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Love Yourself

December 21, 2012 by Ramneek Kapoor

                   Love Yourself 

 “Because if you do not love yourself no one else will love you”

“You are the most important person in your life. You must learn to love yourself consciously”

“Who do you think is the most important   person in your life?” this question has got me many interesting    and many blank responses from people of all age groups.   For a Young man it is often the beloved or the young wife.  A young son has often mentioned his parent or Parents as the most important persons in his life. The young girls though do not mention about their lovers very often but will ultimately    admit that   the most important in their life is the lover, the future husband,   the   current date. The parents have often been mentioned the most important persons by the offspring be it the male or the female.

Similarly a young mother will always mention her child/children as the most important person in her life, though the newly married would obviously vouch for her husband being the most important person in her life.  Thus you often value everyone else as the most important except your own self. It is always the “I” that seems to have been lost     in this process of assigning values to all those people that make your family, friends or the social circle. And then you feel  lonely, you feel lost and most  often than not you end up getting depressed and even complaining  of not being paid attention and the much needed love .   Human beings have always wanted to belong. They have been dubbed as the social animals too.   You want to obliterate your own needs, desires, personalities  and the sense of identity in favor of all your loved ones, anticipating a  feeling of  love in return , many a times a gesture of  thanks , a   flash of smile or even a mere acknowledgement that you matter for them. A mother   feeds the child on priority forgetting many a times her own meal and also forgetting that the child can be well fed only if the mother eats. You often keep postponing your own desires, needs, and even the basic   necessities just because  you want to do something important ,buy a  present or  give the cash to meet someone else’s need.

You have been taught from the childhood that the spirit of sacrifice is the supreme sacrifice. Lord Krishna   told Arjuna that an act that does not involve the aspiration for the reward is a supreme act but the lord had nowhere had advised selflessness on the contrary the lord had always maintained that the Atma ( the self is supreme. And you have always ignored this self. Yes the aham (the feeling of I being supreme) could be the negative abrasion on others but the act of unselfish love with one’s own self     can certainly be the priority.   You must always   bear in mind the fact that you have to take care of your own health, your own needs to survive both physically, cerebrally and spiritually   to make yourself capable of taking care of others. You must love your own selves first as the most important person in your lives before you put someone else as your priority,

You must   not always be in a hurry to efface your own self, thinking that this will in turn make him/her happy and he or she will be pleased and will love you for your being so sacrificial. You should remember that everyone loves stronger personality. The strength in your personality will come when you love your own selves first without of course being   selfish.  You must fall in love with yourself; pamper yourself and believe that you are one of the most beautiful   yet important person of this universe.

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GIRL GANG RAPED IN MOVING BUS IN NEW DELHI

December 18, 2012 by Ramneek Kapoor

Girl Gang raped in moving bus in New Delhi

  Hardly would there be a man or a woman in India who would not have expressed anguish  , shock and the anger over the incident that took place in a moving city bus in Delhi yesterday. The goondas, the rapists-and the   woman eating wolves have been on the prowl in the capital of the country. India is  a country that has always been addressed to as the Mathrubhumi or the land of the mother goddess, yet India is also a country where each mother is worried today about her daughter and even about her own self.  Every time a woman or a girl  leaves her home, she is afraid of her safety. She can be subjected to harassment, physical abuse, rape, loot or even  brutal torturous assault by the mad men on the go who have always been   protected by the long winding legal system of the country, the political godfathers, and even the members of the police many a times. The victim is made to suffer many a deaths if she decides to seek legal redress to her insult and injury. And who are these people  subjecting the woman to die many deaths. . They are the men who should not be called the members of the human tribe because the   behavioral traits that they exhibit in violating the sacred privacy and the sanctity of a woman’s pious body  do not display either the human- social   or the animal like  tendencies.    . Even an animal or a bird will seek the female nod before indulging into the act of cohabitation. Such persons  who have raped the poor girl and   have brutally assaulted her and her companion in the bus ,  can simply be called the  demons and they need to be eliminated from the surface of the earth before they  find another hapless Innocent  and become violent again.     We the citizens of the country would make a strong and sincere appeal to the Delhi administration, and the The Supreme court of India  to provide speedy justice to the poor girl and her companion by summarily trying the demons who had perpetrated the heinous crime and ordering their exemplary punishment.

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GET up and get going -13

December 15, 2012 by Ramneek Kapoor

Inertia – the route to killing self

I am tempted to quote verbatim the comments made by one of my blog readers

“Plans are nice to read, but difficult to get done. World is not so smooth place to live-in; external factors are always there to crumble your internal wishes! Particularly in this materialistic world, financial hurdles don’t allow common people (like me) to achieve our dreams. One may say, we have no guts to achieve what we dream. But at the end of the day, when I think of spending sometime in blogging or reading an interesting book a sense of job insecurity creeps into my mind spoiling all other interest” .

Death of human physical being is certain. It has its fixed time, place and the manner. It can come through accident, disease, destruction and even destiny. But many a times we tend to invite an untimely blow of sudden death to our souls and inner selves. That happens when we stop growing instead we start the downward spiral of mental de- growth.  We lose not only interest in every thing around us but we also end up distancing ourselves from our desired for and intended goals in our life. This may happen because we have lost interest in surroundings around us or it may happen since we are tempted to opt for the security of our cushy jobs and the perks attached to it. But the worst situation comes when we do no take any initiative because of the fear of the unknown. A look at the reasons for inactivity and its systems will help here to understand our very own personalities and the   gimmicks we indulge into to accept the death of intellect for future growth.

Our inertia causes downward growth when we:

  • Leave decisions of our life to others
  • Always complain about the lack of time
  • Always complain about lack of resources
  • Always complain about lack of opportunities
  • Get irritated for non achievements
  • Can not find any topic of interest to discuss with friends/ family
  • Simply talk of doing great things
  • Sleep either more or less than necessary
  • Avoid career discussions

The way to self realization is replete with many challenges and rewards. Challenges to understand and synergize our strengths and weakness to either thwart the threats and or also to en-cash and en-value the opportunities. This can come only when we make all efforts to take out some time for our own self development.

I am reminded of the famous words of Dov Frohman when he says “every leader should routinely keep a substantial portion of his or her time—I would say as much as 50 percent—unscheduled. … Only when you have substantial ’slop’ in your schedule—unscheduled time—will you have the space to reflect on what you are doing, learn from experience, and recover from your inevitable mistakes. Leaders without such free time end up tackling issues only when there is an immediate or visible problem”.

We get stuck up in the rut of ordinary routine when we refuse to take out time for ourselves. We must take out time to reflect and think as to which way we can improve our lives, our mental ability, our leadership qualities, our positive yet differentiating strengths to keep us ahead from the others in the race to self realization. Every day at the end of the day we must reflect as to what happened during the course of the day. We must examine in the process whether the experience has been a positive gain or a negative abrasion. Such critical analysis of experiencing will make us imbibe the positive within us for future enjoyments and the negatives will either be left behind or accumulated for   future corrections.

Only a very conscious effort made to learn from our experiences and mistakes can open the path  to the progress and make us effective leaders. Let us begin this today itself  by asking ourselves very basic and simple questions:

  • What was my today intended for?
  • Did I do what I had planned?
  • Did I achieve what was I trying to achieve?
  • What had contributed to this achievement?
  • What could I not achieve and why?
  • Is the non achievement any way affecting my life’s long term plans?
  • In what way is my non achievement affecting others?
  • What can be the long term / short term affects (positive or negative) for me and others?
  • Can I do the same thing differently next time?
  • Can I do any thing to improve upon whatever I did today?
  • Can I make my family, colleagues, co-workers, friends, partners in this route to improvement?

Our introspective reflections will bring forth the positive thoughts amongst others too, whose opinions do count for us and who can be instrumentals/ motivators in helping us get up and get going in a more constructive approach for future accomplishment.

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GET UP AND GET GOING 12

December 13, 2012 by Ramneek Kapoor

You can not impress people by saying “I will do this”. You do this and let them be stunned. Life lived in postponement is no life. It becomes like a cheque of billions of dollars in pocket that can not be en-cashed. The best method of getting the best out of your life is to create. You must dream, desire and create. Let the fantasy become the reality by dreaming, visualizing and attaining. The dreams have always been the harbinger of development of the society. Some one dreamed of flying and we have an aircraft, someone else dreamt of an automobile and we have cars of all kind. Some one else dreamt scaling the Mount Everest and we have the human potential being utilized to it’s fullest.
We must let the dreams become blue prints of our life. The dreams will lead us to our real and desired places in life provided we take care of our dreams and bring them up the way we rear our children and make them better citizens of this wonderful world. Let us decide our route to our desired destination today by adopting the following tough steps for each one of our souls
1. A tougher introspection will help;
• Ask yourself where am I currently
• What do I want to accomplish in near future- distant future
• Do I enjoy what I am doing
• How do I make it enjoyable if I do not
2. Begin today with a solid dream list:
• Write as many dreams as possible
• Let your fancy take the front seat
• Forget about your limitations which are only earthly
• Imagine you have all the power to realize the dream list
3. Search for partners in your dreams realization:
• Let you family become a partner
• Let your coworkers become a partner
• Let your boss/junior become a partner for your dreams
• Share as many dreams as possible
• You never know who might be carrying the torch for you to guide you to the other end of the tunnel
4. Select four major goals for the current year
• Personal goal
• Work/ professional goal
• Relationship objective
• Financial objective
Let us understand if any of your dreams match that objective or lead to that objective- then stay focused.
5. Develop an action plan for each goal so identified by you
• Establish a schedule for each goal
• Anticipate trade offs
• Prioritize trade offs
• Strategize milestones
• Share with important people partners
• Start walking, enjoying breathers on the way
6. Let each goal be the contributor to your life’s growth plan
• What do I want to achieve in my life
• Do these goals meet my value orientation
• What is my own value perception
• What is my value destination
• Will these goals take me there
• How do I get to reach there
7. Taking charge of self

• Each day contains 24 hours only
• Design life growth plan to fit into 24 hours
• Have a healthy mix of fun and work in these 24 hours
• Prioritize fun and work
• Learn to say no to frivolities
• Punctualise yourself to save on time
• Develop a time plan for the day
• Choose and act as the plan directs
• Five practice strategies will help
 Write a diary and carry it along
 Write down new demand coming up
 Accord priority for any thing new coming up
 Set a new deadline for its completion
 Plan the day daily to accommodate deviation

We all need to reach our dream destination and a little planning in life can take us closer to  fulfillment of our desires. let us all get up and get going …..

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GET UP AND GET GOING –11

October 22, 2012 by Ramneek Kapoor

“Kapoor, I’ve got wonderful news to share with you. Puri had been fired early this morning. He had been called to the managing director’s chambers at 9.00 in the morning and handed over the pink slip. I have just been given this good news from my boss about Puri, whose second in command spoke to my boss instantly after Puri had come out of the top office”, shouted Chawla on the phone lines . He sounded very jubilant on the telephone lines. .
Puri was our super sales manager who had been hired a year ago to steer the company safely out of the de-growth vortex that had set in into the system due to poor handling of the team by the earlier manager( who currently has been acting as number two to Puri) ). He’d possibly played this match to put down the new incumbent and regain his lost glory. That he had tried this was the most well known fact all over the company but no one expected it to happen so soon. It was also known to the managing director that the entire team of the company was tied for most of the time in war games of one up- man ship. Even though the company had missed the last two quarters’ targets, he somehow believed that either of the fighting group will have the talent to pull the company up and show some improvement.
The team also believed that they had a far better capability and the talent pool than any other organization in the trade yet…..somewhere they had failed to click.
Such a situation is common to most of the organizations with people getting scared of losing their jobs and losing their sense of balance and team spirit.
How bad can that further become? I wonder. Certainly not life threatening, but definitely many careers will be put on the scaffolds given the current scenario of mistrust prevailing amongst the top positions of the not so enlightened business organizations..
In our pervious write up we had spoken about the distribution of power created by the lightening of the spark. We had spoken about the empowerment of all those that we come in contact with to become catalysts in our realization of the great dreams .We, when looking at such situations however get convinced that it is very difficult for all of us to share the illusory powers that we get to wield due to our being in particular chair or position.
The process of spreading empowerment amongst other fellow beings is not an easy task. The world plagued by the uncertainties of recessionary trends and the scare of losing jobs and earnings for the day, is facing tremendous competition between the peers, the boss and the subordinate, the organization and its executives handling it. We have in all manners left behind the spirit of hand holding. The race is on to outdo each other in pleasing every boss that happens to be one or two levels above and then pull down the same B—– through the back biting, letting down in tasks allotted and with the hope to, catch the next promotion ladder. Office politics has become a dirty arena of ensuring that it is the neighbor perched on the adjoining table, or sitting in the next cabin that must go first. We also tend to believe that his going most probably could save our physical self even though my soul may go to hell.
The process of empowering others involves sensitivity. It involves being more social, more acceptable and more yielding in our approach to each other .However in the race to ensure self gratification, who thinks of a neighbor, a subordinate or a team member.
Individuals have been trained to look for support and dependence right from childhood when they are taught to walk by clutching on to the finger offered as an aid .As grown ups too we obviously welcome such extended fingers and it is seldom that we will bite the finger that helps us stand up on our two feet. It is this gratitude that earns us the social acceptability and in turn extends the spark of empowerment to the dependent.
A selfless share of power with the attitude of making others share their grievances and grief, and fears and apprehensions can earn many a smiles back to us for our own happiness. We can imagine the positivity that spreads around when there is a smile observed on every face sitting in the room, we occupy to dispense our daily tasks.
Physically every man after a certain age can take care of his own needs, but it is cerebrally that he needs external interaction and stimulant to grow. Let us make it our task to give everyone who we come across the same stimulant. This process has our own selfish interest involved into it. Do we also not need the same stimulant from some other source? If so why not get the same back from our own people by developing good healthy human relationships, understanding levels and a sense of camaraderie.In the next write up we will focus on as to what is it that can make us not only good leaders but also good companions and human beings to help each one of us get up and get going.

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Get up and get going -10

October 11, 2012 by Ramneek Kapoor

We have had very encouraging comments on the post of the last week and I must thank each one of you for helping me take the discussions further.

But some of our friends have posed very valid questions too.  Their question reads “it’s true that the spark is needed but some times the ignition just fails to work. One knows it’s needed but one doesn’t know how to ignite the inner fire and this is the situation faced by so many. Self motivation is rare to find; so many extraneous forces make it impossible”

I had asked the transporter friend the same thing, many years ago and will quote his response verbatim for every one’s benefit and didaction. Here is what he had said, “even the vehicle does not know that it has been built with so much of inherent strength. Left on its own it will never ever start; forget covering the milestones in its life time. Its power needs to be revved   up with a positive catalystic interaction with the external forces. While it is true that the engine and ignition system of the vehicle are the internal parts of the vehicle you need the external powerful fuel to add power to the innate muscle”.

Human Life is run on similar doctrine. We have all been empowered with the self-righteous soul and the smart thinking power that can make the massive great seas, sky touching mountains and the vast desserts looked dwarfed in our presence. But all this will happen when this great soul of ours is empowered with a strong and steely willpower. While some may make the positive use of the willpower and achieve the glorious heights, some of us succumb to the weaker momentary negatives and give up to the unhelpful forces of our lives.

The positive impact can come into our life by any mean and at any stage of our life. It can be a solemn oath to prove to your self that you can do any thing. It could also be sometimes to show it back to the people who matter the most in our life or it could even be due to the pessimistic abrasions that you would have had in life due to heartbreaking or shocking experiences. By deciding that we have to demonstrate it in any which way, we have taken the first step of empowering our self. It could though still be a long journey to the wish fulfillment.

But mere empowering of the self may not be enough to win the race to the objective. We need to give power along with to all those mechanism and people too who would become influential and supportive in our reaching the future goals in our life. This is like what my transporter friend had advised, “The spark so generated by the turning of the ignition key creates potential power in the fuel that activates the engine and all its pistons start functioning. The automotive force generated in the engine passes on the activity to the main bearing attached to the shaft driving the wheels and the vehicle picks up speed depending on whether it is a front wheel drive or a rear wheel drive “.

In the similar fashion we need to pass on the energy of empowerment to all our week and strong links in our life to make sure all these contribute to the greater cause of our life which is that of attaining our magnificent heights.   Mahatma Gandhi would not have been a mahatma had the people he met in life, not been empowered by him with the thoughts and preaching of Satya- Agraha and non violence.  Lord Jesus Christ became a leader of men and women because he had empowered all of his followers and faithful by spreading the empowerment of love and the power of forgiving amongst mankind.

We need to understand a simple mathematical equation that, all zeroes written behind the figure of numerical one do not have any numerical values whereas if we start writing these zeroes after   we have written the power of one they all become powerful as the figure of one has now passed on all its powers to the zeroes appearing in front of it”. (Mathematicians pl. excuses me for this layman’s definition). The task is to make all the zeroes of our life make contributors to our getting up and get going .

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Get up and get going -9

October 9, 2012 by Ramneek Kapoor

The secret of success lives within us . It is not outside  us . It is not even with some management guru, motivational speaker or soft skill expert. All the enthusiasm, the inspiration and the stimulation has to be inbuilt and power driven from within to get ahead in life.  I remember the saying that the horse can simply be led to the water; it is the horses’ thirst that will make him drink water (sorry for the pun and changing the famous quote little bit). Similarly humans have to have an unquenchable craving to do well in whatever sphere we are into, in whatever circumstances we find ourselves into, this hunger to act upon and improve must always keep all of us on the edges all the time.

I am reminded of a small debate that took place almost three decades ago in a meeting with one of my not very literate clients.  But it had left an indelible mark on my consciousness. During my job with one of the automotive parts manufacturing companies I used to call upon the transporters for promoting my company’s products. One of the  highly successful transporters, a burly north Indian  gentleman   (who could hardly  read or write his own name) whom  I had gone to meet during my market visit , casually asked me if I knew ‘ what made a vehicle run on the road”.

My first natural quick answer to this kind of query was of course the same that you have thought of. I said enthusiastically, “why fuel of course. I mean diesel or petrol as the case may be”.

“No”, he mockingly replied.

“Then it is the driver that drives the vehicle”, I blurted out again in a hurry.

“You are only partially correct, but still you have not answered my question, while it is true that you need a driver to drive the vehicle it is not the driver who makes the vehicle run on the road”.

“Well if you want me to count the parts of the automobile that are all involved in the transmission then possibly I will have to include the engine and the tyres too.  Of course how foolish I have been that I never thought of tyres. Even when I work for a tyre company. The vehicle definitely runs on tyres. See if you have a flat tyre you cannot run, so obviously you must be referring to tyres only. That is why I am here to discuss one of our new introductions”, I was very happy that the gentleman would possibly be impressed with my intelligence and the good mood that he had displayed  could fetch me some business in return.

“I think we could go on counting all parts of a  vehicle ,still you will not be able to point out the answer that I had been expecting from you. While all the other parts and systems of the vehicle hold equal importance; it is the speck of the small spark that is generated with the turn of an ignition key that makes the vehicle move. When this spark is not created in any system nothing moves. You have to have the small little fire within your heart also to move the convoy of your life smoothly. Just as vehicle’s movement comes to a standstill if there is no spark within the engine, the same way human life too becomes meaningless if a man does not have some kind of spark in his heart, be it to run his  business or to work in a job”.

‘How clearly you have explained to me in simple words, what my literate mind could not even guess. I do agree with you that it is the spark within that makes everything move. The life itself draws its force from the round of pious fire we look at every morning from the east of the skies. We should all have the same fire within us. The speck of fire so caused will keep us constantly energetic powerful and potent, always eager to   put in pour best and keep the cycles of life moving in whatever situation we may be in”.

“In fact tougher the situation brighter should be the spark within us  so that the rough weathers can be beaten with our own internal energy”, said the trucker to me.

The words spoken by the simple trucker  were so powerful that even after the long  gap  of  so many years , these expressions  beckon me to look for some spark within, get up and get going again towards  my  dream and  the  destination.

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Get up and Get going – 8

October 1, 2012 by Ramneek Kapoor

The farmer on one of his morning walks had come across a small baby eagle.  The baby was   hungry, unfed and uncared for lying in a ditch on the road side. The farmer took pity on the small frail bird and brought him home to be reared   along with the other hens and roosters he had been keeping in his poultry farm. He instructed one of the servants looking after the farm to take good care of the new entrant.     “You must feed it the same food that you give to other hens and fowls so that it does not feel and think differently from the other birds in the coop”, the farmer had told the care taker.  As the time passed by the young baby eagle   started growing in age and physic on account of the easy availability of undemandingly obtained food at the pen. Soon the baby eagle virtually started believing that it was also the bird of the same breed that others belonged to in the enclosure of hens and roosters.

It so happened that one of the village elders, who had heard about an eagle being reared along with the chicks, had tried to caution the poultry farmer,   “son you are unnecessary keeping the baby eagle trapped with other birds. You must let it fly back as it belongs to the sky. It is one of those birds that can fly across the mountains. In its flight it can make the mountains feel dwarfed in its presence. It is a bird that can go up to the Sun and look into its eyes to talk to talk to the ball of fire. Please release this eagle forthwith and let it fly”, the village elder told him.

“But Sir, we do not have any eagle in our midst. I have all the chickens in my farm and their task is to lay eggs. Even the one bird you are referring to is also a hen and soon it will start laying eggs for me”.

“If you do not believe me you can talk to the bird yourself. Even the bird will tell you that it is no eagle”, the poultry farmer told the village elder very arrogantly.

The village elder finding the farmer non responsive and arrogant tried talking to the baby eagle. “Come on you dear little birdie. You should know that you are an eagle, which can fly high into the skies. You can cross all boundaries and look down upon the earth from the heights of your reach. Please leave the pen meant for hens and chickens and fly back to the heights of the blue skies”. But to farmers’ delight and to the surprise of the village elder, the baby eagle did not come out of the coop. It looked lazily at the village elder and told him, “How can I fly. I am but only a chicken, and chickens do not fly. My task is to lay eggs when I am ready to do so’‘, it looked disdainfully at the old man who had been disturbing  him from his daily slumber and went back to the enclosure built for warmth and  comfort. The poultry farmer too laughed mockingly at the village elder, “see sir I had told you we do not have any eagle here’.

“Perhaps someday I may have to show the actual heights to this bird to remind and awaken the powers of flying in him”, the village elder muttered to himself as he walked away from the poultry farm.

A few months had elapsed when the same village elder happened to visit the farmer’s house on some mission again. He noticed that the baby eagle had now grown into a full grown fowl of its kind yet it did not recognize its own powers of flying.  It pained to see a life worth while being wasted away like this. He avowed to himself to get the bird freed from the captivity. “I see son you still have the eagle living with the hens and roosters. It has grown fully now. You should let it go. It can take its own care. Let him go and fly back to the skies’, he pleaded to the farmer.

Perhaps you are not realizing sir that the bird is not aware of its own breed now. The bird thinks that it is only a chicken and it has lost all powers of flying. Even if I release him now it will die of hunger, or it will end up a morsel to the dogs. So let him stay back here only , happy with other hens and chickens of my farm house’, the farmer looked with a deep sense of pride at the eagle as if he was enjoying the fact that he made the bird change its mind and physic both.

“Please, you will allow me to take this bird to the roof top. I will try to just make him familiar of the height. It is possible that the altitude of the roof top may make him regain his lost touch with flying prowess “, the elder pleaded to the farmer.

The farmer who by now had been convinced of his own magical powers to turn an eagle into a chicken told the elder, “you may take him to any heights sir; this bird is no more an eagle’.  And look how correct he had been proved. The heights of the roof tops failed to impress upon the eagle that it was a bird meant to fly high in the skies.

The village elder still had not given up his hopes on this. He made another request to the farmer, “I think the elevation of the roof was a little too less to convince the bird of its flying powers. A mountain summit could awaken the soaring faculty in him and I could cajole him to reach the pinnacles”.

You may take him to the peak of the Everest. It is obvious this bird had been converted by me into a domesticated poultry bird. Perhaps someday it will lay some eggs just like other birds of the cage”, the farmer said.

The village elder took the eagle to the highest point of the small hillock situated outside the village. He made the bird look upon the snow clad mount visible at a distance, the    Sun shining through its glory thousands of miles away, and the blue azure skies above.  “Come on son take the first step. Just spread your wings. Take the first flight. Go get into the skies and fly very very high. You must make these mountain tops feel small with your dexterity to reach the heights. Go and look into the eyes of the sun and look down upon the bliss of ignorance and unawareness. Be aware of your own strengths and make the best use of the faculty of flying given to you by lord the almighty’.

To the utter astonishment of the poultry farmer the eagle spread its wings. It thought “there is no harm in giving it a try, if the old man is insisting so much. Who knows I may be able to?”

The bird who was being encouraged by the elder now took the first flight, “come on son I know you can do it. Just fly a little bit. The rest will come automatically to you”, the village elder carried on motivating and bucking up the eagle. The eagle that had gone much above into the skies   called out from there, “is this what you call flying. I will soon be back after looking into eyes of the Sun.  Maybe I will also look at other stars and meteors before I return”. The eagle fluttered its wings merrily and flew into the blue skies away from the captivity of ignorance and also away from the lack of belief into its own special faculty. While each one of us can draw our own meaning from this story, a fact common to us all will apply that many a times we underestimate our own strengths and powers, but once we begin trusting in ourselves , skies too will leave way for us to forge ahead towards our mission and destination definitely predetermined by us and us alone. .

For those of us who believe that we have grown too old or that we have lost the youthful dynamism because of age, my suggestion is we should ask the Sun how ancient it is. In spite of its having been in the skies for billions of years it still shines bright every morning. We must try to borrow this from the stars above and remain young in our thinking.

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Get up and Get Going 7

September 21, 2012 by Ramneek Kapoor

A few of my friends while reacting to my suggestions expressed by me in my   different writings   that one should explore the possibility of finding avocation into new yet somehow a profession which could be related to our hobby or likings, have voiced their reservations on taking to a profession that is different from the one they had been working into for so many years.  I agree with them that we may find the same difficult if not impossible on account of recession/ lack of opportunities available in the existing field as well as the new area that we may propose to enter into. However many a times we give up the effort before even giving it a genuine try.  The general response from all of us for any fresh career move into the untried, unexplored and unchartered waters will be:

1. It is totally new.

2. I do not want to risk it.

3. I do not have the skills for it.

3. I have gone too old for this kind of skills up gradation.

4. Look at my age, do you expect me to take up learning again..

5. What will people say?

Yes we all agree that it is difficult to adapt to the change after having lived with a particular life style and thinking process. But it is not impossible. A man’s analytical and logical part of the thinking process has an inbuilt faculty that is always eager to learn the new and unexplored; provided we are able to challenge and awaken that faculty in each one of us and make use of the same at the appropriate time. We have always had some inherent ability and some of the skillfulness that we possess have been learnt by us out of our experiences in life, be it on the job, during the course of our study, on account of the training or at the time of the rearing of the family, man has always been learning all through his life.

The power of learning does not diminish when we grow up in number of years; on the contrary experiences earned with the passing of the age help us learn things faster. Or do we end up losing our interest in our mental development and intellectual growth because we find enough reasons to justify the kind of life that we have got used to. We do not want to create any kind of flutter or disturbance or dissonance in the easy life style that we have conveniently selected for ourselves. This reminds me of the story of a baby eagle and a poultry farmer, which I would love to share with all in my next write up.

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GET UP AND GET GOING -6

August 28, 2012 by Ramneek Kapoor

In my last write up   I had made a reference to presence of Elphi in our heart and mind that prevent us from shedding the fears inherited by our past misfortunes and negative experiences. The fear of losing gets steeped into our inner psyche and inhibits us from acting boldly. I had actually met Elphi in my city while it was walking on the roads. The huge pachyderm with its massive built and bulk had been ridden by a frail and emaciated looking mahout, who would once in a while poke the animal with his ankus as he prodded him to behave in the midst of chaotic traffic on the road.

More recently, these same methods were also witnessed by me in a circus where the trainer had  traumatized the captured  big wild predator lion  to perform certain acts, which otherwise this Panthera Leo would have made a man to perform before it actually ate him up. Any how we were discussing about the Elphi, our dear friend and representative of the great lord. My animal lovers’ instinct told me to speak to Elphi and ask him as to what he had been doing in a town and why he was  not in a jungle uprooting  trees with his trunk or getting into any other kind of elephantine game to entertain himself because that is what a young elephant is  supposed to do .

The massive mammal   stopped by for a while, looked at me as if he had been sizing me up and then he glanced at the mahout who had been riding him. The elephant assured that the mahout did not have the ankus in his hands, spoke in a conspiratorial tone to me, “you seem to be a man with a very low wisdom.  Do you not see that this man who is sitting on top of me carries a weapon that is mighty powerful than my entire bulk. Will he not kill me if I try to save myself and run away to jungle? Please do not ask me to do anything that could be detrimental to my health”.

“But you are so powerful, strongly built and muscular looking. This man who is riding you is only a small creature. you can throw him off your  back with one little push of your trunk and may be crush him if he tries to stop you from running away to the jungle”‘, I had told the elephant while at the same time I had been motivating him to get free from the slavery of labor and toil in the town. I had wanted him to regain his lost freedom and respectability. The elephant who had been behaving in a very   meek fashion under the mahout looked at me very apologetically as if he had been trying to feel sorry for his own condition.

“You can share your story with me if you want to”, I told him, and “it is possible I may be able to help you”.

“Well if you are keen to “, said the elephant to me, “but you will have to crawl along with me through this grueling traffic.  I find it difficult to raise my voice for the fear of the punishment that will be awarded to me for blowing my natural trumpet in this town inhabited by humans”.

“Of course I will walk along “, I encouraged him.

“you see when I was a very small and innocent baby elephant I used to be a free bird oops sorry ….a free elephant like any other of my brethren in a jungle. I used to enjoy my pranks and baby elephant games with mud and water. I would sprinkle water over my body and then lie down into mud to again cover myself with dust so that my mother could shower more water on me with her trunk. I just loved all such mischiefs as it gave me a chance to listen to sweet admonishments of my elephant parents. But life had not been such kind to me for long. One day    some friends of this mahout had come to jungle hunting for the ivory teeth and trunks of elephants. They killed lots of my relatives to gather huge catch of ivory and elephant bones.  I really do not know why you humans like the bones and teeth of dead animals. Any how I really never will never understand. Perhaps someday my bones will also be  ……” he left the sentence midway.

“but we were discussing about your parents “, I had wanted him to continue.

“Yes, yes, let me speak”, “My parents were also amongst those killed by the gun tottering friends of this mahout. My life however had been spared by them as I did not carry enough bones in my body and teeth in my mouth. They just bundled me into a van, after they had put me into strong iron chains, and brought me to your town. Thereafter whenever I had raised my trumpet to tell them that I wanted to go back to, my own home in the forest, they would beat me with this ankus on my forehead. This thing really hurts. Even the thought reminds me of the pain that this ankus can inflict. In addition the iron fetters that these people had tied to my tiny elephantine feet would hurt me whenever I had tried to free myself from the pole to which I had been secured.

‘Yes that happened when you were very young. Today when you have grown so big and you have a massive body and built, you can certainly get yourself freed from this slavery and go back to the place where you belong”, I talked to him in a very sympathetic mode.

“My friends from jungle also say so. But you have to understand that the fear of the ankus and the iron fetters hurting my ankles   had settled deep into my heart and mind during my childhood days. The horror so settled in my brain has altered my very basic personality. I am no more an elephant even though I do look like one to you.  I am happy with the state in which I had been forced to live from my enslaved childhood. Please do not disturb me any further ‘, Elphi had been trying to hide his tears of pain and sufferings.

“But let me share a secret with you”, he brought his trunk closer to my ears, as if he did not want anyone else to become privy to this secret. “I am not alone in this town. I find many of my creeds living into the very heart and minds of all the human beings in this town”.

“Well but that is impossible. I do not see any other of your creed in here and then how is it possible that such enormous living beings can get into the hearts and minds of us humans without anyone ever noticing them. You must be just befooling me”, I laughed aloud at the statement recently uttered by Elphi.

“NO I am serious. You humans carry the symbolic self created Elphis in your minds, the same way I have adopted my terror of fetters and ankus from my   childhood. You get befuddled by one negative experience in your life and give up trying the same thing further. You too have taken to all kinds of negativity and self denial from the early childhood. The ghosts of past bad experiences always haunt your mankind with the result that the humans are never able to disassociate themselves from the fearful complexes .These apprehensions and doubts on your own capability given to you during your childhood and parentage, become colossal Elphis when you grow up physically ,  though mentally you still remain steeped in your self- woven anxieties . I think you should first try to emancipate your own creed from the massive elephants that occupy their thinking and doing faculty and then possibly I should also move out of this town and go back to my forest abode, till then let me enjoy the company of the Elphis  living within all of you’.

I obviously had no reason to further cajole the biggest mammal living on the land. I knew the urgency was to ask my fellow beings to throw away the elephants of self doubt,   the   elephants of past bad baggage’s, the elephants of some negativity experienced in life earlier and get up and get goingwith a renewed vigor and self determination to follow and realize the dreams of their lifetimes.

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