All in the game

Decisions that we take everyday make us what we are. It is these decisions that begin to define us and give us the foundation to build on. Making decisions effectively thus forms a very important part of our present & our future. I remember watching the bollywood flick Deewaar & today when I look back I’m reminded as to how two brothers who faced a similar situation in life made two very different decisions. While one chose to battle it by imposing brutality on the circumstance itself the other decided to battle it by empowering himself with knowledge. There was aggression in both approaches, they stuck to their decisions fiercely and tasted success in their own ways. But only one decision was right & the success that came with it did not fade away with time or people. The Gita talks about how poorly we are used to making decisions & directs us towards a mechanism, if deployed can help us make wise and correct decisions. Not only will they bring lasting happiness bu...

Every cell in human body is unique. It performs a unique function in terms of assimilation or diffusion in different proportions. They have unique proportion of proteins so as to be identified as an individual cell. Hence if one cell has a content say x, then the other has say x+δ (delta). Thus it goes without saying that every individual has a unique δ that makes him very different from another. Human body has 100 trillion cells and if every cell is unique, why is very hard to believe that of a population of 7 billion on this planet every individual has the potential to be unique?? I never fully understand when people talk about self realization, though I’ve used the term quite a few times in my blog. I believe the word is much bigger than what it is generally understood to be. One of the reasons for it being, the self itself encompasses a whole gamut of possibilities & probabilities that it’s very hard to believe that you could completely understand every permutation-combinati...

Any activity done periodically becomes a habit. Habits become a necessity. And necessities become your life. Simply put sanskara is nothing but the habit you form from a very early stage in your life. Parents & gurus play a vital role in inculcating sanskara into a child. Sanskara is a set of experiences that the child has undergone in his early understanding of the world around him. So he reads, interprets and reacts as parents & gurus train them. A child's mind is like soft molten clay slowly being cast into a mould. With every passing day the clay solidifies with experiences gained from worldly endevours. Some experiences leave lasting & profound impressions on the mind that some recall even after years of rebirth ! Hence moulding the mind with the right view of worldly experience leads to formation of good sanskara & taking a negative, claustrophobic view of worldly experiences leads to cultivation of bad sanskara in an individual. Sanskara thus also becomes a w...

To build the tallest building you also have to dig the deepest foundation. Men of extraordinary insights into life have gained it only by extraordinary sacrifices & hardships. They say higher you rise greater is the fall, but I guess this isn't what the phrase was meant to mean. My message to you all is, do not fear a fall - the steeper your fall, the higher you rise. If you examine any successful man's life you will see that success has come to him/her only after they've made those sacrifices. It is this sacrifice that make you strong & gives you the power to rise up to your dreams. This power can only come when you hit the absolute rock bottom in life. JK Rowling's life wasn't all 'hogwart-sy' and happy. It took her a failed marraige, single parentage, constant criticism of her impoverished parents & living in absolute poverty to hit that rock bottom. She says that there came a time when she was left with nothing else but what she really ...

Attitude determines where you go in life. People say that true love gets you closer to God but I believe even paucity of love can get you closer to God if you have the right attitude in life. Losing someone close to you, getting duped in a relationship, fight with a close friend or any reason that causes depletion of love in your life forces you to re-examine the way you have been living. It feels good to be loved but anything traversing the outside-in trajectory isn't to be trusted. That’s why they say that God is within you. Trust only what is inside because that love will never leave you. People die, hearts get broken, girlfriends find new boyfriends & vice versa and so the love associated with it also vanishes. This absence of love then turns into hate, hatred towards the cause of the anomaly. There are some people who spend all their lives hating the reason behind their suffering but there are some who introspect within and try to find out what is it that is hurti...