Life in Bangalore

We all consume … by  reading  a book…listening to the radio…browsing the internet…watching the TV…texting with friends…writing on the wall…sharing a link…forwarding useless emails…etc.,  Some of this may be required by the nature of your job/personal circumstance (say 20%) , most of them (80%) consume our all important time adding zero value. Say for example, you just returned from the office and switched on the TV news channel…there is a debate going on (again useless one!) with the so called intellectual panel speaking all at once resulting in a cacophony…While the news anchor would say “India wants to know”…I don’t know if we know anything at all from these TV debates… Or take for that matter, the soap operas (sponsored duly by Soap company promising Fairness!) …there is a unusual blaring background indicating an upcoming difficult situation (Tamil cinema calls it a “Knot”)…When I watch for another 5 minutes, the difficult situation is that the “bahu” cooked a different

A monk told Joshu, “I have just entered the monastery. Please teach me.” Joshu asked, “Have you eaten your rice porridge? The monk replied, “I have eaten.” Joshu said, “Then you had better wash your bowl.” At that moment the monk was enlightened. Most Zen stories,such as one above, as abstract as it may sound have a profound meaning. The basic meaning is that we would need to immerse our self into an activity however mundane as it may be. In the current age where computer generated  “To-Do” lists rule the roost, we perform the current activity with an eye already on the upcoming next activity.  At the end of the day, even if you may have completed the entire To-Do for the day , there is a feeling of emptiness. The emptiness is due to the lack of mindfulness as we were going through the motion of activities. So what is the solution? As Leo Babauta calls it, we need to make the current task as an “Universe” by using the following steps: Step 1: The purpose : Why am

“Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work.”      Peter Drucker I came to believe the left brain-right brain theory during my innumerous attempt at the ritual of waking-up early in the morning. The most difficult thing in the world is to wake-up early in the morning…as the alarm rings waking up from our deep sleep, I become an Hollywood actor with a multitude of emotions  ranging from anger, irritation, sulking ...and what not !  Just after snoozing the alarm, there is an emotional argument going on in my mind…one portion (right brain…I guess)  says to wake up and chase the dreams…the rational part says…never mind…even if you may doze off a bit, you can still catch up your dream…on some days my left brain even dumbs me down rationalizing that “you ain’t going to accomplish anything in life…at least sleep a little more” In the Know-Do gap (hyperlink) , earlier I used to (make)-believe that lack of doing is due to Perfectionism (Oh boy !