He was known as the Maestro and is still known as the same. I have met people from seven nations and in each, people knew him, adored him, loved him and even worshipped him. He spent his whole life into what he loved. He did it so marvelously that he became his work. He became his music. Today, internationally people know Qawali through one name: Ustaad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Read the rest of this entry »
And you have tried all of your best that you could to save it. You have made all your efforts, seeked all the help that you thought there was and there is nothing much you can do about it. Then do one thing….Let it collapse. Read the rest of this entry »
I did not know what I was truly capable of till I started to love myself. In the earlier days of my venture, it was strange as if I had entered into an alien world. It was not known to me previously.
Loving oneself truly asks you of one thing: to do whatever is in your reach to become better. The rule is simple yet profoundly effective. During the process we have to fight only one factor that greatly resists our will to love ourselves: laziness.
It is alone laziness that we do not engage ourselves in a work out program or an evening walk, or we do not enroll in a new course that we know shall be of great boost to our career or do not do things that at one day become an emergency.
We hide behind other excuses. We do not have time. I am too busy. The audit work is in progress at office. It is cloudy today. We’ll start tomorrow. The list is almost inexhaustible, but the fact is these are all masks for our laziness.
My greatest fight in the venture of loving myself was against my laziness. I was used to watching TV for hours daily. I would not workout or do a jog. I would not even go to a doctor if I would find early symptoms of illness in me.
And it kept on happening. Months and years kept passing by. Till one day I got tired and sick of it all. I had lost enough and had nothing to lose. Well yes, during all those times, I had one continuous unquenchable desire to grow,which never for once lowered in its intensity. One thing I never stopped doing was to read. I kept on reading and reading. Although reading books that let us grow is an act of loving ourselves, reading stories or novels or most work of fiction does not do much in the process of mental growth. I was actively involved in reading that helped me grow or that stretched my mind, but all my endeavors of loving myself were inside my head.
The problem was the same. I had desire to grow: mentally, spiritually, emotionally, financially, physically and relationship-wise, but I kept on procrastinating that desire till I had had enough.
The outer world begins to change only when we start to take action. Measurable, quantifiable, objectively verifiable action. Actions like I called 7 publishers in one month. I sent my work proposals to 93 organizations. I started spending almost 2 hours on improving my physical self doing things like brisk walking and jogging, workouts and aerobics. I started writing my thoughts on paper and on my laptop and on my blog.I dropped intake of sugar and carbohydrates from my diet. I reduced TV watching to one hour daily and then to 2 hours a week.
I began to take actions. I began to work out regularly. I began to love myself. And then things began to change. Yet on a slower pace but they began to change.
Small pleasant surprises started to develop around. I started getting work. I began to be noticed among professional networks. I started to feel better during all day and my energy levels started staying generally high. I started to sleep early and stopped punishing myself for staying awake till late hours. The list of yet so many to be read books began diminishing and it started to check off against those which were read. Offers for work increased. Incomes began to move in.
More than that all, I started to experience what is called the victory over oneself. We all drink water on a daily basis. There is nothing peculiar about this. But can you imagine yourself after going through two days in a wilderness without water and then finally being able to find a fresh water stream?
It is not water only then, it is a sign of endurance that you can survive the harshest and the toughest challenges nature offers us.
It is a sign that we can endure and grow and come out of worst scenarios, whether self-created or thrown on us as a test by life. We do not know what we are truly capable of till we start loving ourselves, through thoughts translated into actions.
I learned that some things are worth knowing. They are worth every effort to go beyond our comfort zones and to know them and to do some of them.
It is worth doing to stop a car by a small, seemingly empty mosque by the side of a highway. The silence is worth it and reciting a few lines from Quran while sitting there is beyond any feeling you can feel.
It is worth knowing to forget your busy routines and meet your old friends and laugh silly all night. I did it and I now know it was worth it.
It is worth attempting to be silent for half an hour every day. Just sitting silent. Doing perfectly nothing !
It is worth knowing that to love is to grow spiritually, yourself and those whom you say you love.
Follow your heart at what you do to earn. At least for once in your life span of 60 to 70 years do that. It is worth it.
Speak to your God or whoever you believe in. Speak to Him when you have no one to speak to and speak to Him when you have every one to speak to.
Tell your love some day that today you are there for her and she can do whatever she can with your time.
Spend some time to realize and tell yourself how small we all are to judge some one.
Walk bare foot all day.
Try to not use any chemical for a day. Soaps, cosmetics, shampoos, conditioners, toothpastes, processed foods. ( Try using a “maswak” replacing toothpaste).
For a single day try to not speak unless necessary and very important.
For a week, try not to ask any one any favours for you, whether it be asking some one to hand over a cup from the kitchen or to drop you some where along where he is going.
Enroll in learning Arabic. It is worth it.
Pick your kids early from their school and go to a picnic.
Take your friend for a hiking.
Some times pick a pen and write what you feel.
Kiss your wife without an intent of going further. Just kiss.
Travel to a place you have never been, travel with the same intent of going there because you have never been there.
If you think you know yourself, think again and try speaking to a friend when very hungry.
Walk to a friend’s home even if takes half an hour, just do it some day.
Try to not stay indoors an hour before sun set.
And some times …..
Look at the sky !
It had been a long break. A quite long break for a writer. I did not write for full thirty eight days. I wrote nothing.
Though at times I wanted to write but I realized that I would not be able to complete that work. Some times during this period, I did not want to say any thing. I decided to be silent. I had been so busy in doing things that I “am” !
During this all time, I had been continuously contemplating on myself.
I decided and learned and acted on the most important things of my life.
I had been busy doing not what I had always wanted to do but what had been my ID. Now what was that perhaps may not be that much important for you. It could be cloth weaving, It could be gardening and raising flowers.
The point is: what does a pianist do? Play the piano. What does an aviator do? Fly the plane. What does a traveller do? Travel. What does a teacher do? Teach. What does a poet do? Writes poetry.
We all have different roles in our lives. We are fathers and mothers, spouses and siblings, teachers and students, employers and employees, social service doers and some cause supporters. And each one of our roles demands an “identity”.
What kind of a son or a daughter we would be? Caring, loving or some thing more that you want to be? What kind of a spouse? Loving, trustworthy, loyal? What kind of a banker would you be? Professional or client oriented? What kind of a coach would you like your players to remember you as? Superb, hardworking, talent nurturing ?
These are all adjectives which give us our unique ID for that role. A superb parent, a loving spouse, a trustworthy friend, a thorough researcher, a goal accomplisher, a truth seeker, a peace keeper, a respect giver etc.
An ID is an answer to the question. What if you were on a national TV and you were given 10 minutes to think and one minute to speak in a reply to the question: “Who are you?”
Our IDs are our recognition for our own selves in our own eyes first and in the eyes of the world later.
The bad news is that most of the times we choose our IDs unconsciously and some times rather stupidly.
The good news is we can always choose the right IDs directing us to what we want to be or become.
So do the following. This simple exercise would change your view and perhaps your life in future:
1. Take a pen and a paper and in the first column write all your roles that you are in your life, e.g a husband, son, spouse, parent, professional, surgeon, lawyer, coach, etc
2. In front of that role, use one or two adjectives as your IDs expressing what kind and quality of that role you are going to be.
3. Decide to retain those IDs and rather improve them.
4. If you already have some IDs and you are feeling stupid and unhappy in your life, it is because your actions are not matching your ID.
5. In this case do one thing. Either change your ID to match your actions or change your actions to match your ID.
Our actions matching our IDs: that is the key to genuine happiness and joy in our lives.
There are nearly 6.98 billion people living on Earth as of now. To this date, how many people have been born and died can be another staggering number, perhaps several times more than that.
The question is why you were born as an another soul? Why did the invisible hand sent you to this blue planet? You can call it God, Jesus, Allah, Raam, Om or whatever who sent you here but the fact is you were sent here and you would leave this place at some point in time. The question is thus why your soul was created and you were sent here? And if now you are here, why are you here?
Just take out a few minutes of your time to seriously think on it?
1. There was a gap that only you could fulfill.
2. That gap would require some thing e.g. a talent, a skill, a creative process, a service, a contribution that only you were able to do or to make.
3. If there were other people who could exactly do the same, then there were no need to send you for doing the same job. As we all know its stupid to designate the same job to more than a person, would not the intelligence and divine wisdom spread across the universe know this fact.
Thinking and pondering on the above three points may lead you to a feeling of Eureka about the most important pheonomenon in your life: you.
Why is your purpose important? Every thing has a reason to be. It is in our built in nature to do things for a cause. This is shown from our every day experiences of handling things and spending routines to our life long aims. We hate wandering around for no reason. Leaving a room and being asked where are you going, if we do not know where and we answer the same, we shall be considered insane.
For most of us we do things for a cause in a hierarchy. We learn things to earn and enjoy a good life. We earn because we want to have more comfort for ourselves, our families and those whom we love. We want to have things and activities done in a hierarchy.
Understanding the hierarchy is important. We need oxygen to breathe. The second most important need is of water. Then comes food. Then comes the comfort or maintaining a suitable temperature for our bodies which includes the need for clothing and shelter. Then lies the need of being loved and being intimate i.e. of touching and being touched, of hugging and making love. Then is the need of contribution; to give back what we have received. At the final top is the need for spirituality.
This hierarchy has been addressed in different manners of arrangement by several authors.
Spending real time to find out the real purpose of our life is addressing the top most need first. Knowing it and then weaving your path towards it step by step. This principle is quite highlighted by Stephen R. Covey in his work The Seven Habits and he has termed it Begin with End in Mind. To decide the final outcome first and then gradually work towards it and on our way keep addressing the needs as they need to be met.
What happens to us that we are addressed in the intermediary needs of comforting our bodies and egos so much that we never make it to the top. Most of us are caught up in a frenzy of gadgets, digital toys, cell phones, laptops, cars, devices, jewelleries and wearing apparel, dining and cuisines that we in fact lose sight of the final goal: our mental and spiritual development.
Efforting to know and finding out our entire purpose of being does not let us go lost. We do not end up confused some where in the middle before reaching our goals.
Knowing our entire purpose of life makes us stand in the elite of the elites. This elite group is nobler than any other elite group formed cause of possessions or financial status, since this can never be taken away from us.
Shall you choose to be in the super elite?
There are many opinions as to who created this universe and us, but there are no two opinions that it is the same hand that carved us and its the very hand that made the universe.
Logically, theoretically and intelligence-wise the rules which define gravity, magentism, electro-magnetism, the law of heat, inertia, momentum, the law of pressures etc also define us in our spirituality and day to day life as well. Read the rest of this entry »
In a responce to my last post DR.Tow Khee Kin from Malaysia asked a few questions at a social media website. It was DR.Tow’s questions that I was looking forward to be asked. I really loved them and decided to reply in detail. Since DR. Tow had asked those questions on an open forum, I take the opportunity to reply to them at a public forum as well. I really am grateful and thank ful to Dr. Tow for asking those, for had not he asked, I would not have perhaps shared this all with you for for another some time. Below are the questions as well as the answers. Read the rest of this entry »
Most of us are caught in the myth of discomfort and its reasons. Let me explain. Most of us are caught up in why some thing bad happened to us? Why did she leave me? Why I was born to such parents? Why I had a dysfunctional family? Why I had not the opportunity that others had? Why did this pimple just hit my face? Why does this always happen that gives me pain? Why did I have to go through such a divorce? Why have not I been offered such a good job offer? Read the rest of this entry »