Quest for life

Rule 14: God is busy with the completion of your work, both outwardly and inwardly. He is fully occupied with you. Every human being is a work in progress that is slowly but inexorably moving toward perfection. We are each an unfinished work of art both waiting and striving to be completed. God deals with each of us separately because humanity is fine art of skilled penmanship where every single dot is equally important for the entire picture. Why does Shamz say that we are ‘work in progress’ and what is the ultimate completion? In spirituality, it is said that souls come to earth to learn and slowly strive towards becoming ‘pure love’ or ‘infinite’ or ‘to be in a state of eternal bliss’ or maybe ultimately attain Nirvana. This process may take many phases, and many lives. It also can be hindered and accelerated by understanding that we are indeed the ‘work of art’ and that we have a purpose in this life.  Even if we leave aside the spiritual part of being a ‘work in progress’, m

Rule 9 : East, west, south, or north makes little difference. No matter what your destination, just be sure to make every journey a journey within. If you travel within, you’ll travel the whole wide world and beyond. My journey of self-development started 10 years back but for many years it remained quite superficial. The goals were to be a better person but underneath there were always material goals like becoming better in communication skills to get better at sales or dealing better with stress to be able to cope with office issues etc. Increasing focus meant paying better attention to work or a movie or a song: in short anything which engaged my senses. There was always something to be gained in terms of mental, physical or financial health by engaging in the tools of self-development.  The actual shift in my perspective started when I started doing meditation. Practicing meditation was kind of a natural progression once I started formally learning about yoga more deeply. I r

Rule 29: Destiny doesn’t mean that your life has been strictly predetermined. Therefore, to leave everything to the fate and to not actively contribute to the music of the universe is a sign of sheer ignorance. The music of the universe is all pervading and it is composed on 40 different levels. Your destiny is the level where you play your tune. You might not change your instrument but how well to play is entirely in your hands. “Everyone believes the world's greatest lie..." says the mysterious old man. "What is the world's greatest lie?" the little boy asks. The old man replies, "It's this: that at a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what's happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate, by our destiny. That's the world's greatest lie.” This is an excerpt from one of my favourite book,  The Alchemist . I like the way Paulo Cuelho has articulated this concept of destiny or fate. He says that ‘at certain point in

“I am going for Vipassana!”, I told one of my friends. “Really? Will you be able to stay without speaking for ten days?”. Anyone who knows me, knows what kind of a chatterbox I am. Speaking and being open about my feelings to anyone and everyone comes easy to me. Although I know fully well that it makes me vulnerable but then trusting people also is one of my qualities. Anyway, my decision to go to Vipassana, a ten days meditation course came as a surprise to a few of my friends. This was not so much because they couldn’t think of me doing meditation but more because they couldn’t think of me being silent for a day, let alone for ten days!  Despite my dedication, I was afraid that I would chicken out at the last moment. I had done it five years back; I used my broken leg as an excuse. This time, however, I was determined to go and requested the center to prepone my course so that I did not have time for second thoughts. Luckily, they contacted me back and said that I could do

Rule 22: Life is a temporary loan and this world is nothing but a sketchy imitation of Reality. Only children would mistake a toy for the real thing. And yet human beings either become infatuated with the toy or disrespectfully break it and throw it aside. In this life stay away from all kinds of extremities, for they will destroy your inner balance. Sufis do not go to extremes. A Sufi always remains mild and moderate. In July, I went for a month long yoga course. There was one prayer which we had to recite almost every two hours and it goes something like this: “I commit to maintain a balanced state of mind all the time, for it is in this state that my highest self-development is possible.” Before I went to the Yoga School, I did know that balance in life is necessary and there should be a work-life balance etc. I never gave much importance to a “Balanced state of mind” however. In fact five years back, my coach had told me that one should have a balanced state and not a happy sta

Rule 15: It’s easy to love a perfect God, unblemished and infallible that He is. What is far more difficult is to love fellow human being with all their imperfections and defects. Remember, one can only know what one is capable of loving. There is no wisdom without love. Unless we learn to love God’s creation, we can neither truly love nor truly know God. When I read this rule I remembered John Legend’s song ‘All of Me’ where he sings , “Cause all of me Loves all of you Love your curves and all your edges All your perfect imperfections” Is it so easy to love imperfections of a fellow human being where all of you loves all of the other one? How many of us are capable of this kind of love for our near and dear ones and humanity at large? What is perfect anyway? Is God perfect? Or we make the image of God in such a way that it seems perfect to us?  It is true that it’s easy to love something or someone that is perfect or in other words conforms to our expectations and ha

Rule 19: Fret not where the road will take you. Instead concentrate on the first step. That is the hardest part and that is what you are responsible for. Once you take that step let everything will do what it naturally does and the rest will follow. Don’t go with the flow. Be the flow. In today’s world where everything depends on achieving your goals, this rule seems therefore to be very outdated. Every coach, every self-help book and many personal development classes are about goal-setting and about why these goals are so important in your life so you should always be focused. I also feel that goals are necessary to have a direction in life: they keep you focused and determined to plough through.  Then why is it that Shamz has said that, “don’t fret where the road will take you”? I feel that he gives a very important message when he says that concentrate on the  first step . We can have elaborate goals and we can always preach that focus on the journey and not the destination. H