## When you get tired to the point of exhaustion trying to get the answers; take a deep breath, meditate, release the toxins; the panic, the fear, the urgency of getting answers; get hold of yourself, your inner strength. And then after some good amount of time, Rethink. Hopefully you'll arrive at the answers.
## Its better to live your own choices and handle their consequences; Rather than living the choices of others and to keep blaming the entire world for the fate that turns out to be. Its better to be the driver of your life than to be a mere befuddled passenger.
## Sometimes, we cannot give expression to what feelings and emotions are evoked in us, on an encounter which may last for a minute or an hour or a day or longer. But, our aura has understood. So, trust your intuition, your instinct.
## Everything is now. We are mere actors in the cosmic drama of life. Past is like a movie whose climax is over and done with. We have played our role and we are now in the present playing a new role. Its time to forget that character of past and assume the new character of present. Its about evolving. Future is yet another movie whose script will be revealed in time. The present is everything.
These days I find myself constantly thinking about where life is heading. I find myself thinking about all the small and big choices I have made in life. And while doing that I sometimes find myself fussing over compartmentalizing my choices into the two square boxes of right and wrong. Some other times I find myself fussing over the choices yet to be made. It’s like getting lost in a world of blues, stumbling at every step while trying to figure out the right way; when in reality there actually is no right and wrong way. There are just different ways, each with its own set of perks and setbacks.
I don’t see life as black and white; I rather understand it to be just about all shades of grey. Then, why should I be worried about making the right choices all the time? I guess it’s just a phase. A phase where I am so occupied dwelling in all the possibilities of future that I find the present getting blurred in the background. Despite all the contemplation, the upcoming life just seems illusive. Each day ahead is one step closer to being thirty. And it’s freaking me out these days.
My motivation level sky-rockets one moment and hits rock-bottom the next. Sometimes, I feel I can deal with being 30 and single; Other times I feel afraid of being left alone. Sometimes, I feel I have a decent life and crave for no more; Other times I feel I haven’t done anything substantial in life and I am just nowhere. Sometimes, I just want a peaceful life; Other times I find myself delving into some far-fetched dreams. Sometimes, I make a decision to not settle when it comes to finding a partner; Other times I feel like making it work with any man who so ever comes my way, even if halfheartedly. Sometimes, I find myself lingering on to the slightest hope of finding love; Other times I find myself thrashing all my vain hopes and dictating myself to get on with reality. Sometimes, I find myself filled with a desire to travel and explore; Other times I feel like being grounded in my tiny little room for days together. Sometimes, I want my thoughts to be of a conformist’s; Other times I want to let them fly into rebellion. Sometimes, I feel I can handle anything and everything; Other times I lack the confidence to even stand up and face the mundane. Sometimes, I want to do something, anything, so vehemently; Other times I just care about having a good night’s sleep. Sometimes, I want to be the person I am not; Other times I want the other people to be the persons they are not.
But then, it’s just a phase. A phase where I am trying to deal with approaching thirty in a matter of two years. When I think about the past five or six years, time seems so fleeting. I was allowed to be naïve back then, but somehow time just slipped past and I am still naïve. Still clueless, trying to solve the jigsaw puzzle of my expectations from life.
Anyhow, It’s just a phase and like any other, it too shall pass!
·Publisher: Fingerprint! Publishing; First edition (1 July 2016)
·Language: English
·ISBN-10: 8175993901
·ISBN-13: 978-8175993907
About the Author:
Shubha Vilas holds a degree in
engineering and law with a specialization in patent law. But in essence, he is
an author, a motivational speaker, lifestyle coach, and a storyteller par
excellence. His leadership seminars, wherein he addresses the crucial
needs of top-level management through inspiring seminars, are popular in
corporate houses. Shubha Vilas periodically interacts with the youth in
premier institutes across the world, inspiring them to live a life based on
deeper human values. Traveling across the globe and meeting people from
all walks of life, he teaches the importance of being governed by dharmic
principles, meting out spiritual lifestyle tips and contemporary wisdom to deal
with modern-day life situations.
Other books by the Author:
Ramayana-The Game of Life Series, The Chronicles of Hanuman
My Review:
When we think meditation, we think of
an abstruse skill of a deep interiorized focused state achieved with closed
eyes. But this book introduces us to a whole new concept of meditation with
open eyes. Each thought, which has been presented in the book relating it to a
story from the epics of Ramayana and Mahabharata, opens the window to
meditation with open eyes while participating in the battlefield of life.
The book is a compilation of beautiful
thoughts or rather Sutras of life. The best part of this compilation for me is
that it brings out the balance between practical and spiritual. Each life
lesson is carved out into words that fall perfectly into place. There are no
embellishments and no going off the track. Each life lesson is stated in way
that it just hits the bull’s eye.
If one can interiorize the sixty four
meditations that the author has presented in the book, and make them a part of
his/her everyday behavior, he is sure to rise in life, spiritually, personally
and professionally.
There are lessons for every wake of
life from love to happiness to acceptance, from managing anger to handling
embarrassments, the qualities of a successful leader told by giving the example
of Lord Krishna.
I’ll quote a few of my favorite sentences
from the book: -
“Just like harmony between a lion and
human is unlikely, harmony between unlike minds is unlikely. For stable
relationships, we need to embrace like minded people, rather than forcing the unlike-minded
people to embrace change.”
“Love in any relationship is about
action and not just a feeling. Active love is about prioritizing others’ needs,
not just in words but also in actions.”
“When you hate someone, you actually
hate something in him that is a part of yourself.”
The real essence of the book, however,
lies in being able to follow the wise words written in there and not just
reading it. This book is a guide to every human being. Written in simple words
which have rather a deep impact, this book is a beautiful read. This review is a part of the biggest Book Review Program for Indian Bloggers. Participate now to get free books!
Life teaches something every other
day. Learning never stops. Life is a school we never stop attending to. We fall
and then we rise. We fall again and then we rise again. It goes on and on. It’s
not like the regular school we attend in our childhood, where there is a set
curriculum, a set list of lessons, and where we have the choice of leaving out
a few lessons if they are too much for our understanding. The school of life
comes with an element of surprise; we never know what is the next lesson we may
have to learn. We never know what and how life will challenge us. We never have
a clue what test we may have to appear in. We may have to go through the same
test again and again, until we choose to learn finally.
There is so much that we learn every
day, actively or passively. But if I have to share the greatest lesson of life
that I have learnt so far goes something like below:
No matter what, don’t carry emotional baggage.
Believe in forgiveness and move on. If we give a lot of importance to whatever
wrongs were committed against us, we poison our ownselves. And we sure don’t want
to do that. Life is too short to harbor bitterness and host long self pity
parties. Sometimes, we do that in the name of ego/ self-respect, but while
attempting to protect our self respect, we fail to cleanse our emotional
system. When I talk about wrongs, I don’t essentially mean some major
betrayals/ selfish deeds/ drastic harms which we had to go through; I also mean
small and little everyday things, which get escalated in our tiny emotional
system; including arguments, misunderstandings, heartbreaks, unattended needs;
basically everything from tiniest emotion left unhealed to the biggest and most
drastic life experiences.
There is no use playing the blame
game, pinpointing people, holding resentments, criticizing people, criticizing
circumstances. The real freedom, the real liberation and the real bliss comes
with forgiveness. Forgiveness for people and forgiveness for circumstances. No
one does the kind of things they do knowing that they are doing wrong. They do
the kind of things they do because they believe they are doing right. It’s difficult
to understand but it kind of works this way mostly. Everyone is dealing with
their own limitations, learning their own lessons, just like we are. We all
seem to be so different yet our roots are same. We are all attending the same
school of life, just that we are learning the personalized lessons designed
exclusively for us, at our own pace, in our own ways. When we attend school, we
are told by peers and parents to not judge weak students, help everyone and be
good to everyone. Same holds true in the school of life as well. Why judge
people? Why not just be good to everyone. May be they are yet to learn their
lessons. Why not just keep your emotional system clean and pure by learning
forgiveness. Rather than dealing with the emotional baggage, we can deal with
better lessons of life. After all, life is short.
And this principle of forgiveness does
not apply to other people only; it applies to self as well. Infact, it’s much
more important when it comes to self. It’s only human to make mistakes and get
messed up once in a while. It never helps to sit on our own mistakes and
ridicule ourselves. Self-loathing is much more harmful than the emotional
baggage. It’s perfectly alright if we make mistakes. We learn even from our
mistakes. So we should forgive ourselves for all the meddling up we do and love
ourselves all the same.
In the end nothing matters, only love
does. Love is the true nature of all of us humans.
So, that’s the biggest lesson of life I
have learnt till date. I have yet not perfected it and I am constantly trying. It
may take a pretty long time still and that’s another reason it’s the biggest of
all lessons for me.
“SAY NO TO EMOTIONAL BAGGAGE. SAY YES
TO FORGIVENESS. SAY NO TO TRASH EMOTIONS. SAY YES TO LOVE.”
Let fear never drive you. It happens
many a times that we are so used to being afraid and our sub-conscious without
letting our conscious mind know starts affecting our choices. Fear is the
greatest enemy one can have. It makes us believe we are not enough; we do not
deserve any better. It’s the root of all negativity in our minds, all the
toxins in our psyche. When it starts overpowering you, you’ll feel like
settling, settling for the lesser, settling for the fear of not being able to
fit in if you don’t.
“All my friends are getting married.
What if I don’t? What if my age passes and I am left all alone in this world?”
“Oh! But I love this guy! But is he
treating you right? Chances are that he may not be. But what if I don’t find
any better?”
There is an age when everybody around
you is either getting married, getting engaged, going on a honeymoon, having a
family and there are talks of marriage all around you. The panic streak in you
gets propelled by an underlying fear at some or the other point of time; and
then, this underlying fear will give you many expedient and practical terms to
justify this deep seated unrecognized fear. You may call it adjustment, being
practical, sometimes you may even term it as love. It would throw several
logics in front of you-“But! You can’t get everything!”, “It’s about making the
best out of what is available.” “Compromises are a must in life.” “So what if
he has limitations? I love him.” “He is well settled, what if he lacks some
basic sense.” “He is not doing it intentionally. He is just a little messed up.”
“It will get better with time, I can make it work.” And there will be umpteen
no. of reasons that your fear will give you to just settle.
Not that I say believe in some
surreal, far-fetched fairy tale prince coming your way. But, you better know
when you just start crossing that fine line of being propelled by your fears
and fears alone. You’re throwing away your confidence, your self esteem, your
individuality and most of all, your life, your very own life, and all that for some
petty thing as settling.
Making yourself smaller to get that
approval of “Happily Settled” and from whom? The society who least cares? To
appear taller in front of the society, if you give up the height of your self
esteem, you do nothing but betray yourself.
There is not more than a handful of
people in our lives who really care with what we do with our lives. Rest all
just need some masala gossip for sipping their evening masala tea. And the
people who care will always stand by you in all phases of your life, no matter
what. So care about the few who matter.
A little bit of adjustment will always
be required and we do that with our families, with our friends almost all the
time. But don’t let your fear make you adjust more than what is necessary. Don’t
give in if you fear losing yourself. You are the most important being you have
got. Don’t let the fear play you and take you away from your very ownself. Don’t
let the fear be the driver. Don’t let it pull the reins for you.
As it is rightly said, “Fear is death,
fear is sin, fear is hell, fear is unrighteousness, fear is wrong life. All the
negative thoughts and ideas that are in this world have proceeded from this
evil spirit of fear.”
Once upon a time, there was a little girl
(let’s call her Sandra for this post) who was very shy and reserved. She was
not very talkative, but she did not find anything wrong about keeping quiet.
She would be immersed in the world of her own thoughts. She was not adept at
cracking jokes or talking out loud. She was the silent type, nevertheless,
comfortable with her silence. Though children are spared from the naming and
shaming; once they start growing up, they have to bear the brunt of relentless
attacks if they are unable to fit into the crowds. These attacks are not always
explicit; sometimes they are very subtle, even invisible, but the victim knows
when it has hit him/her.
So, as the little girl Sandra starting
growing up, people started judging her. The introverts are often the most
misunderstood people. They get many adjectives to their credit ranging from
arrogant to boring to lame to haughty and some generous people even crown the
introverts with the title of misanthropes. Sandra had a very limited circle.
Though it wasn’t like she disliked people but she could not come up with enough
topics to keep people interested in talking to her. So, people withdrew and
kept a safe distance from her. Ney! Not that she was disliked by people but
only that they did not really want to be around somebody so boring and
unentertaining. That is how Sandra started becoming afraid of people. Infact,
she started becoming scared of having to share space with somebody when there
were just two of them. She started running away from such situations when she
will be left alone in a room with nobody but just one person around. And that
is how she started failing in connecting to people; the connection that true
friends share with no fear of silence between them, no fear of being their true
selves. She did have friends, she did hang out in groups, and she did manage to
make bridges. But she believed these bridges to be the abandoned ones, the
deserted ones. The real connection, the magic; it was missing. Sandra lacked a
jug in her life; a jug to pour freely into, a jug to fill her emotions into, a
jug to understand the words in her silence.
When it came to Sandra, people came in
her life like milestones. Sandra passed through many. Though she loved all whom
she came across in life, she stopped expecting from any. She lived, she loved
and she kept moving. Some of them stayed as well, but Sandra did not let her
heart be truly dependent on anyone, No one.
But Sandra did need a jug like
everyone; a jug to keep herself strong, motivated and positive; to share her
moments of joy and sorrow; to live her strengths and move past her weaknesses.
And after half her life was over, Sandra discovered her jug. Words were her
jug. Her world had always been surrounded with books. And her love of books
soon turned into her love of words. The words which hung all around her and
when she gave them expression she felt fulfilled, at peace. Her jug never lets
her down. Her jug has immense capacity to absorb each of her emotion and her
jug is full of immense light to keep her shining always and forever.
Sandra loves her jug all the more with
each passing day. “Words- The Jug of an
introvert.”
As I sit down and ponder, I wonder how
you have been made up of infinite moments joined together; some sweet, some
bitter; some blissful, some painful; some full of smiles, some full of tears;
some dark, some full of light; some encouraging, some discouraging; some moments
of happiness, some of sorrow; some moments of weaknesses, some of strength;
some moments of despair, some of hope; some moments of faithlessness, some of
unwavering faith. And juxtaposed together, these infinite moments have given
shape to you – my beloved life.
I zoom in to those moments and realize
how I have always taken all my blessings for granted. How I have let happiness
quickly fade away in the face of slightest disappointments. How I have let
myself wallow in misery rather than trying to count my blessings. How I have
struggled with my own lesser self to keep my faith alive.
I zoom closer and I also see that
there have been moments when I was blessed with lessons more precious than
happiness; the lessons of growth, the lessons of wisdom and spirituality and
when I look at those defining moments of my life, I can do nothing but thank
you Dear Zindagi for every turn you have taken and for every experience you
have chosen for me. I realize the reality in the saying of seers. “Everything
happens for Good.” And indeed it does. Even in the worst and the darkest
moments of our lives, in the most hideous realities, in the most tragic
experiences, there are such lessons hidden which can never be learnt lest we go
through such testing times in our lives. These are those lessons which are
perhaps the most difficult but most enlightening too. The light that follows
such darkness is bright and shining; and in that light we flourish to become
better versions of ourselves and that is the reward life had chosen for us. And
I thank you Dear Zindagi for every reward that you had chosen for me. Sometimes
things seem clearer in hindsight, as now I can see clearly that I had been
blessed despite all the moments of hardships and heartbreaks. And I thank you
Dear Zindagi for all my blessings that I have so often not managed to count.
Thank you Dear Zindagi for not letting
me collapse under the weight of my own expectations. For teaching me that it’s
sometimes important to let the relationships breathe rather than suffocating
them by holding too close. It is important to love but not to possess. People
will play their role in your life, some would stay and some would move away.
Life is about constant motion, about constant change.
Thank you Dear Zindagi for teaching me
to believe in the god’s will. For teaching
a very important lesson of faith which goes as under-
You may not be fulfilled the way you
have been wanting, Yet you should not let your mind stagnate at one wish, one
desire, one love. It’s alright because your life is more than one wish, one
desire, one lesson, one love. It’s about letting go when you feel stuck in a
state of impasse; it’s about learning the other lessons till that one lesson
decides to reach you. It’s about learning to believe that your life has a
purpose despite your unfulfillment.
Thank you Dear Zindagi for teaching me
to be soft on myself and treat myself with kindness. For a very important
lesson of protecting my self esteem that goes as under-
It’s not necessary to prove a point all
the time, nor is it necessary to give in to the sea of opinions around you. Don’t
push yourself into a confusion hovering between a defected see-saw of low
self-esteem and control freak arrogance. It’s alright to be different; not all
fingers can be same, yet it’s possible to co-exist. You are on your very own
journey; Don’t explain everything, take it easy, don’t even try to understand
everything, simply accept without resistance even when you don’t understand.
Thank you Dear Zindagi for giving me a chance
to love. Thank you for not letting me become sore even after the heartbreaks
and waiting. Thanks for teaching me to love despite odds, for showing me the
way to the healing love of God.
Thank you Dear Zindagi for all the
precious lessons you gave me and which I am still learning and will always keep
striving to learn.
Thank you Dear Zindagi for everything and
every moment of my life.
