Hiking Tunganath - the highest Shiva temple in the world

Oh these majestic mountains, the sweet mountain air

Oh the stiffling silence , the peace and lack of care 

As we started walking on the rigid rocky road, with rhododendrons 
on the way and birds chirping aloud, 
We couldn't help stare at the clear sky , sprinkled with scanty cloud

With our ascent higher, the air started to grow thin, 
the climb started to get harder, but no ! we must win. 

With perserverance and patience we stopped to catch some breath, 
surprised to see how far we’ve come ; but not there just yet. 

Far on the edge of the peaks we see half melted snow,

Mixing with the sunlight , to give it gentle glow

Higher we go when suddenly the daylight starts to dim, 

the skies are filled with dark clouds, fear is born within.

But soon we see the sunlight pushes through the doubts in our mind, 

we now have enough time to complete our hike in time.

We keep moving and soon we are overwhelmed to know , 

the snow we saw only at a distance was now down below.

Just when we were about to loose all our might and will, 

we hear the divine temple bells ringing close to us, giving us back the thrill. 

We had reached Tunganath, alas we had done it, 

tears rolled down our eyes and now it all felt worth it. 


-Sugyata 

The Umbrellas In our lives

Some people are like umbrellas in our lives. While they protect us from the rain, they also don’t let the sunlight come in. They make us believe like they are essential to protect us from the rain. But did we look outside ? Is it really raining ? Or is it sunny. In the garb of protecting us from the rain, they block us from receiving the sunlight. They block us from smelling the scent of the flowers in the gentle summer wind. They block us from seeing the sky above us. Food for thought- is it really worth always having these umbrellas above us ? Or should we recognise how they are blocking our growth, how they are blocking from us from receiving real abundance? 

Do let me know what you think in the comments :)

KEEPING THE “PEACE”

I have always been a person who followed the dictates of my mind. Reason, I believed was more important than passion. One must do the right thing, even when your heart and dictates of “passion” doesn’t agree with it. I had a strong sense of “right” and “wrong”. But the global lockdown has really forced me to rethink this whole conditioning. It has forced me to question this way of thinking. Of putting what is “right” before what my heart or even mind tells me to do.

Growing up, I belonged to a typical conservative Hindu family. With overprotective parents. Yea, the types who say “log kya kahenge”. Result ? My need to keep the peace and harmony led me into believing that I must be a good girl. I must obey their dictates for my “highest good”. I made their wishes and commands the centre point of my life and pleasing them became my life goal. Not realizing that in the process, I had lost myself. I had forgotten how to listen to my heart. Infact, I doubted that I even had one. And this way of living had turned me into a completely different individual. A robotic person with no emotion, but just one life goal- to keep peace and harmony by meeting the expectations of my parents and family.

And I do not blame them for this. Not even for a second. It was just my way of dealing with it that was faulty. This was something I realized in the lockdown period. I realized that the moment I would deviate from my so called righteous path, even for one day, my so called family would turn on me. I realized that there was no unconditional love. I was just trying to brush things under the carpet, living someone elses life.

But I am really thankful to this lockdown, that it brought so many things to the forefront. Attitudes, beliefs, whims. More than anything else, it exposes all the social conditioning that we have been exposed to for all these years, and have been too arrogant to acknowledge.

I was forced to re-think, whether the whole path of listening to “reason” was really right ? People who we try to please, are they really worth it ? Do they really love us? What are we trying to achieve ? Peace? Why are we so obsessed with this false idea of peace and harmony. Why do we forget that when we try and keep quiet, and maintain a good demeanor just to keep the “peace” it messes us up inside. It starts a whole new war, inside of us. It mentally destroys us. Little by little. And we allow all this to happen to us just to do what is “right”, which was, by the way the “right” defined by the same people who do not love us. Who are not worth it?

The harsh reality is this, I was a coward. I was someone who did not know how to listen to myself. And I had too big an ego to accept my failure. I failed to keep myself happy, peaceful. I failed to stand up for myself and justified it by calling it keeping the “peace”. I wanted to reward myself for my failures by giving my self the peace prize. Reality is, the so called peace that we are trying to keep does not exist. It is an illusion that we create in our own head, giving our minds an excuse to be coward and not to stand up for ourselves.

I failed to understand, and most people like me forget that real peace is not in brushing aside the daily conflicts and giving into what other people say is “right”, but in coming to harmony with our true selves. And by brushing those conflicts, by following the dictates of others idea of right and wrong, we are going farther and farther away from our true selves.

Some Cheer that Covid will bring to Humanity

• Everyone is already talking about the positive effect the lockdown and economical slowdown is having on the Environment. The air is cleaner, the water is cleaner and so is the soil. 
• Covid has made every human value their freedom of movement . We have realised how important work is for us. The moment the lockdown is lifted, everyone of us, who have been realising how much we miss our workplaces, will run back to work with so much more freshness, zeal, enthusiasm, and gung-ho that it will create a vibration that be truly extraordinary. We can all imagine the scenario right ?
• Necessity is the mother of invention and creativity. We already see people making such creative use of their time all over social media. Some are cooking new meals, writing poetry, making drawings, crafts, writing music, making comedy videos and what not! This could be the beginning of a new career for many of us.
• The Economic down turn will help all entrepreneurs gain perspective. The Covid outbreak and resulting economic slowdown, has also forced us to slowdown and gain perspective, it has taught us that life is unpredictable and material gain is not everything.This lesson could go a long way in valuing the things available to us after the lockdown is lifted. Friends, family, our employees, our resources, will be valued more.
• Spiritual Growth- The lockdown will lead many of us into introspection, and working on our inner strength. It will lead us to push our limits and become stronger, spiritually, so when we are finally out of the lockdown and ready to take on the world, we will be powerful souls, who can deal with powerful challenges with better efficiency.
• Where there is challenge, there is opportunity- A lot of  us have used this as an opportunity to 1) help the society by donating funds to the government, or 2) solving the problems ourselves by becoming a supplier for essential goods or services. People are starting their own small business of food and medical equipment, which is making a killing. Sectors such as FMCG, Pharma and healthcare is booming and the stock market makers are taking good advantage of it. 

So it is said- the same hot water that boils the potato, hardens the egg. So we must decide, that we want to be cheerful about what is coming out of this, or boil with the negativity like the potato. 

Taking the Leap of Faith

How many of us face this problem. We expect too much out of ourselves, and then when we don’t perform up to the mark, we develop a sudden loss of confidence almost starting to believe that we are worth nothing. And then we scroll through Facebook or Twitter to see our fellow classmates update their status about their latest achievement. Another heartbreaker.

So is the problem that we are not capable enough, or failures at our age? No. The real problem is that we are all too busy judging ourselves, trying to make a mark in this big world, trying to secure a position in the rat race. We are not ready to take the road less travelled. We are too scared to dare to think out of the box and go out there and experiment something new. We are simply too scared to just be ourselves, lost in trying to become something that we cannot become. Someone has rightly said, don’t be a part of the rat race, because even if you win, you’ll ultimately, still be a rat.

My father always told me, if your life is going the way you want it to go, be happy, and if it is going not the way you want it to go, then be happier, because, it means your life is going according to some other super power, something beyond your control which knows you better than yourself and knows exactly what is right for you. We often come across people who say “ everything happens for the good” and we tend to ignore it, thinking it to be just another excuse to lift up our mood or the like. But many of us fail to realize how true it is. Look at your life with a macro view, and you’ll realize, that wherever you are just now, you wudnt have been here, had u not taken a particular decision at some time in the past. If you do not have a job today, may be it is because something more apt is in line for you.

Like what happened to Steve Jobs. Had he not left his high school with the faith that everything is going to be just okay, probably he wouldn’t have found apple in that small garage. Or take the example of Harsha Bhogale. He is a chemical engineer. May be till he was in final year of college, he had no idea that he will be one of the most reputed cricket commentrators today. Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor for lack of ideas. Disney also went bankrupt several times before he built Disneyland.

The richest person in the whole world couldn't make any money at first. Yes I am talking about Bill Gates. His first company, Traf-O-Data (a device which could read traffic tapes and process the data), failed miserably. When Gates and his partner, Paul Allen, tried to sell it, the product wouldn't even work. Gates and Allen didn't let that stop them from trying again.

Colnel Sanders started KFC way after 5 decades of his life. When he must be yours and my age, he would have had no idea what the future holds for him.

What is common in all of them. They took the leap of faith. Had they thought that they are too old to reach out and do something, or had they not believed in themselves, may be they wouldn’t be where they are today.

What, then prevents us from taking the leap of faith? Job security? Planned future? I often tend to have a hearty laugh at the phrase “planned future”. In a life when the next minute is uncertain, how can we assume that it will go exactly the way we planned it?

Obstacles are those horrible things we tend to see when we take our eyes off our goal. If you truly have the zeal in you, that inner voice that urges you to call it quits, then go for it. Take the leap of faith. Believe in your destiny and do what you want to! What could happen worse cum worse. We would fail? Fear of failure will not make us land up anywhere. Probably, if Steve jobs or Bill gates would be afraid of failure we would have a world without computers (such a sad place it would be).

The world has given us examples of people who have taken the leap of faith and have reached out to the highest of heights. When are you taking yours?

How to deal with failure.

There is a lot of talk around persistence and perseverance around failure. That we must NOT QUIT and keep trying harder. That failure is a 'stepping stone' for success and so on and so forth. But is this theory always correct ? or is it highly misinterpreted. 

While hard work and perseverance is an absolute sine qua non for success in any pursuit, sometimes, it may be necessary to pause and think, whether failure is a test of destiny, or is it an indication that you need a change in perspective. 

To me, failure is an opportunity to reflect, and think where is the change needed. Do you just need to give it another try, or you need to try differently. Sometimes, it may also indicate that you need to change your path altogether, and go in a completely new direction. 

What one needs to understand, is if the pursuit that one is failing at, or even succeeding at, is really fitting into the larger scheme or things. The larger life purpose. or is there some change in perspective that is required. 

Fodder for thought.

The Importance of wisdom - Fodder for thought

General tendency of us humans is that we often value tangible things or material things, but ignore intangible wealth. No? Let me ask you one simple question :

Imagine, you got punched in the face and got slightly injured, you are in pain and feel horrible, but immediately after that I give you 10 million dollars in your bank account. Now will you be happy or sad ? I presume you will be happy, and of course, 10 million dollars is a lot of money aye ! 

Now imagine you are  hurt about something, could be anything. Someone wronged you in a relationship, or could just be wrong decision that you took, that is causing you pain. What is our immediate reaction? We cry, we sulk, we go into a negative frame of mind. We fail to see what we have gained - WISDOM. 

The wisdom that we perhaps should not have fallen into the trap of a wrong thing- a relationship, or addiction, or pattern and the wisdom that how we can stay away from something harmful in the future. But we choose to ignore this wealth. Wisdom is no less valuable then material wealth. Yes, it cannot buy you that brand new Mercedes or a L uxorious vacation in Dubai. but it can make you capable of doing much more. It will help you from making any more mistakes. 

Why do we humans, give less importance to intangible wealth than tangible wealth? We have to start looking at wisdom to be as valuable as tangible wealth. Only this can bring about a positive change in our lives. 

Food for thought !