Offbeat Spirituality

September 5th marked the 45th anniversary of Voyager 1. Its most iconic image was of planet Earth from distant space called - The Pale Blue Dot - which was taken at a distance of 3.7 billion miles, from the far edge of the solar system.  This image is a reminder of how precious, delicate and ephemeral life is. Throughout history, humans have taken their lives for granted. We have always led with the conceited assumption that we are special, central, and significant; and each death has proven us wrong.  Our position in space is ordinary. Our existence is an endlessly repeated cycle of exercises in living & dying. Seeing this image is a thing of calming beauty. All our joy and suffering… every creator and destroyer of civilization… every superstar, every politician, a person of influence is on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.  The truth brought out of this is the absolute futility and delusion of conceit: the fallacy of a superiority, a superior gender, of nation...

Do you sometimes feel drained out even when you haven’t done much work? Are the situations weighing you down? Do you spend sleepless nights worrying about what will happen to your kids after you are gone? Does any of this make you feel lonely? There is a hidden energy crisis in our world today. The high-tech society has lost touch with the emotional and spiritual aspects of our personalities. Information bombardment on mobile, TV, Netflix, e-mails, and faxes have burned us deeply into techno-induced despair. We know everything, yet we are hollow. We have enough to eat, yet we want more. The alarming thing is we have taken this tiring, joyless state of existence as the ‘new normal'. We have accepted that some days are not ours. The energy depletion is so much that we don’t care about anything else except ‘self’. There’s a war going on in Ukraine. We created a few tweets, signed some useless online petitions, criticized the political regime, and our duty was done. People are dy...

This write-up deals with handling emotional intelligence using spirituality & mindfulness .  Emotional intelligence is understanding your emotions creatively and using intelligence to mold them in a positive way. It makes you the kind of person you are. It encapsulates how you think, react or behave in certain situations in life. It works day and night to give colour to your personality.  Do you remember the Will Smith — Chris Rock incident at the recent Oscars? A supposedly brilliant and well-educated person lost his credibility in a moment. No amount of experience came to his rescue when he instinctively reacted to a joke. And while you can call the behavior lapse of judgement, the power of emotions cannot be denied. For what we are, they remain a very strong source of energy in the pursuit of us becoming human beings. However, we have still not been able to harness the power of emotional intelligence. As a society, we continue to focus on education, knowledge, and expe...

What is spirituality, why is spirituality important and what can you say in the discussion of spirituality vs. religion?  While growing up I had a strong understanding of religion. I'm a Hindu and an Indian it was normal for us to participate in the religious activities that my mum undertook. We why not very religious, but of course, there was a sense of belonging to Sanatan Dharma.  My mum had a daily routine, which she follows till today. As soon as she got up, she would go to the small temple that we had made at our home to do a namaskar. She would then take the holy water and spread its droplets in the home. I remember her quiet voice humming mantras while doing this day after day. I loved getting up to that kind of morning ritual. It bought a subtle peace of mind before our day started. To my mum religion has been an anchor to her entire life. She is well aware of all the important days in Panchang and makes sure to bring up their importance in every conversation that we ...