Attachment!!!

I just hope I have the answer by the time I'm done writing this post.
What is attachment?
(If you are expecting a post about email attachments, then this post might not be for you. All attachments are not for mails. Bugs exist even outside softwares. All viruses can't be killed with antivirus, some need vaccines.)

Went to a beautiful place yesterday, I called up my sister from there and told her how I wished she should have been there. Is that attachment?
While talking to a friend, he just mentions that he's not been keeping well for a couple of days... I start feeling worried about him and go down to meet him. Is that attachment?
I have a habit of calling home and speaking to my mom atleast twice a day whether i'm in office or travelling out of the city. But another friend of mine can go without speaking to family for a full week. Does that mean I have the attachment with my family but my friend doesn't have attachment with his family?
Once we spoke about this and my friend said he doesn't have so much attachment with his family, that's the way he has been brought up.
Again, if that same friend gets a call from home for some problem, he'll rush home without thinking twice. Is that attachment?
When I'm away from home, I feel like going back there. Everytime I call my family, I would say "Miss you"
If I am at a beautiful place without my loved one by my side, even then I'll say "Miss you"
Which one is love and which one is attachment?
A lot has been spoken in this world about "Love". I'm not mature enough to even start writing about love.
Can there be love without attachment?
This one word "Attachment" has got so many questions attached.
If someone had to ask me what is this feeling of attachment and how to develop this feeling towards someone, i'm not sure if I will have an answer...

That sense of security?

All those who know me well know that there are two things which I don't like - water and heights. Heights being the worst one. I wouldn't stand on the terrace of a 3 storey building.
And here I am doing parasailing...
Yep... You read it right. Parasailing... It involves both heights and water.
Just for those who don't know about it, parasailing involves a speed boat. There is a rope attached to the boat. On the other end of the rope is a parachute attached. You can clamp yourself on to the parachute (parasail) and hang on. As the boat goes faster the parasail rises higher. The boat goes really fast taking you very high, then slows down, dunking you in water and then speeds up taking you up again. It's like kite flying, with a really big kite and a person attached to it.
Went through a bit of fear while getting strapped into the harness but before I knew I was clamped to the chute and on my way up.
The strangest part is that I didn't feel a tiniest bit of fear after take-off. I was absolutely free... Flying through the air... I even left my hands and spread out my arms to do a little flying action.
How was it possible? Why was I not scared?
The difference between the two examples is the "SENSE OF SECURITY". When I'm standing on a terrace, I'm not having anything to catch me, but in a parasail, I'm strapped on to a harness which will take care of me in any eventuality.
Isn't this the same feeling that a baby gets when it has gone through all the laps and finally reaches the mother's lap?
Isn't it the same feeling a son gets while holding his father's hand and crossing the road?
The same feeling you get when you finally reach home after traveling places...
The same feeling you used to get when you slept hugging that Teddy bear...
Isn't it the same feeling you get when you are sitting with that someone special...
The feeling that right now, nothing in the world can go wrong... And it won't matter even if something did go wrong.
There are a lot of people, places and objects in the world which have given me that sense of security at various stages of my life.
The question I need to ask myself is - Have I ever been that source of comfort to someone? Can someone feel completely safe in my company?
Can I give a sense of security to make someone feel safe inspite of whatever goes on around?
I think I need to ask this question not just as a friend, but even as a boss for my team, as a teacher, as a son for my mother, as a brother, as a husband...
But before all of this, I need to have a sense of security about myself. If I'm scared how can I ever make others feel safe around me?
Can I grow enough in life that I don't need any external factor to give me a sense of security?

No Expectation = Maximum Satisfaction

All those who know me well know one thing that I can walk into any movie and come out fully satisfied with the movie irrespective of how useless / boring / pathetic the movie is. I can enjoy the most floppest of the movies.
How do I do it?
Simple, at the very start of the movie, I drop all the expectations from the movie. Looking at the quality of movies coming out these days, I figure that the best way is to switch off my mind and leave it back home. That way I can enjoy it better. And, by mistake, if it happens to be a good movie, it becomes a pleasant surprise and I can enjoy it even better.

Recently, I went out with a few friends to see a dead volcano. I know, the moment I say volcano you start visualising a huge crater with jagged edges, gray rocks, ashes all over the place, and somewhere far away at the core of the crater, maybe there will be smoke. I'm sure you have seen such views on Discovery Channel and can imagine what I'm talking about.
But that is what you expect.
That is what my friends expected
When we reached there, it was definitely a trip to the top of the hill, it was definitely a hill top with a huge volcanic crater, and sharp edges, but there was one small difference. Instead of gray rock and ashes everywhere, we saw a lush forest in the crater. All the way from the edge of the crater to the center, there was dense forestation and at the centre of the crater there was a small water pool covered with green. This volcano had been dead for thousands of years and now the place was filled by a forest. It was the most amazing view I had seen, although one of my friends was not as excited as he did not see the ashes and rocks.
I was able to enjoy this trip to the max because I had gone without any expectations.
On the same logic, when I cook myself, I enjoy the food the most.

In all the above examples, No expectation = Maximum satisfaction.

We all fall in this trap quite often.
We go places having a predefined expectation.
We get into a relationship expecting a few great things and when they don't work out, we are dissatisfied.
We go to a gym expecting to get 6 packs in a month and when it doesn't happen, its not a good gym.

Can we have Zero expectations from the world? Maybe it makes things easier at times.

Be Careful!!! This is where your cunning mind plays tricks.

I will not walk into my office with zero expectations. When I walk into office everyday, when I make a sales call, when I go to meet a client, when I walk into an exam hall, I have great expectations with myself and my performance. I expect big things from the projects, from the sales calls, from the interviews, from the exams.
That is where one is expected to have expectations.

And end of the day, I understand one thing very clearly - It may not always be good to have expectations from the outside world, But I should have expectations from myself.
What I expect the world defines my relationship with the world
What I expect from myself defines the direction of my growth in life.

What does God eat?

Went to a temple with a friend, on the way back we were talking about a few things when my friend, simply, very casually, very lightly asked me a question - “Does God eat? What does God eat?”
My first answer at that moment was “Prayers”. Have been thinking about it and with every minute things are getting more and more connected.
We keep offering fruits, coconuts, sweets etc to God because from our limited understanding of physical world, these things are supposed to give nourishment. But what we don’t get is that these objects are created by God. How could something created by God possibly satisfy His hunger?
But there is one thing, just one thing that was not created by God. That one thing is “Prayer”. He has created everything else in the world, but the one thing which we have created as humans is "Prayer"
If we had to go all the way back into the history of humankind, I’m sure the very first prayer was either a word of gratitude or a desire communicated to a higher power.
Just like we feel happy, full and satisfied after eating our food, same is with God. He feels happy, full and satisfied at a place where there is prayer.
You might ask: “Okay, So like we become weak without food and can probably die when we don’t get food for long enough, do you mean even God will become weak if he doesn’t get prayer?”
God doesn’t become weak my dear, but yes, the presence of God definitely becomes weak. And when the presence of God becomes weak, we see more bad, sadness, troubles in that place.
Let’s say you don’t have a pet, there is this dove which comes to your balcony everyday and eats the grains which you keep for it. One day you don’t keep the grains, the dove will come and wait. Don’t keep the grains for the next day, the dove will still come and wait. Do this long enough and the dove will stop coming.
Let’s Forget the dove, if your own mother doesn’t give you food everyday but your aunt gives you food, you will start eating at the aunt’s place.
If there is prayer in the house, God comes. If there is no prayer in the house, God waits there, if it’s still not there, he just goes to the place where he finds prayer.
This is the reason why in the old times God was there in every house but today he is restricted to staying in temples only. Because that is where he gets undiluted prayers, less of negative and more of positive.
You might ask: “Okay, agreed that God goes where he finds prayer, but then why is it that in some houses even after praying for so many years, there is no happiness. It feels like God doesn’t want to come there?”
If I had to give you a bowl full of green chillies to eat, would you eat? If I add one heaped spoonful of sugar to the bowl of chillies and give, now would you eat it?
Check the house, chances are that the number of people not praying in the house, number of people jealous, fighting, complaining, cribbing in the house is greater than the number of people offering prayers in the house. How do you expect this to work out?
All of us have had glimpses of our prayers being answered almost magically, look back and see, those were probably the most sincere ones.
My ultimate growth would be if I could get Him to come and stay with me forever on the strength of my prayers...

Define wrong!!!

Was sitting with my friend at McDonald's at a mall in Bangalore. We had some free time so we were just chatting. Somewhere the talk diverted to what is right and what is wrong.
We got into a game and started going through a few things like smoking, drinking, checking out chicks and a few other topics. Everytime I say something is wrong, he would defend it by saying its right.
If I say drinking is wrong, he would come back quoting doctors who say wine is good for health.
If I say checking out girls is wrong because they are someone's daughters or sisters, his answer would be that they are the beauty created by god, nothing's wrong in seeing god's creation.
If I would say something is right, like computer games or watching TV, he would go all the way to prove it is wrong.

Finally we landed on one question --- "Define Wrong"

I don't remember what we discussed after that because that one question brought back to me the definition which my teacher had given to me -

"If you can do something in the presence of your mother, spouse or daughter, then it is right, otherwise it is wrong."

I have never seen a simpler definition of wrong in my life.
Anywhere I try to apply it, it works.
If I try to check out a girl in front of my wife, I'll probably end up sleeping on the sofa.
I don't know a single father who smokes or drinks in front of his daughter.
Never seen a person talking about breaking a law, paying or accepting a bribe in presence of his mother.
This definition has become my anchor for defining my rights and wrongs.
I think I'll end this post here and let this definition do it's work.

Limited connectivity... Unlimited thinking

Am at a place where Internet connectivity for personal purposes is limited, inspire of that the thinking is unlimited. Lot of thoughts going on inside the head. Questions like definition of wrong... Difference between seeing and staring... And a few more are there to be answered.
Will be back to posting really soon...

The Train Journey...

This one is a recent experience and I have to discuss in detail to make the point, its going to be a long post and please take time to read it completely.We were recently travelling by train. We had taken the ordinary class tickets. Ordinary class compartments are always reserved and people without a valid ticket are not allowed to enter those compartments. As a standard security procedure, 2 armed RPF (Railway Police Force) officials travel in these compartments.
We took the midnight train, and it so happened that our compartment was not covered by the RPF. The train departed at the scheduled time of 12 midnight. As we reached the next station at about 1o'clock, a mob of about 150 people suddenly barged into our compartment with luggage and all. There were men, women, children and old men and women in the group and all came barging into the compartment. Some of them were even drunk, they started sitting on our reserved berths.
Since there was no RPF in that compartment, there was nobody to stop them. Of course, the lone ticket examiner was no match for a mob of 150+ strong uneducated, rogue looking crowd.
The normal capacity of a reserved compartment is 72 passengers. Obviously, all the passengers started cribbing and complaining about what was going on. As the Ticket examiner was coming to check our tickets, I could hear the amount of shouting and firing he was getting from the other passengers for not being able to control the crowd. I was feeling bad for the person because I understood that if he tries to mess with any of these "invaders", he will be beaten to pulp.
When he came to check for my ticket, I told him exactly this "I understand that you are going through a lot of difficulty due to this situation, I know you can't do anything about it since you are one person and these are 150+ people, so I know its no point shouting at you and being rude to you, but, I can't give you my ticket for checking. I do hold a valid ticket, but I will not give it for checking unless this crowd is cleared from the compartment."
Believe me, the look he had on his face was as if he was looking at an alien from another planet or an escapee from a mental asylum. I'm sure he was thinking "Where on earth did this guy get such an idea?"
I went on to say - "With so many people travelling in the compartment without ticket, it makes no sense at all for you to check my tickets. I'm travelling with family and baggage, and I definitely don't feel safe with a drunkard without ticket standing right next to me." All this while, I didn't speak one wrong word, no angry words and had a constant smile on my face.
The ticket examiner didn't know how to respond - I was not being angry, not being rude, I was actually speaking to him nicely and had still taken a standpoint. He also felt comfortable talking to me and explained the situation to me.
Apparently, he had requested for armed backup at the previous station and not received the same.
I told him, that if the crowd is not vacated at the next station, I will pull the emergency brakes chain and not allow the train to move forward.He actually told me to go ahead and do it.
At the next station, I did what I had promised, I pulled the chain. Everytime the train started moving, I would pull the chain and it would come to a halt. Meanwhile, he would try to arrange for RPF at the station. This went on for quite some time but they were not able to arrange for armed backup.
While I was pulling the chain, a few guys from the crowd started looking at me, passing comments in the local language (thinking that I didn't know the local language), glaring at me in the face, some of them started speaking rudely to me.
All this while, my only response was to keep smiling even with them. Even they were actually confused because I was not talking or fighting with any of them.
One person decided to pick a fight with me and asked what the hell I was trying to do, just then the ticket examiner came, I told him that a person was trying to pick a fight with me and the ticker examiner fired him. Again, not a word spoken from my side directly with these guys.
I had delayed the train by more than 45 minutes and still the RPF did not arrive when the engine crew decided to override the emergency brakes and the train moved on.
Again, on seeing that the chain was not working, I started laughing with my copassengers. Again this whole crowd was confused, because something I tried had failed. I was supposed to be upsed and they were supposed to laugh, but instead, I was the one laughing.
Surprisingly, at the next station, 2 armed RPF personnel boarded the compartment, and used brute force to literally kick out all the unreserved passengers out of the compartment and on the platform.
By the time things were cleared, it was already 4o'clock in the morning.
When all was settled, I myself went to the Ticket examiner and gave him my ticket for checking. Again he gave me a look which I didn't quite understand. Probably, he meant to ask "What on earth are you"

Quite a few realisations and lessons I picked up from this journey:
1. Its no point fighting with someone who doesn't have anything to lose. I could have easily lost my temper and picked up a fight with those guys, but the fact is that I didn't stand a chance even if just 3 of them decided to get physical.
2. Its no point blaming a person who is already facing problems well beyond his reach. Nobody likes to listen to his / her own problems over and over again.
3. Use the system - I understood the system in place and used it to my advantage.
4. Keep smiling - Of all the tough situations I have been in, I have learned one important lesson, people don't know how to handle a smile. Especially in a heated situation, they definitely don't know how to handle the situation if the other person starts smiling instead of fighting.
5. Last and the biggest lesson - Gandhigiri works. It totally absolutely works in real life, but if one is not brave enough, it can scare the life out of the one trying to use it. I was definitely scared about the prospects of one of the guys deciding to come back and take a revenge on me. I didn't really sleep for the rest of the journey because of the fear. But, at the end of the day, I'm happy that I was able to take a standpoint against wrongdoers and stick to it without losing my temper.
Result... The remaining journey was peaceful for the entire compartment including my people, and I discovered a strength about myself.