Tag: God

Personal Crisis


Today I met a young colleague, who is going through a personal crisis.  Her father is seriously unwell and bed ridden at home.  Her father in law is hospitalised and is in a serious condition.  She and her husband have been going through this crisis for the last two years.  She was heart broken and was not sure how to handle such a situation.  “Why me ? ” is a question she asked and I had no answer.

I listened to her patiently and shared some of the crisis I have gone through in life.  We can neither share the pain nor give her any advise in this situation.  Many of us have grown through such situations in life. Each of us may have faced a different type of crisis in life.  When we are going through a crisis, we have no tears to shed and no advice to follow.  In most situations, you have to face it alone and the journey is ardous.

Most of us wonder why me ?  Why is God so cruel to us ?  What did I do wrong to face such a situation ?  We have no answers and may be many more questions ?  While we may ask many of our friends and well wishers, we have no solutions.  It is in these situations, you can really know the genuine people in your life.  Your own relatives may behave differently and your so called friends may move away from you.

One may almost lose hope in life.  There could be days where you may like to talk to God and tell him that he is being unfair.  You even lose faith in God.  It is at this time, it may useful for us to keep faith in ourselves and our good deeds in life.  May be God is testing our patience and He is expecting us to lose our faith in Him.  But, we should never lose faith in ourselves and hope in life.

Hope is like water.  It will always quench our thirst.  It is in this phase of our life, we tend to recognise the authentic people in our lives.  Some of them who we thought were close to us may lose significance in our lives by their displayed behaviour during this crisis.  But, we have to keep our faith in ourselves.  We have to be grateful to the people who helped us during this crisis for the rest of our lives.

God bestows us with the courage to face this crisis.  She will support us with the resources we need to overcome this phase of our life.  Such incidents make us stronger and wiser in life.  The people who listen to us and help us wade through such crises are God in human form.  We have to respect them, love them and be grateful to them.

It may also be useful to realise that there are millions of people in the world, who may be facing much tougher crisis than us.  They may have much lesser resources to deal with their issues.  We may consider ourselves lucky to be able to face the crisis and deal with it by ourselves.  If married, we may be grateful to our spouse for being with us and enabling each other to be brave and helpful during this phase of our life.

Life is journey and we may have good days and bad days and ultimately we do fulfill our goals by our own means and that gives us happiness.

Let us live life as it comes. We need to remember that there is sunrise after every sunset.

S Ramesh Shankar

The Invisible Power


    I am not sure if I believe in God or not. But, I do believe there is an invisible power, whatever you may call it. I have experienced many a time that something happens in life, where you do not have a logic for it.  

     I had planned to visit a temple near Jammu many times,when I lived in Delhi but it never materialised. However after I moved to Bangalore and tried again it worked. So, although I lived in Delhi for 5 years, every time I planned for it, it misfired.

    Similarly, I planned a holiday to a resort near Lonavala. This plan got cancelled thrice for some reason or the other.  It  is just 100 kilometres away from Mumbai, where I stay but this also did not click.

    On the other end, we sometimes do not plan for something and it happens. I always enjoyed listening to music in my life although I have no knowledge of it.  I always dreamt of buying a good music system. I used to visit a showroom and look at the system and return home since I could not afford it. I did this for many years but somehow felt one day I will have that at my home. It took many years to realize that dream. But, it did happen. What I believed was a utopian dream but did become a reality in my life.

    Sometimes, you think of someone and that person calls you. Is this a miracle ? I do not know. Some may call it telepathy or intuition.  I think it is that Invisible power. 

    I always had a dream of living in a house facing the sea.  For most of my work life, I did not stay near the sea.  Then when I did work in a city near the ocean,  I could not find a house nearby.  I had almost felt that I will never get a chance to live this dream.  But, after 30 years into my career, I got a chance to move to Mumbai.  This time I was lucky to get a company flat, where I get to admire the sea almost on three sides of my flat.  Now, I have been privileged to live in this flat for the last five years.  I get to admire nature every day in my life. As in the photo above, this is the beautiful view of the sea I admire every day today. 

     I always had a dream of buying a house and settling down in Bangalore.  I first tried in 1992 but it did not work.  But life did take me to Bangalore to work in 2005 and this invisible spirit made my dream a reality in 2007.

     Every time an incident like this happens in your life, you wonder why it happens ? Some may call this divine. Others may call it luck or chance or even destiny. I would call it the “Invisible spirit” in your life.  You may refer to this spirit as God. It does not matter which religion you follow, the feeling is the same.

     Many a time in life we find it difficult to believe what we see around us.  Hence, it is much more  difficult to believe  what is invisible. The visible things around us stare at us and make a physical impact whereas the things we cannot see make a spiritual impact and hence may be difficult to experience and believe.

    It may be this reason that all faiths lead us to the same destination. 

 S Ramesh Shankar

“Man proposes – God disposes”


We may sometimes wonder as to why things don’t go the way we had planned. Some call it destiny, while others divinity. One may neither believe in destiny nor in divinity but it is true that every time life does not take us where we want to go. It may lead us sometimes to a better destination and sometimes not.  

   When things go well for us, we tend to believe that it is all because of our hard work and so on. But, when things go wrong, we are ready to blame God and even others in our life for making life difficult only for us. In my view, it is either of the extremes, which makes it difficult for us to accept life as it comes to us.  

   I do believe that our hard work would normally take us to where we want to go. Hence, it may be a good idea to work hard and be honest in whatever we do to the best of our ability. But sometimes, God may divert our direction to somewhere we do not want to go but may be good for us. One may call this destiny or luck. It does not matter. I think it is our ability to accept things as they evolve and adapt ourselves to the fortunes of life, which would make it easier for us.  

   I have many incidents in my life where I had planned something and something else happened. For instance, I always had a dream of building my home in Bangalore, where I eventually plan to settle down post retirement from work. My job took me to Bangalore in 2005. I bought a flat in 2007 and I thought I had settled down. In 2011, life took a turn in my career and brought me to Mumbai, which I had never planned. I got an exciting job and moved. I still plan to settle in Bangalore. But, this turn in my career and location made me build a beautiful green home of my dreams in Bangalore. Hence, I believe that whatever happens to us is good for us. I am a born optimist and hence believe in this. Of course, when things do not go our way, we may find it difficult to accept the realities of life. But, in hindsight, if we reflect, it may have been good for us too.

   Another incident in my life which turned my destiny was a denial of a promotion way back in 1988. I was not promoted and it really shattered me. I always believed like all of us that I was the most deserving and had worked hard to earn my promotion. When my junior was promoted ahead of me, I felt God was unkind to me. However, today in hindsight, it may have been the best thing to happen in my life. Six years later, I decided to quit a secure public sector job after working there for 14 years and rose in my career as per my dreams. Today life has taken me to where I have always dreamt to be.  

   Thus all these incidents – good or bad may not be planned but it happens. One may call it fate. I would say – ” Man proposes – God disposes”.

S Ramesh Shankar