Building strong character by being truthful

Background

I read Seven Habits of Highly Effective people in February 2008. Since then, a desire to be honest has developed in me. This would not happen without speaking truth. The intensity of this desire has been growing since I started meditating daily. I realized some new dimensions such as not telling lies, answering to the point, diverting the topic. But speaking truth is different from all those. I conducted an experiment on myself for the last two months to know why do we lie, why cannot we speak truth all the time, and observed some interesting patterns. We will analyze the results of this experiment and see the advantages of speaking truth in this blog.
Truth has a glut of definitions. More or less, most of the definitions lead directly or indirectly to the meaning of truth as sincerity and integrity. Mark Twain said, “Always tell the truth. That way, you don't have to remember what you said”. No one wishes to be a crooked person but then why do not we stop lying? Why do we struggle to remember what we said to which person? Many times, the lies which we say may not cause serious harm to any person or may not result in property loss. But still we are liars. In fact, these small harmless lies are taking us to the negative comfort zone where we are not aware of that we do not wish to speak truth. Gradually, fear is instilled in us to the extent that we cannot face the truth. Michael Levy said, “You can bend it and twist it... You can misuse and abuse it... But even God cannot change the Truth.” So, we will end up in living with unreal self. That is, we live with unreality or far away from reality. I believe that self analysis is the best analysis and conducted an experiment on myself for about two months. Unfortunately, the bottom-line of my experiment is that many of us kill ourselves without our knowing because the pain is hidden on the short run and unseen on the long run.

Courage factor

Humans exude confidence by being truthful. By observing myself and others, I found that courage plays a crucial role. We can categorize people who could speak truth into two buckets:
1. People having courage
2. People who do not require/need courage.
In this contemporary world, human mind is teeming with pollution because of the shoddy thoughts carried by us in our day-to-day activities. Sinister thoughts became part of human life. Hikes, power, positions, awards, rewards etc became part of human’s life. In realizing some of the above, some persons are even ready to drench or murder other person. We do ingenious contrivance to get the things done in our favor. Deals are not always completely kosher. Under such unhygienic environment, you definitely need to have courage if you want to speak truth. Because you started speaking truth, sometimes, either you or others may be in trouble. At times, truth may be unpleasant but don’t step back. Have the courage and consider the feelings of other person before telling. That means we need courage with consideration. Express the genuine truth in a palatable manner. Henry David said, “The only way to tell the truth is to speak with kindness. Only the words of a loving man can be heard”. For example, you cannot go to media and reveal your company’s confidential data. You cannot call such violation of trust as courage. The courage of a person should be prudent, not imprudent. People will slowly show great reverence towards you.
The other category is not like many of us who spend most of our lives as grouches. If you are pure at heart having no evil thoughts, genuinely happy for others success, able to forgive unintentional mistakes, then you don’t require courage to speak truth. For example, Does a saint require courage to speak truth? No, because he lives in a pure world, he feels only good and has no hatred. Not that these people don’t have courage but they don’t need the use of courage to speak the truth. Confidence gushes out of them. These people carry great character sustained with unyielding integrity in them and are usually impervious to criticism.

10 tough days

I decided to speak truth for 10 days and belabored the point to myself to digest the significance. At the end of each day, I had retrospective meeting with myself. By the end of 10 days, I said many lies. But the desire to speak truth has made some changes in me. I am not sharing the actual conversations happened during this experiment for various reasons but we will see the conclusions. All my lies fall into the below four categories:
1. When a person is made low by others, the person will tell lies to match the expectations of the other person.
2. When a person is forced to answer, the person will tell lies to escape or change the topic.
3. When a person wants to win his/her point, the person will tell lies to show his/her command on that point.
4. When a person wants to see/support the other person for whatever reason, the person will tell lies to show his/her respect/support towards other person.
For some days, I thought why humans do so many wrong things for the sake of others. But later I realized that humans do all these wrong acts to protect themselves or their image. There may be more categories than what I mentioned but I am sure that we would lie to protect our own image in any category. I am sure that many people will get ample number of examples in each of those categories. A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. Similarly, the journey of every liar starts with a single lie.

Common denominator

The other interesting pattern which is common in any of the above categories or common to people who tell lies is: we think when we lie. We may run the thought process before telling lies if a lie is constructed in planned way or after telling lies if a lie is constructed on the fly. Think of your own situations when you try to prepare the various possible answers to possible questions (Eg: to support your resume in an interview). We try to estimate the other possibilities to escape/protect ourselves. When this process increases, it creates stress in us. The more you vacillate, the more you become subject to all the fickle forces at play on the outside. Note the difference that person who thinks need not tell lies but person who tell lies, by and large, cannot avoid thinking.

Coming out of the pit

The impeccable solution is to be spontaneous in any situation. Never use your latitude to think & choose what to tell others. Be spontaneous. This will devoid the unnecessary stress in us. At one shot, this may be tough. Remember, every major change takes some time. I found one more interesting observation. When you try to speak only truth, slowly you will avoid telling lies, however minor it may be. You can slowly avoid the situations fraught with danger. Indirectly, you will not be a part of the situation where you need to tell lies. This in turn means that you are doing well in all walks of your life. Speaking truth does not mean to dig your past and tell everyone. Let bygones be bygones. You can build a better tomorrow, not yesterday. You need to show the commitment of allegiance to speak truth. As you don’t lie, you don’t need to encounter the situations filled with remorse. Your self-integrity increases by leaps & bounds. Slowly, you will achieve what you want through noble ways.
Failures are the stepping stones to success. But intentional failures are stepping stones to disaster. We often cheat ourselves into oblivion. We think that others do not know us. But we are what we are and others can easily see us, at least on the long run. Abraham Lincoln said, “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time”. Be spontaneous, you will surely enjoy the ethereal beauty of being truthful.

Humble tribute to this great friend

This is an amusing anecdote about one of my close friends. His name is Muralidhar Movva (known as Murali) who left this world on 16th October 2006. Inspired by the quote “Good men must die, but death cannot kill their names”, I take this blog as an opportunity for paying tribute to my dearest friend. I shared my experiences and my views about him.

Murali, a tall guy with a good build was like any other teenager who enjoyed playing sports, can call him a cricket freak. He was from a middle class family which had the basic amenities. He stayed in Hyderabad with his parents and sister. His grandparents, who love him more than anyone else, stay in a different place running their family owned business.

Srikanth (from Murali’s college), Murali and I spent most of our weekend times together during the first two-years of our under graduation days. Three of us stayed in adjacent streets and the distance between any two houses is very small, similar to the distance among our hearts which made it very easy for us to laze around and have fun. He had a craze to drive two-wheeler like any other young lad of India would have during their college days. He took either Srikanth’s motorcycle or my scooter to have test ride. I told myself that he was a bad driver after seeing a number of rides from him. Apart from two-wheeler driving, he was a big movie buff and also fascinated by computer games. You rarely see him fretting about anything except while playing sports. Of course, many times, he coaxed a brilliant performance out of the team.

One peculiar thing about Murali is that he becomes very irrational in believing some people. He supports them on whatever they say. I was not lucky to be in that category. There is one more interesting point about him which you see during arguments. Usually, though one may say externally that the subject is important and not the person, but internally many people see only the person and not the subject, especially in heated arguments. Murali was a true exception to this notion. During arguments, he takes and gives abuses to people. Within no time after the argument, he behaves with you in a normal way as if he did not involve in the argument. Initially, you may think he is pretending but you have to change your opinion on the long run. He does it innately & wholeheartedly. Even if you avoid him, he will come back to you without any hard feelings. His anger was mercurial and restricted to subject of the argument/discussion. Among my friends, this was unique only to Murali and I have not seen this particular trait in any of my other friends.

During our final year of bachelors’ course, we had campus placements. He was landed a plum job at CTS and me at Wipro. Both are software companies and offered a good pay package. After he started receiving salary, he began fulfilling his wishes such as mobile, attires, bike etc, all of them being brand new. I was still a bit cynical about his driving amidst of terrible traffic of Hyderabad. I started preparing for GMAT to pursue my dream course, MBA. I booked my GMAT slot on 17th October 2006 and was not in contact with friends since September 2006. I got a call to my landline (mobile was switched off) from Srikanth’s father on October 16th 2006. I opened my eyes and mouth as wide as possible after hearing from the receiver "Murali met with an accident and is no more with us in this world". I lost my senses for the next 10 minutes. Just before the call, I was doing mental preparation for the exam and all of a sudden I was getting calls from US to know how this tragedy happened. All of his friends were asked to come to Osmania hospital mortuary. I felt shame on myself on that night because I thought for a moment whether to go the mortuary or to do mental preparation for GMAT.

For Murali, friends are assets. We (=all friends) decided to support his family financially, though we know that we could not replace life with money. I should specially thank Rohan for coordinating with CTS folks & other friends of Murali in sorting out various issues. I also thank the other assets of Murali such as Hari, Shanthan, Shanthi, Ashwin, Ravi, Vikranth, Chenna, Srikanth and Raghu for providing all forms of support to his family. The list could go on like a long train but I am not aware of all his college and office friends. His mother gave new shirts of her son to some of his friends. I accepted one shirt as a memory of my friend.

In this barren wilderness of modern life, we still use the moments with Murali (under graduation days in particular) as a metaphor for the happiness of life. His foot prints are so strong in the hearts of his friends that we often recollect him. Even now, we recollect him whenever we discuss about our happiest moments. We don’t have to recollect him intentionally but cannot avoid recollecting him because he was a part of those joyous moments we had during our under graduation days.

William Shakespeare said “And, when he shall die, Take him and cut him out in little stars, And he will make the face of Heaven so fine That all the world will be in love with night And pay no worship to the garish sun”. We know that the soul of my friend is resting in peace and joy. To the family members of Murali: we, friends of Murali, are here to support you in all walks of your life. Please do treat us as your family members.

Sahaja Yoga: Tough to talk || Easy to experience

First thrill:

A couple of months ago, I received an email on my Wipro mailbox with the subject “Sahaja Yoga-17th Dec, 6:30-8:00 pm’. I am always a forerunner to participate in activities like aerobics, yoga and meditation. The hall was filled with almost 100 aspirants including me and contained people of age groups varying from 20’s to 50’s. I stopped discussing with my supervisor about the comfort of dress after realizing that the session is about meditation and not Yoga. My interest levels surged up as I had a belief, since my schooldays, that meditation would improve the levels of concentration and devour all the problems of mind & body.

All of a sudden, my attention turned unto Mr. Yogesh, instructor for this program, when he asked the crowd to give some examples of stress activities in our day-to-day life. Pronto, a voice from one corner said “Code-Gym assessment” (an assessment on technology for Wiproites) and everyone burst into laughter. He played a video, which focused on the stress of software people and small intro about Sahaja Yoga meditation. He said that everyone has kundalini inside their body and one can get cold breezes and vibrations on their palms & head. The session went on for about one hour.

Why and what!!

Every human will have thoughts of past & future which will keep on running in his/her mind. Many of these thoughts are often unnecessary and lead to stress. Your own thoughts are adding stress and you are not able to handle it because you are not aware. Can you believe this? How many times you felt that the way ahead of you is strewn with difficulties?? Losing peace & gaining stress became part of this contemporary living. Through meditation, you can achieve a unique state called thoughtless awareness state. This state best uses the present by taking the experience of past to build a better future. All humans have three channels (referring to past, present & future) and seven energy centers inside their body. The kundalini rises from the central channel passing through the seven centers. You can gain the knowledge on the process of Sahaja Yoga at any center available in numerous countries. Mind you, it is free of cost.

Cold breeze effect:
When the kundalini rises to the top it can be felt in the form of free-flowing cold breeze on your palms & fontanel bone area. This is a state in which you are connected to the all pervading power. It is an amazing experience and may sound weird to beginners. Everyone may not get this on day one. But everyone can experience this, after few days, by doing daily meditation and purifying their energy centers.

In my voice:

I did meditation during my school days but this one is different. This is not to know about the market, world, friends, foes etc but to know about a very important person –yourself. I am pretty sure that three-fourth of the audience might thought ‘what the crap is this?’ when they heard the instructor saying about kundalini rising, vibrations & cold breezes. I had full confidence that I would see all those experiences. After two weeks of daily meditation, I got the cold breeze for the first time on my left hand. After one and half month of daily meditation, I realized the mild cold breeze on top of my fontanel bone area. I tell you, believing is achieving.
You should be a staunch believer before you expect to experience. Most of us say, “I believed sincerely for one week or one month but I did not experience kundalini”. These people will stop doing meditation after a while. Just ask yourself: do you love your kid (or parents/spouse) for one month or one year? Your heart retorts "No", because your love to your loved ones is not conditional. You don’t put any time constraints. Your love to them will be for life time. Similarly, love your mother (=kundalini) unconditionally and surrender yourself. Sooner or later, you will be blessed to experience kundalini. If you are a wimp, you might take long time (or never) to get the experience.

At the main center of Hyderabad:

Like in many cities, Hyderabad city has many centers with a main center at Vidyanagar. Shri Mataji’s photo is austerely decorated to resemble her presence and we (people doing meditation) pay homage to her by doing acts such as aarthi, bhajans. It is believed that collective meditation will purify our channels and centers in a faster way. Later, a video is shown in which Shri Mataji delivers a speech. The program ends with aarthi. Sessions for beginners run in parallel. We all believe that the blessings of Shri Mataji are not scanty but abundant.

Walk-in to feel the experience:

By now, I am sure that plenty of questions are running in your mind. It is expected as I did not explain the process of meditation in this blog. Why don’t you walk into the nearest center and get the doubts clarified. Napoleon Hill said "You can do it if you believe you can". Well, I felt the cold breeze experience and I am sure that you too would definitely feel the same.

A+B->C; Revise your habits if you desire for outstanding results

Friends!! We often revise our habits and at times, we try to incorporate new habits. This will happen, by and large, when a person reads an inspiring article or watches a motivating speech etc. The challenge to a person at this junction is to continue the new habit for a longer period. In this blog, we will see how to create meaningful new habits and how to leave the disparaging old habits forever.

The results (good/bad) of any individual are the products of his/her own actions. Actions are indeed triggered by the thoughts of the person. Most of us want different & outstanding results but a very few know how to achieve these results. Existing results cannot be changed without changing the existing thoughts and actions. Everyone knows about the outcome of hydrogen when combined with oxygen, WATER (2H2 +O2-> 2H2O). Here, we will laugh if someone expects other than water during normal conditions. Similar is the case with humans => you cannot change the fruit without changing the root. If we need different results, we need to change our existing thoughts and actions. Great thoughts and great actions will deliver great results. Our daily actions are nothing but our HABITS. Good habits will promise to give good personality as much as to the hilt while bad habits can aggravate the personality of a person.

The most important point to keep in mind is to revise all our existing habits while making a new habit. One great habit cannot survive for a long duration if surrounded by ten rotten habits. Gandhiji said "One man cannot do right in one department of life whilst he is occupied in doing wrong in any other department. Life is one indivisible whole". Therefore, coordination and synchronization is very much required among all our habits, after all, they are our own habits. Make sure that the new habit leads to your goal. Choose your own habits and never make a facsimile of others habits. Do not get badgered by others in choosing a new habit. (Old habits and bad habits are two different things. Old habits can be good and new habits can be bad. We need conscience to decide what is good/bad).

Now that we have finalized our new habits, let us see how to implement these habits for longer durations. Many people will give up within one month or one week or one day or sometimes even one hour. I will illustrate with an experiment which would help us to understand two things: why we give up new habits easily and why it is tough to get rid of old habits. Imagine yourself throwing a ball up into the air. What are the possibilities? I will give two options and you pick the correct answer. The options are:

1. Ball will fall down after sometime.
2. Ball will remain in the air or it will continue to go up.
Your answer is correct if you have picked option 1. No one argues on this, including a two year old kid. The ball will fall down due to the earth’s gravitational pull. Given a chance to myself, I will say option 2 is correct but with different justification. For option 2 to be correct, one must throw the ball with a force to overcome the gravitational pull. We lived with old habits for quite some time and so the pulling force from old habits will be there when you try to leave them, quite similar to the gravitational pull when a ball tries to leave the earth. The force required to overcome the pull of old habits will vary from person to person and depends on how deeply the person is connected to the habit. Also, one must estimate the cost of violation for each new habit which would remind you the necessity of implementing the new habit. Sometimes sacrifices are essential and it may be painful initially but definitely helpful on the long run.

Rome was not built in one day; you should not expect to see quantum changes in one day or one hour. A child can walk only after crawling phase and one will definitely see the imminent changes over a period of time. Finally, with the symbiosis of noble habits, the fruits will reach you in torrents.

Television repercussions - see the unseen

Television is one of the greatest inventions of mankind. We can see any part of the world via TV sitting at our home. TV watching has many purposes, both good and bad. In this era, there are numerous programs coming on numerous channels. By and large, people are not choosing a TV program to watch but the TV programs are pulling the people to sit and watch. I call these people as TV addicts.

We all know the four famous addictions namely boozing, smoking, taking drugs and illegal sex. Most of us agree that these were bad addictions. Well, but why do most of us agree? The smartest answer would be: because of the direct involvement of health and money. Now, let us see the other side. We all have a defiant heart to accept that TV watching is a bad habit. Once again why? The straight answer would be: because of no effects on health and a very little effect on money. Few may say that we were getting entertainment at a very low cost. That was a straight answer, not a smart answer.

Let us ask few questions to ourselves in view of TV addicts.1) Is the above answer true?2) Are we missing any rudimentary things? If we sift thoroughly for what all the TV addicts are missing, in fact losing miserably, the smart answer would be: TIME. It is the invaluable thing which no one on this earth can buy. "Life is a drawing without eraser": this quote could have gone wrong if one could get back the passed TIME. Interestingly and unknowingly, TV addicts are losing such a precious factor of the life at a very low cost and paying a high price later on.

Let me divulge some flabbergasting facts in a heuristic manner.

• A recent survey in US has shown that the average no.of hours a family watches the TV is 45 hours which is more than the hours they work.
• In India, the number of television sets are more than the number of toilets.
• TV addicted parents are passing the habit to their children, spoiling the future citizens.
  
• Chances of getting over weight and obesity on long run.
• Wasting the TIME further on having ridiculous discussion on the programs.
  
• Sleeping disorders are observed in all the age groups.

Friends, it is better late than never, a high time for the TV addicts to wake up. Humans invented television. Let us rule but not ruled by our invention.