DO YOU TEND TO BE HOLIER THAN THOU ?

1. People whose lives are guided very strictly by religious and moral rules tend to appropriate goodness to themselves, because of a belief that they are the upholders of the system.
2. Symptoms of this syndrome are a compulsive urge to use the rules as a bludgeon to strike down ideas and to justify their own actions, by projecting that God himself is on their side and therefore whoever does not fall in line with their thinking is the devil incarnate !
3. Of course it is another matter that they might privately violate moral and religious norms with much compunction and with a lot of rationalising, or might conveniently confess or wash away their sense of socially imposed guilt, although external rules are conducive to hypocrisy and breached more easily than rules which are internalised, because it is easier to cheat the system than to cheat oneself !
4. When we feel incline to call another person or group immoral because they do not subscribe to our rules, it is important to remind ourselves that everyone is moral and have their own norms, values and moral perspectives.
5. We need to check the impulse to invest our sense of morality with absoluteness, because a lot of conditioning, rationalising and ego-protection is mixed up with every individual's sense of right or wrong, and when you adopt the superior posture of seeing the other as a sinner, you lay yourself open to the sin of pride in virtue.
6. This is the holier than thou feeling which leads to judgements and condemnation which have no sanction in the spirit of any religion, and the realised soul is one who is able to rise beyond pride in virtue, because it is the compassionate and the humble who inherit inner peace.
7. When we label people as sinners or evil, we not only thrust a negative image on them which is totally untrue, but we also say a lot about ourselves, where the orthodox are more inclined to such judgements because of a curious belief that they are on God's side, merely because they subscribe to the law!
8. If you are inclined to look philosophically at the principles of Good and Evil, both are present in the universe and in you, and should lead you to think how consciously you have chosen good over evil, and how steadfast you have been, because no one is evil incarnate in any case.
9. Holiness itself can be a trap, particularly if it is not based on introspective soul-searching, as you come across a lot of people who are regular shrine goers, who observe all the rituals and external manifestations of their faith, but they seldom visit the shrine deep inside their psyche - in which God is often not worshipped.
10. Worshipping at marble-and-gold shrines is no substitute for the worship of God which is inherent in the tribute we pay him through truthfulness to our inner selves.
11. Holiness can also be an ego trip, often expressed as I am holier than you because I worship daily or go to places of worship ritually, although such attitudes are often sanctified by organised religion with dichotomies which promise heaven to the believer and consign non-believers to hell.

ARE YOU A PRISONER OF TRADITION AND ROUTINE ?

1. In large countries like India, tradition is invested with sanctity, because there is a tendency to believe that the way things are or have been done is the best way to do it, and tradition is invoked to shoot down creative ideas and bold initiatives.
2. What is so obviously stupid to an outsider is justified as our way of doing things, which is more harmful to us than to anyone else, because people with ideas will either go elsewhere or settle for the accustomed ritual and destroy themselves.
3. It is one thing to go through a routine with the awareness that you are using it to regulate your time, but it is quite another thing to be trapped in routine and have one's life controlled by it.
4. Routine can so thoroughly take over our lives that we even get tired at a particular time of day as a matter of mental habit, but watching this predictibility in others could help alert us before we become robots ourselves.
5. In a fast changing world, rigidity of habit and mind can be unhelpful, and flexible is of the essence, because rigidity tends to store up tensions when our schedule is upset, and it also leaves us unprepared mentally to handle changes and emergencies.

DO YOU HAVE A JAUNDICED WORLDVIEW ?

1. We find it convenient to classify and categorize people because it provides us shortcuts to make quick judgements about new people we meet and so on.
2. When the classification is inclusive, then there is less danger of prejudice, though the tendency to find similarities can blind us to the uniqueness of another person.
3. It is a common human failing however to take a jaundiced eye-view of those who are not like us, with such generalisations being based primarily on limited exposure and on obvious differences in behaviour, etiquette, customs, etc., which we come across in members of another group.
4. In keeping with widespread childhood conditioning, the adjectives we choose reflect our disapproval or bias of certain aspects of behaviour which is not consonant with ours.
5. It is obvious that the judgements we pass on other groups largely reflect our inability to respect their members' individuality and only show up our biases.
6. Once we realize how we are using global terms to condemn entire communities or groups, then we could develop the humility to pause before calling sombody bad or petty or cunning.
7. Even when there is reason to find a particular behaviour irksome or reprehensible, we could still pause to examine how much of it is really our internal bias, and we could also restrict censure to the behaviour instead of condemning the person.
8. The jaundiced paradigm blinds us to the multi-dimensionality of every individual, including ourselves.
9. Pejorative descriptions are not just unfair to the target, they are more unfair to onself, as it shuts the doors of our mind to the happiness and wisdom to be found in rich relationships with other people.
10. In recognising the worth and multi-facetedness of others, we reinforce our own sense of worth and meaning.

ARE YOU MR. KNOW ALL ?

1. When you find a person who is so full of himself that he seeks to bring every viewpoint and argument round to his personal point of view, you have met Mr. Know All.
2. Using this paradigm as a takeoff, you could examine whether there are areas in which your considerable (considerably little) knowledge makes you behave like one, because it is those who are not aware of their ignorance who tend to show arrogance in their little knowledge.
3. People often seem to labour under the false belief that they know all that is needed for their existence, and like to project an image of versatility, wide-knowledge and all-round competence, which often results in the further belief that they must be right and gives them the authority to keep others down.
4. However, this blocks their own prospects for learning and growth by assuming that they must appear all-knowing and always right.
5. Little knowledge makes one more stubborn in defending it, aided further by our basic sense of insecurity and fear of vulnerability, but we should realize that ignorance is only a matter of degree, and those who pretend to know, close the door on learning.

TIME IS PRECIOUS

To realize the value of:-

ONE YEAR - Ask a student who failed in the annual exam

ONE MONTH - Ask a mother who gave birth to a pre-mature baby

ONE WEEK - Ask an editor of a weekly magazine

ONE DAY - Ask a daily wage labourer

ONE HOUR - Ask lovers who are waiting to meet

ONE MINUTE - Ask a person who has missed his train

ONE SECOND - Ask the person who escaped from an accident

ONE MILLISECOND - Ask an athlete who missed a gold medal

THE NOBLE EIGHT-FOLD PATH

1. Correct understanding, views, outlook, appraisal, judgement.

2. Correct aims, motives, plans, considerations, decisions.

3. Correct use of speech.

4. Correct behaviour, conduct and actions.

5. Correct livelihood, definitive unselfish, sensitive and useful role in life.

6. Correct effort in doing some good work.

7. Corect intellectual activity and study.

8. Correct contemplation.

SMILE

Smile costs nothing, but:-
Its memory lasts forever
It enriches those who receive
It creates happiness in the home
It fosters goodwill in a business
It can never be bought, begged, borrowed or stolen
It's the sign of friendship
It's rest to the weary
It's sunshine to the sad
It's daylight for the distraught
It's antidote for trouble
It's good only when it is given away
And
It's most needed by those who have no smile left to give

OWN UP RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR BEHAVIOUR

1. When we feel the compulsive urge to control others due to our conditioning, it is because we are ourselves controlled by the conditioning in the first place, and which can leave us feeling emotionally and spiritually empty.
2. This awareness should help us to be compassionate towards ourselves and accept our weaknesses and vulnerability, which will give us the freedom to learn to choose and decide, instead of blaming others for irritating us, and our compulsive one track will be replaced by a sense of humour, by creativity and joy in life.
3. When we own up responsibility for our behaviour, we also own up responsibility for the consequences and thus take charge of our lives, instead of blaming the world or others and allowing external factors to take control of our lives.
4. Committing yourself to a full life starts with a belief in oneself and encompasses family, work, impersonal relationships and so on, which help you to look at difficulties and even catastrophic events as challenges and opportunities.
5. Externally controlled persons are less competent at coping with problems than those who have internalised their control, which makes for more flexibility, creativity, hardiness and emotional immunity, enabling you to handle life's problems and challenges more confidently, though you may not win always.
6. If you feel controlled or feel like reacting impulsively, put the situation in a larger perspective and you will be able to shake of the control of the emotion, thereby bringing your creativity back in play.
7. The need to impress others is another form of externalised control because there is no end to trying to be what others expect you to be, as different people might have different expectations from you, whereas your goal should be to be yourself and be liked for what you are.
8. When you assume responsibility for your thinking and your actions, you are more open to people and situations by becoming flexible, and your choices and decisions are made out of awareness rather than ignorance.
9. On the other hand, if you get conditioned by a successful way of doing things, it can curtail your ability to respond to changing situations with new initiatives, and control will then control you unless you take charge.

DO YOU EXPECT THE WORLD TO DANCE TO YOUR TUNE?

1. Most of us want things to go our way always, which is why we react with unreasonable anger when this doesn't happen, and in the bargain, we pile up a lot of stress and tension for ourselves.
2. People often irritate us because they do not behave as we would like them to, and we feel frustrated about our inability to control them, but by accepting a simple fact of life, that the world does not dance to our tune, we could choose not to get irritated.
3. The real problem is not that others try to irritate us by seeking to control or provoke us, but that we choose to react with irritation, which really is not in our interests.
4. Instead of being reactive, we could choose any number of initiatives to deal effectively with the problem - including telling the other person where to get off, or choosing not to react or even avoiding the person - and since the choice would be very much our own, it would be devoid of the emotional overload asscociated with conditioned responses.
5. People do not irritate us - we irritate ourselves either by being reactive, or because of a perceived failure to control the world, or because we are not really in charge of ourselves - and so when others do not respond the way we want them, we should take a good look at ourselves.
6. If you feel controlled and manipulated, then tell yourself you will do what is right and not be led by the whims, strategies and manipulations of others, by looking inwards for value judgements, and our sense of self-worth will automatically deny others the power which they wielded over us.
7. Other people control your behaviour because you allow them to, but when you take charge of your life, you are not unduly affected by the praise or disapproval of people around you, because you are guided by a core of values and standards of excellence which you have set for yourself.
8. Far too many people are easily swayed by group think and the crowd instinct, as popular sentiments are easily manipulated being a universal psychological fact, so it is important to be able to do your own thinking and take your own decisions in order to keep yourself from being manipulated.
9. Impatience with others can be a form of control, and excessive and irrational impatience is a kind of power game intended to give the other person short shrift, but true concern for another person calls for patience and encouraging the other to come up with initiatives, and this reflects a greater sense of maturity besides protecting you from being rushed by other people and their imperatives.
10. Respecting another person's independent growth reinforces the commitment to one's own growth and also alerts you to the danger of being controlled, however insidiously, by the most well-meaning friend or well-wisher.
11. Even those of us who are laid back can find ourselves under considerable internal pressure, and people with closed paradigms in particular feel a compulsive urge to keep themselves in check, to follow a particular regime, etc.
12. Tey become compulsive disciplinarians - they want others to conform to their patterns of behaviour - and when this doesn't happen, the pressure builds into stressful and tiring tension, besides making one's behaviour totally predictable.
13. Watching the control mechanism at work inside us can lead to significant initiatives for letting go, for accepting dissappointments and truances from others, and from easing the pressure on oneself by rsisting the urge to judge and to generalise.

DO COMPARISONS CONTROL YOUR LIFE?

1. It is a part of the control paradigm to want to feel superior to a rival or to one's peers, but an objective appraisal could lead to graceful acceptance of the areas of competence and excellence in a rival, without feeling inferior for that reason, because after all one has one's own areas of potential and excellence as well.

2. People with a healthy sense of the self do not allow themselves to be controlled by comparisons, set their own standards of excellence, do not seek to get their children to conform to popularly accepted notions of scholastic performance, just so that other people might approve, and allow their children's personality to flower by valuing their individuality, their style and their pace.

3. Parents often handicap their chldren by speaking disparagingly or apologetically about their indifferent or poor academic performance, but the damage caused to the self-esteem of such youngsters could affect their prospects of picking up on their studies at their own paceor growing into areas of performance for which the school provides no avenues.

4. Parents who have a high level of self-awareness and a positive self-image will not easily submit their children to the torture of being judged by the currently popular standards of competitiveness.

5. Parents who are strongly conditioned by social conformity might like to examine whether it is a lack of a strong sense of affirmation that is leading them to subject themselves and their children to the norms of social competitiveness, becuase after all, if they are at peace with themselves, they will not be entirely guided by every do and don't of the social circle, and will be guided instead by their own sense of responsibility and initiative.

ARE RELIGION AND SOCIETY MANIPULATING YOU?

1. From childhood we are continuously subjected to systematic control, not just in matters where it may be necessary for survival, but even in areas which affect our personal integrity, our initiative and our beliefs, because the social urge for control tends to err on the side of excess as social institutions put a premium on conformity.
2. The irony is that we soon own up the beliefs and controls which have been thrust on us and we then seek to impose them on others, and this explains not just the continuity but also the misery which such conditioning creates for the over-zealous, the orthodox, the puritans and the conservatives, all of whom tend to be heavily control-oriented by dressing their compulsive need for control in the garb of self-righteousness.
3. Since times immemorial and unto our times, organized religion has sent young men to slaughter on the battlefield by telling them that God is on their side, and people have killed each other in the name of God!
4. Self-righteous people tend to believe that their sense of right or wrong is absolute, and deny others, who disagree with them, the right to their own views, by frequently using morality to control others and interfere in their lives, as it is a continuous stick to beat others.
5. The moral concern vests the players of this power game with a halo of superiority, and the control which these religious and social sanctions offer become an ego trip, where the inexorable pressure of logic and the consequent need to prove that one is right and the other is wrong take precedence over human concerns.
6. Control over the child, spouse and colleagues becomes an end in itself, which is clothed and camouflaged in religious sanction and morality, often resulting in failed marriages, browbeaten and straitjacketed children, and lost friendships.
7. It is, therefore, important to see through this unhealthy propensity, by not only checking others who might be playing this game, but also to check our own impulse to use morality as a whip.
8. We need to see that most of the time our sense of right and wrong is a choice that has been thrust on us by religion or by our social group, without our being aware of the choices we have made, and only then will we be able to see that other people too have had such choices forced on them.
9. Control-oriented people need to look closely at the compulsiveness in their behaviour, and learn to let go a bit, by learning to relax and realise how their obsession with control is destroying their own peace of mind while they ride roughshod over others.
10. People of the book are so controlled by the rules that they are unable to see beyond them and go through life throwing the rule book at people, nay-saying and shooting down ideas and possibilities, and also tend to be more susceptible to formula approaches and readymade solutions to problems, because their locus of control is almost entirely externalized, making them almost incapable of assuming responsibility outside a closed system for their own actions.

ARE YOU A PERFECTLY "NORMAL" PERSON?

1. Our society puts so much emphasis on conformity, on being "normal", that labels like eccentric and mad often get attached to people who dare to be different or refuse to be swayed by popular beliefs and norms.
2. In "The Devil's Dictionary", Ambroce Bierce defines MAD as "Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence; not conforming to standards of thought, speech and action derived by the conformants from a study of themselves; at odds with the majority; in short, unusual".
3. A bird's-eye-view of the human condition will show little arrangements of different groups of people, all neatly labelled and packaged, all dressed in group think, conforming to group codes of behaviour, etiquette and even fashion.
4. Our upbringing, religious beliefs, education, social group and peers are all engaged in a tireless effort to level us to a common denominator of behaviour, and the social effort is to make us behave like others around us and to subdue our individuality in the bargain.
5. There is a danger in this levelling process, as the herd mentality tends to reduce us to the lowest common denominator of socially acceptable behaviour, because people tend to level others down to their own level !
6. True we need to learn to accommodate and to adjust, but it is quite another thing to let such "average" norms take over our thinking and our behaviour, because we need to develop a capacity to think on our own in a unique way, instead of letting our profession or our community do all the thinking for us.
7. In the first place, you need to see through the narrow angularities of your profession, religious group or community, which will help you to set your own standards of excellence, in consonance with your innermost aspirations.
8. You could try mixing with people who are different from you, let your paradigm include other interests, try to empathise with the perspectives of other professionals, and keep in touch with the common folk.
9. It is important to be aware of our unique way of looking at life, despite the fact that one's paradigm incorporates the social paradigm of creed, cast and language, regional and national paradigm, and so on.
10. In fact, so many strands are interwoven that it could take a lifetime unravelling them.

WE SEE WHAT WE EXPECT TO SEE

1. Our worldview largely determines the kind of experience we will have, because it is a filter which excludes a lot in the process selection, and as a corollary often ends up condemning what has been excluded.
2. A whole set of attitudes, beliefs, values, assumptions and expectations, about which we are not even aware most of the time, determine "what" we see and "what" meaning we assign to it, because these mindsets act as filters that determine the colour and nature of our experience.
3. Because of lack of awareness of their paradigm, people often make sweeping statements like "That's the way I am", although a process of self-evaluation will alert us to the trap inherent in many of our hardcore beliefs.
4. It is also important to realise that those whom our beliefs condemn have perceptions which they consider as valid and hold with equal if not more conviction, to the extent that aggressive people will sense threats where others would not, and respond with more aggressiveness, as their outlook inclines their thinking towards paranoia.
5. Negative attitudes are conducive to depression, which leads to weakening of the immune system and a proneness to further depression, if not a permanent disease.
6. Even organizations are controlled by paradigms, because the beliefs, attitudes and values which are widely shared by people in organizations affect the way they think and perform, which can be witnessed in the functioning of bureaucracies and management of various governmental and commercial institutions.

HOW DOES OUR PARADIGM SHAPE OUR LIFE?

1. The impulses sent by our senses to the brain, from the object that they have perceived, are converted by our nervous system into an image, and it is this image that we see in our mind.
2. Our shared ethos of living ascribes different meanings and uses to that object which our senses have perceived, and our own undertanding and appreciation of that object changes accordingly.
3. Thus, even the physical reality is subject to interpretation by our paradigm, which selects and filters the world and literally chooses the way we see what we see.
4. Even ordinary words are coloured by our paradigm and evoke feelings of happiness, approval, acceptance, disapproval, dislike, etc. deprending on how our entire owrldview has been shaped from childhood.
5. Understanding our paradigm and orienting it positively changes our world, and because the world around us is what we make of it and how we relate to it, it makes sense to us only through our perceptions and our worldview.
6. You may not always be in a position to control what happens to you, but it is up to you to interpret the happenings in your life positively or negatively, and your reality is what is filtered through your paradigm.
7. A reflective frame of mind can help us to identify the attitudes, convictions, tempramental inclinations, beliefs about what is possibleand what should be, what is right and wrong, the insights and generalizations, all of which are integrated in our approach to life.
8. Our paradigm determines our choices and behaviour in life, as it represents each individual's unique interpretation of reality, wether we make a success of our lives or weigh ourselves down with stress and depression.
9. If by a combination of temperament, upbringing and past experience we have an overall positive outlook, our expereiences also end up being generally satisfying, but if we have been brought up in an atmosphere of control and cynicism which denied our initiative and ridiculed our mistakes, then these negative influences could dispose us towards experiences which reinfroce the overall negative outlook.
10. A pardigm is basically a way of seeing, perceiving, doing, valuing things with a given culture, and it is this paradigm of ours which interprets the external world for us, assigns meanings to what other people say and do, gives us our sense of worth and meaning, and determines what we enjoy and what we dislike. 

WHAT IS YOUR PARADIGM?

1. Each one of us is born with mental equipment which is open to all manner of stimuli and experiences, transcending boundaries of race, religion, language and nationality.
2. Although our context plays a big part in shaping our outlook or worldview, in a way its role is incidental, as we have it in us to accomodate diverse influences, to be open to contrasting ideas and cultures.
3. The tapestry of our mind need not be frozen and static, as often happens, because we are born with an innate capacity for openness to influences and experiences, capable of making space for new ideas and approaches and then integrating these inside us.
4. We have the capacity to select as well as transcend the beliefs and attitudes which are sought to be imposed on us by the social system in its own interests and in the interests of our survival in it, and it is only when we are unaware of our paradigm that we tend to think in narrow chauvinistic terms which limit rather than liberate us.
5. Examining our positive and negative slants about others is perhaps the easiest way to get in touch with one facet of our paradigm, and reflection will bring home the message that we can choose not to react from such group conditioning and respond instead with openness and accommodation.
6. By staying open to the surprises, opportunities and experiences in life, we can broaden our outlook and our sense of well-being, by either feeling controlled by powerful forces outside us or by feeling in charge of our destiny, in which our upbringing and environment also touch our personalities at a much deeper level.
7. People who blame others and the environment for their ills are indirectly admitting that their "remote control" is with the external world, and they see themselves as the effect rather than the cause.
8. As against this widely shared negative approach, there are people who are not easily depressed, take the initiative, accept responsibility for their actions, do not blame others at every opportunity, feel in control, see opportunity even in crises and in the demands made on them, and are the real movers and shakers.
9. Our paradigm thus represents the distilled essence of all our experiences, is a living pattern of insights and perceptions arising out of them and the conditioning we have gone through, and determines how we look at the world, and how we interpret new information, ideas, people and experiences.