"avis-on-happyness"タグの名言

Over time I have realized that having an honest conversation over a complex issue with someone is never difficult provided you are given an equal opportunity to present your views. Which is, as long as there is dignity and decorum between the parties concerned, the conversation is relevant and possible. You state what you have to. They state what they have to. You may both agree or disagree but both parties respect each other’s points of view and stay focused on resolving the issue on hand. But the moment someone tries to demonstrate power or is being deceitful, the conversation has lost its purpose. Then you must simply leave the conversation. There is no point in trying to counter the other party’s machinations while ruining your inner peace. Sometimes, the best way to make an important point is not to say anything at all.

Intelligent living simply means recognizing the perishable nature of Life and choosing not to postpone Happiness. It means focusing only on what matters most to you, on what you love doing. A simple beginning can be made by investing in your “Me Time”, in one hour on yourself daily – start with your health and with what you are deeply passionate about, what makes you come alive! When you do create that one hour for yourself, you will, magically, see how you gain control of the remaining 23 hours of the day!

Not reacting with anger, but responding with compassion and equanimity, is a personal choice. Particularly so, in an explosive situation, when someone is provoking you, by trampling all over your self-esteem. How can you employ compassion when someone is spewing venom? Well, if you observe their behavior closely, someone causing you pain and anguish is actually suffering a lot within themselves. Their thoughts and actions are only reflecting their distressed state of mind. They surely know not what they are doing. So, respond – don’t react – with compassion. Ahimsa is not just non-violent action. It includes non-violent thought as well. Respond with ahimsa – that’s the best way to disarm your ‘opponent’! When you leave the other party guessing, as to why you are not striking back, you have won the battle without even fighting it. Isn’t that a great way to be protect your inner peace and profit from it?

Life’s intrinsic nature is magical and beautiful. But you will discover that magic and beauty only when you learn to embrace pain. Now, you can’t negotiate with pain – it comes unannounced and uninvited; you can’t postpone it either. So, you simply have to accept it. When you embrace pain, Life reveals its true Self to you – of how compassionate it is, giving you what you need most – including your pain – so that you can grow and evolve. So that you learn to be happy despite your circumstances. So that you live fully, happily, with what is…

Sit calmly. Take a few moments out for yourself. Look at your own Life dispassionately. And reflect on these perspectives: Is there any point in worrying; do you think you can solve any of your problems by worrying about them? Is there any point in being frustrated and angry about the way your Life has turned out to be; is there any point holding yourself or others for what has happened? Is there any point in asking Life “why” or “why me”; are you even likely to get any answers from asking Life questions? When you realize the futility of worrying, frustration and suffering, you will learn to let go and trust the process of Life. That is when you will be truly happy despite your circumstances.

Your mind’s first response to a problem situation is to deny its very existence. But being in denial mode simply means that you don’t see the problem although it exists; which means the problem is hurting you, but you don’t recognize it. When you finally acknowledge the presence of the problem, you hate it. You want it to go away. And when it doesn’t, you are over-anxious to solve it. But some problems defy human intelligence and logical solutions. They stay on, they frustrate you and leave you feeling miserable. The simple, intelligent approach to dealing with problems is to first accept them, rather than deny their existence, and then go to work on solving them. Realize that denying the presence of a problem does not mean the problem does not exist. Every problem has arrived with a specific Purpose – to teach you invaluable Life lessons, to make you stronger, wiser and happy!

Take it as it comes. Always. The beauty of Life lies in its unpredictability. Its starkness may be difficult to stomach at times but it is what it is. The only way to deal with reality is to embrace it and to go with the flow. You may plan, envision and strategize but ultimately Life alone has its way, its say. You must merely submit to that way and go with the flow. When you hate what is, it causes grief, anger, stress and suffering. But when you take it as it comes, Life is simpler even if it is not any easier!

Understand the futility of hurting and being vengeful. What is the point with either? Someone has wronged you. And they have done it only because they saw it as right. Your getting even with them will only make you suffer more. It is not going to make them any better or realize that they have wronged you. Instead, they are going to retaliate. And then the process of vengeance will go on and on…never ending. You carry a hurt only as long as you think about the person that caused it as someone who has wronged you. Instead think of that someone as one who is lost in Life, who knows not what he or she is doing. And then watch your anger, your hurt, transform into something beautiful and liberating for you – forgiveness!

When your Life’s Purpose comes calling, nothing else will matter! It will embrace you and you will be drawn into it. This is because your Purpose is the reason for your creation. You see, money is a human invention; you were not created to just make money. You were created to be happy, to serve, to make the world a better place. Which is why, your Purpose is also referred to as your “calling”. Truly, your Purpose is calling you! Step out of your earning-a-living bubble and allow your Purpose to lead you onward. Witness then, magically, how doors open, how the relevant people walk into your Life and how you end up doing all that you love doing and are meant to do. When you live a Life of Purpose, you live happily despite the circumstances.

People drift apart after falling in love and getting married because they compartmentalize their lives – one part that was before the marriage and the other that is after the marriage. So, the event of a marriage places a full stop; it ends one phase of the relationship and begins another. This full stop is unnecessary. In Life, everything new soon starts seeming and feeling old; romance then receives lower priority because the courtship is over, the marriage is done, dusted – and in some cases, sadly, dead too. That’s why people who fall in love, fall out of love too. But what if you imagine that the marriage never happened? Won’t the loving be continuous then? Great companionships thrive when you never let marriage take centerstage. Treat marriage, if at all you must marry, like just another date in your courtship calendar. That’s how the loving is ongoing, it is flowing.

Each of us has to go through what we have to go through. And what we go through makes us who we are. If you are dealing with a crisis just now, know that your own journey is surely leading you to your awakening, to your enlightenment. But you may wonder why does an awakening, or enlightenment, often come through such intense strife and pain? Well, such is Life! We must celebrate this suchness of Life! It is after trying many different mantras, methods, practices and after experiencing every emotion in its entirety that you come to understanding, soaking in, and celebrating the suchness of Life. That is how you learn the art of being non-worrying, non-frustrated and non-suffering. That is how you find Happiness in what is and learn to live fully despite your challenged circumstances!

Your role is to travel in the direction of what you believe in, what you love doing. And Life’s job is to get you there. Everyone – and every thing – that you need will always arrive, in time, to get you to where you must arrive!

How do you last a torrid time in Life? 1. Accept the reality that you are in the throes of a crisis. Stop wishing that it didn’t exist. Acceptance always delivers inner peace. 2. Know that the storm will always be strong. By even thinking of its ferocity, you are only going to feel debilitated. At the epicenter of a storm, it is always calm. Find that center, your center. That’s where you will find strength. 3. Your center is where you lose sense of time, place and thought. Art – anything inherent that makes you come alive – often leads you there. 4. Trust the process of Life. Do what you can do without losing your inner peace – daily, diligently. 5. No matter how intense it is, no storm lasts forever. All storms pass. So, be patient, surrender completely, let go…and offer yourself to be led by Life…

Life happens at its own pace and in its own time. It has a mind of its own. Your rushing through it only increases your stress levels and makes you anxious. You can do nothing to Life. At all times, in all contexts, you are never in control – Life is! And all you can and must do is to learn to live fully with what is. This does not mean inaction – trusting the process of Life is a lot of action; of keeping the faith and being patient. So, sit quietly doing whatever you can in a given context. And whatever must happen alone will happen; whatever is due to you alone will flow to you…on its own. When you are calm, you are non-worrying, non-frustrated and non-suffering and only when you are in this state will you see how perfect your Life really is!

We must employ our intelligence wisely. Do you want to feed your fears or do you want to feed your Bliss? Some opportunities that will give us great joy may not always be financially rewarding. And some opportunities may be giving us only money and no joy. Invest in your Bliss. It will never fail you.

Don’t resist your pain, embrace it. It is normal to run away from pain – to hate it, to question why it is there in the first place. That is when – and how – you invite suffering into your Life. You suffer only because you wish your Life is different from what it is. Instead, accept your pain. When you hold up your pain and feel its intensity, you will realize that it is teaching you unputdownable Life lessons. At this time, if you choose to express your feelings through your art – anything…painting, music, cooking, gardening, writing…do whatever makes you come alive – magic and beauty will flow through you! Look around you – every work of art out there is a product of someone’s pain and their choice to express how they felt while enduring it. So, employ your pain to create something of lasting value and relevance! The world is waiting…

Oh! But training the mind isn’t easy…” Surely, Life is not easy. Getting through this lifetime is never easy. So, training the mind is not going to be achieved without dedication and diligence. But just as the body can be trained, the mind too can be taught how to live in the present moment. You see, the mind thrives only when it is stuck in the dead past or when it races into the unborn future. In those two states it is constantly spewing thoughts of anger, grief, guilt, anxiety, worry, fear and stress. But when trained to live in the now, the mind is powerless. That is how you learn to be non-worrying, non-frustrated, non-suffering, to be happy! You can either train your mind, and employ equanimity and happiness to deal with Life’s upheavals, or you can continue to cite the ‘it-is-not-easy’ excuse and be unhappy! Your call!

Life’s very nature is that it is fraught with uncertainty in every moment. Anything, absolutely anything, can happen at any time. Simply, Life hai, kuch bhi ho sakta hai! So, learn to trust the process of Life. This act of trusting the process of Life is what Faith is all about. When you have Faith, Fear cannot debilitate you. Now, Faith and Fear cannot co-exist. So, if you are feeling fearful, it clearly means you lack the Faith! Re-examine how you are approaching your Life. Are you anchored in Faith or are you cowering in Fear? Intelligent living means embracing the uncertainty with Faith and going with the flow; it means knowing that wherever Life takes you is where you were always meant to arrive!

Faith must always thrive in the absence of any physical evidence. Let’s say you are negotiating a dark tunnel with a torch in your hand. As long as the torch is lit and you can see, you imagine you are in control, that you will soon figure your way out. But what if the battery drains and the torch dies? And it is pitch dark, scary; you are clueless and don’t know what to do? Faith, then, is your only resort. If you deploy your Faith – in the absence of even a shred of evidence that you will survive – and believe that you will come out of the tunnel unscathed, you surely will! That is why Faith is not just a coping mechanism, it is a game-changer! Harness the power of your Faith, understand the futility of fear, and see doors open miraculously where there once stood impregnable walls!

Every story is precious. Each one of us is making our own myth with our choices. And our stories evolve over time, with the following of our Bliss. As long as we are not obsessed with how others' stories are unfolding, of how their lives are shaping up, and are instead offering ourselves to be led in the direction of our joy, we will always be happy no matter hard the going really gets!