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The Thief of Joy: Walking the Ox-Herding Path Back to the Marketplace, to the Tune of a Different Drummer

The Thief of Joy: Walking the Ox-Herding Path Back to the Marketplace, to the Tune of a Different Drummer

by | Jan 29, 2026 | Compassion, Harmony, Integrity, Life, Transformation, Zen

Expectation is the thief of joy. We imagine the world, people around us, and life events should conform to our hopes—and when they don’t, peace and happiness slip away. This is all the more piercing in spiritual communities, where many assume fellow practitioners are somehow more evolved than the rest of society. But that assumption is false. Often, people come to the sangha not to deepen realization but to escape the marketplace, and so the same patterns of hypocrisy, ambition, and self-deception repeat themselves—sometimes unconsciously, sometimes with full awareness.

The Ten Ox-Herding Pictures are not simply allegories; they are one of Zen’s most enduring teaching devices. Originating in China during the 12th century, attributed to the Chan master Kuoan Shiyuan, they depict the seeker’s journey through ten stages of practice. The ox itself is a symbol of the mind—wild, elusive, sometimes hidden, sometimes tamed. The pictures begin with the restless search, the ox unseen, the seeker wandering. By the third step, the ox is glimpsed—the true self recognized. The middle stages show taming, riding, and eventually forgetting the ox, pointing to the dissolution of duality. And the final step is the most radical: returning to the marketplace with “bliss-bestowing hands.” Here, realization is not escape but ordinariness, not withdrawal but presence in the midst of daily life.

Yet many begin in the marketplace and end there again, without ever walking through the intermediary steps. They wear the robes of spirituality but never touch the ox. They mistake the outer form for the inner journey. And so, spiritual communes mirror the wider world. The marketplace is always present—even in the zendo. The question is not whether hypocrisy exists, but whether we meet it with awareness. To see the act, the mask, the double face, is itself a koan: how do we walk without expectation, without projecting our longing for purity onto others?

This longing extends far beyond the zendo. It touches the very core of how we move through society. We are all, in some way, following an internal rhythm. Henry David Thoreau captured it perfectly: “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.”

David Keirsey placed this quote at the opening of Please Understand Me for a reason. It is a testament to temperament—to the innate, different guides within us. The spiritual path, at its best, is about hearing that unique drummer with perfect clarity and having the courage to step to it. Yet so often, in our rush to belong to a community—be it a corporate team, a family, or a sangha—we mute our own music. We project onto others the expectation that their drumbeat should match the one we’ve chosen to hear, or worse, the one we think we should hear.

The full passage from Walden reveals more. Thoreau speaks of advancing confidently in the direction of one’s dreams, of new laws establishing themselves “around and within him.”

Here is more of the surrounding text for context from the final paragraph of the chapter titled "Conclusion."  :

"I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavours to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favour in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings...

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away. It is not important that he should mature as soon as an apple tree or an oak. Shall he turn his spring into summer?"

This is the journey of taming the ox: the inner laws becoming clear, the authentic rhythm undeniable. But here is the paradox: to return to the marketplace with “bliss-bestowing hands” is not to demand that the chaotic noise of the market become your melody. It is to move through it, undistracted by its discord, steadfast in your own measure—and in doing so, to allow others the space to hear their own.

If we can meet even hypocrisy as another face of suffering, then it too becomes part of practice. We see it not merely as a moral failure, but as a profound disconnection—a person who has stopped listening to their own drummer and is instead clattering along to a cacophony of borrowed beats, of shoulds and oughts, of spiritual ambition and unmet longing.

The path is not linear. Some circle back, some stall, some leap ahead, some act out roles without ever glimpsing the ox. But the invitation remains: to strip away masks, to deepen realization, and to return to ordinariness. To live in the marketplace—not as escape, but as presence. And to do so, finally, stepping to the music you hear, however measured or far away, while letting the din of expectation fade into the background where it belongs.

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.

The Pied Piper’s Tune: On Spiritual Gurus, Corporate Leaders, and the Surrender of Our Critical Mind

The Pied Piper’s Tune: On Spiritual Gurus, Corporate Leaders, and the Surrender of Our Critical Mind

by | Dec 12, 2025 | Friendship, Integrity, RElationship, Transformation, Trust

My concerns about the modern “guru”—a title that now stretches from ashrams to boardrooms—are simple and twofold.

First, does the person on the stage actually know what they’re talking about? Have they genuinely walked the path they’re selling, or is it just polished rhetoric? Second, and more dangerously, what do they do with the authority they gather? Too often, the answer points toward the oldest temptations: power, privilege, and personal gratification.

The mechanism for gathering this authority is often the same: the demand for total surrender. It’s a call to “have complete faith in me, my way, and what I say.” It’s the subtle (or not-so-subtle) instruction to park your critical thinking at the door, to keep your questions in abeyance, and to simply follow. This isn’t a relic of medieval spirituality; it’s the bedrock of modern influence.

I saw this play out in real-time recently. A venerated corporate leader was interviewed live by a famous media personality. Before a large, attentive audience, he staked a controversial claim. He leaned in and declared, with absolute conviction, that he was stating a “FACT.” Not an opinion, not a perspective—a fact. The crowd, a sea of people nearly all holding smartphones—literal fact-checking libraries in their pockets—nodded and absorbed it as sacrosanct truth.

A simple check proved his “fact” was wrong. I even shared the details beneath the video later in Linkedin. Yet, the reluctance to accept the correction was palpable. The spell of the moment, the aura of the speaker, was more powerful than a verifiable truth.

And this game doesn’t only play out on spiritual or corporate stages. Think about it: a person in deep distress, seeking a therapist’s help; a coaching client investing in their potential; a young child looking up to their teacher; a fan pouring admiration into a celebrity. In each of these relationships, a natural power differential exists, built on a legitimate need—for healing, growth, knowledge, or belonging. This is precisely where the Piper’s tune finds its most vulnerable listeners. The dynamic can morph, subtly or overtly, from guidance into control, where the healer, coach, teacher, or star becomes the sole, unquestionable source of what the seeker desperately needs.

This is the essence of the Pied Piper’s power. It doesn’t work through logic, but through a magnetism that asks for our trust in exchange for our discernment. As sociologist Paul Heelas observed in studies of modern spirituality, people often reject traditional authority only to surrender to new, charismatic forms of it. We exchange one piper for another.

Mariana Caplan, in her book Halfway Up the Mountain: The Error of Premature Claims to Enlightenment, diagnosed this same malaise in contemporary spirituality. She warned that seekers and teachers alike often mistake charisma, altered states, or partial insights for full realization—and then prematurely claim enlightenment. The danger, she argued, is not only in the teacher’s illusion but in the seeker’s surrender of discernment. When we hand over our authority too quickly, we become vulnerable to fraud, confusion, and exploitation. Caplan’s critique echoes the Pied Piper metaphor: the tune is seductive, but it leads us away from freedom into dependency.

And this is not new. History is littered with such tunes—whether in medieval cults, fascist rallies, or corporate “visionary” speeches. The melody changes, but the mechanism remains: charisma eclipses scrutiny, and authority bias blinds us to fact. Even today, with confirmation at our fingertips, the enchantment of certainty often outweighs the quiet labor of verification. Psychologists call this authority bias: the tendency to accept statements from perceived experts without question. Add confirmation bias—the desire to hear what fits our worldview—and the Piper’s tune becomes nearly irresistible.

The true guide, then, is not the one who demands we stop thinking for our journey. It is the Kalyan Mitra—the “good friend” or fellow traveler—who walks beside us. This is the therapist who empowers your inner authority, the coach who mirrors your own wisdom back to you, the teacher who ignites your curiosity beyond their own knowledge. This guide doesn’t ask for surrender; they empower our scrutiny. They don’t offer a tune to follow blindly, but a mirror to see our own path clearly. Where the Piper plays louder, the friend invites silence. Where the Piper demands obedience, the friend cultivates discernment.

John O’Donohue, in his Celtic meditation Anam Cara, speaks of the soul friend in precisely this way: as one who dissolves masks, who sees you as you truly are, and who walks with you in intimacy and authenticity. The anam cara is not a master but a companion, not a Piper but a mirror. In such friendship, the soul finds recognition and freedom.

The Buddha, too, told Ānanda that spiritual friendship is not half the holy life but the whole of it. In the Samyutta Nikāya (SN 45.2), he declared that with admirable friendship, companionship, and camaraderie, the Noble Eightfold Path unfolds. The radical claim here is that awakening is not built on surrender to authority but on the wonder of camaraderie—walking together, questioning together, supporting each other.

In a world full of Pied Pipers claiming to have the only map, the most radical act is to hold on to your own compass. To listen, but also to verify. To respect, but also to question. Because the tune that leads you to surrender your critical mind never leads to freedom; it only leads to the next cliff edge, with someone else in control of the music.

Freedom is not found in the tune that enchants us, but in the pause that lets us listen. The true guide is not the one who plays louder, but the one who helps us hear our own music. To walk with such a friend—whether as anam cara or kalyāṇamitra—is to keep our compass alive, even in a world of pipers. Better than following a tune is learning to hear the rhythm of your own footsteps. It is my lived experience that, transformative growth happens in the soil of egalitarian, trusting relationship, not in the shadow of unquestioned authority.

The Courtesan and the Cosmos

The Courtesan and the Cosmos

by | Dec 6, 2025 | Meaning, Transformation, Uncategorized, Zen

The Sun is a minor star in a small galaxy, in a universe of billions. And yet, it can make a flower smile. Carl Sagan often reminded us that even in the immensity of the cosmos, the warmth of a single star sustains life and beauty here on Earth. Vastness does not diminish intimacy.

Romain Rolland, in his biography of Swami Vivekananda, recounts a story from the Jaipur palace. After Ramakrishna’s passing, Vivekananda travelled across India and was often hosted by kings and nobles. In Jaipur, the king arranged a dance performance by the most renowned courtesan of his palace. Vivekananda, offended, withdrew to his quarters. The king worried about displeasing him, but it was the courtesan who sent a note that carried the true teaching:

“The Sun does not discriminate. It shines on all — the saint and the sinner, the lotus and the mud. Why then should an enlightened one like you?”

This reminder became a mirror for Vivekananda. Just as the Sun warms every flower without judgment, true wisdom does not exclude. The courtesan’s note revealed that enlightenment is not about separation, but about seeing the divine equally in all beings.

We see the same truth in other traditions. In the Gospels, Jesus did not shun Mary Magdalene despite her social stigma. Instead, he welcomed her as a disciple and allowed her to be the first witness to the resurrection. His openness showed that divine recognition is not bound by categories of “pure” and “impure.” Compassion, like sunlight, embraces all.

Zen offers another wave. Two monks came to a stream where a young woman stood unable to cross. One monk lifted her and carried her across. Hours later, his companion, troubled, asked: “Why did you break your vow by touching a woman?” The elder replied: “I put her down hours ago. Are you still carrying her?” The teaching is clear: true practice is not about clinging to rules or appearances, but about responding with compassion in the moment.

Across Hindu, Christian, and Zen lenses, the lesson converges: enlightenment does not exclude. Social categories — courtesan, sinner, woman, untouchable — are human constructs. The divine light, whether expressed as Sun, Christ, or Dharma, shines impartially. The “unexpected guru” may appear in any form: a courtesan, a stigmatized disciple, or a woman at a stream.

The story turns the telescope around. Sagan used the cosmic view to make us cherish the intimate. The courtesan used the intimate — a beam of sunlight on mud and lotus alike — to reveal a cosmic spiritual truth: consciousness, like sunlight, is fundamentally impartial. Vastness does not diminish intimacy; true vastness of spirit includes all intimacy, all particularity, without judgment.

The cosmos is not cold because it is vast. It is the source of the very warmth that allows for the flower, the saint, the sinner, and the moment of understanding between a weary monk, a wise courtesan, a compassionate Christ, and a Zen elder at a stream. The final teaching is that to be truly “enlightened” is not to flee from the mud, but to recognize that the same light that makes the lotus glow also sleeps within it.

The Dance of Change: Lessons in Transformation, Resonance, and Compassion

The Dance of Change: Lessons in Transformation, Resonance, and Compassion

by | Nov 29, 2025 | Change, Management, Transformation, Zen

The first time I heard the phrase “Change Management,” I wasn’t in a lecture hall or reading a textbook. I was on the 23rd floor of the Renaissance Centre in Detroit, in 2004, looking out at the river below, surrounded by seventeen senior leaders from the tech world’s elite. I was there for the GM Round Table, representing Wipro as the most junior person in the room.

That moment was the beginning of a journey—one that would weave through corporate high-rises, soul-testing commutes, and the quiet of a Zen meditation hall. It was a journey that taught me change is not a process to be managed, but a dance to be learned—a subtle, living art built on resonance, trust, and compassion.

Beginnings: The Mask and the Scaffolding

I felt the weight of that room deeply. My boss, Geoff Phillips, saw my trepidation. He flew in and spent weekends drilling me in the art of consulting, teaching me to put on what I later called the “Monroe Mask”—that layer of outer confidence worn to cover the inner tremors.

Soon, I realized I wasn't the only one learning to wear a mask. Our client manager enrolled the entire team in a three-day crash course on Change and Transformation Management, led by Booz Allen & Hamilton. That was the first time I heard the term. Those three days were precious.

But in my usual, tenacious way, I couldn’t stop there. I began gathering books—an enormous collection on Change Management. From the British Council’s digital library, I painstakingly downloaded chapter by chapter from nearly fifty books. Over time, those lessons became the scaffolding of my professional life.

That scaffolding was tested to its limit during my KAUST assignment. For months, I endured a daily commute of 260 kilometers—130 km each way from Jeddah to Thuwal and back. The endless desert highway became a grinding ritual that left no space for life itself. It was this physical and mental exhaustion that finally forced my hand; I decided I had to step out of Wipro to reclaim my time and my well-being.

But then, grace intervened. My client, Carsten Svensson, upon hearing my decision, spoke directly to my bosses. He valued the work more than the policy, and carved out a direct contract. He ensured I had a Red Sea-facing apartment on campus, a monthly Emirates ticket home, and a generous raise.

Those two years gave me the freedom to fly away from the 9-to-5 rhythm. The tax-free money helped Thara and me settle all our loans, buy an apartment, and decide to live debt-free.

But this story was never about financial freedom. It was about the lessons I learned in Change Management—through books, through work, through the very grain of lived experience.

The Four Directions of Change

From Detroit to KAUST to Bangalore, the compass of change has revealed itself in four enduring lessons:

  1. Reactance – The Pushback Reflex
    Reactance is the invisible wall that rises when people feel their freedom is being curtailed. It calls to mind the wisdom of Lao Tzu:

“Water is the softest thing, yet it can penetrate mountains and earth. This shows clearly the principle of softness overcoming hardness.”

A consultant who barges in with “best practices” is the hard hammer; the wall only hardens in response. The art is to be like water—to invite rather than impose. Frame change as choice, not command. Create space for ownership, so resistance transforms into curiosity.

  1. Persuasion Radar – The Hidden Antennae
    Every individual and organization has a subtle radar scanning for manipulation. This truth is perfectly captured by an old Arabian proverb:

“He who has a hundred guests cannot seat them all at the same table, but he can offend them all with a single dish of hypocrisy.”

One insincere gesture is all it takes. Authenticity, therefore, is not a soft skill but a strategic imperative. Speak plainly, act transparently. Influence flows not from persuasion, but from resonance.

  1. Overton Window – The Horizon of Acceptability
    The Overton Window is the spectrum of ideas a community currently considers “thinkable.” It is a slow, patient process of expanding the light, much like the words of Martin Luther King, Jr.:

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

You cannot force an unthinkable idea from outside the window; you can only illuminate it from within. Frame new ideas in familiar language. Stretch the window incrementally, so what was once unthinkable becomes inevitable.

  1. Context Matters – The Ecology of Change
    I never get tired of quoting Steve Donahue’s opening from Shifting Sands:
    “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!’”

This is the essence of context. There is no universal map. Context is the soil. A banyan tree may scatter thousands of seeds, but it becomes another banyan only when a seed finds the right soil. A goose thrives in a pond; a camel in the desert. Listen to the land. Change is ecological, not mechanical.

The Unlearning: Compassion as the Ground

After I left Wipro, I stepped fully into managing the affairs of our Zen meditation center, Bodhi Sangha.

In my very first week, my teacher, Fr. AMA Samy, gave me a single lesson: “Be compassionate, regardless of the situation. Don’t bring your corporate hat here.”

And then he quoted a Sanskrit sloka:
Bryat satyam, priyam bryat, na bryat apriya satyam.
(Speak the truth, speak it sweetly, but do not speak unpleasant truth.)

Here, I had no title, no salary leverage. My only tools were compassion, trust, and presence. This was the most profound validation of the principles I had studied. The compass was true, even here—especially here.

The Nuance: Honesty is Not Transparency

This journey taught me another vital lesson: Honesty and integrity are the essential blocks of transformation, but honesty is not the same as transparency.

You must be honest in all you convey. Your word must be true. But to believe you must reveal every card in your hand, in a compulsive rush for total transparency, is to invite disaster. It can overwhelm, create unnecessary panic, or be weaponized against the very change you seek.

Nature understands this deeply. Human beings and animals have skin. Trees have bark. These are not walls of deception; they are vital boundaries that protect the delicate life within, allowing for selective exchange with the outside world. They are membranes of wisdom.

You can speak your truth with integrity without revealing the raw, unfinished, and vulnerable core all at once. Timing, dosage, and discernment are everything. This is the lesson from nature: be honest in your being, but wise in your revelation.

The Final Truth: Time is the Essence

And yet, all these principles rest upon one universal, non-negotiable truth: Time is the essence of all change.

We cannot alter this principle, regardless of the compulsions of Wall Street or Dalal Street. One cannot create a baby in two months by enlisting four mothers.

Nature achieves everything—without hurrying, without hastening. This brings to mind the timeless wisdom of Lao Tzu:

“He who stands on tiptoe doesn't stand firm.
He who rushes ahead doesn't go far...

If you want to accord with the Tao,
just do your job, then let go.”

The Dance Is the Path

So, this is my synthesis. My learning.

Change is not a formula to be memorized. It is a dance. A flight path constantly being reshaped by winds, horizons, and landscapes.

This philosophy redefines our role as that of a pilgrim—a seeker who walks alert to resistance, attuned to sincerity, patient with horizons, and humble before context.

In a world obsessed with speed and scale, this compass reminds me that true transformation is never about control.

It is always, and only, about resonance. And resonance requires the courage to be honest, the wisdom to be discerning, and the patience to listen to the ancient rhythms of nature itself.

 

The Paradox of Ego, Desire, and the Shifting Self

The Paradox of Ego, Desire, and the Shifting Self

by | Nov 28, 2025 | Life, Transformation, Zen

A few days, happened to write in response to a WordPress prompt: What historical moment fascinates you the most? I said the most historical moment for me was my own birth.

A kind response to that reflection wondered aloud if such a statement was egoistic. That question itself opened another gate for me—into the paradox of ego and desire. Perhaps that concern comes from a certain religious conditioning—that moksha or mukti must mean the annihilation of ego, the killing of all desire. I do not know if that hypothesis is true. What I do know is this: for human beings to live a good, functional, phenomenal life, a healthy ego is a must.

Our existence is paradoxical. We are where infinitude meets finitude, the eternal with the temporal. We can only realize the Self through our own consciousness—through the very ego we are told to erase.

Try this simple experiment: hold your breath for a few moments. The desire to breathe in, to live on, is our most natural desire. Without it, there is no life, no practice, no realization. So one cannot be egoless and desireless.

The real question, then, is not whether ego and desire should be annihilated, but:

  • What is a healthy ego?
  • What is a wholesome desire?

Let us begin with ego…

What we call Self / I / Other / World are not fixed identities. The borderlines between self and other, I and world, keep changing like a shifting sand. In a sense, self-realisation is the dissolving, the sublimation of that line altogether. But as the Zen koans remind us, one cannot function in that place for long. One must return—to this world, to the marketplace, to the ordinary rhythms of living. Modern psychology offers its own language here. Winnicott spoke of the “true self”—a healthy ego that allows spontaneity, play, and authentic living. Jung described individuation—the process of integrating fragments of psyche into wholeness. Both point to the same truth: ego is not to be annihilated but clarified. In Dharma terms, ego is not the enemy but the raft. Without it, we cannot cross the river; with it, we must remember not to cling once the crossing is complete. And this borderline is not a single line at all, but a continuum—stretching from finitude to infinitude. Take a simple example: when I sit on a chair and say my chair, the border is drawn where my body rests on the wood. The chair is the “other.” But when I say my hand or my leg, suddenly that which is outside me is also claimed as mine. The borderline has shifted inward, now lying between me and mine. Follow this chain of logic and you find it is endless in both directions.

Where does the “I” end and the “world” begin? Is the breath I draw in mine or the worlds? Is the food that becomes my body still “other”? Even the thought that says I—is that me, or is it something arising within me?

Advaitins keep referring to Advaita Vedanta’s never-ending refrain of neti-neti— “not this, not that.” Each identity we cling to, each border we draw between self and world, is gently negated. The chair, the hand, the breath, even the thought “I”—all are peeled away until what remains is the unnameable Self, beyond attributes.

 Yet Zen diverges.  Zen insists we return. After the silence of dissolution, we must still sweep the floor, cook the rice, and bow to the neighbour. The paradox is clear—Vedanta dissolves, Zen re-enters. Together they remind us that realization is both transcendence and ordinariness, silence and sound, vastness and marketplace.

Zhuangzi, the Taoist sage, once dreamed he was a butterfly. Upon waking, he wondered: was he a man who had dreamed he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was a man? This wasn’t just whimsy—it was a radical questioning of the solidity of the self and the world. Zhuangzi constantly shifted perspectives to show that what is “true” depends entirely on one’s standpoint. He didn’t resolve the paradox—he danced with it.

The borders keep moving, like waves on the shore. Sometimes they dissolve altogether, and we glimpse the vastness where self and world are not two. But then, inevitably, the tide returns, and we find ourselves once again in the marketplace—buying vegetables, greeting a neighbour, saying this is mine, that is yours. It is here—in the weighing of tomatoes, in the bargaining for onions, in the smile exchanged with a neighbour—that realization is tested. Not in exalted states, but in ordinariness. The marketplace is the true koan: do we cling to “mine” and “yours,” or do we walk lightly, allowing the world to fill us in?

When one becomes egotist, then for them only they exist, and the other does not. But when we are empty of self, then the world fills us in.

Turning now to desire, and what makes it wholesome…

Buddhism itself makes a subtle distinction here. It speaks of two kinds of desire:

  • Tanhā – craving, thirst, the clinging that binds us to suffering.
  • Chanda – wholesome aspiration, the clear and steady wish that leads toward growth, practice, and liberation.

So, the problem is not desire itself, but the way it is held. When desire hardens into tanhā, it narrows and enslaves. When it opens into Chanda, it becomes a path, a current that carries us toward freedom. In many mainstream interpretations, moksha, mukti, nirvana, swarga, and heaven are precisely conceived as an escape—a final release from the painful, relentless cycle of birth, death, and rebirth (samsara) on this Earth. And many traditions teach the way out of this to kill the ego and discipline the desire. Sometime back, I read a caption on the T-shirt of a young tourist in Kodaikanal. It read: “Everybody wants to go to heaven, but no one wants to die.” I was struck by the absurdity of that quote. Many don’t realise that living here, right now, is heaven.

Religions often seem to have trained us to believe in a heaven “out there”—a distant reward to distract us from our pain here. We’re told to sacrifice our joy, suppress our desires, and endure suffering for a paradise that never arrives. It’s like a carrot hung in front of cattle—always just out of reach. Infact In Mahābhārata, Bhishma Parva urges the warriors that virgins wait in heaven for their valour and death in the battlefield.

In verse 6.11.13, Sanjaya declares to Dhritarashtra:

“Those who die in battle, having fought bravely, attain the regions of the righteous, where celestial nymphs wait upon them.”

The battlefield becomes a portal to heaven, and death becomes passport and visa. But what gets lost is the heaven of this life—the heaven of ordinariness, of compassion, of presence.

By the way this motif isn’t unique to the Mahābhārata. In Norse mythology, warriors who die in battle are promised entry into Valhalla, where they feast and fight eternally under Odin’s gaze. The valour of death becomes the ticket to glory. In Islamic martyrdom traditions, especially in certain militant interpretations, paradise is promised to those who die defending the faith—often described with vivid imagery of gardens, rivers, and companions.

Even in Indian traditions, moksha or mukti is often described as a state of eternal bliss—freedom from rebirth, from the cycle of earthly pain and suffering. In other words, another metaphor for heaven. Swarga, Vaikuntha, Kailasa—each tradition paints its own celestial landscape. But the paradox remains: we long for liberation from this world, even as the teachings whisper that liberation is found in this world.

My reflection, however, leans into a different, though equally ancient, interpretation found within those very same traditions. It’s the voice that questions:

What if the goal is not to escape the world, but to see it correctly?

This is the radical non-dual perspective within Vedanta, the “nirvana is samsara” of Mahayana Buddhism, and the “ordinary mind is the Tao” of Zen.

From this vantage point:

  • Heaven (Swarga) vs. Moksha: In the traditional ladder, swarga is a temporary, pleasant abode—a reward for good deeds, after which one must return to Earth. Moksha is the final release from that very cycle. But we often treat moksha itself as a super-sized, permanent swarga—a “better place” elsewhere. This longing for “elsewhere” blinds us to the sacredness of “here.”
  • The Problem isn’t Earth, it’s Ignorance: The suffering isn’t inherent in the world, but in our avidya—our distorted perception. We suffer because we cling to what is impermanent as if it were permanent and believe the fragile ego to be the whole truth of who we are.
  • Liberation is a Shift in Perception, not Location: When ignorance falls away, the world isn’t negated—it is transfigured. The same marketplace, the same breath, the same neighbour, is seen in its true nature—as luminous, empty, and inseparable from the divine ground of being.

So perhaps the eternal bliss of moksha isn’t the antithesis of earthly life, but its fulfilment. We don’t leave the world to find heaven—we discover heaven by fully, awake-ly, living in the world. The raft (ego) isn’t burned because it’s evil, but because the crossing is complete. One stands on the further shore, only to realize the shore was always right here, and the river was an illusion of perception all along.

So we return, as always, to the paradox of ego and desire. At the beginning, they seemed like obstacles—something to be killed, disciplined, erased. But now they appear as gates. Ego is the raft, desire the wind. Without them, there is no crossing. With them, there is danger of clinging, of craving.

The task is not annihilation, but clarification.

  • Ego clarified becomes openness, a self that is porous, playful, and free.
  • Desire clarified becomes aspiration, a current that carries us toward compassion and ordinariness.

When ego hardens, the world shrinks. When desire distorts, the heart thirsts endlessly. But when ego softens, the world enters us. When desire steadies, the path unfolds beneath our feet. Perhaps this is the paradox: we do not transcend ego and desire by destroying them, but by letting them dissolve into their true nature. Ego as transparency. Desire as aspiration. Both as companions on the way.

And then, as always, we return to the marketplace—smiling, bowing, buying onions. Heaven is not elsewhere. It is here, in the ordinariness of breath, in the neighbour’s greeting, in the stray dog’s eyes. And the other shore is not the shore of Nirvana, but of our present life—this breath, this neighbour, this stray dog, this marketplace. Ego and desire do not vanish; they are clarified, softened, made transparent. They return with us to the ordinariness of living, no longer chains but companions.

The realisation / enlightenment or whatever we name is the understanding that  there is no non-dualism without dualism, no day without night, no life without death and no yin without yang. Realisation is not the erasure of opposites, but the seeing that opposites are inseparable.

 

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