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Thursday, March 31, 2011

O my spirit, Transcend all boundaries!


Aniketana – Kuvempu

Listen to the song here:



O nanna chetana
Aagu nee aniketana!
O my spirit,
Transcend all boundaries!

Roopa roopagalanu daati,
Naama kotigalanu meeti,
Edeya biriye bhaavadeeti,
O nanna chetana,
Aagu nee aniketana!

Transcend all forms,
Transcend all identities,
Even as sentiment pierces the heart,
O my spirit,
Transcend all boundaries!

Nooru matada hotta thoori,
Ella tatvadelle meeri,
Nirdigantavaagi aeri,
O nanna chetana
Aagu nee aniketana!

Blow away the chaff of a hundred castes,
Transcend the limits of all philosophies,
Rise beyond the horizons,
O my spirit,
Transcend all boundaries!

Elliyoo nilladiru,
Maneyanendu kattadiru,
Koneyanendoo muttadiru,
O anantavaagiru!
O nanna chetana
Aagu nee aniketana!

Do not stop anywhere,
Do not be bound by narrow walls,
Never be content in reaching the finite,
O be eternal,
O my spirit,
Transcend all boundaries!

Ananta taan anantavaagi,
Aagutihane nityayogi,
Ananta neen anantavaagu:
Aagu, aagu, aagu, aagu,
O nanna chetana
Aagu nee aniketana!

The eternal always remains eternal,
A yogi becomes eternal,
You are eternal, be always eternal:
Be, be, be, be eternal,
O my spirit,
Transcend all boundaries!

This is my daughter’s school song and when I read it in her diary it was indeed an awakening for me.  As a kid at school I read Kuvempu poems but now I see the true greatness of the poet. Learn more about Kuvempu here:



Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Gratitude

Have you tried living life by gratitude, every second filled with thankfulness.  It’s a new realm that is devoid of turbulence, anxiety, resentment and reprisal. The being is full of love, the world belongs to me and I belong to the world.

What is gratitude?  A simple "thank you" to our existence, to the beautiful life we have and the awesome human beings we meet.

A few days back I got pretty irritated after an online chat with a friend. She always has this overbearing attitude and trying to be very coaching in her manner. I was thinking of actually blocking her from my chat, just to save myself from getting peeved when I have to interact with her. I reflected over my reaction and was thinking of how bugging she can get. I thought though she isn’t so bad after all and reckoned the numerous ways she has helped me and been such a wonderful friend.  I softened and felt no anger.

I introduced this approach with any person I connected with, even more when I got upset or angry after the interaction. Everybody had something they had given me in life, every single soul I met felt so lovableJ.
The little things in life that we take for granted, the family and friends who are always there are never in our radar of gratefulness.  Ingratitude is the penalty we pay that results out of ignorance and a single focus on our individual advancements. We miss on the miraculous life and joyful relationships that can make our world beautiful.

Practice gratitude and reach out to more. Get abundance within your space and expand your universe to the limitless. 

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Passion at Work

Martin Luther King Jr.,, once said "If a man is called to be a street-sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, 'Here lived a great street-sweeper who did his job well.'"

Do we love our job? Do we even like it? Or do we find our work about as interesting as spending eight hours a day watching paint dry?

How many of us feel happy that its Monday? Do you look forward to Monday morning? Are you raring to go back to work? Or are you a TGIF (Thank God it's Friday) kind of person who can't wait to get away from the job for a couple of days? You spend at least 8-9 hours a day at the job. That is almost 25-30% of your week. If you are a TGIF person you are missing something really important in your work life - passion.

Unfortunately, many people don't enjoy their work. What's worse is that they have no expectation that they should. Work is often seen as the means to an end. Work your job, so you can pay your bills.

Being passionate about your job is more than the old adage "do what you love". It's looking forward to going to work. It's time flying by when you're there. It's working past quitting time, not because you're swamped with work, but because you were so intent you didn't notice the time.

How does one get passionate about their job:
1. Putting passion in work: The trick is not just to feel passionately about your job, but to act passionately too. If you act passionately, you won't sit passively through another boring meeting. You can't. You will share that passion with the others in the meeting. Your energy can lift all of them. Even if it doesn't, you will feel better knowing you are doing something to advance the cause in which you believe passionately.

2. Be innovative: To be so involved with your work that once you have determined your goal, be prepared to try different approaches. The method of choice is the method, which will work best, not necessarily the usual method. If the common sense approach does not work, invent a new one. Be adapting and modifying whatever is at hand to solve the problem and to achieve the objective.

3. Self driven and motivated: Its not necessary that we need the organizational environment or the boss’ attitude to drive us or put us down. A person passionate at job can be consistent in his job by his own drive and when situations are bad he continues to work with the same vigor or maybe more. There is no need to search for means of motivation, the work itself is a cause to enjoy it.

4. Sharpen the axe: Once upon a time a very strong woodcutter asks for a job from a timber merchant, and he got it. The pay was really good and so were the work conditions. For that reason, the woodcutter was determined to do his best.
His boss gave him an axe and showed him the area where he was supposed to work.
The first day, the woodcutter brought 18 trees down.
"Congratulations," the boss said. "Go on that way!"
Very motivated by the boss’ words, the woodcutter tried harder the next day, but he only could bring down 5 trees. The third day he tried even harder, but he only could bring down 10 trees. Day after day he was bringing down less and less trees.

"I must be losing my strength", the woodcutter thought. He went to the boss and apologized, saying that he could not understand what was going on.
"When was the last time you sharpened your axe?" the boss asked.
"Sharpen? I had no time to sharpen my axe. I have been very busy trying to cut trees..."

To get optimal results we need to sharpen our skills consistently. Being adept at our job can help us achieve our targets.

Let me summarize the points as to how we can be passionate at our job:
First: Putting passion at work, don’t just feel passionate about your job– act passionately too
Second: Be innovative, Try new and different approaches
Third: Be self driven and motivated: You don’t need to depend on external sources for motivation
Fourth: Sharpen the axe - Keep sharpening your skills more often.

Life is short. Don't waste your life waiting for the weekends. Find something that ignites your passion and go for it. In the words of author H. Jackson Browne, "Find a job you like and you add five days to every week."

[I had written this article in 2004 on www.selfgrowth.com/articles/Sharma4.html. Started blogging in 2005 else this article would have been part of my blog then, taking this opportunity now to add it to my blog :) ]

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Sachin Tendulkar - Quotes

With the World Cup this year, followed by IPL and T20 world cup all I can think of is "Sachin" :) A collection of Sachin quotes:

"I want my son to become Sachin Tendulkar." -Brian Lara(WI) 


''We did not lose to a team called India, we lost to a man called Sachin'' - Mark Taylor (Aus)


'Nothing bad can happen to us if we were on a plane in India with Sachin Tendulkar on it.''-Hashim Amla (SA) 


''He can play that leg glance with a walking stick also.-Waqar Younis(Pak) 


''There are two kind of batsman in the world. 1 Sachin Tendulkar and 2. all the others .-Andy Flower (ZIM) 


"I have seen God. He bats at no.4 for India in tests.-Matthew Hayden (AUS.)


"I see myself when I see Sachin batting.-Don Bradman(AUS)

"Do your crime when Sachin is batting, bcos even God is busy watching his batting. -Australian Fan

Barack Obama - "I don't know about cricket but still I watch cricket to see Sachin play..Not b'coz I love his play its b'coz I want to know the reason why my country's production goes down by 5 percent when he's in batting"..




Tuesday, March 08, 2011

Love and Lust



Column by Sri Sri Ravishankar
  
Doubt cannot come where there is a sense of closeness. Doubt needs a distance to appear. You never doubt something that is dear to you, close to you.

In love even an object gains life. Stones speak to you, trees speak to you, the sun, the moon and the whole creation becomes alive, Divine. In lust even a living being becomes a mere object. You want to use even people like objects. Here are some salient attributes of love and lust. They are so different yet so close! If you find more
you may add to the list.


  • Lust brings tension. ~ Love brings relaxation.
  • Lust focuses on the part. ~ Love focuses on the whole.
  • Lust brings violence. ~ Love brings sacrifice.
  • In lust you want to grab and ~ In love you want to give and possess. surrender.
  • Lust says all I want you to have ~ Love says I want you to have is what I want. what you want.
  • In lust there is effort. ~ Love is effortless.
  • Lust causes feverishness and ~ Love causes longing and frustration. pain.
  • Lust imprisons and destroys. ~ Love liberates and sets you free.
  • Lust demands. ~ Love commands.
  • Lust gets you mixed up and ~ In love you are focused confused. and spaced out!!
  • Lust is only dark and monotonous. ~ Love has many modes and colours.

If someone's lust is interrupted they get angry and start hating. Hatred in the world today is not out of love, it is out of lust.

Love is playfulness and in lust there is cunningness and manipulation. Shiva, the embodiment of innocence and love was meditating. His meditation was disturbed by an arrow of flowers from the lord of lust. As soon as Shiva woke up he opened his third eye and the lord of lust, Manmatha (one who churns the mind) was reduced to ashes. Everybody celebrated by throwing colors on each other realising that life is full of colours.

We play many roles in our life. If all the roles get mixed up it becomes dark, like when you mix all the colours. The wise play each role distinctively side by side, like colors displayed side by side form a rainbow.


Jai Gurudev!!