Love has not tired yet

So much is made of issues such as religion, taxi driving and civic safety. I am most reminded of male overoptimism as we attempt to make sense of ‘news’ that we get. Even the barbaric mass murders of school children in the sub-continent seem only to have sent that momentary chill down our spines. Leonard Cohen has a song on Faith that has a contemporary prophetic appeal. Sample lines..

“The blood, the soil, the faith
These words you can't forget
Your vow, your holy place
O love, aren't you tired yet?
A cross on every hill
A star, a minaret
So many graves to fill
O love, aren't you tired yet?”

Indeed, presence in a moment of dire stress and bringing the other person to that wavelength comes from a rare and dynamic awareness. Like Viktor Frankl did with his prison officers. Human will, inner deep bone gifts of clarity and our attitude to crises. “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way” wrote Frankl in his book Man’s search for Meaning. I thought I met a few such people over the last few weeks of December.

A 4 am pick-up to the airport is often a curse for a worn out taxi-driver. But there he was 10 minutes ahead of schedule. Knowing a name helps, I thought when he called and spontaneously broke into Malayalam. I asked him if he had enough rest, and he said, he had just got up from sleep as his driver had gone on leave. So, what on earth was a pastor doing behind the wheel I thought as he cruised into a steady gear. “How did you know that?” he asked. “Well, I was informed by the cab company”. “Oh, no. They registered my name that way?” A few more turns under street light and he opened up. “I do not like to go begging for alms for spiritual service. So I set up a few taxi runs, so that we generate our own money to run medical camps and run a couple of schools in remote areas. My drivers need rest, and I pitch in like I did today. They know we’re building a mission”. 

On another pick-up and drop in another city, I got a multi-utility vehicle, (kind of upgrade from a sedan), and the driver was another enthusiastic livewire. “So where do you stay?” I asked him. “Sir, this vehicle belongs to the owner, who works for a software company. He wanted a trusted driver. So, since I am from his village he asked me to take care of the car. He stays down the coastal road”. “So, where do you stay?” “In this car,” came a prompter response this time. I knew I was onto something. 

“I wash up at the Central Station or at the airport wash-rooms”. “So you eat in hotels, I presume!” I volunteered. “Yes, usually, between rides, whenever I feel hungry”. “What about your clothes?” I queried, as he sported a chauffeur's look atypical of his tribe. This question brought a proud response from him. With a modest swish of his wrist and opening up his fingers from the sturdy steering, he said “I give my clothes for laundry twice a week”. And his village connect? “Sir, I go home by bus once a month. My wife and daughter are my life”.

On my last trip home from the airport, the Regional Transport Office (RTO) halted the cab I was in. When pulled onto the side, the sentry politely asked me for 5 minutes from my ride to verify papers of the driver. In 3 minutes the driver was back from the patrol vehicle of the RTO. When I asked him what it was about, he said, “Sir, this is a registered vehicle, and there was no problem. But the recent incidents have meant that the government is keeping closer checks. That is all”.

Just a few examples of how the organised web-enabled taxi industry in India has many an endearing story behind the wheel. 

Indeed, love has not tired yet.  May the year 2015, thrive on it. 

Basic, not base emotions

Often, I muse upon the subtleties between enthusiasm and optimism; risk taking and impulse, self-sacrificing and altruism, and so on. These are fascinating areas of thought, and inferences from a similar behavior may trace back to different origins. E.g. who do you think is more of a risk taker - the cricketer Sehwag, or Virat Kohli? Who is more of the impulsive businessperson - Richard Branson or Vijay Mallya?

If seen from a more coarse, or meta-level, what may be the basic emotions we experience as humans? I am left with what Master Richard McHugh taught us years ago. He said there are four basic forms that emotions take. Our brains are capable of focussing on finite chunks of emotion in given time, and as such, may not process each with similar vitality or intensity in the same moment. Yet, when distilled, there are 4 basic emotions to deal with as below.

1.       Joy – where celebration and the general word happiness exist. This may not be an absence of grief, but surely the discovery of meaning is a great contender here. 

      For me meaningfulness is an necessary reframing of grief at times, as the travails of nature hold up gifts through experiences of suffering.

2.       Grief – where the helplessness in loss pervades, and stymies the senses accordingly to a near foreclosure of options. It is grieving during separation, or death of a loved one that calls for a spirited appraisal of emotional investment. Grief is a coming to terms with nature’s cycles when ends are a renewal or a rebirth of life-forms.

3.       Anger – where not being able to get what one wanted is asserted in varying levels of intensity. Unlike grief, it is a contacting emotion, as the aim one can benefit from in the case of anger is a deepening of one’s relationship with the other with whom we are angry.

4.       Sex – and this is the counter-intuitive emotion. Sex is a procreating drive for most, but it is a life-assertive energy that when repressed causes more ill – physical, social and emotional, than we are willing to admit. Sex as bodily differentiation in gender and unity of species as life-form is slow but essential realization. Deep respect can only ensue from traversing the deep masculine, shallow masculine, and deep feminine and shallow feminine aspects of sexual identity in the same body. It is about tuning in to one’s body and its creative forces. It is also about understanding that repressed from civil discourse, we often confuse this with love – which, in fact is a decision, and more than a fundamental emotion.

Having made mention, it is useful to be clear about love. Love is a decision to give in conscious awareness all of oneself to oneself, and to others who may share in spirit, social relationship or ideology. In this sense, love is not a free flowing emotion. It is not an object of manipulation either. As Osho Rajneesh once mentioned, it is psychologically impossible to love another without loving oneself. Self-acceptance and self-improvement are both components of self-esteem, and impoverishing either reduces the chances of loving others.

Loving others as oneself, therefore is a whole new meaning - a joy to live into!

What do you think?

When will we know we have accomplished our Purpose?

So you may read this differently, as your age may so imply for you. I was asked recently by a young employee of a bubbling start-up, “So when will I know I have met my ‘purpose’?” Significant yearning. How does one respond, for the journey is the experience remembered and not the destination?

In spiritual traditions, there is a notion of explanatory power that I will attempt to essay from. It is about Love. The question on Love is, where does it come from? The contemplative response is, “We do not know. But it is known in the moment of receiving”.  So, what about giving? Love is the decision to give of oneself fully in the moment of giving. We give to each other as we give to ourselves. If we love ourselves, we have the opportunity to be compassionate with others.

So, does one receive love if one loves oneself? Is it possible that we deceive ourselves? Yes, we may deceive ourselves, if awareness is absent. The inward journey is the more sacred journey than the outward movement. Loving oneself is realizing that one stands for one’s awareness, and thereby taking responsibility for self, trusting the unborn future and integrating the irretrievable past.  

When such giving is a connectedness with self, love awakens as a spirit of eternal nature. We were born with it. In bodily form may stray from it due to distractions our existence provides through our senses. It is giving to oneself that people confuse with selfishness, where the balance is tipped unashamedly towards self without reverence or concern for others.  Returning to self, is in large part the way out of a mid-life crisis as well. With compassion for self , loving others transforms in experience as an extended expression of inner awareness.

OK, so what does loving the self require? First and foremost, awareness as distinct from introspection. Introspection judges. Awareness is non-judgmental. So is this a prescription as in a to do list? Hardly. Like the grass is thankful for the rain, it needs the earth as medium for expression. But, the awareness is evident in the acknowledgement.  What happens inward, language can confuse for its vocabulary may not be in spoken form per se.

Secondly awareness can be robbed of wholesomeness, if one does not accept with vulnerability. Avoiding pain or discomfort from willingness to be aware is to avoid growth as well.  This is the place from which creativity soars, joy and grief is experienced, and time is lived in. Avoiding the anxiety of transformation is when rigidity takes over, fear is emboldened and time is merely lived through. Meaning and purpose is the insight from awareness. Meaningfulness is the joy of the engaging presence of purpose.

Thirdly, multiple intelligence faculties are involved in awareness. With experience, mastery enhances discriminatory intellect or what Indian language terms vivekabuddhi. A sculptor knows hardness of stone from softness of water. A mason knows brick-laying from the kiln process but will not master the architect’s interpretive art of structural stability of multi-tiered, multiple material infrastructure. A digital media artist, will play with font, lighting, contrast and resolution display; whereas the data scientist will creatively toggle at series theories, computational efficacy of algorithms and outputs from machine learning varieties.

So, to the original question – when is purpose realised? In my experience, Purpose is related most to life themes, that hang together in relatively stable ways. But like love, perhaps Purpose is known when you arrive in the moment from a journey that sustains the commitment to the themes of one’s life. Vocabulary may distort reality and affect the content of the experience itself. E.g. youth motivated by the term ‘social service’ may confuse ‘cause-motivation’ with deterministic activism, and destroy the core value of the cause in the course of the experience.  Getting others to accept one’s point of view from a 'social service angle, may be twisted as an art of selling; and in unconscious error end up antagonizing others' values on the same dimension. A lack of congruence between one’s own awareness and statement of purpose will signal a lack of synchrony. The cause may be related to upholding a sense of justice, or it may be to do with merely pleasing others from a pliable norm that one got exposed to as social rituals in community.

After all changing others is Radicalism. Changing oneself is Idealism. Accepting oneself is Realism. Becoming oneself is the Essence of Being. Doing from the state of Being is an expression of one’s Greater Purpose Statement.

What is interesting to note is that what was once considered as mid-life crises was associated to the biological age of 45 or so. It is my perception that even in middle-class Indian milieu, the average middle-age is now down to 35 or so. The purpose question is preceded normally by fundamental ones – Who am I? What am I doing now?

Life in its fullness begins with answers to these questions. That is when the essential crises happen before Purpose reveals itself to the mindful aware self. And now, am not asking you for your age; would you ask that of yourself? What else goes with your response?

When Breaking Rules is no Sin : Service of the Heart

1 Corinthians 13:13 says “12For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known.13But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love”.

In the mindless repetition of this differentiating text from the Bible, I have seen many a wedding solemnized, many a suffering explained away and moments of confusion managed for the temporal convenience of clergy and the laity. The Passion Week is a reminder past the centuries of an unparalleled traverse of the Jesus figure in its intensity and solemnity both. The essence between the text from the Corinthians and the experience of the Now Moment in the present, revealed itself in a pristine view for me today. So, I record them here – partly as a re-discovery of matters spiritual, and partly as an instrument to my own meaning making. And no, I have not gone to the etymological, epistemological or liturgical roots of these terms. So they come minted with the scent of my own till that the world has suffered for me.

Faith is supposed to be a dive into the unknown, and yet, it presupposes a lot. Faith per se is a call to action. On the face of it, it seems a simple, pure and unqualified act of trust. Faith however, rests on the actor’s past. It summons a judgment in the moment between choices in favour of the one choice presented for appeal. Such judgment arises only if the actor has a past experience of matters from which to discern the worth of the judgment call. Hence faith is past-dependent, despite its glory in the present.

Hope is a beacon of aspiration, aligned with an experience yet to be. It signals a poise of uncovering inner potential whether passive, dormant or active. Hope is a form of reliability in unborn futures, separating the moment from the burdens yet to be borne; and yet giving meaning to today’s  yokes. Hope is a tempering of the Spirit, the enmeshment of the Larger Mind within us that connects with what is larger than us.

But spirituality is not just through the mind’s intellect. Spirituality is also through our body and emotions. Transformations happen when we ready ourselves in the moment to receive love. Love exists in the present. We may never know in our lifetimes, as we know it, where Love comes from. It is only in the receiving, that we can recognize Love. In Love, we die to the moment. In this death, we renew ourselves. Mindfulness allows us to integrate what we sense through body and emotion into Love. For Love is a decision, that embeds many a moments of emotion, but is not an emotion of itself. Love is the giving of all you are in the moment you make that decision.

Love can bear all things, if we experience the Presence of Eternity. Forgiving Love is a decision to dissociate feelings and emotions with the person whose acts may have hurt us in the past. Merciful Love is a decision to be in service of the heart, where compassion is a state of accurate empathy with the other’s feelings, and yet, in such service; one breaks known rules of engagement. Love is in the giving. And since each moment is new; when expressed, Love bears authenticity, an originality born of an awareness of the moment.

Integrating the Past and the Future in the Present may seem difficult. In surrender to the moment, not insisting on what we desire, but experiencing from a wholeness to deserve the bounty of resources in the moment, Grace becomes an amazing feature. Grace is the mystical, unmerited mercy, whose gift is like the synesthetic synapse of laughter and tears at the same time. The Presence of Eternity, then alters our perception of time itself. If as the Bible Says, that the Greatest of these is Love, mindful present-awareness has a premium over Past–dependent Faith and Future-oriented Hope. 

Yet, the moment contains the humble connotations of the connected tenses. This is a new meaningfulness for me today. If you let me know what this means for you, I shall be much obliged. 

July Monsoon Musings

Attachment is the root of sorrow. Ambition that reeks of unfulfilled desire may be a symptom of attachment, the shadow side of ambition or the unresolved self.

Detachment is the beginning of equanimity. Neither attachment nor detachment can be known without knowing the other. The joy from detachment is not a pursuit to be enslaved to - nor the sorrow from attachment a burden to despise.

Love transcends both these as the decision of giving all of oneself in service. As Mother Teresa once said "When we judge we have no time to love".  Love is the decision that liberates us from trapped potential.

Love that is effective is a result of calibrating for rapport - a state in which nether party in the relationship judges each other. Loving the self is also a calibration of mind, body and emotion. That is why even if it is logically possible to love another, it is psychologically impossible to do so without loving one's own self.

Compassion is empathetic acceptance rooted in trust of the unknowable. It is a product of vulnerability and vulnerability is an act of conscious will.

Happiness is the uncaused ecstasy of traversing in surrender to mystic depths.

Awareness is communion with the unconscious, united through mind, body and emotion.

Spiritual Strength - the Richard McHugh SJ way

Tools of the Spirit are an experience. Also subtitled "Pathways to the Realization of Universal Innocence," it is based on a workshop authored by Robert Dilts and Robert McDonald. The original concept is that there are aids, (prayer, meditation, singing, dancing, parables, rituals and blessings), that bring us more in harmony with the "larger Mind" and "the larger nervous system" of which we are a part. The authors see NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming), as a tool to achieve those ends. Richard McHugh (Dick) goes further than this. In fact, he brings to fuse his ‘awareness’ paradigm, partly informed by his Vipasana experience under Goenkaji and partly from his days at Sadhana with Tony D’Mello. Dick does not pretend to know what he does not. So he does not go to the koans or Confucian outgrowth from Buddhist thoughts. He merely stresses bodily delight in awareness through meditative postures endured in silences such as that of Vipasana.

Rev. Richard McHugh SJ, PhD, Master of NLP

What Dick does is to reinforce our connection with larger systems of which we are a part. These include family, profession, community, and the global system. When he does so, he is in the least bit eulogizing Christ, and in fact, chastises Christians for not understanding Christ as someone who asked us to love others as we loved ourselves. that is knowing ourselves more deeply. Experiencing fully, without self-judgment, arrogance or suppression of our sexual energy, Dick leads participants through bodily sensation and kinesthetic movement. We begin to know our limits, appreciate our intentions, the strengths and perception of others. We gradually develop the acuity and the receptiveness to experience grace as unmerited mercy. 


Forgiveness, says Dick, is the ability to give with compassion as we would have given before the hurt. This is possible if in a state of awareness, we can dissociate the feeling from the thought of being hurt. Meaning is to be made, such that we are not attached to the feelings that stifle us from the past. Meaning is to be made in the moment. And meaning is made because we receive it. We receive it only when we allow the unconscious to do its work. We do not know exactly how it works, in the classical scientific traditions of explanation. That is the choice of human discretion we have. The more we resist, the more it will persist. The more we accept it, the more we transform ourselves. 

It is quite tempting to give a procedural rundown of the experience. In fact, that is the easier part. Most practical however would be to refer the original book by the Roberts – Macdonald and Dilts. http://amzn.to/HczXZU . I would rather surrender to the spirits at work within the confines of dignity and beauty. While the rational in me may seek to find coherence in propositional logic, the nature of the proposition of spirituality is incomplete without intuitive inference and the inter-subjective unity in the experience. Empirical evidence is therefore not a direct perception, but as Hindu mystics augur - an atyadhmik atman at work. The self becomes the observer of the self. Perhaps, that is why the individual needs the community and vice-versa. Perhaps, when emotions help us acknowledge interconnectedness through individuals, we realise companionship as a trustful resource in spiritual journeying.


Expressions here are therefore apparently muted, though they come largely from deep realizations of what Dick gives insights in. It is only to the few therefore that the phenomenon of death will seem remote from spirituality.  There are the modern day equivalent of miracles, that Dick facilitates in participant discovery of themselves. His interpretation of dreams and the near instant therapeutic kinesthetic invitation he provides a clear sign of process at work. The Death towards Love, is Spirituality. Love is a decision, and not a basic emotion. That is the paradox many in psychology and philosophy have tried to unravel. Below are some of my insights at the workshop.

1.   A wish could be a fantasy, alright. A want is more concrete. A wish can challenge the Giver. A want can honor the giver. Ask with care.

2.   In Pain, there's a beauty that that endures, as pain passes over. In Suffering, the attachment endures, as the mind fights Reality.

3.   Wisdom comes from forever and the depths of Eternity, just as Meaning comes from the Moment as a gift of the Present time.

4.   Mercy is a compassion that overrides fear, as in a disregard for conventions so as to be in service of the heart. It leads to spiritual wholeness.

5.   Forgiving is to give as you would have given graciously before the hurt. Understanding is awareness of pointless attachment, unmerited mercy

6.   Spiritual presence is like a cosmic perspective through the awareness that you and I are specs of dust that in turn hold the universe.

As I reflect, there is genuine appreciation of the levels of neurological learning, from the environment, behaviors, capabilities, values,  right to the identity. Robert Dilts adaptation of Gregory Bateson's gift from anthropology is a constant reminder of the great intellectual traditions from California. Tools of the spirit, in fact raises us from our own unconscious to the spiritual vision we have for ourselves. 

However, being in the moment, as in Dick’s workshop; I also saw different levels of intent and their manifestations. There were those stuck in analytical freeze. There were others consumed in unworked anchors like those for the need for recognition, fame and the limelight. Others were making journeys from their gender-based roles and learning to move from their deep to the shallows of feelings between masculinity and femininity. The youthfully unattached were curious of their evolving identity, and those who had worn many a life-battle coming to terms with their unrealized identities. 


Perhaps beyond the realm of the personally deepened visions, most people will remember the visually registered symbols that were in the public domain. e.g. A young priest, a young teacher of chemistry and a seasoned nun seemed to agree in a conspiracy of sorts to make Dick’s image and their association with him an unabashedly exclusive veneration. Much against Dick’s known preference for a non-public image, he was photographed in various angles and postures and striking lines of his utterances imprinted in designer bookmarks. First placed on seats on the last day of the seminar, it was next offered as a commercial package. Before the deal was made public, an elderly mother went from chair to chair collecting every single bookmark for herself. It was like each one had their magic card of poker that could deal no higher wild card on the table of the ones playing the game.

The fixation to personalities abounds in our world. I am reminded of a story narrated by Osho Rajneesh. A painter in his Ashram was told to stop painting breasts of women as he needed to mature. Breasts were a fixation in Rajneesh’s opinion, meant for ‘breakfast’ time in life! So the painter went and revised his approach. He had the figure of Rajneesh in the middle – well pronounced, and around this central figure – breasts and breasts and breasts.

Maturation towards inner development is no cakewalk. It is in this week, I realised Dick’s larger mercy, his coming from the space of Spiritual Wholeness, enmeshing his shadows and self-parenting himself past a bi-polar mother and a very misunderstood father of great spiritual resource….His holding cancer of the prostrate as his bodily guest, and ridding himself of the Jesuit cassock for pyjamas that signified his collapsed anchors with the wisdom of India. That is the Mind with the Heart we know, now already at age 82. His willingness to be the child in using mindful sarcasm and the maturity of drawing out others from their child-like state to experience their evolving adulthood, is testimony to a living example of the theory at work. His scholarly sense comes from the distilled understanding of the phase transition that Gestalt theorists missed in their evolution. In hindsight, he feels that had the Gestalt giants like Fritz Perls lived longer, they would have discovered NLP themselves.

He had to contend with a class size of 69 participants and 3 more on his team at our Bangalore session in the last week of March 2012. The march of technology in our environment makes it difficult for Dick to stress his wants in service of the Heart as he would have done in an alternate life-space. His unmerited mercy is a surrender in which the book-marker threesome would feel victors of a feat proximate to their idea of spiritual glory. The keepers of bookmarks in his name have an image; they would get visual anchors to glean through. 


Hopefully, the books they read would also merit attention. Else, I can assure you that the effect of the workshop is enough to ignore the book for a long long while. As of the first day after the workshop - the imprint I have is such that I would think a 5 day course with a day's break in between each would allow for requisite immersion and integration within the self. It is the experience here that is the intelligence and not the abstracted code of reference as in a machine manual! 

Analytical intelligence is seldom a predictor of spiritual wholeness. Besides, there's no place as spirituality that can celebrate the vitality of death, for its inherent lessons of honor and humility. If you see a man willing to laugh at himself, he has a greater chance of being humble and spiritual. This is even more possible because, each of us is innocent. Each of us can learn. Each of us can experience putting to use our creativity from the depth of our unconscious. Judgment is the end in analysis. It is suspended for learning of our greater ultimate selves.


Joy be with you.

Spiritual Intelligence - Explorations with George Kunnath

I've had some fascinating moments exploring the aspects of a Spiritual Intelligence conceptualization, thanks to the sharing from George Kunnath. Like a babe on the shores this vast ocean of awakening waiting to be known, I wade through a water that ensnares, endangers and yet comforts. Non-rational at it's core, it is a force from which we may have arrived in material form, and yet, our forms of knowing inadequate to explain phenomena we experience in this respect.

Here's a glimpse of that exploration. Posted here for your reflections and comments please.


The Material and the Spiritual

The Newtonian scientific model challenged this understanding of unity and overemphasized empirical verifiability as a prerequisite for any existence. The overemphasis of the Newtonian paradigm eclipsed indigenous wisdoms of the heart and idealised everything that is cerebral.  What we now witness is an intractable reductionism of essentially phenomenological experience into measurement, and look-alike frameworks of an extrinsic measurement paradigm. This has led to the propagation of ‘indices’ for phenomena such as customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction and learnability. Every facet of human life has been driven by the cerebral rather than the visceral.

The rapid material progress in the West at the cost of all other dimensions of human existence created a vacuum. Many Westerners began to look eastward to find meaning. The feudalistic rituals of the institutionalized religions became redundant for the true seeker of the spirit and meaning.  The inner quest for greater meaning beyond material existence gave rise to many gurus and spiritual practitioners outside the religious structures. Western seekers came to India in search of peace and enlightenment.  Many found the solace they sought as they traversed through the chaos and immersed deep into the ancient spiritual practices.

Since, the treatise on Spiritual, Emotional and Analytical is an on-going one with a respectable legacy already available in literature, we wish to stress on a transformative space that leaders could act from. As the saying goes, it is better to cover one’s feet with slippers than to carpet one’s path on this world laden with thorns and stones.

“ ... everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe - a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble. In this way the pursuit of science leads to a religious feeling of a special sort, which is indeed quite different from the religiosity of someone more naive.” - Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, Albert Einstein - The Human Side, Princeton University Press, 1979.

Albert Einstein, probably the personification of fundamental inquiry in the pure sciences, acknowledged the existence of a greater power that makes us humble and surrender before it. Spiritual intelligence is a higher intelligence governing the universe.  Looking at the way the universe operates, it is a great marvel. Every event, every process in the universe is governed by a principle or a set of principles.  The manifestations of the governing principles can be observed in the operation of the universe. The planets orbit through their paths and the birds fly in the sky with no super highway crashes or mid-air collisions. There is a particular principle governing every species on earth unique and yet different. Seeds sprout, grow bloom, bear fruit and perish. Mammals are born, they grow, they reproduce, and they decline and die. The cycle of life continues; irrespective of the host habitat – the tectonic plates of Iceland, the fold mountains of the Himalayas or the Great Australian outback.

Every invention of man is a poor imitation of nature. Perhaps Nature does not make the effort to communicate its bemusement of our flattery for Her. The most sophisticated computer is no match for the human brain. No technology can match the marvel of the universe. The World Wide Web which is one of the greatest inventions of the 20^th century, it would appear, is modelled on the planets and stars and the interconnected nature of things in the universe. For the design of the most sophisticated fighter planes, extensive studies are done on eagles in flight with cameras attached to their body to capture the angle of their flights.  Whatever it may be called, a superior intelligence governs the entire universe including the humans. However, often we think that man can conquer and control the universe. In this quest for mastery and control of the universe we have forgotten that humans too are governed by the same higher intelligence that governs the entire universe.

Spiritual intelligence is not separate from the higher principle that governs the operation of the universe. In the Indian spiritual tradition any human soul (atman) has the potential to take the inner journey and be one with the whole (Brahman) universe. In this oneness the duality disappears, humans and the universe are not separate, they are one whole. When connected with one’s core we are connected to the whole. Being whole is our fundamental nature. When we experience separation form the whole due to karmic effects (akin to the collective consciousness of Carl Jung) we are unable to access the higher intelligence. Being one with the whole gives us purpose and meaning. We become clear about our true calling and we live out our true destiny. When we are one with the whole we constantly tap into the infinite resources of the higher intelligence. Our connection with the higher intelligence guides us to live our lives for something greater than ourselves. We respect other people and everything in the universe.

In the universe we humans are the only ones who kill for pleasure. The animals kill only for self-preservation – either to defend against an aggressor or for food. Human conquests are for greed, power and control. Human greed has depleted the natural resources, threatening the equilibrium of the planet..

Going back to nature to learn our basics again seems inevitable and precarious in our moments of choice. What if we were to remodel our corporations on the basis of the laws that govern the universe? Would that be a design choice? Individuals and organizations are taking to adventure and nature exploration. Some organizations are experimenting with workplace spirituality. While many such initiatives appear as attempts to be current with developmental practices, some leaders are undertaking an inner journey to explore intangibles that gives them meaning and anchor. Such a journey leads one to the inner core from where one learns to connect with the whole. 

The communion with the Whole brings about a transformation in the leader. A leader thus transformed allows oneself to be guided by the higher intelligence. These leaders help transform their groups, corporations, communities and nations. When the duality between self and others dissolves we merge into the interconnectedness of the Whole.

Spiritual Intelligence flows from personal authenticity, integrity and congruence. Every creative process at work is indicative of Spiritual Intelligence at work. When Spiritual Intelligence is at work, questions of purpose and meaning are at rest for they are continuously unfolded by the constant interplay of Spiritual Intelligence with everything in the universe. The interconnectedness of the universe ever manifests the spiritual intelligence at play. The incessant flow of energy through all animate and inanimate life forms in their various stages of creation is spiritual intelligence incarnate. The ever present natural order amidst apparent chaos reinforces the presence of the superior intelligence that governs the universe of which humans are a tiny spec. This realization makes humans to surrender to the greater power in the act of letting go. In this apparent loss of control we learn to accept the supremacy of the higher power that guides the destiny of the universe.  A new natural order emerges and we learn a new way of living, leading and managing our lives and the surroundings. The new way is sustainable for the present, future of our planet and future generations. 

Being Alive past Illusion and Misery

That man is a social being is a familiar quote. However, the Society of Jesus produces those gems, that are rare. Anthony D'mello SJ is one such remarkable soul. I was told of him 3 years ago by Richard McHugh SJ.

I was spurred to buy his title Awareness - The Perils and Opportunities of Reality, from Bangalore's Sapna Book Stall. Published by Doubleday, it is a constant companion book.Quite likely that other titles by this exceptional thinker and being would be more than spirituality.


While reading him I thought the parallels between his utterances and that of Osho Rajneesh were so close. However, after going through the videos I realised that he is an Original. He is in the Minority of One, his Spirit at least. He died when least expected. Dick as we call Fr. McHugh mentions Tony's name with fondness, gratitude and sorrow. It was only this week,that I realised how dutifully, passionately and lovingly, someone has curated some video recordings of Tony D'mello's talks. Here are some of them...

Attraction is blind, not Love. Love is a Decision. The first statement is that of Tony D'mello. The latter from Dick. Dick whetted the concept through experiential reflection as also the rigor of scientific examination. Dick went on to become the first person on the planet to have a Doctoral study on Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP). Dick studied the Masters of NLP, interviewed them, studied under them,  and studied about them. Michael Hall was his dissertation panelist. Dick's industriusoness is an easy contrast with Tony's flowing intuitiveness. Tony's spontaneity and facility with linguistic and tonal expression a clear clue to clear sightedness and insight. 

Dick refers to Tony as a friend, teacher and colleague in service. Just as Gestalt seems to be a field that stayed at it's premises before it's phase transition to something as more comprehensive and wholesome as NLP, so did Tony pass away before he could combine with the compassion of Dick to create something of a legacy in well-being.

Tony's works are nonetheless unique. The thought stream he represents would appear like a processing of decades. It is fundamentally uplifting, an invitation to reprogramming our lives. 'Cravinglessness' is a state of insight as much as freedom. Ambition brings tension, whereas energy in work is that which is delightfully participated in. As a student of life, I find this stream of thinking more than a relief. It is an exercise in the framing of premises about life. It is a paradigm, that if you catch, others will likely be infected with enthusiasm and liberation from untested dogma.