Birds have always fascinated me. Apart from their melodious tweets, they impart a lot of important life lessons for us. I can spend a whole day admiring the birds in a garden or on the beach or a forest. The colours of the birds are spread across the spectrum of the rainbow. The singing of birds is always music to the ears.

Let me share my first lesson from the birds. They live the life like a gypsy. They neither have a permanent home nor they are bound to a particular place. They possibly live life in the best place which suits the weather and their bodies. They fly way to a new place when are not comfortable with their environs. They do not complain to anybody about their lives. They are ever willing to adapt themselves to the environment around them.

The second learning is that they are self dependant. They seem to do everything themselves. They fetch their own food, build their own nest and sing their own songs. They neither depend on others for anything in life nor blame others for their miseries in life. They seem to live life as if there is no tomorrow and what better lesson in building our attitude to life.

The next habit I admire in birds is their ability to plan their day and organise themselves. They get up at dawn with their songs, spend the day fetching their food and building their nests and end the day by getting back to their nest and sleeping before being told to do so. They are lucky that the ubiquitous mobile phones have not yet invaded their lives. They seem to be at peace with themselves at all times.

The art of communication is to be learnt from the birds. They sing their own melodies. They effectively communicate to their peers and family members without making any excess noise like we humans do. They do not disturb other birds while they are communicating to each other. Their language seems simple and effective.

I am also a fan of the cleanliness of birds. While they may pick up things from all around them, they put things in their place. If you visit their nest, you realise how painstakingly they have been designed. If you touch their nests, they do not like it and never return to that place for fear of being attacked by humans. They may not be trained in 5S or other Japanese techniques of housekeeping but teach us life lessons that everything has a place in life.

When they fly high in the sky, they seem to carry all other peers along. It is always fascinating to see a flock of birds flying in the sky. They carry everyone along and cooperate rather than compete with each other to reach their destination. The leader ensures that others are following them and they have a pattern of flying to ensure that they are not attacked and they are guarded from all sides.

I wonder why we do not spend enough time to learn our life lessons from the birds, animals and plants around us every day. Today I am lucky that I decided to reflect on the life lessons from the birds. This has made me think and introspect on life. It may help us to think of one animal, bird or plant around us every week and wonder what we could learn from them. This may be easier since we find it difficult to learn from other human beings around us.

Nature teaches us every day in every way.

S Ramesh Shankar

7th November 2018

Every festival teaches us some life lessons. I was wondering what the Festival of Lights can teach us. First we need to understand that it is celebrated across India by the name “Deepavali” but it has different folk lores. In the south of India and parts of west and east of India it is celebrated for the killing of demons called Narkasur & Mahisasur by the Gods. On the other hand in most of north India, it is celebrated as the return of Lord Rama from the forest after serving a 14 year deportation term.

Either way it is celebrated with the bursting of crackers , creative expression of design forms on the entrance of homes called rangoli and lighting of lamps to decorate homes. In the south of India it is celebrated at dawn and in the north it is celebrated at dusk. Either way the decorative lamps and the bursting of fire crackers transforms the environment from darkness to light.

Diwali or Deepavali as it is called is the Festival of Lights, colourful rangolis and bursting of crackers. It signifies the victory of good over evil and the return of a popular king to his people. While most of the traditions of the past continue with festive fervour, the lessons of this wonderful festival is forgotten in some way.

In my view one of the best learnings one can carry from the Festival of Lights is cleaning your home and your mind. Every household spends a lot of time in cleaning their home, painting them and decorating them much before the festival arrives. It may also be a good time to clean our minds of the unwanted memories stored in them. While we may be superficially cleaning our homes today, it is a great opportunity to make our environs more hygienic and our minds clearer and more peaceful.

Another important lesson one can learn from this festival is to enlighten ourselves and bring light into the life of others. This is an opportunity to transform ourselves. We can sit back and reflect on our own lives. We can bring fresh thinking into our minds and let our inner selves to get more illuminated. This festival also gives us an opportunity to bring light into the lives of other human beings by being of some help to them. In a way, we can illuminate the life of others through our deeds.

The third and the most important significance of this festival is to drive away evil thoughts from our mind. The bursting of crackers today may be polluting the environment due to the chemicals used in them. But, the spirit of this practise was more to drive away the demons and welcome the good in us. While we have fervently continued to burst crackers, we have forgotten the purpose of it and the spirit of this ritual.

We tend to remember the physical part of the rituals and practise them. We conveniently forget the spirit and purpose of these rituals. It may be time to reawaken ourselves. It may be the right time to kindle our spirits. We need to enlighten ourselves by living the rituals in letter and spirit.

It is time to clean our environment as much as our minds. It is time to think afresh and forget all the bad memories of the past. It is an opportunity to forgive the people who have hurt us and befriend them again. The joy of forgiveness is to be experienced to be believed. This way we can enlighten ourselves as much as bring light into the life of others around us.

Time to enlighten ourselves is today.

S Ramesh Shankar

7th November 2018

A friend of mine asked me as to why people in general throng to God men or God women alike cutting across religions. I said I really dont know but could be because most people who have some weakness need an emotional anchor to cover it up.

I find the rich and the famous thronging to religious leaders of all faiths. This could be because they have grown their wealth but lost out on their health – physical or mental. On the other hand, the common men and women also throng to these spiritual leaders – may be to seek what they have not achieved in life so far with a short cut.

All of us aspire for something in life. We work hard and also trust our luck to get us where we want to reach. But sometimes, either our luck or lack of efforts does not take us there. Then we possibly take refuge to God men or women to accelerate our path to success.

We may also look at these religious leaders to be an emotional anchor in our lives. Many of us do not have real family members or friends to support us although we have many in the social network. Then we get swayed to these leaders to seek emotional refuge.

On the other hand, sometimes we are stuck with consecutive tragedies in life and then we lose faith in ourselves, others and even in the super power, we seek refuge somewhere. It is at this time that the religious leaders take full advantage of our emotional weakness and mesmerise us to follow them blindly. We are willing to give away our wealth, health and even happiness to listen to them in every way.

In a democracy, every individual has a right to pursue whatever she or he wants. I have nothing against God women or God men. However, what I am against is their uncanny ability to exploit a human emotional weakness. They prowl around and catch hold of women and men in distress who are seeking an emotional support.

One thing I must admit that these Godmen and God women have something in them. They either have assimilated knowledge in their area of expertise or the gift of the gab. They also develop magical mystic and through their hypnotic powers are able to impress and sway their followers into blind disciples. Then these disciples in turn become their brand ambassadors. We possibly have an opportunity to learn from this strength of theirs.

In my life so far, I have met only one religious leader who did not follow this path. He was simple in living, high in thinking and attracted followers through his simple living and high spiritual powers. He neither sought wealth nor encouraged his followers to bestow their wealth on him. He never used cars, airplanes or material wealth of his followers to establish his credentials. That made him a real Guru.

On the other hand, all the others I have met in life so far have made religion a business. They not only have amassed wealth in the name of religion but travel around almost like a tycoon and wield their political power for other than religious or spiritual reasons.

As in the photo above, the kid displays how most Godmen or God women have misled people more than they have led.

I do envy these fake gurus who are making religions a business and feel sad for their gullible followers who seek refuge in them to get over their own emotional crises in life.

Is it time to discover who can be our real guru in life ?

S Ramesh Shankar

9th Feb 2021