Attitude

I was reading about some thing called ‘Lojong’ in Tibetan Buddhism (which involves refining and purifying one’s intent and way of thinking through a set of proverbs) when I came across this short story about a teacher called Atisha, the originator of this concept. This happened when Atisha was planning to move to Tibet to teach there; the story is reproduced below from Wikipedia:

 A story is told of Atisha that when he heard that the inhabitants of Tibet were very pleasant and easy to get along with, instead of being delighted, he was concerned that he would not have enough negative emotion to work with in his Lojong practice. So he brought along his ill-tempered Bengali servant-boy, who would criticize him incessantly and was awful to spend time with. Tibetan teachers then like to joke that when Atisha arrived in Tibet, he realized that there was no need after all.

 Though the story brought out an instant smile, the depth was touching. How many people really think of the possibility of negativity around for his/own self development?

 This reminded me of an article I read long ago. This was written by a person called Siddique (a film director from our state) about a person called Father Abel, the founder of an institution called Cochin Kalabhavan  (this is group of performing artists with lots of emphasis on humor). Siddique recalled this incident about Father Abel, when the latter passed away .

 When Siddique was a small boy, he along with his friends used to play football in a ground adjacent to the church. Father Abel used to walk  to the church from his residence and back, along the road next to the ground. The children used to make fun of him, call him names and tease him, whenever he walked past. But he would never respond and would walk away walk away calmly as if nothing happened. Many years later, Siddique joined Cochin  Kalabhavan as  an artist and during a conversation asked Father Abel why he refused to react when the children made fun of him. Father replied with a smile: “ When we were in Rome for the priesthood training, people are employed to stand on roadside to insult us. This was done to increase patience and tolerance. When you boys were giving me that training free of cost, why should I get angry at all?”

In the corporate world, I have heard the ‘whether the glass is half empty or  half full’ stuff more than a dozen times, and whenever people use that to talk of attitude, you could tell how empty the statements were. But to practice it to the  extend where everything is simply a means to help you on the path, needs something more profound.

May be that’s why god need to exist…

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.

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.

The trap of Time

I wasn’t keeping well and had a very disturbed sleep last night. I woke up at about half past seven; my wife was already shouting from the Kitchen that I was late. As I rose from the bed, I saw that my little daughter was awake too and she immediately sprang on me. She was  surprised to find me still in bed and was visibly happy. As she began to climb over my shoulders, I (who was already late) asked herto get down as I had to hurry up and left the room. When I was at the door, I just looked back to find her sitting on the bed with a look that I can never describe. I think I saw pain.

As I was driving to office, I was wondering – what the hell am I late for? 

This instance haunted me the whole day and as I thought about it,the whole stupidity began to surface.

 I think this is one of the most sinister traps we all have got in to- Chasing time. We are always late for some thing or the other. Late for office, late for meetings, late for lunch, late for leaving office, late to bed. This has become an obsession; time dictates our life.

Fundamentally the problem is not about respecting time, but I think the problem is about getting caught up with that. Say, I am doing something and it’s late at night. The great time keeper in the mind says – get to bed, you are late. Otherwise you don’t get enough sleep or you are going to wake up late. Which means either you are drowsy in the office or you are late. Which further means….enough. I stop and go to bed.

And the wonderful mind gives all the logical reasoning needed for this. What will happen when I leave late to office? There is going to be more traffic on the road, which means I will be more uncomfortable and probably take some extra time to reach. Very logical! So what happens, the moment I wake up and till I am actually in office, there is a persistent voice in the head that I am late.

Not only that we are in this trap, we use it against others whenever possible. The satisfaction it gives me when I say – I am late because you haven’t readied the breakfast on time, I have been waiting for you for 30 minutes, how can you waste by time?, get this presentation on my table in 1hr sharp, send me your quarterly objectives by the end of the day, I had to waste half a day because of a stupid mistake you did…

And what do we do with this time others have saved for us? We shamelessly waste it as we desire, without ever being even conscious about it.   

And what we loose in this whole process of chasing time is those little joys that make up our life. They are left behind and it might not occur to us that those moments might never come again in our life. When they came, just for us, we were not there. We were chasing else which infact might be much less significant.

When I look back, at some point in my life, it wasn’t as bad as it is now. I did things as I liked, some times I did nothing for days. I ate what I wanted, slept when I wanted. But now I can see all that effort that I put in to make myself more productive, punctual and successful in life. It really has taken some good effort.

But now, it is really scary. Many things in my life are done not because there is a need, but just because it’s time to do it. I have been eating my lunch everyday at 12.30 and this ritual happens irrespective of whether I am hungry or not. I go to bed at 11.00PM; doesn’t matter if I am sleepy or not.

Who is ‘me’ to complain? The time is important. And only that’s important.

And it is so obvious why children are happy and creative. They are never late for anything. They are just there wherever they are needed to be at whatever time they are needed.

I think this is actually the case with each of too. But it’s just that the amount to mess that we built up in the mind to justify this stupid act of chasing time prevents us from seeing the truth. What’s the result? We are still not there where we are needed and when we are needed. In addition, we always carry this permanent disturbance of wanting to be somewhere else sometime later.

I took my daughter out in the evening, played with her and read her a story book. But I’m sure the look she gave me today will linger in my consciousness for a long time to come. And how many such golden moments have I lost simply because I wasn’t there?

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.

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.

Being true to yourself

Imagine the time you were a student, preparing for an important examination. It’s late night and you are in your room, supposed to be studying. After a while, you are bored and sleepy and you pick a novel and start reading. Unexpectedly, your father walks in to your room and before you can cover up, he sees what you are doing. He walks out without saying anything.

What happens? You are overcome by a terrible feeling of guilt and embarrassment. You feel miserable. You know you have done something wrong, but still do not know why.

It could also happen in office when your manager suddenly walks on to your desk to find you browsing some sites instead of working on an important assignment.

All of us have this difference between what we are supposed to be doing and what we are actually doing. But the interesting part is that such things happen without us taking notice of. We would have actually sat down with a plan to work on something for the next two hours. After a while, we get slowly distracted. There is an uncontrollable urge to check your personal mail or see who is on the chat or look in to the bulletin board. And invariably this is the time someone chooses to have a glimpse of how you are working.

This extends to other things in life. Say if you have promised your wife that you will never smoke again and you yield to your urge and puff away in office. You come home in the evening soaked in guilt. Your wife asks – did you smoke today?. You say – No. She is so happy about you keeping the promise and you are asking yourself – what kind of person I am?

When this involves another person (someone is expecting you to do something) it normally ends up with them forming perceptions or opinions on you. You manager might decode that you need constant monitoring or your wife is actually smelling your cloths to confirm that you haven’t really smoked.

But the real problem is what happens to you. Every time when you come to know of this ‘difference’, it pulls down your self-respect. And you see this phenomenon extending to all other things in your life – at your work place you are not doing what you should be doing, your wife is not what you expect her to be, and eventually your life is not what it should really be. The more you lose your self-respect, more doubtful the mind is and this further creates the difference.

I think it’s extremely important to ‘be true to yourself’, to live a life with self-respect. In my view, there are three things to set right.

• Managing Interruptions : There are two kinds of interruptions. One is external (someone walking over to you to clarify something) and the other internal (your mind says – forget this boring presentation, let’s look at what’s new on the bulletin board). These internal interruptions are the ones that cause the problem. Here some suggestions:
  • Try this out. Next time before you sit down for a task, set your mind – I am going to do this for the next two hrs. No interruptions. I will look in to anything only after that. I think over a period of time, you will see a great improvement
  • The other issue is to do with planning the day. Spend some time every morning to plan the day. This will avoid drifting of your mind
  • If you have this problem for long, it could be because of a lack of purpose. Set some definite goals, which will provide a direction to your mind
  • Another important point to take care is the restlessness of the body. If you don’t exercise regularly or have lot of mental clutter, the body is restless and in no time the restlessness passes over to your mind.
• Unable to keep up a promise :  Big or small. You have promised someone something and then don’t honor it. This creates not only self-respect problem but also perception problems. Being true to yourself also means that you only make promises that you can keep. Start with simple things and you will master this soon.
• Inability to stick to your decision :  One night you take a decision that you are going to rise early and exercise regularly from tomorrow onwards. The next day, you wake up as usual late and  as you are hurrying to reach office on time, you despise your self and are convinced that you can never take any decision in life.

The suggestion again here is, start with simple things and don’t take a decision for your life time. It creates lot of fear which is sufficient to doom anything ever before you start. Take a decision for a day, or a week or whatever is comfortable.

I think if we are able to get rid of this ‘difference’ and be true to ourselves, life is bound to be much more peaceful.

Helplessness, Fear, Resistance and Stress

It is a common misapprehension that overworking leads to stress. While I agree that any demanding prolonged activity of the mind or body will lead to some sort of fatigue, I do not believe that this is what causes stress. Such a fatigue can be overcome (unless it is very prolonged and neglected) by breaks, some discipline in life or any activities that help you unwind.

What cause stress? When does it become a real serious issue? How do we know we are getting in to it? How do we overcome it? Here are some thoughts.

 Stress is caused by the mind and ego taking over an issue, typically in a relationship where there is some kind of hierarchy. A work place is a typical example; and that will be the focus here. Let’s see some common scenarios.

 To start with you have certain expectations on something or someone. You strongly believe that something needs to be done in a particular way and of course, you have your reasons.  Now you are asked by your boss to go ahead in a totally different way. You try to protest, but finally have to yield. This creates a conflict in the mind. The ego takes over and you feel wronged. You go ahead with the task but every mind your mind is churning out reasons why it wouldn’t work. Your ego really wants it to fail so that you can have your boss suffer for the wrong decision. Slowly the thought becomes obsessive. You wake up in the middle of the night and before you realize, the battle is already on in your mind. If you are a drinker or a smoker, you tend to over abuse, which aggravates the issue. You vent your frustration to your friends and they readily sympathize with you, which reinforces your feeling of misery. You don’t feel like going to office and secretly nurture a feeling of vengeance in not turning up for work. Before you realize, the stress catches up with your body and mind. And one fine day you wake up with a thumping heart and lump in your throat to realize that you lost the battle badly.

Look at another scenario. You are stuck in a situation where you are accountable but do not have power to solve it. A typical example from the Indian IT industry scenario is the role of a customer relationship manager. There is a fight going on between the customer and the offshore team and things have come in to a deadlock. There are big egos involved, which is obvious to you. But you cannot point this out. The management blames you for not resolving the issue. You are helpless and soon the stress gets it victim. The latter part of the story remains almost the same.

Another common scenario is responding to threat (not those obvious ones like – I will kill you, but those subtle ones). Typically many managers in India try to get work done by inducing subtle fear in the minds of team members. Your conscious mind may not realize this, but your subconscious mind reads the threat and you are preparing for a fight without realizing it. This also happens with intimidation – don’t try to act smart here, we know what to do. It leaves you badly hurt and because you cannot respond directly, you resort to playing those scripts in your mind.

In all the examples above, you can see helplessness, resistance and fear are common themes and I think our inability to deal with them gets us in to trouble. Sometimes we pull through, but to find us again in a fresh trap. It’s like a viral attack, every time the virus changes its structure and the body cannot find a permanent solution for it.

The trap is that we try to solve the issue always, and believe that everything will be peaceful after that. But the real problem is in our mind, which remains there as long as we understand.

So how do we tackle getting in to this mess? Here are some thoughts:

• Speak out when needed. Even if it might be painful and your mind and ego will persuade you to avoid it.
• Whatever be the case, if you cannot solve an issue and cannot escape from it, drop all your resistance and accept the situation
• Don’t let issue based conflicts become people conflicts. Convey clearly to the person that you value him.
• Seek help from someone whom you respect and who has a larger view of life. You are not helpless
• If someone tries to instill fear in you, politely but firmly make it clear that you do not approve it
• Do not respond emotionally to any issue, even if provoked. Stay calm not to feed the other person’s egoYour mind will tell you that the only way you can solve the issue is by getting out of the situation. Don’t believe this, unless you can really make that move. Otherwise, this creates a conditioning that makes you miserable.
• Watch out for early signs, don’t neglect them. Typically the first symptoms are obsessive thoughts and disturbed sleep.
• Finally, always have something that you really enjoy in life. May be a sports or some hobby, which will help you disconnect from the issue.

Escaping from such situations is not a long term solution, because you carry with you what really caused it – your mind and the ego. Stay firm and fight it out, and you have really learned something in your life.

Also Read:

1. Surrender
2. Why Cant we resolve our own issues by thinking?

Playing with Perceptions

We all form perceptions. We categorize and label people, situations, places and objects continuously, based on some cues that we pick and interpret. They are positive, negative or neutral and are generally harmless in most cases (except that it triggers a pre-conditioned approach or response). When we have formed a strong perception, we tend to avoid situations involving that anyway.

Why do we form perceptions in the first place? I think our minds are trained to logically analyze things around us and this ‘ability’ gets better as we grow. Lot of the work that we do demand this; be it analyzing a requirement or assessing a person. And before we know, it is our personality, and we conveniently label it as ‘sense making’. Even the tools that we use help us reinforce this behavior. Look at this blog itself; I have to categorize every post and add tags and build a meta-data around it.

When do perceptions become a problem? I think, in relationships which are egoistic and demanding in nature. The two most obvious are romance and work. The moment perceptions are taken over by mind and ego, there is trouble. Some times real serious trouble. I think in romance (marriage included) the impact is not that bad because there is some thing called ‘belongingness’ which at times can overrule all such negative tendencies.

So let’s look at work. Typically in Indian companies, managers are supposed to assess the employees not just based on the work done, but also the behavior, attitude and other soft skills. Perfect setting for forming perceptions, which are ‘professionally right’. I think this is one of the prime reasons for stress at workplace and people leaving jobs.

As I said, mostly perceptions are typically formed based on ‘cues’ and is not substantiated by evidences mostly. How the cues are interpreted depends on the person (and I think where is processed – ego or mind)

Look at this illustration that I think we all can relate to:

Alex is a manager in a company and Erich is a team member reporting in to him. There is another manager David who, Alex suspects to be working against him. All of a sudden, Alex finds that Erich and David are hanging out together often. He is curious but decides to wait and watch. Sometime later, in a meeting David brings up a particular point against Alex, one which Alex thinks is not possible for someone outside the team to know. Now Alex’s perception on David that he is working against him is reinforced, and Alex forms a new perception that Erich is actually bitching on him to David. (Alex’s ego takes over here). Alex gives a feedback to Erich that he is not seen at his desk often and has been taking too many breaks these days. Erich if offended. (His ego takes over). He is now wondering why Alex is trying to find fault with him, while he has been delivering what is expected on time. Erich forms a perception now that Alex is trying to intimidate him. (Why? May be my ideas are better than Alex’s).

Now Erich is careful and but also uncomfortable that Alex is watching him continuously. In the months that follow, Alex is actually searching for cues to reinforce his perception, while Erich is behaving quiet unnaturally, careful not to give Alex any chance to intimidate him. Alex picks some simple ‘cues’; for e.g when Alex gives a smile to Erich when they meet on the corridor, Erich returns just ‘half a smile’ and turns his face away. Fine, Alex is at least confident that he isn’t wrong. The relationship between Alex and Erich becomes very formal and uncomfortable and Erich is now avoiding Alex as far as possible. Alex is also watching who Erich is talking to in the team, subconsciously looking for any changes in their attitude also.

Now Erich talks to David about this and seeks his guidance and in the process David’s perception on Alex, that he is a man on mean thinking, is reinforced. Talking to David reinforces Erich’s perception on the situation that he is being victimized.

 In the next feedback cycle, Alex gives a comment that Erich is ‘spreading negative energy’. Erich is furious and offended (ego is hurt badly) and wants to now prove that Alex has a malicious intention to corner him. His mind is now sucked totally in to this and is completely disturbed. A week later, they meet up to discuss the feedback and Erich couldn’t hold his emotion back and vents out his frustration on Alex. This reinforces Alex’s perception and now he is more the sure that he was right. Alex tries to portray that he is helping Erich ‘improve’ by pointing out a ‘hidden’ problem and expects Erich to thank him for that. Now Erich’s perception is reinforced that Alex has some malicious motive in trying to find fault with him and brand him. Alex also sense that Erich is forming a perception on him, and this reinforces his perception on Erich further.

It’s easy to assume where this is heading to. But the sad part is that we get in to this trap often in life and it sucks all the creative energy in us and makes our lives miserable. What everyone missed in the above example that there could be a genuine positive reason for the connection between Erich and David. And the existing perception of Alex on David, prevented him from seeing it that way or trying to find it out.

One of the most important outcomes of letting perceptions rule relationships is that it creates ‘false identities’ for us. When someone has formed a perception that you are ‘moody’ (and you know it) you will automatically tend to be moody in his presence.

While I do not think that it’s not possible (and not needed too) to completely stop forming perceptions, I definitely think we can stop it from ruining our lives and the others around.

Here are some thoughts and suggestions:

• I think the first thing is to see situations and people as they are, without the frills around it. Rather easy said than done. But you we are more mindful and understand how ego and mind works, I think you will be able to do this
• Drop the notion that people are out there to get you. This arises out of fear, and leads to the wrong assumptions we make.
• Even if you form perceptions, don’t let your ego latch on to it. Without the ‘ego’ playing our side, you will be able to solve it through discussions.
• Whether you have formed a perception or fighting one, don’t go around discussing with people. It feeds your ego and further reinforces the perception. Seek help if needed from someone who can help.
• If you are discussing with someone on a perception issue between the two, don’t let your emotions to take over. That will further aggravate the issue. Stay calm and don’t lose your balance
• If you try are trying to change a perception someone has formed on you and it doesn’t work, just drop it. Understand that it is his problem and let him deal with it. Stay away.
• Drop the conditioning that everyone has to have good and right perceptions on you. Try to resolve it only if it has any relevance to you. Don’t let your ego chase it.

 

After all perceptions are transient, they are bound to change. No one is going to hold on to a particular perception on forever.

Rajinikanth and Sharukh Khan

Before you get carried away by the title, let me make my point. I believe that people who have had phenominal sucess in life, do have certain ’special qualities’  which are not very obvious or noticeable. I think these qualities have helped them (over and above the accepted traits such as hardwork, perseverence, committment and luck) reach unimaginable heights and stay there for long. Let me give you two of my observations:

I was reading a review on the book The Name Is Rajinikanth ( I haven’t read the book) in a magazine last year ( For those who do not know, Rajinikanth is a south Indian actor who is famous for his style and commands a popularity that no other actor in India can ever imagine). There was something I found very interesting about him in the article; that’s his ability to detach from what’s going around. There was an incident mentioned where he goes to a director to return the advance payment and to tell him that he is going to the Himalayas in search of the truth. The article mentions that Rajini often gets this ‘problem’ where he can detach from life and look at it as a third person.  This is the essence of what is called Sakshi Bhava (The art of witnessing) which even great sages would die to achieve.

Look at another example. During a flight , I watched an interview with Shahrukh Khan   ( For those who do not know, he is the ‘King Khan’, who rules the Hindi film industry of India). There was something interesting that caught my attention. Shahrukh talks of a special character of him, which describes as – Every place looks new to me, even if I have visited it several times. I forget people and places. When I’am there the next time, I can’t recollect if I had been there earlier. When I’m there, I am just there. (My interpretation of what he said, not verbatim). This is what every one who is trying to ‘be ‘mindful’ or ‘live in the present moment’ strive to achive.

The point I am trying to make here, these simple (but profound) characteristics in these people have definitely helped them to be what they are, but without being feverish about it. They may not get noticed easily, because I think they came to them naturally and effortlessly.

Who knows, there muct be such a quality in each of us, lying neglected because we don’t really recognise its significance..

Why is that I do not enjoy something fully? – II

Continuing the thought from the previous post Why is that I do not enjoy something fully?, here is another perspective on the same question.

For most of us the enjoyment is either in the past (our  own heroics, success, victory, luck) or in the future (hoping for sucess, win, prosperity etc). Both are virtual because they don’t realy exist except in the mind.

When we enjoy something in the present, it is not the mind that’ enjoying it. It is something above that; call it your conciousness or self or whatever you want. This comes from a total acceptance, which I believe is possible only in the present moment.

Difficult to belive? Try this. Pick a task/activity that you don’t enjoy (better something that you have been pushing aside for long), and do it today with total involvement. No judging. No analysing. Enjoy doing it. If your mind is trying to pull you away, just smile at it.

See what happens. So where is the genuine enjoyment? Is it in the mind or in the present moment?

Doubt and conditioning of the mind for the worse

Swami Sandeep Chaitanya narrates a very interesting incident during one of his discourses.

Once a foreigner, who visited India was surprised to see how the water bodies (ponds, lakes, rivers…) were use for different purposes. People bathed in them, washed their cloths, washed the cattle, drank the water and also used for cooking.  But nobody seemed to have any health problems, nor were any signs of epidemic.

This was something he saw through out India, and he set out to investigate the ‘miracle’ behind this. The finding was also interesting: the people did not have any problems with using the water, simply because they did not have the slightest trace of doubt.

Why did I remember this story now?  Of late, people seem to be having more problems caused by food these days. Quiet often I find some one (me too at times..) who is not well because of something he/she has eaten. This has not been the case in the past for sure (at least not his bad for sure). People attribute this to incorrect cooking practices, adulterated food, use of artificial flavors, use of pesticides etc..

I do believe there is some truth in this. But I found something else interesting too. That’s the doubt. We have begun to doubt the food we eat. With the slightest difference to our expectation (bit oily, too spicy, weird taste..), we are almost sure that there will be trouble. I think this belief is strong enough to make us really have a problem with food.

I am not discounting the other factors, but just trying to draw your attention to the fact that the element of doubt in us is much more stronger now and so it the conditioning of the mind for the worse. It is just not food, we doubt the water we drink and the air we breathe.  

One reason for this is definitely the amount of information the media dumps on us. You can find this in every other aspect of your life. See some examples. Reflect on what will be your thoughts in each of these situations:

1. Say you are a smoker. One fine morning you wake up with a bad throat pain.
2. Say your spouse is not home from work past the usual time. You are unable to reach him/her over the mobile.
3. You get a notice that you have to meet the HR head of your company.
4. You get a notice from your child’s class teacher to meet her in person. What will you think the reason is?

The point I am trying to drive here is: the real problem is not really a bad thing happening (most of the time when it happens, there is no choice), but we anticipating it and creating it in our small little mind.

I think it’s important to get rid of this doubt and conditioning. This induces fear too. How can we? Some thoughts..

1. Firstly look at the amount of brainwashing the media does on you. They tell you there is unrest in society, lot of crime, corruption and violence. People have become selfish and lack values. They tell you there is so much bad happening around you, always be on vigil.I think the first and foremost thing is to really cut down on the amount of negative stuff that we intake everyday.
2. Another key step could be to re-learn to think positive. Next time when you are in such a situation, become aware. Ask yourself what makes you see the worst end. Look at the other side. Soon new habit patterns might form.

 In ancient India, they tackled this by using two simple things- faith and surrender. More on that in another post.