Project : "Pant Chronicles"

Days 4, 5 & 6

I am writing this post combining 3 days at once. This is because...not much happened in these 3 days. However, few important things happened.
Let me start with the 4th day, the day after my important interview. Nothing special happened on this day, except I was at my friends' place for the whole day as I always do whenever I am free and they are too kind to have me all the time. In the evening, the meeting with the trainer went well (that reminds me that I need to reschedule my next meeting with him). I also refilled my grocery stock with some important items.

The 5th day was a bit tiring and stress-full. I was at my present job and the first bad-day at job happened. I learned and revised some important things. Training is an important aspect of HR....and HR is 'the' most important aspect of any business. I have read that...but now I am experiencing that. Lack of training at your job can end up in serious displeasure with your self. It is not a conducive state for a better performance. Let's say the 'self-confidence' is the first bicycle in the queue of bicycles, a single kick onto that can result in the fall of the whole stack. Training insures that the first bicycle can take all the kicks and still stays upright. In the end Rajma Chawal (Kidney beans with rice) came to my rescue. Felt good after cooking it.

The 6th day, today, brings me to a very simple yet great realization. We all talk about God, some from a believer's perspective, some non-believers and some from agnostic's. In the end it seems difficult to agree upon a single perspective. For believers, God is always a tool...a savior against all their difficulties. I don't know about non-believers and agnostics but I am sure that if we isolate God from all the surrounding beliefs around him created by man, for example religion....he cannot be too bad for non-believers and agnostics too.
Let's just say...God is a great idea....all the beautiful and great things in life created by man started with an idea. A great invention, a beautiful piece of art...a splendid movie...they all live in the form of an idea before they take the shape of reality. May be God is not a reality for everybody, but he surely can be a great idea for anyone, with a possibility of blooming into reality with time.
And the most beautiful thing is.....your reality will be unique...may be in the form of success...may be love...may be peace.....but unique from others!

Cheers!

Project : "Pant Chronicles"

Day 2

The first day itself was full of activities. I made a meal planner, a prep-sheet and fixed my appointment with the trainer at the college gym.
The next day started with an early Riyaaz  in the morning. It felt nice after a long time, practicing in the morning. Now that I have time, I can do it more often.
Secondly, I had a very important interview...which went well, despite of ugly rain in Nanaimo.
Everyday has its ups and downs....this day was full of several small downs and few big ups. In the end, it all went good.
One thing that I learned....Patience is the key...to unlock peace in life.
Thanks for my first comment Meetu :-)

More later...

Cheers!

Project : "Pant Chronicles"

Day 1

Today I am starting this series of blogs which will reflect my effort of improving different aspects of my life throughout the upcoming year.

There are different sections to improve upon in my life. These sections are:

1. Music : Practice and Learn more!
2. Food & Health: Peace in stomach, peace in mind!
3. Fitness: Exercise the fat out from the wrong places!
4. Organization: My life organized!
5. Finance: Save where you can and spend where you must!
6. Career: Do your best and excel with full interest!
7. Family: Get married by the end of 2011!

7 is a magical number and these 7 aspects of my life are definitely going to improve me as a person.

I am excited about them! I want to share my journey with anybody who wants to help themselves in finding the right pace of life.

Cheers!

Vibs.

History: The Torchbearer!

History entails what we as human beings have done in the past, and are capable to do in the future; from the dark bunker of a dictator who finally shots himself out of complete paranoia of loosing power, to a physically weak man's triumph of pushing a nation towards its own independence by the means of only non-violence and then getting shot in the chest by one of his own countrymen accusing him of misjudgment.

Despite of all the bloodbaths in the past, all the great events have some very specific messages to learn from. I personally believe that while human kind is still struggling with astrology (as a half science) in one hand and Stephen Hawking's A brief History of Time in another, in order to derive or ascertain what future might be, it should always come back to take a look at its past. An individual, by every means, should strive to know what all happened in the past on this planet because, whatever happened in the past, shaped the future which became our present. If one can understand the pattern, then one can also understand the natural track of events and thus a better decision making consciousness can be achieved.

I reckon, the History of this planet is the torchbearer for all our futures. We must take this torch and look into our future and present as well with a great sense of responsibility. We must derive our decisions based on calculations that stems out from the history, calculations that are in tandem with todays scenario but based on past events.

Nevertheless, the great sense of responsibility should not belittle the joy of delving into a great story and the learnings within.

Fourth Week - 1

Failure:

Failure is one of the most common happenings in our lives. Only the magnitude of failure makes it bearable or unbearable. In either of the case, one has to fight through it in order to succeed. Failure's properties varies with person, for me they can be:

1. Weakness : Failure all of a sudden makes me weak and vulnerable, suddenly I feel as if each and every eye is on me and I am the weakest link in the process.
2. Delusions: It induces delusions in me, which means the difference between fact and fiction becomes hazy.
3. Procrastination: I tend to waste more time, it forces me into the vicious cycle of procrastination.
4. Depression: I go into deep depression and tend to dwell more and more about the failure I faced.

These properties are the most common in me. Good news is this that I can register them and can easily identify them.

Still, what happens when you fail in front of peers who took you as their sub-mentor? What happens when a teacher fails? Well, this situation is really embarrassing and puts more pressure on the failed one.

I was supposed to help few of my peers in a particular subject as they were not able to understand it. Somehow I grew overconfident and as a result I myself failed in the mid term exam of that course. This happening forced me into a lot of stress and pressure as
I was embarrassed heavily. Eventually I came out of it by removing all the emotions from my head and analyzing things in a realistic way i.e. by comparing my strengths and weaknesses in this subject.

This thing also made me realize that the best thing I am learning in VIU is how to be specific, how to be exact while doing an analysis and how to reflect it in clear words.

Acceptance of failure is the key, we must understand the need of right amount of confidence in our lives and how we should keep on re-assessing our true potential regularly.

Third Week -2 (Class)

Procrastination: My greatest weakness of all times!

It looks as if procrastination is almost embedded in human nature by default. Still somehow few succumb to it more than others do. I am one of the victims of heavy procrastination.

The worst part is: even after identifying my problem, I am not able to improve upon it. That is mostly because I blame myself for the procrastination I do, instead I must view it as a problem generated from events in life. This is the only way to improve upon it.

We learned in class, how we must avoid procrastination in order to plan our act and then act on plan.There are many techniques I learned in the class and then from my search on internet I found many tools which can help me with avoiding procrastination.

I also learned one more thing about the social and competitive approach of Indian parents which must change now so that we can produce better and more efficient minds. Indian parents always refer to the person, while dealing with their kids in case of time management, instead to the problem. Indian families are nit very closely, which has advantages and disadvantages. A child grows up in a healthy and family oriented environment and learns better with friends among the family. The disadvantage is the unwanted pressure of competition among cousins which makes it difficult for an average kid to cope with. Indian parenting style always foster the competition and builds the pressure and which in the end unintentionally pushes the child into a nexus of high competition-fear of failure-procrastination-failure. This, over a period of time, develop into a vicious cycle and then in the adult age, procrastination becomes a subconscious or almost unconscious attribute of an average Indian mind.

Its high time now that future parents must study this pattern before hand so that they can divert this vicious cycle into a virtuous one.

I am very determined to improve on my habit of procrastination and then removing it finally in the end. I am using all the tools for time management so that I get used to them and then can improve my performance. No doubt, it's very difficult, but constant effort is the key.

"Success is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm."
-- Winston Churchill

Third Week -1

Mid terms are round the corner and Diwali has passed us by.

The very Idea of having a class on the eve of Diwali brings chills in my body. According to Indian customs, we don't study on Diwali, it's inauspicious, which sounds a bit irrational but thats how some customs are.

This class was again a fun ride as always, the presentation on India filled me up with a sense of proud and may be with curiosity towards India in others.

I'm an avid follower of Gita - the Gospel of life given to us humans by Lord Krishna which is a part of world's oldest and longest mythological document named as "Mahabharat".

It was really nice to find out that Sir Albert Eienstein was a believer in Gita, which turned into a search and I landed on this document :

Bhagavad Gita of Hinduism... the most sacred of all scriptures existing on Mother Earth... the doctrine given to mankind by Lord Krishna is without a parallel! This is the first and only scripture available on Mother Earth that makes it possible for human beings to reach the stage of enlightenment (kaivalya jnana) and finally salvation (moksha).

Bhagavad Gita can never be understood literally. One needs reading in between the lines to understand the essence of Wisdom contained in Bhagavad Gita. Mounted with a bloated ego, wanton desires and greed for materialistic riches most human beings on Mother Earth try reading Bhagavad Gita literally! They remain wherever they are always and ever!

Bhagavad Gita gives the gist of life for both the ephemeral and the inner world. Whenever we get stuck in our day-to-day affairs of life it is Bhagavad Gita that comes to our rescue. Mahatma Gandhi relied on Bhagavad Gita most of the time. In the present times E. Sreedharan the man behind Metro in New Delhi follows the Sacred Bhagavad Gita considering it sacrosanct!

Sri Ramakrishna Paramhansa and Maharishi Ramana... both gained enlightenment in their lifetime by following the Wisdom contained in the Sacred Bhagavad Gita. Both started in search of God through the path of Bhakti yoga. At a certain stage in life the path of Bhakti yoga finally merges with the path of jnana yoga!

Truthfully spirituality is much beyond the fold of science. Spirituality starts from the place where science ends. It is something beyond proofs that paves way to understand the sacrosanct Bhagavad Gita! And that something is the power of absolute faith (aka Shraddha in Hinduism).

In the last moments of his life when Albert Einstein realized his folly... he let go his ego, the search for proofs and Bhagavad Gita started unfurling before him slowly. But it was too late by then. Albert Einstein had grown old and in spite of all his serious desires and wishes in the later stages of his life... he could not assimilate the Wisdom of entire Bhagavad Gita!

Albert Einstein throughout his life wanted to follow Bhagavad Gita from the angle of science. He bitterly failed. Science is necessary for living our day-to-day life. The Sacred Bhagavad Gita makes us reach our true inner self... our soul atman within! The moment one realizes the truth of life... one finally gains enlightenment and then salvation!

Albert Einstein is the only scientist in the world who used his brain 4%. Most human beings never use their brain more than 1%! All enlightened ones use their brain hundred percent! Albert Einstein was far above normal human beings... other scientists of his era! Whatever little he deciphered from the Sacred Bhagavad Gita... he felt absolutely elated!

http://www.vijaykumar.org/albert_einstein_and_bhagavad_gita.html

“When I read the Bhagavad-Gita and reflect about how God created this universe everything else seems so superfluous.”- Albert Einstein.