Imagination should never be controlled. It should have no limits.

When imagination breaks loose, new worlds are created. These new worlds have the power to heal, inspire and create joy. For this, you first have to imagine and then desire to make that imagined world real. Do not worry about the  form your ideas might take. It can be a book, poem, object, product, or something completely offbeat. It doesn’t matter what it is, it just matters that you bring it to this world. This will heal you and others around you.

You must’ve heard this numerous times – “Take the leap of faith. A net will appear!”

Sometimes, we are plagued by uncertainties in our lives. Questions like – will I get this opportunity, will my project succeed, will I find the right person, will I succeed, will I find happiness…always keep cropping up at several crossroads in our lives. These questions are manifestations of our own fears and insecurities. Every person has some prominent inner need – success, approval of society, fame, money,…  The uncertainties we face and the questions we ask ourselves are manifestations of this inner need.

The problem here is that there is no answer to any of these questions. If you have seen the Harry Potter movies or read the novels, you might be familiar with a character called Boggart. The Boggarts are shape shifters; they take the shape of the object that causes a person most fear. The only way to counter a boggart is to dismiss that fear by a spell that invokes laughter. Similarly, there is absolutely no answer to these uncertainties we find in our lives. The only thing we can do is dismiss them.

In Harry Potter, they had a spell. Unfortunately, the spell for our real life boggart  is much more subtle – Faith. Just know that what you want will happen. Just do what you got to do and take a leap of faith, the net will surely appear.

I play table tennis quite regularly at office. I usually play with couple of friends of Chinese origin. They are amazing players. Quite frankly, I used to get kicked in my butt quite often for one year! Then, the game got better, techniques got more sound, my defense improved and gradually, I started winning games more often. Now, on my day, I make them look like rookies, and those days happen quite frequently.

Yesterday, some interesting thought came up while I was playing. I was down three games to zero. The games were not going quite my way. There were several narrow misses and there were streaky points taken against me. It seemed that there was no luck. Thats when I thought – Maybe, it is an indication for me to just concentrate harder and adjust my game. I decided to bank on my strength to come out of the dip. I started attacking more, which was my game and backed myself to deliver. I stood a foot back from my normal position to increase the probability of landing my smashes on the table. I completely sleepwalked the game. It was a phenomenal turn around. The next game went really close (several deuce points) but I hung around and nailed that game as well.

The point I am trying to make is – when you feel you are in bad patch and things are not going your way, it is important to show more determination and trust your strengths to bring yourself out of whatever bad patch y0u feel you are in. In game, it shows faster; in life, it takes longer to see the result. But, it will show. The principle is still the same.

When to -

Resist a habit – When it leaves a bad aftertaste!
Resist a thought – When it spins you in a whirlpool of miseries!
Resist a person – When they stop loving!
Resist a work – When it does not give you joy!
Resist an obligation – When it is an obligation!
Resist a feeling – When that feeling creates hate!
Resist a goal – When that goal is some way not yours!
Resist an activity – When it stops giving you joy!

Never resist a smile, time spent with children and loved ones, and change! Flow with life.

Have you ever told stories to a child? You don’t need to know a lot of stories, you can make it up as you go. Recently, my wife’s nephew was at our home. He is an amazing kid! I was telling stories to him making something up as they went. You should’ve seen his eyes. They were wide with excitement. He was imagining himself in that magical world I created for him. The beauty was that he was expressing his imagination and fine tuning it by asking questions like – was it like this or that…It was an amazing experience for me. I learnt a thing or two about my story telling abilities – Needs improvement!

Anyway, this incident brought forward so many things personally for me – the power of words, imagination, happiness in the simple pleasures of life, important moments that ought not to be missed, etc.

Who are “they” to tell us what we should feel about ourselves? Who are we to feel bad about ourselves because “they” told us so?

One of the gravest injustice we can inflict on ourselves is to doubt our intentions, integrity, qualities and character. I have seen several people go into a shell because somebody made them believe that they were not good the way they were! My question to those – “Excuse me! Do you even know yourself? How can you let somebody take your spirit and courage away?”

When you are pushed down, do you have the guts to stand up?
When you are low, do you remember the peaks you are going to scale?
Because, if you are, then your life is in safe hands. Nothing on this earth would take your success away from you!

It has been over 3 months since my last post. I have not been lazy to write – As a matter of fact, I am hardly lazy when it comes to writing. I love writing. But, then, there was a thought – Why write what I write? I don’t write to preach; I am hardly qualified in that department. I write because I love. I don’t write when my mind is full. I write when my mind is empty.

These three months, I have been emptying my mind of the thought that it was getting full. I was letting go of my philosophical ego that was starting to take me over. I was emptying my mind of all the things that I thought I could do and I could not do. I was emptying my compulsive desires to conquer, communicate, establish, achieve, dream, …

It took me three months to understand the difference between compulsive and complimentary. Compulsive goals or desires are what we create because our world becomes blank without them – recognition, money, status and so forth. The problem with compulsive goals are that they neither do any justice to us nor lets us do any justice to them. When I chase a dream that was born out a compulsive desire for recognition, when it eludes me, I am unhappy and when I achieve it, it is unhappy and transforms into something else.

Then there are complimentary goals – the goals that compliment our existence. They are actually not goals that one sets. They evolve out of us ceremoniously dancing to beat of our own heart. There is never a need to prove one’s self. There is never a need to achieve. Achievements and results are byproducts of the spiritual union between what needs to be done and what one is born to do. There are no metrics to judge.

I am back to writing. When I write, my heart pumps and I go in a trance. This needs to be done and maybe this is what I was born to do.

I have started painting. I painted a lot when I was a kid and as I became an adult, my preoccupation with unnecessary worries and constant chasing of an invisible perception meant that my painting time was compromised. It happened with several of my deepest loved desires like writing, poetry, photography and stage acting. I just did not have time either  because I thought I did not or because my energies were scattered on multiple things that were not even close to what I loved doing.

Now, as I am starting to consiciously live, I have automatically went back to the so many wonderful things I have always loved as a child and I realized that my love for them has not decreased even an iota. One thing I have been doing for the past couple of months is to paint. First, when I started painting, it was random garbage. I could not paint anything that was not abstract. The reason was that I had stopped observing things and took them for granted. For instance, when I tried to paint a flower, I realized that I was painting from an image of a flower in my mind that was abstract. I knew the structure of a flower but nothing more about it. I had never taken the time to observe the lighting, shadow, the texture, the pattern, …

There is a story that comes to mind – Apparently, there was a great painter in China long time ago. He was an amazing painter as his paintings would be bubbling with life. If he wanted to paint a tree, he would go and sit before the tree. He would sit for hours, days or years until he felt he became the tree. That is when he would start painting.

These last two months, I have noticed my painting skills improving a lot because I just started observing and enjoying the life around me more than I ever did.

I will upload  my artwork sometime in future. In the meantime, check Daniel Edlen’s Vinyl paintings. He is an amazing guy and I get awestuck everytime I see one of his rock stars! :0)

Newton’s 3rd law (“Every action has an equal and opposite reaction”)  teaches much more than physics.

When a thought/craving comes to your mind, say you try to shun it away; you suppress it. The thought becomes stronger next time it surfaces. For instance, you are dieting and you want icecream. You suppress the craving to have an icecream with a resolute determination. The next time it surfaces, you need more determination to suppress it because the force is much more. The next time, it is even more, and so forth.

Every action you take with your free will has an opposite reaction (from nature or mind, however you want to see it). When you suppress a thought with a force (which is generated through your will), the push back from the other side will be equally large. Hence, it is a constant battle and a matter of time that you give in to the unending force of nature.

I am not saying that do whatever comes to your mind and run free. That is certainly not the way to live. But, instead of acting from your will, act from your consciousness. Acknowledge the thought in your mind and never try to suppress it. But, don’t act on it. There is a big difference between suppressing something and not acting on something. Understanding this difference would aid your struggles with your own self.

Have you ever been called a misfit, meaning you don’t belong somewhere like your workplace, church, community, etc. Is that because you are different from others?

Not fitting is actually very good. I just came across these amazing people who are changing how music is played. Computer programming combined with live music – check it out. Another classic example of carving a niche for yourself. The world needs your talent.