Plan to Fail or Fail to Plan

Most People Don't Plan to Fail. They Fail to Plan.

John Beckley

Experience - Expensive School

Experience is a good school, but the fees are high.

Heinrich Heine

कहु रहीम केतिक रही, केतिक गई बिहाय

कहु रहीम केतिक रही, केतिक गई बिहाय।

माया-ममता मोह परि, अंत चले पछिताय॥

रहीम

रहीम पूछते हैं, कितना जीवन शेष है और कितना बरबाद कर दिया, जरा इस पर विचार करें; क्योंकि माया, ममता और मोह में फँसकर आदमी सांसारिक क्षणिक सुख तो भोग लेता है, लेकिन स्थायी आध्यात्मिक सुख से वंचित होकर मृत्यु के समय पछताता है और खाली हाथ जाता है। इसलिए क्षणिक सुखों को त्यागकर स्थायी सुख पाने का प्रयास करें।

पहिले यह मन काग था, करता जीवन घात

पहिले यह मन काग था, करता जीवन घात।

अब तो मन हंसा भया, मोती चुनि-चुनि खात॥

कबीर

जब मन में अज्ञान का अँधेरा था तो यह मन कौए की तरह मूर्ख था और जीव-हत्या में लगा रहता था। अब सत्य ज्ञान पाकर यह मन हंस की भाँति हो गया है और ज्ञान तथा विवेक के मोती चुन-चुनकर खाता है।

Disciplined Effort

For every disciplined effort, there is a multiple reward.

Jim Rohn

The Surrender Experiment - Book Summary & Review

The Surrender Experiment

Michael A. Singer

Michael A. Singer, author of The Untethered Soul, in this wonderful book tells the story of what happened when, after a spiritual awakening, he decided to simply let life takes its course. As Singer takes you on this great experiment and journey into life’s perfection, the events that transpire will both challenge your deepest assumptions about life and inspire you to look at your own life in a radically different way.

How much pointless “noise” goes through your head on a daily basis? What if you could mute it? The world is just too loud, and we are caught up in stress, weighed down by conventional ideas about how we should live our lives.

Did you ever consider simply surrendering to life? If not, you should! Life might just surprise you.

Quieting the mind is one of the main goals of spiritual practice. You know that awkward feeling when you’re talking with someone and you suddenly run out of things to say? Well, don’t worry – times like these present us with the opportunity to begin your spiritual awakening.

These situations offer a perfect moment for us to observe our anxious mind. Instead of getting embarrassed at the situation, we should observe our thoughts to see how we might continue the conversation. We should realize that anxious mind and our consciousness are two separate things, as the latter can observe the former.

One way to avoid getting distracted by the constant chatter of our mind is to practice meditation. Zen meditation involves sitting in a quiet spot, with focus on our breathing, and repeating the sound "Mu" in our head. It quietens the mind and leads to an experience of complete silence.

Surrendering to the flow of life calms the mind. We see grim looking sky, and our mood becomes grim too. But, why does this happens? Your resistance can take the blame here, because worrying against things you can’t change – like the weather – leads to that anxious mind chatter.

So what makes us think in this nervous or irritated way? The answer lies in our personal preferences. Our resistance often agitates us, as we frenetically try to find excuses and constantly trying to come to the best decision. To quieten our mind, we should allow the flow of life to take charge. We need to accept the challenges and opportunities life presents us with.

Service is nobler than solitude. Surrendering to service, rather than resisting other people’s requests, led the author from being a hermit to becoming a teacher and spiritual leader. Surrendering to challenges and change can lead us to unexpected places.

Following the flow of life can help build a successful business. People often assign meditation and spirituality to those who want to abandon the material world. But the spiritual principles can be just as life-changing to a business person as to a spiritual guru or a monk.

In fact, living in line with his spiritual principles was what led the author to his first business. Surrendering to life, author took all the chances and opportunities to open his successful carpentry business, Built with Love.

From carpentry to software, life knows what it wants you to do. When the author first saw a plastic keyboard attached to a 12-inch TV screen with a sign reading TRS-80-COMPUTER, he could barely comprehend what he was looking at. However, he had a gut feeling that it would be useful to him, so he followed his instinct, bought the machine.

Life once again coaxed him in a new direction. Instantly fascinated with his TRS-80 computer, the author began experimenting with programming. Doing this was like meditation to him and soon he created a computerized accounting system for his carpentry business, which led to another successful software business for him.

If you surrender to the flow of life, the right people and opportunities will often show up. Along with suitable opportunities, life also gives us the gift of association with great people, enabling us to be  successful.

Continued surrendering to life can result in extreme success. The truth is, experiencing massive success often means accepting that you’ll need to work very hard to maintain it.

Surrendering to life also means accepting extreme adversity. When life gets tough, learning to surrender and accept is essential to keeping your sanity. During hard times, it’s vital to remember that accepting adversity doesn’t mean giving up. It can also mean fighting back.

Ruchika Verma

Reviews

"A lone voice in the modern wilderness calling for surrender instead of striving, Singer shows how surrendering to life does not mean giving up our dreams."  

Shawn Achor 

“Only the rarest of books has the power to clearly explain the difference between a human being and a human doing, and why that distinction is so important. The Surrender Experiment is such a book. Inspiring, authentic, and intensely compelling.”

Dean Radin

“Michael Singer writes a beautiful, touching memoir on the amazing power of surrender in his life. With courage, spunk, and thoughtfulness, he has reached beyond the status quo to dare to trust life and surrender to its ultimate perfection.” 

Judith Orloff

You can purchase this wonderful book from Amazon

Wait Not for the Right Time

Don't wait for the right time, jump in and learn along the way.

Tim Fargo

Don't Let Thoughts Control You

You don't have to control your thoughts. You just have to stop letting them control you.

Dan Millman

कहि रहीम संपति सगे, बनत बहुत बहु रीत

कहि रहीम संपति सगे, बनत बहुत बहु रीत।

बिपति कसौटी जे कसे, तेई साँचे मीत॥

रहीम

जब आदमी के पास धन-दौलत होती है तो लोग तरह-तरह के रिश्ते निकालकर उससे संबंध बनाने की कोशिश करते हैं। लेकिन संकट पड़ने पर ऐसे सभी लोग भाग खड़े होते हैं। जो संकटकाल में भी साथ में डटा रहे, वही सच्चा मित्र होता है।

जबहि राम हिरदै धरा, भया पाप का नाश

जबहि राम हिरदै धरा, भया पाप का नाश।

मानो चिनगी आग की, परी पुराने घास॥

कबीर

जैसे ही हृदय में राम नाम धारण किया, जाने-अनजाने संचित सारे पाप नष्ट हो गए। मानो आग की एक चिंगारी ने पुराने घास-पात को जला डाला हो।

Learning how to set and achieve a goal

Learning how to set and achieve a goal is perhaps the single most important thing your child can learn to prepare for school, adulthood, and employment. The more adept your child is at understanding this important life skill, the more options he or she will have.

Gary Ryan Blair

Ya Devi Sarvabhutheshu - Deepti Varsha

The Road to Character - Book Summary & Review

The Road to Character

David Brooks

Brief Description of the Book

In The Road to Character David Brooks, best-selling author of The Social Animal and New York Times columnist, explains why selflessness leads to greater success. In this urgent and soul-searching book, David Brooks explores the road to character. We live in a culture that encourages us to think about how to be wealthy and successful but which leaves many of us inarticulate about how to cultivate the deepest inner life. We know that this deeper life matters but it becomes subsumed by the day-to-day and the deepest parts of who we are go unexplored and unstructured.

(From Amazon.in)

Notable Ideas of the Book

There are two kinds of virtues in the world, the résumé virtues and the eulogy virtues. The résumé virtues are the ones listed in our CVs, the skills contributing to external success. The eulogy virtues are deeper. They're what we really are, the virtues that exist at the core of our being and what kind of relationships we’ve formed over our lifetime.

We live in a culture which solely focuses on wealth and success, often leaving us incapable of cultivating the deepest inner life. The Road to Character connects us to an ancient moral tradition which asks us to confront our weaknesses and grow in response, rather than only focus on our good points.

Learn how society can rid itself from its obsession with the self.

Social media mirrors current state of our society, the state which is all about the cult of “me.” It wasn’t always this way though, society valued people who embodied the virtues of honesty, humility and faithfulness. To promote one-self as special or all important was not this acceptable as it is today. So when did it all change?

The idea of multiple, conflicting personalities within each person has always been the subject of philosophical investigation and intrigue for many. Each person is composed of two competing personality types, called Adams. Depending on society’s prevailing culture, people lean toward either one of the type.

“Adam I” type is an “alpha,” an extrovert personality that projects outward, most comfortable in a success-obsessed society. He wants a career and social status;  a winner with a strong desire to stay on the top.

In contrast, “Adam II” type is an introvert. Today’s society has nothing to do with him. He has strong morals and strives for virtuosity. Adam II is the core of what makes a human “human,” displaying traits such as kindness, bravery, honesty and devotion.

Everyone embodies these two basic types; one is often overshadowed by the other. In the past few decades, Society has shifted from the moralistic world of Adam II to the self-centered one of Adam I. Today people are pushed to obsess over themselves and live only for their own desires. This is evident in everything from movies to self-help books

Society has made a shift, from a focus on humility to a focus on individual desire. Society used to emphasize that humans were not strong but essentially weak, a climate in which Adam II thrived. Humanists stressed the limits of our understanding and viewed pride with suspicion. They’re stressing at the fact that individualism was not a virtue.

All this, however changed with the rise of romanticism in the eighteenth century, an era marked with the increasing prevalence of Adam I types and ideas of human goodness and the power of the individual.

After this period, the two Adams remained more or less in balance in the society. That is, until the mid-twentieth century. The society sought to break free from the shackles of self-restraint and claim a new and upbeat, positive lifestyle.

The 1950s were about pride and empowerment, a time when marginalized communities, from women to minorities, fought for justice. But this age of empowerment also saw the power of individualism overshadowing humility.

All this might seem good on the surface, but the truth is, our self-obsessed society has cost us a lot. Modern society has lost its connection to the moral values that lead to true joy and satisfaction.

Today’s Adam I-dominated zeitgeist encourages us to follow our desires wherever they may lead us to. But as we chase our wants, we lose sight of deeper principles. Our lives solely revolve around how we achieve, ignoring the why.

Huge aspects of our lives have been subsumed by Adam I traits, even the way we raise our children. Raising children has become just another tool for self-promotion, with report cards and team wins another badge of honor for the parent. Parents are not invested in their children becoming well-rounded, balanced people but instead push them to learn skills that look good on a resume.

The long road to character begins with understanding that all humans are flawed creatures. As society fills itself with self-centered individuals, it becomes detached from humanity’s deeper morals. We need to change this, by embracing the flaws inherent in all of us.

Consider this: experiencing suffering makes you more grateful by helping you realize that you don’t deserve most of the love you receive. When you realize this, you become more grateful for the affection and attention of others.

Doing things like being honest about our flaws can help us overcome narcissism and embrace deeper social values. All we need to do is to turn our focus from self-love to sharing our struggles, and use these lessons to understand and overcome individual flaws. We might just be able to find some space for Adam II again.

Toss pride by the wayside: Only by freeing yourself from pride can you walk the road to character. On the road to character, you’ll need the support of an external force to help you cope with your internal struggles. Your support base could be family, friends, ancestors or mentors, or even God.

Reaching out for help can be difficult; we often fail to do so because of our pride. Pride deceives us into thinking that we’re the masters of our own lives. Pride pushes us to prove our superiority to others. If we want to thrive, we must free ourselves from pride.

The Road to Character connects us once again to an ancient moral tradition, a tradition that asks us to confront our own weaknesses and grow in response, rather than shallowly focus on our good points. It is a focus David Brooks believes all of us - including himself - need to reconnect with now.

Ruchika Verma

You can purchase this insightful book from Amazon

Reviews

A powerful, haunting book that works its way beneath your skin

(Oliver Burkeman Guardian)

Everyone concerned about the good life should read this book 

(Tim Montgomerie Times)

This profound and eloquent book is written with moral urgency and philosophical elegance 

(Andrew Solomon)