Why to look Good ?

There was a phase in my life... I used to spend a lot of time in front of the mirror... Combing my hair, changing hairstyles, making funny faces, looking at my body... admiring myself...commenting on myself... etc...

One day I had this question... Why do I want to look good? So that people look at me? So that people get attracted to me? So that people come and speak to me? So that they take care of me? That day I decided... I don't want to look good ! I want to look bad... I want to look ugly ! I wanted to check, will people still love me?

So, I started growing my hair, beard, didn't care about what I wore, and made sure that I didn't wear something that looked very nice... I had started looking not cool at all ! I noticed that now, I didn't care to come in front of the camera if someone took a pic... I started noticing that some people would not talk properly to me, some would ignore me, some would even run away from me, some would talk with pity !

Another thing that I noticed was... I had started looking really horrible ! Long uncombed hair with scanty beard already looked yuk... but to add further, I had a fall on ice and got my eye swollen, and then I hit the same spot again... and the swelling only increased ! I cut my tongue... with all that I had started to look like a ghost !

Thats when this thing struck me... I had decided to look ugly, so the nature also started to support me! Thats when I realized the power of my thought, and the unseen universe helping me to manifest my thoughts ( watch the movie/book "The Secret" )... And then I realized, OK... One ought to look presentable so that people atleast talk to me without pity or being repelled! And not be obsessed with LOOKS :) !

Holland - Delft

I was just scanning through my picture album and came across some photos of my europe stay... After spending a year at Dresden ( Germany ), I spent my second year of masters at Delft ( Holland )... Holland is a country 1/3 of which is below sea level ! Its populated with really tall and human beings ( avg height of men is more than 6 feet 1 )... Here are some pics during my stay there...

This is the 13th floor where one of my friend (Manoj ) stayed... we used to meet up very often and cook and eat our food together...

Holland has a lot of people from Suryanam ( it was a dutch colony in South America and has a large population of migrated Indians ( Biharis ). Holi is celebrated very nicely by the Suryanamese there. The pic below is with Mandar Apte, he is the guy who got me back into art of living !

Den Haag ( The Hague ) is a city about 10 -15 mins ( by train ) from Delft. It has a beautiful beach and there are trampolines at the beach side... Summers over there were simply awesome ! And by the way how do u find my long hair 60's look ;)...

Holland is a beautiful place with loads of rainfall round the year... Some really strong winds at times !

With its capital as Amsterdam, Holland is really famous for a lot of things... like the Tulip Garden ( now what were u thinking ;) )...


Holland is also famous for many other things also like art, museums, windmills, dykes, bicycles, cheese... and ofcourse drugs and prostitution !

My entire stay at Europe, was superb! Had an amazing scholarship, was studying at one of the topmost universities in the world in a world renowned lab, had a car of my own, had a German girlfriend, had a nice set friends, very often traveled around the country and the continent.

Although seemingly it was all superb, I felt some kind of emptiness deep inside... some kind of vacuum... Nothing could really fill that vacuum... No amount of going to the beach, partying, sports, gym, lab work, studies, spending time with friends/girlfriend, TV, talking on the phone or anything could really do anything to fill that... All it could do was... give me some consolation for some time and then I'm back with the same emptiness ! I had everything yet nothing ! Life had become juice-less !! Until............ will continue some other time....

DCE YES!+

An absolutely stunning YES!+ course just finished at DCE. Every course is such a unique and beautiful experience ! Its so incredible. Each time I sit or teach a course, there are so many new insights of myself ! Each course only consolidates my belief that, the course is not about what we speak, but about the whole experience !

The students of the DCE course were indeed sooo special ! Energy, enthusiasm, commitment and a childlike innocence in all of them ! Also special about the students in this course was that... Each of them had an interview before they entered the course !

It was matched by equally superb volunteers and teachers. Awesome singing & guitaring by Sachin. The HR queens Priyanka & Pallavi ( also abhishek @ IIT Delhi ) interviewed most of the participants. The DCE anchors Tanvi & Pooja showed outstanding commitment and enthusiasm to make this course happen !!!


Some simply divine sessions by saleelda especially on love and relationship left everyone ( including him and me ! ) in awe and wonder ! and yaaa.. the last day was traditional dressing... and u can see urs truly in guruji's attire :)... ( btw it was the first time i've worn this kind of dress in a course ! )

Feverishness & Anger !

After a reeeaaaallllyyy long time I got angry a few weeks ago! This was a very special anger, since I was also observing myself during the phase of anger. I was caught going out from the railway station. Platform tickets have been stopped from being issued these days at New Delhi RS ( Railway Station). So, I was supposed be to carrying a train ticket.

The TCE caught me, and told me to stand on one side. I was in a hurry, and I made gestures of just running off. The TCE got even more pissed off! He started holding me by my collar. So, I also started speaking loudly. That’s it! I had lost it! I could observe, that my energy levels ( prana ) had increased and I had become feverish. I was not in control of myself. In this state, my intellect would tell me to do certain things, but my ego would tell me to do something else. There was so much feverishness. I just could control what I wanted to say and what I wanted to hold back. It was as if I was drunk! No control of my self. In midst of the struggle I had made a phone call to a friend who was outside the station and told her to buy tickets and come. Now came the best part. She came up with the ticket and handed it over to me. Now, the TCE had no proof that I was ticket less! So, I Challenged the TCE .. “ab tum mera kuch nahi kar sakte” ( you can’t do anything to me now ). That was enough to pinch the TCE’s ego! He said… “Bahut shaana ban raha hai.. Tera to memo nikalta hoon” ( acting very smart… I’ll get u a memo .. memo is some kind of reporting to the police thingy, which meant sitting in jail for the night! ). He held me and took me to the station master’s office… The thing about anger is that when one is in this state, consequences are not seen, there is so much energy and kind of valor that in that moment one is ready to face anything! So, it continued even there… but soon, probably my intellect had won, and I thought to myself that… okay I don’t want to waste more time ☺… I heard my friends telling me to keep quite (actually they had been saying to keep quite for quite long, but only now it registered… I thought… ok… lets give it a shot)… So, I just stayed quite inspite of severe urges to just speak and shout and give gyan etc etc… Not surprisingly… as soon as I shut up… The TCE started listening to my friends and his colleagues… Now suddenly from making a Memo, to fining the 2 of us, it settled to just giving one fine… Had I shut up little earlier it probably would not have been even that ☺… Nevertheless… I totally enjoyed the sudden surge of energy… Even after the ‘fight’ the energy levels were really high in me… The only thing was that… there was feverishness along with it which made me loose control of my actions!

Wake Up !

Of late, I've been in Gurgaon, which comes in the Delhi NCR region, and is swamped with a huge number of corporates. My job involves interacting with youth ( 18 - 30 to be specific ), so i've been meeting up with a lot of young employees at various call centres & BPOs. Infact I’m staying with one ( He was my room-mate at IIT).

I really pity, the way they are leading their lives. Their regular schedule is – say a 10 hour working day (which I feel would be the only worthwhile time), come back, watch T.V. or meet up with a friend over a coffee/meal/drink on working days. Friday and Saturday evening are for heavy drinking, and Sunday goes by, getting out of the hangover!

Such a dull, boring and monotonous life! It looks so juiceless! Even though seemingly there are all the material comforts, life seems to be so juiceless! Just waiting for weekends, where one could drink and get out of the monotonicity for a few hours. As soon as the alcohol is digested and the headache, or dullness gone, starts another week and the cycle continues!



We are so caught up in our own ‘vicious circle’ that we have really forgotten where are we really heading? What is it all for? Why are we here on this planet? Whats the purpose of life? Very often these issues come out as ‘discussions’ after a drink, or maybe even without a drink sometimes, but still as ‘discussions’. This is the first step. Very fortunate are those, to whom at-least this question dawns! Everyone who is at this step (or who is nodding in agreement through this blog) wants to come out of the cycle, but very few have the determination and courage to put in actual efforts!

The solution lies in taking action about it (not just reading this blog and forgetting it!). It lies in spending time with oneself to sit and ponder over these issues and meditate. It lies in going out and serving people. It lies in having more talks, discussions, and being in company of people with similar mindset. Guruji puts it in very simple words… “Seva, Satsang & Sadhana”. Seva – serving people without expecting anything in return. Satsang – being in the company of sat(truth) meaning hanging around/chilling out/spending time with people doing such activities. Sadhana – meditating, or spending time with oneself on a regular basis. These are the three pillars of growth that help us “wake up” in life!

Intelligence & Innocence

“There is a lot of intelligence in the world today. What we need in the world today is innocence…” – Sri Sri

In today’s age, this statement holds so true! The moment a person does something that is intelligent, the first question that comes to our mind is… “ what does he gain from this.. or what does he/she want… whats in it from him/her…” I mean we don’t leave the minutest possibility that the person has done something good for everyone out of innocence! The synonym of intelligence has become ‘crookedness’… Its so visible in our vocabulary… When we say, “ He is very smart" implying "don’t believe him" or "He is very sharp" meaning "be careful " etc.

Then there are the "dumb" people in this world whom we often call “ innocent”… They don’t leave a possibility that someone can be crooked! They think the whole world is innocent and that every person does everything with innocence and believe everything and everyone… They are the ones who get exploited by the ‘intelligent and crooked’… When these people find out that they were being exploited, they get frustrated and tend to loose faith…



When the faith is strong, then there is no stopping… One doesn’t feel cheated, one doesn’t get frustrated and one continues to remain innocent, no matter what the whole world does or say… Even if someone does act 'crooked' with them, they see that this person has done such an act out of ignorance or some negativities overpowered that person... When these type of people use intelligence, the world becomes a better place to live in… When an action is done with Intelligence and total innocence, it is one of the most beautiful and perfect actions done in the universe…

What love can do !

I really respected and loved my grandfather. He passed away, when I was in my class 10th. He was residing at our place in his last days…. Only my mother and I were at home when he passed away…. I remember comforting my mother, saying ‘He has just left his body’. A few nights after his body was cremated, I had a dream… He was sitting in our drawing room on the sofa, the way he used to sit… and talking to me… And I tell you the dream was so real, I could not believe it! I had flashes of him being taken to the cremation and that he was dead! So I asked him .. ‘but dadaji you are dead… how are you here!’. He replied ‘This is because of your love for me.’

Come for Satsang

I had worn a wet dhoti for (cold) morning sandhya vandana ( chantings that I do almost regularly ever since I shaved my head)… By afternoon, I caught a fever… my body was aching and I felt weak…


After finishing the evening sandhya vandana, we got to know that bhanu didi’s ( guruji's sister) birthday was being celebrated close by, and that there was food there… So we went there… I met bhanu didi and wished her… My fever had risen, my body was now aching terribly and I was finding difficulty in standing. So, I decided I would return to my room, miss bhanu didi’ birthday satsang and just rest… Just then, there was a queue formed and we saw guruji ( Sri Sri Ravi Shankar ) heading to his car… So I decided to see him off… As he went past me, he looked at me, gave a caring glance and gave me a pat on my left cheek. Within 30 seconds of the pat, I realized, my pain disappeared, my fever had gone, and I was feeling fit ! It was unbelievable !! So, I went for bhanu didi’s birthday satsang and had a great time there… Surprisingly immediately after the satsang the fever reappeared! That’s when I understood, guruji’s gesture… with a pat on my cheek he invited me to the satsang... At the same time he didn’t want me to become a softie and not be able to bear a simple fever. The fever eventually got over completely by next morning…

Pain, Valor and Surrender – Wisdom from the wisdom tooth

I had a wisdom tooth extraction today… Its called ‘intaction’. I don’t know how the name ‘wisdom’ came to this tooth, but this tooth which comes in a few humans, generally only causes problems… I have all 4 but two of them have come out horizontally instead of vertical… So, I needed to undergo the removal of these two… Today was intaction of the first one of them…

Till before the surgery I thought it to be a normal tooth extraction… But as I sat on the chair I was told it would take atleast half an hour ! The bone holding the tooth needed to be cut and only then would the tooth be extracted! Wow !! I thought to myself… As I switched off my mobile phone ( Answering the phone was a bit difficult considering my mouth would be wide open, tongue sticking out and some carpentry going inside !) I saw guruji’s beautifully smiling face ☺. I closed my eyes, and just remembered guruji… After taking 3 injections of anesthesia the surgery started… Inspite of the anesthesia, I don’t know how, but there was pain… Actually now, looking back, that pain was not much it was easily bearable, but the sound of the heavy carpentry was what increased the pain. Amidst all this while I was trying to observe my whole body and the mouth region… and then surrendering... i.e. remembering that this is just my body… a piece of flesh and blood… and that… the divine is always there to take care of me… I noticed that whenever I had pain, my body had stiffened at various places, and whenever I took my attention there and relaxed, the pain would subside… The same thing happened again and again. I would feel pain… I wouldn’t accept it instantly… Parts of my body would stiffen… Then I would surrender the body… And then the pain only localized to the area of the mouth… Actually if I closely scanned the area in my mouth where the pain was… I noticed, that even there… pain is nothing but a strong sensation… A sensation that is different from the normal state! Had this been there all my life, I would have lived with it without even noticing it! Actually all this is quite similar to doing yoga asanas… As soon as we assume a new posture… there is stiffness in different parts… and then we take our attention to the stiff regions and relax them… and it becomes so much more comfortable…… There comes the drilling machine again… and aaaooo…. Again… my body stiffens… I feel pain in the mouth… this time the doctor gave me two tips… don’t worry about the sound and shut your eyes… Such useful tips! I was magnifying my pain simply by the sounds and my own eyes! In this whole operation I tried a few more techniques… One of them was valor… I remembered the advanced course ( a course in the art of living incase you don’t know about it! )… and then I thought to my self… bring it on… lets see what can the pain do to me …. Come on ! bring it on !!! This also was a cool technique… But I prefer becoming aware and just surrendering…

No matter how much I pacify or remind myself through the intellect… When the pain comes instantly, its only the conditioning of the mind that matters… concepts don’t matter! I thought to my self… This is how death would be… The instant it comes… all the things in the intellect don’t matter… Its only the reflex action of the mind… Well.. I’m living now and I’ve got a lot to learn ☺ before I leave this body…

I guess, this wisdom tooth has imparted its share of wisdom while exiting ☺.

" Why do you get angry ? "

As a class 7 kid I used to be reaaallyy shot tempered. I would get angry at the drop of a hat. One fine day, I was sitting in the lawn with my dad and grandpa and my grandpa was talking to my dad about JD Krishnamurthy. Then he started talking to me. He said... " how do you see a tree ? " ... Just imagine looking at a tree and look at it the way it is and don't associate any name to it... Then he went on to say... Whenever you get angry, think about what are you angry of ? Who are you ? Do not associate yourself with any name, any tag... There have been billions of people living, since billions of years... what are you... I don't know why but this thought struck me, and I feel it had a impact on me !