From Scarcity to Sufficiency

Money does not belong to us exclusively. It either belongs to all of us or to none of us. It is one of those great commons that has been created by man. Money, in fact is so much like water. In some people’s lives it flows gushing forth like a river and in others, it flows like a tiny trickle. But whether it flows like a river or a trickle, money brings opportunity. Opportunity to reallocate it for something good, for the people & for this world.

But is this happening, is the money being used for something good? Unfortunately not. Today, huge proportions of the world’s financial resources are going towards destruction, depletion, war, terrorism, weaponry and consumption. And who wants all this?, not me, not you, nobody wants it. All of us want money to move towards what we love, towards life, towards the affirmation of life, for the well being of our species and our planet and our habitat.

So what is stopping you and me from achieving this? It is our mindset of scarcity. All the time we think that things are not enough and so we end up in trying to accumulate more and more, just like tyrants. And when we become busy in scrambling for more and more, we fail to notice & appreciate and nourish what we already have. We have reduced ourselves from citizens to consumers. A consumer consumes, destroys, depletes. And a citizen is somebody who creates, who contributes, who gives. So how can we become citizens once again? It’s quite simple really. All you have to do is use your imagination. For a moment, imagine that there is no scarcity, there is enough for everyone and you will soon realize that actually it is true there is really no scarcity. Our needs are always met one way or the other, and often by ways that we never expected.

This journey from scarcity to sufficiency can be accomplished if you stop trying to get more and more of what you don’t really need. And when you stop this unnecessary accumulation, the result is that it frees up oceans of energy to make a difference with what you already have. When you make that difference, then whatever you do whether it is social work, volunteering, philantrophy, whatsoever little you do, it multiplies, expands, increases. In simple words, what you appreciate, appreciates.

There are 6 ways to begin this journey from scarcity to sufficiency.

1. Get the clutter out of your life.
2. Don’t buy unless you can let go of something.
3. Practice appreciation for what you already have.
4. Learn to value intangible gifts much more than tangible gifts.
5. Nourish your body instead of filling it.
6. Whenever you spend money, ask yourself how is it going to affect the world.

Remember - Scarcity breeds competition, sufficiency breeds collaboration. We all have a duty to perform. We have to carry out the sacred work of reallocating the world resources away from fear and greed and move them towards love and compassion. And the only way to do that is by changing our mindset. Changing it from scarcity to sufficiency.

The humanist mystic

The Sufi poet, philosopher & humanist, Bulleh Shah left behind some writings, which seem to transcend time. The sheer simplicity with which he has been able to address the complex fundamental issues of life and humanity is a large part of why he appeals to so many. Here’s a small couplet which is in Punjabi & then its English translation.

Padh padh ilm hazaar kitaabaan
Qaddi apnay aap nou padhiya naee
Jaan jaan wadhday mandir maseedi
Qaddi mann apnay wich wadhiya naee
Aa-vain ladhda aye shaitan de naal bandeaa
Qaddi nafss apnay naal ladhiya naee

Yes, yes, you have read thousands of books
But you have never tried to read your own self
You rush in, into your temples, into your mosques
But you have never tried to enter your own heart
Futile are all your battles with Satan
For you have never tried to fight your own selfish egocentric desires

Are you a social prophet?

Very often we come across the words "Non Profit Sector" or "Non Govt sector" or the "Not for" sector. The words "non" and "not for" have very negative connotations to them. "Non" is an unfortunate label & it gives us a feeling that this is a secondary sector and is not where all the action is. Yet Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King and so many others worked in this non sector or not for sector. So if you look at history where things really changed, things that made a profound impact on the world is this very "non" sector. A more appropraite label for this sector should be the social profit sector, because we are generating social profit for our fellow human beings & therefore all of us who contribute to a good cause, for the well being of our species, our planet our habitat are social prophets who are generating social profit.
Are you one of them?

Be a giver

Why do you want that everybody should respect you? What have you got? Why are you sitting on top of an ivory tower? Why do you want to see yourself important in the eyes of others, in comparison with others? Why do you want that whoever meets you should respect you, love you, and regard you? Why do you desire all this, why do you expect all this? Why do you want to be treated always as His Holiness or Her Highness?

I will tell you why? Because you are basically greedy, you only want to get love, get respect, get greetings from others. You are not looking for email, you are looking for me-mail, don't you feel elated if the email is regarding you, a birthday greeting perhaps, a new year wish perhaps.

Now for a change be a giver. Give love, give respect, give greetings, give compliments to others. Be like a flower, spread your fragrance. Just send love letters, don't bother about the address, simply keep posting. They will reach somebody.

You want to make friends, win hearts, then from today start giving. Be a giver.

Be Remarkable

Look at the Taj Mahal. This monument has not only changed forever the importance of the city of Agra, but it has also become the hallmark of an entire nation. 377 years have passed from the time that this monument was built, but even today it is officially considered as one of the Seven Wonders of the World . Ever wondered why ? because it is- remarkable.

What is the most common thing that you find in this world ? It is mediocrity. So, what is mediocrity, mediocrity is being average. Now one thing you must get it straight - Mediocrity is for losers. And the reason that mediocrity is for losers is that if you are given a choice of 5 places to have lunch, will you choose a mediocre restaurant?, if you are given a choice of 5 people to hire, will you settle for the mediocre candidate?, if you are given a choice of 5 movies to watch will you watch a mediocre movie? The answer to all these questions is No. Why, because we are always looking for the best, we look for something remarkable.

Imagine you are in Doha like me & you are driving down the corniche road, and you see a date tree, what will be your reaction? "Hey!!...Look a date tree!!" . How many of you will react this way –Nobody. Why? because a date tree is a common sight in Doha. A date tree is as good as invisible.

But if the date tree had purple leaves (considering that this colour ihas become so popular after the US elections), now what would be your reaction? Yes surely you would notice it. So the point is, that the deciding factor about what gets built, what gets changed, what gets done, what gets sold, what gets purchased, what gets talked about is- is it remarkable?

Let's take another example. Have a look at Google’s home page & the have a look at Yahoo’s home page. Is there any difference? Yahoo has exactly 152 links on the same page & Google hardly has a few distracting links. Now why do we go to a search engine? To search – right. And Google helps you to do exactly what you came to do – to search. So it is not surprising that Google is the number one search engine in the world today. Google decided long ago not to be mediocre, not to be average, it decided to stand out from the crowd, it decided to be remarkable.

So how can we be remarkable? It’s very easy. What we have to do is simply refuse to settle for mediocre, refuse to settle for run of the mill, refuse to settle for second rate stuff.

There are 2 things to remember

No 1. Don’t be safe. If you always play safe you will remain what you are now, average. Go ahead, take a risk, remember the old saying, no pain no gain.

No 2. Very good is bad. Every body these days is very good, you have very good architects, you have very good doctors and you have very good toastmasters, so if you are looking for very good they can be bought for a dime a dozen. The need of the hour is not very good, the need of the hour is something that is remarkable.

So what have you decided, will you be remarkable?

Interesting Urdu snippets - part 1 of ?

Exceptions do not make rules. The exception here is the picture which has little relation with this blog which is about some interesting Urdu phrases. Translating Urdu words into English is a daunting task and the translations do not do full justice to what the deeper meaning is.

Hamari parwaaz ke aasmaan badal gaye hain
We soar in different skies or
We have chosen different ways to progress in life


Jis gaon jaana nahin us gaon ka raasta kya poonchna
Why should I ask you the way of that place which I don't want to go to


Rishtey chheeni ke bartano ki tarah naazuk hote hain ek dafa toot jayen to laakh inhe duniyadaari aur maslehat ki elfi shelfi se jod lein ye jud nahin paate aur aankhon ko chhubne lagte hain
Relations are extremely delicate like China crockery
Once broken, then even if you try to join them using the glue of worldly expediencies
You cannot join them and they are painful to see


Neki apna inaam khud hoti hai
An act of virtue is its own prize


Meherbaan hoke bula lo mujhe cchaaho jis waqt
Main gaya waqt nahin hoon ke aa bhi na sakoon
Do an act of kindness and call me whenever you want
I am not "time" that has passed & will not be able to come back


Raah mein wo mile kahaan
aur bazm mein wo bulaye kyon?
No chance that I could ever meet (him/her) on the way
And (he/she) never called me to (his/her) gathering


Yahaan kutte to aazaad phir rahen hain
aur pattharon ko baandh rakha hai
Here dogs are free to roam around
And stones have been tied up


Waqt khush khush kaatne ka mashwara dete hue
ro pada wo aap mujhko hausla dete hue
Whilst suggesting me to be happy
He himself burst into tears while consoling me


Sone ke kalam se likhne se tehreer to sone ki nahin ho jaati
If I use a golden pen to write, the writing will not become golden


Sahee baat ke saath agar aur magar lag jaaye to baat sahi nahin rahti
If ifs and buts are stated with a correct statement then that statement is not correct anymore


Siyasat ka maidaan bhi stock exchange ki tarah hota hai zara bhi calculation ya information mein galti ho jaaye to baat kahaan se kahaan pahunch jaati hai
Politics is like a stock exchange, a slight error in calculation or information can have disastrous results


Zindagi bhi ek casino ki tarah hai, yahaan aadmi jitna bada daaon khelta hai kaamiyaabi bhi utni hi badi milti hai
Life islike a casino. Here, the higher your stakes, higher is the level of your success


Hakim ki aagadi aur ghode ki pecchaadi se bacchna cchahiye
Be careful about trespassing your master & being at the receiving end of your horse


Taqdeer ne to hum sub ko ek jaisa hi paida kiya hain
ye oonch neech to humne paida kiye hain
Fate has given birth to all of us as equals
These highs and lows are our creation


Maut dikha kar bukhaar pe raazi kar liya
I threatened him with death, so he agreed to something lesser than that

What next after success?

OK, so you are successful. What next after being successful?

Look at Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple Inc. Steve helped to invent the personal computer, helped to launch the mouse driven graphical interface, helped to launch the MP3 business, helped launch computer animations at Pixar and is currently the Walt Disney Company's largest individual shareholder and a member of its Board of Directors. And he’s not done – right?

The point is, just like skiing, the goal is not how fast to get to the bottom of the hill, but the goal is to have a bunch of good runs before the sun sets.

Revisiting Ghalib

It was in the year 1992 when I was in Bahrain that I happened to listen for the first time to a few ghazals by Jagjit & Chitra Singh from their album entitled “Mirza Ghalib”. At that time I hardly paid any attention to the poetry as I was simply mesmerized by Jagjit’s soulful & mystical voice complimented by Chitra’s unique crystal clear and sweet vocals.

It was after a gap of almost 16 years that I listened again to the same ghazals but this time Ghalib’s poetic genius was what swept me off my feet. And I started wondering and imagining what kind of a person in real life he must have been. Luckily the entire serial on his life, produced and directed by Gulzar was available on video.google.com.

I thoroughly enjoyed watching it – it was the first time that I was doing that & some of the scenes enacted by Naseerudin Shah, who plays Ghalib & Tanvi Azmi, who plays his wife were so beautiful and realistic that I have nothing but appreciation for them and Gulzar. The entire story about Ghalib’s life has tragic underlying connotations, but nevertheless there are some moments that evoke a smile & even a giggle perhaps. There is a scene where his wife challenges Ghalib to go and marry a second time to which he responds

Paaon ki ek hi beidhee ne mushkil mein daal diya hai

Doosri bhi pehen lee to chalne se hi nachaar ho jaoonga

Meaning

Even the one shackle on one of my feet is causing me problems

If I wear another shackle then I won’t be able to walk at all

Once Ghalib tells his wife that he is very sad, to which she retorts that he never seems to look sad & to this Ghalib replies

Unke dekhe se aa jaatee hein muhn par raunak

Wo samajhte hein ke beemaar ka haal achcha hai

Meaning

As soon as my beloved sees me, my face starts glowing

And she thinks that I am all right & not ill any more

In another scene, Ghalib’s wife nudges him and asks him if he is not even afraid of God? To which he replies with a smile

Darta wohi hai jiske paas koi poonji ho

Tumhare paas eemaan hai is liye darti ho

Aur hamaare paas siwaaye is eemaan wali ke kuch nahin hai

Meaning

The only person who is afraid is the one who has some possessions

You possess faith & therefore you are afraid

And I have nothing except you - the possessor of faith

Which jail is better?

Mirza Ghalib, one of the greatest poets from India, was once in jail for a period of six months. One morning, he heard a man crying from the adjoining room. On enquiring from the jail attendant, he came to know that a young man had been found guilty of some crime and would have to spend 3 months in custody.

Ghalib went to the man asked him.

"What is the matter my friend, why are you crying?"

"I have to spend three months in this jail...", the man replied between sobs,

"So what?"

"You don't understand, I was about to get married today, and I ended up here..."

"You should thank God for that, that you were just saved from a life sentence. Believe me, 3 months you will spend easily here, but imagine how much you might have suffered being a captive for all your life. You should also be thankful to the policeman who caught you & by catching you even he has inadvertently done something good in his life."

The pen is mightier than the sword

Woh baadshah hai talvaar ke
Hum kalam ke shahenshah hai

Unka mulk cchin sakta hai
Hamari milkiat koi nahin ccheen sakta

Ghalib

meaning

He is a king by means of his sword
But I too am a prince of the pen

His kingdom can be snatched away
But my property (the art of writing poetry) cannot be taken away by anyone


This applies to bloggers as well I guess!

Definition of homework, profession & vacation

When you sit at home and worry - you call it homework
When you sit in the office and worry - you call it profession.
When you sit on the beach and worry - you call it vacation.

If you carry your worries with you all the time, your life will remain unchanged.

Right decision for the wrong reason

There were 3 persons undergoing treatment at a lunatic asylum. The doctor in charge was pretty confident that they were progressing well and would soon be cured. So after a month's treatment he called all the 3 of them in front of a large and deep empty swimming pool. He asked the 1st person to jump in the pool, who gladly did so & broke his hand. The next person also jumped, and he broke his leg. Now the doctor asked the 3rd person to jump.
"No doctor, not me".

The doctor was elated, that at least this fellow was cured.
"Good, go and fetch your things, you can go home now",the doctor told him.
"But by the way, can you tell me why you did not jump".
"I am not mad, doctor, I do not know swimming"

Don't we also sometimes do the same thing? - take a right decision for the wrong reasons, think about it!

Traffic Patient

Tune in to any radio station of UAE like 89.1 or 101.6 or 95.3 FM and you will always find people calling up the radio jockeys and informing them about traffic jams. The RJ's acknowledge these so called jam busters and advise the people on the roads to avoid a particular road. I sometimes wonder whether it really must be helping people, especially those who want to reach a particular destination and that's the only road that they can take. But yesterday, I was quite amused to listen to a lady who called up the radio jockey and described her woes of being stuck for the last 2 hours in front of a petrol station, and described herself as a "traffic patient". It seems that the people around her had given up and many had crossed the road and fetched themselves tea/ coffee and were standing on the sidewalks enjoying the view. However, more than her story, I liked the term "Traffic Patient" so much, that it compelled me to post this blog. Isn't it such an appropriate term to describe a person's condition stuck in traffic?

A traffic patient can be described as one who has the following symptoms

1. He / she always tends to get stuck in traffic for hours together.

2. He / she has pain in the right leg (feet, toe, thighs, knees) because of applying brake and accelerator after every 15 seconds and sometimes continuously for an hour or so.

3.He / she suffers from hypertension because each car seems to be trying to overtake him / her by doing some manouvres that he / she could never dream of.

4.He / she suffers from chronic headaches, eye stress etc because he / she has to concentrate on the road completely against his / her wishes.

You might have read the famous cliche "Every problem is actually an opportunity knocking at your door". So can the traffic problem also be an opportunity? Yes, if you think along these lines:

1. If you are a doctor, you can advertise that you specialise in treating traffic patients, that you have special medicines to cure headaches, eyes irritation, feet - toes-knees-thighs-aches.

2. You can open a massage parlour that specialises in giving special " anti-traffic" massage. Think of a good jingle to place an ad.

3. If you are a Toastmaster, getting stuck in traffic is the best opportunity to practice your speech. In fact, if your husband / wife dislikes you preparing a speech at home, just go out for some work in the car and prepare your speech while you are stuck in traffic. I have done that several times and no, it does not seem odd to others who look at you because they think that you are speaking to somebody on hands free.

4.Open a workshop specialising in installation of the latest DVD player with a built in 8 inch screen that can play movies of all formats mpeg, avi, flv, divx, wma etc etc. You can market this by telling people that they can gainfully use the time they waste in waiting in traffic jams, by catching up on the latest movies or serials. If priced reasonably, the demand to install these DVD players will be so high that it is an assured way to become a millionaire.

Can you think of more?

But this really - takes the cake- it is what my friend from Dubai had to say about the traffic situation in Dubai. "Sajid, these days I am spending more time in my car than with my wife, but it is difficult to say which is better".

Depriving our children

If I were to ask you – Are today's children deprived? Most of you would answer with a resounding – No. And why is that? Its because we know that we are providing our children with all the comforts imaginable, good food, airconditioned rooms & cars, the latest games and gadgets (laptops, playstations, mobiles), the best schools, good clothes, holidays overseas every year, the list is endless. We give them all this but do we give them our time? Have we sat with them even for a few minutes for a heart to heart talk about what is bothering them? what are their aspirations? are they feeling intimidated by peer pressure? there could be so many things on their mind. But we are so caught up in meeting our own deadlines – professional as well as personal, in sorting out our own priorities, that we hardly bother about this.
Children, today, are deprived not because we do not give them things, but because we do not sufficiently value what they give us. We need to be alert to welcome what children have to offer. Remember what Kahlil Gibran wrote about children,

You may give them your love but not your thoughts, for they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

Our children are flying forward into areas we have not charted ourselves. If you want to know what the society will be like in the next twenty years, you don't need to read science fiction books, nor do you need to surf the net for articles about this topic, you simply have to go and visit any kindergarten school, you simply have to visit the homes where children between the ages 5 to 10 are living.

Are we teaching our children to be independent, to love, to respect, to laugh or are we busy in bombarding their young minds with what was handed down to us from previous generations – our concepts of right and wrong, our divisive & opinionated beliefs about why we do things the way we do them?

Flirt with Fear

Once , a disciple went running to his master.
"Master, Master, I am very afraid. I feel that I am going to die very soon. What can I do?"
The Master replied – "Don’t worry, I will solve your problem".
"But first let us have a cup of coffee."
Both of them sat and had coffee. The master then explained to the disciple that fear is just another thought; it is only in the mind. And the mysterious thing about the mind is that it can never hold on to any one thought for a long time. Not even the thought of death you can hold on to for a long time, the fear of death can be washed out simply by thinking about a cup of coffee. So you see how shallow fear is?
Have you seen a cat drinking milk? If you observe carefully, you will see that the cat always drinks or rather laps up milk with its eyes closed. Why? Because she thinks that by closing her eyes, she will be cut off from this world. We human beings also sometimes think that by choosing to ignore fear, fear will vanish. This is not possible, fear will be there whether you like it or not and the only way to counter fear is to develop the courage to fight it. Real courageous people not only fight fear they even flirt with fear.

You see, the very fact that you are alive, means that you have something to lose, and the moment you have something to lose you will always have fear & so there is no point trying to run away from fear. What you have to do is to face it, work on the causes that are creating the fear. Learn to flirt with fear.

The dark side of competition

Once upon a time there was a wicked king. He was an absolute dictator. In his kingdom there were two men, they were real good friends, and only they had the courage to oppose him, so he ordered his soldiers to catch them and he put them inside jail and sentenced them to death. Soon came the day when they were to be put to death by hanging. They both sat huddled together and the hangman called out the first person's name. "Noori". The first person walked slowly to the gallows. "You are not Noori". "Yes I am not Noori, but I love Noori so much that I want to die before him".

Yes this is real love, this is how love speaks but just think about it - what are we teaching our children? are we teaching them to love?

The answer is NO. We are teaching them competition, we are teaching them ambition, we are teaching them politics. Some of you may disagree with me, you may say that no we teach our children that they should love others. But, have you ever thought about this. The entire structure of our education system is built on competition and not on love. When one boy comes first in a class, the other boy is told that he is lagging behind and this fellow has come first. So what are you teaching him, you are teaching him to compete and get ahead? You are teaching him ego, you are telling him that one who has come first is higher, and one who is behind is lower. One who comes first is awarded gold medals and merit certificates; he is garlanded and photographed, and others, who are behind, what happens to them. They are ignored & even insulted by the system by society.

So tell me in this way when the children are trained in ego, in jealousy and in competition, how can they love?

We are all trying to push others out of our way, we all want to go ahead, and we pull others back, and this happens in case of every person, right from the peon to the president. This pushing and pulling – this is nothing but violence. Look all around you, everybody's hand is at everybody else's throat.

We say that we are teaching sympathy and generosity but how can a competitive mind be sympathetic – it cannot be – the competitive mind is always hard & selfish. Schools and universities today are indirectly teaching violence and we call it education?

The real problem is that we have made success as the center of our lives. When dishonesty increases, we go on shouting and crying that dishonesty is increasing and become unhappy. But , as long as success is the only yardstick, lies, dishonesty, thefts are bound to follow. They are shadows of success. They cannot be removed. We become so blind in becoming successful, we can do anything to achieve success. Why do you think, even the best sports people resort to drugs? They are blinded - by hook or by crook they want to win. So, everything else becomes secondary. And we have been teaching this for thousands of years. But the time has come to change our old paradigm. Success is not of any value. Success is not a matter of great respect or honor. A man must be fulfilled, not successful. Success is not a destination, it is about having fun along the journey.

Don't help others

A small child was talking to his mother, and the mother said, "Remember always to help others." And the child asked, "Then what will the others do?"Naturally the mother said, "They will help others." The child said, "This seems to be a strange scheme. Why not help yourself, why make things unnecessarily complex?"

The world is full of miserable people & they are helping other miserable people, the blind leading others who are blind. What help can you give? It is a very dangerous idea which has prevailed throughout the centuries.

In a small school the lady teacher told the boys, "At least once per week you should do a good thing." One boy asked, "Just please give us some examples of good things. We don’t know what is good.” So she said, "For example, a blind woman wants to cross the street; then help her to cross the street. This is a good job; this is virtuous."

The next week she asked, "Did any of you remember to do what I have said to you?" Three children raised their hands. She said, "This is not good – the whole class has not been following. But still, it is good that at least three boys did something good." She asked the first, "What have you done?" He said, "Exactly what you have said: One old woman who was blind, I helped her to cross the street."

She said, "That’s very good. God will bless you." She asked the second, "What have you done?" He said, "The same – a blind old woman, I helped her to cross the street." The teacher became a little puzzled – where are they finding blind old women? But it is a big city; perhaps they may have found two. She asked the third and he said, "I did exactly what they have done: helped a blind old woman cross the street."

The teacher said, "But where did you find three blind women?" They said, "You don’t understand: there were not three blind women, there was only one blind woman. And it was so hard to help her to cross the street! She was beating us and shouting and screaming, because she did not want to cross, but we were intent on doing some virtuous act. A crowd gathered, people were shouting at us, but we said, don’t be worried. We are taking her to the other side. But she never wanted to go to the other side!"

People are being told to help others, and they are empty within themselves. They are being told to love others – love your neighbors, love your friends, love your enemies – and they are never told to love themselves.

A person who hates himself cannot love anybody; he can only pretend. And this will only lead to more frustration for the one who is helping and the one who is being helped.

Beyond the Stars!

Poems, music, paintings and sculptures have always enthused me and I sometimes wonder, how these people could write so beautifully, compose such enchanting melodies, paint masterpieces or carve such elegant things from stone.

Allama Iqbal was one the greatest poets of the last century and I am presenting in this blog one of his famous poems from his poetry book "Bang-e-dara" i.e. "The Call of the Marching Bell".

The poem is first presented in Urdu (transliteration) followed by a translation. In my opinion the translation falls far short of conveying the poet's thoughts, after all language itself is a crutch to express ourselves. But that is the best I could manage. So here goes...

Sitaron se aage jahaan aur bhi hain

Abhi ishq ke imtihaan aur bhi hain

Taahii zindagi se nahin ye fazayen

Yahan sainkdon karawan aur bhi hain

Kanaa'at na kar aalam-e-rang-o-bu par

Chaman aur bhi, aashiyan aur bhi hain

Agar kho gaya ek nasheman to kya gham

Maqamat-e-aah-o-fugaan aur bhi hain

Tu shaheen hai parwaz hai kaam tera

Tere saamne aasman aur bhi hain

Isi roz-o-shab mein ulajh kar na rah ja

Ke tere zamin-o-makan aur bhi hain

Gaye din ke tanha tha main anjuman mein

Yahan ab mere raazadan aur bhi hain

The Translation

Beyond the stars there are other worlds of light

There are more trials of love, besides those on earth.

These spheres are not empty of the pulse of life

There are a hundred forms of life, latent in these spheres

Be not content with this earth, although it has a myriad of colours

There are more gardens, more worlds to be explored

Grieve not if thou losest this abode of sorrow

There are other abodes for thee, for the sighs of yearning and grief

Thou art of eagle breed, born for ethereal flights

Thou hast, beyond those narrowing skies, loftier heavens to roam

Do not get entangled in these deceptive days and nights

Thou has other worlds, beyond linear time and space

Intoxicated in love

I am not sure if this is a story or a historical fact. But a beautiful one.

Akbar was one of the greatest emperor's of India. One day he had gone hunting in the forest with all his friends, and they all got lost. Evening was descending, the sun was setting and it was the time to pray. So Akbar stopped under a huge tree, tied his horse to the tree and sat on the ground to do his last prayer of the day. And as he was praying, a woman, a young woman, ran just by his side, and collided with him - the collision was so bad that he actually fell down. It seemed as if she was mad or blind. Still, she did not look back. Akbar naturally was very angry.

An ordinary village girl, not caring at all, running like mad and hitting the emperor. Akbar finished his prayer quickly because he wanted to catch hold of the girl. She could not be allowed to do such things. If she could behave with the emperor in such a way, what to say about other people? But he could not figure out – it was getting dark – where she had gone. But he waited, thinking she must come back to the village. He was just outside the village.

And finally she came. Akbar stopped her and said, "Do you remember what you have done?"

She said, "I don’t remember anything. Do you?"

Akbar said, "You seem to be very strange. You don’t understand. You are talking with the emperor of the country."

She said, "I understand, but I don’t remember anything of what you are talking about."

He said, "What am I talking about? I have been praying here and you ran in such a way that you
pushed me, and I fell down. You disturbed my prayer!"

She said, "Perhaps if you say so, it must have been so, but you have to forgive me. I was running because I wanted to reach the spot and wait for my lover just on the road which runs through the forest. I wanted to greet him – he is coming after many years – just outside the village. I could not remain sitting in the house and waiting. I knew that he will be waiting, thinking that I must be standing just by the side of a tree where we used to meet when we were young. That’s why I was so lost in my desire to reach the spot that I did not know I had committed any mistake. Please forgive me, it must have been committed without my knowing at all."

She was so innocent and tears came to her eyes because she had hurt her own emperor. "You can give me any punishment, otherwise it will remain heavy on my heart. But just one question before you punish me: you were in prayer – still you were not so much lost in your prayer as I was, because I don’t remember at all. It cannot be that I hit you ... it cannot be one-sided. Your body also must have touched my body, but I don’t remember having seen anybody on the way – praying or falling or anything. I don’t remember that anybody touched my body. So I am puzzled, and I would like to be clear about it. Is your prayer not as strong as as my love?"

Akbar felt compelled to ask forgiveness from that village girl. He later said that "I have never forgotten her face, and I have never forgotten that my prayer is just formal. If I am lost in my prayer and my love, in my gratitude towards the ultimate, then how can I be aware that somebody has touched me, pushed me, or that my body has fallen? I would not have been aware of anything. But I was aware and that makes it certain that my prayer is just superficial.

Comparison - The Greatest Disease

From our very early childhood, we are taught comparison. Your mother starts comparing you, not only with other children but also your own siblings, "Look at your brother, see how he is getting good grades, and look at you, wasting your time in playing". The teacher compares you: "Look at Tom, how well he is doing, and you are no good at all! "

From the very beginning you are being told that you should compare yourself with others. This is the greatest disease; it is like a cancer that goes on destroying your very soul – because each individual is unique, and comparison is not possible. I am just myself and you are just yourself. There is nobody else in the world that you can be compared with. Do you compare a lily with a rose? A lily is a lily, a rose is a rose. You don’t compare. Do you compare an orange with an apple? You don’t compare. You know they are different! Comparison is not possible.
Every person is unique. There has never been any individual like you before and there will never be again. You are utterly unique. It is your privilege, your prerogative, it is God’s blessing, that He has made you unique. Don’t compare. Comparison will bring trouble. If you fall victim to this disease of comparison, then you will either become very egoistic or you will become very bitter; it depends on whom you compare yourself with. If you compare yourself with those who seem to be bigger than you, higher than you, greater than you, then you will become bitter.
You will nurture a complaint in your heart "Why am I not greater than so & so? Why am I not like that person? Why am I not physically so beautiful, so strong? Why am I not intelligent? Why am I not this, not that?” And there are millions of things in the world....If you compare yourself with the people who are greater in some way than you, you will become bitter, very bitter. Your life will become poisoned by the comparison. You will remain always in a state of depression, as if you have been deceived , betrayed , as if you have been let down.

And on the other hand, if you compare yourself with people who are smaller than you, in some way lesser than you, then you will become very egoistic. This is one of the reasons why such people collect smaller people around themselves so that they can look bigger than they are by comparison. It is stupid, but one cannot expect anything more from such foolish people.

The vast majority of us, we always look at others’ houses, their successes, their achievements, and feel somewhat bitter. But only a man who understands the uniqueness of everybody , feels immense gratitude for whatsoever God has given to him. If you don’ t compare, then you are neither bigger nor smaller, neither ugly nor beautiful, neither intelligent nor stupid. If you don’t compare, you are simply yourself And in that state of simply being yourself, spring comes, flowers come. It is only from a deep acceptance of life, do we have a deep gratitude towards what God has blessed us with & this helps to bring the spring.

A lesson from fledglings

On a nearby tree a bird was raising her young. There were two babies & they kept on growing day by day. One day they came out of the nest for the first time. When they came out of the nest, both of them settled on a branch – wonderstruck, trying their wings, thinking should we go forward or not? They had never come out of their nest before, and their mother was sitting on a distant tree giving them a call, a loud call ... she went on calling. Hearing her call, they fluttered their wings. But the attachment to the nest, to the safety was too much. And they had never before opened their wings... Should we open them or not? Will we be able to fly or not? The mother kept on calling, kept on provoking, call after call. It took about half an hour, slowly slowly they fluttered their wings, moved a little further from the nest, sat on other branches of the same tree. They felt a little more confident, flew a little in the air and came back. Confidence grew further and then they flew away... They have not been seen since. They never came back. Why come back? The nest is left behind – two egg shells left in it, broken to pieces.

Birds who have never flown before gather the courage to fly into the sky, but we are human beings, bestowed with unparalleled capabilities & still cannot gather courage. We hesitate, procrastinate, doubt & fear the unknown. Isn't it time that we learn from the baby birds?

Contradiction - that's what life is!

You see a man who is loving. When the man is loving you think,"Yes, how nice is this man." But the next moment he is angry; then there is a contradiction. He is angry and loving and jealous and possessive, and sometimes so sharing, and sometimes so mean. Have you not seen it?

Sometimes your friend is so sharing and sometimes so mean. This is how reality is. Reality contains all contradictions. Don't you realise how absurd and ridiculous we all are and yet how incredibly beautiful life is. Nothing is contradictory in it. If you were all very, very consistent, life would not be so rich. It would be stale and gray. Life is rich because it is a rainbow, it is psychedelic. It has so many colors and so many changing colors. And it is so unpredictable – that’s why it is absurd. Why do you call it absurd? Because you cannot contain it in your logic. Your logic falls short; it is bigger than your logic. It destroys your logic. Somehow you make a plan, set a goal, toil & burn the midnight oil and then what happens, life comes and destroys everything.

We want to define everything, this is right, this is wrong. We want to impose our moral values on others without realising that we ourselves are nothing but a bunch of contradictions. H.G. Wells once wrote "Self righteous morality is nothing but jealousy with a halo". If you look deeply wherever you find imposed morality, there is bound to be a trace of hypocrisy over there.

Can there be pleasure without pain, light without darkness, up without down ? And we keep arguing on petty matters. The big pine tree and the small rosebush – who is higher? Neither the pine tree ever boasts that she is higher, nor the rosebush ever says that "You may be higher, but where are the roses?" The real height in the roses is in the fragrance, in the flowering. Height itself is not enough to be higher.But the rosebush and the pine tree remain together without any quarrel, any competition, for the simple reason that they both understand that they are part of the same nature.

Truth has its own fragrance.
Love has its own power.

Silence has its own impact.

Words fall short

Waking up early in the morning,the sun is rising in the garden, the trees are waking up. The smell of fresh earth is in the air –perhaps it has just rained. The dew drops on the grass leaves are shining like pearls. The birds have started singing. A peacock dances, a cuckoo calls. Flowers bloom, the lotuses open their petals. You see all this. It is not beyond your senses, it is within their grasp. It is not unknown to you, it is known. You experience all this beauty. If somebody asks you to describe it in one word, what would you say? Just this: it was beautiful, it was very beautiful. But is this any description? In this "very beautiful" there is no ray of the sun, or fragrance of the fresh earth, or blooming petals of the lotus, or the song of the bird, or the dew drop pearls, or the green of the trees, or the open sky. There is nothing in it.What is in this "very beautiful"? Nothing at all, only a few letters of the alphabet.

Be like a river

Life is a wandering; it is not a settlement, you have to go. It is a constant flow, river-like – you have to flow till the ocean is achieved. But the journey to the ocean comes naturally to the river. There is no planning for the ocean; the river does not know. The maps don’t exist for a river, of where the ocean is. And the river has no discipline. Sometimes it goes to the south, and sometimes it starts moving to the north, and sometimes in one direction and sometimes in another direction. Have you ever seen the zigzag path of a river? It is not straight. It is not economical. It is not mathematical. It is not the shortcut at all – very zigzag, just goes on, not knowing where it is going, just goes on because the energy is there to go. And one day the river reaches.

If the river is planning, then it will find the shortest route, then it will move in a straight line, then it will never deviate, then it will be very consistent. But then it will not be a river. Maybe a canal, a man-made canal, but it will not be a river. It won’t have any freedom. Canals are ugly. Rivers are beautiful.And life is a hilly track. Move in freedom, move in total freedom, and each moment remember to drop the past. It accumulates like dust. Each moment you have experienced something, and then it goes on accumulating. Don’t accumulate it. Just go on ceasing as far as the past is concerned, dying as far as the past is concerned, so you are totally alive, throbbing, pulsating, streaming, and, whatsoever comes, you face it with awareness.

Synthesising Happiness

We have been evolving since the last two million years , and one significant change that has taken place is that our brain has tripled in size. It was not just simple fat that was added but also the structure of our brain changed. The frontal lobe was added in which is something called the pre frontal cortex. The major function of the pre-frontal cortex is an experience simulator. With an experience simulator – you can have an experience of something before you actually try it out. Just like pilots have to go through flight simulators before they are allowed to actually fly a plane. So, you can experience something in your mind even before you actually do it. And by the way no animal can do this, no other species on this earth can do this and it is a unique quality which only the human species have the privilege to have.

Lets try out a simple experiment, I want all of you to imagine & try to simulate such an experience - 2 situations – 1st situation – You win 10 million (whatever currency you want) and 2nd – you meet with an accident and become permanently disabled. In which situation do you think you will be happy? I don’t think you will need even a second to decide your preference.

But there has been extensive research conducted on this and the results are very interesting. A person having actually won a large amount of money after about a year’s time and a person who became disabled after a year, the level of their happiness or unhappiness is more or less the same. So why is that? We need to understand two things – First what is called “The impact bias”. Now what is this impact bias. It is the tendency to overestimate the impact of future events. Let us take a few examples of future events - getting married, passing an exam, winning an election, getting a promotion – all these events have far less impact, less intensity and much less duration than what people expect to have.

Second is that we human beings have some kind of inner system that helps us to change the view of the world that they we find ourselves to be in. We can actually synthesize or manufacture or produce happiness but we are under the false illusion that happiness has to be found. Sir Thomas Browne wrote “I am the happiest man alive, I have that in me that can convert poverty to riches, adversity to prosperity and I am so invulnerable that fortune has no place to hit me”. Also Shakespeare has said “There is nothing good or bad, only thinking makes it so”.

Be the master of your own destiny, synthesise happiness, spread happiness -it's all in your hand.

Our Collective Responsibility

Our universe is about 14 billion years old, our planet is about 5 billion & the human species is about 200,000 years old and therefore as far as the evolutionary history of the universe is concerned, the human species is still in its infancy. For thousands of years we, human beings have survived due to the fight or flight response, but then this response became so well ingrained in us, we have now become the predators on this planet. But there is a saying – a permanently victorious species risks its own extinction. The time has come to replace “survival of the fittest” with the “survival of the wisest”. Predatory relationships have to be surpassed by symbiotic relationships if we have to move further into our next phase of evolution. It is now our collective responsibility to nurture the very web of our existence, our eco system.

Very soon, the playing field for violence will be considerably reduced; soon the superpowers will become irrelevant because conventional weaponry & warfare will not matter. As technology becomes more sophisticated in its diabolical creativity, a single individual with a mobile phone sitting in some remote cave anywhere in the world may be able to cut off electricity to some place, or hijack a plane or interfere with air traffic signals or suffocate people who are on pacemakers or cause the nuclear plants to leak – all this just by moving electrons inside a mobile telephone. Modern capacities and ancient habits is a devastating combination. This is a moment of crisis because we risk our own extinction. If insects disappeared from our planet then all life would stop within 5 years because insects are such an important part of our ecology that we just can’t do without them but on the other hand if human beings were to perish today, then life would flourish on this planet. And nature would simply say that “Human beings were a good experiment that didn’t work”. Technology by itself is neutral, it all depends on us what we do with the technology. We can use the technology to restore the ecosystem, to bring economic empowerment to the poor, eradicate poverty, to create cross cultural exchanges through fine arts – books, poetry, music, entertainment, to harness the power of collective intelligence.

So, now it is up to you and me and all of us to spread this message of becoming responsible for our planet, our eco-system and our environment. If all such like minded people connect and communicate with each other, then one day together they could form the tipping point from where mankind would take a giant leap forward and completely transform this world.

Don’t just do something, sit there

We live in a world stuck in fast forward, a world obsessed with speed, with doing everything faster, with cramming more & more into less and less time, every moment of the day is like a race against the clock. All of us are running a race, trying to reach a finish line and the finish line is like a mirage, it vanishes when you come closer.

These days it has become a fashion, a craze, to do everything fast, earlier we used to read now we have speed reading, earlier we used to walk, now we have speed walking, earlier we used to dial, now we have speed dialing, earlier we used to date & now we have speed dating. Even things which are by their very nature slow, we try to speed them up too. We are trying to grow test tube babies; we are experimenting with cloning and so on and so forth. But the ultimate was an advertisement I saw in a newspaper “Enroll for speed yoga”. The most current example is this blog that I am writing, I am writing about how to slow things down but have this impulse to finish it off fast. What a paradox!

We are so marinated in the culture of speed that we fail to notice the toll that this takes on every aspect of our lives, on our health, our diet, our relationships, on community, on our work, on the environment. And then what happens - it takes a wake up call for us to alert us & tell us that we are hurrying thru our lives instead of living our lives, living a fast life instead of a good life. And for many people this wake up call comes in the form of an illness or a burnout, eventually the body says I can’t take it anymore or a relationship goes up in smoke. The only way to nurture a relationship is thru’ constant communication but unfortunately we don’t have time to even do that. How much time do we have even for our most loved ones?

So how did we get so fast & is it possible or even desirable to slow down? Factors that have contributed to this fast culture are technology, urbanization, consumerism, but if you cut thru all this you come to some basic issues like how do you perceive time itself. In the west time moves in a linear path, you either use it or lose it. Benjamin Franklin said "Time is money", whereas in the eastern culture time moves in a circular path & can even renew itself.

Why is it so hard to slow down? – and the answer is - well speed is fun, speed is macho, speed is hot - all that adrenalin rush –it's hard to give it up. Slow, has become a cultural taboo in modern times, slow is a dirty word in our culture -slow is equated with lazy. But we desperately need a paradigm shift, so a better way to understand slowness is that there is bad slow and good slow. An example of "bad slow" is getting stuck in the traffic on a weekend evening when you are with your family and longing to reach your destination. An example of "good slow" is to take your time in office to analyze a problem from all angles before taking a decision.

So now the big question is - is it possible to break free from this mindset of doing everything fast? & thankfully the answer is yes. The paradigm of “fast is good” is changing now, and people are finding that slowing down can actually improve their lives, you can eat better, sleep better, make love better.

All over the world, today we have movements for slowing down; a good example is the movement in America and Europe to decrease the number of working hours per week. And they have proof of this - not only does the quality of life improve, even their productivity goes up. If some of the people here in Qatar especially the ones working in contracting companies would come to know what the working hours of people in Finland for example are –they would turn green with envy. More and more companies these days are encouraging employees to take a break, to unplug and sit quietly for some time because that’s the only way to recharge yourself, to rejuvenate yourself and the only way for your brain to slip into the creative mode.

So next time, you feel you must rush out, go somewhere, do something – my advise is –Don’t just do something, sit there!!