It’s Simple!! Let’s Make It Easy Too!!

Recently I came across an interesting discovery while I was conducting a workshop over People & Life Skills with final year engineering students of a Delhi based Engineering College. I started the session by asking their current life experience in general, just in order to understand how and in which mode I should pitch in the session. There was an underlying theme in all the responses and that was “Seemingly it’s simple but practically it’s not easy”. In their words there is a huge gap and disparity between the current life experiences and what they had dreamt of four years back.

But, interesting part of this discovery is, that whatever they had confessed about their personal life experiences, is not very peculiar. More or less, a major part of humanity on this planet can identify this adage, “It’s simple but not easy”. Whether this is the student or a professional, both of them feel themselves as a victim of the borrowed and projected realities of life.

So let’s decode the factors which make the whole process uneasy even after being simple!!

The most prominent factor is that we are still living in the hangover of past of poverty consciousness where all focus was to get a job and earn a living. If a small plant which is rooted in ground can earn its food without moving a single inch,an earthworm can earn its food being millionth part of human's size and intelligence then being the most intelligent species on this planet, at least we are sufficient enough to survive. The only need is to be available for what is already provided by this cosmos. The basic purpose of the education should be broadening and enlarging the horizon of human’s perception through experiential learning and not to just imposing with ready-made answers and information. Ready-made answers and information is necessary to operate a system but not sufficient to channelize the inherently unique potential of humans. And therefore this gap of reality and virtual reality is imperative.

If our perception of life and its peripherals is only limited to sense perceptions then we are bound to experience a constant intriguing emptiness within ourselves. All our sense organs take us to the world outside. Through our senses we are constantly channel surfing this world. Throughout the course of our lives, every bit of our attention is parceled out through our multi-sensory channels. They ensure that our lives are fully outbound. In the absence of a corresponding inbound attention we are fully depleted.

And if there inbound attention is present, then that would let us realize that sense perception has its own limitations. Like we humans can only hear a limited frequency range from 20Hz to 20000 Hz and see only visible range of light i.e. VIBGYOR and rest of the frequency’s band is beyond our experiential perception. So, logically it’s pretty obvious that if we had mistaken to our sense perceptions as the bottom line then suffering is inevitable. Sense perceptions have only survival relevance; it has nothing to do with existential relevance.

Being born as humans we are not here just to survive, but to realize our potential at fullest. So innately we are constantly seeking to be unbounded in all our means and efforts, but by creating the boundaries all the time. Boundaries are always designed by the experience of the past, but life is always instantaneously and constantly changing. So how can we apply a static and irrelevant rule of past for a dynamic and live phenomenon of life.  This dichotomy we had been practising for millenniums and this is the root cause of all suffering. Cosmos is ready to provide whatever it has, but we are not intelligent enough to receive that. Even being equipped with all the necessary hardware to realize the power of cosmic software, we are behaving like a handicapped just because our sheer stupidity of considering our sense perceptions as the bottom line of knowing and understanding.

We are full of instances and examples of our human race that had been able to exercise and attuned with the cosmic software. They were just available to that what was/is/will already available with open eyes and ears, not the conditioned one. Right from all the scientists, philosophers of early ages to modern days’ successful entrepreneurs, all of them belong to this. We have couple of  instances where the leading literary or scientific figures of the world were not able to get the systematic and smooth "formal education". But, what they have put down has become the curriculum for us to get our masters and doctorate.

They were not some special beings, they were just light beings. That lightness enables us to see the life as the life is, otherwise we are constantly loaded up with the concepts of life. Most of the prominent corporations of the present day, from Microsoft to Facebook and many more like this have been established by someone who has not even completed his formal education. These all successful entrepreneurs are nothing but the alive being in real sense . That aliveness makes them to see the opportunity to contribute to humanity when rest of the lot busy being cynical and complaining all the time.

                                      So It's Simple & Easy Both..Cheers to Life !!

MOTS: An Impediment to LEADERSHIP EXCELLENCE

MOTS  is a pejorative acronym which is used in corporate circle and business world for leadership failure. It stands for More Of The Same (MOTS). But this phenomenon is not just restricted with the world of commerce but do exist in our common social context as well. MOTS happens when we touch things on daily basis but do not feel them. MOTS happens when we talk a ton but communicate very little. Or, when we look again and again but fail to see. MOTS also happens when we live in the same house with our near and dear ones and still we are not courageous enough to have an honest interaction with them.  MOTS occurs also when we write elaborate letters & memos, but fail to get our message across.

So, what’s holding us back??

All these above mentioned instances are just “MORE” manifestation of the “SAME” phenomenon, and that phenomenon is SUPERFICIALITY. We are bound to perform a superficial behavior in our all kinds of interaction as long as we are being governed by readymade concepts of Life and all the expressions of life through which human beings actualize their potential. These expressions can find a millions of ways like science ,literature, engineering, business, commerce, art, technology and many more, whatever we could think of.

The fact of the matter is that the Human dynamism can’t be manipulated or treated like a machine. It can’t be programmed like a computer which is designed to provide a predefined output. We are designed to give outcome, which is a conscious affair, not for the monotonous output. Human beings are CREATED as The Most Sophisticated Creature on this planet, not CONSTRUCTED- that is why we love to create our own reality by default. In short, freedom is the innate nature of human beings which continuously fuels up to know the unknown, to see the unseen and whenever that will be tried to be curbed , an inherent opposition is obvious. We are the ones who are applying both the accelerator and brake at same time which will result only in the loss of fuel, loss of energy, loss of power, wear and tear of tyres and engine. And the same phenomenon holds good with us as well.

Motion is a mechanical phenomenon but misconstrued as Action most of the times. It  is another form of inertia and so there is a perfunctory student who waits to end those 50 minutes of his lecture session or the burnt out executive who  is waiting for weekends to come to unwind himself. Both of them has become the victim of acute motion sickness. If the action does not have the synchronization with our being, we are bound to sleepwalk through just the motion of our being.

Motion is all about speed and Action is just a rhythm which is nothing but a complete involvement with everything, irrespectively. True leaders do not care so much about speed; they are just attentive to rhythm. A marathon runner does not run at the same speed throughout the race. A leading runner attunes to a natural rhythm that facilitates him to actualize his entire capacity to run. The ancients had come to the experiential conclusion that all the rhythms of this world were integral to this one cosmic rhythm which encompasses the source of all intelligence.

Leaders recognize rhythm to be a law of life. We live our days in a natural rhythm of rest and activity. Corporations move in the rhythm of conquest and consolidation, acquisitions and mergers of market share. There is rise and fall in prices and values. The only way to evolve in life is to be ready to embrace both the so called highs and lows that come through life with same level of acceptance. Leaders are neither blinded by speed nor trapped by the mental or social model of success.

Success is nothing but the courage to take on the journey what you have faith in. Being an organization/entity/company, we need not waste our energy and resources in estimating the future of the industry. We should not view future as a predestined fate, but as an infinite series of opportunities and possibilities. What is indispensable to succeed in the middle of this ambivalence is “Contemporary Intelligence”. In order to deal with the Contemporary Issues, we need to develop contemporary intelligence. Contemporary Intelligence is the only real Intelligence which facilitates adaptability and teaches constant preparedness. Contemporary Intelligence is always there within all of us, we just need to allow that to surface.  It acknowledges the fact that the nothing succeeds quite as planned model and this fact is being manifested in the practices of all leading corporations across the globe.

This amazing story tells how Contemporary Intelligence operates in real world:

Two colleagues of a multinational company, one Korean and another American, were getting prepared to jog close to woods. The American saw that the Korean was in great haste to tie his shoe laces. Being baffled by the Korean’s bustle, he wondered, why are you so much in rush? Without saying a word, the Korean pointed out to a bush behind them. There the American was horrified to see a tiger advancing towards them. In a frenzied voice the American asked, “What’s the use of tying your shoelaces now? You can’t run faster than tiger! Korean replied, “I just need to run faster than you.” Then, without wasting a moment, he began to run.

JUST LIVE THE LIFE WITH THE OPEN EYES

NOT THE CONCEPTS OF LIFE WITH THE COLOURED GLASSES

Attention Deficiency Syndrome: Pandemic of 21st Century

This is not just the age of information and communication technology but also an era of attention deficiency. We are just busy in fixing the outside world with the help of technological evolutions and gadgets but “The Most Sophisticated Gadget” The Human Being has been completely vandalized in this process. All the gadgets and technological evolutions are the byproduct of “THE GADGET” but now “THE GADGET” has become the victim of its own creation like Frankenstein’s monster.

All these technological evolutions have provided us things to make our living comfortable, which is all fine but our essential LIFE EXPERIENCE is worsening only and that is also being substantiated by a myriad of alarming social trends like increasing rates of suicide, violence of all kinds ,depression and so on, all across the globe.

                                      So, now let’s figure out what went wrong!!

We all have our unique place in this cosmos by default because the DNA structure of every single human being on this face of earth is unique. So it’s pretty evident that everybody has been rewarded with a separate unique path of his own to lead his life-journey, but because of sheer stupidity, we lose the sight and fall in the same line of meaningless race as a SHEEPLE.

In order to find our own space we have to learn to stay centered. That subtle connection with the centre is the source of all encompassing energy. It is just like a center of a cyclone which is very quiet and it is this “Quiet Center” from which cyclone attains it’s horrendous power. It seems pertinent to mention a few lines written by a Latin American Poet. It goes like:

Still Still

The forest knows where you are

You must let it find you!!

The sages and yogis of ancient India did exactly that. They did not roam around the world in the quest of truth. They looked for it in the stillness of their own beings and figured it out! In the 21^st century very few of us live in forests. However, we have to deal with the jungle of information overload. If we have lost ourselves in the wilderness of information, the only way out is to find our centre in the calm depths of a reflective mind. It is like searching a misplaced key by quieting our mind rather than rushing around the room.

We must make peace with this jungle to find ourselves in it. The fragmented world of information is held together in the wholeness of our attention. This attention knows the relevance of information. This attention puts the information in its proper context and perspective. This attention brings us home to ourselves.

Every Information/external stimuli absorbs our attention and excess of information therefore, results in complete loss of attention! Unless of course we put in a conscious effort and care within ourselves to create greater attention capacity within us.

The draught of attention everywhere - from the living room to showrooms. In the world of trade and commerce, brands germinate and terminate in a short span of attention. Either we take examples of consumer durables, FMCG or music and film industry.The script is same whether it is boardroom, living room or bedroom. One out of every two marriages in western world fails for lack of attention on the part of spouses. A troubled professional is channel surfing for hours on his living room television or surfing the net, not in particular, for that matter. So the trend is being manifested in all our relationships.

But the most disappointing & disturbing of all these attention lapses is that we have messed up ourselves so much that we can’t have an appointment with ourselves even for moment! And even if we get some odd seconds free, we become restless and start searching some gadget or somebody to which we could outsource our anxiety and frustration. It’s just like that our body and soul live like two decent neighbors in adjacent flats in a luxurious apartment but they never get to meet.

We take time off to service our car, upgrade the upholstery décor of our drawing and living room and so on but, there is no time to refresh our relationship to ourselves. This is nothing less than suicide. We have capitulated the vitality of our lives to drab economic equations: while making a living we have completely botched up the life.

So, what is stopping us from realizing to the greater profound and unique capacities we are born with??

As per my gut response, it is ego. This ego only prospers with the fodder of continuous attention. We want a bigger car and bigger house not to accommodate our body but to massage our ego. If we start examining our responses and reactions to the external stimuli in a course of a day, we would come up with the conclusion that most of the responses are governed by ego, not by self. Ego is nothing but an accumulation of all the labels and identities what we have acquired from the outside. These acquired identities do not have any existential relevance, they do have the social relevance but up to an extent, beyond that they start suffocating us. And the brunt of this suffocation is being felt by us very evidently in our current socio-economic, socio-cultural scenario cutting across all the boundaries and geographies.

                          Some practice points to DATE YOURSELF!

1.      To start with, set aside few minutes for active and productive reflection. Explore what mistakes you committed or what you could have said or done better.
2.      Another way to connect with ourselves is to start witnessing some of the activities what we perform on regular basis in the course of the day. This practice helps us in realizing the power of ourselves as observer.
3.       One of the ways to have a self appointment is to dis-identify with those labels that we identify wrongly with our self. We can say to ourselves

       I have a degree or qualification but I am not my degree. I have a job but I am not my job.

                THESE ALL BELONG TO ME BUT THEY ARE NOT WHAT I AM.