Perspectives Of Life

This is the story of my spiritual journey which started with a random introduction to one entrepreneurial program called “INSIGHT - the DNA of success” conducted by my guru Jaggi Vasudev. On one of the most common days, Rahul Dewan (my boss) offered me to attend this residential program being conducted in Isha Yoga Center.

I was really skeptical. 

Not because I doubted the potential of what it had to offer me but I wasn’t sure if I am suitable or even worth attending such a high-end gathering full of all entrepreneurs and C-suite executives from across the globe. 

Trusting the mutual faith and RD’s wisdom, I registered myself for the program with sheer openness that life might have something hidden in it for me. Today, I would like to offer my sincere gratitude to him for introducing me to this journey.  

Going through the program was a lovely experience of hearing stories of all the entrepreneurs and how they scaled up their businesses at some point in time. Which on one side, made me question - Have I done enough in my life, what I should take back as learning and apply to my life while on the other side it made me feel confident thinking that I must be doing something right that’s why I am sitting here with this opportunity of hearing such insightful experiences, building connections with these leaders, and above all meeting Sadhguru. 

Mind games cannot be won by the mind itself. As RD often says - It’s all mind that keeps on building these rackets against your own self. So I let go of these thoughts and listened to what was offered to me at that moment.

 Also, Sadhguru says 

“The more you identify with your mind, the further away you are from Yourself”

“The fear is simply because you are not living with life, You are living in your mind.”

― sadhguru

Meeting Sadhguru the first time provided me with different levels of energy altogether that thoughts of why I am here started disappearing and just being in the moment taking the best of it. Where the intellectual mind was raising a lot of open questions and curiosity of asking those questions from my Guru was getting higher and higher. 

But I struggled, on one side it was the curiosity to know more that I don’t know and on the other side it was the intellectual smartness that this is all common sense, I know it all and I can connect all the dots, let me present my understanding and “smartness” to everyone present there. 

This is what most of us undergo at times. At work, at home, with friends, with strangers. The feeling of knowing it all or I understand what another person is saying without giving complete attention or making perceptions/assumptions early on ( the “I” or your identity) or showing off/concerned of others would perceive me as. One's perception is the only limitation. Many times we wrap statements in our questions and just try to share our perspective or opinion instead of actually asking a question. 

The feeling started building up as Sadhguru started speaking more about dissolving one's identity and breaking the barrier. Being a strong believer in myself I couldn’t resist and stood up to ask a question 

“On one side you are asking to give away your identity and on the other side you are suggesting we do inner engineering to know ourselves better, wouldn’t it make our identity more and more stronger?” 

He laughed.

He laughed and asked me - is it a question or are you telling me your philosophy? Gently actioned me to sit down and asked me to come to the ashram to get the answers. I sat down with a feeling of dejection. 

My question went unanswered. 

After 1.5 years, now when I reflect back I see a lot of learning even in this small instance.

We in our mind keep on building a lot of philosophies, which keeps our mind engrossed all the time, resulting in actions and experiences based on that, which interns keep on building our belief system and get into this cycle of doing actions validating our philosophies. 

One's perception is the only limitation. The only truth is existence.

Many times we wrap statements in our questions and just try to share our perspective or opinion instead of actually asking a question. 

Why seek the truth when you already have it? 

Learn to say and admit that “I do not know”. What is wrong with that? I do not know carries a tremendous possibility and learn to live with the ambiguity of not knowing ... 

Give up your conclusions!! Let your logical mind get away from building these philosophies/perceptions/conclusions, picking a side of believing or disbelieving and embracing things the way they are, it opens up enormous possibilities.

See it the way it is, and deal with it the way it is ...

#Discipline #Practice #Consistency

I immediately happen to undergo an intensive Inner Engineering program (an opportunity to engineer an inner transformation that deepens your perception, bringing about a dimensional shift in the very way you look at your life, your work, and the world that you inhabit), by initiating you to a 21 minutes yoga practice - Kriya called “Shambhavi Mahamudra” that brings your entire system into alignment so that your body, mind, emotions, and energies function in harmony.  

The journey into my spiritual growth is continuing, without even a single day when I missed practicing my Kriya (twice every day morning and evening during sandyakala). And it has brought in clarity, eliminated the clutter, even simplified situations which not long ago, I would have thought of giving up. 

Consistency. 

I make sure I give my best to sit down for my kriya without any expectations of any outcome but just to live with it every day. Like watering the seed seeded by guru every day, to ensure it keeps blossoming. My Guru says, you give your 100 percent and leave rest to grace. There are a number of excuses to not do it just one day. From I had a bad day, I want to rest, I have children, it is not possible to juggle with work or any XYZ situation. Don’t believe me and find out for yourself !! Everything is possible with a sheer WILL to do it. The will to do opens up a lot of possibilities. 

“Being a seeker means no matter what the Vedas said, what Krishna or Shiva said, you have to know the truth in your own experience.” – Sadhguru

When at work, it helps clear cluttered up paths that are not adding to you and helps you to grow. The realization of I don’t know and the curiosity to seek solutions either to customer problems or organization or team/people problems. 

You learn and realize that you are able to accomplish any results by constant practice of tools/practices sharpening you, your consciousness and bringing utmost clarity and awareness. The results/outcomes are just the consequence that you can never control. It's just the journey or the karma which you can control if you are conscious and aware. This journey continues further in growing this manicured garden into the forest … 

Either by exploring and diligently practicing 360 feedforward leadership growth programs like Marshall Goldsmith Stakeholder Centered Coaching introduced by our executive coach “Ram Gopalan” in our workplace (which also showed tremendous results after 3-4 months of practice) to exploring all 7 dimensions of Yoga (112 sutras from Adiyogi times) with possibilities to move rapidly from awareness to acceptance, through to action.

#Perception to Reality #Being/doing/having

During this journey, my perspective towards life has totally changed from being outward focusing toward more internal-facing. It just widened my horizon of how I think(broadened my perspective), being more receptive (the state of being), which in turn changed my actions on how I do things, to what I do, to what I get or others see/perceive me. 

That’s what Yoga is, the union of you as life to the entire creation and finally to the source of creation, the Creator “Shiva” (that which is not). To this Sadhguru says “Truth is not in the words that we speak, it's in the way we hold the life within you. It’s in the way you are (the state of being). When the sun comes up in the morning it lights up everyone. Whosoever opens up his eyes for them there is light to see. If you sit like that absolutely all-inclusive. You are in touch with the truth. If you are in touch with truth there can be no suffering in you. It’s as simple as that…..”

I could just relate to it or become more aware of it with my continuous meditation practices and surrender to the divine, to this truth. I could see my anxiety towards small things disappearing, of trying to control the outcomes or expect things to happen in a certain way I believe is true (my perceptions). I was not anymore getting angry toward any of the situations, people, the whole cosmos around me. Just accepting it the way it is, not react to it, just observe it with utmost involvement. You will absolutely see Divine in everything!! 

Being spiritually aware could relate to this even further recently when our business coach Ram introduced us to a framework, while we were defining the values of our organization. Where he mentioned defining the values we live by as leaders/individuals within the organization (the state of being) and then define what we do being in that state and further mapping it down to how I do it, finally reaching down to the end state of what we get as an organization. Like being responsible, how I would do certain things to what I do ( defining the behaviors in action).

“If you want to have more, you have to become more. Success is not something you pursue. What you pursue will elude you; it will elude you; it can be like trying to chase butterflies. Success is something you attract by the person you become. For things to improve, you have to improve. For things to get better, you have to get better. For things to change, you have to change. When you change, everything changes for you.”

- Jim Rohn

Ever wondered why we say “Human being” and not “animal being” or “plant being”? It is just that we are the only species on this cosmos who have the intelligence to perform actions based on a state of being. Like if we are happy we do things in a certain way, if we are vulnerable we do a thing in a certain way. We are often caught in the psychological drama of our mind, thoughts, emotions .. in such a way that our state of being as a Human, starts getting impacted by the external conditions and so does our actions. One moment we are happy, the other moment we are sad. Imagine how life would be if we are happy all the time !! Even further imagine that we attain a state of being where we don’t differentiate between happiness and sadness. ALL is one. The big UNION. The creation and the source of creation, all one !! The conditioning fades…

Naturally, human beings are the only species in this cosmos who need training, coaching or framework to function in a certain way :-) We (along with our education system, conditioning ..) have screwed our intelligence to work against us, that’s where we need coaches like me to make us realize what being agile is or executive/Organisation coaches like Ram to look at the organization as a whole (as we many times tend to be the fish in the water who is looking for water ..) or spiritual guru (enabling to explore the inner dimensions)

Otherwise, ask yourself, does your child need to be made to realize what being agile is. As Leaders/coaches, we should strive to create an organization that functions as an organism, with each part of it as agile it could be to as connected it can be, with intelligence built into the system to self-organize or be in the state needed to serve a common purpose.