Fragile Relationships

I once read a great man say radiate who you are. Words only create noise, they dont help in solving any problem or misunderstanding.

Which makes me think, in friendships, relationships with friends, family, loved ones....events good or bad, words said in anger, frustration, love etc are not important. When someone says I love you or I hate you, does it hold any importance? But in a sad moment when a colleague walks up and says...you dont look so good...come lets have coffee..isnt that a moment which is divine?

If i am friends with anyone for years, does an event in our life whether good or bad have the ability to shake that relationship? If it does maybe the premise was wrong or maybe you were wrong...wrong either in action, thought or speech. But is it important?

Do we as humans have the sensitivity and the intelligence to pick up the reason behind a wrong thought, action or speech?

In every event of misunderstanding with my friends and colleagues, I have always questioned if I got it wrong, or was it me, or if someone behaves in a manner not acceptable, what was the cause of that action. Several times I have concluded its my ignorance, and several times its the others. But is ignorance a good enough reason to dislike people?

In the larger spectrum of life..a person is so much bigger than events that have happened or an action that he has performed.

If I look at the universe and compare it with earth...a tiny dust particle in it and then delhi a tiny tiny city on that dust particle and me one of the millions living in it...does an event that has happened to me or anyone hold any significance? Looking it from that angle..the significance is minuscule, yet it becomes the most significant thought in our minds.

If we have been given the ability to comprehend the vastness of the universe...we have also been given the ability to comprehend the insignificance of events and words, yet our mind clings to the smallest thought giving it more importance then required.

I do believe that humans are not their thoughts, their feelings or their body...every human is that little point in himself that doesnt change. That self thats just the same whether you were a child or a grown human being...all people that come into your life, all events that have happened...have happened because you have drawn it. That sub conscious mind that works beyond what the conscious mind can comprehend works in conjunction with the cosmic energy has drawn them in our lives. The most powerful tool that our conscious mind has is sensitivity and rationality.

Till we realise the truth we need to make ourselves so sensitive that we pick up the reason behind someones actions and words and we also need to become rational enough to realise the insignificance of it in the larger picture of the life and the universe and then drop it!

A message

Words desert me
Silence engulfs me
I sit alone
A fleeting memory

I cant remember
I try hard
Was it a different lifetime?
Or will it be the next?

A crazy world
You were never meant to see
A beautiful life
You were never meant to be

I think you came for me
It was too soon to say
But, life was so powerful
It just took you away

I got a lot of answers
the price you had to pay
If I can for you in any lifetime
I will gladly die just any day

What should you do in life?

Last night at I saw a movie called vertical limit- Its about mountaineering and expidetions. A brother and sister who survived an accident, but their dad did not. How the two of them went apart after the tragedy, one becomes a national geographic photographer and one still is a climber and how life puts them in a similar situation and forces them to get over the past and start a beautiful present. A beautiful movie, makes me wonder what must one do in life.

I have been trekking at 18000 feet, hence I know what how impossible 26000 is. The ability to survive in 70% less oxygen and climb icy rocks seems like a super human effort. But the fact is that we are capable fo it and thats the power of the mind. The power of the human mind is something that we all just ignore, even when we have seen glimpses of it in our life time and again.

In my last trip to the Himalayas, I met a Nepali who had just moved to ladakh 5 months back. He said in his first trip, he was out of breath all the time, till his 6th...he became an expert. He ran 2 hrs ahead of all of us all the time. Another couple i met really made me wonder what i wanted in life. A brazilian couple come to India to conquer the rocky nubra valley over 5 days with 1 liter of petrol to cook, 5 liters of water to drink and backpacks, in which they were carrying all the equipment they needed in 5 days - tents, blankets, clothes...etc. It took them 6 days, the food was over on day 5..the day 6 was the toughest part, in which they lost their way...the end was just in sight...but there was no way of crossing the river to reach it...so they had to go back and climb two more mountains and then come to where we were.
The absolute tired look and the the feeling of satisfaction, I saw in their face, is something I have seen only a couple of times in my life.

I truly belive that when one is doing something, he should be the best at it or instead of relativity, he should be able to put his best in it. When one puts his absolute best in the work/ activity he does, it automatically becomes inspiring to all.

We go thorugh our lives coming to office at 9.30am and leaving at 7.00pm every day. Have we ever really felt satisfied. I have when some impossible target has been met, but the joy was not something I could share with bosses, as then it was about competition and comparisons, which only promote the rat race, which in the end of a race, whether i win or lose, i am just a rat. I could share the joy with a couple of my team mates as it was never the competitiveness that drove them.

Does competition motivate or does it prevent you from doing your best. At the first level, i think you can motivate through competition, but if you go a level deeper, i think it prevents anyone from giving their best performance. I also think by going a level deeper, you truly get out world class employees and work.

When I look back at any success in my life...one of which was climbing 18000 ft in icy terrain...the feeling of reaching the pass at top...was just about me and the mountains. When I got a 99/100 in mathematics in class X, it was just about me and my dad. Never have i compared my performance with another human, but yes I have constantly strived to prove to myself that I can be better at what i am doing.The feeling at the end of a task always tells me how have I performed.

In life i think its very important to constantly find opportunities of what you think is beyond your potential. The life I lead now, does this exist?. Which brings me back to the question....what should one do in life. Lead a life by the rules...and keep working 9-7 or .....

A Criminal's mind?

I am forced to wonder what makes people kidnap, rape, kill...

After all the contemplation of Reasonable doubt...yet the fact is that I hear a 3 yr old gets kidnapped for money, gang rape occurs as a norm and ex lovers put acid in their ex's mouth and kill her for revenge.

The human mind and all of its various shades has left me completed dazed.

It says in the Gita that the doer is not who does it, he is just a actor in the play of life who plays his part. If something good is supposed to happen to you acc to your karma, even a bandit will come and do good to you and if something bad is in store, your best friend will do it. So get over the concept of this person has done this and that and look at it as a event.

Is it that simple? Or is this just a way of consoling yourself or is it a way of giving yourself the power to accept all life's happennings I wonder.

That leads you back to the question what is the truth...?

Reasonable doubt

Being a big fan of "The Practice", I have often wondered about how we can use the concept of reasonable doubt in life!!!!

I think the best practitioner of this is my COO. He always doubts the faults in people and trusts the strengths. What a way of doing work!!! there you have a organisation of not the best, but yes the most motivated group of people who think they are the best..and the company keeps growing.

If all of us would give the verdict of not guilty if there was reasonable doubt in the crime that a person does, wouldent the world be a much better place to live in.

I have often observed that it is so easy to believe that a person doesnt like you...and if he says he does...you keep questioning it...do you really?
If only we doubt the negative and just believe the positive...this would be a different world.

A girl friend last week told me about a guy...who hit on both two women with exactly the same lines...the guy is good friend of mine..and in a second we both agreed that he was a fraud. But the fact is, he could have liked me earlier and now likes her, which is why he used the same lines which worked with women he hit on earlier. Isnt that ok for a guy to do. Yeah he isnt very deep...but it doesnt make him shallow...just non creative.

I remember I used to be like that in school...trust till proven non trust worthy...yes there were tears, there was a lot of short lived pain, but there was more love and fun then I experienced in a long time now.