Today I got up in the morning listening to the chirping of birds. It was an apt reminder to me to be with nature. I live in a home which is surrounded by nature. Yet I have not yet realised the beauty of nature.

Then I fed the fish and found that although there are seven fishes in my aquarium they do not fight with each other when I put in their morning feed. They take their quota and peacefully leave it for the others to have their food. We need to learn to live and let live like the fish.

Then it was the street cat visiting us. As my wife fed her milk. She not only had it herself but shared with her sibling. The lesson learnt was that we need to share our resources with people around us. It is possible that we are bestowed with more resources than we need. It is time to share.

Everything in nature is inspiring. We can learn all our lessons in life just by quietly observing nature. The self sufficiency of trees or the kindness or the generosity of animals around us. Each of them have something to share and it is up to us to observe and learn.

I looked at the birds chirping and waking me up from my bed. Unlike the alarm jarring in my ears and my pouncing on it so that I can have a short snooze again, the birds inspired me to get up. It reminded me that my sleep was enough and it was time for me to enjoy the beauty of the morning and get on with the chores of the day.

Today with all the technology in the world assisting us in every walk of life, we are drifting away from nature. We can realise this from morning to night. Unlike the birds waking us up, today it is AI in the form of Alexa or google chrome that  wakes us up. Unlike the morning stroll in the forest or amongst the trees, today it is the tread mill where we aimlessly jog just to prove to ourselves that we are exercising.

Every aspect of life has become unnatural. I am a great fan of technology but instead of enabling us to be better human beings it has possibly made us lazier and less natural. This possibly has an impact on our behaviour as well.

Unlike the fish or the cats which were willing to share with others and were selfless, we are self centred most of the time. We are oblivious of our surroundings and our neighbours. In cities, we do not know most of our neighbours most of the time unless there is a crisis.

In my view all this is possibly because we have moved away from nature. It is time to get back to nature. It is time to live naturally. The movements to recycle things in life is a positive step. The segregation of organic and inorganic waste is also a good step. We need to reduce and possibly eliminate the inorganic waste in our lives. I remember as a child we recycled waste within our homes as all of it was organic.

Let us resolve to be in touch with nature and get inspired by it as my friend is seen in the photo above. Let us lead by example so that our future generations will lead a better quality of life.

S Ramesh Shankar

2nd June 2019

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