Freedom from the I by Shashank Kasliwal (Book Review- 4.75*/5) !!!

1655th BLOG POST -->>

There are some books which hold you like a traveler who does not have any destination to go and is here only to enjoy the journey and the newness he finds in every new second at a new spot of this world. You feel like experiencing some book rather than finishing them off and picking up the next one. It took me complete one month to finish reading a 218-pages book written by a debutante, Shashank Kasliwal, named “Freedom from the I”. The book also has the tagline “Ultimate Path to a Free Mind and Real Success”. This is yet another gem from Jaico Publication. This is one such book if you read in peace and silence can bring out several transforming changes in you and the way you think and see things. I can feel the change in my whole outlook within this one month itself.

I have been a great fan of Sadhguru’s books and videos where he explains about this factor of diminishing the ego and identification that we have and lead a life which is as it is. I never believed that someone could write or explain this concept in a better manner and so vastly and yet in a simple way. Shashank Kasliwal’s first attempt at writing this self-help book is a winning start. Initially, when I started reading, the first two chapters did not sound me any different than all these self-help books which keeps releasing. But since third chapter, as soon as the author gets into his zone of explaining the effect of ego and how we have lost ourselves in this dominance of ego over us just keeps surprising the readers. I felt the book remained at its best up till 8^th chapter. I did not personally feel any kind of motivation reading the last 4 chapters from 9^th to 12^th but they are a fine closer to the book where author explains about our dull mind, affect of emotions, our relationships etc.

Shashank has very finely divided the book in different chapters and even within that into different sections with each concept not going over two pages. This keeps your interest intact as you do not get strangled in too many concepts thrown at you within a paragraph. The book is not at all research-based but purely out of experience of the author which makes it more relevant while reading as you can feel the honesty and truthfulness. This book is best for professional people out there as author has given many examples on how to handle professional and corporate stress and pressure. I have also implemented many of his ideas which has begun enhancing my experience of meditation that I had started before reading this book. The book is written in a spiritual context rather than motivational context hence it needs little more attention while reading to grasp the concepts rather than mugging the points. Overall, this is one of the best books I have read in last decade for sure. I give this book 4.75 star out of 5. Recommended for every living soul out here.

Thanks.

ABHILASH RUHELA!!! 

The Importance of your Marks in your Life!

1654th BLOG POST -->>

Recently, the first of the many important results for few students have been announced and reading about their worries and anxiety many people have spoken about how important or unimportant the marks that they have secured are. Whenever we speak about something as sensitive as this, we should be very clear and responsible about what are we about to preach to the students who are already very confused about their future. Confusing them more is only going to add problems to their already chaotic mind. I read so many people writing to the students that whatever you have scored is of no prominence as life is all about how much talented or skilful you are. People have ended up giving examples of Sachin Tendulkar etc. trying to justify how even if you are not good at studies is not worrisome. This is a completely irresponsible message that you have received, my dear little friends.

Let me be very clear with you, whatever marks you have scored are going to stay with you forever in life. This cannot be changed now. There was a whole year when your parents wanted you to struggle day and night so that on the day of result, you do not have to worry about the percentage marks printed on your result. You were expected to think above that about your future and further education. But because you didn’t understand the important of this percentage, rather than thinking about further educational prospective you have, you are stuck in blaming yourself for scoring very low percentage. The first step is to ACCEPT THE REALITY. Accept whatever marks you have got and just believe that it is only going to add up in the total marks you score in your life.

If one series goes bad for the Cricketer, it does not mean that he cannot score again in the next one. Now, accept the marks that you have in your hands and try to understand which subject interests you the most. Also tally your interest with the marks you have scored in that particular subject. Sometimes, we have wrong assumption that we are interested in something while the result keeps displaying our mediocrity in the same. So, the result has to be given some weightage while thinking about which subject you need to continue in the future with. Get yourself admitted in whatever- good or bad college, as per the opportunity you are getting, and start learning more and more and try to secure a better percentage this time. What has gone is something which can never be changed. What is about to happen is totally in your hands. GRAB THE OPPORTUNITY.

Whatever opportunity you have now, just get it and keep reminding yourself that you do not want to be disappointed with yourself ever again on the day of the result. Do not think about what others think about your result. Only think about your dreams and what kind of efforts and marks you need to achieve the same. TALK WITH THE PEOPLE who are already doing what you are dreaming to do in life. Take their advice and learn how they used to study. Incorporate those ideas and structure your daily routine accordingly. The process of improvement is the only process that will take you ahead. If you have secured bad marks this time, it is no confirmation that you are not going to score big the next time. Similarly, for the students who have scored very well, do not think that this will continue forever. Little break of concentration and ego can bring you down like anything. At any time remember that someone somewhere else is preparing to overtake you. Any minute that you waste by not studying, someone else is gaining immensely out of this opportunity.

I am giving my example to you where I scored 61% in 10^th, 55% in 12^th, 58% in Graduation, 68% in Post-graduation and 78% in my last post-graduation that I did. It was something after 12^th that I had determined to achieve because it was enough embarrassment twice by scoring below average marks. I had taken an oath of not scoring less percentage than what I had scored in my previous examination. And this is how I started becoming better in studies and today I have confidence that I can study anything and pass with good marks because that becomes my only target when I study. But do those percentages scored in 10^th and 12^th std not haunt my career today?  It does. But it gets covered by the good marks I have scored in my Graduation and two Post-graduations that I have done.

So yes, the journey is not over. It is just one series that has gone bad but to ensure that you still lead a great lifestyle and life ahead, you will need to set your routine and make study a prime focus for yourself till the time your educational phase does not end. Give importance to education now as you have whole life to follow your passion and interests. Do not ignore studies for any other interests by reading about foolish examples of how people did well in their life by not studying. These people were excellent in their talent/skills since their childhood itself and got right direction to move towards. If you are on the same journey, I take you as an exception but if it is not, then damn, STUDY for your next exam and prove yourself that you can achieve any marks that you write on your wall and make it a target. BEST OF LUCK for your future from another mediocre student. 😊

Thanks.

ABHILASH RUHELA 

 

How it CAN happen vs How it CANNOT

1653rd BLOG POST -->>

I often find people claiming themselves to be a positive person every now and then. I have never understood one thing, first of all, that why do people want to define themselves who they are. Isn’t this out of insecurity that they will be perceived as something else and no one wants to dissolve their image just like that. They want the lie or half-truth to become truth by repeating it again and again so that everyone around them also start chanting the same about them. This is such a funny scenario. An employee in your organization who you know doesn’t work and just passes time throughout will keep on saying that they work so much but still do not get credit. A friend of yours who has a bloody short-temper issue will keep on saying to everyone how genuine he/she is and how people provoke him/her to say stuff even he/she doesn’t like to.

The world has become such now that there is so much negativity about every thing around you. There are so many parameters of life with which a human being has to adjust with- Office work, colleagues, friends, relatives, relationship, society issues, material quests, basic needs etc. Not every parameter will ever be perfectly aligned with each other and work for you. And this is what is making people extremely negative these days. If any of the one parameter does not work as specified, the person will keep on poking it day and night and will remain stressed out and ends up ruining even the other parameters of life. These days you tell anyone about anything, they will first concentrate on how that thing will not be possible rather than thinking about how it can be made possible.

When I joined meditation classes last month and they told that we will need to reach before 6 AM in the hall otherwise we will not be taken in, there were many who were only thinking about how it cannot happen and kept questioning the teacher about why such stringent rules in place. I only believed at that time about the possibilities of doing this and this made it possible for me to get up every day at 4.30 AM and reaching the hall by 5.45 AM. I was also on time at my office on almost all the days. This is the power of thinking about how things can happen.

Similarly, when I had read that the dinner needs to be skipped to control weight gain as feeding the body every time with 4-5 chapatis is not a good idea, I was very positive about it against my friends who after 2 years still think that it’s not possible to control ourselves from having a heavy dinner. Since then, it has been 1.5 years and I am not taking any dinner at all. I had never imagined myself waking between 4.30 AM to 5 AM but I am able to do so every day now in spite of how much stressful my work day has been. This is all because every time I am asked to do something I have concentrated more on how it can happen rather than how it cannot.

Why have I told about these two approaches of taking things from the external world? Because as I started this post with every person wanting to be considered as a positive person, this is the basic of being positive. Rather than trying to find out loopholes in the system or what the end result or outcome would be, if you actually think about the gains and profits the activity will bring to your personal or professional or spiritual life, you can outgrow the success of any person whom you idolize. I am going to Bangalore in the month of June 2018 and as we have to travel multiple places placed at different points of the city, we thought of taking a car on rent. As I have never handled any other car than my own, I was very doubtful if I would be able to drive any other car of different model altogether. But rather than keep thinking about how it could not happen, I only thought of the possibility that I would be able to drive and explore a new challenge of driving another car and raise the confidence bar about my driving skills. I am only thinking about how it will happen rather than how it will not happen considering the reviews of people around me that Bangalore has the worst traffic and I would not be able to handle the same.

There is always that one guy in any meeting room who thinks of making the project happen in any kind of challenging situation against everyone who only keeps bulleting the challenges and limitations. And any project that goes live is only because of this one person who has actually been positive throughout the journey rather than everyone else who tried proving themselves as intellectual trying to think about the possibilities how the project will get stuck in an obstacle never to come out of it the way everyone has projected. So rather than trying to convince people that you are a very positive person, become one by concentrating on the factors that will lead to possibility of any challenging task. You automatically get known as a positive person. You will not have to prove it repeatedly to people. Got it? I hope you have because I believe while reading this post, you have only thought about how what I have said can happen rather than how it cannot. 😊

Thanks.

ABHILASH RUHELA!!! 

Success is in journey, not destination!

1652nd BLOG POST -->>

The whole purpose for which we work through out the day and night and slog as much as possible is to only ensure that we get success in whatever we do. The problem now is that the meaning of Success has been stated as something very big and highly grand that we do not even consider the small successes we get in each moment of our life. We only call ourselves a Successful person when we achieve one of our biggest goals of life. In spite of that, if we achieve anything that we determined to, we never even think that we have got success in it. And that’s the reason why level of frustration is growing in each one of us day by day. Earlier we used to hear that only a person in his old age gets grumpy and behaves negatively at every point of time. We have become that same grumpy old person at the age of 25 itself.

Why are we so inconsiderate towards things that makes our whole day possible? In a span of 24 hours, even if you sleep for the most of the times that’s possible, you still have active 16 hours in a day. In these 16 hours, you have to go through a cycle to be able to reach up to a state that you can go in public and perform work and make sure that you end your day in a particular planned way. Now you would say what plans about how to end the day. I just come and sleep. What planning does this need? Why am I making it sound so important? Even if you do not do anything after office hours and directly sleep after coming home, are you not making sure that you are taking transport from your office to your home? Are you not having dinner and spending that little time with your family before you go and fall up on your bed? Isn’t this a success that you were able to reach home safely and manage to have a good meal and family time before going for a sleep which remains with you for next 8 hours and makes sure that you are again charged up for another day of adventure?

There are so many people who are not able to reach home daily. They either meet with an accident or some other tragedies strike them off. How special are you to be able to meet your family by the end of the day! Similarly, in the morning, when you have to catch your local train of a specific timing, aren’t you successful in that moment when you are able to plan your morning schedule in such a way that you get the train on time? But do you ever consider that as a success? Never! In fact, if you miss the train, you inform your manager about FAILING to catch the train due to some reason. You are very sure that you have failed when you are not able to execute these small events in your daily life but you are never terming yourself successful when your whole day goes without a glitch.

SUCCESS is considered to be a very big word and hence people do not want to associate it with small events. They are scared that they will be a matter of joke for everyone. Remember one thing, guys, these small successful events are those which makes it possible for you to achieve your big dream or goal of yours that people finally consider you as a Successful personality. If you do not give importance to the small successes of your daily life, these big successes will never come to you. Have you ever considered what makes you live? It’s breathe. Right? Every moment, either voluntarily or involuntarily, you are breathing. 

Just suppose in any of the moment, this process of inhalation and exhalation stops forever. Are you not a dead being then? Have you not been failed forever never to be successful again? Everything closes down for you when this breathing process stops. Currently, you are breathing every second and are able to execute this whole cycle of inhalation and exhalation, aren’t you a super successful person in each moment literally? But do you ever think of this that you are a Successful person every damn moment that you are alive on this planet? THINK! It’s time to acknowledge the small successful moments which are leading you towards the ultimate so-called Success that you consider as the ultimate.

Thanks.

ABHILASH RUHELA!!! 

What is Fear of DEATH?

1651st BLOG POST -->>

When we talk about life, there are certain impossibilities or unknown that we want to touch in our lives. The easiest ones are at once, done by us but the ones which we find very difficult are left us an impossible task forever. In spite of wanting to do it, having thing things in our hand, we just leave it like that never to consider a thought upon it again. Why? Because of this emotion called “Fear” which traps us in a limitation of perception that closeness with certain things might destroy us as it involves risk. What is the biggest Fear that a human being feels in his life? Or say, most human beings feel in their life? The Fear of Death! The Fear of Death is such a big block in human’s mind that it stops them from achieving so many things in their life that they waste most part of their life in just feeling insecure about whatsoever they are. They think something and then immediately strikes off the thought knowing that it might lead to accident which will have its consequential result as death.

Why is Death so threatening for us? What is it that we fear about Death? Isn’t Death something for which we live throughout our life? Isn’t it the ultimate result of whatever you do in your life? Can you avoid it? You can definitely postpone it but you cannot avoid it. Right? Then what is it that makes you stop from doing something because it involves the question or answer of Death? Okay. Let’s take it this way. If you don’t chance upon doing anything that might lead you to Death as per your understanding, are you fully safe from Death? Is it so? If you believe so, then it shows how much unaware and dull you are that you are unable to focus on the vulnerability of something which you fear so much.

Right now, I am sitting under a fan and writing this blog. Am I not vulnerable to death? Can’t this fan fall upon my head and kill me? 100 times in a day you switch on and off the lights. Are you not touching electricity each time and can’t you get shock at any point of time if a little thing goes wrong? Every day you travel either by bus, train or personal vehicle on road, are you not close to death? A single accident takes away lives of 100s. Can’t you be easily one of them? Most of the times you eat outside on the name of celebration or hanging out, can’t a certain type of poison be there in your food as you are being served by a stranger person? You live in multi-storey buildings these days. Can’t a little push or drowsiness make you fall all the way to the earth and take away your life? Each moment, each millisecond, that you are living, you are close to death. It is only that your chance is not coming otherwise you can always die in any possible moment.

Rather than stopping yourself from doing things that are really important, you should just go ahead and start accomplishing them. If there is something to fear from, it’s life, not death certainly. You can always have an imperfect life but you will never have an imperfect death. Death, in any form, is always seen as something that came as a powerful stuff and took a piece of life away. If Death is caused to you in a second or if it makes you suffer for months and then finally take your breathe away, in both the cases, still Death is seen as something which is unbeatable and bigger than every piece of life. So, stop worrying about Death. I am not saying that start doing things which will make you die asap but I am just asking not to stop yourself from doing things that are important. There are many people not driving car even at important times because they fear it may cause death. There are people who do not want to take flights even in emergency because they think its risky and they might die even if there’s a small issue in the plane.

Stop being so serious about your life. It has already been gifted to you. Now start living it fully rather than wasting it in thinking how not to end it and saving yourself each moment from Death. You just can’t. Death never lets you know when its coming. It comes at the time when it is least expected. So stop worrying now and start living joyfully.

Thanks.

ABHILASH RUHELA! 

Wedding Pickle by Neha Sharma (Book Review- 3.5*/5) !!!

1650th BLOG POST -->>

I have read books based on confusion regarding the topic of marriage that keeps moving in the mind of the protagonist even before but never ever could I relate with the topic because I was a student then. Now that I am already running in my late-20s and this is the only thing that is running as a question around me wherever I go and the kind of dilemma it is, I have been able to relate quite much with the latest book I have completed reading today named “Wedding Pickle” written by the debutante, Neha Sharma. The book is published by Grapevine publications and I am quite delighted to get back with the publisher’s book again as it is being managed by youth and their stories are quite relating.

The writing style of Neha Sharma is wonderful where she knows how to engage the readers as the story that she has chosen to write does not have multiple dimension and is specific only to a phase of the protagonist so there are many chances that the book could get boring or monotonous. But the way she has kept shuffling the conditions and the dilemma in the mind of the protagonist is nicely handled. The characterizations are also nicely handled where you can identify how each of the characters are like. As the story does not have much twists and turns or suspense kind of thrilling plot, the book needed to have simplicity that expressed whatsoever is going in the mind of the characters which author has been able to manage quite candidly and effortlessly.

The story starts directly on the point where this specific character enters in the protagonist’s life as a prospect for marriage and all the confusion starts for her. Her argument with her parents are realistic. Her discussion with friends are also funny where they get irritated with her mood swings regarding the person she is talking with for marriage. The way climax is handled in last 40-50 pages keeping the whole marriage scenes describable and explanatory is also a nice end to the book. Talking about the drawbacks, it would have been great if the book had certain twists and turns and few moments where the readers must have got frustrated reading the decision of the protagonist. Also, there are few typos in the book which could have been corrected with some care. I believe the book is little stretched. It could have been easily 30-40 pages less than what it is. Overall, if you are going through the same phase, you are going to enjoy this story. I am giving this one 3.5* out of 5.

Thanks.

ABHILASH RUHELA!!!