Relationships - crucible of transformation

I am fortunate to have come across many relationship challenges in my life. Being a die hard humanist and a compulsive learner myself, I have been able to leverage each of these challenges to become aware of the egoic conditionings through which we stereo-typically tend to operate in relationships. No wonder, it becomes so much more easy to enable my proteges also today when they come with relationship challenges. It becomes so much more contextual for them to see the and know the conditionings that they bring in the way they live their relationships and therefore may be even in living life otherwise.

As a Transformational Coach, I therefore recommend that instead of shoving such challenges under the carpet, they better be brought up for conscious exploration, with humility. And in this process of  exploration what is bound to happen is nothing less than a blossoming, a transformation that will not only enable you being truly human but will also bring forth the Love that we essentially are. 

CONDITIONING - THE ROOT CAUSE OF RELATIONSHIP CHALLENGES 

Every human being has been conditioned to think and behave in certain ways – conditioned genetically as well as by their childhood experiences and their cultural environment.

That is not who they are, but that is who they appear to be. When you pronounce judgment upon someone, you confuse those conditioned mind patterns with who they are. To do that is in itself a deeply conditioned and unconscious pattern. You give them a conceptual identity, and that false identity becomes a prison not only for the other person but also for yourself.

To let go of judgment does not mean that you don’t see what they do. It means that you recognize their behavior as a form of conditioning, and you see it and accept it as that. You don’t construct an identity out of it for that person.

That liberates you as well as the other person from identification with conditioning, with form, with mind. The ego then no longer runs your relationships.

CHALLENGES ARISE OUT OF FEAR AND DESIRE

As long as the ego runs your life, most of your thoughts, emotions, and actions arise form desire and fear. In relationships you then either want or fear something from the other person.

What you want from them may be pleasure or material gain, recognition, praise or attention, or a strengthening of your sense of self through comparison and through establishing that you are, have, or know more than they. What you fear is that the opposite may be the case, and they may diminish your sense of self in some way.

When you are fully present with everyone you meet, you relinquish the conceptual identity you made for them – your interpretation of who they are and what they did in the past – and are able to interact without the egoic movements of desire and fear.

'KNOWING ABOUT' IS NOT KNOWING

To know another human being in their essence, you don’t really need to know anything about them – their past, their history, their story. We confuse knowing ‘about’ with a deeper knowing that is non-conceptual. Knowing ‘about’ and knowing are totally different modalities. One is concerned with form, the other with the formless. One operates through thought, the other through stillness.

Knowing about is helpful for practical purposes. On that level, we cannot do without it. When it is the predominant modality in relationships, however, it becomes very limiting, even destructive. Thoughts and concepts create an artificial barrier, a separation between human beings. Your interactions are then not rooted in Being, but become mind-based. Without the conceptual barriers, love is naturally present in all human interactions. 

LISTENING HEALS

True listening is another way of bringing stillness into the relationship. When you truly listen to someone, the dimension of stillness arises and becomes and essential part of the relationship. But true listening is a rare skill. Usually, the greater part of a person’s attention is taken up by their thinking. At best, they may be evaluating your words or preparing the next thing to say. Or they may not be listening at all, lost in their own thoughts.

True listening goes far beyond auditory perception. It is the arising of alert attention, a space of presence in which the words are being received. The words now become secondary. They may be meaningful or they may not make sense. Far more important than what you are listening to is the act of listening itself, the space of conscious presence that arises as you listen. That space is a unifying field of awareness in which you meet the other person without the separative barriers created by conceptual thinking. And now the other person is no longer “other.” In that space, you are joined together as one awareness, one consciousness.

THE NON-LIVING CAN MAKE YOU COME ALIVE

What is your relationship with the world of objects, the countless things that surround you and that you handle every day? The chair you sit on, the pen, the car, the cup? Are they to you merely a means to an end, or do you occasionally acknowledge their existence, their being, no matter how briefly, by noticing them and giving them your attention?

When you get attached to objects, when you are using them to enhance your worth in your own eyes and in the eyes of others, concern about things can easily take over your whole life. When there is self-identification with things, you don’t appreciate them for what they are because you are looking for yourself in them.

When you appreciate an object for what it is, when you acknowledge its being without mental projection, you cannot not feel grateful for its existence. You may also sense that it is not really inanimate, that it only appears so to the senses.

Through selfless appreciation of the realm of things, the world around you will come alive in ways that you cannot even begin to comprehend with the mind.

LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT

Whenever you meet anyone, no matter how briefly, do you acknowledge their being by giving them your full attention? Or are you reducing them to a means to an end, a more function or role?

A moment of attention is enough. As you look at them or listen to them, there is an alert stillness – perhaps only two or three seconds, perhaps longer. That is enough for something more real to emerge than the roles we usually play and identify with. All roles are part of the conditioned consciousness that is the human mind. That which emerges through the act of attention is the unconditioned – who you are in your essence, underneath your name and form. You are no longer acting out a script, you become real. When that dimension emerges from within you, it also draws it forth from within the other person.

For a while think of the other who you believe is familiar to you because of the relationship you have with each other as a stranger you are meeting for the first time. Meeting with your genuine attention. Listening with your complete presence. Admiring appreciating the other for being so uniquely different. A few moments of being in such a space will not only cause an alchemy to happen in your relationship but will get you to experience the promise of transformation in your own self.

Try it out. It may not be easy. As no transformation is easy without help. Reachme@indroneil.com and I am always there to walk this stretch of journey with you.

Year 2012 - the year of Transformation

Today is the first full moon of the Chinese New Year which began on Feb 04. 

Speculations and predictions run rife about the Year 2012 and what it has in store for us.

These beliefs range from the spiritually transformative to the apocalyptic. Sharp peaks and troughs, uncertainty and possible end of an order to mark the beginning of a new age - all such and many more (possibly self-fulfilling) prophecies are afloat everywhere.

According to Chinese Astrology 2012 is the year of a Black Dragon, Water Dragon or Black Water Dragon. Since Water of 2012 comes with Dragon it implies Water from the sky makes a dam overflow. Dragon is a legendary animal and is coated with mysterious color. It is considered that the dragon is unpredictable, untouchable and people cannot see its head and tail - the beginning and the end - at the same time.  

Numerologically Year 2012 has inherent in it the energies of number 4 and 8 (when factorized, 2012 gives  a prime number of 503 and 4) - supposed to be a fatalistic combination. The year also has a predominance of number 3 energy - the energy of , being the the 12th year of the 3rd millennium and of the 21st century, and the 3rd of the 2010s, which denotes integration and wholeness and relates to expansiveness and learning through life experiences. In combination with the energy of number 8, this could mean gathering insights from unexpected events into  karmic influences, dawning of systemic wisdom and opportunities for spiritual growth through expanded consciousnesses.

Whatever this means, whatever ominous suggestions one may carry in one’s mind, this year, to me, calls for being grounded while embracing transformation as a natural process. Which also means co-existence of many births and deaths, beginnings and ends, calling upon the ability to see them simultaneously (the head and tail of the dragon) and flow with the process (the water).

To me, this year being a year of systemic corrections, also calls upon listening to subtle messages and responding with conscious reversal of certain energies which we would have unconsciously set into action in the past and now showing its negative impact to individuals as well as in the immediate contexts. Needless to say, above all, it calls for undeterred faith in the Supreme Will, the Tao or the Law of Existence.

The other day, while reflecting upon the possible energies that one could experience this year, I came across this powerful message from The Book of Mirdad, which not so coincidentally seems to be a wake-up call to come out of fatalistic speculations and redefine our approach to deal with uncertainties and the associated fear. 

More devastating than the flood of Noah shall be the flood already raging on. An earth engulfed in water is an earth pregnant with promises of Spring. Not so an earth astew in her own feverish blood.

Have no fear for the Earth. Too young is she, and too overflowing are her breasts.More generations shall she suckle yet than you can count.Nor have anxiety for Man, the master of the Earth, for he is indestructible.

Yea, ineffaceable is Man. Yea, inexhaustible is Man. He shall go into the forge a man but shall emerge a god.

Be steady, Make ready. Keep your eyes, and ears, and tongues on fast so that your hearts may know that holy hunger which, once appeased, leaves you forever full.

You must be ever-full that you may fill the wanting. You must be ever strong that you may prop the wavering and the weak. You must be ever ready for the storm that you may shelter all the storm-tossed waifs. You must be ever luminous that you may guide the walkers in the dark.

The weak are burdens to the weak. But to the strong they are a pleasant change. Seek out the weak. Their weakness is your strength.

The hungry are but hunger to the hungry. But to the full they are a welcome outlet. Seek out

the hungry. Your fullness is their want.

The blind are stumbling blocks to the blind. But they are mileposts to the seeing. Seek out the blind. Their darkness is your light.

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A New Year's Message

The secret is that there is no Secret

If books could transform and propel one to higher levels of existence, Arjuna would have not required Sri Krishna as his charioteer but would have won the war of Kurukhshetra by following the Bhagwat Geeta as a tool kit! The book would then have come before its Creator and we would have perhaps worshiped Sanjay (the narrator) or the unknown author and Sri Krishna would have probably receded in the back ground as just another mentor or teacher.

Sounds stupid and ridiculous right? But then isn't that what we are rampantly doing? Picking up some self-help book, using it as a tool kit and either imagining that we are on the way to enlightenment or if it doesn't work, dismissing the book as not effective. 

Wake-up man from your tool-centric self-imposed disability. Books were never meant to be and can never be your teachers and mentors. At the most, and that too a few selected books, can serve as sign posts to lead you to some place within yourself for exploration, assuming you are capable of 'reading'.

This mail that I received from one of my proteges a couple of days back reinforces my belief in the power of Transformational Coaching and mentoring. It urges me to write this blog to dispel the myth of all Secrets and for once attempt to awaken you too a reality that you also need a friend, a guide, a master - in short a awakened soul who is ready to mentor - to heal your fragmented existence and help you to move on your transformational journey.

The excerpts of the mail read as follows:

"I am writing to you, with a sense of achievement and an overwhelming feeling of gratefulness. 

I have completed my first milestone of this intent driven mentoring engagement. The successful completion of what I had set out to achieve in little more than a month seems like a magic. This wouldn’t have happened if I did not have your relentless guidance and encouragement to follow the discipline which we created mutually. 

When I started I didn’t even know where it would lead me to, except for my complete faith in you as a mentor. You helped me visualize my dream and create milestones and also enabled me to follow the path of intentful action where I am working on myself, clearing the webs that had held me back from achieving my dream and to create actions which would give me the response that I have been looking for. 

It seems magical to look back and see how did this happen. There was no best practice to be followed, none that you gave me either. There was only my intent and the dream I have which led me in the direction that I am meant to be going. There were days when nothing seemed to work, yet you helped me deal with my anxiety and apprehension and showed me that those days were most precious as they brought out the value of reflection from where came out never seen before approaches and strategies. 

What made it happen are two very important factors –

1.  The absolute surrender to the discipline I decided to follow
2. The Unshakable faith in my intent. .

I am now on the second leg of my journey, this reflection and sharing was a sojourn for me to get ready to move on. 

We started this engagement with a commitment from you and a commitment from me, you have honored your commitment and I am experiencing you continue to do so. 

As a token of gratitude I would at this point in time like to share with you a part of my success fee. I want to state this is in no way compensating for whatever I have received from you, its just a small gesture to show my love, faith and gratitude towards the process and to honor the engagement we got into."

This mail leaves me feeling touched and humbled. What awesome sense of self-respect and self-worth! It always over-whelms me to see, in this world full of self-assumed powerlessness and worthlessness, someone upholding the true worth of Being Human and showing promise of manifesting the Divine. 

You are the Krishna, You are the Christ

I lead you from being Serviced to being a Servant

In my walking along with you as a coach, mentor or just a guide I am doing no favor to you.

It is an act of Commitment, an act of service to the Unity of Man. It is living my Service Level Commitment (SLC) to myself through a relationship of servitude and not just delivering to a Service Level Agreement (SLA) through some transactions. It is the outcome of a shift from being Serviced to being a Servant. To the God-self. In you and in me. And in the Unity of you and me.

When you fall and break, licking the dust, I hold you up to see the possibility of your spirit breaking free.  Breaking free the life force to sprout into a flowering tree. And in your sprouting and breaking free do I release my shackled me.

When you are sad and break into tears, I collect them in my palm to help you see in each drop the Sea. And in your beholding this Sea do I manifest the Ocean in me.

When you defy the Law, you deny my existence. When you denigrate your dream, you deprive me of my journey. In your despondency, my Intent awakens. And in the awakening of my Intent, you reach out to your Destiny.

When you feel rejected, I uphold your Being, which is not your mind-body that can be accepted or rejected. And in upholding your Being, the triune of Supreme Consciousness, the Understanding and the Spirit of Existence makes itself manifest.

In being of service, I lead you from being Serviced to being a Servant. And in so being, you finally begin to Live. You finally begin to Love.

This is no excerpt from an inspirational self-help book. This is an act of authentic self-disclosure to all those who I am accompanying and have accompanied as a mentor, coach and guide. It is also an invitation to those who are waiting to cross over, on the edge of the Cliff of Existence. On the one side of which is Extinction and on the other, Evolution. It’s an invitation to them, to make a move and in doing so, join the never ending Celebration of Being the Man.  

Come to me. I am waiting for you. For in walking together through the duality of You and Me, shall you transform to realize the Unity. 

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Lead right, enable wise

The Leader leads himself before he imagines leading his men. Unto a realm of everlasting wealth, wisdom and well-being.

And in leading himself, the others are led. In knowing himself the others are known. In loving himself the others are loved.

He now moves from the limits of understanding to understanding of the limits and in this understanding he goes beyond; from choice making to making of the choice and in this making realizes the unique path; from holding the big picture to picturing the Big Hold and in this picturing uncovers the collective destiny.

He knows now to create from conflicts, draw passion from passivity and supervise with servitude.

He preaches not but practices, talks not but walks without shadows and makes every act of giving, profitable.

Sounds like a page from one of the self-development books? Nice to read, impossible to implement?

Far from it. In times like now, when all acquired knowledge seems to be limited, there are ways that are mystical which will lead to magical metrics. Ways that are hidden in the fog and mist of your past. 

Come to me and I will show you the way.

 

As a bodhisattva, I have been called upon to guide and accompany those who lead others to a new awakening.  Through Transformational Coaching and Executive Mentoring. And I live to help you lead right, enable wise.