After a 21 month exile...

After reading a blog on the web, there was an urge in me to read certain posts in my blog due to the similarity of thoughts in both the blogs. After reading mu blog, I must admit that I felt an air of immaturity surrounding my writings eventhough I know that the thoughts were mature enough, they were just not emulated well into words.

The eyes of optimism anyway tell me that there is a remarkable improvement in my thought pattern and writing abilities  as I feel I can express better :P.

So let me take a stab at it and here goes my first post after a 21 month exile....

What did I do in these 21 months and what changes have been brought to fore ?

This would be an awfully big post and would not be appropriate to answer in a single post, so will split it up into a few posts but to give a snapshot,

Got into HSBC, moved to Chicago, visited Miami, Keywest, Yellowstone and made some new friends, drove all the way to Niagara Falls from Chicago during the night and drove back to Chicago via Pittsburgh Venkatachalam temple with four other friends.

So, to summarize there was an all round improvement in career, personality and enjoyment.

A monk or a monarch!!!

A monk or a monarch - who is happier??

This is the million dollar question that I went through during different phases of my life.

The middle class family status in India is probably the worst as they try to induce themselves into the life style of someone who they aren't. Being born and brought up in such a middle-class family, I always had a burning desire to breakthrough into the riches and affluence. I even had some crazy ideas of becoming the richest man in the world reflecting on the hindi proverb - Khayalon mein khami kyun- What's the need to show misery in dreams?

So, where is the end of this story? - A richer man wants to get more and more richer and a king might want to occupy more lands and expand his kingdom and fame. As an example, entire India was under Ashoka's rule except for a small kingdom named Kalinga. But, Ashoka did not want to spare even that. So, if we assume that the riches would make a person happy then the happiness is very intermittent and would always replace itself with a new desire.

On the other extremity, a saint who renounces all the worldly pleasures and is just happy to spend all his life for the search of god, the eternal bliss or the ultimate aura has nothing to accomplish, nothing to prove to the world. Is this guy really happy? We have seen the likes of Ashoka and Siddhartha (Buddha) who turned into saints from royal origins but I cannot recollect a saint turning into a kings. So, did these great people realize something to renounce everything they had? Did they actually evolve? or is it just that they could not accomplish to become a monarch? I guess we would never know.

I personally feel that the monk is more happier and his life is more fuller than that of a monarch. However, its one such question which might not have an answer.

Eat, Pray, and Love

A good read especially when I am on my own spiritual search. The author after being devastated by her divorce searches for her inner-self and her identity by trying to connect herself with a bit of fun and a bit of spirituality in Italy, India, and Indonesia. Time and change of place heals all wounds.

Some good quotes from this book were:

"The Yogic sages say that all the pain of a human life is caused by words, as is all the joy. We get seduced by our own mantras(I’m a failure . . . I’m lonely . . . I’m a failure . . . I’m lonely . . .) and we become monuments to them."

I went through this phase when I used to call myself lonely as well as failure, may be to motivate my ownself  towards success, but the idea definitely back fired causing me pain and sadness. However, I transformed just by adjusting my thinking to 'I'm lucky and I'm happy'. Just by doing this small adjustment, I am able to find happiness in loneliness and now regard loneliness as an opportunity to learn and do things without wasting the time away.

Obviously, there are infinite things to learn and do and I now see loneliness as an opportunity to learn and live all my childhood fantasies.

 

 

 ‎"It is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else’s life with perfection."

In life, we often compare ourselves with others and get ready to trade our life with others who are doing better than us. But, if we are seeking someone's life then we always look at the brighter side of their life and often ignore the flip side denoting the sacrifices the person has to make. Its needless to say that we loose our own identity in doing so and every person has his/her own identity in their own way. 

But without comparison one cannot assess if he is progressing or regressing in his career. Therefore, comparison is essential. So there needs to be a change in the elements that are being compared. So, rather than comparing  with others, comparing ourselves on a time line would help in assessing the path on which one is traveling. 

Comparing one with another is analogous to comparing horses with mules and it only makes the mule sad that it cannot be a horse or it makes the horse proud that its not a mule. A mule would apparently love to trade life with a horse but would just torture itself performing the role of a horse.

Also, comparing a stick with a bigger one would dishearten it whereas comparing a stick with a smaller one would induce pride. Both of them are equally preposterous.

Philosophical me (Quotes)

Success is a chain reaction but failure is often its ignitor. -Siva Karthik
Success is the strongest intoxication one can ever experience. -Siva Karthik
Every bad moment is followed by some good ones. -Siva Karthik
Beauty without brains is like air without oxygen. -Siva Karthik
Life is an optimization problem with complex constraints. - Siva Karthik
Old: Reap as you sow; New: Sow what you would like to reap. -Siva Karthik
Today's sacrifice will be repaid tomorrow but don't sacrifice all todays until there isn't any other tomorrow left.   -Siva Karthik
Life is a see-saw. Sometimes you might need to move downwards to move upwards.   -Siva Karthik
Life is so similar to the game of chess, there are multiple options but just one best move!!! -Siva Karthik 
What counts in making a happy marriage is not so much how compatible you are, but how you deal with incompatibility. -Leo Tolstoy

The Namesake

This Pulitzer prize winning book presents a nice cultural transition between India and USA. The book has a couple of touching moments but on the whole its very slow paced and very descriptive.

The book showed glimpses of my future and somehow reinforced the thought of getting back home.