Happiness

A very strange thing about happiness is that it is very very subjective.Its almost irrelevant of the objects around you. You may work a lifetime to achieve something and get it. You cannot be certain that the achievement may bring you happiness. Hence the word “pursuit”....If you seek it its found everywhere and in everything. If you want it in objects,results and outputs ...hmm ...tough luck!!!Even if you find it ....its very short lived. Happiness is in the process living each and every moment in a pursuit and moving forward each and every step in a direction.Its about the perseverance,about the details,its about making mistakes and trying to rectify and not repeat them.Its about being honest to yourself and people around you about the source of happiness.You have to do something to survive. your survival has a bigger role in the nature. Something that justifies your creation(by God,nature,destiny,karma...etc) .

So your basic purpose is to understand the communication that your creator makes to you thorough your inner voice. You dont know the origin of the inner voice but you just feel it right.It is closest to the truth as naked as the existence.Your job is to follow the inner voice and take one step at a time.Every experience the life gives you is a communication which decides the “inner voice” and the direction of your pursuit. Your goal is to be in the pursuit.

Two stories of my life

I just love to read inspirational stories.....may be thats because my name "spurthy" means inspiration. But now i just look back at my life and pick up something from it that has made me what ever i am today.These are not just a success stories of my life but inspiring ones to myself that if I can do it once I can do it again.....

Electrical engineering:

I still remember in my class 12 the amount of scare electrical engineering has brought to me. I just hated the site of a resistor or a circuit. i literally hated the ohms law.(By the way anything academic didnt inspire me good then...).Then as fate would have it i ended up taking electrical engineering as the subject in my engineering. I didn't have a choice then provided the rank which I got in the engineering entrance examination. I didn't really study well during my four years of engineering also. After the engineering course I was jobless and had to get a job as soon as I can...(so as to marry the girl I love).
Now I had no other choice but to look at those monsters(read subjects) again...This I was patient with myself and taught myself right from the basics. Thanks to great books and the coaching centers I conquered my fears. Those monsters were my friends. They gave me confidence that no matter what happens i have the subject with me and hence I can survive. Its just that confidence that brought the best out of me. I got the GATE( Indian equivalent of GRE subjects) percentile of 94.5(All India Rank of 767 out of 30000 people appeared for the exam). I didn't give my best during the exam. I panicked in the initial time but fought out in the end. Then I wrote the exam of the executive trainees for NTPC Ltd leading electrical utility in India. This exam was also taken by 30K people in india for electrical engineering and i had to be in the top 55 in order to get a job. that is in the top 0.5% of the lot. During the exam i was at ease with myself and as soon i completed the examination I knew i would make it.
I made it. This turnaround from a scared man about electrical engineering to a selected electrical engineer in India's leading electrical utility was too good to be true.

Few lessons i learnt from the turn around:

1. Things are not as scary as they seem in the beginning.
2. Get used to the uncertainty and surprise new things bring.
3. There are no shortcuts. Practice
4. Be prepared. As Oprah winfrey said, "Luck is where preparation meets opportunity".
5. Never ever give up. If u stumble,get up and try again.

Purpose of life:

This is something that happened to me during my early twenties. I was into a good job and married the girl I loved. Then suddenly after some time life became so predictable. It was as if there was no new challenge to look for. Getting out from bed was purposeless. I was diagnosed with GAD,OCPD( you may be wondering what are those-they are just a form of depression) and panic attacks. I really could not do anything and life seemed to be suddenly off the track. It took real long time to come of this depression phase. Thanks to my wife who stood by me during that patchy phase. She didn't leave me to myself and hoped that I would be fine one day. She tolerated all the non sense i created due to my disturbed mind. I suddenly found something in my infant child then. We all come to this world with nothing in the mind. Mentally we are as blank as nothing. Gradually we learn each and everything in this world. We name things,people,feelings and all the things we sense. This world is created in our thoughts. All the happy moments and dreadful moments in life are nothing but a bunch of thoughts.
With the help of Spiritual path (by following the teachings of Ramana Maharshi and other great hindu books) i could really observe my thoughts. I could find that the disturbances created due to unnecessary worries in the mind. I could understand myself well. This was another turnaround in my life where I fought from state of severe depression to normalcy.

Few lessons i learnt from this psychological turn around:

1. Life is as simple as it is and as complicated as it is. The choice is within us to look at the way we want.
2. There is something (call it God,Destiny,Mother nature,Almighty,Karma...) that runs this universe and puts things in order. Your duty is to be a part of it and do your bit.
3. The purpose of life is to live. Life exists in the present moment. Past is a memory and future is an idea. Present moment is the only truth. Just exist!!!
4. Put all your thoughts into action and do not worry about the result. The result is completely beyond your control. Just do it !!!! success or failure is immaterial...concentrate on the effort.....because effort is all you can care about.
5. You are as you are. You dont achieve anything if you gain something and you are not a failure if you loose something. Its all between two certainties of life and death. Rest is just a play!!!
6. Pray...it helps to connect with the inner peace....and peace can be attained....

These are some words which i would like to re-read again and again to keep myself better.

God bless.

Musings

When i see my country and places around me I get a feeling of helplessness to things that are in a horrible shape. The rich get richer and poor get poorer. There are very few avenues in which you legally make good money. The villages near the solapur (the place where I live and I get to see the rural India while going to the plant) are in a pathetic state. The one thing that catches the eye is lack of proper sanitation and lack of awareness in the people for the need of proper sanitation. I think it is the greed of the corrupt(be it politicians or the bureaucrats ) that has no end to it. The country is sliding into a state of pathetic helplessness. There is a scarcity of the passionate leaders (such as those who have fought for the independence) in this country. This country is filled with the corrupt individuals who are looting the country the way in which even the British would not have done. Everybody wants maximum returns with minimum efforts. Getting the things undeserved is a way of life here. Reason has gone away and money, muscle and diplomacy have taken over. They speak great about culture and tradition of india. If we are culturally good and we are in the land of Buddha and Gandhi then why do we fear to hear the truth?? truth is the last thing we want and the truth is we a corrupt, underdeveloped, illiterate ,poverty stricken highly populated state where the POWER wins. how do we handle this corrupt mindset? How do we handle this corrupt mindset which wants money,power,rspect,sex and all the luxuries of life through unethical means? We should give a better world for the children of this country. There should be gradual and incremental change in the nation building process. Though we are independent for 60 years we did not make a solid effor in the nation (read character) building process. This is the time Gandhis and Bhagatsinghs to rise again and build a beautiful country.Let us hope for a rebuilding of the nation soon....

Drizzling again

I have decided to make a second innings in blogging after a gap of almost two years. The reason is simple, i am thinking of prusuing an MBA seriously and try with whatever potential i have. Then going thorough the net i saw people suggesting me that blogging is an essential part of MBA preparation... though i was doubtful in the beginning I later made it a point that blogging would be very helpful in me to prepare for my essays and organisation of the thoughts and so....Drizzling again

A journey of dreams and depressions

This again is an effort to keep writing.The target audience for this blog is being narrowed down by me and hence giving me freedom to be open to myself.I have just got the autobiography of the Steve jobs and raring to open it. Right now I am busy with the book "think and grow rich" by napoleon hill. He talks about the power of desire and subconscious mind and tuning some thing to that subconscious mind. You need to think or auto feed your mind your target in order to achieve that..well...whether that works or not is something need to be seen. But one thing is clear in order to achieve something you need to plant it strongly in your head and start dreaming about it. Dreams with open eyes are wonderful companions to have. Success is happiness and dream is aspiration for that success. I used to dream a lot during childhood and teenage and the scope being unlimited. One dream...rather a fantasy was to open the batting sachin tendulkar....though girls and life with them occupied the majority of my dreams good family with a great home was there as a bigger picture. Then I loved this girl(now my wife)and I was under the pressure to convert this dream into reality...and this was not a smooth ride. In pursuit of my dream I had to face unknown and uncommon obstacles. Some were expected and and some were really unexpected. They were so serious that they could easily distract me from my pursuit. Suddenly I became unaware of my purpose of life because the obstacles were so big that they made rethink to quit. Then the question arose "quit from what?". Quit from the basic purpose that drives me to living. Quitting was equivalent to being dead as you don't have a purpose in life. Then it seemed obvious to me that quitting is impossible and so analysing the obstacles is the only way out. One thing became clearer to me that those obstacles were not external but internal. Thanks to all those psychiatrists, books, friends and dear Ones who stood with me to realise this fact. I started to dream again and this time with clarity. I broke those dreams into smaller targets and enjoyed them(and still doing the same). Learning from the knowledge available and seeking the happiness available were two things that were and that are driving me towards my pursuit. The purpose of writing this is to enjoy the process of being in pursuit irrespective of the result. Hence this is the journey towards dreams through fighting depressions. Pursuit....obviously is happiness.

What and where is our culture heading......

Right now we in India are struck....struck terribly between modern (read western)and traditional mindsets...even the generation next is unable to understand where they stand....everybody wants a modern girlfriend and the same material is unfit as a wife....moral dilemmas are as common as anything else....this is a disturbing trend as the person you are cheating is none other than you...convience is the new concept these days...for example if u have time you plan to execute each and every traditional ceremony and if u r busy...oh why to follow those in these days....basic flaw lies in lack of reasoning at individual and cultural level....why do you pray...coz you are told to so by those who are told to do so by others and this mass misunderstanding continues....horoscope is the basic essential thing rather love in case of marriages(arranged) how the hell do they forecast your well being..? some unknown science....boy friend has to be tough ,party animal and somebody who gives all his time to her....but husband....caring individual who is responsible,earns a lot and has a greater social status(has to be from the caste yaar...)...where dose this duality arrive from? and whom are you cheating?I wish this to be a temporary phase through which the culture is transforming and i personally think for the current period the shift towards the western culture is for the good of upcoming generations....

Miss you Steve

it has been a really long time since I wrote a blog.I would not have written this too if I didnt have this new iPad in my hand.But this has made me to scribble again and ...yep back again...as always I promise myself to write regularly.The problem with under achievers(ppl like me)is indiscipline.we take hell lot of resolutions and when it comes to delivery we miss the bus.probably that's the major difference between "average " and above average.using this iPad,iPhone and iPod and king of apple products iMac has made me huge fan of Steve jobs (probably the other way round).Still....he is a dream come true and life in a fantasy..but death the ultimate destination Steve talked about has come to him RIP....the world will his magic...and his on stage presence...his lovely Stanford speech is as good as his successful products(great thing is that it's available for free online)....such are the ppl who make their creators proud...hmm it's really nice to write a blog with iPad...feels gud and makes you Proud may be this is the feeling that fairer sex get when they flaunt those expensive jewellery.To me apple and stevejobs in particular seems to be a rare mix of art and technology and that's why ppl love him. He made his profits but the users of the products know it's worth....miss him a lot...now it's real test watching the apple without steve at the helm.Great ppl make great organisations and apple has proved it again....