Whatever Happens, Happens for the Best!


I realize suggesting a topic like this in today’s world – governed by free will determinism and a belief system that relates every outcome to our own actions – is fraught with danger…but here I go.

Here’s a story of a King and his dear friend. The King always liked to have his friend around him and immensely trusted his advice. One of the things the friend always used to say and believe in was “whatever happens, happens for the best”. Once the King and his friend were out hunting in a jungle and had an encounter with a tiger. While the King managed to eventually kill the tiger, the King lost his left thumb in the duel. The King was deeply disturbed by this. His friend, however, kept reminding the King of his favorite saying, “whatever happens, happens for the best”. This bothered the King to no end and he got so upset with his friend’s “unkind behavior” that he asked for him to be locked up in the state prison. As life went on, in a few months’ time, the King went on another hunting trip. This seemed like an unfortunate one as he lost his way in the jungle and got captured by the local jungle tribe. The tribe was extremely excited with this auspicious catch and decided to sacrifice the King to the Gods. As part of the preparation for the ceremony, the tribesmen completed applying a special balm onto the King’s entire body. As they discovered the King’s missing left thumb, they rushed to their leader and asked for the King to be released – as per the tribe’s tradition, in order not to annoy the Gods, the sacrificial body had to be whole. For the first time, the King began to understand the thought behind his friend’s saying. As he went back, he asked for his friend’s immediate release. As they met and hugged each other, the King asked, “While I now understand why the loss of my thumb was eventually for my best,…

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Personal Mastery and Communities


In one of my first posts (Personal Mastery and the Journey Within), I had introduced the concept of personal mastery. In this blog, I would like to highlight the relevance of this concept to serving and building communities.

To me, personal mastery is the journey of self-discovery leading to consistently living the purpose of one’s life. It requires a high emphasis on self-knowledge, clarity of one’s personal vision and its interconnectedness with the people and the world around.

As the definition suggests, the person advanced in this journey is likely to have a deeper understanding of the interconnectedness of herself with the people and the world around her. Such a person is likely to well appreciate the interconnectedness of the different pieces that make up her world – elements of nature (the air she breathes and the water she drinks), efforts of people in her life (their love and support), contributions of her ancestors (in bringing her to life) and numerous other people in the world (whose efforts allow her to live her daily life with ease and comfort). As he acknowledges the contribution of others in his life and develops gratitude towards the people and the world around him, he is likely to feel obliged and become keener to pay the society back in some way or another.

Most often when we are unhappy, we have a starved feeling – a feeling of lack, as if we are not getting enough. As Shakti Gawain talks about the concept of outflowing in her book on Creative Visualization, she describes how when we find the place within us that is giving, the flow reverses. True giving, she clarifies, happens not from sacrifice, or self-righteousness or something spiritual, but from the pure joy of it. As we begin the journey within, we realize that we have an infinite reservoir of love and happiness within us; however, we are conditioned to thinking that we have to get something from the outside to be happy. As we learn to…

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Personal Mastery and Parenting


In one of my first posts (Personal Mastery and the Journey Within), I had introduced the concept of personal mastery. In this post, I would like to highlight the relevance of this concept to parenting.

Parenting has probably always been a challenging job – across generations, whichever parents one talks to. However, the challenge seems to have gotten amplified in recent years – I reckon the growing prosperity, rise of individuality, decline of family and other social structures, and a decline in meaning in people’s lives are significantly contributing towards this.

There’s been a tremendous rise in the sense of individuality and need for personal success in recent years – particularly in developing nations. This has happened with growth of prosperity and the disproportionate rewards for individual success – creating a culture driven by desire to get ahead and win at any cost. The growing prosperity also brings with it a multitude of choices – for consumer goods, for gadgets, for leisure etc. As a result, parents are focused on maximizing their individual pleasure by chasing their careers and their personal pursuits – and they now have real choices to do so too. Alongside, the social structures are breaking down. The joint family system has come apart – in fact, in the race for financial success, a number of nuclear families maybe faced with a situation where one of the parents is working in one city and the rest of the family lives in another. All this puts tremendous pressure on parenting…

To complicate the situation further, children these days on the other hand, have enormous exposure during their childhood years. Because of television and the Internet, a 14 year old today has about the same exposure has her parents had in their lifetime. When the parents do not have time for their children, television, Internet, and the peer group take over as the biggest influencer for them.

Some of the results are disturbing. More than one-third of all murders in the US are committed by…

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I am Whole, Complete and Perfect


I talked in my last post about the ultimate reality that everything in the universe is made from Energy. This Energy has been called different names by different societies – Reiki (Japanese), Chi (Chinese), Ight (Christians), and Prana (Hindus). The same Energy manifests itself in different forms and all beings – the plants, animals and all of us are made from the same Energy. The Buddhist philosophy, well articulated in Thich Nhat Tanh’s various books, brings forth this idea with the example of how the whole universe exists in a leaf – something that Buddha saw during his awakening while meditating under the Pippala tree. The leaf would not exist without sunlight; it would also not exist without clouds as there would be no rain. It would also not exist if there was no tree. In the same way, the earth also existed in the leaf. The Buddha then had the realization that the leaf had always existed – in the sunlight, clouds and the tree; it just manifested itself in a new form, a new combination, originating in time. As one begins to comprehend this further, one realizes that the leaf was never born and could never die. When the leaf wilts and falls to the ground, it contains the knowledge of its own renewal. It knows it will decompose into the soil from which it came, awaiting its next manifestation. So the bud opening is not a birth (but only a new manifestation) and the wilting not a death (but an end of form). And, it’s the same for all of us.

Also, what comes through from this example is that all phenomena and all forms are interdependent and essentially one and the same. The self cannot exist in isolation, away from the rest of the universe.

Further, each one of us already has whatever we need to continue the journey of the universe. It already exists in the universe and as we are an integral part of that whole, in us as well. We…

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The Ultimate Reality


I have already talked a bit about the constant struggle of the human mind. Let me also share the vicious cycle of “have”, “do”, and “be”. I want to “have” (the next big car, better house, better relationships, financial freedom) so I must “do” (work hard, sacrifice balance in life) and once I have all that I want, I will “be” (happy). This is a never ending cycle and a perpetually losing proposition. Those who are happy and feel fulfilled are not so because of what they possess but that they have made a choice to “be” that way. What we need to do is to reverse the pattern – choose to “be” happy and fulfilled first and that state will create the platform for us to “do” the meaningful work most appropriate for us and that in turn will make us “have” everything we need.

While that may sound good, but how do we “be” in that state? For that, we need to look inwards – into ourselves and understand who we are. The ultimate truth is that everything in the universe is made from Energy. All beings – the plants, animals and all of us are manifestations of the same Energy. This Energy has been called different names by different societies – Reiki (Japanese), Chi (Chinese), Ight (Christians), and Prana (Hindus). Even science has begun to corroborate this thought process. Quantum field theory suggests that particles of matter are nothing but momentary interacting manifestations of an Energy field, which, intangible and insubstantial as it maybe, is the only real thing in the universe. Put another way, matter is not made of Energy; it is Energy. The same Energy just manifests itself in different forms.

In the human form, this presents tremendous opportunities and challenges – the most powerful opportunity is for humans to undertake the journey of self-realization and the greatest challenge is that of mastering the ever growing smarter brain. As humans continue to rely more and more on their minds for survival and…

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Personal Mastery and Relationships


In one of my recent posts (Personal Mastery and the Journey Within), I had introduced the concept of personal mastery. In this blog, I would like to highlight the relevance of this concept to our most cherished relationships.

What’s happening to relationships in today’s society? The numbers of failed marriages are on the increase just about everywhere, and in most of the western world, the divorce rates have reached dramatic proportions – in many countries like the US and Australia, only 1 out of every 3 marriages survives. Over the years, the sense of individuality seems to have got heightened and the time and space for each other has declined. The emotional strength of individuals, growing up in a fast paced society that rewards its winners and looks down on the losers, is under enormous pressure as well. Individuals are seeking perfection in everything, including in themselves and their spouses. As the honeymoon period gets underway and each one finds the other to be less than perfect and different from their earlier expectations, the silent dissatisfaction begins to build already.

Where does personal mastery fit in to all this? As I mentioned earlier, personal mastery is the journey of self-discovery leading to consistently living the purpose of one’s life. It requires a high emphasis on self-knowledge, clarity of one’s personal vision and its interconnectedness with the people and the world around. This journey is all about becoming comfortable with yourself; accepting yourself as you are and not living in the constant pursuit of what you should be (the relentless pressure to be perfect). This begins to happen as you start to understand the truth about yourself and your existence.

As Jesus Christ said, “I am in this world but not of it”. We all are part of the same whole, the same universal life energy – just happen to be in seemingly different forms through different physical and mental manifestations. Even though we seem to primarily operate from our minds (as a result, over the…

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Personal Mastery and Leadership


In my last post (Personal Mastery and the Journey Within), I had introduced the concept of personal mastery. In this blog, I would like to highlight the relevance of this concept to business leadership.

To me, personal mastery is the journey of self-discovery leading to consistently living the purpose of one’s life. It requires a high emphasis on self-knowledge, clarity of one’s personal vision and its interconnectedness with the people and the world around.

It captures the essence of a leader being highly self-aware and also having a deep sense of his own purpose in life and its relevance to the rest of the society. Leadership practice has come a long way from the days of emphasizing on IQ (how I think) to the notion of EQ (how I feel and relate to others). To me, the journey of personal mastery is the final leap of bringing out the relevance of the spiritual quotient, SQ (understanding what and who I am). Another perspective to look at this concept is to say, junior managers manage tasks, middle/ senior managers manage processes, leaders manage people and to me, the most outstanding leaders are the ones who know how to manage themselves. The thought behind this is to suggest that if the leader is high on personal mastery and self-management, he would not need to make a real effort in managing others – in fact, he will be such a role model for others that they would automatically be inspired to follow him.

Lets look at some of the biggest challenges a business leader faces today. I reckon they are – building a compelling and shared vision with the team, motivating the team members towards the vision, and delivering quality results in an ever changing and highly competitive market place. The issues with building and communicating a vision shared by the employees can be quite startling. In one of the researches by Harris Interactive of over 20,000 employees, it was concluded that only 37% of the employees had…

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Personal Mastery and the Journey Within


Most of us are so often driven by external evaluation and relative success. We tend to assess how we are doing based on external and visible parameters of evaluation – be it the career, job title, size of bank account or the car one drives. A lot of us also seem stuck in the idea of relative success – no matter how successful one is, there is an element of seeing it in relative terms to people around us – the guy driving the Mercedes c-class is watching the guy in e-class and the guy in e-class is thinking when’s he going to get the BMW 7-series and so on…as a result, we are living a poor man’s life because we are all the time thinking of what we don’t have rather than be thankful for all the wonderful blessings we do have.

It is this thought process that leaves a vacuum in people’s lives. No wonder the results on the happiness test for the very same “successful” individuals maybe substantially scattered**

Often, people are also consumed by the pursuit of money. However, does seeking money and other pleasures create sustainable happiness? There’s enough body of research to suggest that while there may be a positive correlation between annual income level and happiness until you reach a reasonable level of income (say, US$20,000), there is necessarily no correlation after the income level crosses that threshold. In 2002-2003, the New York Times reported that the real income in the US had risen over 16% during the previous 30 years, but the percentage of Americans who described themselves as “very happy” had actually fallen from 36% to 29% during the same period.

In a more spiritual sense, this constant struggle can be explained by the sense of duality and separation created by the human mind. Based on how the mind gets conditioned from all the past experiences, it forms perceptual maps to operate in the physical world. Over time, the mind’s identification with this map becomes so strong that it begins to see it…

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