Trust and Faith

Did anyone promise you something which he/she never kept?

Did a friend close the doors on you at times of need?

Were you ever assured of some security which never rescued you from the potential danger?

Did anyone who took over your responsibility as a make shift arrangement displace you from your position?

Did someone lead you to the edge of a cliff by not completing a deadline costing you an opportunity of a life time?

Did somebody take help from you and stole all the credit without even a word of thanks in return?

Did the person whom you depended on the most back stab you when least expected?

If the answers to half of these questions are ‘yes’ then probably your Trust in life is compromised by now. But ‘What’ about your ‘Faith’? Though both the words Trust and Faith seem to mean the same there is a world of difference the way they affect our lives.

Trust is what we invest in our lives and holds a tag of expected returns. It is a sort of unsaid Contract with Life for what we contribute to it. It could be in terms of human relations, educational qualification, career pursuits, Financial /Social security or any likewise interdependence on our environment. But have we ever wondered that Trust is always with reference to our environment. What about one’s own self?

Whenever trust is battered the battle of life doesn’t cease. Where a crash landing becomes a certainty something still lifts us and shifts our paradigm in a more acceptable area. This something within us rises to the occasion like a polestar in the otherwise dark night to guide the gladiator fighting rough weathers. This is one’s own ‘Faith’.

Our belief in our own selves sails us through currents and storms of time. The kindness with which we treat ourselves and things around us, has the ability to increase this built in strength. But for that, we need to overcome the doubts of our clouded minds. Only then,our Faith can sent rays of hope to strengthen our resolve.

There was a farmer who grew award-winning corn. Every year he entered his corn in the state fair and won the prize for the best harvest.One year, a newspaper reporter who interviewed discovered that the farmer shared his seed corn with his neighbors.

"How can you afford to share your best seed corn with your neighbors when they are entering corn in competition with yours each year?" the reporter wanted to know.

"Why sir," said the farmer, "didn't you know? The wind picks up pollen from the ripening corn and swirls it from field to field. If my neighbors grow inferior corn, cross-pollination will steadily degrade the quality of my corn. If I am to grow good corn, I must help my neighbors grow good corn."

It was the Faith of the farmer in the interconnectedness of his surrounding which could make him see things that his neighbors failed to notice. This dimension helped him to bring the best out of others despite the odds at stake without tangibly expecting anything as such from them. It taught him to serve his Purpose by attending his FAITH.

Being Emotional Vs Being Practical

A contradiction of ideas is what we often come across in life. May be life sort of compels us to believe that it offers only split ends for us to choose from. This tempts our ego, since it promises our intellect an opportunity to choose. One such contradiction is being practical Vs being emotional. It appears as if these are two immiscible phenomena and we can be gratified by only one. Often do we hear people swearing upon one's virtues over the other.

In the mid 1990s, Daniel Gloeman paraphrased the ‘EQ’ or Emotional Quotient- a step towards being aware of one’s own feelings with reference to others; a motivation that improves the ability to respond. This implies that for being effectively practical one also needs to be emotional.

The quality of water as a perfect blender can epitomise the principle of acceptance: the key to Emotional intelligence. It can take up beautiful colours and impart opulent tastes to all that is added to it. Similarly, Totalitarian ideologies blended with Emotional Intelligence can smartly integrate such colours and tastes to give a sort of finesses to our responses. Equipped with such responses, we can then influence one’s environment in a much better way.

For ex: You call a friend for a grand party and in your usual way thank him for coming. He would surely feel happy about it. But does it need to be told that he would feel much better if you would make him feel that the party would never be as colourful in his absence. Wouldn’t he be touched to know that the party would be simply incomplete in his absence?

Cynics dispose such an approach as exaggeration or even go to the extent of calling it a lie. But if the truth for you is to improve your own ability to respond, make a larger part of you and your surroundings happy, the bargain is still not bad. Flavouring one’s responses with heartfelt emotions can still be favoured, over dry arguments that would only reduce one’s responsibility.

At the steps of a building a blind man sat with a hat at his feet. He held up a sign saying, “I am blind; please help me”. There were only few coins in his hat. A man passing by stopped and put some coins in his hat. He then picked up the signboard and wrote something on the other sign and now placed it as a new one for people to see. Soon the hat began to fill. There were much more coins in his hat than ever. More people were helping him. 

In the afternoon the person who had changed the sign came back to see how things had fared for this blind man. The blind man recognised his footsteps, thanked him and asked him what he had written on the sign. This is what the man had changed, “It’s a beautiful day. Do enjoy it. See it for me as well......as I am Blind.”

When we offer someone else a seat of comfort, we emotionally empathise with our surroundings. Then, the the world around us expands. It then provides more space than one was ever aware of, to accommodate the kindness around him/her. We can surely find our place in it as well. Can that be called Impractical?

B what you R

The most common question that crosses one’s mind, at every passing milestone of one’s life is what would he/she be like, next? In childhood one fancies whatever one finds appealing and tries being in those shoes in an act of playfulness. As one grows up one learns to unlearn most of those fantasies and try to see oneself in a particular role. May be one is yet to freeze a frame as yet, but yes, some convergence has started influencing one’s being. As one roles over ideas and roves over the role models that one comes across, one naturally gets regimented into the patterns that start shaping one into Some ONE successful


Yes…… Whoever we may be….. Whatever we want to be…….We get into the race of being successful. But for what, and as who? These questions are made to sound silly or lame. Living in a made to believe world seems to be the only way to go to the Fountainhead of a rationalized and glorified Fantasyland.

At least that is what one perceives seeing so many people running with us. It occurs to a very few, that as long as one is running with the stream one is never going to be some ONE. For that, one needs to be different. One needs to dream as some ONE, think as some ONE and act as some ONE ….. That is when one wakes up to the call of, for what…..and as who? But by then, many of us have ran, got tired, got bruised on the way, have failed or have abandoned. But lesser have we realized that we never asked ourselves the vital questions…..what we want to be…..and who we are?

We see birds flying high in the sky and yearn to be the one flying taller than the others. We are made to have the expanse of sky under one’s wings. Flying taller rules over the purpose for flying taller.….And when winds change? We get no where. While having their share of sky, remember that the birds are in fact searching their survival on the land. They know their what. Every bird knows the height one can reach. Have we not heard about the crow who tried flying as high as an eagle? We are all aware of its fate. But we unlearn what we need to remember, to keep us aware of who we are.

Have you heard the story of the ugly duckling that was always teased and troubled by the other ducklings? It was always told to be patient…..as one day it was to evolve.... And it did evolve into the King swan. A similar story happened when an unfamiliar bird was forced by circumstances to grow with the ducklings. It used to try swimming in the water but just couldn’t. However its wings were mysteriously disproportionate according to the ducks and they started tearing away its feathers so that it could become lighter and swim.

Only to avoid the pain did it start vigorously fluttering its wing and accidentally found out that it could fly higher and get on to a branch of a tree. Then slowly it learnt to fly higher and higher. Soon it found out who it was……..It was an eagle. Had it been patient it would have lost its feathers forever. Rules alike don’t always work. Learning from experiences, however bad they seem to appear, awaken us to who we really are.

Strengths, success are all relative terms. Once in my bad times I was advised to be as strong as iron……..I wondered and wondered and wondered, that to be strong I could well be a stone….But a stone that could pull some iron pieces together.... a magnet.

Finally, One doesn’t need a lot of best to be the best of the lot. Be that ONE out of the Some….the ONE that you are, than being just Someone!!

Truth and Fiction

A Buddhist monk once asked his Master, “What is the difference between Truth and fiction?” To this the master told them a similar story about a disciple who asked his Teacher ‘The First Principle of Life’. The disciple sincerely thought the answer would be “Knowledge.”

But to his utter surprise he was sent into the kitchen section of the ashram to wash utensils. He worked there with the same equanimity with all his attention to utmost detail of cleaning the utensils. All were surprised seeing the utensils as new as never before.

As for his query, the Teacher called the disciple again and asked him about it. The disciple just smiled at him and replied that he no longer needed any answer.

Having narrated the story till here, the Master asked all his disciple monks to go to the city and bring answers from different people about the conduct of the Teacher and his disciple.

A capitalist was asked why the Teacher had asked his disciple to clean the utensils. He replied, “Keep them busier than what they can think for themselves. That’s the way to buy cheap labor”

A communist said, “The question itself had no meaning. In fact such questions arise only in idle minds having no real work. Work makes a person forget trivial queries like these”

Many argued how a committed scholar could be happy and satisfied doing such a meager job. They went to the extent of seeing a plot in the Teacher’s mind to demean his disciple, as he was the brightest of them all. Some frivolously whisked the monks off with a scorn and ridiculed them for asking what they ought to learn from their Master.

Having gone through all this the monks returned to their Master with the answers they had received from so many different people. They found none addressing their query.

To this the Master replied, “The first principle cannot be learnt. It has to be experienced. That is exactly why the disciple was sent into the kitchen by the master. One’s experiences cannot be out of one’s choice and confirm to one’s ego. Having understood this there was nothing more to learn. So the disciple needed no answer.”

On being asked why he refrained from answering it himself, the Master answered, “The moment you have finished with the experience the only thing that remains is its effervescence….which can bring out different meanings to different people. So nothing is beyond it and nothing can be taught about it. I WANTED YOU TO EXPERIENCE IT”.

That is the difference between truth and fiction. Fiction is made to sound akin to the experiences of life so that it is accepted by the senses. The truth however can blow them (the senses) off, for the better or for the worse…….Depending on the taker!

The 25th Hour

How many times do we hear the phrase, ‘No Time?’ All of us are very busy running a race against some pursuits that we cramp in our mind; its aspirations and ambitions, its belongings and its longings, its needs and its wants……..and as result what we infer is that we don’t have enough time. It is not as much a traffic jam of Time as much as it is of the thoughts and ideas of being busy with a price tag attached to it….or may be a prize that awaits us as an incentive.

Sure, this has nothing to take away from the list of tight schedules and killing deadlines that one is subjected to. This is just to understand better the commodity called time in an attempt to make it more effective.

When one keenly makes the appointment schedule in the morning just try to include your name in it……somewhere in the day. For those who meditate for about 30 mins or so in morning, even they should commit a minimum of 15 mins…after (say) every 2 to 3 hours of rigorous work. Astoundingly you will find that you already were having those 15minutes with you. The only difference being one shall be shall be Aware of it this Time. One must have heard the proverb: Money saved is Money gained! Now remember one more: Being Aware of Time is Creating Time.

How? Is this a verbal gymnastic? Well, when one becomes aware of this Time he can then enlist something which he has not yet included or couldn’t have afforded to include. More often than not since it precipitates as something more over the saturation of jobs that one already has at hand there is a chance of one being more creative than usual doing them. Secondly, it gives you time to think about the things you would like doing for you and your dear ones which probably were overlooked in being occupied all the time. Thirdly, it can bring to surface the things one has suppressed for a long want of time which never seemed to be there.

Once at the side of a small stream a young lad was sitting with his fishing rod much to the surprise of a seeming old native who was sitting there, as if for ages. This lad was very urban in his mannerisms and was hard pressed for time as was evident from the way he kept on glancing at his Fast track watch now and then. He kept on tugging at the rod impatiently as a conversation broke between the lad and the older guy. In the conversation the lad revealed his meticulous time management. To this the leisurely guy replied with concern that the lad was wasting his time then, since the season was not good for fishing there.

Feeling slighted our well read lad answered right from the management books….. that at least he had done something out of his time and more pompously rather rudely observed that time didn’t seem of not much significance for the oldie. To which the guy smiled and replied, “Son, I finished my daily stock trading in the morning, got through with the washing of my car, checked with the oiling of the fishing rod for the season to come and had just penned a poem as he watched this guy fishing.” Very unassumingly, he offered him to take lunch at his villa which he owned across the ranch.

Awed by all this our lad hiding his embarrassment in words full of complete submission asked how he managed all that. To this our old man answered, “Friend from where you start flying the expanse of sky is too much as you want more and more of it under your wings, as for me I go into the sky only to find the expanse of land worthy of my use and so I have enough time in my share of sky as well.”

We can all create our 25^th hour.

A Conflict is on......

Conflict is a peculiar word that we often use more out of a habitual understanding of the world around us. Habit is something which we seem to repeat again and again in a sort of pattern to deal with our environment….or may be Oneself.

Do you resent doing what you are doing? It may be your job, or you may have agreed to do something and are doing it, but a part of you still resents and resists it. Are you carrying an unspoken resentment towards a person? Have a good look inside. Is there even a slight trace of resentment or unwillingness? Observe. What are the thoughts that make their presence felt without you even inviting them? Then observe the reaction to it. How do you feel? Pleasant or disagreeable? A conflict is on.

Now observe the way you respond. Try to go back and recollect similar episodes with different people. Forget your reactions and remember the effect. (Many a times not reacting, which one mistakes as a mature response is even more explosive.) Was it a conflict? Try to see a pattern in it? More often than not you shall find one. In the process what have you missed?

Here lies the catch. Every conflict in fact offers an opportunity to choose. Conflict cannot be without at least two things to choose from. Yes of course one chooses. But, how? We choose without knowing that we had something to choose from. As if a circumstance was thrusted upon us to test us and we had to cope up with the challenge. And how do we cope up with a challenge? Of course using the ways known best to us; that is, by resorting to our habits. So in short, we deal with our conflicts with a habitual response rather than using our ability to choose. Some people as mentioned are habitual not to respond. Just imagine the pressure these so called mature people subject themselves to.

A conflict has the ability to make one creative."In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed but they produced greater sculptor Michelangelo, Great painterLeonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love; they had five hundred years of democracy and peace and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock."-Orson Welles(1915-85)

A Conflict has the ability to take us to those areas of our own house we never visited. Open those rooms we always were scared of. It has the ability to liberate that part of us which basically is chained to our habitual pattern. Yes. But for that, we shall have to unlearn whatever we have already tried and failed in an attempt to get a solution…We shall have to probably brush aside certain value systems…the value of which, one anyway never experiencedat all.

Sage Narada tells Sanatkumar in Chandogya Upanisad: “Only one, who knows the self, goes beyond sorrow.” By being aware of a conflict the unseen comes into view, the plethora of possibilities for remedial action open up. The fear of unknown vanishes as your list of probable results gets within sight.

The reason people have problems resolving conflicts are they fear that they could be exposed for being what they actually are not. In fact there is no such need to defend any value or dogma by identifying with it. If at all one needs to identify, it should be with the true nature of Self. And what is the true nature of Self? It is to disengage from any conflict as soon as possible. Values and dogmas as professed by the learned who have stopped learning, are highly relative and volatily ever changing as reflected in the following story. A Brahmin priest was returning home after taking his customary dip in the holy Ganga river. He was chanting his regular mantras on his rosary when he noticed a donkey lying dead on the road as a result of an obvious accident.

Deeply disturbed by the sight he remarked, “The killer of this animal shall go to hell.” While he was cursing so, someone informed him that accident was caused by his very own son. The Brahmin quickly retracted, “Actually the animal is relieved from the chain of birth and death and the one who facilitated this shall go to heaven.” Such values and dogmas which can never be put to test defy the very logic for what we are in this world for. They make us seek footprints in the sky.

Does the rose lose its value for sitting on a thorn? If your fingers bleed occasionally while picking it can the rose be blamed for that? We love the rose despite the thorns and the occasional bleeding that one could be subjected to by it because we accept the rose as it is. Accepting a conflict is the first step towards solving it. Then using our discretion in keeping the thorns from pricking us is our skill in dealing with the conflict.......... But can we really avoid a conflict?

One Day @Attitude

I got up early, at 3.00a.m. probably to the surprise of my alarm clock which never ever had the privilege of my prompt attention. Anyway, it did surprise my wife who just managed to shift her quilt only enough for me to acknowledge her expression of bewilderment coupled with sarcasm, for having got up for once without putting the alarm on the snoozer. “You wouldn’t have done it some other time, I am sure....but of course today it had to be different,” she murmured before turning her head around, subtly warning me against any favors of tea or any wakeup drink that I could expect. ‘What attitude'..... I thought.


Yes today was indeed different. Rohan, my childhood friend was to come from abroad and we were to catch up after 20 years. He had threatened not to meet me if I failed to receive him at the airport. I was surely not going to risk that, though I was sure of him kidding about it as much as I was, about the love that made him say so. I was eagerly waiting and the moment I saw him, I simply rushed ahead to greet him. There he was; a not so happening person to look at, yet a grin which was always naughty, exuding an all knowing aura that was his trademark. He too dashed towards me, quickly pushing the luggage trolley with two kids rolled around and a dainty looking lady who was obviously his wife.


As I extended my hands in a scurry to hug him I suddenly felt some weight on both the shoulders of my extended hands, only to find two huge handbags making there affectionate presence felt. “Hey man….you made it! Am I not happy to see you” were the words with which he complimented my loaded shoulders with a suitcase each now in my hands too. Then sort off in a gesture of extreme closeness he came close and whispered, “Dear please for old time sake just bear up with me. I could really call no one who would be keen to receive me at this hour………till finally I remembered you.” This was the last blow with which he nailed the coffin of my nostalgia. I had become a hanger carrying the burden of dependability on one shoulder and that of my friend’s demeaning demeanor on the other. As I chauffeured him thro the roads of the city and lanes of our memories, I could see that he was attitude personified.


In the working day that came to my rescue I settled down in my cabin glancing thro the list of appointments. Amazingly today I was relieved to feel the monotonous importance of being the Lion of my Den which normally I hated. My assistant greeted me in her usual cheerful fashion awaiting my buoyant reply. But today I had fractioned it to half a smile…..that too with a tinge of unwilling grace. One name, rather surname on the list caught my attention. One Mr. Sharma was listed as the last patient there. It vaguely reminded me of my friend’s surname, finding it to be coincidentally the same.


As I put my Coat and crossed the reception towards the operatory, I could sense someone getting up from the waiting chair to catch my attention. As never ever before in my life, I simply ignored and reaching the door of the operatory opened it to get in. By now from my cabin I could clearly see Mr Rohan Sharma sitting with his father in the waiting hall. I ceremoniously invited him in the main operatory though other patients were lined up in the other cabins for their procedures. His eyes moved around the neatly interiored Center, more out of awe than appreciation. I could see his body language curling into one of embarrassment, perhaps reminding him of his demeaning behavior earlier in the day.


Worse was still to come. He reported that he needed Dental treatment for his father who was still sitting in the waiting room. The hitch was that he wasn't sure whether he could afford my charges. I assured him that being a friend he shouldn’t be worrying about that. For the second time in the day however, I felt something piercing me.


This time though, its pain was evident on the face of my friend and my face shone with an unexpressed yet subtle…….. Attitude ?