Why do we shout in anger?

This one is a lovely mail and you should read it….. A good one too……..I am sure you will like it.

A saint asked his disciples, 'Why do we shout in anger? Why do people shout at each other when they are upset?'

Disciples thought for a while, one of them said, 'Because we lose our calm, we shout for that.'

'But, why to shout when the other person is just next to you?' asked the saint. 'Isn't it possible to speak to him or her with a soft voice? Why do you shout at a person when you're angry?'

Disciples gave some other answers but none satisfied the saint.

Finally he explained, 'When two people are angry at each other, their hearts distance a lot. To cover that distance they must shout to be able to hear each other. The angrier they are, the stronger they will have to shout to hear each other through that great distance.'
Then the saint asked, 'What happens when two people fall in love? They don't shout at each other but talk softly, why? Because their hearts are very close. The distance between them is very small...'
The saint continued, 'When they love each other even more, what happens? They do not speak, only whisper and they get even closer to each other in their love. Finally they even need not whisper, they only look at each other and that's all. That is how close two people are when they love each other.'

MORAL: When you argue do not let your hearts get distant, do not say words that distance each other

Good Coffee

Got this in a floating mail. But liked it very much.

A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got together to visit their old university professor. Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life.

Offering his guests coffee, the professor went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups - porcelain, plastic, glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite -telling them to help themselves to the coffee.

When all the students had a cup of coffee in hand, the professor said: "If you noticed, all the nice looking expensive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress.

Be assured that the cup itself adds no quality to the coffee. In most cases it is just more expensive and in some cases even hides what we drink. What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup, but you consciously went for the best cups... And then you began eyeing each other's cups.

Now consider this: Life is the coffee; the jobs, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain Life, and the type of cup we have does not define, nor change the quality of Life we live.Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee.

"The happiest people don't have the best of everything. They just make the best of everything."

Is it possible to beat these chemicals?

I am talking about Dopamine, Endorphin and Serotonin. I was reading about stuff and stumbled upon these chemical inside each one of us. I posted on twitter and had got a nice response from Sukumar on the blog he had done on the same topic only his intent was different. Sukumar takes a nice look at how this phenomenon or attribute of a human system can be leveraged for some thing good.

Keeping up with the theme of this blog I was motivated to look at if at is it possible to beat these chemicals. As you read through Sukumar's blog and the references he quotes it becomes pretty evident that the above two chemicals are tightly integrated into the human brain's way of working.

My thought on this was that I am subject to behave the way these chemicals make me react. Kind of makes me feel like a puppet. A chemical get secreted and I start behaving in a specific manner. I don't like the feeling of being a puppet.

As I like to keep my posts short. We can do some things to get of this cycle. This is no small task. People, spiritual leaders, sages spend years breaking out of this cycle. I could co-relate ( could be a figment of my imagination ) this breaking away from this cycle to Moksha. I get excited by connecting stuff. Here I am linking human physiology to spirituality.

There are a lot of methods in the yogic way of living to handle the above cycle. Obviously that is a huge area to be explained and of course I am not an authority on yogic way of life.

But one this that can be done is for us to observe the above cycle happening within us. Basic philosophy in yoga is first to observe the mind so that we can know to handle it. Meditation is a way of helping our mind relax, so that it can observe the cycle happening consciously. Once we have the results of our observation we will know how to act next and stop being puppets. This is a first step towards breaking the cycle.

You barely exist !!!

The Earth has been around for 4.6 billion years. Scaling this time down to 46 years we have been around for 4 hours and our Industrial Revolution began just 1 minute ago.

Looking at it with above scale out life on earth is so negliblably negligably small that we don't practically exist from a cosmic perspctive. With respect to universe if we don't exist how can our problems,success failure exist. May be this can be co-related to the "Everything is an illusion form Gita".

All I am trying to say - "If we can reduce the weightage we give to success/failure that hits us everyday, we can stop these from getting to us. This means we have better inner peace."

Real World Ahimsa
Let me begin with a basic statement. I don't like Gandhi for a lot of reasons. But that is not the focus of this post. But the philosophy of Ahimsa I feel is relevant.It is funny contradicts the phrase "Criticise the idea, not the person" in this case "I like the idea, not the person". This is similar to I don't believe Krishna , God-demons but I do believe that Gita and its philosophies makes life better to live.

Ahmisa is the opposite of Himsa which means "Violence" this needs to be interpreted as not just physical violence but mental violence. I consider violence is an act performed to inflict PAIN be
it physical or mental. So ahimsa is the art of not causing pain to others in any form.

In this blog my quick thoughts at Ahmisa in the house and at work.

Himsa at home

• As children we talk back / defy parents.
• As spouses we scold / put down / insult / scorn our partners.
• As parents we do the same to our kids.

Himsa at Work

• Admonish subordinates when they make a mistake.
• Put down support staff.
• Launch verbal/non-verbal attacks on peer when in competition.
  

Somethings which come to my mind

• Never insult or scold loved one.
• React in a delayed manner. Hold back instant reactions.
• Consciously make sure you do not hurt anyone with words. Pain caused by words never heal.
• NEVER EVER INSULT people. You can never win by insulting, maybe you can put them down for sometime. It is difference between capturing and winning over.
• Even though people around you don't meet your standards in ethics/ hard work/ cleanliness/ sincerity whatever THEY STILL HAVE TO RESPECTED AS HUMANS. Having a bad habit is a criteria to treat another person as a lesser mortal. I guess that is also DISCRIMINATION. Discrimination in any for is bad.

I can hear people saying - "Dude, this is easier said than done , Thanks for the advice." :-)

Let me share some tips that I do to practice to achieve the above. It is all about mental conditioning.

• Never think low of another person just because the other does meet your expectations. He does deserve respect as a human being. For e.g. this could be your 3 year old kid who did not drink milk for the 100th time.
• There is no way you can expect to get respected by someone who you just insulted.
• More often than not the ones who are subdued momentarily look for a chance to rebel. A friend of mine after adjusting to his parents for 30 years refuse to come to India just his parents stay here.

If we make a conscious effort not to inflict pain even unintentionally to people around us , our lives will become better. I guess there is a "Self-fish" motive of wanting to do this , that being I having a peaceful and harmonious life with my surroundings.

Would love to hear from others if I am practical or too theoretical here.

Me compose and sang a song. WOW!! what is world coming too,

This is a song (listen here) I created by a cool software from MSR. Not for the faint hearted music lovers. :-) :-)

My own lyrics ( pretty naive..)
Life is so simple
If your time was ample
But it is never simple
Coz of the tangles
We get in every angle.
Rather than wait for angels
Let's change the angles
To break our shackles
To break our shackles
To blow our blues
Break our shackles
Blow our blues
Life will become simple
Life will become simple
And FUNNY!!!

CEOs Killed

I am looking at the headlines
1.CEO in U.S killed
2.CEO in India killed
3.Tata plant in West Bengal dropped.
4.Naxalite activity on the increase.
5.Call center employees killed/robbed.

Is there a pattern to the above news items. I can see something, I sincerely hope I am imagining it. This seems to a results of growing gap between the rich and poor.

In olden days money was not flaunted as it is today. When a poor person walks on the street he can see money flowing as clothes,mobiles,cars. Think of a poor middle class man walking through a mall with his family and can't spend anything but see people around just throwing money. There is a frustration building up inside him. My cab driver remarked a few days back "What will I do if all the software people increase prices so much?". There is an anger in the normal society against software or the new age industries (BPO/finance) which give great salaries.

I can see the anger against the raising prices not directed toward the economy but a group of society which is a sense responsible for this meteoric rise in prices.I think the new UPPER MIDDLE CLASS is the main culprit.

Few things happening for a middle/poor class in cities in India
1. They cannot practically live in the city. They have to travel at least 2 hours daily. Every minute of their travel they are getting angrier. Gosh I shudder to think how angry they will get with every passing day.
2.They cannot give their children basic education as all education costs have gone through the roof. Schools ask for both educated parents ( read parent willing to spend money freely ). The children grow up with anger.

There is so much anger brewing under the surface. I really worry how the society will be 10 years in future. Think of some form of Russian/French revolution where the poor raise as their basic existence itself comes under threat.

I think the middle class needs to become more aware of this situation and behave responsibly. I am not asking all to donate their wealth to the needy and become philanthropists.

A few things that come to my mind.
1.Don't throw money just because you have it.
2.Treat others especially poor with utmost RESPECT and CARE.
3.Try to lead a subdued life.
4.Avoid flaunting money. ( Imagine a wedding in an airplane, when poor cant even afford marriages in a temple).
5.Try to find ways to give employment. Don't haggle with you the labour class too much , just treat it as an opportunity to share your wealth.
6.Spend time talking to them understand that the wealth gotten is not easy money but hard earned. We feel why should I explain to some labour/domestic help about how I earned my money. I feel this to take upon a social responsibility of educating the poor that money is made not by luck but hard work.

Bottom line.

GIVE RESPECT FOR THE FOLLOWING
1.People around you.
2.Money that you earn and spend.
3.Feelings expressed by people working for you. Please note whether these feelings are right or wrong is irrelevant. They have to respected.

WE SHOULD LEARN TO RESPECT EVERYTHING AROUND US.

As a last the one aspect we respect least today is environment. I am sure it is going to hit us back. I had a wild thought that Tsunami was of nature expressing its anger.