Tag: Life

Non Judgement – A way of life

Judging :
I have been searching the meaning(not the dictionary one) for this word from long now . I got different answers but was never satisfied , i felt that was not it . My soul was not satiated . It is so easy to say “dont judge” but explain that ? we are told “just be with it”, so easy aint it? . So my fued with the word was on and finally here I am with an answer 🙂 . Feeling happy and wanted to share the happiness with all of you so wanted to blog this right away .
Judgement is adding or subtracting facts to something we see . Being non judgemental is just seeing the event or person undistorted , no adding past to it , no adding masala to it but seeing the event or person for that moment/instant.
let me try to explain this better may be via an example . When a spouse 😉 (best example no?) says he/she did not like a particular thing you did , listening to that feedback as it is will make sure we are being non judgemental and voila! we can remain calm and hence happy . What we typically do is (this its very normal by the way ) we listen to what he/she said and add all the past experiences /stories he /she said and make that into something else and respond . The other person wouldn’t be prepared and unassuming that you have derived a different meaning out of something  simple he/she said . And this can lead to a BIG issue and this is an ongoing issue with most people .
How about listening to that they said and responding to what was just said by not adding any past story, fact , assumptions and seeing the event for what it is.
Life its so simple yes so complicated . Imagine what if we are allowed to record our thoughts and play to others ? we wouldn’t have foes forget friends 😀 . I am amused and amazed with another learning and gratitude towards the universe. This is very simple yet difficult , how can we ensure we see the event or person for that moment or that incident? Did you just ask that? Well!  by being aware and by living in the present moment . Living in the present moment is by default being non judgemental in my opinion.  Lets live . Lets love . Lets stay happy

Negativity is a spammer

A thought occurred to me , what if we consider negativity as a caller ? So many of us make sure we check unknown numbers on true caller before we respond or most times we don’t pick calls from unknown numbers . what if we train our mind to store negativity as a unknown spammer and choose not to pick it ? I wonder what will happen? When I was in Vipassana a few years ago I remember what the teacher told me . She mentioned that Buddha says when someone gifts you with negativity , anger , unhappiness or any not useful emotions tell them thank you, I don’t need them so I am not accepting it. Its basically not taking anything personally . I know it aint easy but it isn’t impossible either . Was wondering how our lives will change if each one of us will follow that one simple advise .

My mind as usual went into the thought mode. For example , in a peak traffic an annoying person does all that he/she can to block us but instead of loosing peace of mind and loosing perspective for the day what if we could say I am not allowing you to spoil the peace in my head as I reserve my energy for myself and do what we can do best – say breathing(consciously) ,or listening to music .

Or at a restaurant or office or at home , most times we end up being a part of anothers baggage and they easily pass the buck to us and we unconsciously end up carrying it with us . If its a bad beginning to a morning ,it can cause ripples and will ensure everything in the day is ruined , like the dominoes effect . So what if we chose to say, thank you but I dont need your baggage as I choose to spend my time on myself today , on my family today or on a loved one today . Basically what if we agree not to take anything personally ?

what will people think??

I am one among the people and even I am surrounded by people but yet that statement is something I am just not fond of . We are a “society being” , I agree . We are answerable to our near and dear ones I know .. Yet! what they think is not in our control no ? If they are here to judge , then will our clarifying ever matter to them at all? People have to say something and they will . Even if they don’t loudly , their subconscious mind will prompt not so nice things which leaves an imprint on them without their knowledge , now thats a BIG game . How can we decide what others think? How can we change what others think? How do we know how others think? How are we responsible for how others think?

Now lets assume we have control of how others think through our actions , then considering there are 7 bn unique beings alive on this planet how do we know that most think alike , oh yeah! our circle is not 7 bn I know ok lets say 20 people how do we know what all the 20 will think , is it them thinking or is it we thinking on their behalf? isn’t it our negative thoughts that run on their behalf most times ? I have noticed 90% of the time all that I think is futile , no one cares . . At any given point of time there will be someone who doesn’t like something most likes , wait there will be an aesthist in that 20 so he doesn’t necessarily like GOD(the creator) himself 🙂 so then how can we ensure all of them are liking what we say or do? then will we have time to live our lives ? Or will we have enough time to ensure we are keeping everyone happy. How do we necessarily know everyone around us is happy ? And isn’t our purpose to keep ourselves happy? Will we ever be content and happy , if we are in this race of making others happy . Thinking for others , living for others . Will there be a day we wake up and realize that we lived our lives pleasing others to realise there is no life left to live ? people who matters will understand, if they don’t then they never mattered no? people and society matters but they can’t be the only thing that matters there is “we” beyond that ..  WE , the life ..

Detachment is the best attachment – part 1 and 2

I am a very emotional soul, most things that happens around me affects me. Be it the news paper, tv or anyone in trouble . Need I then say about my loved ones? I have been thinking of how to be detached yet attached ? how not to react or get affected for that matter. How to lets say “just be” .

I understand we humans have a brain which is faster than a super computer and is capable of processing a zillion thoughts in a day or should I say an hour? Attached to the zillion thoughts are a zillion emotions ! we are a wreck already aren’t we ? The realisation that I am allowing those zillion emotions of someone who matters to me to affect me was a mind boggling realisation . Now occurs a question if the emotions of another person or their actions is affecting me who has the control on my emotions really ? is it me or them? i meant to ask who has my remote control ? The awareness that I am a prisoner of others thoughts is so scary and so is the fact that my life could become a roller coaster ride all day .. In this quest I found a lot of answers after reading , after deliberation and I wanted to share my learning with you all 🙂

I realised that others emotions affects me because of the “ME” mode I live in. Lets call it a “ME ” filter considering that this is the era of filters . Let me not digress , so we end up looking at all that is happening around us through the “Me” filter . We think we are the centre of the universe and all that happens is for us , aiming at us because end of day its all about “ME”.

Let me try explaining this further . Hmm lets say a friend is having a bad day at work and comes to meet me in a foul mood. And I ask her, so how was your day and she will answer me rudely. Now, what happened here ? She answered me from her space of frustration and thats all . But how did I decipher it? She is so rude to me . I waited for this meeting the whole day , I planned , I took an initiative , I always care and this behaviour is unacceptable . She is so insensitive and doesn’t respect me , I dont deserve such a behaviour. I am now offended , sounds familiar isnt it? Imagine that’s a spouse or a partner now 🙂 the impact is even deeper. Because there is love in the relationship .

Now did she mean to be rude to me ? Was that an intent? Well honestly the answer is no! It was their response from their experience with no intent of hurting us. But wait! isnt it about the ME filter ? What did I finally become here? A victim could we say ? It was not their direct reaction to us right? Similarly if someone else gets angry or is rude its more about them and not us. Its about their inability to cope up, their weakness, their expectations and their struggle but definitely not “Me”

Finally who is the culprit here ? The ME filter! We tend to take or have conditioned ourselves to take others words and actions as their personal judgement of us . So their unhappiness is ours , their anger is ours, their happiness is ours so who is controlling life here ..I finally realised the need to live my life my way and not anyone’s way and figured out being aware Is the first step .

Perspectives is the only way to tackle the “ME” filter. Let me explain this further may be with an example.

My partner was very rude today .

“Me” filter : He is so rude. I love him so much . He doesn’t care. There is no point doing anything for him. Its a waste . I don’t deserve this treatment ..

“Partner Filter “ : He is rude today because he is having a bad day. It has nothing to do with me. It is his way of venting out and getting normal. I should just let him be.  At this moment his state of mind is most important for him.

“Our Filter” : He is rude because he is having a bad day.  It has nothing to do with me. I shouldn’t take it personally. I should may be console him and make sure he feels better or if he likes to be left alone I will give him space . But I will ensure that I share with him how I felt and find out better ways of coping up and being respectful of each other when he is ok.

“Our Filter” covers all involved both of us in this case and is always the best way compared to the “Me filter” . Viewing the instance or a situation from this filter will sort out most issues .

Practise makes a man perfect so its important to start using the “our filter” every time we realise someones words or action is affecting us . Its ok to forget the filters but being aware and trying to use it later will help making this a way of thinking for us. Once we calm down this works even better . The more we are aware, the more we practise ,the more we learn. The more we detach, the more we are happy . So lets embark on this journey of filters, what say?

We are mortal …

We are mortal. I keep reminding myself this so that I don’t waste time . Yesterday , on a lazy Sunday afternoon I happened to watch a movie in which a man gives up everything and toils for his family and then dies without living a life. No one recognised his efforts , he never told them what he went through , he suffered but never let anyone know , he was tired but didn’t let his family get a whiff of it. He sacrificed his life but his family never realised or acknowledged what he did for them . He died in his sleep and for everyone around it was a death and they lit the pyre as per custom and turned him into ashes . It made me think . My mind went whirling into some other space , I was thinking for whom do we all do things we do? Even if we do things do the ones for whom we do know about it? Is it not important to tell them that? Don’t they deserve to know it ? Why don’t we live life for ourselves ? Why do we exactly plan life for tomorrow and fail to see what we have now . Who assured us there is a tomorrow ? Is it over confidence or do we as humans forget that we are mortal . Will we respect people and value every minute if we realise the truth that life is not predictable , we don’t have a prefixed deadline , we don’t have an expiry date . We can be gone the next second . Yet we harbour so much hatred , ego and many more negative traits. Yet we don’t express our love for our loved ones , we keep it for another day . We fight with our siblings / partner / kids and go to sleep with the pain or by giving them pain without realising that there might not be a tomorrow either for them or us .

I started thinking very deeply , I had experienced a meditation a few months ago and had realised the importance of life yet in the daily cycle called life it was all forgotten . I realised life is not tomorrow but “now” . I realise postponing things is the most grave risk we take . We all believe we don’t take risk and thats an irony , because we take risk every second by postponing our life events 🙂 . I wish this awareness stays with me that I am mortal and we all have to leave this planet one day . With this thought my mind snapped back to “now “, the reality . I wish you “now” , the present(see why they call it present? its a gift indeed) . I wish you live life . I wish you awareness .

Social Media or Anti Social Media , My new year resolution.

Technology/digital / social media I always believed will help in bringing people together . I felt it’s about being social and not anti social . It’s about virtually meeting people across the globe and learning more . However yesterday I had this realisation that I was wrong!

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Pic courtesy : Google
Technology is taking away from us the ability to be “human” . It s making us anti social . We are forgetting that taking action doesn’t mean a post or like or retweets. I have been unwell and been home yesterday and this thought dawned upon me (idle mind :)). When I go on whatsapp first thing unconsciously I see is what time was the other person online last , but why did I have to know that or even look at that? Is it my intent to know more or is it that we are insecure or is it plain curiosity? I don’t understand why we are blinded by these apps and platforms . Isn’t addiction the right word?  So many thoughts occurred to me like,
Why we sit across a table with friends and stare at our phones . Why we can’t live without touching our phones for even an hour. What if we spent the phone time on people who is a part of our life . What if we hugged them more than fidgeting on the phone .
What if we said I love you in person than updating a status and professing love .
What if we expressed our gratitude in person , folding hands . How about stop envying the “social happy posts” we see and get real?
So i decided to take action and make this a resolution for this year , I will call people and wish them on their birthdays or special days , I already started this from November last year partially . I mean why not? I am human and I can speak and may be bray(read sing) once in a while .
I have decided to stay off phone completely even when am at traffic signals , I give 50% of my time to day dream and 50% to phone when am stalled at a signal , now 100% off phone 😉
 I plan to keep my phone in my bag while am at lunch or dinner with family or friends as the world can wait while I eat my meal .
I have decided not to humiliate the person sitting across the table with me having a conversation by staring at the gadget which can’t emote .
I have decided not to take my phone out of my bag while I am In a meeting room .
I have decided to give my 100% to whatever I do . My time is precious so is the person’s who decided to spend it with me , time to get human and respect each other .. oh! Don’t you worry there are a zillion people on social media and they can survive with us .
PS: If there is an emergency needless to say we have to use our phones and that wont change , if I am found violating my above resolution I request you to bring it to my notice .

Love

Love, an emotion that causes pleasure and pain to a deeper level , I always wondered what is it .. Love surely is confused with attachment at most times , so what is Love ?

Is love the absence of hatred or is it all about balancing it out ,

Is love all about receiving or is it just about giving ,

Is love the first few months of courting or is it something that lasts a life time ,

Is love meant to fade or is it meant to remain ,

Does love end or is love living happily ever after ,

Is love being understanding or is love what we don’t understand ,

Is love what the mind says or is it what the heart feels ,

Is love all about hiding or is it about sharing ,

Is love only him and her or is it about everyone ,

Is love all about expectations or is it acceptance .

Light or darkness- its our choice

Until we open the doors the sun light can’t come in , until we put the lights on it will remain a dark night , until we allow good to happen it won’t happen . I have known this for a long time , I have experienced it at a very deeper level , I am a staunch believer of it . Something made this feeling even more stronger for me today . I have been under the weather from yesterday, I can’t handle cold weather by the way , am a sunshine soul 🙂  . If there is no Sun I will feel something is amiss in my life, Light plays such a key role for me and people who know me are aware of the importance of light in my life . Light is also positive energy for me . Sorry I digressed . Here is what I wanted to write ,  I have been down with cold , headache from yesterday and been home bound for the entire day . Popped in some med and slept last night  to wake up feeling better today while not completely ok . I was wearing a sweater , a pair of socks and was under a quilt the whole morning and wondering how will I deal with the cold weather today . I hadn’t opened the windows assuming it will be cold outside obviously . I had to finally step out for lunch around 1 and I chose to wear a pull over so that I am warm and left home . The moment I stepped out of my building I realised how hot it was . I was regretting dressing up the way I have as I needed ac to remain alive with all this dressing . All sunny ,a bright day and instant boost of energy .

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pic courtesy : Google

While I was driving this thought occurred to me that I was inside my home , my comfort zone and just being there unwilling to explore what’s behind that door . It was an assumption , it was a choice I made . All I had to do was step out of my comfort zone , see what was happening to see the light , to feel better . In life isn’t that what we all do? Live in fear , live with assumptions while all we have to do is may be peek , take a leap of faith , just open that window or open the door to see what is in store outside . It is always better to experience than assume , I have always seen sunshine on the other side whenever I tried .. I have seen happiness , I hope you do too .

Why to stop judging?

I have been noticing one trait with lot of us from the time I have known myself . We are conditioned in a  way that we judge and we are constantly judging people around us , people in our lives without the knowledge that we have all become seasoned judges . How sad isn’t it? Do we even realise the kind of impact that will leave on another’s mind? especially a kids? No! we don’t. Why? because we are not even aware of the blunder we are busy committing day in and out . Thankfully we don’t go behind bars for being not so nice in our thoughts or behaviours with our family and friends and the best part is at most times the victim doesn’t even know he is suffering until a certain stage. All this because we judge . Our spouses, friends , families , kids , colleagues , etc etc etc I am not even going a little far and discussing politics or current affairs , thats unbearable 🙂

While all these thoughts have been juggling in my head for a while now , today I decided to put them here . What if one of us stop judging and stop accepting being judged ?

Just because I don’t think like you, I don’t become any lesser than you .

Just because I don’t do all that you like ,I don’t become a bad soul.

Just because I don’t do all that you want me to, I don’t become a fool.

Just because I don’t dream all that you do, my dreams don’t become void.

just because I am not like you ,I don’t become a nobody.

Just because you don’t see me for what I am , I don’t cease to exist.

Just because I am not a part of your world ,I don’t become an alien.

Just because you think you are right, I don’t become wrong!

Just because you don’t see the good in me , I don’t become bad.

Just because you think you are smart, I don’t become dumb.

Just because you want me to be you , I won’t become a clone.

We are all unique and no two people are same on this planet  . Lets please stop judging , categorising folks around us and accept them for what they are and who they are. Just because we don’t see the good , they don’t become bad