Work is worship!

Getting back to work after a long hiatus, is truly getting back to my real self. I had been busy in household things for a while when I realized it is about time I should get back in action and get back to doing what gives me my real identity.

Yes my work, that I hold in high regard, that makes me what I am today, gives me the confidence to walk through the day and heart felt fulfillment at the end of the day.

Most people will agree with me that work is important not only because it helps us get home some money, but also because an idle mind is a devil's workshop. It is important to engage the mind in something fruitful and worthwhile. While it is also necessary to make ends meet by earning a living.

I see so many people around me whom I cannot help admiring for the efforts they put in achieving their day's task every single day. The housemaids in the morning, the car cleaners on my street, traffic police men on the way I drive to work, the staff members and caretakers who run the daycare I leave my son in, the guard who wishes 'Good morning' with a very warm smile as I enter my office (its worth appreciating his effort in holding the door for me every time I am carrying tea to my desk from the 1st floor cafeteria), the chai vaalah who helps me kick start the day, the person who cleans my desk and office every morning before I come, my colleagues who with their honed skills in different areas of technology meet stringent deadlines delivering technology products, the team leads and managers who try hard to get through the meetings with clients and shoulder responsibility of so many team members. The leaders who are running the company. The dabba vallahs who get lunch to the office, the snacks vendor, the entire support staff, every one working hard to get it right and trying to meet expectations.

Back home my cook who almost effortlessly puts together a hearty meal for the family. The TV artists who entertain me every evening when I am unwinding after a long day. And finally myself who is extremely happy to have achieved something worthwhile even if not anything big.

Happiness comes from putting our time to good use and doing what we like to do, be it a fancy job or a seemingly menial job but done right, or just managing a household and taking care of kids. Any work done with conviction takes us a step closer to our true destiny culminating in a happy and worthy life.

Doing a job right is as good as worshiping God. After all work is worship!

My random thoughts this morning..

Sometimes its just important to dream and silently move in the direction of whatever path looks right. Sometimes the future is uncertain but desires are big. And sometimes just the road we take makes all the difference.

Times and again in life we are faced with changes and challenges that make life unstable. We think why again, again this time when everything was so right, the sudden turn of events. Again left at the hands of destiny, what will happen next. Which road we will have to take next. Will I ever achieve my desires. Will I ever realize my dreams. And the answer thankfully is yes. Each one of us lands in soup one time or other, and given the grit that is so inherent of us, each one of us emerges shining each time. The key is to believe, dream again and not lose hope.
Its not about decisions every time, sometimes we have to leave things on the higher power and just move ahead. However awry things go, everything gets set back in order. Only time is the factor. So is patience and hope.

This post is inspired by a beautiful message sent by a caring friend this morning that goes like this:
'God when I lose hope, help me to remember that your love is greater than my disappointments and your plans for my life are better than my dreams'. -Amen.

Man and Woman.

The Ramayana very beautifully explains the divine relationship between man and woman and how the two complementing each other give meaning to life.

Rama and Sita, or man and woman are the two eternal entities involved in creation. Rama is Purusha, or the man, the masculine entity. He represents the conscious being, the soul and upholder of the universe.

Sita, or the woman is Prakriti or nature, that embodies the manifest reality of birth and death and is responsible for earthly existence. She is what gives form and identity to all. She is the cradle of time and space that nurtures and holds all things together.
He is the spirit while She is the nature. Together they constitute the universe. They validate each other's existence and delight in each other's company.

Rama is said to be the soul of the universe, while Sita is the soul of the individual. Ravana who separated them was the ego. Hanuman who united them was devotion. All things put together give life fullness and completeness.

He had the Attitude!

This is a great Sufi parable:

A king wanted to appoint a prime minister. Four great thinkers of the country were called. They were put into a room and told that the door was going to be locked and that the lock was not an ordinary lock, but a mathematical puzzle. "Unless you solve the puzzle, you will not be able to open the door. If you solve the puzzle, you will be able to open the lock and come out."

The king went out and closed the door. Three of the four thinkers got down to work, immediately. They had brought paper and some guide books, and they started working really seriously. There were a few numbers written on the lock. They observed the numbers and noted them down. Then, they started working out the problem.

The fourth thinker simply sat in a corner. The three others thought he was mad. "What is he doing?" He was sitting there with his eyes shut. After a few minutes, he stood up, went to the door, pushed the door and it opened! And he went out...
The other scholars were still busy scratching their heads to solve the problem. They didn't even realize what had just happened. They were too preoccupied to see that the fourth person was already out.

Finally, the king came in with the fourth man. Addressing the three thinkers, he said, "Stop! The examination is over. I have chosen my prime minister. This is the man." They were jolted out of their stupor. They couldn't believe their eyes. They said, "How could this happen? He wasn't doing anything. He just sat in the corner. How could he solve it?"

And the man replied calmly, "There was no problem. I sat there, and the first thing, the basic thing, was to know whether the door was locked or not. I simply meditated silently. I just gathered my consciousness together. I became completely quiet and pondered over where to begin. The first thing an intelligent person always asks is whether there is really a problem or not. If there is a problem, it can be solved; if there is no problem there's nothing to be solved! And if you start solving, you will go into infinite regress. So I went just to check whether the door was really closed, and found that it wasn't."

The king said: "Yes, that was the trick. There was no lock at all. The door was left open. I was waiting for the man who would ask the first real question. You accepted the puzzle and you started solving it; that was where you missed the point. You could not have solved it even if you had worked on it for your entire life. This man knows how to be aware in a situation. He asked the right first question."

Moral of the story:

A lot of life's little troubles that bother you can be resolved by a change in your attitude.