~ Be a Google Map…~

On the eve of Google’s 23^rd Birthday, I was just thinking about as to how time just passes, it was just the other day when for the first time I tried to make use of it for my searches – It had clearly mandated itself and had beaten Netscape Navigator or Yahoo search – the two prime search engines of their times.

Google has taught me many a thing in life via its crawlers and search engine optimization techniques of late. As it progresses keeping in pace with time and changing customer preferences – off late it had developed keynote products such as Google Maps – a tracking tool which we all use so very frequently as our travel guide – but Google map has a feature extraordinaire, which many have not thought it would be ingrained in its behavior and that is its robotics human tone, which is so very polite and accommodative in whatever way we behave – even if we don’t listen to its soft composure. 

Have you noticed how Google Maps never yells, condemns, or castigates you if you take the wrong turn?  It never raises its voice and says, “You were supposed to go LEFT at the last crossing, you idiot! Now you’re going to have to go the LONG way around and it’s going to take you SO much more time, and you’re going to be late for your meeting! 😊...

Learn to pay attention and listen to my instructions, OK???”   IF it did that, chances are, a lot of us might stop using it. But Google simply Re-Routes and shows you the next best way to get there. Its primary interest is in getting you to reach your goal, not in making you feel bad for having made a mistake as it knows that you are at mercy of her intelligence and are mostly dependent on her instructions and guidance. 

So what we get out of such a behavior from an AI programmed human voice – It is humane!!! , It has that composure of not shouting or raising its voice on the mistakes we do – It shows us the value of patience and composure , should we don’t follow her repeated instructions.

That tends out to be a great lesson for all of us in real life -  It’s tempting to unload our frustration and anger on those who have made a mistake, especially those we are close to and we take them for granted as our family members, our fellow beings, knowingly fully well that the will mellow down to our anger . On the other hand , look at Google, it still absorbs all of your silly mistakes and makes a wisest choice  of not raising its voice and insists on helping to fix a problem and not to blame. – That is the key takeaway I got today whilst I drove to an unknown area knowingly fully well that I have a polite assistant by myside who will ignore my mistakes and still be polite in its talk towards me and keep on guiding me till I reach my destination. 

So next time if you go to uncharred territories and are expecting a  "Re-Routing" moments with yourself and your family and friends, be a Google Map to your children, spouse, teammate and all the people who matters and you care about, you will observe a Sea Change in life happening and many of their problems will converge towards you for your Google Map experience …Happy Mapping!!!

~ Talk to Him...~

When someone talks to you in the silence of the night, you need to pay heed to the sounds of silence, it is the real you, your conscience which is trying to tell you something, listen to its nudges, the voice always has something extraordinaire to tell you. All your life you have been roaming around in the aisle of lost world, looking for those invisible answers to questions which humanity has always been looking out for.

Your best friend has home inside you – it is your conscience which has always been with you but you have been making fictitious friends outside only to be jolted with the vicissitudes of time. Many a time your friends have left you once and for all and you have fallen prey to the silence of time, but the “Real” friend has always been with you, all you need is to sit idle in solitude and start observing the messages you get from deep inside your mind – these talking’s will settle a sea of uneasiness which has been making waves of uncertainty in your life – make yourself best friend with the conscience which resides in you- it is always truthful and does not lie for it is "Godly" – Start practicing this art of talking to your own self , to find comatose in your daily living. As it has always been said, you need to spend time in awareness in order to connect to the oneness of your own self, the peace that it brings would amaze you.

Far from the pulls and pressures of this frantic world, you will start to enjoy your living in tranquility. The anxiety will vanish and you will not need many friends to kill time as you have found one – Your inner self which has always been speaking to you since time immemorial, but you have always ignore the sounds within, thinking it to be a whimsy to be called a mere hallucination.

Start practicing this art of listening and responding to your inner self and you will feel the real difference in you thinking and behavior over a period of time, your perception about mega changes in life around you will be changed and you will act as a natural observer of changes which are happening around you.

All you need is to sit somewhere in complete silence and with a conscience mind, start being receptive to the words which flow, observe the talk that they do, they may come with any topics involved – of your like or dislike but you need to capture them and start a conversation with them by answering them in full throttle – as and when you develop such a habit, you will observe the change in the  dynamism of your personality – it will be a completely different you ! and believe me it is not that you will see for your own self but will certainly be commented upon by the people you will meet or make friends with in future – so at the end I again type “ be receptive to your inner voice” – there is certainly someone inside who wants to guide you and take you to the higher realms of your living !

~ Keep Walking...~

Today I write about a soul who is a father to another lovely soul who happens to be his only son. He dotes on the relationship he carries with him, more so as God has given him the responsibility and the resolve to nurture him well as he was born with serious medical condition “fickle mindedness” and will always behave like a child…

The bold father ("Maheshji" as I call him) took upon himself to raise him with whatever resources the family had at their disposal, as a gift of God, - his karma in this life.

The anguish which life offers when such instances happen in one’s life refutes the presence of God, “Why Me” is the only question which comes to one’s mind and unfortunately, the answers are not to be found. Maheshji had none of this torment when we were talking, his simple composure on the topic led me to believe the dignified approach he has meted out towards this happening, as if he has found the real meaning of life! 

Pankaj, his paraplegic son does not remain with him, as he has grown up now and cannot be taken care of by him, touching retirement, Maheshji is not in the best of his physical health to give a proper care and comfort to his ailing son. The alternative has been sending him to a far off home care center for such kids – Pankaj has been a resident of his surrogate home for more than a decade now , he has made friends and plays with them and shares his pains and pleasure with his lifelong inmates.

On special occasions such as Diwali and New Year, Maheshji brings his son back and makes him enjoy the family’s presence – the house is lightened up with utmost brightness and sparkle, not by lights but with the giggling and loudness of talk the family does when he is back – no wonder the mood gets ecstatic on such occasions but all the happiness gets short lived once the new dawn arrives, the mood gets somber and Pankaj has to be driven back to his dwelling where his caretakers are eagerly waiting for him. The parents can’t afford to keep him for long as there is a high risk of a fit happening which needs medical care.

Just the other day during my general conversation, the topic erupted and Maheshji was quick to address it with no qualms. “ I am not the only one God has done this to, there are many such parents who are doing their duty and have got such children, Its life sanjeev, this happens!, just keep walking till you reach the end…”

These words became a bedrock of my motivation – you sometime feel deprived of your aim and the zeal to perform and keep walking in the solitude of nothingness, with all the bad stories and mayhem that you have observed in life, suddenly you confront a man who has been raising a ‘differently abled” child with responsibility and no absolute vices towards the almighty.

At the end of life what really matters is not what we have built, but what we have shared, I guess you have found your man whom you can always look forward to at times of disgust – Thanks Maheshji for telling me the true meaning of our living… Just keep walking till you reach the end…

~ Calling it a day…~

 He came and quietly sat down near the space which he thought would be fit for him to rest and also to hide himself from other roaming street canines. His dark color and sublime nature were not noticeable to me first but as his eyes shine when he looked at me, I was able to see a glimpse of him hiding in a corner!

His persona was meek and as he sat rolling his eyes, I could sense the pain that he must be going through, the freak little dog could not stand on his own feet and my “Pooches” had no takers. Giving him a biscuit would not comply as he had turned around his face in uniqueness, he was just not interested to have it , Gosh – I could have leant the language to communicate with animals with such misery. Suddenly he thought of turning his face and tried his best to see me, I caressed him and tried my best to make him comfortable, but the weakness of his body severely restricted his movement.

What made me grow in anger was to know that the mutt was tamed and was somebody’s pet and was having a strap around his neck. He had been abandoned seeing his frail health, the poor dog had to feed for himself not to forget that he has to take on the hostile environment of the outer world – the vengeance and superiority and power struggle of street kingship of other canines, the insensitivity of humans was all remarkable!

As the time passed he tried to slept and just lay ‘as Dead’, as I tried to touch him, there laid no sign of life for once and this made me believe that the poor fellow has called it a day, but suddenly there was a movement and he started to wag his tail , though slowly, giving me his acceptance of our new found friendship!

I didn’t wanted to disturb him more left him with some eatables, though I knew that he was not in a condition to have them, as my short lived experience with the pooch had shown, night had fallen to its full darkness and it was time to sleep but the canine was all over my mind.

Just thinking how it would be to wait for death in loneliness and where you are incommunicable to others. For our old generation, who have been just been ‘Abandoned’ by their children for greener pastures, they leave behind their legacy to unchartered waters, the oldies remain at the mercy of their destiny sometimes awaiting that last day of their life when suddenly a moment would come and they would rest lifeless.. This dog episode had a great learning for us humans, we are grown insensitive to others, be it plants, animals and of course our peers, forgetting our own end…as they say time is a big healer, today it is this unfortunate dog, tomorrow would be any of us… the end would remain the same…

~ GOD…Where is HE? ...~

A thought as an expression of your mindfulness begets several questions which your inner self asks to the outer world...observe if. Listen to it...there lies the answers to most of the intricate questions you have ever asked yourself.... one such question which we might often ask is “Is there any GOD?”

Everyone of us have different notion of him, for some, there is no actual God or Satan, for me God is a symbol for a higher realization of the self and Satan is your bondages to Ego, Anger and other perils of human consciousness.

We are in a hurry to find him but the universe is not in a hurry, it took its own sweet time to develop and is still evolving, but we are always the contrary , in a hurry and in constant rush to beat time, don’t know what we are running after?

Many of the things and the situations in this world are simple, it is our own limited intelligence that makes it complicated, we as humans have set our life paths that are comforting to our needs, fully knowing about our uncertainties of future, we have thus created a notion of GOD, a higher intelligence on whom we can fall back on at times of adversities. 

Many of us regularly ‘talk’ to that higher intelligence, consciously when we pray or subconsciously when we are asleep. He is our sole refuge for any purposes whom we can seek anytime of the day or night when we feel distressed or when we don’t fit the bill in our philosophy of living.  We all follow different paths in our pursuit of that unknown force and internally we are at perils of any situation we might encounter to which we have no answer.

I know certain souls who have call it quits after chasing their dreams and have thus realized that anything and everything you achieve here stands meaningless after a certain age or point of time, I have also made friends with oldies who shover their life’s experiences and quite stoically tell their story of hard work and toil to realise at this fag end of their life and they still don’t find answer to the most confounding question of life “ Why we came here and what was our objective?”. Still there are those who done the hat of a mendicant and leave everything to destiny and start to chase and find that elusive power whom many believe is running the show of this universe – don’t know if they find HIM ever?

We have different subjectivities of GOD and we pursue different paths according to our own thinking to pursue that supreme soul whom we have been taught is our creator though this logic creates a sea of questions in cerebral mind as to why we are not able to meet or see him ever in life. Many souls have come to this planet and have tried to chase the intangibility of thought called “GOD” but he remains elusive, they read mega mythological parables, chant numerous mantras and other hymns but still remain the same as they are.  such is the power of his creation, everyone is engrossed in achieving his / her higher self but how? – that chimera still remains and will continue to remain ever till we first find ourselves… the rest will surely follow suit.. till then continue the chase to dig out answers to the most intriguing questions life offers us…..happy hunting…!!!

~ The Body...~

Just recently when you start feeling feverish and things are not good as it seems to be, you start to admire the agility of the body. The idiom “Health is wealth” stands the test of time and it is during these thought provoking times that you consider to upskill your way of living once you get back in your vigorous best – considering your body to be an asset and certainly not a liability, you will do your best to take good care of this God’s gift. Many of us have neglected this piece of marvel and have almost abused it many a time.

When I just had a bout of fever due to a recent throat infection (My age-old tonsils got aggravated due to intake of ice cold water), I meekly summoned myself to what my Body was demanding as a need of the hour. As if I had no force or energy left in myself to take care of my general needs, the fever quickly climbed to 103 degrees and there was no respite from an SOS paracetamol tabs – our first line of defense was rendered ineffective. 

As I lay like a lifeless object, varied thoughts captivated my mind and one particular sensibility took over from rest of them – that once I get back to my usual self, I need to be much more careful about the best creation of God – My Body!

How many of us have talked to our own selves, looking in the mirror and on close observation, you will feel the slightest of changes your body is giving indications of – it may be greying of your hair, or little wrinkles on your face and skin or may be the loss of strength which you usually had, all these indications are the ‘Silent Talks’ which your erstwhile body does to you – but are we listening? 

A day comes when your body call it quits and it shudders you from within as its defense mechanism surrenders to the zillion infectious agents it silently fights through its aggressive immune system. Once the veil gets blown, you get compromised and as a finality become a victim of some disease.

The Body is exclusively yours to take care of, it took time to be build and become what it is today. You can enjoy your being if you have a hale and hearty body, at the same time this can quickly turn into a liability and make your less agile and in worst cases being bed-ridden. Taking good care of it can make you cozy in life , it gives you pleasure if it stays fit, else there is no respite. It is complex from within, every vein, artery, organ is intertwined but still function as an independent piece of machinery, though rigid, many of them are equally fragile.

So the next time you stand in front of the mirror, observe yourself and see to it what your ‘Body’ wants to talk to you – may be it is giving you an indication of how tough it is fighting to keep you fit from within – respect its being, for that is the best ‘Asset’ which you can always have till you exist, as once it becomes a liability, it will be tough for us to come back to our usual best…Stay healthy , stay happy!!!