Purpose?
Oct 27, 2020 | permalink
[On a podcast today, I was asked about purpose. Below was my response.]
If I had to define my purpose, I would say it is to serve life's emergence. By serving what lies in front of us -- not because it increases or reduces the suffering of the world, but simply because it is ours to do -- life itself becomes a moral gymnasium in which we untangle and transform a completely unique set of energies -- internal and external, as unique as a fingerprint.
Inside the kitchen of a local monastery, a sign reads: "Life is an endless series of dishes. I vow to do them all." As we do those dishes, our flute becomes hollow once again and the winds of nature effortlessly play its symphony through us.
Growing up, I used to think that I was initiating projects and creating change. Bit by bit, I started seeing that I was never actually in the driver's seat, that my effort was a small sliver of a larger rainbow of grace, that perhaps I was in the passenger's seat. And now, I'm unclear if I'm even in the car -- yet, just seeing the flow of movement is enough to overflow my cup of gratitude and leave me with great joy.
Virus and Virtue
Feb 12, 2020 | permalink
Coronavirus gives us an experiential insight into "many-to-many" networks.
Consider the lily pond riddle. If lilies in a pond double every day, and the pond takes 30-days to fill up, how many days does it take to be half full? 29 days. On 28th day, it's a quarter full. Day 20 the pond was just 0.1% full. If the full pond is 10,000 lilies, Day 20 is only 9 lilies! That's why countries are shutting down even when everything looks "normal" -- it's Day 20 normal.
What's really interesting is that virtue is also contagious in the same way. Only thing is that the opportunity-cost is not as clearly seen. If we saw it clearly, we'd cultivate as if our hair is on fire. :)
With virus pandemics, we respond to preserve our Self. With virtue pandemic, we respond to dissolve our Self.
Therein lies the challenge -- not having examined the Self.
Nisargadatta says, "Our indifference to our neighbor's sorrow brings suffering to our door." Once we see that, we would take virtue as seriously as a virus.
Keep Playing the Violin
Feb 10, 2020 | permalink
In London, Dagmar Turner plays violin during brain surgery to remove a tumor. Surgeons encouraged Turner, a classically trained violinist, to perform during the operation to ensure that the areas of the brain that control her ability to play violin would not be compromised. Operation was a success after that once-in-a-lifetime performance.
Made me think -- compassion works the same way. No matter what the circumstances or how serious the operation, let's keep playing that violin. :)
The Fourth Day
Feb 9, 2020 | permalink
In the early 90s, NASA sent a spider into space to explore how zero gravity affected web-building. Without her body weight as a guide, the spider wove misshapen webs for the first three days. But on the fourth day ... she returned to form with a near-perfect web!
In meditation, without the gravity of our flickering minds and sensual entertainment, those three days can feel like lifetimes. :) Yet, the fourth day is on the horizon.
Before a recent talk at SAP Engineering Academy, Ferose introduced me with his usual big heart. But he also shared a rejoinder of how we first met ...
I was speaking at Davos, and in the hotel shuttle one morning, four of us were sitting next to each other, knee to knee. The guy next to me was Adam Grant, and before we got off he sent off an email to connect. Years later, last month, I met Adam again -- and thanked him for the most important introduction of my life. With a big smile on his face, he goes on to ask me, "Do you think Nipun is a saint or a human?" I was taken aback and didn't know what to say. :) Then I replied, "I think he's human heading towards sainthood."
Apart from being flattering, :) I realized that is everyone's intro -- heading towards sainthood, Day 4.
Buddha on Emergence
Feb 8, 2020 | permalink
Buddha said, "What people expect to happen is always different from what actually happens. From this comes great disappointment. This is the way the world works."
We invest heavily in our plans when we are disconnected. Being disconnected, our reduced experience of life makes us think that events happen linearly and our personal effort has an oversized control over the outcome. We use confirmation bias to assert that operating principle, which only further compounds our disconnection. Actually each effect is an integral of so many causes, including our tiny bit. The tinier our bit gets, the more connected we are.
One of the teachings from the Gita that I always grew up with was: release the outcomes. At first, it requires faith; then it sounds so simple; but with practice, it poetically sums up so much of the path.
Interestingly, I read this Buddha quote in a book by Shaila Catherine. I saw her speak at an event, where loads of monks and particularly nuns, were excited to see her -- for a rare public appearance. We were part of the hosting committee, so I was way in the back and couldn't get a good look at her. Post event, also, I didn't see her. Then, at dinner, she ended up coming to my table and saying, "Is this seat taken?" We had a nice group chat, and we departed together and I felt moved to make a humble offering of a 3-minute cab ride to her next destination. At that time, I had no idea of the extent of her experiences -- as she describes in her book, after a lifetime of very serious cultivation, she experiences material life as "kalapas" -- the tiniest molecular matter that arises and passes millions of times per second. That's just the tip of the iceberg. No wonder all the monastics were excited to hear her!
What grace that we got to connect, and even more so, that I got to make a small offering to her. Completely unplanned, unexpected, unpredictable, non-linear -- and hence connected. :)
Addicted To Thinking
Feb 6, 2020 | permalink
I've always loved the Parable of the Fifth Monk, inviting us to go more upstream.
I sense that one of our upstream problems is that we're addicted to thinking. We feel that's the only modality of knowing, when really, it just keep us confined in the boundary of our mind.
I'm reminded of Ana, who once commented: "To be or not to be is not the question. It is merely a thought."
Truly Another Form Of Capital
Feb 5, 2020 | permalink
Recently, I met a gentleman who was quite successful in the corporate world. In our conversation, though, he opened up about some of his innermost conflicts -- "I have respect from family and peers, I own 35 properties, and yet, why am I still insecure?" We had a powerful conversation, that moved him to tears at various points, and had me in goosebumps at various points.
Today, he ended his email with this: "From today, I will do an act of kindness everyday ... till my last breath on this earth."
Truly another form of capital.
Gandhi 3.0 Retreat, 2020
Jan 21, 2020 | permalink
“I don’t know how I’m here, when my calendar for 2024 is getting quite full,” the chairman of a Bank ponders. The truth is that no one knows why they are here. And yet, the truth is also that everyone knows why they are here. In Dubai, a mom returned from her prayers and declared to her daughter, “You’ll get the visa.” In Missouri, a church minister said, “Every cell of my body, immediately and emphatically said yes. My mind is now busy crafting up justifications.” When a legendary entrepreneur from Tokyo gently mentioned, “Gandhi invited me”, no one realized that last May he would wake up each morning with Sanskrit chants on his lips.
Welcome to Gandhi 3.0 retreat. Many to many, leadership to laddership, broadcast to deepcast. Balancing the telescopic with the microscopic, the idea was to offer individual effort for awakening collective emergence.
40 luminaries of love, 30 volunteers, 10 days.
As Tim would later share, “We come from a dozen countries, but are citizens of the world. Our ages range from teens to 70s, but we’re as old as the cosmos -- 13.7 billion years old. We come from all faiths, but share one humanity. We come from 26 different professions, but all work with a heart of service. From all streams of life, we have come together with no agenda but love.”
When people lead with the universal, the synergy of their uniqueness naturally flows across all chasms. Not vice-versa.
President Obama’s general counsel who had drafted constitutions of entire countries is doing dishes with an anarchist that walked to the border of US-Mexico to plant a one Earth Flag. An investor trying to create a trillion-dollar impact fund is riveted by a conversation with two permaculturists from Vietnam who flatly state, “We live on 2 dollars a day, and we don’t want the third dollar.” A mother homeschooling her daughter is cracking jokes with a man who has an engineering school named after him at UC Berkeley. A fellow with a private jet is moved to tears hearing about the story of a young man at a call center who refused an unethical bonus. A former interrogator for the CIA bows down to a gentleman who was born at the Gandhi Ashram. Founder of one of the biggest social networks in the world takes a selfie with a nun from the Philippines.
For the first five days, we had optional immersions. The formal retreat would start in the subsequent five days. As things start to flow, though, all those lines get completely blurred -- lines between start and end, between participants and volunteers, between inner transformation and external impact, between fierce urgency of the now and radical trust in the ripple effect.
Take a look at the spontaneously created immersion video of the first five days:
“What was an unexpected encounter that altered the direction of your life?” That’s how we opened. On the second day, we spoke about the shift from transaction to relationships. The following day was themed around building bridges, as we ultimately crescendoed into oneness.
Moments of grace, unexpected encounters, don’t just change our lives -- they shape our lives. Among Dacher’s many accomplishments of cultural alchemy, he metamorphosed Facebook’s like button into a range of emoticons. That sounds fairly significant, yet when he reflects on an unexpected encounter, he remembers snow geese in Bhutan. “On a five thousand mile migration journey, hundreds of these snow geese went 6 kilometers out of their path to pay circumambulate a monastery in Bhutan. Seeing it as it happened, I had goosebumps, chills. I was sobbing. It changed my life.”
As we allow such grace to shape us, it deepens the way in which we relate in everyday life.
“People want me to write a book on finance, but what I really want to do is write a book on love,” Mark shares. For the past 13 years of his 31-year marriage, his wife has had deteriorating dementia. “I feel so grateful, because it’s like I’m on a first date everyday of my life. I’ve learned non-intellectual ways of loving that I didn’t know existed.” His external work is about decoupling power from money, and its path runs through relationships. “At one point, we brought borrowers and lenders together to determine their own interest rate. Once they got connected -- I have seen it with my own eyes -- borrowers would even offer higher interest when they felt that lenders needed it! We moved from interest to being interested.”
Stephanie, a member of Parliament in Austria, remembered how it was an incredible act of generosity from an elder member of Parliament, who withdrew her name from candidacy to “give a chance to a younger person.” That eventually led to her friend getting elected, who, just a few weeks ago, became the first refugee in Austrian history to become a minister.
As we were reflecting on the role of deeper relationships, we were imbued in a context of radical kindness. If someone somewhere overhears a way to make someone’s day, there’s a “secret service” that would immediately mobilize into action. A woman was in tears that her best friend just had a miscarriage, and in her room was an anonymous love letter to that unborn child. Sallyann mentioned how this was the only time in her life that she was away on her mother’s birthday, and lo and behold, everyone organized for a birthday song. Yuko remembered spinning cotton as a young mother in Japan, and the next morning, a spinning machine was at her doorstep. Compassion Intelligence Agency -- a different kind of CIA. :)
After a series of dramatic inner experiences, in such a sacred space, Bijan shared with tears: “Because of all of you, I am a better Muslim today.” Sister Migs, likewise, used to go to mass every morning and said, “Today, as Abid was driving me back from Church, I noticed a physically disabled Jain pilgrim being carried by others so he can continue his pilgrimage. It touched me deeply.” And it touched us deeply that a Muslim man was driving a Christian nun, and they were both reflecting on the sincerity of a Jain pilgrim.
The following day, we took on the juicy intersection between love and power. As every Harvard lawyer gets asked, what are the “wise restraints that make men free?” After a compelling presentation on the neuroscience of power, one participant asked: “I’m convinced that power corrupts, but what if I have power? If I give it away, am I not just corrupting someone else? What is the responsible way to hold power, without being disconnected with love?”
On two of the evenings, we had community nights where we invited some guest speakers and performances, alongside our community friends from around the country. On one of the nights, we had the remarkable privilege of listening to stories from Gandhi’s grandson -- Rajmohan Gandhi -- alongside various other talks and Nimo’s musical premiere! On another night, Prahlad Tipanya-ji wowed us with songs of Kabir at the Gandhi Ashram, while kids offered a remarkable Jai Jagat performance. By the end, we were all up in a giant group embrace, that reminded us about the power of building bridges and stepping into our oneness.
Courtesy of all-nighters by our media team, we already had a video before we had left the building:
Before one of the nights, we held a brainstorm about the Olympics. One of our participants happened to be an architect for the summer Olympics in Tokyo, and he asked us, “How can we bring these values onto the world stage?” In place of each country using the platform to showcase their own uniqueness, can Japan start a trend that leads with our shared universality? What if refugees lead with the flag? What would it take to design for compassion, over competition? How do we engage with 100 thousand volunteers in a way that sustains after the Olympics? Can we create a global arc with organizers of the Paris Olympics in 2024 and LA Olympics in 2028? It sparked a phenomenal series of ideas that is still continuing in various directions.
In such a setting, people think differently, they bridge easily, and they start to love effortlessly. It’s profoundly transformative. “I’ve been waiting my whole life for this,” Tsering said without hesitation. She wasn’t the only one to articulate that sense. “The retreat cracked me open and I never want to close up again,” David reflected.
Instead of delivering a talk on technology, Evan opted instead to offer a poem he had written for his 15 month old. “Only problem is that I don’t have an ending,” he joked. He shared an eloquent poem about the chasm between a gardener and a builder, and as he reached the climax of their polarity, he said, “Just an hour ago, I think I’ve found the ending.” And he read that ending:
“A key for a tree sounds good to me.
But what if first, we sit and have tea?
I’d like to know you before the day ends,
For I cannot go on without a good friend.”
The builder felt her heart melting, and she replied:
“Oh gardener thank you that puts me at ease
I am so sad that I killed all our trees.
I thought if you saw, that my house was snug,
It might mean that you’d come and give me a hug.”
This stunned the gardener.
So she’d really wanted to be friends all along?
He said to her:
“Oh builder, about the trees, please don’t feel sad!
Indeed your words fill me, and make me feel glad.
My friends the animals are quite wise
And they tell me that everything dies.
What matters is not death or life,
But rather that we get to live without strife.”
And the gardener replied:
“Then about our quarrel, let’s find a dove,
And instead let us live a life founded in love.”
During one of the visits to Gandhi’s prayer ground, Paulette had a profound experience. With deep poise and elegance, she later shared it from the very stage of the Gandhi Ashram: “I closed my eyes for a minute of silence and had a vision of Gandhi. ‘You must stand up,’ he said while lifting me up by the arm. ‘So many of us are behind you.’ While it was an experience I can’t forget for the rest of my life, I sense it was a message from Gandhi to all of us. The forces of love are eager to add wind beneath our sails.”
In India Next Month ... (Dec 2019)
Nov 18, 2019 | permalink
Dear ServiceSpace Friends in India,
It's been some time since I last emailed, but I trust you are well. On this end, I'm delighted to be in India next month and if our locations intersect, it would be a great joy to hug in person! :)
As many of you know, the work of ServiceSpace and MovedByLove is about creating solutions that lead with inner transformation over external impact. That implies a shift from singular transactions to multi-dimensional relationships to trust, which ultimately affords us personal and collective resiliency to respond to society's increasingly complex challenges. To build on that dialogue across various sectors, here's a few events you may like to join, apart from other masti :) ...
- In Mumbai, we are hosting a 2-day retreat on re-thinking impact and practices around leading with inner transformation. More broadly, on Dec 8th, we're hosting a public Awakin Talks event with some inspiring speakers -- including Dr. Vikram, who is creating a medical revolution while still owning just two pairs of clothes! RSVP here.
- In Delhi, apart from various public talks, we are also hosting a 'Deepening Social Change'; circle to dialogue on how we might create sustainable social change with non-financial incentives.
- In Baroda, where there are so many grassroots circles every week, the community is putting on an Awakin Talks gathering with inspired leaders, like a tree planter from Auroville and co-founder of MindTree corporation. Details about Dec 15th.
- In Hyderabad, we're hosting a "Code for Love" event, to rethink technology with values. Various CTO's are coming, but the real story here is the venue itself -- Anahad, started by Abid and Shabbar, two brothers who left Microsoft to build a farm and let the farm build them. Details here.
- In Surat, we are doing a weekend "Laddership" Immersion, which will feature Awakin Circle, Karma Kitchen, Laddership Retreat and more. Included will be a thousand person event on 'Compassion in Education', with Kiran Sethi, a life-long village teacher, and SEL educators from Romania! Learn more here.
- In Ahmedabad, we are hosting an international "Gandhi 3.0" gathering with some global luminaries. As a part of the retreat, we'll host two community nights -- featuring Kabir singer Prahlad Tipanya-ji and Gandhi's grandson Rajmohan-ji. Although our space is limited, those evenings will be open to friends from India -- like all of you. :) Apply here.
What Gandhi called Law of Love could even be called Law of Flow. When we give, even in the tiniest of ways, our shift from me-to-we ignites this flow and invites deep relationships. Wider our circle of generosity, stronger our flow and longer our bridges. And richer the field of emergence. Now, whatever small action we take is no longer just a isolated shot in the dark; it dances in concert with the winds of nature and thus triggers an unending ripple effect.
Looking forward to embracing this flow of love with all of you, and serving the web of life.
With flowing smiles, :)
Nipun
P.S. A recent reflection that you may enjoy: Gandhi And ServiceSpace.
The Silent Prayer In a Train
Jul 19, 2018 | permalink
It was a routine train ride. Berkeley to Fremont, and change from Fremont to Warm Springs. My Dad was going to pick me up, as we head to do our Wednesday family ritual of cooking together for the evening Awakin Circle.
On that second train ride, perhaps about a 10-minute ride, I sit on the train and am focused on finished up some reading on my cell phone.
Out of the corner of my eye, I notice a big, African American in an unusual posture. His back mostly straight, his palms were folded together in prayer mode, his index fingers on the tip of his nose. And his eyes closed. My original sub-conscious thought was, "What a sweet posture to rest in."
I ended up sitting in a seat where I could see him. The compartment is mostly empty, and hence quiet. My eyes are on my cell phone, but something about him is serenely arresting. Could he be praying?
5 minutes. 6 minutes, 8 minutes. His eyes are still closed, palms still folded.
Then, all of a sudden, I noticed something that was always there -- a mesh rug-sack that covered his lap. Because of the mesh, I could see what was inside. It was a whole bunch of plastic wrappers and what we might call trash.
Trash? Could it be that he was homeless?
This man, in broad daylight, was so focused on his contemplation that he never once opened his eyes.
Awakin reading for the evening circle was titled, "We Want Relief. Cure is Painful." It reminded me of a quote by Nisargadatt, "Pleasure puts us to sleep. Pain wakes us up." Between pleasure and pain, our life oscillates, until some glitch in the matrix orients our heart to a whole new axis, an axis of awakening.
I started praying with my friend. Really, we just had a couple of minutes before the final stop, but I figured that perhaps I could share my merits with him. Just invisibly lend a hand.
Train arrived. It was the final stop. Everyone had to get off.
By now, the feeling in my heart was clear: "Here is a man in pain. He could reach out for pleasure, but he's actually climbing a vertical axis. May all my strength become his strength."
As I exited the train compartment and crossed his seat, I started tearing up. I intended to go up to him and say, "Brother, could you use a little extra money?" And then offer him everything in my wallet.
But my friend is stays seated in his seat. His eyes are still closed. His palms are still folded. His heart was still doing a higher prayer.
We never said a word, or even looked at each other, but we prayed together. And in that, we became brothers.