Life lessons learnt from watching my daughter play golf ..

For the last 4 years every year from the 30 th of July to the 2 nd of August , I have seen so much angst and nervousness amongst 7 to 12 year olds that it makes me think how we are so driven by success ..

Pinehurst - the home of American Golf is the host of US. Kids Golf World Championship . Every year over a 1000 children come to Pinehurst with hopes and dreams of becoming the best Golfers in their age category.

The first time that we went there was 4 years ago and I remember the nervousness that Inara experienced when she stood at the 1st Tee to hit that golf ball. I could feel her nervousness and not only hers but every participant there was full of anxiety, fear and hope. It was like a veil of anxiousness all around.

With every passing year it has gotten better for us but it is still quite nerve wracking.

I watched from the sidelines as my little child went through all the emotions of pain and joy.

It was the same story everywhere. Fear, nervousness, anticipation, jubilation, all emotions running rife.

Inara did Ok not as good as she could have or should have but I am sure she did her best or at least she tried. Isn't that good enough? Isn't it good enough to play the game and not play just to Win? My husband disagrees with me. According to him, one must play to win or at least try to win.

Why are we all so driven by success? Success at any cost! I can understand how it must feel to win, when all eyes are on you and everyone is congratulating you. It must feel great, but should our happiness depend on how we perform and then how the world sees us?

I could see the sadness and the disappointment in the eyes of the children who did not do as well as they hoped for.

Golf is so much like life. Once you hit the ball you have no control over it. All you can do is play the next shot as best as you can. There is no point dwelling on the previous shot and thinking what you should have could have done. Of course you can think about what you could have done differently to get a better shot but what is the point of mulling over it for the next three holes and ruining the rest if the game. The key is to shake yourself off the previous bad shot and focus on the next.

We all do the same in our life. We keep mulling over what we did in the past. We keep thinking about how we could have, should have done things differently. Our minds are in a constant state of flux. The constant inner chatter prevents us from listening to the voice of reason.

My 12 year old daughter was being extremely hard on herself. I tried my best to encourage her to breathe slowly and deeply and move to the next hole without dwelling on the previous but I think it was not that easy for her. She carried the emotions with her, and seeing her in distress was extremely heart breaking for me.

Fortunately the three days of competition did end and luckily Inara did recover from the setback of not doing that well. Life too is full of setbacks and mostly we do recover. Every failure or setback makes us better and stronger. I am personally glad that she is experiencing failure. Because of the game she is learning to face disappointment, she is learning that one bad shot does not necessarily mean the end. Every shot is another chance. She is learning to look back and see what she did wrong and what she needs to do differently. A tiny deviation in the swing can lead to a major deviation in the ball landing, just as a small decision can make a big impact, but once the ball is in the air it won’t change course, the key is to play the next shot smartly. Similarly our life is not in our hand, we think we make decisions but mostly our decisions are already made for us. The key is to play every shot as well as we can and know in our hearts that all that happens really does happen for the best.

Last night for the first time in two weeks I went to central . For the most part we were away from Hongkong and when we got back , life as usual came in the way of supporting the brave youth that have camped on the roads since end of last month .

Although I was unable to physically be there my , heart and mind was here . Ever since I got back I started getting various accounts of the camaraderie amongst the supporters and the angst of the non supporters .

In its third week now the umbrella revolution seems to have thinned in numbers but not in hope and desire . As I walked on the bridge in central I could not help but tear up at the resolve and dedication of the youth of Hongkong who are striving for their and our future .

We expats have homes to go back to , we all can easily pack our bags and decide to leave if things get too difficult in HongKong . But for most of us who have been here Hongkong is the home we all love ..

As I had written in a previous post , if we cannot support the youth of Hongkong physically , we can still support them through our faith , belief and encouragement . I know there is a lot of inconvenience being caused to the commuters and businesses are suffering but walking through the masses made me bow in gratitude and humility at the sight of those giving up their time and comfort so that we all continue to enjoy the freedom that Hongkong offers .

As I walked and talked to the youth who have been sitting there for over two weeks I felt a deep sense of gratitude for them .

I know many of us cannot be physically present there to offer support . But we can all do a simple exercise to see this come to a peaceful resolution .

I had previously written about how the expectation of a certain outcome creates the momentum for the particular outcome .

I request all you reading this to visualize a peaceful resolution

I will share a short exercise here .

If possible , find a quite place and time . This could be early morning , around midday , early evening or late night just before bed or anytime that works for you . Close your eyes and think of someone or something you love , could be your child , your partner, your pet or even a hobby . The kind of love that makes your heart expand. The love that overflows . Spend some time reveling in this love . Now visualize Hongkong and envelope it in the same love . See Hongkong and its people happy and business as usual. See Hongkong as a role model for China and not a recalcitrant child that Beijing thinks it is . I do believe , what can be imagined , can be achieved .

I know some of you may find this silly but we got nothing to loose . I have experimented with this before and found some good results .. Not always what I wanted but always got what was good for me 

I am extremely sorry for this long post but after my walk last night I am very inspired to see a peaceful end to this situation . Need everyone's help and love ..

Regards and happiness 

Ask and it is really given – could be in another form though J

Yesterday, I decided to play a game with God!

I was in the Clear Water Bay Country club Gym and it was a gorgeous day.  Usually I have my phone and headphones and am like a hamster on a wheel . I work out for about 45 minutes with my head phones on, either staring into my I-phone or at the TV in front.

Yesterday however, I had no phone or head- phones, so I started staring out at the Ocean and the beautiful mountains and the lovely fluffy cloud formation. The scenery was gorgeous.  As I was staring out a crazy thought came into my head. I decided to play a game with God.

In my mind I though to myself and asked out silently for God to show me a sign of his/her presence. I wanted to see an OM  or  Shiva’s trident formation either in the clouds or the water or the shadow’s falling over the mountains. Unique formations were forming so I thought to myself, wouldn’t it be great if I could see some sort of religious symbol.

I kept staring outside and was getting pretty engrossed in the scenery but sadly saw no signs.

Just then someone came on the tread mill next to me and turned on the TV and lo and behold – For a good five minutes, I saw the pope with his big cross talking about ‘ I don’t know what as I could not hear’. But I got my sign very loud and clear. I was looking for a sign from God and what bigger sign than Christ’s cross.

I learnt two lessons. If you ask, it will be given but may not necessarily be in the form that you expect. I expected a Hindu sign as I am  completely besotted with Shiva, but I got to see a cross –proving to me that God is one and we are all the same.

Second- God loves to play so take time to play with God. It is a lot of fun. 

The Secret to Being Happy: Shveitta Sethi Sharma at TEDxHKUST

KINTSUGI – Fix something broken using gold!

KINTSUGI – Fix something broken using gold!

I just read that Kintsugi is a Japanese art form where broken pottery is fixed with a lacquer resin sprinkled with powdered gold. Once, the broken pottery is fixed with gold it actually looks way more attractive than the original.

The story goes that 15^th century Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa broke his favorite tea cup and sent it to China for repairs. It came back repaired with ugly metal staples. Seeing it look so ugly he got very disappointed. He then prompted his craftsmen to look for a more aesthetic means of repair.  The craftsmen used the cracks and aggrandized those with gold and the breaks became works of art. Japanese collectors sometimes would break perfect prized ceramics, just to have them mended in gold. These so said damaged pots actually fetched a higher price than their perfect counterparts.

Japanese took something broken and ugly and turned it into something beautiful!

Shouldn’t we turn our life’s cracks into works of art? Look back at your life and see how every crack has actually made you more beautiful. Often when I have asked people to look at their life, most have agreed that what seemed like a negative time in their life eventually turned out to be the most meaningful turning point for them.

From time to time we all break. Relationships break, aspirations break, friendships break, health and wealth suffer cracks and at times we feel incapable of repairing ourselves. These are the very times that can make us beautiful. All that is needed is faith that what ever is happening has some reason behind it. Often when we are in the midst of a perceived negative event it is impossible to see the good in that situation, but when we look back we can see that because of that event our life took a different trajectory. We could go on complaining about what happened or become miserable and angry or we could look at that so said negative event or break in our perfect life and use it to make life more beautiful.

I am reminded of a friend who spent time in prison. For all purposes he should have been angry and bitter, but instead he used that time to read up on various philosophies and worked on his body and mind and pretty much reinvented himself.  In his own words, “ had I continued on my original path, my body would have probably given up on me. Prison saved me.” Similarly a major health scare forces us to adopt a healthier life style and a broken relationship sometimes makes us more considerate and compassionate.

All negative events can be turned around and made into something beautiful, for it is true that which does not kill us makes us stronger.

I am also now understanding that physical death too is not necessarily the end. Yes the body dies but the soul continues on its onward journey. Although a difficult concept to accept, I can see that it makes perfect sense. We all come with previous baggage. The sooner we start accepting the breaks and the cracks the sooner we will start to recover and shine.

Next time something undesired happens, think about the Japanese art ‘kintsugi’ and see how that event can be dusted with gold to make it something of value.

Luv/luck/happiness

Spiritual Questions and Answers - Nayaswami Kriyananda - 6/26/2012

Bonsai life

The Japanese have perfected the art of Bonsai. The first time I saw these miniature trees, I was taken aback by the beauty and often stopped to marvel at these unnatural works of art.  Although the trees look beautiful, I have often wondered how the trees must feel?   Their inner rootlets are cut and are not allowed to strike deep into the soil. Because they do not have deep roots they can’t shoot high into the air either. Hundreds of years old trees look like little shoots. Their growth is thwarted by cutting their roots!

We humans are the same. Often our growth is thwarted because we never really develop our roots fully. We allow ourselves to be influenced by the views and opinions of others. Instead of looking for answers from within we keep looking outside. We have never really learnt to trust our own inner guidance. We never allowed the roots to go deep. We allowed society, schools, colleges, governments and corporates to prune our roots and shoots so that we would never grow into our full potential.

Although many of us may look perfect on the outside, maybe our spirits have been thwarted to live a bonsai lifestyle.  We have all been made to believe that outward beauty and appearance matters more than what is inside. Our roots have been cut, so that we may never reach our full potential.  We have been made into little bonsais who are constantly looking for validation and approval from the outside world.

Only if, the bonsai cedar or oak knew its full potential? Only if, we all knew our own full potential. 

"The body is a treacherous friend. Give it it's due; no more " he said . " pain and pleasure are transitory ; endure all dualities with calmness, while trying at the same time to remove their hold . Imagination is the door through which disease as well as healing enters. Disbelieve in the reality of sickness even when you are ill; an unrecognized visitor will flee ." ( from the book - Autobiography of a yogi )


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Your life reflects your most dominant thought. If you don’t like what you are experiencing , change your thought about it.

Often when something pleasant or unpleasant happens, we tend to share that experience many times over. We talk about it, write about it, think about it and dwell on it for some time. If it’s a pleasant experience, it feels great, but if it is an unpleasant experience we feel sad and tired. For example, when someone is diagnosed with some illness, the person speaks about that illness often. This keeps the illness alive for much longer. The attention tends to remain on the illness instead of the healing. Next time you experience something unpleasant; try and not speak or think about it. As Swami Yogananda said, “ An ignored visitor soon leaves”. But most of us seem incapable of ignoring something or someone that causes us pain. We keep that experience very close to our heart and at every opportunity give it unwanted attention.

Our life is a string of experiences and experiences are nothing but our interactions. Therefore if we want to improve our life we need to change the interaction between the subject (that is usually us) and the object (that could be a person or an event) . Changing the object may not be possible but changing the way we view the object is always possible.


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Ramana Maharshi :

“It is in the mind that birth and death, pleasure and pain, in short the world and ego exist. If the mind is destroyed all these are destroyed too. Note that it should be annihilated, not just made latent. For the mind is dormant in sleep. It does not know anything. Still, on waking up, you are as you were before. There is no end of grief. But if the mind be destroyed the grief will have no background and will disappear along with the mind.

Question : How to destroy the mind?

Ramana Maharshi : Seek the mind. On being sought, it will disappear.

Question : I do not understand.

Ramana Maharshi : The mind is only a bundle of thoughts. The thoughts arise because there is the thinker. The thinker is the ego. The ego, if sought, will vanish automatically. The ego and the mind are the same. The ego is the root-thought from which all other thoughts arise.

Question : How to seek the mind?

Ramana Maharshi : Dive within. You are now aware that the mind rises up from within. So sink within and seek.

from (Be As You Are by David Godman)

1

Dont throw cold water on your child's dreams. Don't drill common sense in them. Don't take away their hopes, certitude and confidence in possibilities . Don't tell them how life is meant to be, because we have no idea how life is meant to be! If you really want to teach them something, teach them how to live fully connected . Teach them how not to be slaves to their senses. Teach them how to control the mind . Teach them how to reason, for life must be dominated by reason and not by impulses. Reason must then give way to faith and finally surrender.

An object may appear to produce happiness for a short while, but the object is only an instrument. An object by itself does not posses the faculty of happiness or sorrow, because the same object has different appeal to different people or different appeal to the same person at different times. The locus of happiness is ourselves. Therefore to find happiness, we need not search far and wide, as any search outside will take us farther away from ourselves - the locus of happiness. ( excerpted from Self Unfoldment by Swami Chinmayananda ) 

The above reminds me of an episode that happened when I was 7. When I was young, pencils gave me immense happiness. I used to collect pencils of all colors and shapes. At any opportunity I would try and increase my pencil collection. I had a suitcase full of pencils and every time I added to my collection I experienced immense joy. One day my suitcase was gone. During one of our house moves, my suitcase full of pencils was lost. I was inconsolable. My most precious possession was gone. I was all of 7 years old and all that mattered to me was gone. I cried for days and no matter how many pencils were given to me, I still wanted my own pencils back. After all I had collected them over 2 years. Today when I think about the incident, I laugh at the thought of, how attached I was to my pencils. 

What happened?

Something that gave me so much happiness when I was young does not even make me blink or smile today. The object is still the same, but my attachment to that object is completely gone. If happiness was in the pencils, I should get the same joy today as I got at 7. Sadly that is not the case. Today my attachment to pencils is almost non-existent, but I have other desires and attachments, that are probably more insidious. I need to now understand that my happiness lays deep within me and not in anything outside of me. Just as I have outgrown my love for pencils, one day I will outgrow all my out worldly desires and attachments. 

Till that happens- I am a work in progress a ‘Spiritual warrior in training ‘.

Myth of the body .

All our troubles stem from the myth that we are the body and when this body perishes, all our hopes, dreams and pains perish too. Such is not the case. 
We are eternal souls who have a body, mind and intellect. Through the body we experience the world of objects, through the mind, we experience the world of emotions and through the intellect, we experience the world of thoughts.

Sadly we have all bought into the myth that we are the body and therefore all our fears and aspirations arise from this body consciousness. It’s a bit like believing that our shadow is our body. If the shadow gets driven over we should feel the pain, but such is not the case. We would laugh at the person who would react in any way to his or her shadow. Because we accept that our shadow is not the real me, we do not feel any pain. Similarly the day we can understand that this body is not the real me, we will be able to go through life the way we are meant to. To experience life as a dance of the soul.

Discovering Yourself: A Teaching on Karma & Your Mindstream

The Great Liberation Through Hearing (The Tibetan Book of the Dead) [Par...

Love vs Attachment

In a recent class we were asked to decipher the difference between love and attachment... In the first instance both are perceived to be the same. From our own experience we know that when we love someone or something we become attached to the person or the thing.

 When our teacher asked us to think about someone we love, most of us being mothers thought of our children. What is the first thought that comes to our mind when we think of our children? It’s concern for their wellbeing. Sadly, that concern turn’s into worry and we believe that our children will be lost without us.

 According to our teacher what we perceive as love is nothing but attachment and attachment and love are complete opposite of each other. If we are attached we cannot love and if we experience and share true love we cannot be attached. This was all extremely confusing to begin with but as we delved further it became clearer that what we think is love is nothing but attachment wrapped in expectation. 

Love in its true sense is all-inclusive, it is beyond the mind and the body. It is selfless, patient and accepting. It is not dependent on the value or relationship because the notion of separateness is non-existent in love. To love another is to love the self and to love the self is to love another. Love in a true sense transcends the bodily separation and therefore love is spiritual. The difference in forms and names leads to a feeling of separation and we forget what love is. Love means freedom and acceptance of as is and what is. Love is a life enabling force and not a life limiting force. Love is all encompassing, unconditional, freeing, accepting and without expectation and without control.


 Attachment on the other hand breeds a sense of possession and makes boundaries. Intense attachment with a person or object leads to fear and pain of loss. Attachment is exclusive instead of inclusive. Attachment leads to dependence and expectation. Attachment is transitory and is dependent on the value we apportion to the object of our attachment. When the perceived value decreases our attachment also decreases. If we truly understood and practiced love, our love would not waver or change. 


Intellectually we can say we understand the difference between love and attachment but realistically the line we draw in our heads is quite fine and often we don’t know how to love without attachment. 

Thinking about my daughter, I know I love her, but I still act out of attachment to her. In my desire to ensure that she is happy and well looked after, I put expectations and boundaries on her. I tell her what to do and I hover around her ensuring she is doing her homework. I believe I am doing all this because I love her and her future depends on how I bring her up. I am fearful when I think of something happening to her. I experience emotional pain when she gets sick or is physically hurt. My so-called love feels suffocating to my daughter. If it were real love she would feel free and not entangled in my web of affection.

 As my understanding of life and spirit is expanding, I can see how my belief structure is limiting my ability to experience and share love. My actions are probably motivated out of fear and how I will be perceived as a parent. If I am to truly love her, I need to accept her just as she is and not try and change her. I need to accept that she is her own person with her own likes and dislikes and these likes and dislikes may not necessarily be the same as mine. I need to see her beyond the physical and see the sameness of spirit. I need to have faith that she is as much a child of God as she is mine. If I am concerned about her well being and safety so is God. I need to understand that although I gave birth to her I do not posses her. She came through me and not to me. I need to be a guide and a mentor and fulfill my motherly duties to the best of my capacity. I need to clearly understand the difference between love and attachment.

 In our day-to-day behavior we equate love with showing concern and being there for the other person, but however much we feel that we are doing things out of love there is an underlying expectation. The moment I say I love you a part of me wants to hear the same words being said back to me. If I do something for another a part of me expects something in return. Even the law of karma states that what goes around comes around so we are not wrong in our expectation of certain outcomes, but we then need to understand that what we claim to be love is not really love but attachment.

 When we were really made to reflect on the real understanding of love, it was shocking for me to realize that till now I had only been attached and not really loved. How many of us can truly say we have loved unconditionally? I for one have not, but as my understanding of life, love and spirit is growing so is my discernment of love and attachment.

 Starting today I will focus on my behavior towards my loved ones and see if that behavior is rooted in love or attachment? Is my behavior limiting the other or is it allowing the other to flourish? Is my behavior based on a need or desire on my part or is it coming from a place of genuine giving? If I were to truly love I would have to detach myself from the outcome and not have any expectation. I am probably not alone in my questions and my misunderstanding of love and most of us confuse one with the other.

 But it’s never too late to let go of attachment to let love in. xxxx