peeled away and the real self is apperceived not as a separate identity but paradoxically the absence of any.

The writer is a consultant neurosurgeon. E-mail: deepakranade@hotmail.com

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Connect easily to a living master

Aug 4, 2009, 12.00am IST
BHANUMATI NARASIMHAN.

The guru is an embodiment of wisdom, and love. In Sanskrit, the word for gravity is gurutvakarshan.

The earth holds on to us with the force of gravity. Without this attraction or love, we would not have a base. Similarly, gurutva is the basis of our life. The guru is the guiding light who removes the darkness of ignorance and shows the path to wonderment.

A teacher can give knowledge, but the master brings a heightened awareness. A teacher can give information but the master awakens intelligence.

One day, while Lord Shiva was performing a puja , his consort Parvati sees him bowing his head in reverence. Seeing this, she asks: "You are the Supreme Consciousness, the substratum of entire Creation. Who is it that you bow down to?"

Shiva replied: "Dear Parvati, for the benefit of all humanity, I will answer your question. It is to the all-pervading guru tatva that I bow down to." In the many beautiful verses that followed called the Guru Gita, Shiva explains the guru principle, and says how fortunate one is to have a living master in his life.

The guru in the physical form is called pratyaksh . In the presence of the master, our enthusiasm and spirit are in an elevated state. Our sorrows diminish, joy wells up, there is contentment, knowledge is nourished and protected, and talent blossoms.

India honours a tradition of masters who have protected, and given this knowledge to us, generation after generation, according to the need of the age and times.

When a drop feels connected to the ocean, it feels the strength of the ocean. When we are connected to this tradition, we feel the strength and protection of all the masters. All these masters are an expression of the same Infinite, Undivided, Supreme and Pure Consciousness.

The guru is a tatva an omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent principle. Establishing connection with this tatva is a source of great strength. We know we have forefathers, great-grandparents and so on. Yet we feel most attached and connected to our parents or grandparents because they are with us. Similarly, we have many gurus in our tradition, but when we come in the presence of a living master, the connection is established immediately. The entire knowledge from time immemorial is made available to us.

Guru Purnima is a time to feel grateful. The more grateful we are, the more grace flows into our lives. On Guru Purnima, we remember all the masters who were, who are and who will be in the future. We feel gratitude towards the master who moves us from a limited understanding and pride of ''I know everything" to "I am everything".

A disciple seeks knowledge. A devotee seeks nothing. A devotee is soaked in love and devotion. Guru Purnima is a special day of the devotee as well. When a river meets the ocean, the river no longer remains a river. It becomes the ocean. It is the same when the devotee meets the Divine. Only Divinity remains. The individual 'i' dissolves in the One Divinity.

When we look at the world through the eyes of the master, the world will look so much more beautiful a place filled with love, joy, compassion and virtues. The master's presence is one that is unlimited, vast, infinite and all-inclusive. The presence of the master in one's life brings fulfilment in all other relationships.

To that one, eternal, pure, unbounded embodiment of knowledge and absolute bliss, to the lotus feet of my master, I bow down with respect and gratitude.

(The writer is director, women and child welfare programmes, the Art of Living Foundation. Today is Guru Purnima.)

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