Ask – Believe – Receive

Yes this is secret to happiness, wealth, love and all you wanted in your life according to this book by Rhonda Byrne. Yeah, this is a three step process to get all those things you ever dreamt and desired. Rhonda Byrne and many happy, healthy and wealthy folks (in her book) like her have reiterated zillion times that this is the only secret to life. Law of Attraction forms the basis for her book and all the people she named in the book claim that it works in your favor if you use the way she said and these people did.

In Alchemist Paulo Coelho said the same thing with amazing play of words and poetry. I loved it to the core. But primary difference between a Brazilian and his Australian counter part is putting in effort, the hard work, the endeavor and the exertion. Paulo says follow your dreams. Do what it takes to achieve what you want, and you have always dreamt. The whole universe will work towards achieving that for you.

“When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”

Like in Om Shanti Om Shahrukh Khan mugged it to Hindi version, “Kehte hain agar kisi cheez ko agar dil se chaho to saari kayanath tumhe usse milane ki koshish me lag jaati hai”

But according Rhonda and her friends; there is noting you do to get what you want. Just Ask. Keep Faith (Believe). And receive. Just live your life as you have always done. Change your thoughts, your style, your behavior and you are done. Leave rest to the universe. Like if you want marry and living in the house with two car garage, always park your car to one side and leave space for your to be spouse.

If you want money, give money, believe in charity. Feel and be grateful that you have plenty of it and money will come to you.

The irksome thing I found with book is your uselessness. It kind of gives you feeling that you are there only to consume, to get, and guzzle. There is no larger purpose to your life in this universe.

She agrees that it is being and acting like selfish to the core. Her justification says universe will react to your thoughts, your desires and dreams. You can not desire for others, you can not dream for others. Only thing you can do to make other people rich is dream for more money and share. Ask for money in abundance and create wealth for the world.

The Alchemist not only achieved what he always kept dreaming but in his path to his fortune he helped other people achieve their dreams. He acted as mean or aided others to in their path to their glory and success.

I personally think life and universe want you to get what you desire and what you dream. It works towards your goals and your needs if you believe in it and be gracious to it. In nutshell be buoyant and be optimistic.

Be grateful to life and keep working towards it. Your life is your dream, your life is your endeavor to get what you dream of and this universe is your play ground. It is meant for you to play the game of life.

Just asking, believing and receiving is not life, at least not for me. It is the endeavor and adventure that counts for me.

Mark your presence, say something; just don’t read

Lately Orkut is being consistently finding space in world of lurid Indian news and media. Idle political leaders and party workers, heads of religious groups, and news papers/ channels have made Orkut scapegoat to gain TRPs, attention and highlight in media. People, not having great idea about Orkut, always think of it as devilry Internet phenomenon and spoiling the Indian youth. The kind of news stories floating in media will definitely raise eye brows of traditional Indian parent. Stories of girls facing abuse, people blackmailed, hate communities against India, political leaders and parties, and religion make people think that it is definitely some evil of modern day technology.

Recently Mumbai police has forced cyber cafes to block Orkut. I am sure this pressure comes from political circles and so called leaders. Thankfully these forces can not block or ban paper, TV and radio. Thankfully we can not be denied from our right to speak and hear. Our constitution gives us the freedom of expression. The MPs and MLAs we chose are stopping us from expressing ourselves.

If our country can have people performing plays which raise questions against the ideology of Ghandhi; why we can not tolerate a community which is against a particular political party and its leader. This party and leader are afraid as there is probably some truth in those allegations and anger. Followers of Ghandhi could ignore those plays as they knew that ideology of their great leader will not perish or images can not be tarnished with some play.

Other day there was hullabaloo over some “Hate India” community on Orkut. Media and the government went frenzy, they started raising voices and suggestions came to block the website or close it. Why does the country with more then thousands year old civilizations has to worry about the opinion of few hundred people on some website. People had tribulations due to some derogatory reference made against Maratha warrior king Shivaji.

Over all these issue people want to ban the website. How much more idiot one can be? If one news paper reports abusive content against a leader or country, we do not ban the making paper. We do not stop the manufacturing of television and radio stations are not closed. We may stop particular writer of the news paper or stop the show on television and radio.

People who have asked the ban on Orkut have set up the new standards of stupidity. Orkut is medium like any other medium of communication; paper is used by newspaper, books and letters, TV is used by news channels and radio by RJs. The medium can never be evil; the use can be.

First of all why a country or leader has to be worried? The only reason I see is that either the derogatory reference are correct or we are so fragile that we have fear of being perished. I am sure of India as country and Shivaji as leader are not fragile to be worried of few hate communities. I am not sure about the new political parties and their leaders.

P. S.
How can I forget to mention here the fact that this year Orkut has made entry as nominee for the MTV Youth Icon for 2007.

This is not my new post. It is just paragraph I lifted (or wanted to share with all) from an great essay by Paul Graham. The original essay is on very different subject and has title “Why Not Not To Start A Start Up“

The parents who want you to be a doctor may simply not realize how much things have changed. Would they be that unhappy if you were Steve Jobs instead? So I think the way to deal with your parents’ opinions about what you should do is to treat them like feature requests. Even if your only goal is to please them, the way to do that is not simply to give them what they ask for. Instead think about why they’re asking for something, and see if there’s a better way to give them what they need.

Note: People who do not know Steve Jobs; can think of Bill Gates, Laxmi Mittal or Warren Buffet.

I heard this in some movie or read in a book.

If Siddarth would have listened to his parents, he would have never become Gautam Buddha and if Ram had not listened to his father, Ravan would have never been assassinated and Ram would have never become Lord.

I had very long discussion with friend on this but could not persuade him. Only point we were discussing were was whether to marry against the will of your parents. This problem is more acutely prevailing in India due to multi-religion, multi-language, multi-caste/class population; though it is universal. Typically and traditionally parents do not like their children getting married to some one from different caste, clan, religion or language.

Religion-wise, language-wise, caste/class-wise and demographically we are so different from each other with different culture, rituals, food-habits and life style. No matter how much two individuals love each other; life brings new challenges every day to this relationship. They do not really bother or trouble people who are in love.

Only point I finally made, or was making through my conversation was that our parents want us to be happy, they truly and selflessly love us. Sometimes the whole purpose of their existence is to make us happy. For this sole reason he wanted to live his own life to make his parents happy. Hence, my friend had simple point to make, no matter what, he will never marry or do anything else against wish of his parents.

In this entire quest to make each other happy, we tend to forget that our children or parents will never be happy, if we are not happy ourselves first.

This fable I shared with him to make him understand. There was guy exactly like him who fell in love with a gal in his neighborhood, but he never told this to her. His mind never allowed his heart to express this feeling he had for that gal, not even to his own self. Later she got married; he also got married to a gal his parents found from their caste and social class speaking the same language and praying the same god. Now his mind, heart and soul were free, he first time had feeling and touch of love, he understood it with his heart and mind, and his soul felt that mesmerised touch.

At this point he realized that he had fallen in love with the gal in neighborhood. He realized what his mind rejected at that point to make his parents happy. His heart perceived what he had sacrificed. From this point he could never amply love his wife. He was never completely happy in his life. Sooner or later his parent were to realize the fact that some thing has gone wrong with the life of their son. He lacks something deep within and not able to share this pain.

The parents were convinced now that they have not achieved the sole purpose of their life. But could not explain or find solution as they were completely unaware of the problem. The son could see the pain in their lives, but could not help.

The people who wanted to spent their life in quest to make each other happy are now spending their lives in another quest to understand why the other is not happy.

I did not intend to but ended up with the post.

Here is some part of Interview by Prem Panikar and other with Farhan and Javed Akhtar. Reference of Hrithik’s comment was made over Farhan, while worked together on Lakshya. Farhan is exactly one day older then Hrithik, here is what he has to say about it.

The point Hrithik was making was that you have a firm grasp of the medium and two, that you know exactly what you want and who can give it to you, and you will not settle for less. What is it about your formative years that gave you this grasp, this control? How did it happen that in terms of cinema you are way ahead of your years?

Farhan: When I was young, I used to lie a lot, and I used to really believe my lies. There were very few people who could see through my lies -:) my Pa was one of the few.

Javed: Creative people are liars by nature.

Farhan: Right. And I was extremely addicted to my lies; I would make sure that people believed it. At the end of the day, film to some extent is about you creating a lie you want the audience to believe, and how good you are as a creator depends on how good you are at making people believe the lies you tell them. So I guess that thing about lying when I was growing up was my training ground. I’ve stopped doing that otherwise, now I channel all my lying into my movies.

Anyway, it is least important here what Hrithik said, but the reason what Farhan gave for his genious over his craft and how is he able to create those masterpieces.

I would die to be such liar, the chores and monotouns world of secured job and career has ruined the creativity of an individual. At least this place of Worpress gives me some space to try my hand over words and placing them creatively, so far I have not created wonders, but one day I will surely do. The hope lives on, and the world lives by hope. The hope lives on in the quest of lie.

Making way for new Ghandhi march .. .. .. .. - Dilip Raote  (If you are not able to read the article let me know.)

Check the link, very ineresting article to read. It is not daily that I get chance to read such sensible and creative things.

I am going to write my after thoughts. Till then you can read the article and throw your opinion.

Here I go…

It is not that I come across such creative and out-of-the-box-thinking type articles daily in newspaper or magazines. When I say creative, I do not really mean decorate with ribbons and tapes, but author has touched India’s current affairs from many dimensions while keeping the Ghandhian thoughts as ruler. It is not easy, at least for me, to write on the same subject from two different tangents at the same time. 

Author has not only given new meaning to the thoughts of Ghandhi, but also given points to ponder. We all think that Ghandhian thoughts are all about truth and non-violence, but we always forget the synergy. Author has thrown light that we can’t apply principals of Ghandhi unless we borrow his selfless commitment and perseverance. This are the two agents which can bring the success to the formula of truth and non-violence. It is very nicely explained with the examples of Munnabhai and American President Harry Truman.

One of my favorite scenes in the movie Lage Raho .. was of common old man, trying to get his provident fund. He gets a tip from Munnabhi’s show on radio and applied it directly. He started giving away his clothes, shoes, old bag, undergarments, etc. because he did not had money to bribe. The impact was immediate. In real life, today’s government officials can really get ruthless, but imagine if 10, 50 or 100 people do this in front of provident fund office. If impact does not come, I am sure the next Avataar of Lord Vishnu will come for sure.

Another thing I liked about article was that it was very short and sharp, like the stingrays tail that killed Steven Irwin. He was also man of amazing perseverance, loved the animals selflessly. After I read the article I literally felt stronger from inside. I am not sure if I can move mountains, but it makes be better human being.

Analogy given by the author is also strange at first, but once you think deeper, you find that it is true. Osaama can be considered Ghandhian, only difference here would be that he is using the same two agents to achieve his goals with different tools. I really do not know if Laden is fighting for Islam, fuel, or money or just want revenge against Americans. I also really do not understand what jihad is all about. But I am sure that it will definitely change the world order as Satyagraha did 60 years back.

As correctly pointed by author that Indian systems are so thoroughly corrupted that only long march of Ghandhian movement can change it. Today there is huge gap between India’s ruling class and common man. With new liberalisation and globalisation the country is getting richer everyday. But the benefits of it do not reach to the class who has been working and struggling for past few decades. The gap between rich and poor is creating deeper and deeper valley, which we will never be able to bridge. I read somewhere that 80% of American wealth is owned by 20% of American people. I am sure in coming years India will have ratios closer if not similar.

We saw the evils of socialism with the fall of Russia, and useless communism of China, which does not care for its own people. Till early 90s, India was riding on the concept of mixed economy, I was happy. I agree that we were not rich, but then it was better then having your 80% wealth in the hands of few politicians, industrialist and bureaucrats. The salaried class will continue to sponsor all the deficits of non-performing and useless government while few industrialists will control most of the wealth and labour class will have no say at all. It is high time and we must start our march to use and speak our mind. We must have our say in the way this country should be governed and thus great heritage of humanity is preserved for our future generations to come.