In this blog , I would like to share my personal story and the powerful influence of yoga in my life.
My Short Story - My driving force - Where I come from….
I belong to a very humble family from a remote town of Tamil
Nadu. As per my parent wishes, in the mid 80’s; I joined a reputed engineering
college from which many popular personalities such as the former president
Abdul Kalam had graduated. I built up my wonderful engineering career in Tatas
in the late 80’s and moved on to Singapore, Belgium & Britain to expand my
exposure in the engineering field. I roamed around the world covering half the
countries in the world map for about 2 decades. Finally, I returned back to
India in search of my lost identity in the year 03 & helped MNCs to set up
businesses in the famous IT hubs of Bangalore. As a person in the industry, I
was very aggressive, a ‘go-getter’ & a very rational minded fellow, ready
to jump in and risk myself to generate revenue for the business.
As a byproduct of the above development, I had a handsome
pay cheque which was multifold by industry standards in comparison to that of
similar people in the same profession. I had a hefty bank balance, complete
financial freedom, cars, great villas in Bangalore and other places & other
perks like club memberships etc, offered in the society because of my corporate
title. Another byproduct was on my Health condition which initially appeared to
me as a nasty setback but after few years, I realized that it was nothing but a
blessing in disguise. My bad health darkened my world by 87%. Yes, you guessed
it correctly. I started developing a bad hazy poor eye sight because of the
malfunctioning of my human internal engineering system. This happened to me to
setup a beautiful platform to experience the ‘liveliness’ of life.
My regular routine of meeting the same kind of
people, thinking the same kind of thoughts, and doing the same kind of stuff
had conditioned my mind in a way that created the environment which was always
a WIN in the business. But, it was a terrible LOSS to my health. Family,
friends, society & parents have created a ‘default’ path because of their
conditioning and we all believe that the secret to become successful is to
follow the path that has already been set: Going to a good college, getting a
great GPAs, becoming an employee of some great company, building your own
mansion, raising your kids with all kinds of facilities & living happily
ever after. So, due to this conditioning, I started following the same path and
landed in a conflicting ‘nowhere zone’ .In spite of this development, I set the
same path for my kids, raised my daughters, put them in great schools, expected
great grades from them, let them get employed & married to
someone who is most probably again a product of
this ‘default’ path as well. This model of living has been passed on from
generation to generation and thus, has been imposed on us, Now, the question is
– “Has this given us the kind of happiness which we are really looking for?”
In my opinion, the answer is a definite NO, at least based
on my experience. This is because; this is an externally forced goal which has
been set on me and which honestly led me nowhere. Now, I have realized that
this is a conditioned state that has been imposed on us by the society.
Otherwise, almost all of us who follow this conventional model would have by
default lived happily every day.
As the platform established firmly for me, I started
changing my priorities in my life and had set a STRONG DESIRE to become
Healthy. I started looking around and used every resource available at that
time to get the right solution. I spent a lot of time researching on the human
body, its physiology & psychology aspects and I continued to dig deeper
into these areas; only one thing had become very clear to me. “ This human
system is DAMN complicated . “So, my inner energy guided me to follow the holistic
approach and that was the reason, I picked up this 5000 years old ancient
wisdom called Yoga. Initially, when someone explained about chakras, it was
like an alien language & didn’t make any sense to me. As I explored
further, I realized that these chakras are located exactly where the endocrine
glands are present. As known to you, these glands control the entire hormonal
system. Medical science evolved just a few hundred years ago but yogic science
had identified this concept thousands of years ago. This had really BLOWN AWAY
my mind and set the rhythm to go deeper into this science. As I explored &
practiced further, the interaction of the body & the mind, the play of
emotions & feelings became crystal clear to me. As I continued further the
practices, tremendous changes happened within me.
“DESIRE should be really STRONG for a change to happen.
Again, I repeat the word STRONG”
“Pick the goodness of whatever offered from outside but go
by the internal force which originates from you. Things WORK GREAT.”
Within a period of few months, my
excessive weight (close to 30Kg) radiated out into the space & I had become
lighter. My inner world changed dramatically leading to the magnificent changes
in my perception of the external world. It was like a BIG LEAP JUMP & all
of a sudden, I was in a state of expansiveness and thrown to live in a
completely different world. People around me, my neighbours & friends
started to see difference in my external appearance. Some general questions
from them were,” How have you changed?”
What is the secret? How have you
become younger? How did you change your
grey hair to black? , Some said, “You are a damn lucky person”. But, what they
failed to notice were my invisible INTERNAL CHANGES. Day by day, I started
experiencing tremendous happiness, my immunity system boosted up multifold and
words like ‘doctor’ & ‘disease’ lost its meaning in me. I started
experiencing multifold increase in my wealth and health & many different
people from different walks of life (from taxi driver to CFO, MDs of the
companies) started coming to me. As I started to see a very different world
around me because of the goodness which people brought to me & hence, I
started to experience MERE BLISS.
Again back to the topic of ‘conditioned Model ‘ , as I live
now, I can say that at least from my experience, it is not an ideal model ,as
happiness is not at the end of the journey as depicted but is in the experience
of the journey itself. The actual goal of human being is experiencing each and
every moment of life, understanding the value of each brand new day as it
unfolds & living to his highest potential by understanding and experiencing
the true meaning & purpose of life. My goals have been sharply redefined
after my transformation & all of a sudden life’s mission has become crystal
clear in HIGH DEFINITION to me. For the first time in life, I felt a razor
sharp focus that has generated every day, avalanche of goodness not only in my
life but in the life’s of people around me. I have now realized that happiness
is an innate state of my being itself and is etched clearly in my DNA.
“Changes in my internal world and my mindset have changed my
body, health & so my external reality.”
“Whatever changes we try to do to
the body, on the long run body always WIN& get back to equilibrium. So,
just align to this higher intelligence which governs the body.”
My journey still continues. I don’t know how the destination
is going to be at the end and I don’t really care about that but all I know now
for sure is that the journey is beautiful. Please visit
http://www.gigayoga.com/aboutus.html to read my transformations at Physical,
mental & emotional Levels.
My core values & belief systems have changed
dramatically because of the above transformation. Let me summarise here my
learning, values & my faith in few lines.
1. STRONG desire is important for a CHANGE. 2. Use the
goodness of whatever offered from outside but go by the internal force which
originates from me. Things WORK GREAT. Let the external flow or the force of
the society not influence me. 3. Changes in my internal world and my mindset
have changed my body, health & so my external reality. 4. Human system,
especially the internal stuff is damn complicated. It is a life long journey to
explore this human machine & is very fascinating. 5. Whatever we do, on the
long run the winner is higher intelligence. So, just align to this higher
intelligence. 6. Happiness is our true nature of our ‘self’ but we were taught
to look for the favorable result on every outcome of our actions to become
happy. When the expected outcome is not conducive, we become sad. The locus of
happiness is internal. 7. Life is so short. We live only 29,000 days of our
life out of billion years of human evolution. So, I live everyday to my best so
that I move one step closer to my clear well focused goal, making my existence
meaningful & purposeful. 8. If I do the same stuff, same work, deal with
same people, think the same type of thoughts then I get the SAME RESULT. My
thought process has evolved for good, I am now engaged in work which I always have
loved to do & I am meeting wide varieties of people from different
backgrounds. This is really a GOOD STUFF.
“My thought process has evolved for good. I am now engaged
in work which I have always loved to do & I am meeting wide varieties of
people. This is really a GOOD STUFF.”
As I complete this write-up with thanks to both my daughters
for correcting my erratic English, I wish to express a BIG thanks to the saints
who had taken Yoga to the western world in the early 19th century. Yoga has
reached the length & breath of the world just because of the extraordinary
marketing capability of the western world especially America. Because of them,
Yoga had reached my ignorant mind at that time when I was badly in need of a
solution otherwise yoga would have lived in India as a hidden treasure known
only to a handful of people. I am pretty sure that in India the land of wisdom,
has many more such hidden treasures which are beyond the reach of the common
man. Big question: Where are the marketing teams for the other hidden treasures
to get exposed? But, all I can say for sure now is that I am damn lucky that my
soul has taken a root in this present birth in the land of great ancient
wisdoms.
So, join in and take the incredible path to this great
journey &I can say that this is really GREAT STUFF. JUST GO FOR IT to
create a more meaningful, Healthier& happier life. I AM WITH YOU ON THIS
JOURNEY.
