In The Flow

As a child, I always assumed that an artist is someone distinct from the masses. They are painters, poets or musicians etc. In my native language, they were called "Kalakaar". Later in my teenage years, I saw that the word "Kalakaar" is associated with someone creative, eccentric and whimsical. Whenever somebody acts strangely, they are called 'Kalakaar".

Today, I see things differently. For me, everyone is a 'Kalakaar" or has the potential to be. We all create our life and our days. But even in a practical sense, we are all creators. We create, and we deliver at every point in our life. For example, a tea stall boy makes and delivers tea; an office worker sends reports, delivers presentations; a business person ships products and services; a housekeeper delivers cleanliness and hygiene; and a cook delivers food.

This delivery can be done in two ways, throwing at others or doing a 'little more'.

People throw things to 'tick mark' activities—the focus is only on washing hands from the task. There is only action, no art. It's about completion, not creation; it shows optics but does not cause impact.

The other way is a "little more" approach with a little more intention, more attention and a bit more time. It is to own the art and its outcome. It can be an email, presentation, report, or a cup of coffee or tea. Owning gives life and meaning to an action, thus making it art. Now it's not just completion but creation; there are optics and an impact. "Little more" makes all the difference.

Do a little more, cause impact and be an artist.

Thank You.

We hear a lot about how one has to come out of our comfort zone to achieve new things in life, how it is important to be uncomfortable to learn something.

Is it possible to separate comfort levels from what we want to get done, which is valuable? When 'level of comfort or discomfort ' is taken out of the equation, we realise that we were focusing on something not critical. Both comfort and discomfort are at the level of experience. This experience comes mostly from stories we have created about ourselves, people around us and based on our worldview at large. Once we acknowledge that it's just a mind game, we are left with a choice to go beyond it.

It's a zone created by the mind, and we can drop it by this mere realisation.

We all cognitively understand that we are born unique. So then, why do we still get into the mode of comparing ourselves with others around us? What makes us compete for things that society keeps on the pedestal and may not be of real value to us. The status-seeking game makes us do things that we would not have thought of otherwise.

It makes us choose our career; it drives how we live and what we spend time on. It guides us on what to purchase, which car to drive, how to design our house and with whom to speak, and whom should we avoid.

Imagine how would life be if we moved away from this status-seeking game and lived to enjoy our uniqueness to the fullest.

The human mind is in constant search of 'how to's. We want to know the 'how to's of life. The design is such that we wish to have a hack, recipe, formula, method, tip and a trick to deal with every aspect of our life. Of course, this is fine when it comes to operational and mechanical activities like fixing furniture or assembling physical objects. However, when it comes to mind, heart and aspects of art, these recipes do not work. They become mere 'tick mark' exercises for self-approval and gives the feeling of being committed to self-improvement. Thus, 'how to' is the biggest con of our lives. It's a scam to trick and defraud ourselves.

Knowing that hacks and tricks don't work is of little use. The human design will not let go of 'how to's. It wants to find 'how to' in everything we want to accomplice. Open any blog, book, video, social media, or attend any seminar/webinar/workshop; it is all full of how to's.

Now that we know about this scam, what's next? 'How to get rid of it?'. You see, how the next 'how to' sneaked in.

Expecting humans not to look for how to's is like expecting a Bull to ignore the colour red.

A Bull can't ignore the colour red.

Black and White

When does a day starts and night stops ? What part of sunshine is good and what is bad? Which is the right direction for a river to flow and where does it takes a wrong turn? Is a plant successful when it blooms flowers and a failure if it doesn’t?

All these questions comes from a mind which attempts to ‘fit’ everything into a binary mode. The good and the bad, the right and the wrong. Nature is neither complete nor perfect.As we do not have any other parameter or context we consider nature to be complete and perfect the way it is.It is the conditioning of mind to find perfection and seek completion. Our entire life is that chase for perfection and completion.The measurements of this is in binary. In the black and the white. In the wrong and the right.

A person is either good or bad. A life is either successful or a failure. An action is either right or wrong.Once these templates are created, our primary job is then to fit into these templates or at least get into a never ending journey towards completion and perfection. Virtue signaling is an outcome of these templates.

Gratitude becomes a tick mark journaling exercise.

Kindness becomes a people pleasing and approval seeking gesture Generosity then is fake and forced exercise for seeking status and used for influencing.

These are all outcomes of the binary world.

Virtue ends up into a formula for validation and approval.

Let the flow take care

Many time we are into the thick and thin of matters. The matters can be of health,relationship,work or any thing which is of our concern. We struggle to find solution. The struggle for solution is mostly with the same mindset with which we got into the problem. It is based on several assumptions about ourselves, our limits and the constraints given by the society we live in.

If we take a step back and transform the context around the challenges we will be able to see the content in a new light. A fresh context will make the content alter its presence and sometime even vanish it altogether. Yes its like magic. For this magic to happen one has to wait and give time for that magic to happen. The more freedom we give the situation the more free you will be from the assumptions and constraints.

When a stone is thrown into a pond it never struggles to reach to its goal, the bottom of that pond. It never puts extra effort or any effort for that matter. It just goes with the flow without resisting the changes happening in its surrounding.It simply goes with the flow. It reaches its goal.

We define happiness as a function of money, fame, relationships, self esteem, societal status and self validation. Once we are settled with this definition, we start the search.

Episode 1

The Seekers

One who claims to be a seeker has to first understand what they are seeking.

What can one seek. One can seek only that what one knows either from their memory of past experiences or from the images they have created about it with their intellectual efforts like reading, listening or learning from someone.

You may be seeking truth, or the meaning of life , or happiness or Nirvana or Moksha or enlightenment or transformation. Fill in whatever you call it. How will you know when you seek what you are seeking. What is that indicator , that signal which will tell you that you have reached your goal or that siddhi. If it is that bodily sensation of vibration , or that trance state of timelessness or that inner voice. All of this is coming from your past. You have experienced something like this as a teaser or a trailer of it in the past. Now you are chasing that same experience using the same or similar or new methods told by some books, Gurus. You may have come up with your own methods based on your past experiences. All this may, not for sure, but may give you that experience again, that trance state which one gets by simple self hypnosis again, or that vibration again. But, it is not just superficial but its also temporary. People also get such experiences with some rubbish substances and medicines. The chase will still be on. A never-ending chase to attend enlightenment or nirvana. The more efforts you take , the more time you spend into the methods, rituals and the study of these processes seek the truth, the more engrossed you will be into that process. You then start getting validation from it, you start justifying the intellectual non-sense which comes from these processes and rituals. The quest to seek truth will end into a non-stop, never ending chase for methods, techniques, tools and processes.

This is an introduction to this solo podcast. It gives an idea of what ‘In the flow” is and what it is not. Disclaimer : This is a personal podcast. Any views or opinions represented in this podcast are personal and belong solely to the podcast speaker and do not represent those of people, institutions or organisations that the speaker may or may not be associated with in professional or personal capacity, unless explicitly stated.Any views or opinions are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club , organisation, company, or individual.