One-on-One with Ganpati Bappa

It is Ganeshotsav time again. We have been doing Ganpati puja for many years, but this year it was special as it gave me an opportunity of a one-on-one talk with Ganpati Bappa. I will try to capture the story of the interesting encounter in this post.

My wife had been busy making preparations for the eagerly awaited event for past few weeks. Though she has a well-oiled process in place by now, yet she takes a lot of pain in the preparations for the puja. Particularly, finding the desired idol is a daunting task that takes several iterations. That’s why I was really relieved when she managed to find a beautiful idol with relative ease this year. It gave us a happy feeling that it is going to be a good puja this year.

However, on the day of puja, something was not quite right inside me. I had been feeling somewhat stressed out lately due to a number of problems and worries that were keeping my mood down. So as I sat down for the puja, I could feel heaviness in my head, a tense body and a tense mind.

My feeling of stress reduced a bit and I gradually calmed down when Panditji started the puja. He has a gentle way of chanting the mantra such that the sounds immediately soothe your mind. He also has a knack of keeping us on our feet by making us recite a mantra, or close our eyes and pray while he chants the mantras. This had a meditation like effect on me, and in less than half an hour, I started feeling much more relaxed.

A couple of hours later when the puja got over I just sat down alone looking at the beautiful face of Ganpati Bappa and saying nothing.

Then Bappa broke the silence, “Something is wrong with you today Sanjay. You do not look your usual self.”

I got startled at first to hear Bappa talk, and took a few seconds to regain my composure. It was not an everyday occurrence that you get to chat with Bappa.

I - with folded hands – “Thanks for gracing our home with your presence Ganpati Bappa. I am sorry I am bothering you with my petty worries. Things are alright with me, nothing wrong. It is just a large number of small problems that have added together to clutter my mind.”    

Bappa -  “What will be life without problems? Why feel down because of the problems?” 

I – “Yes I know and often apply this wisdom while dealing with my problems. But this time, there are too many of them”

Bappa – “Don’t worry too much. Look at the positive side of things and you will feel better.”

I – “That’s the trouble Bappa. I am trying everything I know about positive thinking. It is helpful to some extent, but the clouds of worry keep coming again and again.”

Bappa – with a smile in His eyes - “It is indeed funny to see a champion of positive mindset struggling to conquer his own worries. तूने तो सबको राह दिखाई तू अपनी मंज़िल क्यूं भूला? :)”

 I – with a touch of impatience - “You do not understand. I used to believe that since I spread the message of hope, it will come naturally to me; but this time it is really different. I am down with an onslaught of negative thoughts and despair and it does not help that I have been a champion of hope.”

Bappa – with a wider smile – “I can try to understand if you explain your problem to me.”

I – “I am worried that I may botch up on the new responsibility I have been given in the office, about our approaching old age, about the health of my parents, about the future of my kids, hundreds of nagging unfinished tasks, mounting expenses that have upset the budget, not enough savings, and many more such things.”

Bappa – “Why are you concerned so much? मैं हूँ ना. Give your burden to me. I will set everything right.” 

I – “You have millions of devotees. किस किस का बोझ उठाएगे आप? I have to learn to carry my burden myself.”

Bappa – “I agree that you should take every possible action within your circle of influence. But as far as I know, you are already doing it. Then why worry about things over which you have no control.”

I – “Bappa, I shiver to imagine the consequences if things go wrong. If you want to help, please help me overcome this fear.”

Bappa – “You keep doing what is in your circle of influence. Do not avoid or put off a required action for any reason what-so-ever. Leave the rest of the worries to me. I will do what is in my circle of influence, which as you know has infinite radius.”   

I – “Why do you take everything so lightly? I know from experience that life for us humans is not easy. If you do not walk the tight rope every day, you are sure to fall down.”

Bappa – “Good you mentioned experience. Let us go back in time. Do you remember your situation at puja 15 years back?”

I – “Let me try. That was the year 2000. There was economic uncertainty due to dot com burst. I was worried about my job, old age, kid's future, parents health, savings, finances. Oh yes, when I think of it, my situation at that time was very similar to what it is today, in fact it was much worse as I had little security.”

Bappa – looking closely in my eyes – “Try to recall what you asked me in prayer that year. Did I or did I not fulfill your wishes?”

This statement and the eye contact was His masterstroke. As I strained my memory I could recall that I prayed that year for two categories of wishes:

Must

These were the developments that I desperately wanted to happen in my life, but had no clue how to make them happen.

Nice to Have

These were wishes that were lower in priority but still important enough.

And suddenly I realized that Bappa not only fulfilled all the wishes in my Must and Nice to Have list, but He went beyond it and gave me bliss and happiness in life that were beyond my imagination. This was an eye opener and I suddenly felt a strong surge of gratitude.
I said, “मान गये गणपती बप्पा. You are truely awesome!”

I was all set to heap more praises on Bappa, but got interrupted by a loud sound of chanting of mantras. Suddenly, I woke up from my trance and opened my eyes to find myself with Pandit ji doing the puja. I felt relieved that nobody noticed my transgression. My head was feeling much lighter now, the tension had magically disappeared. I looked at Ganpati Bappa, and there was this familiar mischievous smile in his eyes.

I murmured -  “ऊँ गण गणपतेय नम:।  मान गये गणपती बप्पा. You are truly awesome!”

So, this was the story of my chat with Ganpati in my thoughts that helped me get rid of my worries. I had the itch that my chat with Ganpati Bappa got interrupted at the point when I was about to thank Him and sing praises for Him. So, I am leaving you with this vandana that I sang in His praise afterwards.

 

Emotional Intelligence - an Essential Life Skill

It is widely believed that our success is largely dependent on the level of our intelligence. You can picture that the most intelligent, brainy, and bright people crack all the tests and get all the opportunities to go ahead, while those with lesser IQ stay behind. No doubt IQ is an important factor for our success; however, as we look around, we may spot several contradictions to the belief. We may find many successful people with average intelligence, with a knack of always saying and doing the right thing. Similarly we may come across many bright and intelligent people who are not very successful as they give in to their moods and act impulsively. Is this just a matter of chance or is there something else at play here?

This questions perplexed scientists till they discovered Emotional Intelligence that provided a vital clue to solve this puzzle. They found that our ability to deal well with emotions is an equally vital indicator of our effectiveness. They even carried out studies showing that even if you have a high IQ, you have a small chance of outperforming those who have high Emotional Intelligence (EQ). Thus Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is more important for success than IQ. It is an essential life skill that was not very well understood and acknowledged till recently. Can we measure EQ? Can we do something to improve our EQ? Fortunately, the answer is yes for both the questions.

Emotional Intelligence is broadly defined as our ability to understand and manage our own emotions and the emotions of others. Dr Travis Bradberry and Dr Jeans Greaves have been actively providing training to people on how to enhance Emotional Intelligence, and they have captured their knowledge in a very useful book titled “Emotional Intelligence 2.0”. I strongly recommend this book to everyone who wants to work on EQ enhancement. According to the authors, any stimulus first triggers an emotion in us, and we humans are hardwired to give an impulsive, automatic, emotional reaction to it. The automatic reaction is not the optimal response required in most cases. So, replacing the automatic reaction with a conscious, carefully thought out response as a matter of habit is the skill that we need to build.

What I liked most about this book is that Drs Bradberry and Greaves have created this book not as a work of theory, but as a self-paced practical training program to improve your Emotional Intelligence. The reader is introduced to the constituent skills of Emotional Intelligence and encouraged to take up an on-line test at the start to find his EQ score. He also gets a customized recommendation about which skill he should work on first to get maximum benefit. For improving each of the skills, the book gives a number of practical strategies that can be applied in everyday life. So, from a passive reader, you turn into an active participant in the improvement process. After you have worked on the program for a few months, you are encouraged to take the EQ test again and verify your progress. Needless to say, even before you take the second test, you can start seeing the benefits of the improved EQ in everyday life.

According to the book, Emotional Intelligence has following four component skills:

Self-awareness

Self-awareness is our ability to understand our emotions and our automatic reaction to a situation under the emotion. This is the first and the most fundamental emotional intelligence skill. Very often, we do not become aware of the fact that we are reacting under the influence of a strong emotion. When do we feel angry, frustrated, impatient, excited, or elated? What triggers these emotions in us and how do we feel when have these emotions? How do we naturally react?  We become aware of our emotions as soon as we start observing our thoughts and behavior, and it paves the way for us to leverage our emotions constructively.

    

Self-management

Self-management is about taking time to think when we are hit by emotions, and produce a careful response in place of the automatic emotional reaction. As we apply some thought to the situation, it already starts to improve our ability to come out with a better response. Remember, we are not talking about suppressing the emotion altogether. The fact that we experienced an emotion, can provide us with some valuable information. Instead of killing the emotion and losing this information, we want to stay in sufficient control to carefully think and do what makes most sense in the given situation.

Social awareness

Social awareness is about being able to understand the emotions of others around us. What are they feeling about the situation? What are the emotions they are going through? Why are they saying or doing something? What are the verbal cues they are giving out, and what are the non-verbal cues visible from their body language, tone, expressions, etc? The single most important technique to improve social awareness is to listen intently to others. Drop all other thoughts from mind when you carefully listen to the other person with a sincere intent to understand.

Relationship management

Finally, it comes to managing your interactions with others well. You can easily see that good relationship management can make you more effective at work, home, and with friends. Armed with the first three skills, you take the steps necessary to have a positive interaction with others and use it to build up a healthy relationship over time. In case of a clash of opinion, you use this skill to manage your emotions and have a constructive dialog for a mutually agreeable solution.

Sharpen your Emotional Intelligence - Today

If you have not yet consciously thought about your Emotional Intelligence, now is the time to do so. Do take time to read and learn about it as much as you can. If you think there is a need to improve it, work on the improvements. It is never too late to develop this skill, and it promises a more rewarding and fulfilling life to you.

Since Emotional Intelligence is such an important skill, ideally it should be taught in schools so that kids master this essential skill very early in life. Unfortunately, the academic world is single-mindedly focused on test grades and academic achievement, and the soft-skills are often neglected in the process or given a lip service at best.

While the education system takes time to wake up to the importance of Emotional Intelligence, let us make effort to educate ourselves thoroughly about it and help our kids to develop a healthy EQ, an essential life skill that will go a long way to make them successful.

Good news is that today’s generation Y already has better EQ than what I had when I was young. It can be a sign of the times, an effect of gradual evolution, or a result of their better social connectivity; whatever is the reason, I am not complaining.  

What is all this Stuff about Relationships?

Famous psychologist Abraham Maslow said that love and a sense of belonging is an essential need for human beings. As much as we need food and water for nourishment of body, we need love to nourish our heart.  Relationship with family and friends is a great source of love, but its a double edge sword. Sometime it can also cause us a lot of pain when it does not work out.

Naturally we all wish to keep our relationships in a healthy state, but inter-personal relationship is such a complex subject that the delicate relationship may go haywire within no time if we are not careful. How do we maintain our relationships healthy? I have been searching for an answer to this question for many years and have written several posts on this topic based on my readings and experiences. This post is a collection of all the ideas that I gathered along the way.

When we talk about relationships, most of us imagine only marriage or love relationships, and we tend to take for granted our relationship with parents, siblings, relatives, or co-workers; but we need to put in equal amount of care with these as well else these too carry the risk of becoming defunct.
Here are the suggestions for keeping your relationships in a good shape:

Keep good Balance in Emotional Bank Account

Emotional Bank Account represents the trust between the two of you. Simply put, when you show love, care, and understanding, you make a deposit in the Emotional Bank Account, and when you make the other person unhappy with your actions, it causes a withdrawal. If you maintain a healthy balance in this account, you will have enough trust to withstand minor breaches. So, take time to regularly make small deposits and soon you will accumulate a good balance.

Take time to Understand

Most often we complain that the other person does not understand us, and spend a lot of effort in making ourselves understood. Do we also take pain to understand him too? Try your best to understand first, then work on making yourself understood. Don’t rely on your assumptions about the other person. Make a habit to listen and observe carefully to develop a sound understanding about him.   

Control your Anger

Leave the Angry Young Man for the movies. Anger does funny things to you. It makes you behave in ways that you really don’t want to and results in a damage to a relationship that cannot be undone. Learning to recognize your anger and control it is the most important skill you need to work on. This is also useful in increasing your effectiveness in many other areas of your day-to-day life.

Learn to sort out Differences

No two persons think alike and you are bound to have differences. We need to know how to handle such differences constructively, free of excess emotions. A useful tip for the ‘brainy’ people who like to argue with people to prove themselves right - Avoid doing it; you may win the argument but lose a friend. 

Behave well when Hurt

Once-in-a-while you may lend up getting hurt and feeling bad. It is important to control your emotions in such a case and handle it in a constructive manner. Above all be ready to let it go by forgiving the person who has caused the hurt, since forgiveness is for your own good. Similarly, recognize when you have hurt someone and apologize sincerely.

CRTL-ALT-DEL

In spite of our best efforts, a relationship may get so much entangled that it looks beyond repair. What to do in such a case? Do we bailout and end the relationship, put up with the messy situation, or take pains to discuss and resolve the issue? The answer depends on the situation. First of all ask yourself, “Is this relationship important for me?” If the answer is yes, take time to discuss, understand and resolve. However, at times the best strategy is to reboot the relationship, erase the past memories of painful interaction, and start a new chapter. This can give you the quickest and most effective way to bring back a derailed relationship on track. However, remember that it will work only if you have forgiven the person, are willing to forget the painful episode, and let go of the emotion of hurt associated with it.

How do you know that all this is practical wisdom and not an armchair prescription? Look around you and you will find these ideas in everyday use. Let me narrate an experience I went through as an example.

My relationship with a close relative Hritik (name changed) had not been going too well. I believe some of my bad actions must have made him upset with me and then he did something equally bad that made me see red. I do not know if it was in retaliation, but I fear the worst in the absence of any information. Now here were the two of us, nursing strong emotions against each other in our hearts, and hoping that someone will set the matter right for us. We did not talk much about it, and held on to our grudges silently. I knew that if we apologize or have a dialog, it will easily set the matter right, but we did not care to do it since both of us were equally angry.

The situation was not really good since this was a kind of constant load that we were carrying in our hearts. The passage of time also helped in blunting the sharp edge of our emotions. We do not live in the same city, so we did not have to be face-to-face often, still I really wished that we could get over it somehow, and Hritik must have shared the same sentiment too. Given this background, when we got an opportunity to meet in person again, I decided not to waste any time in discussing my past grudges, but apply a CRTL-ALT-DEL to reboot our relationship. As I went about it, to my surprise, I sensed an equal willingness on Hritik’s part to go along. We made a fresh beginning successfully on that occasion and it lifted a huge load from my mind. Did we get back to the same level of closeness as we had before? Maybe not, but the most important gain was that we got back a working relationship from its defunct status, and I felt really happy about it afterwards.

Inter-personal relationship is too involved a topic to be covered in just a few bullets, and there are many more aspects to it. However, you need not be inundated with all this complexity. Be sincere, follow your heart, and have empathy – it should generally be enough to help sail through it smoothly. Above all, take time to experience the wonderful feelings of love when the going is good. It will give you motivation for restoring a derailed relationship.