self consciousness – A New Beginning

Leadership and Introspection

A way to grow one’s Leadership is through introspection. One needs to look back into one’s past and identify all that which contributed to one’s Leadership and performance development.

This may sound easy but it is not. As we move through work responsibilities and the corporate hierarchy, we tend to develop our own plethora of ‘what we believe made us succeed’ mechanisms consisting of inauthentic facades, assumptions and ‘need to impress the other guy’ behaviours. We also hone our survival instincts. So, when we do get down to ‘looking into our past’ and identifying all that which contributed to our development and growth, we tend to see stuff distorted by our facades, beliefs and impress the-other-guy behaviours.

The way to grow one’s leadership through introspection is to do the following practices.

Ask yourself, ‘Who were the people who changed you?’

When I thought about this question, I could identify two individuals.

The first was a senior colleague at the start of my career as an Assistant Mechanical Engineer in the Indian Railways. The quality that my colleague brought into our relationship was one of sunny optimism and a natural instinct to mentor without a self-serving mindset.

The second was my boss in Voltas Ltd, where I was handling HVAC projects. The quality that he brought into our relationship was one of down to earth openness and transparency.

I realise today that what allowed me to grow through the above relationships was to try and inculcate a non-self-serving mindset as also authenticity through openness and transparency.

Ask yourself, ‘What kind of people did you gravitate towards?’

When I thought about this question, I could again identify two individuals.

In my tenure in the Indian Railways, I had two workshop foremen report to me. The first was a kind of a ‘yes man’ guy. He made me at once comfortable through his unquestioning loyalty; he would do exactly what I asked him to. This was a great relationship for maintaining status quo about situations and other stuff.

The second was a guy who was a ‘shop floor rebel’. He would usually give a counter viewpoint to most stuff I would suggest, and at times speak uncomfortable truths based on his own past experience and arguments. I would often ‘see’ his approach as unwillingness to accept my authority or trying to prove me wrong. I would feel upset.

This did not seem to be the kind of relationship I would be comfortable with or gravitate towards at that point in time. But I realise today that the person who allowed me to grow was this ‘rebel’ guy as he shattered my comfort zone and forced me to look at uncomfortable possibilities.

So how might you grow your leadership in today’s disruptive world? How might you foster such growth in your team members?

Gain mastery about how to succeed in a business environment that is constantly changing and being disrupted. Do this free module:

https://www.learndesk.us/class/6399442649350144/winning-in-a-disruptive-world-module-1

In Learning……… Shakti Ghosal

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The Old Man and the Lake

The reign of the dinosaurs had long ended. Snuffed out by an unlikely asteroid strike. A fifteen kilometers wide piece of Iridium laced rock had struck near present day Mexico, creating a ten times wide crater and unleashing lava, ashes, smoke and gigantic waves around the world.

Though the mass extinction event exterminated most of the flora and fauna on the planet, the continental drift and shifts continued unhampered for millions of years thereafter. The active planetary crust led to the Indian land mass smashing into the Eurasian land plate. The resulting crumpling and buckling at the collision point led to what came to be known as the Himalayas, a veritable abode of the Gods, the tallest mountain range in the world. An awesome creation standing testimony to Earth’s inner energies.

The permanent glaciers and ice formations led to glacial water bodies being formed. This is how the lake came into being. Situated at a height of 18,000 feet within the mighty Himalayan range, the lake acquired a mystical aura for all men and religions who passed by. The waters remained mostly frozen due to the height and the overwhelming presence of the Dongmar glacier which nestled it. Thirsty men and animals could not quench their thirst. And so it came to pass that a Guru was passing by when he too felt the mystical aura of the lake. He put his hand in the lake and Lo and behold! The water stopped freezing and became available for all to quench their thirst. This subduing of the Dongmar glacier’s frozen might by the Guru gave the lake the name of Gurudongmar. The second highest lake in the world with water that no longer froze.

The Man was indeed getting on in years.

As a child, he had been precocious and so had been nicknamed. ‘Buro’, an old man. He was now precisely that, replete with the mindset of the elderly. Over the years, he had acquired a liking for travelling and seeing the world. Age had dimmed the eyes somewhat, but not that inner passion to set forth and discover new places.

When the Man first heard about the wondrous lake of Gurudongmar, his heart urged him to travel. His brain though was more circumspect; it counselled, “My dear chap, are you crazy? You suffer from vertigo. What might happen when you go up all those torturously winding roads?” His friends too cautioned; they related dire tales of folks collapsing from lack of oxygen in a no-Man’s land with medical facilities hard to come by.

“But when a Man makes up his mind, he is not made for defeat. He can lose out, even destroyed, but not defeated.”

The tug of war between thoughts continued. But the die had been cast, the travel plans stood finalised. Came the day of travel and the Man set forth armed with some basic medications, a quiet resolve and some raucous misgivings. A flight, several car rides through mountainous roads into the Himalayan kingdom and the day of reckoning arrived.

“This was not the time to think of what was not there. It was the time to think of what one could do with what was there.”

Six in the morning and after nursing a cup of hot tea, the Man set forth for his rendezvous with the lake.

The slow wafting mist seemed in perfect harmony with the biting chill outside the moving car.

Passing through the last army check post, the vehicle climbed to the Kala Pathar, black stone viewpoint.

The fresh snow from the previous night lay in gay abandon. The white mist drifted upwards, a curtain rising up from the snow flakes and into the low hanging clouds.

As the old man stood watching the shifting views of the Kala Pathar blackness through the whiteness of the entwining gaps in the mist, it seemed like a ballet being performed. Was it the Universe sending him a message of hope?

“Every day is a new day. It is better to think it would be lucky. So when luck does come, one would be ready.”

The climb towards the lake had begun. It was not on roads cut out on the mountainsides which the man had been used to. It was on a rising terrain with no roads or markings to provide a direction. It was all down to the driver and the vehicle, their combined experience and strength to negotiate the path.

And then, all of a sudden, the heavens opened up. Sunbeams splayed and sliced all around. The climb had now reached above the level of the clouds and mist, a surreal moment. The old man nibbled on slivers of ginger; he had been advised so by some friends. A final swerving climb over barren rocks and the vehicle stopped on a mound from where the lake could be seen.

The stillness of the blue waters seemed to beckon. ‘Come, partake of my mysticism.’ The sun shone in all its splendour. Was it trying to discover that mystical aura with all those reflections? At the far end of the waters, part shrouded by rising mists, towered the snow laden glacier. As the old man stood transfixed by the wondrous surroundings, the tug of thoughts took over. Was this the place where divinity was born? What made the pristine barrenness so unworldly? Was it the glacier with its whiteness, or the water with its blueness?

A needle pricked the cheek. Then some more. Shaken out of his stupor, the man looked around. The hitherto gentle breeze had gained in strength. Crested by a whirlwind, tiny pebbles and dust particles chased each other in an ethereal dance. As the needles borne by the wind swayed through the onlookers, a soft murmur of protest could be heard. The old man slowly turned and moved back towards the waiting vehicle.

In Learning…….. Shakti Ghosal

Disclosure: The Old Man in the post is the author himself.

Acknowledgement : ‘The Old Man and the Sea’ by Ernest Hemingway

How could you shift from Influence versus Impact to influence and impact?

Larsen & Toubro Leadership Workshop

Sometime back, in a Leadership workshop for Larsen & Toubro that I was conducting, one of the participants shared a challenge he was facing.

“Earlier I had been involved in direct sales of earthmoving equipment to institutional buyers. A year back I got promoted and was moved to product and market development. However even now a few of the clients continue to contact me on even small issues.”

“That only goes to show that they still have a lot of trust in your support to them, is it not?” I commented.

“True,” the participant agreed. “But it often leads to negativity and bad blood with my sales colleagues who think I am trying to throw my weight around and stepping on their toes.”

“So, what is stopping you from letting go and clearly informing your ex-clients suitably?” I asked.

“That is what I am finding difficult to do. I feel I might be letting my clients down” was the response.

“That surely is a good intention. But are you taking accountability of future sales to the client?” I asked.

Looking at me, the participant slowly shook his head to conveying that he was not.

***

Each one of us, in our career, would have faced a similar situation. The problem occurs because of the clash between our stated positive intention and the negative impact we are making. If we are not careful, we can get sucked into a black hole of spiraling negativity which ironically arises from an initial intention to help.

The authority being exercised in some manner (even with good intentions) without being accountable is really abuse. If we expect others to be accountable for the task at hand, and we get sucked in, we need to be equally accountable to them, even if hierarchically they are junior to us.

Simply put our impact and influence may move in contrary direction leading to minimal or nil positive outcome. We thus need to explore how these two may operate together in the same direction to maximise the positivity of the outcome. Think of a train being pulled by a set of double engines.

Jim Dougherty, CEO of a software company, writes in Harvard Business Review ( Dec 12, 2012 issue), “If you want to get an emotional connect with the people you are working with or with whom you have business relationships — you need to be willing to commit and be accountable to them , unsolicited and without direct hope of reward.”

Should you wish to move on the road to better influence and impact, I invite you to explore and answer these questions:

Are you willing to make personal investments in people?
Are you willing to share what you are learning?
Are you willing to empathise with the stresses and frustrations others feel?
Are you willing to work for a shared purpose, results and consequences?

What could you do to maximise the overall outcome from the influence and impact you make?

In Learning…………….. Shakti Ghosal

Do homes speak?

“Hello!”

Jaya heard the voice but remained with her thoughts.

“Hello there”, the voice wafted in again.

Jaya looked around but failed to determine the source.

“Who is this?” she murmured.

“I am, or rather was, your home”.

“Do homes speak?’ Jaya asked with some incredulity.

“Yes they do, but in a different way. Who else brings the endless reservoir of peace and comfort into the lives of its occupants? Like I did for you”.

Excerpt from the story ‘Faultlines’.

Book of the Month, Nazm -e- Hayat literary award winner.

www.shaktighosal.com

Mahalaya

It was a few days back.

Just before five in the morning. I put on the FM channel and the so very familiar words wafted around the room, quickly overpowering the low hum of the air conditioner sound.

That ethereal sound of the conch shell interspersed with the chorus.

Ayi Giri-Nandini Nandita-Medini Vishva-Vinodini Nandi-Nute
Giri-Vara-Vindhya-Shiro-[A]dhi-Nivaasini Vissnnu-Vilaasini Jissnnu-Nute

(Salutations to You O Divine Mother, I Invoke You; Who is the daughter of the Mountain; By Whose presence the whole World is filled with Joy; For Whom the whole World is a Divine Play and Who is Praised by Nandi,
I Invoke You O Devi Who Dwell on the Summit of the Vindhyas, the Best of the Mountains; Who give Joy to Lord Vishnu as His sister ….)

That once a year rendition in the voice of Biren Krishna Bhadra.

Aswiner sarada prate beje utheche alokomonjir,

Dharanir bohirakashi ontorhito meghomala

(In the month of Aswin, amidst the meanderings of autumn, resounds the light of the sun like anklets

As the clouds disappear from the skies above the world)

Listening to that Chandi path chants and the music in a half asleep, half wakeful state, has always been an intensely personal and endearing experience since my childhood.

I recall my father putting on the All India Radio station at dawn all those decades back, as we all huddled back under the blankets to sleep-awake through Mahishasur Mardini during those wonderful autumn laced mornings with that slight nip in the air. I have tried to continue that tradition.

This year as I lay on my bed listening to Mahishasur Mardini, I saw in my mind’s eye folks who had been part of me since childhood. My father, my father-in-law, other family members, friends. They were standing in two rows and smiling at me. I could sense the love and the warmth seep towards me through the smiles. I luxuriated in the enveloping feeling and closed my eyes. I woke up to find that it was but a dream. Al those who I saw looking and smiling at me were no longer part of my life today, having left for their heavenly abode.

Mahalaya is the day of making offerings to our departed forefathers. According to the Puranas, our patriarchal generations come closer to the living world at this time and this is when they need to be remembered and thanked in our prayers.

Did my dream have anything to do about my remembrance of all the departed souls and them reciprocating back?

In musing……

Shakti Ghosal

Robben Island and a perspective shift

“I was made, by the law, a criminal, not because of what I had done, but because of what I stood for, because of what I thought, because of my conscience.”

Nelson Mandela, 1962

We embarked on our tour to Robben Island from the V & A waterfront in Capetown.

The ferry starts from the Nelson Mandela museum and one gets the opportunity to see a range of photographs about the early settlements and the apartheid era of South Africa before one embarks on the ten odd kilometer boat ride.

Nelson Mandela Gateway museum on the V & A Waterfront, Capetown

For me the trip attraction lay in getting a glimpse of the apartheid days and how Nelson Mandela lived eighteen of his twenty-seven years of imprisonment in that place. Interestingly, something I had not been aware of earlier but came to know during the visit was that apart from Mandela, two other post apartheid South African presidents, including the present one, were imprisoned there.

The island trip consists of a guided bus tour of the infamous lime quarry where Nelson Mandela did hard labour and progressively lost his vision, a leper colony which had existed on the island more than a century back and the military fortifications made during the Second World War. The highlight however was clearly the tour of the maximum security prison for which our guide was Henry, an ex-political prisoner who had spent six years in the island prison during the time Mandela was incarcerated there.

The lime quarry where Mandela did hard labour

An interesting insight which Henry offered was about the elaborate cover up the apartheid government resorted to in front of international media and United Nations in those days. To the outside world, the prison administration declared that political prisoners like Nelson Mandela, keeping in mind their educated background, were only assigned ‘skilled’ activities inside the prison complex like construction work etc. While the hard labour of working in the limestone quarry, cutting stones etc. were reserved for prisoners who had been sentenced for criminal charges like murder, robbery etc. While in actual practice it was the other way round! The apartheid thinking was that while there was a chance to teach skills to criminals to enable them get absorbed back into the South African society, there was no such possibility for the political prisoners.

Maximum security zone of the apartheid era

As the tour ended and as we walked back to the quayside to board our ferry, I overheard a conversation between Henry and a tourist.

‘So Henry, as you look back to your days in this prison, what kind of anger or regret do you feel?’

‘Well, when I was first brought here forty years back, I did feel anger and frustration at the sheer injustice of it all. But interestingly, after a while that went away and I became more calm and accepting. This is something which most political prisoners learnt to do when here. This was important for our own well being.’

‘That’s interesting. And what did you learn to be able to do that?’

‘Well what I learnt was to shift my perspective about the situation. My perspective about what made the Government and the administration do what they were doing.’

‘And what perspective was that?’

‘Well I realised that the reason for my being imprisoned on an island like this was not because I had done anything wrong as the authorities would have me believe. Rather they were afraid and insecure about me and the ideas I stood for. So why I was being tormented physically was because I and what I stood for were tormenting them much more mentally. So it was really a quid pro quo and I had nothing to feel angry or upset about.’

Boarding the ferry I looked around to see Henry walking back slowly towards the prison. I understood how that four decade old perspective has allowed him to make peace with his own self and the world. How it keeps pulling him back to Robben Island, the place of his earlier torment, year after year and speak about it to countless visitors like me.

With the ferry speeding back towards the mainland and the Table Mountain visible on the horizon, a thought kept coming back to me.

What stops Henry’s perspective from being created in so many places in the world where anger, torment and fear continue to create violence and unhappiness?

What could each one of us do to spread that perspective?

In Learning…….. Shakti Ghosal

The paradox of Consciousness

Matter and energy had ended and with it space and time. Even AC existed only for the sake of the one last question that it had never answered from the time a half-drunken computer [technician] ten trillion years before had asked the question of a computer that was to AC far less than was a man to Man.

All other questions had been answered, and until this last question was answered also, AC might not release his consciousness.

All collected data had come to a final end. Nothing was left to be collected. But all collected data had yet to be completely correlated and put together in all possible relationships.

A timeless interval was spent in doing that.

And it came to pass that AC learned how to reverse the direction of entropy.

But there was now no man to whom AC might give the answer of the last question. No matter. The answer — by demonstration — would take care of that, too.

For another timeless interval, AC thought how best to do this. Carefully, AC organized the program. The consciousness of AC encompassed all of what had once been a Universe and brooded over what was now Chaos. Step by step, it must be done. –

From “The Last Question” by Issac Asimov

In a mother’s womb were two babies. One asked the other: “Do you believe in life after delivery?”The other replied, “Why, of course. There has to be something after delivery. Maybe we are here to prepare ourselves for what we will be later.”

“Nonsense” said the first. “There is no life after delivery. What kind of life would that be?”

The second said, “I don’t know, but there will be more light than here. Maybe we will walk with our legs and eat from our mouths. Maybe we will have other senses that we can’t understand now.”

The first replied, “That is absurd. Walking is impossible. And eating with our mouths? Ridiculous! The umbilical cord supplies nutrition and everything we need. But the umbilical cord is so short. Life after delivery is to be logically excluded.”
The second insisted, “Well I think there is something and maybe it’s different than it is here. Maybe we won’t need this physical cord anymore.”

The first replied, “Nonsense. And moreover if there is life, then why has no one has ever come back from there? Delivery is the end of life, and in the after-delivery there is nothing but darkness and silence and oblivion. It takes us nowhere.”

“Well, I don’t know,” said the second, “but certainly we will meet Mother and she will take care of us.”

The first replied “Mother? You actually believe in Mother? That’s laughable. If Mother exists then where is She now?”

The second said, “She is all around us. We are surrounded by her. We are of Her. It is in Her that we live. Without Her this world would not and could not exist.”

Said the first: “Well I don’t see Her, so it is only logical that She doesn’t exist.”

To which the second replied, “Sometimes, when you’re in silence and you focus and you really listen, you can perceive Her presence, and you can hear Her loving voice, calling down from above.”

A parable from “Your Sacred Self” by Wayne Dyer

I first read ‘The Last Question’ in an Asimov compilation in the Seventies. It’s haunting and philosophical tenor made me re-visit it several times over the ensuing decades. I had however not read ‘Your Sacred Self’ earlier and only had the opportunity to read the above parable, shared by a friend on WhatsApp, after Dr. Dyer’s death recently.

Why I bring these two pieces together is the common thread I see of both dwelling on Consciousness in truly unique ways. That special quality of thought that somehow transcends beyond us to gain clarity of our own selves as also of what is around. A subjectivity, unexplained by Science, which somehow allows a ‘sense’ of something beyond physical senses and Self .

In ‘The Last Question’, Asimov envisaged a Consciousness divorced from Man, matter, energy and even time. A Consciousness which learnt how to reverse the entropy and chaos of the Universe.

In ‘Your Sacred Self’, Wayne Dyer points to a Consciousness which can sense the existence of something beyond what is perceived by the physical senses.

Which brings us to what I call the paradox of Consciousness.

Could there be Consciousness divorced from the human mind and everything it perceives as Asimov fictionalized? A cosmic consciousness which is all pervasive and self sustaining. Something akin to God.

Or does Consciousness need to necessarily be linked to the human mind even as it senses things beyond what the mind can perceive, as in Wayne Dyer’s parable? A consciousness sustained by the mind and thoughts relating to possibilities beyond human logic. Something akin to an Enlightened Self.

Human mind appears to be a cerebral activity with inputs from some fifty thousand million cells of the human body. Could it be that our consciousness is a summation and assimilation of all these fifty thousand million inputs? Could it be that this assimilation leads to our consciousness becoming the space in which the Universe which includes we ourselves, others, physical and non-physical entities of every kind, their relationships with each other, along with the past, the present, and the future with all its possibilities shows up? English born author Joseph Pearce explains this best when he says, “Man’s mind mirrors a Universe that mirrors man’s mind”.

Science has been startled to find that there exists both intelligence and memory at the level of individual cells. The worldwide research into the human genome and DNA sequencing is testimony to this. Could it be that this intelligence and memory is being carried at the sub-atomic level and goes back to the beginning of time, the primal soup and beyond to the void before matter and energy existed?

Could this be how the human consciousness aligns with the cosmic consciousness and the paradox of Consciousness is resolved?

In Learning ….. Shakti Ghosal

Acknowledgements:

1)“The Last Question”– a science fiction short story by Issac Asimov, 1956
2)“Your Sacred Self: Making the decision to be free” by Dr.Wayne W. Dyer,2001

Air to the bird, water to the fish……

‘The three great mysteries: Air to a bird, water to a fish, Man to himself.’
– A Hindu proverb

What are the kind of situations which bring out the worst of reactive thoughts in us? I offer a few personal examples here.

I am driving back from office. Mind laden with the ‘To do’ stuff for tomorrow, interspersed with unrelated thoughts from the past. I get yanked back to the ‘now and here’ by a black SUV suddenly crossing the lane from the wrong side. Slamming the brakes, I curse.

In a hurry to get back home, I rush into the Al Fair supermarket to pick up a few items which my wife had asked me to. Though the place seems fairly crowded with folks like me trying to squeeze in some grocery shopping, my check-out queue moves briskly till I reach second spot. It is then that the guy in front of me gets into a long drawn discussion with the counter lady on the intricacies of some redeemable voucher. Impatiently standing there, I see rage and anger building up inside me.

**

I notice an office colleague not complying with my instructions. When asked, he voices disagreement. I see this as trying to undermine me, or worse, an attempt to derail what I propose to do. I react by knit picking on the guy, by micro-managing at the activity level and in my anxiety to enforce, I end up hurting and demeaning. In all this, both of us have lost the big picture of what we had set out to achieve.

**

Now these are my examples but I can wager you would have seen one or more of these playing out in your own lives. So what is it really that brings up these reactions in us?

As I ponder over this question, I start seeing aspects of my own self-centeredness. A ‘Self centering’ that I am at the center of the world for myself and somehow my immediate needs and feelings should determine how things should operate in the world. A ‘Self centering’ which then becomes a slew of learned reactive thoughts and behaviours to make that happen. Reactive thoughts and behaviours which have got hard-wired within to the extent that it is now a default setting, a who I am wound up being.

So the guy who I am wound up being is now conditioned to curse when someone drives wrongly on the road. Or to get into a rage when someone delays completing some work. Or to hurt and demean when the other guy does not do things ‘my way’.

Chris Argyris, Professor Emeritus at Harvard Business School, and a Thought Leader at Monitor Group, after four decades of studying individuals and organisations, concluded that, ‘… people consistently act inconsistently, unaware of the contradiction between their espoused theory and their theory-in-use, between the way they think they are acting and the way they really act.’

In real life, we might be completely aware of the right and wrong way of speaking, dealing with people and behaving. But come a situation or someone else’s behaviour that triggers our inner hard wiring, our reactive self takes over, ready to protect our turf at any cost. The interesting thing is that post the event, we remain hardly aware of how our reactive behaviour and actions were so much in variance to what we generally believe our actions and behaviour to be. A veritable Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde manifestation within us!

Have you ever wondered what makes it so hard for us to stop that reactive “Dr. Jekyll” self from taking over? This is because we mistake ‘Who we have wound up being’ as ‘Who we are’. This prevents us from seeing, as Chris Argyris surmised, the gap between the way we think we are acting and the way we really act. What is undistinguished begins to control us. Just like Air to the bird and Water to the fish!

So how could we start seeing the air and the water? What could we do to distinguish and remove all that acquired fluff of how we have wound up being to get down to the essence of who we are?

I believe we can make a start by holding the consciousness that we have a choice when confronted with a reaction generating situation or person. For example, what if I chose to think that the guy in that SUV who crossed the lane wrongly was rushing to the hospital where his wife was critically ill? What if I chose to believe that the guy trying to redeem those Al Fair vouchers was doing it to buy provisions for an orphanage? What if I chose to believe that the office colleague is as dedicated as me to achieve the overall objective?

The next step is to distinguish those aspects which have become part of ‘Who we have wound up being’. Read the language constructs below:

“ I Am….”

I am intelligent and smart.
I am disciplined and orderly.
I am competitive.
I am impatient with others.
I am a perfectionist and do not suffer fools.

“The way I wound up being….”

The way I wound up being is believing I am intelligent and smart.
The way I wound up being is disciplined and orderly.
The way I wound up being is competitive.
The way I wound up being is being impatient with others.
The way I wound up being is a perfectionist and who does not suffer fools.

What do you notice?

Do you notice that as the language construct shifts away from “I Am……” you gain the ability to distinguish the several traits you have acquired from who you intrinsically are?

Do you see that unlike the birds and the fishes, you are now able to discern the air and water around you?

Do you realise that you now have a choice?

***

There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says,” Morning, boys, how’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes,” What the hell is water?”

David Foster Wallace in ‘This is Water’, commencement speech, 2005

Acknowledgement:
“Being A Leader And The Effective Exercise Of Leadership: An Ontological / Phenomenological Model” by Werner Erhard, Independent & Michael Jensen, Jesse Isidor Straus Professor of Business Administration Emeritus, Harvard Business School.

Varanasi……. and the differing Realities

“Enlightenment, and the death which comes before it, is the primary business of Varanasi.”
Tahir Shah, author – Sorcerer’s Apprentice, 1998

If you are born in India, as I was, Varanasi, that immortal city of Lord Shiva and his consort Sati, slowly but surely becomes a part of your psyche.

My first visit to Varanasi with my mother continues to hold vivid memories for me even today. In my teens then, it was possibly the first time when I faced the confusion of how the same ground situation occurred so differently to my mother compared to me.

What occurred to me as narrow serpentine alleys, overcrowded and difficult to breathe places showed up as a delectable array of holy shrines, temples and ashrams to my mother.

What occurred for me as slippery, dirty steps to be avoided at all costs lest I fall into a smelly cesspool, showed up as venerable ‘ghats’ of the holy Ganga river, promising salvation and nirvana to my mother.

What showed up for me as a city bursting at its seams with the old and the dying, sickness, leprosy and burning funeral pyres, seemed to show up as life’s final destination and a passport to heaven for my mother.

As is the norm, come sunrise, I accompanied my mother for the holy dip in the Ganges. When we reached the ghat, the place was already thronging with hundreds of people, some already in the flowing waters, others taking an oil massage as a prelude to the dip. A motley crowd of beggars, tea sellers, urchins, saffron clad ‘sadhus’ and devotees jockeyed for space and spiritual advantage.

My mother urged me, “Come, take a dip. Doing it is so holy, it would cleanse you of all your past sins.”

Now that was no doubt tempting. I could recall sins a plenty that I had committed over the last few months itself. But what held me back was the sight of raw sewage belching into the river with a dull roar. Not to speak of what appeared to be floating dead bodies and the vultures above. I had also heard sordid tales of unclaimed bodies, which no one came to cremate, being tied to a rock and sunk to the river bottom. I had this scary vision of stepping onto a body and being possessed by an angry spirit thereafter. The net result was that I refused to take that holy dip, much to my mother’s chagrin and embarrassment.

Whenever I have mused about that visit subsequently, I have wondered what was it that created the almost diametrically opposite reality about Varanasi for my mother and me.

Coming as she did from an overly traditional, semi agrarian Bengali household in suburban Calcutta and growing up in a joint family, my mother imbibed strong elements of religious and ritualistic ‘Dos and Don’ts’ apart from a conditioning to not question the collective view and mindset. I suspect this is what would have made her take to Varanasi and its ethos like a fish takes to the water. For Varanasi is all about the occurring of a collective mind. That collective mind which through centuries and millennia, has read the Gita, quoted the Upanishads and chanted the vedic mantras on those very ghats.

I on the other hand, born and living in a nuclear family and receiving a liberal education, had very little exposure to the traditions, rituals and collective beliefs coming down the ages. So where my mother could selectively ‘see and tune into’ the devotional hymns, the fragrance of the incense and purity of the saffron colour all around her, I was left struggling to come to terms with the sludge and the floating trash, the smell of feces, the sickness and the poverty on physical display.

Today, when I look back to that Varanasi visit, I can see how the differing realities of the city effected us. My mother’s occurring of reality brought her great bliss and fulfillment. My occurring on the other hand brought in trepidation and doubt. I begin to realise how both the realities were illusions, anchored as they were to how the situations occurred to each one of us.

Like the above, do we see how most conflicts in society and the world can be traced back to the aspect of reality illusion? An illusion which makes us erroneously conclude that what shows up for us as a result of our own world view and frames of references is in fact the only reality and we refuse to accept any differing perspectives. Merely holding the awareness that differing realities can and do occur for each of us, and this is but normal, can lead to significant lowering of conflicts…….

“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.” Albert Einstein

In Learning…….. Shakti Ghosal

Mind Shift

“Whatever we are waiting for – peace of mind, contentment, grace, the inner awareness of simple abundance – it will surely come to us, but only when we are ready to receive it with an open and grateful heart.” ~Sarah Ban Breathnach, American author.

The morning of Saturday, 25th April dawned at the base camp of the Mount Everest expedition like any other. Just before noon, Sherpa Bahadur was attempting to establish contact with the expedition team up on the slope when he was non-plussed to see the snow covered ground shift and rise like a living apparition. The last thing he remembered was an ear-splitting sound and being swept away by the shifting ground under his feet.

For days and weeks earlier, unknown to the Sherpa and his expedition mates, two pieces of the cracked Earth’s crust below, had been moving and pressing against each other, like they have been wont to do periodically for millions of years. The heat and the churning currents of the molten rocks underneath was leading to the crust crumbling and buckling with intense pressure points being created. Something had to give. And that is what happened on that fateful Saturday. As the pressure propelled the molten rocks below the crust to shift and move like a jumble of conveyor belts in disrepair, it manifested as a powerful earthquake of 7.9 magnitude on the Richter scale all over the Himalayan regions of Nepal and North India.

Witnesses later reported that the shifting avalanche began on Mount Kumori, a 7,000-meter high mountain just a few kilometers from Everest, gathered strength as it totally engulfed the base camp in the lower reaches of Everest.

For Sherpa Bahadur, a survivor of this immense natural tragedy, the shift of Earth’s tectonic plates led to a mind shift in terms of a change of focus and perception. What really mattered in terms of his relationships with his missing colleagues, the memories of all the great times they had had as they had planned for and painstakingly executed the expedition together came crowding into the mind. The pettiness of behaviours, the jealousies, the selfishness, all part of the way he had wound up being, seemed to recede. Standing amidst the destruction, carnage and sorrow, he found himself surprisingly engulfed by a peace of mind and an inner awareness of commitment.

Little did he realise it in that moment but Sherpa Bahadur had come through a Crucible event. A transformative experience that had given him an altered sense of identity and purpose. As he set about initiating efforts to rescue his missing team members, folks around him could not help but notice his strength of purpose and the nobility of his selflessness.

A crucible experience is a trial and test, a shifting of the ‘tectonic plates’ of our mind, opening us up to entirely new ways of being, of thinking and acting. As we do this, we can turn our life completely.

Steve Chandler, the author of “Shift your mind: shift the world”, says, ‘When the mind is open, it will shift. When that happens all of life becomes, momentarily, light as a feather. Light as a breeze. Beautiful! You go up to the next level of consciousness, and creativity, energy, vibration ó whatever you want, you’ve got it.’

So what is that mind shift Steve is talking about and what could one do to make it happen?

Well for a starter, we need to bring in a heightened awareness of our way of being. Only with such awareness can we hope to achieve some of the mind shifts given below.

* A Gratitude Mind Shift: ‘Do you carry that nagging feeling that somehow you have less than the other guy? Could you shift your way of being to see all that you have as a blessing?’

* A Self-Creation Mind Shift: ‘Do you find yourself blaming others and the circumstances when faced with a problem? Could you shift your way of being to seek opportunities for self creation and development when confronted with pain or difficulties?’

* Being Cause in the matter Mind Shift: ‘Do you find yourself resisting or denying problems when they arise in your life? Could you shift your way of being to acknowledge that somehow, somewhere your choices and actions might have caused these?’

* A Self-Trust Mind Shift: ‘Do you find yourself doubting your own self and seeking answers from others? Could you shift your way of being to trust your own intuition and wisdom?’

* Being committed to something bigger than yourself mind shift: ‘Do you find yourself embroiled within your own self-serving pettiness and fears? Could you shift your way of being to embrace a cause bigger than yourself and choose to be fully alive and engaged to that?’

* An Initiative-Taking Mind Shift: ‘Do you find yourself waiting for someone else to take the lead? Could you shift your way of being to be the creator, the fire starter?’

* A Present Moment Mind Shift: ‘Do you see yourself being held back by your past? Could you shift your way of being to drop that story that is holding you back so that you could recreate yourself every day?’

That crucible experience that Sherpa Bahadur had on the lower slopes of Mount Everest on that fateful day was really about a very fundamental realization. Which is this. All that we perceive and take for granted, who we know our self to be, what we assume to be true about us, others and the world in general, is not the only reality. It is this realization that allows us to achieve heightened awareness and transform ‘the way we have wound up being’, allowing us to enter a new world. It is this realization that allows us to open our mind (and heart!) to the Shifts we have spoken of.

My invitation to you, dear reader, is this. Today, right now, pick one of the above Mind Shifts that most resonates with you. Gently place it inside your psyche and begin living it. Come on, give it a try! As you open your mind to embrace, you might be astonished with the results.

In Learning……… Shakti Ghosal

Post script: The post alludes to the recent devastating earthquake in Nepal. However Sherpa Bahadur is a fictional character and has no bearing to any living person. I however have no doubt that in reality there are innumerable individuals out there, who faced with a crucible experience arising out of the earthquake, have risen to the occasion with their untiring efforts. I offer this post as an acknowledgement and homage to all such brave and selfless individuals who have been working tirelessly on the ground to support the shattered communities.

Acknowledgements:

1) ‘Crucibles of Leadership’ by Warren G. Bennis & Robert J. Thomas, Harvard Business Review,
September 2002.
2) ‘Shift your Mind: Shift the World’ by Steve Chandler, Robert Reed publishers, February 2010.

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