Category: Spirituality

Can We Truly Relax?

Life sets up a certain momentum. This is often innocuous and unseen. You finish your education, you meet a girl or boy, get married (or not), get deeper into your career, get closer to your passion, begin to earn money and wealth, start increasing your circle of power, perhaps have children, get involved with their education, upbringing etc. and  you are up and away.

And then suddenly (not immediately) its  not you who are guiding your life, but the process of life itself that has taken over. Activities, thoughts, counter activities, social pressures, personal pressure etc. start ruling the day. Its akin to putting a plane into auto pilot mode. You have become the “doer”, simply doing things one after the other – incessantly – from personal, to career, to official, to community, to global. You are busily conducting your earthly affairs one after the other or even simultaneously; and suddenly, without any conscious knowledge, this “doer ship” begins to consume you. It consumes you to the extent, where you cannot “relax”, where you cannot take a moment to enjoy the birds that sing, the sun that shines or even the air you breath. Simple things that keep us happy and alive, are missed under the garb of “doer ship”. Our activities begin clouding, the real reason we were born – to be awake to each present moment of our life. Continue reading “Can We Truly Relax?”

Poverty Consciousness, Stinginess and No Payments in India

India may have a 5000 year old culture, deep religious understanding and a depth of philosophical breath that may make many countries and cultures around the world feel highly superficial in emotional and cultural terms, but India continues to be a country with significant poverty and all the related health, wealth, mental and social issues that come with poverty. Given that the Indian economy has taken off over the last 10 years and that liberalization has been in place since 1991, this further confounds the paradox; since significant strides should have already been made.

Economists and governments have tried to address it from several angles and in many ways – socially, distribution wise, financially, subsidies, better policies, loans, grants, schemes etc. you name it and we have tried it. But in my eyes most of these measures miss the mark. The reason is deeper and psychological. It stems from an inherent subconscious manner of functioning most Indians have. And that is a framework of thinking that they can get away with either fooling the system, or fooling people (their own and others) or fooling themselves. In the long run, none of these work. And as the old adage says “cheaters, simply do not prosper”.

Continue reading “Poverty Consciousness, Stinginess and No Payments in India”

“We want to grow organically, not exponentially”

In this competitive era where clients don’t mind slamming the brakes on services that do not bring much to the table, it is often the vulnerable who fall victim to the siege. And for an industry like PR which is anyway sidelined by clients and media alike, the scale is always in favour of large agencies. But then there are a handful of small – or rather ’boutique’ agencies, as Dennis Taraporewala, Director, Criesse Communications, would like to call it – which are changing the market dynamics and giving the biggies a run for their money.

With a flurry of big and key clients vouching for the services of this communications shop, the going has been very good for Criesse thus far in India. In conversation with MXM India’s Johnson Napier, Mr Taraporewala declares that boutique shops can redefine the way PR functions as a discipline in India, and talks about how the larger players will be compelled to work in a cooperative fashion with the smaller players, and not in isolation, in future.

Read excerpts here: http://www.mxmindia.com/2012/01/we-want-to-grow-organically-not-exponentially-dennis-taraporewala/

Blame: A Self Kept Burden

The outside world is deceptive in its orientation. It makes you feel, that there is something happening ‘out there’ beyond and without your reach. This deception is caused when we break our unity consciousness with all things and look through the prism of duality. Thus things begin to appear separate, people look different, forces seem to work in favour or against, alignments and agendas crop up. At the root of separation lies the idea of “us and them” or “me and them”.

But unity consciousness is telling us that everything is happening in perfect harmony and the universe is throbbing in the perfect way each moment. Continue reading “Blame: A Self Kept Burden”