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Being Irrelevant, and Other Things I Learned at University…

Being Irrelevant, and Other Things I Learned at University…

by | Apr 6, 2026 | Career, Change, Friendship, Life, Meaning

[Photo: Rupali, Flavia, and me — outside Pixel Park, APU Campus, Bangalore, during one of our APU days. Original photo reimagined as a time-travel — returning us to the child’s seat, a gentle leap backward into the schoolyard of learning and ordinariness. 🙂 ]]

There is a particular kind of madness in going back to university in your forties. Not an online course. Not a weekend workshop. A full-time, show-up-every-day, write-your-assignments, sit-in-a-classroom PG course— surrounded by students who were born around the time you were writing your first appraisal at work. In 2016, that is exactly what I did, walking away from a perfectly good career in IT to join Azim Premji University, Bangalore, for an MA in Education. I had watched that old comedy Back to School as a teenager and found it funny. I had no idea I was taking notes.

During those two years, I was the oldest student in the university. Many of the professors were younger than me — including my erstwhile colleague Vikas Maniar. I think I did attempt to follow his footsteps. After an MBA from IIMA, he had built a great career at Wipro, then moved on to work in the social sector, and eventually did a Ph.D. from TISS on Education. His was one of the courses I attended — in fact, I did two courses with him.

There were other real stalwart professors too: Dr. Rohit Dhankar (Philosophy of Education), Dr. Kaustav Roy (Marx to Laing to Phenomenology to Hermeneutics!), Dr. Rajasshree, Dr. Indira Vijayasimha, and Dr. Indrani Bhattacharji — who taught me, or tried to teach me, Epistemology. She had two Ph.Ds, the second one from the University of Massachusetts on Epistemology. And she had Gettier as one of her professors there. Gettier deserves a full blog of his own — the philosopher who dismantled Plato's theory of Justified True Belief in roughly 800 words, producing one of the most cited papers in the history of Philosophy.

But my best memories from those two years are a handful of moments.

One. Along with me, two of my friends from Sobha Hillview had joined the course. We used to carpool. Rupali and Flavia. And here is the thing — when we were classmates at APU, Flavia's son Ryan, Rupali's son Raghav, and my son Rishi were simultaneously classmates at The Valley School, KFI, Bangalore. Three parents studying the philosophy of education, while their sons shared a classroom at a Krishnamurti school. I am not sure life gets more poetic than that. All three of us did quite well too in the course— firmly on the right-hand side of the bell curve. 🙂

Two. I got elected to the Student Council during the first year — after surviving an open debate in front of all voters, where two of my opponents were genuinely brilliant orators. One had graduated from Visva-Bharati, the other from St. Stephen's. A long time ago, I had lost a college union election at Government Victoria College quite badly. That had sat as something incomplete on a checklist inside my heart. This felt like closing that loop. Though my bosses boss at Wipro was then Vice Chancelor of University, I could organize protest against  parking fee hike or food quality at canteen etc- a delicious iron not lost on me.  🙂

Three. Once, I received an O+ for one of my papers, and I was trying to use it to motivate my son Manu — showing off, really. He immediately replied: "Papa, when I was 12, my football coach made me play in the age group of 10, and we won a football match. So at this age, getting an O+ while studying with younger people is no big deal. It is like me going back to Primary Class 2."

He deflated my ego balloon with a sharp and incisive argument. After that, I never shared my grades with him. And luckily, universities do not have CTMs — Child-Teacher Meetings for reviewing parents-as-students.

A few years after I left APU, Manu did get an admission there. I wrote to my professor: "My son Manas is going to join your university — and BEWARE, he is a tougher nut with a sharper mind." Pat came the reply: "We took care of you. We will take care of your son too. Send him here."

But then he chose Jindal Global University. So they never had to.

And lastly — during the Covid years, I tried to get into a Ph.D. at ISEC, a prestigious institute in Bangalore. I managed to rank 2nd in their entrance exam. The interview was online. The Director scanned through my one-page research proposal — "A Phenomenological Analysis of Krishnamurti's Teaching in Education" — and asked, very derisively, "Can't you do something useful?"

I feigned as if I had not heard that comment.

Then he said, "Who is going to guide you in these things? If you choose another, more relevant proposal, come and meet us."

I never went back. Maybe I never had another relevant research proposal for him. Or maybe I was simply irrelevant.

That research proposal, by the way, was my thesis course for three full credits with Dr. Kaustav Roy in the final semester, and I had wanted to continue working on it. Krishnamurti's ideas on education — on freedom, attention, and the nature of the self — are not a footnote. They are a living question.

But perhaps that is a story for another blog.

The photo above was shared by all three of us on our Facebook pages back in the day — Flavia, Rupali, and me, outside Pixel Park, bags on our backs, heading into class. Older than most of our professors. Younger than we had ever felt.

Perhaps that is what Back to School really meant — not returning to classrooms, but returning to the child's seat, where learning is renewed by ordinariness, irrelevance, and play.

What I Learnt by Walking Straight on the Road with 99 Curves: Notes from a Late Bloomer

What I Learnt by Walking Straight on the Road with 99 Curves: Notes from a Late Bloomer

by | Dec 25, 2025 | Career, Compassion, Friendship, Gratitude, Harmony, Integrity, Joy, Life, Livingwithawareness, Meaning, Meditation, Peace, Relationships, Transformation, Zen

20 Dec 2025 . Saturday evening 6 pm.

As I was getting into the bus at Kodaikanal bus stand, Amma called. I told her I would call back, and after settling in my seat, I did. She was checking whether I would be coming to Ramapura to visit her. I said yes. Just before the call ended, she asked me whether my training at Kodaikanal had got over. Over the last three or so years, that is what I had told her. She knows I am in a temporary consulting assignment, and she has always been concerned about my future. Last time we met, that was the question in her mind: while my peers in the IT industry are doing well, what ails me? She usually quotes two names she remembers—Komal and Bops—and very wisely, she does not compare me with my own cousin. She knows my past fights at the workplace. And then she cushions the criticism by adding it’s just her concern for Manu and Rishi and my own well-being. It seems nowadays no one really cares for another, and it’s important to have financial security. It quite baffles her that her son, who spent some 30 years in IT, hasn’t learnt it. So, just before the call ended, she asked me again what I am learning new at Kodaikanal, and will it get me a better job. I was about to say yes, and then I did not say it.

Krishnappa, my friend, was the main driver. He is one of my new friends, gained from my three years of regular trips between Blr and Kodaikanal. Now he treats me as though I am also part of KSRTC. When the bus stops at Battalagundu for dinner or early morning coffee near Krishnagiri, he always makes it a point to tell them, “Nammavaru” — our man — so they don’t charge me either.

He was nearing retirement, proud of being one of the early members of the KSRTC Volvo fleet. One summer night, with an extra bus on the route, he suggested I sit in the front seat. I agreed, forgetting my severe fear of heights. For an hour, I was okay. Then, nearing Rat Tail Falls, he overtook a slow car. In that moment, the big bus covered the available width of the mountain road, and I saw the distant lights in the valley like a midnight sun. We were on the just the edge. A sudden, infinite fear switched my senses to high wattage. I got up and moved back to the safety of my seat.

Later, at dinner, he asked gently if I had been frightened. Then he told me, with a calm that was almost Zen-like, that in over thirty years he had not had even a small accident. A state cabinet minister had once asked him to be his personal driver. It was the confidence of a man absolutely sure of his craft—a mastery so complete it needed no explanation, only the steady grip on the wheel and the knowledge of every curve in the dark.

I had fallen asleep after that, and he woke me up for early morning coffee this time. And once I was back in the bus, the questions and concern of Amma popped into my mind. I could not go back to sleep.

I started reflecting on my last three years at Kanzeon Zendo. What did I learn? The second part of her question—whether it will get me a better job—somehow did not land in my mind.

What did I learn… as a late bloomer in the afternoon, if not the late evening, of my life?

Maybe I learned that my path was never meant to be a straight line. It is a spiral. I look at friends in straight lines—they knew what they wanted at 20, achieved it by 25, solidified it by 30. And then there is me. Starting and stopping. Pursuing passions until the meaning drains away. Years that look like stagnation outside, while inside I am fighting wars no one else sees. I remembered a line that found its way to me, as if by some meaningful coincidence: "The first half of life is merely a preparation. A clearing of the throat before the actual speech begins." For people like me, maybe this first half wasn't for achievement. It was for the friction needed to wear away everything that is not you.

I read something else that felt like it was written for me. It said: You are not failing to launch. You are undergoing a gestation period that is proportional to the size of the destiny you are meant to carry. The teak tree by the side of the forest near my window at the Zendo does not grow at the speed of the grass. Maybe that’s it. Maybe I was building a foundation for a skyscraper, when everyone else was pitching tents. It made me think of another idea: that "until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate." All this time, feeling adrift, perhaps I wasn't being passive. I was in the difficult, essential work of turning a fate I didn't choose into a destiny I could understand.

The teachers appeared as guides in that work. The first was Orie.

His name means ‘light’ in Hebrew. He was at the Zendo when Hamas attacked Israel across the border. He had been one of those who chose to stay with the IDF beyond his mandated service. But after one operation, witnessing the outcome scene, he quit to seek peace. For seven or eight years since, he had been travelling from one monastery to another across India, Sri Lanka, Burma, and East Asia.

He was built like a panther and moved without making any sound. He would often come late to the meditation hall, tiptoeing in like a cat, and no one would notice his arrival. He had the most tranquil way of debating. On the day of the Hamas attack, we spoke for a long time. He was cool as a cucumber. He taught me Spinoza’s statement: “There are two sides to any story, however thin you slice it.” He said the koan of the sound of one hand clapping was true, because in almost all conflicts, whether you feel like the victim or the tyrant, you are only ever hearing the sound of two hands.

I had wanted to learn the Wim Hof method to do takigyo, the waterfall misogi, at the Zendo—that ancient practice of standing under icy water to purify the body and mind, to seek oneness with nature. Orie told me Wim Hof was a pale imitation and taught me Tummo instead, the inner fire. As we were bonding as friends, he left without announcing it. He just slid a small piece of paper under my door. It said: thank you. O. And nothing else.

Then there was the visitor from Japan. For a week, an elderly Japanese woman stayed at the Zendo. According to her registration form, she was in her early eighties, yet she was the first to complete her full prostrations during chanting—nimble, healthy, and carrying a profound peace. She wanted to visit The Potter’s Shed in Kodaikanal, and I went along, thinking I could stop at the Pastry Corner afterwards. As I went to open the car door from the traffic side, she gently stopped me. She taught me the Dutch Reach: using the hand farthest from the door to open it, which forces your body to turn and your eyes to look over your shoulder—directly into the blind spot where a cyclist might be. It was a safety technique, yes, but she framed it as more. She told me it was an individual’s compassionate and wise response that, when done by many, becomes a community ritual. 

“Compassion for the person in front of you is easy,” she said. “Being compassionate to the one you cannot see, the one who is unknown to you—this is the deepening of the way. It is how we begin to live the vow: ‘Though sentient beings are innumerable, I vow to save them all.’” Enlightenment in a gesture. A small, physical twist to protect an unseen other.

And then, Francois. My journey to him was a spiral of its own. I first heard the word "Tai Chi" from U.G. Krishnamurti, later saw it in Milwaukee, and for years in Bangalore, my wife Thara and I learned the Long Form until life, like the Silk Board flyover, threw its spanner. At the Zendo, split between jungle and city, I couldn't restart. Then I saw him on the terrace—a French martial artist who had spent twenty years in Japan and China. His movement was a perfect symphony. I asked him to teach me. He paused in his considered way, and finally agreed.

For Francois, Tai Chi was not an exercise but a way of living. He took four weeks just to teach us how to stand in Wuji and to master the Tai Chi walk. No forms. Just standing. Just rooting. Root before you rise, he would say. In that endless, patient standing, I finally understood what I had been doing all those years in my career spiral. I wasn't failing to build; I was in the Wuji of my life—the silent, potent stance where all potential gathers before the first movement begins. It was the physical truth of the teak tree growing its roots.

But most importantly, there was Fr. AMA. I first met him properly at a Koan seminar in 2022, as the new Zendo was being built. After hearing my story of living on the edge, his simple suggestion was: do Zazen. By January 2023, I became a regular at the Zendo, taking to Zen as a fish to water. Yet, my questioning mind never stopped. Over three years, I must have asked him a thousand questions, some provocative. He was the only person in my life who never took offence. A mentor in our Sangha once wrote in his autobiography about seeing me in the Zendo, noting how my questions often gave voice to what others wondered but dared not ask, calling it a "questioning spirit and generous heart." After two years of this, Fr. AMA asked me to join him, and I moved in as a full-time student of Zen.

What did I learn from him? Above all, compassion. He taught that without compassion, there is no point in being on the Way. It is as important as enlightenment, if not more. Then, wise discernment—that crucial mindset where great doubt, great effort, and great faith must walk together. It is not about blind acceptance, but about testing everything against the stillness of your own practice. And lastly, the profound importance of striving to live an ordinary life of peace and joy. His teachings became the vessel that held all the other lessons: Orie’s two sides, the visitor’s mindful gesture, Francois’s rooted stance. He taught me how to hold them, question them, and let them shape a life.

And I owe the very possibility of this three-year immersion to another teacher of a different kind: my boss, Robert Meier. A Swiss national in a high-pressure role leading a corporate transformation, Robert was the rarest kind of manager. Amidst immense pressure, he never sacrificed his truthfulness, honesty, or his inherent kindness and compassion. He was, in his own way, a Zen Boss. When he heard of my need to be at the Zendo, he allowed me to work remotely from there. For almost three years, the quiet of the meditation hall existed alongside the digital pulse of my consulting work. One thing he told me has stayed: whenever he had to deliver a difficult truth to the powerful, he would say he was prepared to do any job, even clean public toilets, but he would never sacrifice his authenticity and professionalism out of fear. In him, I saw that the "unshakable" security I sought wasn't just spiritual—it could be a quiet, formidable force in a boardroom, too.

There were, of course, so many others—Christa, Olaf, Meath, Robert Amor—a constellation of fellow travellers at the Zendo who offered their own quiet lessons. That gratitude is for another day.

Then came the lessons that turned the path inward, towards home. When I shared Fr. AMA's invitation to live at the Zendo with Thara, my better half, she paused. Then, calmly and lovingly, she said, "You should take it. It is a calling and you are not seeking anything. Don't worry about anything else. We will take care of the home." In that moment, I learned that love also means letting go, not holding on.

And one morning during breakfast, Rishi told me, "Zen seems to be good for you, Papa." I asked him why. With a smile, he said, "You are not random anymore. We all relate to you better." That is when I understood what Krishnamurti meant: we know ourselves only in the mirror of our relationships. My stillness had become a space they could lean into.

So when Amma asks what I learned…

I learned to sit with the silent suspicion that I failed before I began, and not let it drown me.

I learned that my exhaustion is not laziness—it’s from processing reality at a higher resolution.

I learned that the world needs people who can follow instructions, but it also needs those who can rebuild the instructions when they no longer work.

And from Krishnappa, I learned Nammavaru.

Our man. Belonging without a badge. A free coffee that tastes of community. And a mastery of the spiral path so deep, it feels like stillness.

The bus moves on in the dark. The road is a spiral, not a straight line. Jung said the privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are. For a long time, that privilege felt like a burden. But in the humming dark of this bus, surrounded by the smell of diesel and the quiet breaths of sleeping strangers, it feels less heavy. Maybe that’s how some of us find our way—by circling closer and closer to the centre, where the answer isn’t a job, but a man, finally becoming who he is.

Seeds of Potential and Hindrances to Blooming: The Gardener’s First Task

Seeds of Potential and Hindrances to Blooming: The Gardener’s First Task

by | Oct 30, 2025 | Career, Leadershipwithintegrity, Zen

Currently, I have only one coaching client—a new CEO of a mid‑tier company. Perhaps that is shaped by my environment. After all the chores and the attending at the Zendo, that is the limit of my time and energy. Of course, I could do with some more income for the Zendo, but this universe comes with a stable quantity of time and energy at any point in our life.

We talk every Wednesday. And most often, I end up writing a coaching note on Thursday early morning—maybe word‑smithed by the unconscious. This one, I thought, is generic enough to share with all. And my coaching client too said, “Okay.” So here we go…

Every being comes into this world with some potential. For many, that potential is already aligned with a purpose chosen by Nature. A bird does not wonder whether to sing. A jasmine does not debate whether to bloom. A banyan scatters a million seeds, knowing only a few will take root. That is not failure—it is design. This effortless alignment with design becomes the backdrop against which the human struggle stands out.

For humans, it is different. We are not handed a fixed script. We must discover our purpose, match it with our potential, and then find or create the right environment. Freedom is our gift, but also our burden. Many end their lives without blooming, not because the seed was absent, but because the conditions never came together.

This is not a personal failing. It is the very condition of being human—that unlike the jasmine, we must discover, match, and create. Leaders, too, are not broken when they struggle; they are simply facing the core task of their role.

The Buddha spoke of five hindrances—craving, ill will, sloth, restlessness, and doubt. These are not just inner obstacles; they echo in the organizations we create. Restlessness may look like constant chasing of fads. Doubt may paralyze decision‑making. Sloth may appear as resistance to change. Ill will can poison culture and trust. Craving can drive short‑termism at the cost of deeper purpose. Naming the weed is the first and most critical step.

A new leader is like a gardener. The work is not about being the hero or the smartest person in the room, but about cultivating conditions for growth. The gardener’s first task is to see the seed—the potential hidden in people, in the organization itself. Then to name the weeds—the hindrances that choke growth. Then to clear the ground—removing what suffocates. And finally, to enrich the soil—bringing in new skills, new learnings, new technologies, while protecting the space from storms of distraction.

The banyan does not lament the seeds that do not sprout. Its abundance is its wisdom. For us, the real tragedy is not that every potential is not fulfilled, but that awareness is not cultivated. The leader’s task is not to force every seed to bloom—that is a recipe for exhaustion—but to cultivate the awareness and conditions that allow blooming to happen naturally.

When awareness meets potential, blooming is inevitable.

We may not control every outcome, but we absolutely can cultivate the awareness to see what is true. In that clear‑seeing, the path to blooming naturally reveals itself, for ourselves and for the organizations we lead.

Stepping Off  the Prison Wheel: Living Without Gradations

Stepping Off  the Prison Wheel: Living Without Gradations

by | Oct 24, 2025 | Career, Joy, Life, Peace, Zen

“How big is the top of Mount Everest?”
“About the size of a small kitchen table,” he responded.
“That is amazing,” I said, “You know, when you cross the Sahara Desert, there is no way of knowing where the desert ends. There is no peak, no border, no sign that says, ‘You are Now leaving the Sahara Desert – Have a nice Day!’”
— From Steve Donahue’s Shifting Sands

Not only do metaphors run our life, but we also reveal our minds through the metaphors we use in day‑to‑day communication. Metaphors can liberate us and imprison us at the same time. As a child pilgrim to Sabarimala, and later through books like Eknath Easwaran’s Climbing the Blue Mountain and Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air, mountains became etched in my imagination as metaphors of summit — spiritual or human endeavor.

All of it changed in a moment.

Almost twelve years ago, I landed at Lekhwair airport on the edge of the Empty Quarter — Rub’ al Khali, a sand desert of 650,000 square kilometers. One evening, under a full moon, we drove out near the borders of Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Oman. The jeep stopped, and we stepped into the vastness. The reddish‑orange dunes glistened in moonlight, the horizon shimmered with mixed colors, the sky was alive with shy stars and a brazen full moon. In that silence, the universe stood still. We dissolved into it. That moment rewrote my metaphors: from mountains and summits to deserts and horizons.

The desert taught me what the wheel could not. What works on Everest is useless in the Sahara. In the desert, you follow a compass, not a map. You lower your gaze, because the horizon never gets closer. You stop pushing, and instead deflate your ego. You learn when to duck. These lessons from Shifting Sands became my compass for transformation—whether with my children, my coachees, my colleagues, or my Sangha.

And yet, the wheel still beckons. The self‑help world offers diagrams: concentric wheels with spokes radiating from the center. Each spoke is given a name—career, wealth, health, family, spirituality, leisure—each one a promise of fulfillment if only we can keep it strong. And then come the circles, one after another, like ripples spreading outward in time. The first circle might be +5 years, the next +10, then +20, until the wheel stretches all the way to the imagined horizon of our life. At every point where a spoke meets a circle, we are asked to write down a goal: what we will achieve in our career by 40, what wealth we will accumulate by 50, what family milestones we will reach by 60. The wheel becomes a calendar of ambition, a map of decades yet to come. It looks neat on paper, almost scientific in its symmetry, as if happiness could be engineered by filling in the blanks.

But here is the deeper question: while some of these goals—being healthy, nurturing relationships, continuing to learn—are valid, do they really merit gradations? Why postpone them into the future instead of bringing them into the present moment? Health is not a target at 50, it is a practice today. Relationships are not milestones to be ticked off, they are lived in each conversation, each act of care. Even learning, when turned into a fixed goal, becomes like chasing a product rather than inhabiting a process. What remains in the wheel, then, are mostly the immaterial material goals: the kind of house, the size of the bank balance, the type of car. And these, as we know, are the most fragile spokes of all.

Arthur Brooks, the famous author of From Strength to Strength, discovered the flaw in this promise. On his fiftieth birthday, he found the bucket list he had written at forty. Every ambition was checked off. Every spoke of his wheel was polished. Every circle of time had been dutifully crossed. And yet he was less happy than before. The wheel was balanced, but it still spun. The destination he had imagined was not waiting for him at the end of the road. Out of this realization came his practice of the “reverse bucket list.” Instead of asking, What do I still want? he asked, What can I let go of? He wrote down his desires, and then crossed them out. Each line struck through was a small liberation, a loosening of the wheel’s grip.

In my own life, as part of a program in 2014, I too was told to do this wheel. I dutifully filled in the spokes, charted the map, imagined the future. And after some years—ten years later—many of those plans did not work out for me. But still I found that one’s happiness does not depend on it. So it was the reverse of Arthur Brooks. He achieved everything and found it empty; I watched many of my ambitions fall away, and still found life whole.

What I discovered is that while we do need essentials to live on—a roof, food, clothes, and some books, music, and so on—those needs can be met without charting out distant goals that kill our present living for the sake of a never‑arriving tomorrow.

And when I moved to the Zendo in 2024, I was still apprehensive. The old habit of worrying about the future lingered. But my Zen master, Fr. AMA Samy, told me gently not to worry so much about what lies ahead. This world has enough for our genuine needs, he said, and even the vast universe cannot satiate our wants. That teaching landed like a stone dropped into a still pond. The ripples continue.

Two stories, two directions, one truth: happiness is not at the rim of the wheel, nor at the summit of the mountain, but at the still center, or in the shifting sands beneath our feet. Whether the spokes fall away by circumstance, or whether we cross them out by choice, the discovery is the same. The essentials are already here. The music is already playing. The book is already open. The breath is already flowing.

Zen calls this letting be. The Tao says, He who knows he has enough is rich. Shakespeare reminds us that all the world’s a stage, but he also hints that the play is already unfolding, whether or not we rehearse our lines. And the Buddha shows us the wheel of samsara, and the still point beyond its turning.

To step off the wheel, to leave the summit, to walk into the desert, is not to abandon life, but to enter it more fully. To live not for the endless “somedays,” but for the enoughness of now.

And when I look back from where I am at this point in time — with the great misty mountains rising on the left side of my room, which is both my living quarters and my working office, with a water wall flowing on the right, and the Zendo hall above — I wonder: would I ever have imagined this ten years ago, while dutifully filling in that wheel exercise to design my future?

The answer is clear. No wheel, no summit, no plan could have charted this. And yet here it is: the life that unfolded, unplanned, ungraded, enough.

Yesterday, as I stepped out of the Zendo after giving my very first introduction to Zen and meditation for a sesshin — entrusted to me by Fr. AMA — I found myself thinking neither about the past (yesterday) nor about the future (tomorrow). There was only the cool air of the hills, the silence of the hall behind me, and the steady rhythm of my own breath. No wheel to fill, no summit to reach, no desert horizon to chase. Just this step, this moment, this enoughness.

Vanaprastha for Our Times: On Burnout, Busyness, and the Third Path

Vanaprastha for Our Times: On Burnout, Busyness, and the Third Path

by | Oct 12, 2025 | Career, Change, Harmony, Joy, Life, Peace, STRESS, Transformation, Zen

When M@@@@Lee first arrived at our zendo, I was struck by his quiet discipline. Middle‑aged, yet carrying the vitality of someone twenty years younger, he never missed a single zazen session. He spoke little, preferring to rest his gaze on forests, hills, and waterfalls rather than books. Only later did I learn of his past: 18 years in the United States as a chartered accountant, often working eighteen‑hour days in investment banks, living in luxury until burnout forced a reckoning.

For the last One and half decades, he has lived like a nomad, frugal and free. He speaks of happiness and contentment not as achievements, but as discoveries. His story is a living commentary on Byung‑Chul Han’s The Burnout Society. Han, another son of Korea, describes how the achievement society—with its relentless drive to optimize, perform, and succeed—leads not to freedom but to exhaustion. He contrasts deep attention, the contemplative focus that gave rise to philosophy and art, with hyperattention, the restless scattering of the mind across endless stimuli. In losing boredom and silence, Han warns, we lose the very conditions for renewal.

Lee embodies the medicine Han prescribes. His burnout was the breaking point Han diagnoses. His nomadic simplicity is the refusal of the achievement society. His steady zazen restores the deep attention Han says we have lost. His gaze on forests and waterfalls is a return to what Han calls the contemplative dwelling that modernity has abandoned.

And then there is Gopal, a respected corporate leader who recently reflected on his own transition into retirement. Quoting his father, he wrote: “To catch a train that has already started, you may have to run alongside it before jumping in.” It is a wise metaphor for transitions, yet it also reveals the subtle compulsion many of us feel—to keep running, to keep filling life with activity, even when the train we are chasing may not be ours to board.

In observing these two paths—Lee's and Gopal's—we see a fundamental dichotomy in how we face life's transitions. On one end lies the person who is totally burnt out... On the other, the person who, even after a great innings...

So it is safe to assume there are two kinds of people out there. The exhausted renouncer and the restless achiever. One who feels totally burnt out and want nothing to do with it. For him, emptying his mind about anything about it is what makes the rest of his life worthwhile. While the other, after a great innings and having done brilliantly well in his chosen profession, still is eager to jump into the next train of achievement. After reaching the top of the pyramid, why the eagerness, why the worry about the next phase of productivity? Monetary considerations of worry about a lesser lifestyle may not be the reasons. If one is intended to use their great expertise and knowledge of serving the mankind for the rest of their life after a great fist innings, may not get that wary about what s/he will be doing with their time. Being not comfortable about not being in limelight, could be one. Or maybe it is due to the worry about how to be with the void /emptiness in their life.

Even if  they worry about the next innings for none of the above mentioned reasons and it is just for timepass, when we call it timepass—scrolling reels, flipping channels, or filling the calendar with trivialities—it is rarely innocent. Beneath the surface lies the same movement: the fear of the void.

We are uneasy with silence, with the space where applause fades and identity loosens. So we keep ourselves busy, not because the activity nourishes us, but because it shields us from emptiness.

But as Krishnamurti reminds us, emptiness is not a defect to be patched over. It is a doorway. When we stop trying to fill it, the void reveals itself as fullness—alive with creativity, compassion, and presence.

The real courage is not in passing time, but in letting time pass through us, unresisted.

Here, Pascal’s old warning rings true: “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Whether it is the youth endlessly scrolling through reels, the middle‑ager flipping through channels, or the retiree rushing to fill the calendar, the root is the same: our discomfort with stillness.

Krishnamurti went even deeper. He observed that as long as the mind is seeking to fill its emptiness, it will remain empty. We try to fill the void with activity, possessions, relationships, or applause, but this only perpetuates the sense of lack. He wrote: “As long as the mind is seeking to fill itself, it will always be empty. When the mind is no longer concerned with filling its own emptiness, then only does that emptiness cease to be.”

For Krishnamurti, emptiness is not a defect to be patched over, but a doorway. “In emptiness alone can there be creation,” he said. When the mind stops running, stops filling, stops chasing trains, it discovers a silence that is not absence but presence. From that silence, something new can be born—innocence, creativity, compassion.

This is the crucial distinction:

  • To fill hunger is natural, necessary, life‑sustaining.
  • To fill psychological emptiness is endless, and often destructive.

When activity arises from genuine need or from the joy of service, it nourishes. When it arises from fear of silence or the craving for applause, it drains.

Zen would call this the great death of the striving self. And in that death, a new life appears—one that needs little, yet feels complete.

In the ancient Indian worldview, Vānaprastha—the stage of “going to the forest”—was not only for ordinary householders but also for kings and emperors, who were expected to renounce power and wealth at their peak and turn toward contemplation. King Bharata, after whom Bhārat (India) is named, is one of the most striking examples: he gave up his throne and retreated into the forest to seek liberation.

Today, the forest may not be a literal place, but a state of mind—an inner withdrawal from applause and limelight into presence.

Between the exhausted renouncer and the restless achiever, there are a few rare ones who discover meaning early and live it seamlessly until their last breath. For them, life is not about applause or limelight, nor about withdrawal in exhaustion. Their work itself is their prayer, their service, their offering.

Saba Naqvi once wrote of Mallikarjun Mansur, the saintly Hindustani vocalist from Dharwar. Stricken with lung cancer, doctors had given up. His daughter was told not to deny him the things he loved most. In his final moments, he asked for a bidi, and as he drew on it, he was still humming Raga Jogiya, almost inaudibly. With the raga on his lips, his head rolled over, and he was gone. His art was his final breath.

Another story is told of Abdul Karim Khan, founder of the Kirana gharana. On his way to Puducherry to sing for Sri Aurobindo, he sensed his end was near. He stepped off the train at an unknown station, spread out his prayer mat, and sang his last song. He died there on the platform. He did not board the next train of achievement—he stepped off, to let music itself carry him across.

And I see the same spirit in my own Zen master, Fr. AMA Samy. At ninety, he still sends emails at 3:30 a.m. with reflections, still walks into the zendo for early morning meditation. His life is not about filling time or clinging to relevance. It is about continuity of presence, a rhythm of practice that does not retire.

These lives remind us that there is a third path: not renunciation in exhaustion, not striving for the next platform, but a life so deeply rooted in one’s calling that even the final breath is an act of practice, art, or service. For them, there is only one train—the train to eternity.

In the end, whether we are young and restless, middle‑aged and distracted, or retired and still wary of leaving the limelight, the invitation is the same: to stop running, to stop filling, to sit still. The rishis called it Vānaprastha. Han calls it deep attention. Pascal calls it the courage to sit quietly. Krishnamurti calls it the doorway of emptiness. Zen calls it the great death of the striving self. Many names, one truth: the train we most need to catch is not out there on the tracks—it is already here, in the stillness of this very moment.

Not the Last Word: Writing Without Forecasts

Not the Last Word: Writing Without Forecasts

by | Oct 6, 2025 | Career, Communication, Joy, value

Why astrological forecast is effective is, it is often written in quite vague language and at the very least it may happen to any one of the readers. For those for whom it had happened becomes a believers of astrology. It is called the Barnum Effect (or Forer Effect), where vague, general statements are perceived as highly personal and accurate. People remember the one line that resonated and forget the twenty that didn’t. It’s a passive, broad net approach to connection.

I write with no plan in my mind. No agenda. No aim. No crafting the message. No worries about the SM algorithm... There are weeks in which I could write 3–4 blogs. Often the trigger is a very ordinary experience in day‑to‑day life, or a sight, or a phone call, or a passage I get to read. And then I got to wake up from my sleep and just complete the writing...

“Ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write? Dig into yourself for a deep answer. And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple ‘I must,’ then build your life in accordance with this necessity.” —Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

That is close to how I experience writing. It is not planned, not crafted for applause, but something that insists on being written. Sometimes it wakes me up from sleep. Sometimes it comes from the most ordinary of sights or conversations.

During the initial days, I used to let whatever gets written be published as it is. As one who had my school education in vernacular medium and in Govt and Govt‑aided schools, my English is often Manglish. Guess, I think in Malayalam and type in English. Core readers remain the same. They are my dear and near and people who know me a bit. But when I tried to put together and publish, I was told I had to get them edited. One established editor, at first, said plainly to me that she was busy with a few more projects and asked me to share a few samples. She may get back. I thought that was a polite and very compassionate way of saying no. And after a few days, she wrote back saying she would edit. And those were the first writings that went under the ikebana scalpel of an Editor. I should complement my Editor, Rasna, for making those passages eminently readable.

After that, initially I used to use Hemington and Mars 21 Editors... When I saw there were too many RED marks, I stopped using them. Nowadays, Copilot editor in MS Word throws up severe grammatical guffaws, and I do spend a bit of time correcting them. Still not much worried about the SM traction and applause. Whenever I think it is complete, I publish. Sometimes in early Monday morning or Sunday afternoon.

My Zen master, Fr. AMA Samy, has written around forty books, given countless teishos, and continues to share his thoughts with students through the Bodhi Sangha Forum. And every time he completes a book, he tells me that it is his last. I took up the responsibility of editing his “last” book. And by the time I finished it, he had another one. That is the way of true expression—it does not end when we think it should. What feels like the last word is only a pause before the next arises.

One thing I notice: every single blog, I get a note from one of the readers saying that the writing is just apt for the current moment in their life. To be honest, that does make me a bit happy. But then I realise, I am not living in another planet. I share this world with them. In fact, all beings are connected. While we have our own uniqueness, there are more things common amongst ourselves. One's pain, joy, peace, love, compassion etc. are also commonly experienced. I may be seeing the Sun and Moon in Perumalmalai—the same Sun and Moon that appears in Dallas or Bangalore.

And when I published my first book, I had a list of 20 names, my inner circles in Dubar groups, whom I thought would buy the book and make an effort to read. As of today more than 100 copies were sold. Out of those first list of 20 names, only around 10–12 people bought. Maybe the way I see others is not the way others see me. But when someone who was unknown to me personally writes a one‑liner, it touches me deeply. It reminds me that words have their own journey, and they find their readers in unexpected places.

And usually when you seek or look for inspiration and motivation, there is none in the world. The same goes with applause and likes as well. When one starts writing for the sake of writing (at the least writing for oneself), one finds there is a fountain of inspiration or motivation deep within. When one reaches that, one really ceases to look for external motivators such as applause or likes.

While seekers of a moment’s fame and name try to decipher what makes a post viral and how the LinkedIn and FB algorithms are framed, they don’t realise that there is no rhyme or reason for literary fame, name, and wealth. Some of the best names such as Kafka or Thoreau were hardly known during their lifetimes, yet they made a lasting impact after they had left this world. Again, my favourite author O. V. Vijayan became a legend with his first book, and its success was never repeated. Many said he missed a Nobel only because it was too difficult to translate his surreal painting‑like prose from Malayalam to English. Perhaps if those Nobel Committee members had learnt to read Malayalam, he would have won. The same goes for Kamala Das too. And Arundhati Roy, in contrast, struck gold with her very first book.

Buddha had originally just ten core disciples. Christ had twelve, and one of them went rogue — Judas Iscariot. Socrates too had only a handful of students. Their teaching lasted because they focused on the substance. Modern times may be different, but principles are not. Focus on substance: keep the work excellent, curate visibility, share progress in ways that highlight impact, not just effort, and always align with meaning — connect your work to the “why” it matters to you and the world.

It is a bit like the sound of the Zendo bell. The bell itself (performance) must be well‑cast and resonant. But unless it is struck and allowed to reverberate (projection), no one hears its music. The bell is not diminished by being heard; its essence is fulfilled in resonance. Last month, I had to redo the Zendo lead role again. I seemed to have forgotten the way bells were struck. After the early morning Zazen, Fr. AMA called me and spent quite some time teaching me again. The core teaching is: one lets go of the need to project, then the sound of the bell becomes music. It projects itself.

“He who stands on tiptoe does not stand firm. He who rushes ahead does not go far. He who tries to shine dims his own light. If you want to accord with the Tao, just do your job, then let go.” —Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

I was not always like this. For a long time, I too tracked book sales and counted likes on blogs, as if numbers could measure meaning. But then Rishi, my second son — an exceptional painter and sculptor — declined my suggestion to hold a gallery show to showcase his work. He simply told me, “Papa, currently I am doing this for myself. Maybe later… I am in no hurry for those things.” As he left home to pursue his dual degree in Arts and Economics, I realised that at that young age he had already come out as an integrated human being. His words stayed with me, and they continue to remind me that the truest art is born not from the hunger for recognition, but from the fullness of being.

After the last book, I too received a note from a very unexpected quarter. The person wrote that he is not much of a reader—his breaks usually come from watching movies or listening to music. He said he bought the book only because it was written by his friend, which is me. But after the first chapter, he found it interesting and ended up reading it fully. The closing line of his note was: “When are you publishing your next one?”

The answer I did not share with him was: I too am not in a hurry. When it happens, it will happen.

After all, a writer does not really write for others. The best musicians are those who play their music just for their own ears. And the best players are those who don’t play for the gallery. Humans pursue a literary form, an art, or a game not merely for external validation, but to steady the sails within, and to make their inner gold purer by rubbing it against the sandpaper of the world. In a world obsessed with visibility, presence, virality, and traction metrics, it is often forgotten: self‑expression of the soul is the best reward. As Francis Bacon reminded us long ago: “Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.”

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