Devotion, Surrender, Faith

Last week’s speech by Rajan was about Devotion leading to Surrender, Surrender leading to Faith, and Faith leading to Miracles.

Surrender acts the key here. When you begin the day and end the day with an unmistakable, ecstatic cheer – looking forward to the next day, having not-so-lavish plans just in case you actually make through the next day (what?!) – irrespective of what happens in between during the day, you’re actually delegating the responsibility of pushing your day to a higher existential power; there isn’t anything you’d actually interpret as painful, everything’s just going to be a situation. In short, there’s no pain when everything’s the high will and not my will. A tiny bit of doubt is as good as total doubt here – it’s either 0% or 100%.

Such unconditional surrender leads to an exorbitant faith in the possibilities. If the Subject of faith appears all-powerful, this power is actually derived from the power and quality of the faith itself. That’s how God himself derives power – it’s the reflection of the quality of the faith the devotee places upon a selected form factor of the omnipresent existential force. In power, what others call miracles may become ordinary events. History tells us that powerful people are none other than ordinary people with a powerful faith in what they believed to be their vision.

I don’t know how many people really connected to Rajan, but it I’ve learned not to really be result conscious long ago :). In three words, Just do it.

Dashboards for Daily Life

Yesterday, as I kicked off my Activa and started driving from home to office, I noticed a problem almost immediately: the fuel indicator was showing zero. Can’t be, I said to myself, for I knew that I had filled up four litres two days ago, and I’d have moved maximum 15 kms after then – office is so close by. I had to conclude that the indicator was not working. Another thing to fix ASAP, sigh.

What left me thinking was not the issue with indicator, but my absolute dependency on “indications”. I needed to know how much more I can go with my bike, I needed to know how much money is left in my bank, I needed to know how many person days are left in my project’s budget, I needed to track so many things. But for indicators, my life would surely be miserable.

Hey, do I have indicators for the real meaningful aspects of my life? How do I measure how much I’ve progressed towards my next position at work? How do I measure how much I’ve improved in my emotional intelligence? How do I measure how well I’ve learned to react to situations appropriately with instinct? How do I rate how well I talk and connect to my friends? When do I know if I’m ready to mentor a child? How do I measure how far I can go on before feeling the urge to retire?

Guess the real things in life aren’t friendly to numbers and scales.

A nice excuse: Writer’s Block

The writer is back.

Sometimes, it just feels right to stop doing whatever we’ve been doing, and observe the surrounding with a careful eye for lessons. That’s what I was doing.

Time keeps moving ahead, and if I were to delay penning the notes I’ve been gathering for a while, it might all just turn out worthless.

I hope not to take a break this long ever from writing, for I see this wires my intellect to my practice.

Change this, Change that

man·i·fes·to (mn-fst)
n. pl. man·i·fes·toes or man·i·fes··tos

A public declaration of principles, policies, or intentions, especially of a political nature.

We'reabout to have State elections here, and we have manifestos everywhere around us. When a candidate comes about with that rubber smile hiding extreme panic holding a copy of the party manifesto to ask for votes, I really do find it amusing.

Looks like the guys at www.changethis.com decided to view it differently. Changethis is a registry of manifestos, but of very different nature: they're personal manifestos you need to declare to yourselves. You've got GTD issues? Team management problems? Communication? Culture? Yeah, whatever. Take the manifesto, declare and go by it :)

Here you go: http://www.changethis.com

Getting Things Done

Well, who doesn’t want to get things done. GTD is a strongly evangelized (!) publication by David Allen, talking about the art of stress free productivity.

If you got “stuff” to complete, which means just about any TODO, GTD describes a lot of ways in which you can organize and take control of the planning, prioritizing and execution process. David says:

Here’s how I define “stuff:” anything you have allowed into your psychological or physical world that doesn’t belong where it is, but for which you haven’t yet determined the desired outcome and the next action step. [pg. 17]

Merlin gives a cool summary of what GTD is about:

1. identify all the stuff in your life that isn’t in the right place (close all open loops)
2. get rid of the stuff that isn’t yours or you don’t need right now
3. create a right place that you trust and that supports your working style and values
4. put your stuff in the right place, consistently
5. do your stuff in a way that honors your time, your energy, and the context of any given moment
6. iterate and refactor mercilessly

There are also a couple of open source GTD tracking tools such as NextAction and Gravity. So Get Organized!