The solution to your problems

There is nobody or nothing in this world that can solve all our problems! So, we shouldn’t waste our time looking for that! If things are bothering us, then we are our biggest problem. Thoughts don’t come; anger doesn’t come; irritation doesn’t come to us. We create those. Since we create those, only we can remove them by removing the importance we give to ourselves.

Learn what needs to change within you to handle yourself better. Learn how you can sail through life without much resistance and have more openness! Then anyone can help. Else, no one can! We are all here for the same purpose, i.e. learning! Not flatter ourselves or our egos! If talking for hours would solve problems, we’d have no problems at all by now. Understanding yourself and breaking down your ego will help solve your problems. Look for someone who can help you dismantle your ego, not soothe it and instigate it further. Don’t look for people who are interested in listening to your problems. If anyone is interested in your problems, it is unhealthy. Look for people who are interested in YOU! Then they can guide you towards your well-being. Stop giving undue importance to yourself and your problems and expecting others also to do that. If you want to help yourself, be a good listener. Most problems are solved if you shut the mind and open your heart. 

Don’t believe that anyone can heal you or hurt you! Only you can do that for yourself. The illusions that we believe create the miseries that we experience. Detach yourself from yourself. Look at yourself from a far off place – we are all a small speck of dirt! Nothing more! We have a temporary abode. Then how can our problems have a permanent residence? It’s a short life. The choice we have is to either live in the illusion of misery or experience freedom. Don’t look for long term associations with therapists. Don’t create dependencies that chain you to believing that you are insufficient or good because someone reinforces that for you.

You are the creator’s creation, and He has made no mistake in creating you. It is left up to you to recognise the innate goodness in you and around you. Be open to learning from everyone without chaining or getting chained. It’s okay to fall. But never choose to stay down. You may need momentary help to get back on your feet. But don’t expect anyone to teach you how to walk all over again just because you fell. Your fall has given you more experience yourself if you are open to learning from your mistakes. Avoid feeling sorry for yourself. You don’t need it. All of life is an experience. The monsters and the heroes of your life are all your creation. Exaggerated perceptions create exaggerated effects on us. We kill mosquitoes and ants, which doesn’t affect us as much – because they are tiny creations, perhaps. But even if someone hurts us, it affects us a lot. Because we have a larger than life, exaggerated perception of ourselves. It doesn’t help! Imagine if we look at ourselves as ants or that speck of dirt, most problems wouldn’t even arise. When we minimise everything else, we maximise our awareness. When we maximise our awareness, we develop the ability to view everything in perspective. That’s when you solve all your problems yourself!

If you observe what you feel, it will pass.

If you identify with what you feel, it will affect you. 

No one can hurt you. They can only make you get in touch with the hurt that’s already within you!

No one can irritate you. They can only make you realise the irritation that’s already within you!

No one can make you feel loved. They can only make you recognise the love that’s already within you. 

No one can make you feel anything that isn’t already a part of you. If you are feeling it, it is already within you. They just helped you get in touch with what’s within. Thank them for it!

If you don’t like what you are feeling, change what’s within you! Then no matter what happens outside, what you feel inside will be what you want to feel.

When life’s unfair…

I always thought it has to be fair. Majority of my fights in life were for justice or my perception of it. After all these years, I have realised it’s not about justice always. For something to begin, something has to start and something has to end. In the process, justice may temporarily be off! The beginning of an end, is the beginning of much more than the end itself.

Who promised life will be fair anyway? I was only promised learning. It isn’t about justice always. It’s about my learning from them both and my ability to gather myself through it all. And again have the capacity to believe in something and stand up for something I believe in. 

It may not be fair. But I need to know that’s just the way it is and learn how to deal with it better. If I get stuck in the whole idea of it not being fair, I will find myself stuck at the same point for a very long time and not find a way out. Besides, what’s fair to me may not be fair to someone else. There’s always another perspective.

I don’t intend to justify what’s not fair or spend time rationalising it. But I wouldn’t want to waste all my time cribbing about it either. It definitely gets me nothing better even if I do that. Other than the fact that I will feel bitter, defeated and play a victim, there’s no good that comes off it. It renders me powerless in my own life. On the other hand, if I think to myself, yes, that’s unjust. But now what? What next? What should I do to deal with this? I’ll at least head somewhere thinking of that. Moving somewhere is better than being stuck and stagnant. 

Thinking of what I deserve might delude me from recognising what I got. That delusion can make me feel entitled and bitter. It’s not the world’s problem to grant me what I deserve. Why should it be? There are many who don’t get what they deserve. They are making their peace or trying to find their way out. And that’s the spirit. I am not here to whine and complain. I am here to rise and take charge. I am grateful when life is fair. I am humbled when it isn’t. 

Life is not fair or unfair. It is just what it was meant to be, to offer me my learning! By calling it something, I get myself into a web. It prevents me from understanding. It prevents me from looking at the bigger picture. It prevents me from learning what I was here to learn.

I may have given and not gotten it back. I may have worked twice as hard to get where I got. I may have lost more than I gained. I may have tried and failed. I may have paid for something that wasn’t even mine. But it’s just life offering me the learnings. That’s all it ever was! And that’s all it’ll ever be!

The choice is always mine

Whether I want to learn or whine!

And I think it’s about time

To look beyond my limited confines

And recognise the grander design!

Therein lies my peace sublime!

Your thirst for knowledge may not be of much use

Knowledge is not power unless we have this other thing :

Listen to the most recent episode of my podcast: Knowledge is not power unless you have this https://anchor.fm/narmadarao/episodes/Knowledge-is-not-power-unless-you-have-this-e12tbe1

One thing that matters for sure to anyone

The hair that you comb and color will break and fall.

The body that you nourish and exercise will stink even if you don’t bathe for a day.

The perfume that you spray, can’t mask the smell that you have beyond a point!

Your most branded belongings will also be rags one day!

Your ego only serves to getting you hurt or illusioned and nothing else!

No matter how beautiful your name, you will be referred to as “the body” once you die.

No one cares if it was a fit body or a fat body!

If it was a fair body or a dark one.

If it had hair or didn’t, 

If the hair was white or black.

The only thing, that doesn’t rot, fall, break or decompose is your kindness and goodness

that you leave behind as your footprint. 

Nothing else matters! 

Have you taken care of it today?

How many lives have you touched positively today?

And no, it’s not by advising. 🙂

Dealing with death

Lots of deaths happening around. We are unable to help it. There’s grief. Death shows no bias nor consideration for age, gender, power, value – or anything. We can neither choose when it happens, how happens, or to whom it happens. At times like these, just a couple of things that you might want to consider so that you can help yourself through these trying times:

1. It’s okay to cry. Let no one tell you and you don’t tell anyone that one should not cry. It’s not only normal, it is absolutely necessary that we give ourselves the liberty to cry it out, if we feel like it. Neither force anyone to not cry nor force anyone to cry. Each person had their own way to grieve. Respect the space. Not crying is not a source of strength nor is crying a sign of weakness.
2. We usually tend to think of the last moments and feel bad. Think of the good times with them. Recall stories from their life that stand out for you. Share with someone or write down if you wish. But recall all the great stories. Their entire life is always more powerful than their death in a moment. So make sure you remember and recall their life rather than fixate only on the dying part. Replay their life more than replaying their death. Their good stories will inspire you to live your life better. 
3. Avoid feeling bitter. Death is something that really isn’t in our hands. Death is the only thing that isn’t an “if”. It will happen! We can neither control nor choose when it happens or how it happens! So don’t blame yourself for their death. If their life were to continue it would have. Because their time had come, there was nothing you could do to save them. So don’t go on guilt trips or bitter trips. It’s really not in our hands. It’s okay to feel sad. But bitter makes it worse.
4. Don’t think of other possibilities after the person dies. It’s only a recipe to make yourself or others feel miserable. The fact that they are gone, no point talking of what you or anyone should have done differently to save them. Ideation to save their life after their death is a foolish idea. This only helps blaming. And blaming doesn’t really help. 
5. Don’t try to avoid their thoughts, or avoid looking at their photos or anything that reminds you of them. The more you try to avoid, the more it will continue to affect you. Deal with it. Feel the emotions because after some time your avoidance will make it all unbearable. Make your peace sooner than later. Dealing with them on a regular basis helps to reduce the intensity over time. Avoiding it by keeping yourself busy or distracted will make it a repressed thought and feeling which might storm out of you in strange ways and forms when you least expect it – and that too, for many years to come! Someone you loved all these years, doesn’t have to be suddenly forgotten, hidden, or repressed. 

When you think of them, think of their wonderful qualities, their life and how you can carry forward their legacy. May every thought of theirs give you the strength to move forward in life. Even if it is our loss today, we have to remember, we did gain a lot until this point. That’s why we feel the loss. Let us be grateful for all that we gained from them. We will miss their physical presence but if we look within, we’ll find a part of them within ourselves. It’s okay to miss their presence, but don’t miss your life, your duties, and other loved ones around you in the process of missing them. If you ever think you should’ve been better with them in anyway, take it as an opportunity to be better at least with those who are alive and with you now. Lest you regret the same again with others too.

As daunting as darkness might initially be, it’s only a few moments before our eyes adjust to it and learn to see. So, hang in there until you can see!

Before we go inward in pain, let’s look outside and see all the others who may need our love and support. We can’t get back those who are gone. But let’s try and help the rest of us survive and get past this. Individually we may collapse. Collectively we can survive. We need to look beyond our individual pain to be able to rise above the situation and do whatever is required of us at a humanitarian level. Let’s not expect others to be understanding. Let us understand since some are too gripped by fear to be able to do any better. They need even more love!

We shall get past this together! Prayers and wishes for you and your loved ones. Take care!

Narmada

A true story of spirituality based on a mosquito!

There were mosquitoes that were biting me last night while I was trying to sleep.

I thought, who is responsible for it?

Who left the doors open?

Why this sudden increase in mosquitoes?

Why isn’t the mosquito repellent working? This brand isn’t good.

As I was lost in my intense thoughts and judgments about them and all things related to them, the mosquitoes didn’t give much about it. They went about their business. 

When I had more than enough of it, I jumped out of my bed, went to the hall, got myself another mosquito repellent that was in the hall and plugged it in near me. That did the trick. No more mosquitoes and I slept through the night.

Life and spirituality is just that much I realised. Figure out what do I need to do at any given point. That’s all! The rest isn’t my business.

And no, I don’t need to make a heroic story of my survival with the mosquitoes because I sent them in my life to bite me so that I have this profound realisation. They were just doing their job. I neither need to play a victim nor a hero in this tale with mosquitoes. Way too much of my time gets lost in in deciding who should get the title of a hero and villain of a story. When the reality is that there are none. Each is just a mosquito playing it’s part. I am one such from a different species. 

If there was an award for being the most self-critical, would that go to you?

Being self-critical is one hobby that we unconsciously pick up and become really good at in no time – all in the pursuit of self-improvement. However, it doesn’t really help us achieve that purpose quite as well as we had imagined.

One might wonder then, how does one change if we don’t find our own flaws and faults. Great question! Yes! It is important to know one’s strengths and opportunities – but not in a way that impedes our confidence and our ability to pursue life in full potential. The knowledge of where we went wrong, and what we can do better is helpful only so long as we actively pursue learning for ourselves. Not if we use it to limit our very own self. 

Did you know that constantly scolding yourself gives you the permission to continue being at your less than optimal state in the long run? You read that right! We just get better at being bad if we continuously pull ourselves down.  So don’t get into a competition of scolding yourself or telling yourself that you are unable to do this, you can’t help yourself, you aren’t confident, you are a mess, you don’t know to communicate etc. because the more you tell yourself that, the more you are giving yourself the unconscious permission to be just that. It’s like declaring to yourself and the world that you have some terminal illness that is beyond cure. Obviously then, dying is the most natural expectation that others and yourself will have of you. Where’s the question then of life, hope, and of getting better?

If you want to really help yourself, “Catch yourself to coach yourself. Not to criticise yourself.” (Source: Just Open)

At times, people give up without even exploring, or trying the alternatives. They are so used to living with themselves the way they are, that they’d rather die criticising than challenge themselves to be any different. It’s a far more deadlier virus than anything we have witnessed. We have such low expectations of ourselves and we repeatedly tell ourselves, “I have been this way. It is tough to change. I tried but I couldn’t. I am like this. You don’t know my past. It is easier said than done.” And so on and so forth. The nature of these sentences is such that it prevents your mind from conceiving/considering any possibilities of challenging yourself to learn. Your mind resigns to the fact that ‘the Master doesn’t want to change. So let us just continue this way.’

No one is interested in knowing how well you can scold yourself. It would be inspiring to see how committed you are to change yourself. 

Give a reason for your mind to feel challenged and not resign. Don’t take succumbing to your fears as the only alternative to life. Challenge yourself to question your limiting beliefs about yourself. Challenge yourself to change. You may have been short-tempered, you may have been lazy, you may have been whatever else so far. But you don’t have to continue to be that way forever. Don’t give up on yourself. You aren’t a victim of yourself, or of life. You can become a survivor this very minute if you only challenge yourself healthily. And life won’t change for the better unless we commit to changing ourselves for the better. We were not born with these prejudices and criticisms. We can change anything that we weren’t born with and quite some things that we were born with too. Doesn’t matter who started this game of criticising. You can change it or end it for yourself. Don’t make a pathetic excuse of life, when you can be a precious example of it. Find the conviction to rise in front of your own eyes! For those who are convinced that they can change, courage will naturally follow. 

Why bother loving others, or believing in others, when we can’t for our own selves?

We are not stuck because of lack of courage. Rather, we are stuck because of a lack of conviction. Some are more convinced, and hence more courageous.

You are anyways thinking. Which means, you can think. Hence, think you can!

It’s your choice whether you wish to line up an ambulance fearing you’ll fall. Or line up an award believing that you’ll rise!

(For the other kind, who mostly believe the world is at fault and they deserve more sympathy/ recognition/ attention/ love/ care, this one’s not for you.) Eventually, both beliefs – the word is right and I am wrong, or, I am right and the world is wrong – are lopsided perspectives. Always remember there’s no smoke without fire. Our world is a response to what we are thinking and being mostly. So every situation is an opportunity for us to be better, smarter, wiser in some way. Just remove the guilts and the blames – and we shall be along on our journey just fine!

We don’t deserve better! We get better!

Those who think they deserve better, stay where they are feeling bitter. Those who challenge themselves to get better, get ahead feeling better. 

If you think it is bad that some people have low expectations of us, it’s worse still to think of living down to those.

Should you search for yourself?

We have access to more than what we need today. And yet we feel incomplete. We have a lot but yet, the heart searches for something. Many are in search of something, some are in search of finding out themselves, who they are! It’s a great question. Ramana Maharshi, a great Indian philosopher, and saint also said, the most important question to ask ourselves is, “Who am I?” Constantly discovering ourselves and avoiding getting too attached to any of the labels, judgments, roles, or identities that we don in life. I think it’s a powerful search. 

In the process of this search, how are you being is worth considering perhaps? If one is irritable, impatient, judgmental about the rest, this search might take a mighty long time. And it might create a lot of chaos for self and others. Are we being grateful for whatever we already have in the pursuit of what we want to find? If not, we may be completely missing the point. Without gratitude, we not only miss understanding how beautiful this life is and misunderstand people but also go further away from finding anything meaningful or worth finding. 

To find abundance, one needs to be tuned to abundance, and believe in abundance. Likewise, to find anything, you gotta appreciate and believe in it. Our subconscious mind is more powerful than anything else. It will help you find only what you believe in. If you believe in miracles, it’ll help you locate more miracles. If you believe in the devil, it will help you find more of it. If you are fearful of what you may find, if you are resistant to opening up to the truth, you might just find more masks to shy away from it. 

If you are too particular and have too many criteria on how you want to find what you want to find, then there’s an implication: 

• If you are already sure of what it is
• If you are unable to appreciate other lives and others’ efforts around you
• If you see people as a hindrance to your search
• If you feel you need something else other than what you have

You are complicating the entire process.

For a seeker who is keen, every situation, every interaction, and every person is seen as an opportunity to further their search. They are open, kind, and considerate. 

A dismissive mindset unfortunately dismisses the very thing that you are searching for from right under your nose. 

In a quest to find something that you don’t understand, know, or have, don’t be dismissive of all the people, and blessings that you already have. It might just be a regret later. All of life is designed to help us find what we need. So, we can’t wish for all of it to go away.

May you find what you are searching for, and may you cherish what you already have. 

How to add value to the world

When we don’t take care of ourselves, we release a grumpy, hungry, hurt, angry, irritated, unhealthy animal into the world. That unhealthy animal sees itself in everyone it meets and projects its pain, sorrow, and suffering to everyone. It spreads all of it to unsuspecting others. 

A fully healed animal doesn’t run the risk of getting an infection that could later spread to the rest of the tribe. When we take care of ourselves, we roam freely, like a happy one. A happy one spreads happiness to others. Wherever it goes, people don’t run in fear. People rejoice. People make merry. 

Whatever might be your skills, talents, and achievements, a hungry, angry, unhealthy, wild animal is a threat despite all its blessings. Imagine a rich, successful animal with designer clothes, expensive perfume, in a luxury car, with an expensive phone, and precious shoes – with a brain that is super stressed, a heart that is fragile, and a body that is delicate. Except for the ego, nothing else is solid. The animal might constantly live in the fear of ‘what if my car gets scratched, shoes get dirty, clothes get stained, the phone stops working’ and above all – ‘What must people be thinking of me?’ Despite all luxuries, talents, and comforts, the animal is uncomfortable and projects its own fears onto every single being it meets. 

And think of this other, so-called, selfless being. Tirelessly working for everyone else and has no time to take care of itself. It runs day and night, fights tooth and nail, but burns out quickly and soon falls ill. Now it feels guilty. It feels it should’ve taken better care of itself when it still had health. Now forget taking care of others, it can’t even take care of itself. Bitter feelings arise about the same others whom it spent all its time nourishing. Imagine, if this being had taken care of itself as it was taking care of the rest of the world. Today there’d be 2 happy parties. 

Hence, it is not in taking care of others but in taking care of yourself first that you take care of the world in the most effective way. And if you are not taking care of yourself, you are putting the world at greater risk, my friend! Trying to find happiness by helping others won’t work unless we learn to help ourselves first. What I see outside of me, is because that’s what is true inside of me. If you want the world to be beautiful, kind, and friendly, you have to be that first. Otherwise, no matter how much others recognize you and your strengths, you’ll still be broken by a small gust of wind or criticism. Even love will threaten you if you don’t understand the language of love. So, take care of yourself, strengthen your core every day. Know your strengths, love yourself, be there for yourself. 

Is it wrong to cry when they die?

At my father’s funeral, the one thing that I could not appreciate listening to was people telling me not to cry and asking me to be strong. How are tears connected with weakness in this context anyway? Someone dies, you love them, you are attached, it’s natural to feel a little sad right when it happens! Should I be strong or should I be human?

People come with the best of intentions and lots of love. But they land up saying things that take you further away from being healed. They give you more expectations that you should try to live up to, even in that situation. 

Death isn’t misery. Death is a relief. I completely second that. Having said that, I also feel it takes a few hours or days to get used to it. In that much time, it’s not right on our part to expect people to be this way or that way. 

Do you realize that most people say sorry when they cry? We have literally made crying an offense. People might not apologize even if they abuse you at times. But they definitely apologize when they cry in front of you. That’s how inappropriate we have made crying in our society. Why though?

I am not advocating drama by any means. It’s not healthy to make a drama of death. It’s a natural process that everyone goes through. And different people have different ways of going through with it. Some cry, some don’t. Those gentle tears are ways of letting go of all the pent up emotions. And one shouldn’t be made to feel sorry for those tears. They are valuable. 

No one is meant to last forever. But the question to ask ourselves is, are we crying because we miss someone? Or are we crying because we feel sorry for ourselves? If you miss someone, you’ll start cherishing their memories as gifts and gain your own strength to keep going. If you feel sorry for yourself, that’s gonna be a killer! There’s no relief from that apart from you realizing that it is not all about you. You just have to get over yourself and look at life from a larger perspective. Their death wasn’t planned by the universe on a special agenda to make you suffer. Their time had come, so they had to go. Your suffering is your own creation in the meantime. When you make it less about you, you start to find more strength to get going.

Usually, when someone dies, we tend to think of their life in relation to ours. Naturally! We think of all that they were for us, all that they did for us, and now we start thinking who’s going to do that for me, who’s going to be that for me. And that’s how we start feeling sorry for ourselves. We start feeling lonely. But then when you starting thinking of their life, their message, their legacy, you find the motivation in you to carry them forward and be all that not just for yourself but for those around you too. That’s when you stop making their death all about you. And graciously move ahead. 

Hysterically crying all the time and blaming everyone around, or feeling sorry for oneself, isn’t what’s going to get anyone anywhere. But tears gently flowing down your cheek when you are filled with gratitude or when you are missing someone is far from a crime. 

Some of the things that we do that makes crying an uncomfortable experience are:

• Running with water, tissues, and other things to the person who is crying – what’s wrong with that? Be gentle about it. Don’t run like they are dying. They are just crying. If you have something around, gently hand it over to them. But if you make dramatic reactions yourself, it makes the other person feel even more conscious about themselves. 

• We immediately go pat on their back and tell them, “Please don’t cry”. Or we say, “don’t worry, everything will be fine.” What’s wrong with that? Well, how do you know everything will be fine?  Secondly, they know that too. But they are crying for this moment. Imagine you hurt your leg, you know you’ll be healed soon. But that doesn’t mean you won’t feel the pain now as soon as you got hurt right? I can’t ask you not to feel the pain today since it will heal tomorrow. I just have to be with you, for now, that’s all. 

• We tell them, ‘You are very strong. You should not cry. If you cry what will happen to others’. What’s wrong with that? Back to the opening para, tears and strength aren’t diametrically opposite to each other. Even if you are strong, you aren’t made of stone to not feel anything. It’s not the time for us to advise them about taking care of others. If we take care of them now, they’ll get the strength to take care of others. We don’t need to state the obvious. They know it already. The last thing we should do is making them feel guilty for having those emotions. We shouldn’t make them feel stifled or suffocated.