Mind or Heart
I got some interesting feedback to my earlier article "I am richer because I follow my heart."
Some people think me impractical.
Could it be that matters of the heart always appear impractical?
Reproduced are some of the comments.
Good or bad, pleasant or otherwise, all feedback is appreciated. After all the idea is to share experiences and hopefully enrich the quality of our lives. Passion makes things happen. It would be disappointing if this blog were a monologue. Osho once asked "What can be the sound of one hand clapping?"
The comments are interesting and stimulating, but I wish those who respond would post their comments on the blog rather than mailing them to me.
Here is an important question to ask ourselves.
What is the difference between success and happiness?
Success is getting what you want, and happiness is wanting what you have got.
It is easy to confuse the two.
Let me share some additional thoughts;
My childhood teacher, friend, and role model was my Uncle, Sardar Manohar Singh ji. Growing up, he taught me to be totally independent. He warned me "never ever put yourself in the position that you need someone else so badly that you have to allow them to mess with you. The moment people realise they have power over you they begin to toy with you." "To be enslaved, dominated or toyed with, is a terrible feeling, and you will feel stifled and resent yourself" he added.
So in the material and professional world I sought to be totally self sufficient.
I achieved a lot materialistically but spiritually I was hollow. Emotionally I was all bottled up. I would not love, or even trust. My friends found me happy and jovial but little did they realise how superficial I really was.
The first five years of our career were filled with exceptional progress. Progress achieved by sheer hard work, amazing luck and fair share of exploiting others.
Every morning we would rise and shine, and then charge out to do business battle.
We had everything we needed to live a good life, but yet I felt an emptiness. Getting married made me realise how emotionally bankrupt I was. Yet obstinately I remain unchanged.
There was the constant questioning on the meaning on the quality of my life. Then our children came into our lives. I could be a child and uninhibited once again. I began to feel release from my hard boiled shell. In giving, sharing and playing there was a joy that cannot be described, only experienced.
Once the butterfly takes flight it can never be the ugly caterpillar again.
Aware I was but directionless I remained.
However the mind and heart had been rendered fertile for receiving good things and that is what happened.
As my friend Anil Pillai says, "good things come to you only when you need them or when you are ready."
Many people came in my life. Some gave me a leg up, some showed me the way, and some cautioned me from pitfalls. Some like Nana simply adored me, but all of them like the old man to whom I gave a ride awakened me. Each encounter peels away a myth, prejudice, and negativity. A layer at a time you reach ever deeper into yourself. Question is what do I and others like me do with these lessons and experiences?
I am compelled to quote Winston Churchill (British Prime Minister during Second World War); "Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened."
Once awakened everything looks and feels different. Greater depth and finer hues can more readily be discerned. Sure I was more aware but a lot of what I saw in myself did not appeal to me. We had to lead a life that made a difference.
Unfortunately we have learnt to measure life with a single dimension, that of money. What will you do with more power and money beyond a point? Seek more money and power in a never ending cycle? Rather than working to live, we were living to work.
Slowly, not only I, but my brothers changed.
Why fell people and clamber over them, when you can stand on their shoulders, lift them and rise with them to dizzying heights. It was pretty scary, and very dangerous belief because we brothers risked everything for it. The results came slowly but in greater steps with each passing day.
The dream of building a world class Indian organisation where a sense of pride, excitement and inclusive development was addicting and became our goal.
The mosaic of life with all the joy and sadness, good and bad has to be experienced and this posting on the blog is but a feeble attempt at conveying this experience.
"The unexplored life is not worth living and the unlived life is not worth exploring... so said Plato or Socrates (doesn't matter who said it, the message is more important)
I got some interesting feedback to my earlier article "I am richer because I follow my heart."
Could it be that matters of the heart always appear impractical?
Reproduced are some of the comments.
- "I think one should be rich if he/she follows his brain not heart."
- "Wake up man! You live in a real world not in wonderland"
- "Thanks I can relate to this”
- "Touching and inspiring. I am a changed person"
- "Thanks for sharing this with us."
- "I fully agree with the contents and have personally experienced the fulfilment when you give without any expectation in return."
Good or bad, pleasant or otherwise, all feedback is appreciated. After all the idea is to share experiences and hopefully enrich the quality of our lives. Passion makes things happen. It would be disappointing if this blog were a monologue. Osho once asked "What can be the sound of one hand clapping?"
The comments are interesting and stimulating, but I wish those who respond would post their comments on the blog rather than mailing them to me.
Here is an important question to ask ourselves.
What is the difference between success and happiness?
Success is getting what you want, and happiness is wanting what you have got.
It is easy to confuse the two.
Let me share some additional thoughts;
My childhood teacher, friend, and role model was my Uncle, Sardar Manohar Singh ji. Growing up, he taught me to be totally independent. He warned me "never ever put yourself in the position that you need someone else so badly that you have to allow them to mess with you. The moment people realise they have power over you they begin to toy with you." "To be enslaved, dominated or toyed with, is a terrible feeling, and you will feel stifled and resent yourself" he added.
So in the material and professional world I sought to be totally self sufficient.
I achieved a lot materialistically but spiritually I was hollow. Emotionally I was all bottled up. I would not love, or even trust. My friends found me happy and jovial but little did they realise how superficial I really was.
The first five years of our career were filled with exceptional progress. Progress achieved by sheer hard work, amazing luck and fair share of exploiting others.
Every morning we would rise and shine, and then charge out to do business battle.
We had everything we needed to live a good life, but yet I felt an emptiness. Getting married made me realise how emotionally bankrupt I was. Yet obstinately I remain unchanged.
There was the constant questioning on the meaning on the quality of my life. Then our children came into our lives. I could be a child and uninhibited once again. I began to feel release from my hard boiled shell. In giving, sharing and playing there was a joy that cannot be described, only experienced.
Once the butterfly takes flight it can never be the ugly caterpillar again.
Aware I was but directionless I remained.
However the mind and heart had been rendered fertile for receiving good things and that is what happened.
As my friend Anil Pillai says, "good things come to you only when you need them or when you are ready."
Many people came in my life. Some gave me a leg up, some showed me the way, and some cautioned me from pitfalls. Some like Nana simply adored me, but all of them like the old man to whom I gave a ride awakened me. Each encounter peels away a myth, prejudice, and negativity. A layer at a time you reach ever deeper into yourself. Question is what do I and others like me do with these lessons and experiences?
I am compelled to quote Winston Churchill (British Prime Minister during Second World War); "Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened."
Once awakened everything looks and feels different. Greater depth and finer hues can more readily be discerned. Sure I was more aware but a lot of what I saw in myself did not appeal to me. We had to lead a life that made a difference.
Unfortunately we have learnt to measure life with a single dimension, that of money. What will you do with more power and money beyond a point? Seek more money and power in a never ending cycle? Rather than working to live, we were living to work.
Slowly, not only I, but my brothers changed.
Why fell people and clamber over them, when you can stand on their shoulders, lift them and rise with them to dizzying heights. It was pretty scary, and very dangerous belief because we brothers risked everything for it. The results came slowly but in greater steps with each passing day.
The dream of building a world class Indian organisation where a sense of pride, excitement and inclusive development was addicting and became our goal.
The mosaic of life with all the joy and sadness, good and bad has to be experienced and this posting on the blog is but a feeble attempt at conveying this experience.
"The unexplored life is not worth living and the unlived life is not worth exploring... so said Plato or Socrates (doesn't matter who said it, the message is more important)
Dear Guruvinder,
ReplyDeleteIt's a great thing that you have got this blog going. I feel that money as the unit of life is very fine, provided the playing field is level. Partnership law has a very fine clause, which says that a partnership can never be partitioned. It can only be dissolved. In other words you cannot attribute values to different things in a partnership and assign it to someone. You have to convert the entire entity into money and then divide it in the required ratio. It is only fair then. And, here no one can complain that the notes are bad or folded, as it is all legal tender.
The most important aspect in life - is a sense of justice. This is all but gone. When we learned, it was very subjective, but todays learning is objective. Most kids (grownups today) know matters pointedly, but anything around it is lost to them. This is what Socrates meant when he said that. A sense of justice only comes to one who has gone through life in all its varied detail. That's why they only made wise old men judges. Like good whiskey, you mellow with age.
Best wishes to you and family.
Ken said.
ReplyDeleteGS,
I listen to a preacher called Joel Osteen, www.jouelosteen.com.
He said: If you want to be happy for one day go fishing, if you want to be happy for a month get inheritance, if you want to be happy for one year, get married, but if you want to be happy forever help some one.
I think you are right when you say, heart and brain should go hand in hand to be happy, for at the end we will not be on earth after a 100 years.
Regards,
Ken