Asmita's Ryze Business Networking Page

Life has become bigger as I have grown older...assumed richer colours...music and songs and laughter and crazier friends, they all are increasingly showing their presence...oh! life is so wonderfully rich.

Has it ever happened to you that … “just like that…” that you caught a whiff of what you are supposed to do, of what you should be doing, of what your life is all about? Mind you, it is just a whiff…you don’t even know whether for that moment you were hallucinating or you actually saw something. What you saw seems to be so true that you feel you cannot but pursue it and yet it is so fantastic that you call yourself all kinds of fool for even thinking of pursuing it…it seems like a dream of an imaginative person and not part of real life.

With a dream to be with people, working with them or anywhere, just being …being in such a way that not only do I crackle with sheer joy of being alive, of living, but people all around me they too are bursting with life. No matter where we are, no matter what we are doing, we just …. ummmmm…. love being where we are, we cannot help but dance in exuberance to the music of life.

….ever been out… walking ..and then being drenched by unexpected rain …how annoying it is …and the next moment when u just decide to revel in it, dance with it…what fun it is… I have

…ever felt the caress of a mountain breeze…the lift of a lock of your hair that was flying away with it and then found itself anchored by the root…still it dances and flies in sheer exuberance of the moment…I have

….ever walked in a shallow river where you can see the rounded pebbles under the clear waters? tried to catch the dancing sunshine on the surface of the flowing waters? felt the amazing serenity of the cool waters of the river…as if it was washing away all your problems, your unhappiness? .... I have

…I turned my face upto the morning sun and felt the rays warming the skin and the seeping within…turned my head towards the bird feed and saw the sparrows pecking at the seeds, chirping, seemingly, with no care and yet being alert to every movement…

…saw a child trying to walk the 5 steps to the outstretched arms of its mother, making it, falling in her arms , laughing with delight for having done so, unconcerned about all the times that he couldn’t do it, for all falls that he had, for all the times that he might not make it still …just loving the moment because he was where he wanted to go …… ummmm will I ever be like that again

…met a kid who could spell “atmospheric pressure” with complete confidence where as even I would have been a little tentative while spelling it, making sure that I didn’t spell it wrong and then realised that how stupid it is to fear being considered stupid because I spelt a spelling wrong…what freedom!

A few of you would remember how India (in my case Delhi) used to be in late 80’s…a very innocent “oh my god” kind of a society…

Once, during my college days, I boarded a bus. I had barely managed to scramble to the top step and the bus started with a jerk. (I have always been a nervous passenger in those DTC buses, known to frequently scramble for something to hang on.) In that instant too, since I had no handle to hang on to, I found myself in the lap of a guy.

Whipping my head around to see who I had landed on, I found myself face to face with the most shocked expression in the world. Clamouring for an explanation was a furious face of a woman next to him…

By all counts, I should have immediately scrambled to my feet, turning red with shame and a feeling of embarrassment (pls remember this was late 80s, times were different then). But some devil in me or perhaps the same madness that I now revel in, ran the entire sequence of events as a movie in my head. Even before I had got up from the lap or even turned my face completely away from the lady + guy, I found myself grinning widely in amusement. Luckily, I finally found some semblance of sanity and took to my feet and moved to the front of the bus. But even today, whenever I recall the incidence, am whooping with laughter…

I was born with joy in my heart...people around unintentionally tried to limit that joy by telling me how to be, how to feel ... I listened to them for a while and tried to define the reasons and times when I should be joyful and then something within broke through...and here I am ... with no idea abt why a thing should be, or how it should be and or just when it shd be and yet being , doing and living as I deem fit...having enough faith that I would not be making wrong choices or at least I can accept the consequences of these choices...

...and I am joyful once again...no idea why I am like this...needing no reason for being like this...needing no set expression for expressing it

A thought/situation that has bothered me many-a-times in my life….

“How should I be with someone who seems like a nice person/good friend but there are times when I am forced to question his/her real motive” Is it my insecurity that is driving me to question, or my gut level instinct. I knew I could not answer this question with authority and would become agitated to core.

At last I found a solution that works for me….

Since I could not control/dictate the other person’s behaviour, I had to find a solution within myself…and the solution was so easy… I should only be what I want to be, why should anyone have the power to mould me…rather than giving up the control of my life to others, I chose to clasp it and achieved what I always wanted…freedom…

And what I figured out was that if ever I could achieve a nature that was 100% “open hearted without conditions” and “without fear”, I would never have any complaints with anyone or life. I also found J, that the beginning was the toughest coz I have so been used to loving/giving and at the same time expecting the same to be returned. Oh!! What a battle it is with self and what joy each victory brings…lol…

I have cried and I have laughed, I have struggled and I have flowed…I have lived and I have deadened myself…through all this I started finding myself. All my hurts, broken friendships, unfulfilled relationships were just like a strokes of chisel and hammer on this beautiful piece of stone that was being chiseled into a unique piece of sculpture. I could remain as I am, beautiful in raw form, full of potential or accept (without understanding most of the time) the blows and the buffing in complete faith...

I wanted to become a sculpture…

I chose to walk in faith, somehow knowing "perhaps that whiff again" that life is full of treasures waiting to be discovered...

There are some who saw the potential in this yet incomplete piece, and so became my friends, and there were some who saw incompleteness in me and walked away and there are some who are waiting for me to become a perfect sculpture before they accept me…but that can only happen when I breathe my last …too late for anything !!

Someone recently commented upon hearing something I had said that it stank of self pity… an accusation that I refused to accept…but it forced me to figure out what self pity was just to be sure that I didn’t deserve this comment …

After much soul searching, I figured that it is when we feel like a victim in life, as if we have received less than we deserve. Life has its own game plan… but when we play the cards we have been dealt feeling that life is singling us out, that it is not being fair to us…that’s when we allow self pity into life… something that I had managed to keep away from myself (for the time being atleast)

The same comment though brought a couple of other things in focus…how we are constantly seeking reassurance … a validation about our worth…essentially, the fact that we exist means something in this world…how we are not sure of who/what we are and need other to praise/reassure us….if we just put in the best effort according to our capabilities, all the while working to better our self, we wouldn’t look to others to feel worthwhile … a task that requires constant awareness

..and another thing that forced its way into my consciousness was the power games that we constantly play…at least I had played in that instant (of course in complete unawareness) … I have led friends feel that they have hurt me (even slightly) just to feel a bit of power over them (the emotional power game??)…this I linked to feeling of incomplete self worth coz if ever I could be 100% happy about who I am at this moment and my actions, I would not feel the need to make anyone feel bad about themselves or their actions…AGAIN a need for total awareness…

As I looked at people all around, on the road, I made a promise to myself, nay not a promise but a decision…that I would always have a look of a winner on my face, that my presence would never spell “the defeated one” or “losing” and whatever my life dishes out to me…good times or bad times…I would always be alive to it…not waiting for it to pass or dreading that it will pass but living it to hilt, knowing that it is my life. I can either make it count or deduct those times from my life so that it appears as if I lived a shorter life.

To be, to do, to have

A very interesting and effective motto…If I just concentrate on what I want to be, not because I want to act in a certain way, not because I want to gain/achieve something, not because someone told me that that is how I should be, not because I thought that’s how the world expects me to be…I just focused on what I want myself to be, what feels right for me, what feels ME and then went ahead and did it.

Once I looked at myself like this then whatever the circumstances, my actions to deal with them flows naturally. I take decisions, take actions according to what I am. I no longer have complaints against myself, nor do I ever feel guilty of actions not taken or taken wrongly coz all the while my focus remains on “being what I want/care to be”.

And then, whatever the outcome of these actions, I never feel that I have lost out in anyway. I know I couldn’t have acted other than the way I have. In any case I am so happy, so at peace with myself coz I am what I want to be that any thing that I achieve is a bonus for me. And I do manage to achieve a lot!!!!!

Does this work…it does… it continues to… and one thing more I have noticed…Happier I am, less expecting I am …more my life is working out for me…it truly amazing!

Why is it so difficult to say no to things that we don't want to do and and not to say it to things that we might want to do?

Over the years, I found that my instinctive reaction to anything that people asked and especially to new things, was to to say 'NO'. Not because I might not enjoy doing it, not because I didn't want to do it but ...firstly coz I was used to saying "No" and secondly coz I was afraid to say 'Yes'... to try!

...And I lost out on a lot of possibly great experiences. Luckily midway through life, I recognised this insane trait and now very consciously try to stay away from it...do I succeed all the time...Naah...hopefully though, one day, I will break out of this habit and react as each circumstance warrants !

…a glimpse of my madness…don’t say you weren’t warned!!!! Does this page make any sense? It must have, else you wouldn’t be reading this !!!

Heck, my page is becoming too long…but all these thoughts have acted as a reminder at times when I felt at a loss about situations in life…and ryze being so addictive, I do come here everyday…so till the time ryze administrators don’t limit my page size…

And now how about a smile and a note before you leave… and to add me as a friend, my email is nj26@rediffmail(dot)com.

www.goodnewsindia.com This is one man's endeavour to persuade that there is more to India than the stream of depressing stories, to establish a niche for the dissemination of stories that inspire hope in the future of India, a confidence in her abilities and an appreciation of her as a sensitive civilisation, and also to show-case the heroic efforts of thousands of little known men, women and institutions, while skirting celebrities, politicians, political parties, prima-donnas and publicity-hunters.

www.ishafoundation.org It is at Isha that I found my guru. It is here that I learnt to be myself...not bound by words, deeds, expectations, promises of others. Here is where I found freedom. That is the ultimate aspiration of every human being I feel and my Guru helped me find it. Am I completely free...not as yet...but I know now that it is possible. The only thing stopping me from achieving it is myself...

Isha Foundation is a non profit organisation. It is involved in a number of social projects. One of them is Action for Rural Rejuvenation Project. It aspires and works towards revitalising the rural India. More than a quarter of million volunteers worldwide are involved in its activities.

Since Tsunami hit the South East Asia and the Indian shores, it has been doing a wonderful job of providing relief and long term sustained rehabilitation and development of Tsunami hit villages in Tamil Nadu. I, along with other ishaites shamelessly urge you to dig into your pockets for the work that is still in progress and would need to be sustained for next 8 - 9 months. Every bit of money contributed is accounted for and utilised in optimal manner and of course is Tax exempted :).