Celebrate Work!

People can be very happy if they love their work. Inspire people to work to build a great nation. Words absorb and radiate power. When you infuse a sense of pride and joy in what you do, it becomes a joyful experience, instead of a chore. To work at something you love, is to be “self-actualised”, in Maslow’s terms. This will ensure you die young when you are a100 years old. A recent Qualifications Authority of City and Guilds, London survey shows that hairdressers have the highest levels of happiness at work! The reason? They are in direct touch with their customers and can be creative. Happy Professions 1. Serve others. Look at your profession as a means to serve and make others happy. 2. Make a living causing the least amount of pain to living creatures. 3. Eliminate mad deadlines 4. Ensure freedom to be self-dependent, take own decisions, be innovative. 5. Believe in hi-touch along with hi-tech. Because of late office hours, the corporate jungle takes an unimaginable toll on health and happiness. The endless deadlines, the deadly competitiveness, negatively impact the body. Nature’s ultimate survival mechanism of fight or flight becomes a chronic, totally inappropriate response. Due to constant job hopping, many executives find themselves in threatening environments surrounded by potential enemies. They have had no time to develop friends. Nuclear families build up explosive pressure due to the revolution of rising expectations, fuelled by the media. If we do not enjoy our work and feel overwhelmed by it, it will surely damage us. ‘Fast tracking,’ being a corporate star, will extract the inevitable price of lost happiness, if you are not aware of the impact of everything you do, on your system. You can start by consciously breathing slowly and calmly. • Plan to cut off from work on weekends. • Meditate. Take care of yourself. • Look at your life-goals and evaluate your job to achieve them. • Learn to say ‘No’. • Remember people are more important than getting promotions. • If you have a toxic workplace change jobs. • Know that you are more important than all material things.

Being Proactive

Seize the moment. Act now when the opportunity is walking past your door. It may never knock. Go out, grab it by the collar and bring it in. No one likes change except a wet baby who needs his nappy changed. Write down your wishes. Track your impossible dreams. Capture them, lasso them, as they speed away like runaway horses. For as Walt Disney said – “If you can dream it, you can do it!” Dr. Edwin Land, Founder of Polaroid Corporation made a killing with instant pictures when he made his little daughter’s wish come true. She wanted to see her birthday pictures immediately, before they were developed. Ask all your team members to write down their wishes. The impossible wishes are the most precious – the highway to the path of innovation. Imagine Sam Walton who made inventory a profit centre, instead of a cost centre. Fred Smith, a senior in college, wrote a team paper where parcels worldwide could be delivered overnight. Many years as a pilot flying missions into Vietnam, he refined the idea. When he returned, he created Federal Express. It is rumored that the legendary Dhirubhai got Boeing to cut open the hull of an aircraft to transport a huge machine, which was needed to reach India before major taxes came into effect. Let ideas appear and be recorded. Leave them alone to germinate and grow in people’s minds. Do not criticize during idea generation. For “Analysis kills spontaneity. The grain once ground into flour, springs and germinates no more.” Henrie Fredric Ammiel.

Creating a Peaceful Neighbourhood

Consider that the apostle of non-violence Mahatma Gandhi died a violent death on January 30th, at the hands of a deranged fanatic. Sadly, today violence has become a way of solving problems. Gandhiji promoted a peaceful personal and communal life, where needs were minimal and easily met. He lived modestly in a self-sufficient peaceful ashram and wore the traditional Indian dhoti and shawl, woven with yarn he had hand spun on a charkha and ate simple vegetarian food to avoid harm to all living creatures. Today, it is difficult to enjoy a peaceful environment. The growing modern malaise that effects everyone, is anger and even rage. From school children who commit suicide because they did not get good grades, to housewives who are bored out of their wits after having brought up their children and are now at a loose end, because neither the kids or husband have time for them. These feelings are a threat to peace. Today, 400 million people worldwide are afflicted by mental illness. There is a recent Chinese study that shows that among the extremely wealthy, suicide was the cause of 23.6 percent of deaths between 2008-2010. Needing the help of alcohol or sleeping tablets tells the inside story of material success. The true definition of happiness could be, ‘a good nights’ sleep, every night.’ The single minded pursuit of money, can cut out all other sources of wealth – restful sleep, good digestion, health, family, sports, music, books and friends. What worries me is the way more and more people are choosing inappropriately aggressive ways of dealing with conflict. A 21 year old Oscar Ramino Osteya shot at the White House, hoping to kill President Barrack Obama. He said he was “agitated about the Federal government!” A Korean teenager killed his mother for expecting higher grades and hid her body in the bedroom for eight months. The anger we see on the roads is disquieting. We need to reduce conflict and develop positive emotions like love, compassion, courage, laughter and wonder in out lives. And work at uprooting negative emotions like anger, lust, greed and jealousy. What the sad world needs it an attitude of giving. The fastest way to be happy is to help others. How to develop a peaceful neighbourhood? • Make friends with your neighbours • Help families to get together to plant trees or improve garbage collection • Arrange for kids to play together. • Start a walking club • Arrange to support people during tough times. ‘It takes a village to raise a child,’ says an old proverb. Create that village on your street or building.

Celebrate Work!

People can be very happy if they love their work. Inspire people to work to build a great nation. Words absorb and radiate power. When you infuse a sense of pride and joy in what you do, it becomes a joyful experience, instead of a chore. To work at something you love, is to be “self-actualised”, in Maslow’s terms. This will ensure you die young when you are a100 years old. A recent Qualifications Authority of City and Guilds, London survey shows that hairdressers have the highest levels of happiness at work! The reason? They are in direct touch with their customers and can be creative. Happy Professions 1. Serve others. Look at your profession as a means to serve and make others happy. 2. Make a living causing the least amount of pain to living creatures. 3. Eliminate mad deadlines 4. Ensure freedom to be self-dependent, take own decisions, be innovative. 5. Believe in hi-touch along with hi-tech. Because of late office hours, the corporate jungle takes an unimaginable toll on health and happiness. The endless deadlines, the deadly competitiveness, negatively impact the body. Nature’s ultimate survival mechanism of fight or flight becomes a chronic, totally inappropriate response. Due to constant job hopping, many executives find themselves in threatening environments surrounded by potential enemies. They have had no time to develop friends. Nuclear families build up explosive pressure due to the revolution of rising expectations, fuelled by the media. If we do not enjoy our work and feel overwhelmed by it, it will surely damage us. ‘Fast tracking,’ being a corporate star, will extract the inevitable price of lost happiness, if you are not aware of the impact of everything you do, on your system. You can start by consciously breathing slowly and calmly. • Plan to cut off from work on weekends. • Meditate. Take care of yourself. • Look at your life-goals and evaluate your job to achieve them. • Learn to say ‘No’. • Remember people are more important than getting promotions. • If you have a toxic workplace change jobs. • Know that you are more important than all material things. Min

Be Happy To Get Relieved from Stress

The twenty-first century is the century of the Mind. The Mind is man’s last unconquered frontier. The Upanishads describe it as fast, fickle and uncontrollable, like a dozen swift horses travelling at breakneck speed. Mankind is paying a steep price for failing to learn more about the Mind before embarking on the race for success in the new millennium. Stress is the price we pay for success. Stress stalks the precarious climb up the corporate ladder. The fashionable corporate high of fast-track leaders—eyes shining, excess nervous energy, multi-tasking, dynamism personified—is achieved at the expense of a tissue-destroying ‘fight or flight’ response. These individuals do not manage to have ‘rest and repair’ periods between emotional hijacks. Constant pressure fuels the adrenaline rush and damages the arteries. It adds to the flow of chemicals like cortisone and adrenaline in your blood. No one can be n a constant ‘fight or flight’ high and not destroy themselves. Today, twenty-somethings are dropping dead from heart attacks. A bypass surgery in the thirties has become a status symbol. The personal cost of stress includes burnout, chronic, disabling illnesses, crippling tensions in family life, and a loss of personal fulfillment and joy. The casualties are often children who live in the high-tension, pressure-cooker climate created in the homes of corporate high fliers.

Bring Adhutha or Wonder into the Organization

This is a very useful, feel-good emotion. Welcome wonder into you life. Celebrate the beauty of the stars, and enjoy the wonder of the mountains. Greet the dawn and say goodbye to the sunset. The moonlight has been created to heal your wounds. Sleep on the lap of Mother Nature and become a child again. Go on excursions with your team. Actions to bring Adbutha into your life: * Be alone in silence with nature at the beginning and end of every day. * Enjoy a walk among tall trees and green gardens. * Plant seeds and saplings. Distribute them. * Set apart time for prayer to praise God for His glorious creation. * Set apart time to enjoy beauty.

Celebrate Water!

“And Darkness was upon the face of the Deep….” Says the Bible as it describes the beginning of a watery world. The ancient Indian text, the Rig Veda speaks of the beginning as a world of bottomless, uninterrupted, and limitless water’. Water nourishes washes, cleans, and clears. No wonder many ancient cultures worship water as the foremost of the elements. This blog seeks to focus attention on various aspects of water and ways to preserve it. Over 2/3 of the human body is made of water. Imagine, the brain is 75% water, blood is 83% water, bones 22%, muscles 75% water and lungs 90%! A decrease of 2% in our body’s water content can cause serious health problems. Over 6000 children die every day due to polluted water. These are easily preventable deaths. It is said that the next Great War will be fought over water, as we overuse, pollute and waste water. So let us take personal responsibility to save water. The Rotary Convention in Sao Paulo drew attention to the second largest river in the world – the Amazon. We had an exciting series of journeys across the river recently. Over 6280 kms long, it is formed in the North Peru Andes. It flows across North Brazil before entering the Atlantic Ocean near Belem. This majestic river stretches across over 15 kms in Manaos. It covers and waters over 4,75,000 sq.kms of South America, North Brazil, Bolivia, Pem, Ecuador, Columbia and Venezuela. It has an average depth of 150 ft. Its water and rich fertile silt has created the largest rain forest in the world, with the most diverse collection of animals, birds and insect life in the world. The tropical climate is tempered by heavy rainfall and the abundant life it engenders. Trees full of chattering monkeys leaping and clinging to lush green trees with their tails, vivid clouds of butterflies, carnivorous, piranhas, the mysterious giant anaconda strangulating its prey on the jungle floor, are all parts of its creation. During July -August the frail speed boat takes you through carpets of flowers, as thick hanging creepers and lianas, hang from ancient trees and float around you to brush your shoulders as you pass. The river is the life giving element of the lush rain forest. Polluting the river with human and industrial wastes threatens the life of millions of inhabitants of this land of which Man is the most rapacious. The destruction of the rain forest threatens not only the many life forms it supports but also contributes to an increase in atmospheric carbon di-oxide. Global warming is the immediate consequence. Those of us who live beside water bodies have a special duty to prevent such pollution. Deforestation disrupts the lives of inhabitant people whose livelihood depends on the produce of the jungle. What can you do? • Remember the river is not a garbage dump, it is a source of drinking water for millions. Start or join a citizens group that works to keep the river clean. • You can help keep the river clean by being part of a patrolling body on the river banks. • Attend river festivals and work with groups that prevent littering. • Identify and talk to industries which discharge effluents into the river. • Network with Government bodies which are working to clean up the river. • Encourage any philosophy that develops reverence for the river, religious or otherwise. • Prevent the building of toilets close to the river and work to prevent open defecation by the river

Water and Flowers

The most beautiful and common expression of God as an artist, is seen in flowers. Today, Scott Kelly Commander of the International Space Station tweeted a photo of a yellow Zenia, outlined in red! Last year he grew lettuce in space! Flowers and water have a symbiotic relationship. You need water and sun to grow flowers. Consider the rose All that is precious and rare must be protected. Like the rose. A rose will bloom only when it is cherished. When it receives the benediction of rain and sun. When it is wrapped in the love that guards it against pests and the harshness of the elements. It needs to be carefully and regularly watered. You cannot forget any more than you can forget to feed your gold fish. If you do not want to lavish so much care on your garden, get yourself a gaudy patch of sun flowers which bloom with loud and careless gaiety. Happily insensitive to the most hostile conditions. But remember a rose can fill your days with a fragrance no sunflower can aspire to. On the other hand there are other plants which will flower only when they are not watered. One is often reminded, especially by those who have never had firsthand experience, that hardship refines the soul. I found this difficult to believe until I started growing bougainvillea. This hardy shrub flowers only when it is starved. In the midst of the hottest summer in April and May, it is not watered for a week. The leaves grow yellow and fall. The branches stand gaunt and ghostly in the pitiless sun. After these weeks of this stern discipline, it is watered twice a week. One morning I noticed tiny buds blistering the tips of every stem. The I began to water them profusely. Three weeks later the garden was a blazing dazzle of colour. Branches of multi-coloured flowers exploded on every branch in an incredible celebration. Then, it rained. All the earth was green with rejoicing. But the flowers of the bougainvillea began to drop in great unsightly handfulls. Till not a single flower was left. Leaves covered very limb, but not a single flower appeared. Somehow there is always something flabby in those who have never known the exhilaration of the struggle. There is a loss of the sharp – edged flash of brilliance that comes only with the conquest of unbeatable odds. Achenyo Idachaitra, from Bayeku, a riverine community in Ikorodu, Lagos, Nigeria, has turned the deadly plant, the water hyacinth, into a thriving business. Living in a rural community, criss crossed by Nature’s bounty of running water, she watched God’s gift being destroyed. The fishing industry crippled chocked water ways and transport destroyed, by a devilishly beautiful plant, with gorgeous, showy lavender flowers, called the water hyacinth. The Igala language has given it an unforgettable name: ‘death to mother and child’ (Kp Iye Kporia). Others call it the Devil’s weed. She took action: a. She got into the waterways and harvested the water hyacinth b. The stems were dried c. She then contacted the Sabo community, who taught her to weave the stems into ropes. Malam Yahaya, who spoke only Hausa, taught her. Today she has a flourishing business which makes, pens, table ware, purses and tissue boxes from the water hyacinth plant. The same killer weed is now called ‘provider of food for mother and child’. Flowers and water are beautiful and create wealth.

Meditation

Enlightened Masters have also shown that meditation produces beneficial effects such as reduction of tension, lowering of blood pressure, relaxation of muscles, increased concentration and work efficiency, and increase of immunological resistance to diseases. As a result, some form of meditation has become an essential part of most holistic health programmes. Service to others, music, prayer—all are forms of meditation—make the blood flow with serotonins—the happiness chemical. Hindu scriptures enjoin five types of service known as pancha-mahayajna—service to gods; service to sages; service to ancestors; service to humans, guests and the poor; and service to animals. A traditional Indian home, at dawn, feeds ants with the rice-flour rangoli drawn near the threshold, and crows and cows with leftover food. Eating should be regarded as a sacred act. In an orthodox Hindu home, food is offered to the family deity first and is then consumed as prasad or offering with the diety’s blessing. There is a basic similarity between the rituals involved in offering food to the deity and those involved in eating oneself. In both cases, food is offered as oblations to the five pranas regarded as five fires. Even if one does not follow this ritualistic concept, one should make eating a fully conscious and peaceful act. Hurry, worry, anger, distractions and chattering should be avoided while eating.

The Auspicious Field

Auspiciousness or a feeling of wellbeing is created in a space or a field by treating it as sacred. What happens to a space that is sacred is transformation. When you consider yourself as sacred, you will treat yourself well. You will wear clean, good smelling clothes. Maybe ironed and starched, mended if torn, but clean and fresh. You will smile at yourself, encourage yourself. Just as you put on clean fresh clothes, you will also clean up the mental space or field around you. Sweep out all ill will, anger, fear and anxiety. Let there be the fragrance of incense, divinity of prayer and mantra, the smiles of loved ones, laughter and joy, the smell and taste of good plain, food. It is as important to clean the field around you as it is to have a bath. Sweep out the sad baggage of the past. Take into that field only what is bright and elevating, fine and happy. The space around you, your house, your office needs the same kind of careful attention.When a space is sacred, it magnetizes wonderful people and attracts beautiful events into it. All the words spoken in that space should be sweet and loving. When harsh words or events happen, do not allow them to take root like evil weeds. Sweep them away and find gentleness and kindness that grows beneath. All religions sanctify space by holy water, prayer, dress and conduct. Hindus draw sacred symbols on the earth with rice flour or chalk (kolam) and a particular space can be set apart for the gods and prayer. A sacred space is defined by the rules of conduct laid down for those who enter, as in a court room, a church, a temple, or the parliament. Very few misbehave in such places, they are rarely able to cast away the weight of laws and customs built up over centuries around them. Some religions lay down rules of cleanliness and dress to enter sacred places, including a purificatory bath. A person who maintains such dignity and decorum in such a place, may be totally different in a bar or when at a party. I think the analogy of a television monitor would describe this phenomenon better.Depending on which button you press, you get a different image. So too depending on the place, a different person emerges. Some places access the Highest and Noblest Self while others access the Beast, the Meanest. This is true about people in different interactions. Some people create a field, which accesses the best in us, while others access the worst. If you learn the secret of positive fields, you can improve your Happiness Quotient. You can also get the best out of others. ‘Don’t push the wrong buttons,’ we say. What we mean is, don’t access his negative field.

THE HAPPINESS QUOTIENT

The king of Bhutan coined the term: Gross National Happiness in 1972. He believed that the wellbeing of a country does not depend on the figures of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Thailand publishes monthly GNP figures. Australia, Canada and China are on the same path. France and most recently David Cameron of England has commissioned studies on national well being. Surprisingly more education, youth or income, does not translate into happiness. Happiness is a gift, not a commodity. Even the poor have the ability to cultivate and share happiness. There is joy to be found in the small things we take for granted—a smile, a helping hand, a kiss, a wave, a pat on the back, a glass of cool water, a promise kept. Each new day holds out a chance to create a whole new beginning, a sparkling new field of possibilities. At dawn, sweep out the toxic waste of hatred, anger and petty disappointments from your life. Sprinkle the pure waters of prayer on your soul and prepare a fresh for a brand-new day. Go peacefully amidst the noise and the haste. Enjoy the sweetness of everyday things. Practice swayambhu―a word that describes happiness welling out of you, like an underground stream in the mountains.

The Auspicious Field

Auspiciousness or a feeling of wellbeing is created in a space or a field by treating it as sacred. What happens to a space that is sacred is transformation. When you consider yourself as sacred, you will treat yourself well. You will wear clean, good smelling clothes. Maybe ironed and starched, mended if torn, but clean and fresh. You will smile at yourself, encourage yourself. Just as you put on clean fresh clothes, you will also clean up the mental space or field around you. Sweep out all ill will, anger, fear and anxiety. Let there be the fragrance of incense, divinity of prayer and mantra, the smiles of loved ones, laughter and joy, the smell and taste of good plain, food. It is as important to clean the field around you as it is to have a bath. Sweep out the sad baggage of the past. Take into that field only what is bright and elevating, fine and happy. The space around you, your house, your office needs the same kind of careful attention.When a space is sacred, it magnetizes wonderful people and attracts beautiful events into it. All the words spoken in that space should be sweet and loving. When harsh words or events happen, do not allow them to take root like evil weeds. Sweep them away and find gentleness and kindness that grows beneath. All religions sanctify space by holy water, prayer, dress and conduct. Hindus draw sacred symbols on the earth with rice flour or chalk (kolam) and a particular space can be set apart for the gods and prayer. A sacred space is defined by the rules of conduct laid down for those who enter, as in a court room, a church, a temple, or the parliament. Very few misbehave in such places, they are rarely able to cast away the weight of laws and customs built up over centuries around them. Some religions lay down rules of cleanliness and dress to enter sacred places, including a purificatory bath. A person who maintains such dignity and decorum in such a place, may be totally different in a bar or when at a party. I think the analogy of a television monitor would describe this phenomenon better.Depending on which button you press, you get a different image. So too depending on the place, a different person emerges. Some places access the Highest and Noblest Self while others access the Beast, the Meanest. This is true about people in different interactions. Some people create a field, which accesses the best in us, while others access the worst. If you learn the secret of positive fields, you can improve your Happiness Quotient. You can also get the best out of others. ‘Don’t push the wrong buttons,’ we say. What we mean is, don’t access his negative field.

Day 1 – Install the positive field: Creating the positive field

The most important first step in starting the Innovation Initiative is to install the positive field. Unless there is excitement and energy created around the Initiative, revolutionary change cannot take off. Enthusiasm, excitement and playfulness create a climate where creativity can germinate and innovation can branch into a productive sheltering tree

90 Days To Transform Your Business

Are you willing to spend the next 90 days making your company more profitable? If you have the discipline you can. Turning bright ideas into action is a problem most companies face. Finally, here is a 90-day blueprint to make this happen. A daily implementation schedule will give you step-by-step ideas for yourself, your team, your department, and your organization. Start today and see the difference you can make. This 90-day plan will help you: Create a climate which empowers everyone in the company to achieve their full potential Launch an initiative which will invigorate the whole organization. Build young, proactive, commando teams, or innovation spirals, designed to think outside the box. Inspire team leaders to transform their departments and the organization through their youthful, proactive ideas Develop a daily plan to institutionalize innovation and establish long-term culture change. A highly practical, do-it-yourself toolkit to ensure innovation becomes part of your organization. Innovate! Should be required reading for everyone in your organization… Be inspired – Innovate! On day one, start by giving the team a bird’s eye view of the 90-day action agenda. The first step is of course to create the Problem Bank, which involves all members of the team. “Innovation is the central issue in economic prosperity” – Michael Porter, Harvard Business School. Companies which are innovation stars do better in the marketplace. This was proved by research which also shows a clear link between better innovation practices, employee involvement and customer satisfaction. A higher market share is the hallmark of an innovative company. When everyone knows that innovative companies are more profitable, why do more companies not embrace the roadmap to innovation? The answer is simple. Innovation does not happen by wistful thinking. Commitment, resources and a whole new mindset is required long-term to create the culture of innovation. Top management burp-in, involvement of the whole organization in planning, a system to sift through suggestions, tame wild ideas and a system to reward innovators play a role. Only the best companies manage to do all this. Innovation requires going away from normal practices, cutting against the grain, so ‘Top Management’ support is critical.

Physical Wellness

Your Happiness Quotient is directly affected by your physical condition. Health is the foundation for a feeling of wellbeing and joy. It is very difficult to be full of enthusiasm if you are not in a state of positive health. The absence of disease is no indication of this state of perfect health. It is a hygiene factor for improving your HQ. There are many steps that will take you to a state of optimum health. A complete medical check up once a year can provide accurate information about the state of your body to your physician. Make sure this becomes an annual habit. Just as you would not tolerate a minor malfunctioning in your car, so too, you and your doctor should be vigilant for the slightest disturbance in your state of health. Minor problems, aches and pains should be dealt with immediately, rather than be endured with gritted teeth. Listen to your body. If you are tired, rest. If you are hungry, eat. If you are lonely, communicate, ask for a hug. If you are angry, deal with your anger constructively, resolve it. The body is our vehicle for the journey of our soul in this world. You may be an immortal soul who happens to own a body, but the body-vehicle has to be maintained in good condition, so that we may achieve the goals for which we were created.

Enjoy the day

Each new day holds out a chance to create a whole new beginning, a sparkling new field of possibilities. At dawn, sweep out the toxic waste of hatred, anger and petty disappointments from your life. Sprinkle the pure waters of prayer on your soul and prepare afresh for a brand-new day. Go peacefully amidst the noise and the haste. Enjoy the sweetness of everyday things. Practice swayambhu―a word that describes happiness welling out of you, like an underground stream in the mountains. Very rarely will an event or a person crash-land to disturb your life. We all have a choice to make every moment, through our senses, our thoughts and our actions. We can choose what we want to see, hear, touch, taste and smell, think, feel and do. Most of the time, we are responsible for our decisions―for our happiness and unhappiness. We can decide how we want to feel even in the worst-possible situations. To a jealous mind, an innocent smile is proof of adultery. A prisoner can choose to keep the flame of freedom alive within him and maintain a cheerful disposition. Events or people around us are not under our control. But our reactions, our responses to them are. Respond with love and peace.

Yoga

The word ‘yoga’ is derived from the Sanskrit word yuj which means ‘yoke’ attach or ‘join’. It means the joining or uniting of the individual consciousness with the universal consciousness, or self-realisation. The science of yoga was systematised by Maharishi Patanjanli in 285 yogasutras. There are eight components of yoga. These are: 1. Yama: Our attitudes towards our environment. 2. Niyama: Our attitudes towards ourselves. 3. Asana: The practice of body exercises. 4. Pranayama: The practice of breathing exercises. 5. Pratyahara: The restraint of our senses. 6. Dharana: The ability to direct our minds. 7. Dhyana: The ability to develop interactions with what we seek to understand. 8. Samadhi: Complete integration with the object to be understood. Their respective meanings are: i) Universal moral commandments. ii) Self-purification by discipline. iii) Posture. iv) Rhythmic control of breath. v) Withdrawal of the mind from the domination of the senses and exterior object. vi) Concentration. vii) Meditation. viii) Thoughtless state in which one becomes one with the object of his meditation.

Tools for Creating a Positive Field

An ancient Indian prayer says: ‘Let all beings be happy.’ Not just friends and family, but all men, not just men but the wider world of all beings. When the great musician Tansen sang, it is said that deer wandered into the palace to listen. Decades ago, the great scientist J C Bose wrote about the response of plants to kindness. Learning to create a positive field is an important part of the climate of wellbeing. The positive field is created by tools and behaviours that may be verbal, tonal and non-verbal. Ø A common prayer or mantra. Ø A mental process which draws a magic circle around all those who are participating. Ø A common exercise, a common company song, common goals. Ø A handshake, a friendly look, an encouraging word. Ø Thinking, believing and acting in a positive manner. Ø Laughter, commonly shared jokes. Ø Meditation, practiced regularly, helps develop the capacity to be analytical, positive and disciplined, and eliminate negative fields. Ø Affirmations, the most important constituent of the positive field. It is a verbal, tonal or non-verbal act of appreciation. A compliment can be a verbal hug. A verbal hug can replace a thousand words. There is a Sanskrit verse which roughly translated means: ‘Don’t say harsh or hurting words. If you have to say something unpleasant, do it as kindly as possible, while genuinely appreciating the good qualities of the person and the relationship.’ The great Tamil Poet, Thiruvalluvar has expressed it succinctly, when he says, ‘Why say harsh words, when kind words are available. Who would eat bitter, unripe fruit when sweet ripe fruits are at hand?’ However, the energy field around a person is most affected by positive, soul-level motives or ‘sankalpa’. If the gut-level motives are positive, the mere lack of skill in verbal, tonal and non–verbal transmissions can be overcome.

Celebrate Water!

“And Darkness was upon the face of the Deep….” Says the Bible as it describes the beginning of a watery world. The ancient Indian text, the Rig Veda speaks of the beginning as a world of bottomless, uninterrupted, and limitless water’. Water nourishes washes, cleans, and clears. No wonder many ancient cultures worship water as the foremost of the elements. This blog seeks to focus attention on various aspects of water and ways to preserve it. Over 2/3 of the human body is made of water. Imagine, the brain is 75% water, blood is 83% water, bones 22%, muscles 75% water and lungs 90%! A decrease of 2% in our body’s water content can cause serious health problems. Over 6000 children die every day due to polluted water. These are easily preventable deaths. It is said that the next Great War will be fought over water, as we overuse, pollute and waste water. So let us take personal responsibility to save water. The Rotary Convention in Sao Paulo drew attention to the second largest river in the world – the Amazon. We had an exciting series of journeys across the river recently. Over 6280 kms long, it is formed in the North Peru Andes. It flows across North Brazil before entering the Atlantic Ocean near Belem. This majestic river stretches across over 15 kms in Manaos. It covers and waters over 4,75,000 sq.kms of South America, North Brazil, Bolivia, Pem, Ecuador, Columbia and Venezuela. It has an average depth of 150 ft. Its water and rich fertile silt has created the largest rain forest in the world, with the most diverse collection of animals, birds and insect life in the world. The tropical climate is tempered by heavy rainfall and the abundant life it engenders. Trees full of chattering monkeys leaping and clinging to lush green trees with their tails, vivid clouds of butterflies, carnivorous, piranhas, the mysterious giant anaconda strangulating its prey on the jungle floor, are all parts of its creation. During July -August the frail speed boat takes you through carpets of flowers, as thick hanging creepers and lianas, hang from ancient trees and float around you to brush your shoulders as you pass. The river is the life giving element of the lush rain forest. Polluting the river with human and industrial wastes threatens the life of millions of inhabitants of this land of which Man is the most rapacious. The destruction of the rain forest threatens not only the many life forms it supports but also contributes to an increase in atmospheric carbon di-oxide. Global warming is the immediate consequence. Those of us who live beside water bodies have a special duty to prevent such pollution. Deforestation disrupts the lives of inhabitant people whose livelihood depends on the produce of the jungle. What can you do? • Remember the river is not a garbage dump, it is a source of drinking water for millions. Start or join a citizens group that works to keep the river clean. • You can help keep the river clean by being part of a patrolling body on the river banks. • Attend river festivals and work with groups that prevent littering. • Identify and talk to industries which discharge effluents into the river. • Network with Government bodies which are working to clean up the river. • Encourage any philosophy that develops reverence for the river, religious or otherwise. • Prevent the building of toilets close to the river and work to prevent open defecation by the river