Past and the future…

Sometime back I wrote about our anticipated future being actually our negated past. Here is something interesting that I came across which in a way supports this point.

I was watching a UKtv video series on brain and mind. One of them had this interesting experiment. There was gymnast attempting to perform what is called Gienger saltos; which involves leaving the high bar, performing a back summersault and a half twist before re-caching the bar again.

It begins by the coach slowly taking her through the steps to get her mind accumsted to the sequence of movements. Then she goes on to attempt it. But she fails repeatedly. She couldn’t re-catch the bar at the end of the sequence.

She had to take a different approach now and she does something interesting. She sits down with eyes closed and visualises the the whole saltos in her mind (that she is performing it successfully), slowly, as detailed as possible. She does it over and over again. After this she goes on to perform the saltos and gets it right in the very first attempt.

What happened here? As she was visualizing the whole sequence in her mind, she was creating a pattern in the brain as if the event had already happened. So when she did this at last, she actually was doing something that she was already accustomed to –at least that’s what her brain thought.

I think this is the crux behind visioning, where in you convert a future event to a past event in the mind, so that brain can perform it automatically.

I came across another very interesting study that clinically proves that it is the same part of your brain that is activated both while you remember something from the past and while thinking about the future. (See this blog)

So I guess the future does not really exist, except in the mind; that too as past. But if we can master the art of converting the future to the ‘past’ (before it happens in reality) may be it is a great tool for changing our lives.

Of course the next question will be: does past exist except in the mind?

It’s just the difference between acting and reacting

A change is always tough. Most of us are sure that there are certain things that need to change in our lives. But when we attempt to change, there are all kinds of problems; uneasiness, fear, agony and depression. Even if we are able to change some thing (like a habit), there is a high probability of relapse after a period of uncertainty. I have wondered about it; often triggered by my attempts to stop smoking. When I did quit finally (rather easily), it gave me a new perception about the issue.

I think the problem is fundamentally with the point of change. Here is the theory : The difference between success and failure (or misery and happiness) is a simple choice between acting and reacting. Look at the picture below:

Say you are at the point Z and need to take a decision. You have two choices. One is to go by the patterns (or mind) which is usually the reactive path. The moment you align your mind in this way, mind starts further strengthening and reinforcing the point of view. You are then lead in one direction as indicated by the green line (the lines around it indicate the reinforcing mind patterns). There is another choice. That’s not to go by the patterns (mind), but to be aware or listen to your consciousness. This is the path of action, indicated by the red line. Even here, the mind does strengthen and reinforce the thinking.

Every moment in life we are actually at the point Z. If we can be aware and not get carried away by the mind, perhaps we can take right decisions for the future. This is rather simple.

But when it comes to change, the problem is more complex. The decision point is actually somewhere in the past and we have say taken a reactive approach and proceeded in one direction. Assume, it has taken us to Y. Now we want to change. We want to be at X. So we take a decision and convince ourselves to be at X. But this is just temporary. Soon the old patterns become dominant and you are mercilessly dragged to Y. When that happens the reinforcement is further strengthened and you are more convinced that you cannot change.

So where is the problem? You should actually be first moving to Z (and not X). This will demand that you work through the conditioning of the mind slowly and remove them. When you are at the point Z, look at the decision again. With the correct mindset or awareness, you can take the right decision and take the path towards X. Since the conditioning has been taken care of, they don’t trouble you hard and in no time new patterns are formed.

 Let’s understand this with an example. Take smoking. Assume you are a smoker (because at some point in your life, you decided to try it apparently for no reason) and you are trying to quit now. You are at Y, and have lot of stuff built already around it in the mind like – Smoking helps me relax, It reduces my stress, it’s difficult to stop this etc. You also want to escape and you want to be, say at X ,where you are free from the habit.

Now you project yourself to be at X (whatever method you use – Cold turkey, cutting down etc). For a day or two, you are better off (at X), but soon the patterns become active (and there are things going on in the mind like – perhaps this is not the right time, I should actually cut down etc..)  and you feel miserable. And soon you are pulled back to point Y (you relapse). The more this happens, you are even more convinced that you can never escape, because every failure reinforces your conviction that you cannot quit.

Why this happens? You were at the point Z, several times in your life; say whenever you are smoking or whenever you tried to resist the temptation. And when you decided to smoke, you actually said: This is enjoying and relaxing. This has taken you in one direction and all the conditioning is built around it. Even if you are successful with this approach to quit, you are likely to be depressed and miserable, because the basic decision is in question.

So in order to really escape, you need to go back to the point Z and rephrase the mindset. An example could be : “ This has been a dreadful disease that’s taken control of me, I am now stepping out. It feels so great to be free”.

Now there are three elements. You, Smoking and the act of Quitting (or not doing it). So at the point Z you have to use these three to construct a direction statement. You know what most smokers do? They construct it something like this : “ Though smoking helps me to relax, now because of my bad health, I have to somehow stop it. I am going to try it real hard. I am not sure if I will succeed, I have failed many times before. But I will try it hard this time”. This takes them straight to the path of misery. 

But if you can construct a direction statement like “ I am escaping from this dreadful disease, it is so great. I do not need to do this again”. You take the other direction.

It’s not just a simple affirmation statement in the mind. You need to use awareness (and reflection) to go deeper and deeper till you find the basic decision making point and make the change. And this change will be easy and permanent.

This might rather look simple, but if you understand it, it is the key to change.

Productivity vs Creativity

          In this world of cut-throat competition (does such a competition really exist in the first place; that’s still a question), every organization is obsessed with several initiatives aimed at improving all sorts of parameters one can think of, whether tangible or intangible. The intangible part is gaining importance now, as companies wants to project themselves not just as mere money making machines, but also as bodies who care for people, surroundings and the environment.

        No one is really sure of what “that magic thing” is, that can take us to the next level or put us ahead of the competition. So they end up trying to improve everything; hoping at least one of them will do the job. One thing that happens in the process is that organizations end up creating contradictions. That is to say they try to improve two (or more sometimes) parameters that in reality cannot really coexist. Any organization that lacks a high level view of things is often left to wonder why things don’t improve.

            One good example I see these days is productivity and creativity. On one side, everyone agrees that people need to do more and more in the given time, do not idle away their time, need to be organized, manage their time effectively and be deadline oriented. This is what we have been advocating and practicing for decades now. We have developed a whole lot of processes, methodologies, trainings etc around this and people have changed their habits, thinking and approach to adapt to this model. But then came the surprise. There was definitely stagnation. Though the efficiency and productivity improved, the organizations did not really get the breakthrough they wanted to. Then came the concept of creativity – people said the stagnation is caused by lack of creativity and that’s what is needed to be successful in today’s world.

            Now the organizations that were so far obsessed with improving the productivity, took up creativity too and said – here is another new parameter we need to show improvement on. C’mon guys, how can we survive without being creative and continuously innovating? Look at Google, Ideo….

            In reality, how well these two can co-exist? I am a firm believer that creativity needs those ‘gaps’ or ‘spaces’ for it to express. The more you pack your schedules, the more you chase deadlines; you are actually doing the reverse – getting rid of those gaps. When organizations push two such contradicting initiatives simultaneously, they neither end up in a creative organizations nor a productive organization. All that will result is individuals (or even groups) that will start exhibiting one of these traits predominantly. And organizations  become an assorted bunch of people who predominantly lean towards one or few of the concepts / parameters.

            Is that bad? May be not really, in the sense that something is better than nothing. But this is no way near to making an organizational identity or culture. The solution sometimes is to drop one of those parameters. For e.g a company in the creative space like advertising, might actually not much focus on productivity, but just on creativity. But this is not the only solution. It could be possible to correlate them. For e.g an IT company for whom productivity is of prime concern, can look at creative ways to improve it. But in that case, this is quiet different from having them as two separate parameters for improvement.

            Why does it happen ? I think primarily because we understand both as ‘concepts’. We know ‘productivity’ as a concept and also know all that’s needed to improve it. Now we know “creativity” also as a concept and there are all these tools and workshops which teach you how to become creative. When we understand anything at the concept level (mind level), we cannot see the underlying inter connection. So it doesn’t occur to the organizations that they need to drop something to embrace something new.

            I think at the root of this is the basic human problem of wanting more and more (of anything) to make the life more meaningful.

            This is actually an extension of our personal life; where in also we create such contradictions. Take for example: We want to be paid well as well as we want to do a job that we love. This creates a contradiction. And mostly we make a compromise. But the compromise comes from the logical mind and soon it stops making sense. Say you decide that money is important for you right now and you don’t really care what trash you do.Fine. For few months, you are happy. But then the deep dissatisfaction starts emerging and you feel miserable. In rare cases (if it is strong enough), miracles can happen. People can drop everything and start some thing they love and still be successful. But normally such contradictions makes life miserable and you start feeling that there is no progress.

            The same contradiction of productivity vs creativity exists in our personal lives too. When you are too busy chasing deadlines one after another with packed schedules and always a short term goal to achieve, there is hardly any creative space. The conditioning in the mind is so strong that if you don’t do anything in office on a particular day, you feel guilty. You have wasted time; that’s a crime.

Because of all that noise that gets created in the mind, you never get to experience those moments of stillness where creativity blossoms.

Also read The ‘void’ for creativity in Organizations

We communicate by our presence

Yesterday, we were discussing about recruiting few more people in to the team. The role is to do with change management and we were listing down the attributes we need to look for in the prospects. The first came communication skills. No one seems to have a question about it; everyone agreed that we need people with good communication skills. Someone said – only people with good communication skills can create change in the organization.

Communication skills here means to be able to convey something effectively, respond spontaneously, defend ones’ viewpoint, talk fluently without hesitation, talk loud and clear, convince someone, win an argument etc etc.

As I sat there, something in me said –something is wrong? A story of Lord Buddha, one of the greatest change agents the world has seen, came to my mind. Buddha was supposed to address a large gathering once. As thousands waited to hear the great sage speak, Buddha walked in with a lotus flower in his hand and sat just glancing at it. No words. He just sat there silently. People waited impatiently for him to break the silence. He simply sat there in deep silence glancing at the flower. After a while, his disciple, Maha Kashyapa burst in to laughter. Buddha called him and gave him the flower; he was the one who understood the essence of Buddha’s teaching.

So, I think this is again yet another conditioned belief we have not been questioning. If you look at the people around us who are good orators, like salesmen, marketing people, politicians, do we really believe any of them? Someone with common sense can easily see malicious intentions concealed carefully beyond those carefully crafted sentences. But yet we are sure, everyone need to have good communication skills as an essential quality! You might argue that there are great orators who changed the course of humanity, but I think there are also several people who were not great communicators, at least in the sense we understand.

We really communicate by our presence. That is the reason we feel so light and comfortable in the presence of small children. The younger the children, better is the feeling. Imagine a child giving you a lecture on love; you will run away. Look at the people who have influenced you in your life, in whose company you felt peace and comfort, they all communicate by their presence. You just need to be in their presence and it makes no further difference if they talk or not.

This is not the case of a salesman trying to convince you in to buying their product. He might be communicating well, but his presence is really conveying the hidden selfish motives, which you can feel. That’s what makes you feel uncomfortable in the presence of such people.

And when can we communicate effectively with our presence? When we are at peace, mind is centered and content. Then you don’t need to talk anything, people will have no option but to be at peace in your presence. Just a smile from you can communicate what hours of speaking cannot.

When do we start recruiting people for their ‘presence’? I think even now we do that, but just that we don’t quiet understand it or our rational minds don’t accept it.

Our vision for the future is a negated past

We had a couple of ‘visioning’ exercises today in the office, where teams had to create a vision for themselves. The session was split in to three slots. The first was where teams where told how to create a vision (this included a video on visioning). Then they broke in to teams to do brainstorming to come up with a vision and a roadmap to achieve the same. Then everyone assembled back and presented the vision and the road map to everyone.

            I was in the audience during the presentations. Teams took turn to present the thought process (which was bay and large some issues that existed in the system), the vision and the roadmap to achieve the same.

            There were two very interesting observations from the exercise. The first was that most of the teams came up with very long, detailed (sometimes complex) vision statements. There were a few that came up with one liners. The audience liked the latter more.

As I was watching this, it occurred to me that when we make a ‘vision statement’ in one sentence, the space around it contains enormous possibilities that really should characterize a vision. When the vision statement is something logical with long set of statements the space around that is missing. This reduces the vision to a simple act in the future. I think the same is true in most cases. When you can present a problem in the most concise manner, the possibility space for solutions is larger; this is the space for innovation. Many times we are unable to come up with innovative solutions to the problems is that we define the problem so much in detail that we drastically reduce the opportunity space around it.

The second was more interesting. Most of the vision statements (and the roadmap) typically consisted of things that weren’t happening as desired. This is in fact the negation of the past or even the denial of it. That means when we look ahead in to the future, actually what we see is a negative image of the past. For e.g when a team puts “Delivering Quality solutions” as a vision, what they really mean is that we have not been able to do that in the past. And in the future we want to change this.

The same thing happens if we set a vision for ourselves. The influence of the past on our psyche is so much that it restricts or confines your view of the future. For e.g you put a vision for you that you will be perfectly healthy in another one year, you are actually saying that you are not healthy now, and you do not approve that and it needs to change.

This is as if the vision is in the past, and not in the future!

What is the problem with creating such a vision? It not only reinforces the undesirable past, but also reinforces the sense of denial. If you have failed to set this right in the past, it also creates fear and doubt about the vision itself. These two are sufficient to make sure that you can never achieve the vision.

So what needs to happen when you create a vision, either for your own or a team or the organization? You need to put aside the past completely, keep the ‘opportunity space’ as open as possible and create a vision. Be aware of doubt , uncertainty or fear. Any trace of it, the vision is most likely a denial of the undesired past and the mind will do what ever it can to make sure that you don’t make it.

Also visioning is not the act of logical mind; but that of the creative mind. When your vision looks logiocally right and practically achievable, chances are that it’s not a vision, but just an act in the future.

Mind, Ego, Memory, Body, Emotion and Self – 1

“I am depressed”

“This is not right”

 “I don’t like him”

 “I am not comfortable doing this”

”I will teach him a lesson”

 “Who is he to tell me what I should do?”

 “This is stupid; this isn’t what I had wanted”

 “I can’t do this, I am not capable”

 “Why is he trying to find fault with me always?”

 “People are going to be ‘Wowed’ by what I am making”

 “This is it. I need to take charge of this”…

Sounds familiar? These are some of the expressions we use all the time in our lives. And we think this is our identity or character. How true is that?

 One of the fundamental reasons for all the problems in life is said to be this false sense of identification. This is what all major philosophies have been telling us for ages. False identifications! What exactly is that? Let me put in some thoughts. This is going to be a bit long, so I will try to split them in to several posts; topic wise.

Though by habit, we refer to “me” in every above situation, in reality there are very distinct faculties within us which are operating behind the scene– The Mind, Ego, Memory, Body, Emotion and Self. At different points of time, based on the situation, we identify ourselves with any of them. For e.g when you say we are depressed, in reality it is our mind that’s depressed. When we say we are tired, it’s our body that’s tired. When we want to ‘teach some one a lesson’ it is actually our ego that wants to do it.

While each of these faculties is necessary and good in their own respect, the problem arises when they take control without us realizing. In this constant struggle for dominance, the great master “The self”, which is above and beyond all others is ignored. All the religions advocate that the moment you identify yourself with the self, all the problems vanish and that is what is liberation or enlightenment. But the concept of identifying with the self looks too conceptual and ideal. So, the first step let’s try to understand these faculties a bit more in detail; may be when we do that the self will just emerge effortlessly.

Here are some thoughts on The Mind.

Mind is the most complex and the dangerous one to tackle. Most of us, most of the time identify ourselves with the mind. Mind is just a collection of thoughts (remember the analogy of Trees and forest). That in a way means we identify with the thoughts.

The nature of the mind is movement. Mind keeps going to the past and the future. Mind is time. Mind exists only in time. Mind lives constantly in anticipation of a ‘happiness’ that is in the future or feeding on a ‘memory’ that occurred in the past. These are the two things that mind needs for its survival- pleasure and pain, in the future or in the past.

Mind likes to be in charge. The other faculties like Ego, memory, emotions and body are allies of the mind. Mind uses them as needed to maintain its control over your identity.

Mind is not sure of its identity. It needs approval from others. You seek acceptance, approval, appreciation constantly when you are identified with the mind.

It’s the mind that’s judging and categorizing. It’s what adds the ‘flavor’ to events, situations, responses, people etc. Mind prevents you from seeing things as they are.

Mind is not concerned about what’s good and bad, it goes more by what’s comfortable. Mind always resists a change away from a comfortable state.

Mind loves concepts. It is happy analyzing and reasoning things (predominantly to suit its needs). For e.g If you are really looking for joy, mind will interpret it as happiness and then tell you how the objects, achievements, victories will give you that joy.

The two strong weapons mind has at its disposal are fear and doubt. And to make sure that it is in control, it constantly strengthens these two weapons and any effort you take to overcome fear and doubt will be spoiled by the mind.

Another trap that the mind (along with the memory) creates is patterns. These patterns are executed by the mind without the slightest trace of awareness. The more patterns we build, the more the control of the mind. And any effort to remove a pattern is sure to make the mind uncomfortable.

Why is it necessary to understand and control the mind? Because most of the philosophies advocate that the ultimate freedom lies in a state of void that emerges when the thoughts stop.

Here are the first two simple steps to understand the mind and gain some control over it.

1. Understand the nature and function of the mind. When we are able to say- ‘Oh. It’s not me, it’s my mind’ (and probably smile at the mind), something great has happened. This will need some practice, and of course; the mind doesn’t like being watched. So it will try everything possible to shake your attention off.
2.  The second is to cultivate Mindfulness. In this age old practice (originally advocated by Buddha) breath is used as an instrument to bring the mind in to present moment. Though there are numerous techniques available to bring about a stage of mindfulness, breath awareness still remains the best.  Just simply become aware of the breathing for few moments (as often as you can) and you can see the mind settling (You could also do a body awareness if that’s what you like)

The idea is never to confront the mind and bring it under control; mind would resist that and do anything to win you over. 

Thoughts on Ego in the next post…

Doubt, Negativity and the level of Prana

There are times when our minds become doubtful. All of a sudden, things look different. We start doubting people, situations, and intentions and finally start doubting ourselves (our capabilities, qualities, achievements etc). Sometimes this passes quickly, but at times it gets lodged firmly in the mind, difficult to shake off. When prolonged, this leads to psychosomatic disorders.

But where does all this doubt come from? It’s interesting to see that you were perfectly at peace with some situation till one fine day where you begin to ‘sense’ something wrong. A doubting mind soon develops negative tendencies and the negativity feeds on to doubt back. This could also lead to depression.

Typically we attribute ‘doubting’ to personality traits, thinking problems or even certain situations. But it’s interesting to see the point of view of Yoga. Yoga suggests that mind becomes doubtful when the Prana level goes down. Prana is what’s called the life force (or mental energy) which is alive in everyone. When your prana levels are low, that is when you feel down, disinterested in things, lethargic and develop a negative attitude in life.

So Yoga suggests that to keep doubts and negativity away, all you need to do is to keep your Prana levels high.

How do you do that? According to Yoga, there are four sources of energy: Food, Sleep, Breath and Meditation. Paying attention to them (if not all, at least one or two) will help you keep your energy.

Here is a brief overview of the four:

• Food – According to Yoga, there are three types of food
  • Sattwik – Whole some food E.g Fresh fruits, vegetables, milk, cereals. They give lot of energy (greener the vegetable, more the prana)
  • Rajasik – This group causes lot of agitation in the mind. E.g Tea/Coffee, Spicy foods
  • Tamasik – That depletes energy and makes you dull and lethargic. E.g Alcohol, mushrooms, non vegetarian food, garlic, fried food, frozen food, refrigerated food etc.

If you are eating Tamasik food regularly, it can make you become very lethargic. Change your diet a bit and go for Satwik food. 

•  Sleep : It’s important to have sufficient amount to quality uninterrupted sleep. If you have sleeping problems, sort it out. (See the post Tips for a good nights’ sleep )
• Breath :  Look at your breath. Is it deep or shallow, is it long or short. A bad breathing pattern will fail to reenergize your body and mind as required. If you are badly down, completely devoid of energy, get on to some Pranayama practices. Things will turn around quickly. (Suryanamaskara is also a profound technique) Or try some aerobics. Paying attention to breath also brings some amount of present moment awarensss. 
•  Meditation: A great source of energy. Needs some practice but can keep you really charged. There are several schools and techniques, choose what you find suitable for you.

Putting attention in these four sources for a few days, you will have a better prana level and even if you have been down for longh, you can see that in few days mind turns around.

H.H Sri Sri Ravishankar says in a talk – Doubt is always about positivity. When someone says “I love you”, you ask “really?”. But when someone says I hate you, you don’t question that. You don’t doubt your anger or depression, but you doubt all the positive qualities in you….

Also see Doubt and conditioning of the mind for the worse

The ‘void’ for creativity in Organizations

Creativity is a buzzword these days and there are all these tools, frame works and thinking techniques to make people and organizations more and more creative (and innovative of course..). But how successful are they? How many organizations really are creative? How many dumb people have been transformed in to creative geniuses by these techniques?

Every organization is doing some thing or the other, which they believe will make them creative. You know what I really think ? Like most of such hypes, the organizations will pursue this for some time and at when they see that it doesn’t deliver what it promised, they will change the definition of ‘creativity’ to suit the concept in their mind (we have done that to Quality already..)

I think the fundamental problem is that most of the creativity advocates are not really sure how exactly this creativity works. When someone sees it happening in a particular setting / situation a few times, they think that’s what will make people creative. Brainstorming may be what an organization finds working for them. But do we go beyond to see how that technique makes people creative?

I think here is the secret. Creativity manifests in a state of void (no thoughts or in the present moment) spontaneously, even without the help of the logical mind. (Here is a typical example people tell you: Think of the time, you were trying to solve a problem and you eventually give up (or drop). And some time later the solution comes totally unexpected. May be after a sleep) How does it happen? When there is the void in you, this is the space or gap where you get to access the infinite creativity of the universe. And in that void the feverishness for the results also disappears.

If you take any techniques for creativity, they lead to this void. Take brainstorming as an example. What happens when you brainstorm? When you continuously flush your mind out, the mind comes to a state of void. This is typically where people become silent and then comes the real ‘out of the box’ ideas. 

There are some other techniques, which don’t take you to this space, because they deal with your logical mind. (Sometimes it is funny, you use your logical mind to overcome the logical barrier in the mind and it all looks perfectly logical) As a matter of fact, they do give results, but not really what’s called the ‘creative ones’. But many times organizations are happy with them, because they are safe.

So in essence to make someone creative, we need to create that void. But it is impossible to stop the mind to created that space. But the sages of India solved this problem rather easily. How? They discovered that mind, breath and body are closely interrelated and each could influence the other. They went on to create techniques (for e.g the breathing technique like Pranayama) which could create the void in the mind, without confronting it directly.

All this is to set the context for a concept of “Void for Creativity in Organizations” that I want to present to you. Extending the same concept to Organizations, I think the simple reason why Organizations are not really creative is because they don’t experience the ‘void’. The noise (or thinking) in organizations create so much of clutter that prevents them from getting to the void or the silence, which is the abode of creativity.

I think organizations, like individuals have a mind, and along with that comes other faculties that contribute to the constant chattering. Here are few important ones that occurs to me:

1. Every organization develops a strong logical mind, which is based on data, past incidents, inputs from market, strategies. The logical mind is so adamant about being right every time.
2. The organization’s mind is always in the past or the future (tracking and planning) and the space for creativity happens neither in the past or the future. The void is always in the present or the time stops in that void.
3. Ego – Every organization works hard to build identities (internally and externally) and after sometime, this feeds in to the organization’s ego. Preserving this ego becomes a strong need and this needs effort. 
4. Lack of a collective mind, which is caused by people conflicts, competing divisions etc.
5. Too much of feverishness about the results or the outcomes.
6. Attributes like Fear, Responding to triggers, Uncertainty (doubt) etc which become dominant at times.

As the organizations grow (old as well as in size) the noise increases, forms rigid patterns and becomes the way of functioning (It is not a wonder that smaller organizations and start ups are more creative many times). Even if organizations become aware of this issue (lack of creativity), typically we blame it on things like processes, bad management, bad marketing, lack of technical competence, market, competition etc. But I think the fundamental problem is that Organizations do not understand the need for the ‘Void’ for creativity.

Let me give you an example. The void comes sometimes when there is a real danger, say to the existence of the organization itself. That’s when people come together, let go of the past and don’t’ have big things to hope for the future – and this brings all the attention to what best can be done right now, which is the void for creativity. It is here where the organizations change its course drastically, attempts things it had always hesitated to do, decides to explore things that never made sense etc.

The moment when this void is there, creativity occurs spontaneously.

It might seem impossible to stop the clutter in the organizations and create a void. It will not come through structural changes or putting more processes, or introducing more techniques. But like the mind-breath relation, there are subtle indirect ways to create this void in the organizations. I will reserve the thoughts on that for another post. Right now, I want to leave this concept for you to think and comment on.

Balancing the change – The improving and worsening parameters

There is a technique in TRIZ for conflict problem solving. The essence of the technique is that when we try to improve a parameter of a system, there is another parameter that is worsened.  Typically a compromise is arrived at balancing both the parameters. An example would be the power and fuel efficiency of the car, when you try to improve one, the other suffers. And this is the gap where innovation finds its scope – is there a way we can have a more powerful car with the same fuel efficiency? This would mean that we will need to create a new engine or is there a way to boost up the power output by external means…and so on.

The crux of the theory is that, every system is balanced in some way and when we change any of it’s parameters, that creates an imbalance.

This applies to our life too, when we try to change. Whatever is our personality or habits, at any given point of time; we are balanced (at least in our own view). Now when we are making a change (like you drop a habit like smoking) this leads to an imbalance. While the imbalance gets corrected over a period of time automatically, there is always a tendency to come back to the last balanced state automatically. I think this makes the changes difficult. Mind (or some external triggers) will try to trick us to go back to the ‘old balanced state’ and mostly we give in after some initial struggle. People who have been smokers will tell how miserable it is when they try to stop.

I think it’s essential to know how to retain the balance when we make a change. One reason why this is difficult is that while the improvement parameter is rather ‘physical’ the worsening one is ‘virtual’ (by physical what I mean is those we can feel as an entity in space, time or as an object or activity. Virtual ones are subtle, often in the mind which we cannot really feel or predict or measure). While we plan to change the physical parameter, typically we ignore the virtual one. For e.g, you take a decision that you are not going to smoke again. You list out all the reasons not to smoke again and take your plunge. But you ignore the ‘virtual’ part, which is the deprivation, misery and depression. You either decide to take them on as they come or hope they will not come. The moment you stop smoking, an imbalance is created. The mind will use all the virtual parameters as excuses to force you to go back to the old balanced state of a ‘smoker’.

So how do we tackle this? We shouldn’t take just one decision, but take two – one for the improving parameter and the other for the worsening parameter. So in this case it would be like this: (1) I will not smoke again and (2) I will be so happy about it. Provided you stick to both the decisions equally, a new balanced state will be created without much struggle.

In some cases where both the parameters are physical, this balancing happens rather automatically. For e.g you decide to wake up early from now on, you will naturally know that you need to go to bed earlier than usual. But in some cases, the worsening parameter lies hidden. For e.g you want to bring more focus to your work and you decide to spend more time in office. You know, this means you will spend less time with your family. But the real ‘worsening parameter’ here is that your family is not going to be happy about this change and at some point of time, the issue surfaces and may be an argument breaks out and you have your good excuse to go back to your old habits. So what could be the solution here – you also take a decision that you will well compensate for your reduced time with family with increased quality. This will create the balance for the change the family will undergo.

I think when we are able to move from one balanced state to another while making a change, changes will be effortless. Identifying the right improving and worsening parameters will be the key to this.

An insight to making firm decisions

All of us make decisions in life. We decide to do something or we decide not to do something or change the way we do something. While we are successful sometimes, there are also quiet many failures. (By success I mean that we are able to stick to the decision and failure the opposite)

Have you ever wondered why we aren’t successful always? Even if we thought about it, we are most likely to attribute it to things like our will power. One reason why we are unable to see a pattern in our own decisions (and the success and failures) is that every time the decisions are different and look unique. It’s very rare we take the same decision over and over again.

 I had the great privilege of being a heavy smoker for many years. I had made numerous attempts to quit, and one important ritual in every attempt was my taking the decision ‘not to smoke ever in my life’. I failed repeatedly. Sometimes it was immediate; sometimes it took few hours, days or weeks before I succumbed to the temptation. Sometimes I was miserable and some other times happy.

When I analyzed these failures, I could see there were two separate aspects. One was the decision making itself and the other sustaining it through maintaining the mindset. If I made a good decision, that helped me have a great start. I could overcome the initial hurdle without serious problems. Similar to a rocket gaining the escape velocity to overcome the earth’s gravitational pull.But if the decision it self was weak, I failed almost immediately. Even when I made a good decision, my failure came from the second aspect – where could not sustain it.

So, when was it that I could take a good decision? I saw two scenarios:

1. When I had done enough reflection and introspection (why am I doing this, what is it doing for me..etc)
2. After an emotional outburst.

But still I couldn’t figure out why was my decisions were stronger in the above scenarios.

 Months later, I came across a technique from Yoga for making firm decisions. This is the technique:

Sit in with your eyes closed, spine erect. Take a deep breath and hold the breath inside. Now repeat the decision firmly and continuously in your mind. Keep holding the breath as long as you can. When you can’t hold any longer, breathe out completely. Now hold the breath outside and repeat the decision again in the mind. When you can’t any longer hold it out, breath in and hold and so on. Do this couple of times. And it seems, whatever decision you take like this, you wouldn’t be able to break even if you try to.

This was interesting. Holding breath is a stage in Pranayama called Kumbhaka. And what happens when you do Kumbhaka? – the mind stops (or the thoughts disappear). (Please do not attempt the above technique without guidance or knowledge)

Now the whole thing made sense. I could see a connection. I could see that in both the scenarios above, there was something interesting about the mind. In the first scenario, the deep reflection settled the mind (or the doubts) and the in the second mind just entered in to a void following an outburst. So in essence, I could see that the mind had to get out of the way if we have to take a firm decision. This is verified by the fact that there are times when I take a decision; I almost knew that it will not work. I could see that before even the decision is made, doubts arise in the mind and the decision is doomed even before it starts.

Based on this experience, I have formed a concept for making firm decisions:  If you have to make a firm decision, you need to first get the mind out of the way. Once the thoughts stop (mind doesn’t exist then – I like the analogy of mind and thoughts to forest and trees) take the decision. Allow it to sink deeply in to your self. You will find that the decision is successful, almost effortlessly.

So how to get the mind get out of your way? Here are few suggestions:

1. Intense Mindfulness. Mindfulness literally kills your mind. When you are mindful, the decision making is good automatically, and you don’t need to do anything extra. But becoming mindful needs some preparation and effort
2. Intense prayer and surrender – This also settles the mind, especially when there is fear about the decision or you feel helpless
3. Deep reflection and introspection. In cases where your mind is cluttered about the decision. For e.g smoking, on one side you really want to stop and on the other side you fear that you will miss your friend. Do a deep reflection to get clarity, this will settle the mind and you can take a better decision.
4. Certain techniques in yoga where you do breath retention (like Moorcha pranayama, Nadi Sodhana Pranayama with prolonged Kumbhaka or simply just holding the breath as mentioned above). They immediately result in a void, and this is the space where you actually take the decision. A void could also result by haphazard breathing for sometime. Techniques 2 or 3 followed by 4 will be your key to making firm decisions.

Sometimes, it is also possible that your mind becomes void or blank without any effort. If you are aware, you should be able to catch it (I have seen this happening ton me when I am physically exhausted)

But remember, taking decision is one of the aspects we need to master. Thoughts on sustaining that in another post.

Conflicts are not resolved by our logical mind

I was attending a 5 day meditation course at the Art Of Living Center  last year. This is residential course and we are in silence for most of it. This is when I faced this problem. There was a gentle man who was doing service in the dining hall (for those of you who do not know, it is a common practice in India for people to stay in ashrams (spiritual centers) for some duration and do some service) who (I don’t know for what) was making people sit in perfect order without leaving gaps in between (We take our lunch and squat on the floor on mats to eat it).

I have always had this problem. Whenever some one tells me to do some trivial things a particular way, I have an irresistible urge not to do it that way. I don’t like being told where to park my car for example by the security person. And here was this guy, who wouldn’t let me sit wherever I liked. I tried, but he didn’t let me. And I gave in partly because I wasn’t supposed to be rude and mainly because I was in silence.

This repeated couple of times. Every time I went to the Dining Hall, this resistance surfaced and disturbed me. My mind (ego) said - this stupid guy shouldn’t be here. Afterall we are here to relax and be with ourselves. Why is he doing this useless thing? The disturbance was felt more, because the mind was settling down and there was nothing else around me that was disturbing. There was nothing I could do about it, but I could feel the resistance and the disturbance.

 On the third day, I decided to tackle this problem. To begin with, I decided to just avoid him. But this wasn’t working as I became very very conscious when I tried it and it disturbed me still.By then I could also sense him getting disturbed slightly by my presence. I think every human being can sense resistance and hostility pretty quickly.

I then decided to drop the resistance completely. I went about observing what was happening in the mind, to begin with and shortly the problem almost ceased to exist.

Now we were on the last day of the course and out of silence. Mind was clear, thoughtless and centered. I walked in to the dining hall. This guy was right there, making people sit in perfect rows (still I don’t know why). I just walked to him straight and with a smile told him – tell me if I you will permit me to sit wherever I like, at least for once. Only then I will pick my lunch. He just smiled and in a moment we both realized the stupidity of the whole thing. We hugged each other and all that resistance just melted like a snowflake. Very rarely have I felt that level of belongingness. Mind was so clear.

I don’t think need to try resolving conflicts the hard way. They just don’t exist when mind is settled we drop all the resistance. That is when we feel true belongingness.

Can the logical mind and analytical thinking ever resolve a conflict?

Leave your bed as soon as you are awake

Ever wondered where all that negativity gets reinforced deep in the mind? I think here is one to watch out for.

Say there is a compulsive thought that you are trying to shake off. You do some reflection in the evening or try some distractions to free your mind. As you go to bed, it looks like you are successful and calm. The next morning, you are awake (at least partially) but you still remain in your bed. As you lie tossing between sleep and waking state, all that suppressed thoughts take over. You are not really awake, so you watch helplessly as the mind start playing those ‘video clips’. By the time you are really awake and decide to step out of the bed, all that negative thoughts would have reinforced in the mind.

Some time back, a friend of mine mentioned to me that he has all the negative thinking in the morning. I didn’t have this answer for him, then. But now from my own experience, I think this is true.

People who have undergone severe stress in life would tell you that they find themselves awake in the middle of the night to find those compulsive thoughts taking over the mind. You would also have noticed that when you have spent lot of time in bed in the morning (say on a holiday), you are much less cheerful and positive.

So, the solution? Leave your bed the moment you are awake in the morning. Not very easy, try it. Your mind will not let you. It will tempt you with ‘that extra bit of wonderful sleep’. But if you can resist that, you are more likely to start the day with a positive note.

Try it.

Self-help mantras leave you unhappier than before

Many newspapers today carried this study of self help mantras (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1197430/Revealed-Self-help-mantras-leave-unhappier-before.html) The study by some psychologists found that those with low self-esteem who repeated self-affirming statements (like I can win) actually ended up feeling worse about themselves. They suggests that unreasonably positive ’self-statements’, such as ‘I accept myself completely’, simply remind individuals with low self-esteem how much they believe the opposite to be true.

I think this is not surprising, if you have read some of those best selling self help books. Each of them claim that you need to look no further to become the next Bill Gates or Barack Obama. You read them and spend the next few days ‘transfoming your life’, soon to find you back at sqare one. This ideal goal really widens the difference between what you are and what you should be. This process leaves you with a bad self-esteem and you are now more convinced that you cannot change.

I am not blindly accusing, could be there are books that are really valuable. But in general, I find some issues:

1. Some of these books create those false definitions of success for you. In reality you are searching for happiness and freedom. And they tell you about success, and there is the assumption that success leads to happiness. It might seem appealing to our mind, but soon the self (sub concious or whatever you call it) realises that you are on a false trail.
2. Many such books are written by people who do not have first hand experience. How many of them have been miserable, depressed and failed in life before they understand the truth? I think very rare. Instead they lay out those ideal life for for you, missing some very important points such as fear, ego etc.
3. Most them talk to your concious mind. And any change you need to do in life with your concious mind needs lot of discipline. Anyone who is not accumsted to discipline can never sustain such a change. I think the real change need to happen deep within and it can only be the result of a true search.
4. As a practice, we look for precriptive solutions. But every one is unique; your mind, thinking, attitude, response to a problem – everything is unique and personal. Very few prescriptive stuff will work for you, unless you are going to be disciplined. The change doesn’t happen at the mind level. But the mind makes us believe that it is supporting us in the change. (That’s why when we begin to practice Mindfulness, we end up giving a self commentory of what we do – I am now walking, I should not get angry now…)

These days, there is a huge market for self help books (OK, atleast they are successful), because everyone wants to change. We are 100% certain that we need to change in order to be happy and successful i n life. Let’s start with questioning that belief.

I liked a quote from Father De Mello “You don’t have to do anything to acquire happiness. The great Meister Eckhart said very beautifully, “God is not attained by a process of addition to anything in the soul, but by a process of subtraction.” You don’t do anything to be free, you drop something. Then you’re free”.

How many self help gurus teach us the art of dropping?

Related Posts: Being true to yourself