N Kumarasundaram

[nkumarasundaram]

Purity of Intent

There has always been a constant difference of opinion between theist (believer of God) and Atheist (non-believer of God), the former set of people believe there is a supreme force beyond humans which keeps the world existent and functional  while the latter group argues there exists no such force and  everything is in our control.

Actual problem arises when these people who perceive them to be theists also face problems and in some cases they feel even atheists seem to have lesser problems compared to them. The potent question is “does God help the believer or non-Believer?” Before answering this question let us forget about God or any other eternal force for a moment.

Being a mortal being, will you accept if your food is offered in an unclean and previously used plate? Obviously “No” You will request for the food to be served in a clean and washed plate. Leave this, you want to use a public washroom and will you get into a stinky and uncleaned restroom or will you look out for a well maintained rest room? Obviously, your choice will be the latter. Even for your excretion you are choosing a neat and clean place even though the smelly restroom could still serve your purpose.

Now getting back to the question of God, the eternal force just like you will choose and help the person with pure and genuine intensions. If you constantly engage yourself in doing prayers and puja but with a polluted mind then there are lesser chances for God to choose you. So, stop complaining and focus on keeping your intentions pure by not harming anyone.

[nkumarasundaram]

Dip or Drown

Work life balance has become a major topic of discussion in the past millennium years. There is a constant tug of war between the people who manage it well and those who struggle to maintain the balance. Over the past few years, the pendulum tilts more towards the latter.

With the advent of remote working the personal life gets tangled with professional life. Some people are able to define their boundaries while others difficult to draw their boundaries thereby falling prey to their work.

The perfect analogy for work and life balance would be tea and biscuit. Not all might follow this but every one of us would have come across this process of consuming biscuits by dipping them in tea. Many people like this as the tea adds flavor to the biscuit when dipped into it. If you have keenly noticed, the dip should be only to an optimum level else if it is being dipped for a longer period the biscuit get smudges and breaks itself into the tea glass. Only a regular person consuming it will know for how long it could be dipped to prevent from breaking and this comes out of constant practice.

The same can be applied to our work life balance as well, our life is the biscuit and the tea is our work. We should immerse ourselves into work till the threshold where our mental sanity and personal life is stable. There is no purpose if your work drowns your life. If the biscuit breaks into the tea glass then it becomes polluted and difficult to separate. Just the same way, your life will become difficult to retrieve once you trade your mental health and personal well-being to your work. 

[nkumarasundaram]

Match Found

In this generation, we see a lot of marriages falling apart due to difference of opinions. This puts forth a question “If astrology as a science is a failure model?” Even arranged marriages tend to break and the couple comes forward saying “our horoscopes perfectly matched and we are having compatibility issues”. They blame horoscopes and astrology as an issue for their mistakes.

At some cases, such people even misguide others following this path. The point here is not to make you believe in astrology but to have an understanding of how it works before confusing others. Horoscopes are like your Google Maps, it gives you ideal route subject to your input feed. It doesn’t say that is the only route to arrive at your destination. You are free to choose an untested route as well but you must be careful as the authenticity of that route is not proven. Similarly, horoscopes are just a tool to check if the compatibility of the lead pair will last longer. It doesn’t guarantee successful marriages.

Just like Google Maps, if you ask for the route and don’t start your vehicle will you still be able to arrive at your destination? Another aspect is that the map doesn’t guarantee your safety and it depends on your driving. We might see accidents happening at a usually safe Highways but a person driving at a lumpy one way lane might safely reach his destination.

In the same way, horoscopes or arranged marriages or even love marriages doesn’t guarantee success or failure of marriage life. When the couple is cautious on making it work, marriages will be successful irrespective of whether their horoscopes match or not.

[nkumarasundaram]

Power of Chanting

Chanting something is similar to calling a person by their name. However close or far that person may be; calling out their name will make them look at you. The intent behind chanting is also the same be it mantra for God or anything else for that matter.

If you keep reciting your desired thing in your mind, you tend to attract it by diverting its attention towards you. The primary aspect of making you chant mantra in temples or any spiritual centers is similar, taking you closer to God with their name and mantra. Issue arises when people ask is it enough if I just keep chanting what I want and will it come to my hand. The answer is No, chanting alone will not take you closer to God.

Let us consider the similar example of calling out names, if you call your friend’s name by sitting in the same room then he/she will respond but what if they are two floors away from you. Calling out their names by staying in your room won’t work; in this case you walk closer to their room and then call out their name. Similarly chanting mantra or your desired wish will come true when you are at a closer proximity.

The path to spirituality is no different; you need to get closer to God in your mind first through faith and trust. Only when this happens, all your prayers and chanting will work. And the same applies to anything you desire from this universe; take yourself closer to the desired thing through your effort and with mental determination. By doing this, everything will be fulfilled be it chanting or anything for that matter.

[nkumarasundaram]

Embrace Duality

People often tend to misinterpret the truth behind gender Equality. Many have a doubt while explaining this concept; they ask ‘Aren’t men and women equal?’ Of course, men and women are equal but they are not the same.

You bring half liter of orange juice and apple juice in two separate jugs. Ask someone if both are equal and the response you will get is a “yes” but if you ask them if both are same, the answer will be “No”. Similarly men and women are equal doesn’t mean women doing all that men do and vice-versa.

The problem arises when we misinterpret interdependence with independence. Every duality of nature day and night, birth and death, North Pole and South Pole defines this existence. If any of these perceived dualities cease to exist then our existence wouldn’t be feasible in this planet. In reality, the concept of duality does not exist. These are ideally present to maintain equilibrium. Now, imagine if both North Pole and South Pole fight for the same spot and merge together, will the planet even exist? Same way, men and women are blessed with uniquely independent qualities.

The male and female energy must complement each other rather competing with one another. When the focus is on the latter, the female energy trying to gravitate towards the male energy by doing the things only they do, it will lead to an existential collapse. Wise will never make the mistake of comparing them as in truth, they are one.

[nkumarasundaram]

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There is always something to learn from someone. Whenever this is said, there is a tendency from few people to cross question. If it is true, what is there to learn from a criminal or a terrorist who has caused harm to many innocent souls? For people thinking this way, there is an analogy which could explain the idea better.

Everyone might have watched videos on you tube. You will be aware of the ads being played in between videos or at times even while a video is being played. For the first seconds the advertisement will begin to play post which you will find an option to skip it. Based on your personal likes and dislikes you can either choose to watch the ad completely or can skip them. In most cases, we skip these ads and continue watching our interested videos and in some cases we watch the advertisement if we feel the necessity.

Similarly, in life, most of the people we come across will have something positive to be imbibed. At the same time, you need to understand the world is not a perfect place. Not necessarily you must find something good from a person and learn always. Some people are put into this world to make the rest what happens when you don’t follow the right path.

If you see a criminal filled with gory and violent past with no good take away, just ignore like you skip the ads. The learning from the lives of such people is they help you predict the future by showing you what might happen in following this path. Key learning here is to know your mistakes and not applying them in your life.

[nkumarasundaram]

Heaven or Hell

During your night sleep, it is your conscious mind which is put to rest while your subconscious mind is not under rest. The thoughts in our subconscious mind reflect as dreams. Sometimes these dreams are pleasant while at times they might haunt us. Latter are often referred as nightmares.

Dreams or nightmares are nothing but our thoughts in the subconscious mind. Same applies to understanding the concept of Heaven or Hell. People are too concerned about knowing their afterlife. In reality, there need not be any fear of being at heaven or hell when it is all dependent on your thoughts. When the subconscious mind is cleansed, the fear of after life can be ignored.

Just as the night sleep is defined by your subconscious mind as dream or nightmare, your after life will also be defined. Sometimes we don’t experience any dream or nightmare and the sleep stays peaceful. When we wake up the next day with no traces then we say it as a sound sleep with no disturbances. There is a similar kind of afterlife which is called Mukti.

The concepts of Heaven or Hell cease to exist at this stage. They say there is no rebirth for you. When the focus is on attaining Mukti, there doesn’t raise confusion between heaven and hell in your afterlife. To attain this, the thumb rule is your subconscious mind must be silent for which the conscious mind and thoughts must always be fueled with positive memories and ideas with no impurity. By doing this, your life at this birth would be complete.

[nkumarasundaram]

Playing the Flute

Emptiness is an essential aspect of human existence. Feeling empty or lost is not a phenomenon to be scared rather a reality to be experienced. From our thoughts to our souls, everything has a deeper connection with abstract emptiness.

Our life could be equated similar to play a flute. Unlike any instrument, flute has a unique way of producing tunes. The air is allowed to pass through it and with the help of our fingers the holes are rhythmically closed and opened to produce sound. If you analyse deeper, flute is just a regulator in the whole process. It regulates the flow of air present in the surrounding and thereby yielding a tune. In other words, emptiness is made to pass through a partly hollow device to yield desirable sound.

Our lives are more or less similar where a soul enters into a body and it is our responsibility to deliver the optimum outcome through this emptiness. Experiencing a feeling of emptiness in life actually takes you closer to reality. Every time you feel lost, remind yourself of a flute and try to deliver the best outcome. Just like the holes of the flute, utilize your bodily senses to produce the tune of your life.

If the tune produced from the flute is not satisfactory then the flaw is not in the instrument. Similarly, try to regulate your feeling of emptiness to deliver the desires tune of life. Best delivered tune and best lived life is the one which handles the emptiness gracefully.

[nkumarasundaram]

Simple Meditation

When talking about meditation, most people imagine themselves isolating in a dim lit place with their eyes closed. It is indeed a form of conventional meditation. Apart from this, there are various forms of meditation which many of us do in our day to day lives.

Searching the meaning of a word in a dictionary to finding your long lasting friend in social media or even reading a novel comes under this category. The purpose of meditation is primarily two things-unified focus and awareness. Any activity which does these two can be classified as a form of meditation. Not necessarily it should be done in a quiet place with closed eyes. Any activity which makes you forget your surrounding and yields a positive outcome is meditation. Random scrolling of social media or casual reading with lost mind doesn’t fall into this category.

Everything requiring our focus can be considered as a part of meditation. But the problem is, all these activities fulfill the first agenda - unified focus but tends to miss on the latter - awareness. Watching a movie or playing a game on phone might keep us glued to the screen but it takes away the awareness from our senses which are vital. So in a way every one of us is constantly engaged in a form of meditation but we are unable to reap the benefits.

To attain the benefits, direct your complete awareness to the activity you are engaged into rather than letting your mind. In this way, you can reap the benefits to an extent even without engaging yourself in conventional meditation. 

[nkumarasundaram]

Connect to Wi-Fi

The path to attaining spiritual freedom is pretty straight –forward. Looking at the way spirituality is being explained, people think you need to be too pure to experience it. Actually this is simple and the way it operates is similar to Wi-Fi connectivity.

To those unaware, Wi-Fi is the wireless technology of connecting your devices to internet. Just the presence of a Wi-Fi signal is not enough for the devices to get connected. The device settings need to be altered to connect with the available Wi-Fi network and beyond all, the device must be within the range of this network. Unless these are aligned and you are within the range, the device wouldn’t be able to use the internet.

Spirituality on a broader sense is similar to this Wi-Fi and the device here is the person. In order to experience, the person must get closer to the range of the vibrations. Spiritual energy must synergize with your bodily vibrations for you to experience it. And this isn’t too difficult to achieve. Keep your thoughts pure and focus on your work without causing hindrance to others.

When the thoughts are not aligned to a single end point, you get disconnected. Otherwise, the spiritual energy is abundant around you and you just need to match your bodily energy in order to experience spiritual freedom.

[nkumarasundaram]

Beyond Six-Pack

Fitness is commonly attributed to building the physical strength of the body. Anything associated to bodily fitness be it gym, exercise or cardio caters to the external appearance.

Over the past few years, there has been an unseen craze on maintaining six pack abs. The demand for gym centers began to grow as this trend took an upward spike. Though the intent behind maintaining a good physical health is appreciable, the focus on fundamental core is declining.

Building a six pack abdomen is nothing but removing the excess fat in the abdominal region thereby maintaining the shape. The effort put in achieving this tremendous from the strenuous physical exhaust to the tight diet restrictions. Deep inside there is another area left unnoticed while building the six pack.

Those are the trivial five senses- smell, touch, hear, taste, see. Before we get into putting efforts on six pack, it is equally important for us to focus on sharpening our senses as well. These will make us aware of ourselves thereby help in building our mental health. Unlike for physical fitness, building our senses doesn’t demand too much effort.

All we need to do is be fully aware of the activity we are engaged into like reading a book, eating our food, listening to music- our mind must e focused on the activity. This way our five senses will be sharpened and over time it will gravitate towards maintaining a stable mental health. When the focus on the senses is ignored, the latter falters.

[nkumarasundaram]

Utility is Divinity

Understanding the concept of spirituality or Divine force is conceived as rocket science. The idea behind spirituality is so profound and convoluted which makes common people stay away from it. Divinity as a process is not just about heading to temples or worshipping deities. Though these are seen as methods of attaining spiritual understanding, the core idea is completely different.

Divinity is an outcome of Derived Utility. Every single thing which serves your requirement has a divine value attached to it. Starting from a pen at the exam hall to the ribbon at the end of an Olympic race has an utility attached to it. A glass of water will feel divine to a person walking miles in a desert.

Anything which helps you achieve your target can be considered divine at that point in time. Most often Spirituality is considered synonymous to praying in temples or offering sweets to statues of deity. In reality, these are just means of expressing your gratitude and not a complete essence of divinity.

True divinity can be seen in all possible things around be it a small kid sharing a piece of bread to the needy person standing beside or in holding the hand of a visually challenged person and helping them cross the road or a student pulling a sheet of paper and handing it over to a friend who has forgotten the notebook. Divinity can be witnessed in the smallest  of thing or act justifying its utility.

[nkumarasundaram]

Rubix Cube

People nowadays are too concerned about figuring their end goal. In this process, we tend to miss out on certain things. The realization of sustainable growth across all aspects of life happens too late or in some cases it doesn’t even happen. Latter occur in scenarios where we tend to look outside for our missing pieces. More often, we tend to equate life to a puzzle where our agenda is to find the missing pieces. Rather, our life is like a Rubix Cube.

At birth, it is a new cube with perfect colors on each of the six sides. As we age, the incidents shuffle this perfectness. After a point in life, the cube becomes overly shuffled with every color mixed across each face. Similar to these faces, there are six factors in our life-Family, career, Health, Social community, Passion, Self-satisfaction.

Like a shuffled Rubix cube, these six aspects of our life tend to intervene at one point. From then it becomes really challenging for most of us to bring it back to perfection. Similar to solving the cube, majority will solve one face completely giving up on the remaining five.

In this way, we apply the same to life as well where the primary focus is on building a career. Beyond skill, it is time and focus that is needed to complete the cube. Instead of searching outside for missing pieces, introspect yourself so as to identify the core piece of each aspect and spend sufficient time to solve the cube of life.

[nkumarasundaram]

Everything lies in your hands

Everyone would have come across this phrase "Everything is in your hands" at least once in our lives. Sometimes hearing it our lowest phase even irritates us and at times feels confusing too.

Indeed, our hand is a metaphorical representation of life in itself. Ideally, we have five fingers in each hand. Though they are classified as fingers in general, the beauty lies in the non-uniformity within them. No two fingers of the same hand look similar. If you face your palm, you will be able to witness the UPs and DOWNs.

One is small, one is tall, one is independent, and it visually represents the different phases of life. Every time you are at a dull phase, take inspiration from your hand.

The actual interpretation of ‘Everything lies in your hands’ is in accepting things the way they are rather than attempting to make them similar. Imagine if every finger is of the same size would be able to use it for all your needs? As the palm holds these inconsistencies beautifully, it is your brain which would balance the highs and lows of your life by maintaining an environment for them to achieve equilibrium thereby making it viable for everything you wish to attain.