What is happiness?

What is happiness?

Happiness is what you are. Happiness is the state of your Soul, your being, the One.

That is how all of us are born. No worries no tensions, no wants, no anxieties. That is why you see a baby and you feel unalloyed happiness. And that is why all of us loves a baby, because, here we see in front of us this being that is unadulterated joy. The state all of us aspire to. And yet somehow it eludes us.

Why?

Before we go into the academics of it, let us hear a story.

A man went to Kashmir. Saw its ethereal and eternal beauty. Then he rented a houseboat on Dal lake. Was further impressed with the joy of natures beauty. He looked at the boatman, lounging around in the sun, chewing on a lotus stem and looking at the mountains on the horizon.

So the man went up to the boatman and said: “Beautiful view, isn’t it?’

“Hmmmm”

“Kashmir is heaven on earth, rightly said, isn’t it?”

“Hmmmm”

“You own a houseboat in paradise, but you aren’t working hard enough.”

“Hmmmmm”

“You should build a web site, post pictures, have a feedback mechanism.”

“And then what”

“That will attract more tourists, especially foreign tourists and educated tourists.”

 “And then what”

“That will bring in much more trade, much more work, you’ll buy more boats, maybe have an office, some staff”

“And then what”

“Then you’ll have a Vacation Company, some charters, lots of business.”

“And then what”

“You’ll earn lots and lots of money.”

“And then what”

“Then you’ll be able to take vacations in Switzerland, Alaska cruise, see the most beautiful places.”

“What exactly do you think I am doing just now?”, said the boatman and went back to his lounging and lazy munching on the lotus stem.

Happiness is here and now. In this moment. All of us, not aware of how much will we live and what will be our future, plan too much for it. Let me work hard just now, do these business trips just now, do this 14 hour day just now, do these yearly target drives just now……. I will play with my son tomorrow. I will hold my wife’s hand and watch the sunset tomorrow. I will have a vacation with my far off cousins the next year. I will learn painting later on, when I have the time. I will watch my daughters kindergarten play the next year. I will take a walk on the beach everyday from next year. ……. You plan too much, as if you want to live forever or that you are going to live forever.

The only moment in your control is here and just now.  What you can change is just now.

If you sit back just now, for the next 5 minutes and remember…..the best moments of your life didn’t involve too much money or luxuries or yatches or parties. Your best moments were the ones spent holding a toddlers hand, running after your child, holding your beloved hand, trekking that mountain with your buddies, lying on your back and looking at the stars at night at your family’s ancestral home.

Then why all this heartburn, this drive, this work, this lack of timeless perpetually? So that you have a better pension?  So that you have a bigger home, when old?  So that you may have a car when old?

You may have all that. But you wont have the time? You wont have your loved ones by your side. They’ll have moved on. Or maybe some circumstance, some calamity will take away all that you planned for, all that you worked your ass off for.

The only moment in your control is here and now.

And if you think hard, your fears, your anxieties, your troubles are also all in the future. In this one microsecond, one moment, while you read this- you are free, doing what you love, of your choice.   

And do not let me define your happiness for you. You know inherently what makes you happy. It may painting, it may be doing social service, it may be reading books or it may be making music.

Also we are impressed /anxious about and allow Society perception to define our happiness. "If i feel happy in travelling by train and not taking a plane, i must be perceived as middle class". "If i feel happy by listening to Classical music and not rap, my friends may perceive me as not hip". " If i feel happy being nice to people who serve me, i may be perceived as too tacky"....... See, there itself, your happiness is being constrained.  

Happiness is in your control, here and now. In this One Moment you are free, unsullied, unattached……. You are the One.

The Promise of the Soul Healer.

Why the Grief?

Soul Healer.... Where do we start.?

Let us start with the perennial question of existence: Why this Grief? Why this anxiety? Why this feeling of incompleteness.? What is it that keeps man unhappy inspite of multiple achievements and possessions.

Firstly, let us start with rock bottom fundas.

All of us are born naked and shall die naked and shall depart into next life/ coffin till resurrection/ judgement day or be disposed in a dump. We shall leave without a shred of the wealth that we spent our life, time, morals, peace and happiness to amass.

So much anxiety for just the journey?

Secondly, all of us live our lives too afraid of what life will present us with. We are too afraid of the surprises in store for us, the odd averse circumstances, the rare calamity. Why? Because we have put ourself/our mind into a comfort cocoon. Anything outside that cocoon/zone and our anxiety, grief and blood pressure rises.

The root cause of our grief is our "expectation from the future".  

Remember the stories in the first post of Soul-Words.? Our bare basic necessities are 2 or 3 square meals a day and a small roof over our heads to protect us from natures elements. Everything else…..everything, everything, everything is just a luxury that your mind went on adding while you grew up.

What if I walked up to you and said “I will guarantee you a roof and 3 square meals a day, for lifetime”? Most of your anxieties and fears would drop away. You would start living as the King that you were born as. Your actions and reactions would not be dictated by fear, wants and anxiety. ….. So what is stopping you just now? Most of us have a basic roof and 3 meals coming to our table. Live free and fearless and act out of the strength of knowledge and love.

Stop that Pad, that smart phone, that diamond encrusted watch, that fancy luxury sedan (that also tells you the temperature outside and inside), that person, that house from becoming your want, then your lust and eventually your obsession.

Reduce you needs. Check in your wants. Analyse your luxuries.

And do not take my words wrongly. If you get occasion to use them, do so with unmitigated joy and excitement in the moment. Live for just now, in this moment.

Learn to enjoy the luxury whenever presented to you. Stop losing your sleep over possesing it in the future. Learn to enjoy everything in life with “detached attachment”. Be it material possessions or human relations.

Seen a small child.? Naked, cannot move from where its mother has put it. And yet happy and carefree. Gurgling, laughing, thrashing its arms and legs in the air, playing. We too were born like that, but then our mind started putting in imagined needs, lusts, fears and anxieties.

Let the “Child” in you come out again. See and live each moment with amazement. You plan too much for 20 years down the line. Who knows, you may not live for the next 20 minutes.

Let the “King” you were born to be dictate you lifes actions, out of love and strength.

Live this moment, enjoy whatever life presents you in this moment. Live with “Detached Attachment” to this moment.

Live knowing the Soul Healer shall hold your hand through all of your anxiety, grieving and turbulent days.

The Promise of the Soul Healer.

Learning to Blog

I am learning to blog.... hence the mistakes, the varied color schemes, the dull background..... Bear with me... i am a Genius... Gods favorite child.... Hold my hand... I shall master this too, soon. ...And thankyou for reading my Blog

Soul Healer

Soul Words of the Soul Healer…… What is this Blog?  …. Why these words?.... Are they the answer to all your questions, quandaries, soul-searching, musings, heart ache, grief?.... Are they answer to mine?.... Seriously? … The answer is I don’t know.

But some years ago, very incidentally, nothing planned, my heart started asking questions. My soul started yearning to fill some emptiness in my heart. It was as if no luxury, no joy on earth could satiate the hunger in my heart. No excess of the flesh and luxuries could bring a happiness to a yearning mind.

But those questions also started bringing with them a calmness, a wider perspective to my world. The luxuries, the needs, the lusts started slowly falling away or atleast started seeming inconsequential. The needs were still there, but the frustration on not being able to fulfill them started to fall away. The love for entire humanity started expanding. I stopped being judgemental and started to understand a person and his perspectives. What were needs started to become luxuries, to be enjoyed if there, but not to be pined or lusted for.

And if I am making it seem as if all of this was and is easy, then it is my mistake. It is still a struggle between satisfaction and lust everyday. 2 steps forward 1 step back is my daily story. And many a days I totally forget my good side and let the beast loose…. And the next day my journey starts afresh, without regret, but maybe with fresh perspectives…..

I know it’s a long journey, but its ok. Because I don’t exactly know what the destination is. So I am enjoying every step of the journey. And it is as if it is a very very large puzzle. One by one pieces are falling into place. Somedays I see shimmers of the larger picture, then it vanishes again. So I am believing in seeing the larger complete picture some day and enjoying the game, the journey meanwhile.

I hope you did notice that in all this preaching and rambling I did not use the word God or religion once. And nor did I start to disprove God and religion. To each his own. Whatever makes you a better person, for me, is your God. Whatever method inspires you to become a better human is your religion. Religion is a system of beliefs. Faith is the non-commutable, constant, One thread in all human beings.

Now before I proceed further and further, let me tell you 3 stories which form the main stay of my strength in weak days.

It was a dark stormy night.
Deafening thunder rent the dark skies.
And it was raining in sheets.
Like a waterfall from the skies had opened up.
On the thicket of bramble bushes, the beggar woman had spread out her tattered saree. Under it, in her exposed body, she sat hugging her 4 year old son. The saree above provided some respite from the watery deluge. And yet the stubborn water would drip through the cloth, and the tatters. All that she could do today to protect herself and her precious child from the deluge.
And yet they found comfort and warmth in each others embrace. Mother and child watching, from under their dripping canopy, the naked watery dance of raw nature with interspersed thunder.
Suddenly, the child picked his small face up from the crook of his mothers neck and asked "Maa, what must the really poor be doing in such rains?"

Alexander the Great was marching on towards India. On the borders of the then Hindustan, he heard of a very great & learned Pir. So he sent his generals to invite the Pir to visit Alexander. 4 Generals decked up and went to meet the Pir. They told him “Baba, we are Generals of Alexanger”. Replied the Pir “Alexander who?”. “Alexander the Great, he has marched from Greece, through all of Europe and now on the brink of India”. “Oh, seems to be quite a big man. Do convey him my regards… and regrets too, but I don’t go anywhere from my small hut, my world.” The Generals were baffled, but dare not take the Pir forcibly, as Alexander had sent them to invite the Pir. So they went back to Alexander and conveyed the Pirs words. Amazed, Alexander asked them: “You did tell him it was Alexander?” “Yes, sire.”. “Alexander the Great? Ruler of the world”. “Yes, sire”. “And yet he refused?”. “Yes, sire”. “Well, then we shall go and see him personally tomorrow” …… So next day, Alexander, resplendent in all his gold armour, with his Generals and a large battalion set out to meet the Pir. When he reached the small hut on the hillock, the Pir was sitting outside the hut, basking in the sunshine, playing a flute, his mangy dog lolling besides. Alexander said: “Greetings Baba”. “Greetings son” “I am Alexander, the Great”.. “Oh, so you are the man,… your men told me yesterday”. “Baba, I too have heard things about your greatness”. “All dust, son, all dust”. “Baba, is there anything at all that I can do for you?”. “Nothing son, I am content”. “Anything at all , Baba? I can build a palace for you here, leave you some slaves to cook and clean for you, a battalion to tend to your fields and garden? Anything at all that I can do?”…. “Hmmm, so you really do want to give me something?”. “”Yes, Baba”. “Hmmm….. ok, then you shall surely oblige me by taking a step top your side and let the sun fall on me”……Saying this, the Pir again began to play his flute…… (The story up to now was a fact, now is the supposedly fiction part) ….. Hearing this Alexander realized that how could he ever be able to rule such a land where such teachers reside. And he and his armies turned back  towards Greece.  

 A poor man decided he needed to ask his king to give him a gift of some money, in his dire need. Deciding that prayer was a good time to approach as it may put the king in a better mood. So he reached the palace at prayer time. He say the king kneeling in prayer and asking God for victory over foreign lands, more lands, more money, more power…… And the man turned back to his small incomplete life.

This formed the base of what I shall write from now on. I shall never judge or pontificate. Never shall I try to give you your answers. I shall only help you to ponder, request you to ponder on my words, my stories.

And I promise to hold your hand while you do so…. It may be dark and stormy, but I promise to hold your hand….. The Promise of the Soul Healer.

My First Foray

I was born naked.... Well, all of us are born naked.... Nothing new about that.... Nothing bombastic either.... Unless ofcourse youre born to Angelina Jolie or Kim Kardashian's sis or Cher (sighhhh, that list is endless).... So coming back to the point, my initial naked foray into the world was met with a slap on my tush.... To this date i like to believe it was because i had a sexy tush and the nurse was a female..... Everyone’s entitled to his beliefs…. You have your Jesus who turned water into wine, I believe my tush is sexy.

My next access to the world was crawling around... Foraging through the accumulated dust on my house floor (there were no house maids nor ayahs at that time)... (and dont any of you smart asses show this blog to my mom)...Then i took my first steps... It was greeted with such howling and shouting that i presumed that I had poo pooed and then stomped in it and was stomping around the house….But it turns out everyone but me was excited about my first steps…. I mean, come on, whats there to be excited about a tot waddling and tottering around like a squat duck?...And to add to the fun I did really pee and poo with all their shouting and screaming. I tell you, these adults are a little crazy for my liking.

Some years later my foray into the world was as a teenager. Hormones were raging. The female species of the Homosapiens started to look alluring and it seemed as if their hind sites were giving me the come hither glances. It seemed as if their mammaries were hooting for me to take charge….. all that’s well, but I looked like a billy goat with sprouts of hair from my chin and my body of the shape of an ungainly giraffe and my voice cracking like a toad…. The females that I desired seemed to be desiring the geriatrics of the teenage age band. All the hopes of fornication were lost into spurting dreams.

Then came the larger foray. College over, I was pushed into the harsh world. All the college festivals and picnics and rose days were washed away in the harsh reality of pushing your way against the crowd into an already full Fast train arriving from Virar into Andheri. Then pushing your face into anothers armpit, your sweaty body being passively massaged by a swaying train. If you could change position, that means you had erroneously boarded the train on a Sunday. After this sweaty wrestling you would get down at Churchgate and in your Clinic listen to the woes and travails of a patient who had just gotten down from his Mercedes and was lamenting his becoming presbyopic. I swear to God, if I could have given in to my urges to hit them in the chin with my elbow, I would not be so psychologically deranged just now.

After that came the foray of smart phones and computers into my life. I remember the days of carrying around an entire PCO and calling it a “Mobile”. Phones became smaller, computers became smaller, distances became larger and yet seemed smaller. Love came to mean a hello-hi instead of walking the moon drenched Marine drive eating peanuts and cotton candy. You could easily avoid a person by not picking a call instead of looking into the eye and meekly stating your excuse.

But most of all it meant that tiny tots and twerps could ask me: You don’t blog?? ....... You Don’t Blog !! ?? ......Man, you talk great…. You give a lot of advice… You try to show your extraordinary wit ( I am not totally sure whether that was a compliment)…… You are well read (I am not again totally sure whether that was a compliment too)….. But no, the world persisted: You don’t blog?? … Well so on the encouragement and insistence of some characters called as Yatin Gupta, Jazz, Evangel, Dragon, Gairo, 00, Scrat, here I am….Do I curse them or do I say thankyou….

Lets not jump the gun…My foray into the blog world will be their answer.... the point isnt whether they deserve the thanks... They do.... Listening to someone, giving voice, encouraging a tiny toddlers steps is the most awesome gift you could give.... The point is where i started.... Nakedness... i am laying myself bare, naked in these blog forays of mine.... Do help me, do encourage me, do lend me a hand when i totter..... Because all that a toddler shall become, all the greatness is but a result of the people who loved him.. People who held the hand... Hold mine... Please