Countdown to 2014 - Being Compassionate 2

Saturday morning… very pleasant. Was feeling blessed, as I stepped out for my 20-minuteworkout.

Shocked to see the ground covered with dead and also, dying honey-bees (entire night struggling between life & death). Hopefully, someone will walk/drive to help it die!

We protect ourselves by keeping our premises clean, restricting speeding cars, hiring a good security agency, checking if the fire-fighting equipment is in order, sprinkle water on the kuccha-roads to minimize dust, discourage honking, hygienic disposal of garbage, etc.

Are we not being selfish by killing honeybees, like mosquitos, perhaps using the same ‘easy-to-use’ sprays? (everything ‘easy to use’ comes with a huge price?!)

Can we not be more compassionate to spare honeybees?

Are we, the educated, ignorant how important they are to our fragile environment?

How are they inferior to us, human beings?

Can we not prevent them from making a honey-comb?  (We did successfully recently, by just smoking them away, without killing a single bee)

Can we not spare a balcony for sake of honeybees & thus, environment?

Also, show our children how to make small sacrifices to be compassionate?

Human beings have been on this planet for last few centuries. Whereas so many other species have been around much earlier. But we are ruthlessly killing all the helpless species through various means (for eg., plastics in seas)

We may not believe in the doctrine of karma, even if we are religious & ritualistic. We may not extrapolate newton’s law of action & reaction to our personal lives. We may ridicule Malthusian theory. But can we ignore the possibility of how a situation may arise when we are threatened, when helpless, or our elders, children and pets are threatened.

Nature (at a more holistic, majestic level) may choose to take a spray to wipe out, like we ‘mas-murder honey bees’ (through any natural or man-made disasters)

Master’s Voice:

“ Have you ever visualised Viswa Virata Swarupa (the Cosmic Form)? Earth, water, sky, etc., can be seen in it. The universe is made of five elements, and the same five elements are present in you too. So, you are Viswa Virata Swarupa. God is in you and in everybody. So hurting others amounts to hurting God.” 

Countdown to 2014 - Being Compassionate

What & Why?

I want to be more compassionate - at personal level, as a member of my family and as part of all different communities that I belong to..

Be compassionate to myself, to people around me, and most importantly, Nature/environment/community, including plants, birds, animals and physical structures… (would need a heavy dose of 'H'opnopono!)

Even if it were difficult for me, bit of self-sacrifice would suffice.  Not because I have reached a level of self-satisfaction to focus more on self-sacrifice. But just inspired…

It helps in my work also. (so, not all selfless!)

I am tempted to add, ‘self-satisfaction’ is just a state of mind! Just Being SSpiritual!

How?

·  At a personal level be more environment-friendly. Minimise use of plastic. Get the home compost, on my to-do-list for a long time. (If experience good, champion cause of garbage-segregation and home/community compost)

·  Join groups in cleaning up area around us, in our community. Clean & Green. Move from passive to active participation with groups actively working in our part of city. And of course do something to save our precious lakes, street dogs and Honey Bees. (All precious, precious components of our delicate environment, most helpless)

All time bound and planned, instead of loose aspirations…

When

Here & Now… surely into 2014 :)

Seth's Blog: Heroes and mentors

  "Heroes live their lives in public, broadcasting their model to anyone who cares to look." The real heroes got to live in public and be universally acceptable, inspiring and at the same time, willing to live on their own terms. 

"I find heroes everywhere I look".  This is what we tend to miss out :( Heroes are not the super-successful, media-savvy, flamboyant, worldly-successful individuals. We just got to 'look around....'!

A hero just passed on (Madiba) and in Indian context, another hero 'retired' (Sachin Tendulkar, though a cricketer, one of most loved sportspersons ever!) There were a lot of discussions on how they inspired us, but very few discussions on translating the 'inspiration' to "perspiration" or action!

That is where a 'mentor' can facilitate (not help/instruct/advise/prescribe...). A small change in terminology instead of mentor is, 'Coach'. A mentor may still have a 'stake' in the success of the pupil and as such all possible emotions that may go with it. 

A coach is not meant to be a subject matter expert. And, every coach works on broadly with a model too.

Affordability is a state of mind... Go, get a coach!

Seth's Blog: Heroes and mentors

Seth's Blog: Speaking in public: two errors that lead to fear - Life/Executive Coaching

It is rarely I quote an entire post/thought of someone else verbatim here. Glad to make an exception for Seth Godin. 

Not because many have fear of public speaking. All fears linked to public speaking can be overcome to a great extend through various ways, such as sheer effort/practice to toastmasters to powerful visualization! Easier said than done. But surely possible and result is directly proportionate to efforts.. 

What stuck me was this message has some powerful pointers to how we do coaching (life/executive/leadership). How we avoid judging client(s) totally, focus on the client entirely, through active listening & powerful listening...

Now read this post by Seth ( don't miss the bold words)! 

Speaking in public: two errors that lead to fear

1. You believe that you are being actively judged

2. You believe that the subject of the talk is you

When you stand up to give a speech, there's a temptation to believe that the audience is actually interested in you.

This just isn't true. (Or if it is, it doesn't benefit you to think that it is).

You are not being judged, the value of what you are bringing to the audience is being judged. The topic of the talk isn't you, the topic of the talk is the audience, and specifically, how they can use your experience and knowledge to achieve their objectives.

When a professional singer sings a song of heartbreak, his heart is not breaking in that moment. His performance is for you, not for him. (The infinite self-reference loop here is that the professional singer finds what he needs when you find what you need.)

The members of the audience are interested in themselves. The audience wants to know what they can use, what they can learn, or at the very least, how they can be entertained.

If you dive into your (irrelevant to the listener) personal hurdles, if you try to justify what you've done, if you find yourself aswirl in a whirlpool of the resistance, all you're providing is a little schadenfreude as a form of entertainment.

On the other hand, if you realize that you have a chance to be generous in this moment, to teach and to lead, you can leave the self-doubt behind and speak a truth that the audience needs to hear. When you bring that to people who need it, your fear pales in comparison.

Media you choose to do is always about the audience. That's why you're doing it. The faster we get over ourselves, the sooner we can do a good job for those tuning in.

Seth's Blog: Speaking in public: two errors that lead to fear

SMS Alert at 03:57 AM - Customer Service at Banks

Bank -1: There was a time when a telegram came home, elders would get jittery. The worry was it invariably carried urgent, negative news!!

These days we don't get negative news often, as most of news is negative! Plus, telegram is no longer the vehicle to carry any urgent, negative information. It could be a call or a text message, on the cell-phone.

The world goes to bed on a Sunday (late) evening, fearful to sceptic of 'the week ahead, at work'. This may change in a place such as Middle East, where the equivalent of Monday morning is actually Sunday morning, being the first day of their working week!!

(A friend in India even sent an Urdu couplet on the pain of Monday morning, few hours back)

So, for me the feeling 'I need not rush to work on a Monday-morning' is almost blissful! (Living my dream.... !) Hence it is of great importance that I 'dictate' the schedule for Monday :) Super-luxury, is it not?!

Against this background, I was rudely woken up from deep sleep at 03:57 hrs., this morning by a SMS alert!!! It had the effect my ancestors would have had when post-man walked in with a telegram! So got up to check the 'bad news’!!!

The news or the message was, 'Dear customer, as per RBI mandate from 1-Dec-2013, for shopping with Debit cards at retail outlets, use your ATM PIN. For details, visit, (bank website)'. 

4 AM is 'brahma muhurtam', when the spiritual aspirant would go spiritually deeper... I had no choice but to relaxed, and not angry... 

May be RBI should inform the banks not to bother customers @ 'brahma muhoortams' also, please!!

I have my accounts with 'top' two private banks in India!! Can't say the same about their customer service. 

Bank -2: The other leading private sector bank sent a text message, yesterday afternoon- 'Alert from XXXX Bank. Next EMI of Rs XXX on your loan account ### due on 05 Dec-13. Solicit your cooperation for payment on due date'. 

To avoid all the soft collection hassles, I had given standing instructions. Can I ever be more cooperative?  

And, in both the banks (top 2 private banks in India), I am their top-tier banking customer ! Even if you are a good customer with the bank, no guarantee of peace :)