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  • The Theory of Relativity of Life

    The Theory of Relativity of Life

    Albert Einstein gave us the theory of relativity to explain space and time. I would like to propose a theory of relativity for something closer to home: our own lives.

    Here is the idea. Everything we perceive with our open eyes is relative to something else. We only know a thing because its opposite exists. Take away the opposite, and the meaning disappears with it.

    It sounds complex, I know. So let me break it down.

    Everything you know, you know by comparison

    We understand the joy of peace only because we have felt the pain of sorrow. If sorrow had never existed, we would have no idea what peace even means. Joy is relative to sorrow.

    The very fact that you call yourself a good person means that, somewhere in your mind, you have decided someone else is a bad person. Your picture of yourself is relative to how you compare yourself with others.

    The same goes for what you lack. You notice the shortcomings in your life by measuring them against what other people have. You don’t judge your wealth by what you own, but by how much more or less you own than the people around you.

    • Love is relative to hate.
    • Success is relative to failure.
    • Day is only “day” because night follows it. If there were no night, time would simply be one endless day, and the word would mean nothing.

    Even the meaning of life is relative to death. We only call life life because we compare it with its end.

    Our religions, too, we understand largely through comparison: Christianity next to Islam, Hinduism next to Buddhism, Judaism next to humanism. We define each one by how it differs from the others.

    So what lies beyond relativity?

    If everything we know is built on comparison, an obvious question follows. What is beyond it? Who, or what, is God? What did Gautama Buddha actually see under that tree?

    This is where I want to go deeper, into the idea of singularity. Oneness. The Divine. Enlightenment. Universal infinity.

    The reason these ideas are so hard for us to grasp is simple: they cannot be compared to anything. They are not relative. There is no opposite to hold them against, so our comparing mind has nothing to grip.

    Oneness is the one thing that has no opposite. That is exactly why the mind cannot hold it.

    Those who describe this state call it the ultimate place a human being can reach. A blissful state of mind in which we begin to see the complexity of the world with perfect clarity. We see that everything is connected to everything else. Our consciousness rises high enough to perceive the cosmic beauty that we have given so many names: The Supreme, The Almighty, The Only One, The Most Merciful, The Divine.

    And the person who reaches this state? We call them by many names too: the Enlightened One, the Buddha, the Prophet, the Saint.

    A question to sit with

    Next time you catch yourself comparing (your income, your looks, your life) pause and ask: what would this look like if there were nothing to compare it with?

    That small question might be the first step beyond relativity.

  • What Is Life? This Moment Is All You Have

    What Is Life? This Moment Is All You Have

    We all live life as it happens to us. But have we ever paused to ask what it is we are passing through?

    Day is followed by night, night by day, and the cycle keeps repeating until days become months and months become years. Then, suddenly, one day we look around and realise we have arrived here.

    So what is “here”? Where exactly have we arrived?

    You have arrived at this moment

    You have arrived at this very moment: the moment you are reading these words and reflecting on your life.

    This is the only moment you are actually living. Everything you have been through, and everything you will go through, is not happening now. This moment is your life, and it is happening through you.

    The past is gone. The future is imagined. What is left is this moment, and you get to decide how to live it.

    Years lived vs. moments lived

    We often measure a life by its length. “He lived to 50.” “She lived to 70.” But life is not about how many years you spend on this earth. It is about how many moments you were actually alive in those years.

    Think about how most of us spend our days:

    • replaying the past, again and again
    • worrying about a future that hasn’t arrived
    • and, in between, forgetting to live the moment we are in

    Cracking the code

    If you want to enjoy life, enjoy this moment. If you want to understand life, understand this moment.

    It really is that simple, and that difficult. Try it right now: put this down for ten seconds, take one slow breath, and notice where you are.

    Welcome. You have arrived.

  • How to Be Happy: Cracking the Code of Self-Love

    How to Be Happy: Cracking the Code of Self-Love

    I am sure every one of you has asked this question at some point: how do I become truly happy, and achieve everything I have ever wanted?

    Most of us think about it for a few minutes, a few days, maybe a few months, and then we forget about it and carry on with life. I asked the same question. The difference is, I got stuck on it.

    I read books by yogis, followed spiritual teachers, read book after book and watched lecture after lecture, all to answer one question: how do I become happy?

    The answer everyone gives

    The answer I found, consistently, everywhere, was self-love. To be happy, start by loving yourself. If you love yourself, you will spread love to others, and when you spread love, you will be happy.

    I was delighted. I had cracked the code.

    But then I got obsessed with those two words. What is this self-love that everyone seems to understand except me? Of course I love myself. I don’t really have a choice. I think we humans love ourselves by default. Don’t believe me? Look at the photos on your phone. Who appears in most of them?

    So for a long time I thought I had it figured out. I love myself, therefore I know how to be happy. Done.

    But is that really self-love?

    I kept looking for the true meaning. Then one day, while driving and listening to a motivational talk by Will Smith on self-discipline, the dots finally connected.

    What does self-discipline have to do with self-love? Everything.

    Self-discipline is how you protect your self-respect and your self-esteem. If you truly love yourself, you will not let yourself do the things that damage them.

    A slice of pizza

    Say you want to lose weight and get in shape. Self-love, the real kind, sounds like this:

    “No. I can’t let you have this slice of pizza. I love you too much to watch you feel bad afterwards. I love you too much to let you feel guilty.”

    Say that to yourself every day, and one day you look in the mirror and see the body you always dreamt of. Imagine how happy you would feel reaching a goal you had struggled with for years.

    Practise this awareness long enough and it becomes a habit that spreads into every part of your life: personal growth, business, relationships, every dream you have. You love yourself so much that nothing can pull you away from your goals. And one by one, you start achieving them.

    The formula

    Self-esteem → Self-respect → Self-discipline → Self-love

    Protect your self-esteem and self-respect by being disciplined, and you will love yourself for doing it. Not for anyone else. For you.

    Master this simple formula, and you will have cracked the code of how to be happy. 🙂

  • Be the Change: What “Gandhi the Man” Taught Me About Purpose

    Be the Change: What “Gandhi the Man” Taught Me About Purpose

    Growing is basic human nature. From prehistoric times to today, humanity has kept moving forward. When we stop growing, we feel stuck. Trapped. When we advance, we feel free, and that feeling gives our life a purpose.

    At the level of humanity, it’s easy to see the progress: science, technology, medicine. But what about you, as an individual? Have you grown? Have you transformed anything in your personal life?

    We all dream of success: money, a beach house, fame, respect. So what does it actually take to get there, and to find a purpose we can truly call our own?

    I found an unexpected answer in a small book.

    “Ahh… Gandhi”

    Since childhood, I have been curious about Mahatma Gandhi. I knew the history lessons and the greatness described in textbooks, but I always wondered: why is this man known all around the world?

    In 2008, on my first trip outside India, I was on a domestic flight to Atlanta. An American woman asked where I was from. “India,” I said. Her very next words: “Ahh… Gandhi.”

    I was astonished. Back home, most of us barely mention his name beyond seeing his face on our rupee notes. Yet here was a stranger in a foreign land who heard “India” and immediately thought of Gandhi. That moment stayed with me.

    A second stranger, ten years later

    Fate brought it back ten years later, in 2018. I was on a flight to the holy city of Mecca to perform Umrah. The man sitting next to me turned out to be wonderful company. We talked about everything: life, travel, ideas.

    When he learned about my hunger for growth and my entrepreneurial dreams, he suggested a book: Gandhi the Man by Eknath Easwaran. “It’s not a history lesson,” he said. “It’s about how one man transformed himself, from an ordinary man into a Mahatma. How one man changed himself to change the world.”

    I made a note, bought the book, and started reading it on a trip to Canada in August 2018. It had a deep impact on me. Here is what I took from it.

    An ordinary man, at first

    Gandhi was a simple man, just like you and me, with his own beliefs, fears and ambitions. His early life was ordinary.

    So what was the turning point?

    He was endlessly curious about his own life, and willing to experiment with it. He was honest about his shortcomings and actively worked on them. In South Africa, he began to see the larger picture: that we are all one, connected as one human family. He felt deep love for people and deep sympathy for human suffering.

    He built a strict, disciplined daily routine. The Bhagavad Gita was his spiritual teacher, and he lived its teachings through his actions:

    • silence every Monday
    • eating just enough
    • daily meditation
    • evening walks and prayer

    These are practices almost every great spiritual figure shares. In many ways he was more a spiritual leader than a political one, a spiritual man who happened to help India win its independence.

    The lesson that stood out

    Gandhi turned inward first. He worked to understand himself, overcome his own fears and flaws, and only then did the world come to call him Mahatma.

    “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”

    This message resonated with me deeply. Every day, almost every second, we try to change someone else. We blame others for our own shortcomings, without realising that the only thing that truly needs to change is you.

    Your turn

    Find some quiet time. Sit in silence and reflect on these questions:

    • Who am I?
    • What am I doing here?
    • How am I connected to everything around me?
    • What can I do to help others, and to reduce human suffering?

    Spending quiet time alone, in solitude and peace, is the first step to looking inward. And looking inward is where real transformation, and real purpose, begins.

  • What Is Will? A 30-Minute Experiment

    What Is Will? A 30-Minute Experiment

    We hear heroic stories about people with strong willpower. We are told to keep our willpower strong. But have we ever understood what will actually is? Where does it come from? How does it work?

    Have you ever felt your will, the way you feel fire, water or wind?

    Let’s find out. I’d like to give you a small exercise.

    Before you begin

    Give yourself 30 minutes, completely cut off from the world. These 30 minutes could turn out to be one of the most transformative experiences of your life.

    • If you’re reading this on your phone, save or copy these instructions and switch off your internet.
    • Find a quiet corner where no one will disturb you.
    • Please don’t read further until you’re there.

    The exercise

    Now that you are on your own, follow these steps slowly.

    1. Sit with your spine straight and relax your whole body. Close your eyes.
    2. Take six deep breaths and simply relax.
    3. Be completely still. Motionless. Take six more deep breaths and let yourself go.
    4. Now bring a single thought into your mind: I will straighten my index finger and point it outwards. Just the thought. Don’t move yet. Stay with that thought, slowly and gently, while your body stays completely relaxed.
    5. Now, along with that thought, physically straighten your index finger and point it outwards. Take your time. Feel it.
    6. Ask yourself: what just moved my finger? Sit with that question. Meditate on it.

    What you just felt

    Take this in, deeply:

    The force that arose from your thought and moved your finger, that was your will.

    Feel it. It was your will that created the force to move your finger. This is will. This is your will.

    You use it all day, without noticing

    In daily life you use your will for countless tasks without realising it: getting out of bed, brushing your teeth, taking a bath, walking. Every action is possible only because of your will. Without it, you would stay motionless, just as you were with your eyes closed.

    Even right now, you are reading this because of your will. No one is forcing you. It is your own free will.

    That is why we say human beings have free will. But saying it and truly understanding it at a deep level are two very different things.

    Once you understand the power of your will, and learn to master it, you can achieve whatever you set it on. Climb mountains. Build a business. Chase the dreams you’ve been putting off.

    It all starts with one finger, and one thought.

  • Do You Care What Other People Think About You?

    Do You Care What Other People Think About You?

    Last night I had a fascinating philosophical discussion with a very good friend. We come from different ways of thinking, and it’s always fun to challenge what you believe. We don’t know what we don’t know. So I always try to understand the other person’s point of view. It helps me learn and grow.

    The question we argued about was simple.

    Two kinds of people

    There seem to be two types of people in society:

    1. Those who say they really care what other people think of them.
    2. Those who say they couldn’t care less what anyone thinks.

    Let’s start with the second group. I don’t care what anyone thinks of me. Sounds strong. But is that how we actually behave?

    The naked truth

    Say your answer is yes, you really don’t care.

    When you go to church on Sunday, or simply step out of your house, do you make sure you are dressed appropriately? Of course you do. You don’t walk out naked with the philosophy who cares what anyone thinks?

    So deep down, you do care what others think. In front of people, you walk, dress and behave according to a shared code.

    When caring becomes a cage

    We live in a complex world, constantly weighing our own thoughts against everyone else’s, and acting accordingly. There is nothing wrong with that, until it becomes overwhelming.

    That’s when you stop acting like yourself and start acting the way others expect you to. Imagine a life where every passing second you are doing what other people want, and not what you really want to do.

    But the other extreme doesn’t work either. If no one cared at all and everyone simply did whatever they liked, the world would turn into a giant asylum: people abusing each other, caring for no one.

    So which side of the coin should we be on?

    The answer is balance

    Not either side, but the edge of the coin.

    Fine, you say, but how do I actually find that balance?

    Here is one simple thing you can do:

    Do the things you are genuinely passionate about, the things you truly love, the things that make you happy, without thinking about what others are thinking of you.

    • If you’re a parent who loves to travel, but once overheard someone making mean comments about your kids on a plane, don’t stop travelling because of what other people might think.
    • When you dress up, dress because you enjoy it, not to impress anyone.
    • If you want to get fit, do it because you’d love to see yourself fit, not because you’re worried about what people think of your belly. Do it for them, and even the six-pack won’t satisfy you. You’ll start wondering whether they expect eight. It never stops.

    Just be true to yourself

    We have no control over other people’s thoughts. They’re free to have their opinions, but their opinions shouldn’t change who you are.

    So keep it simple. Act from your own inner sense of happiness, rather than seeking approval for every move from a source you can’t control. Be yourself, and enjoy life in this moment, instead of constantly trying to prove yourself to this crazy world.

    Life is too short to worry about what other people think of us.

    So enjoy!

  • The Future: It’s Coming

    The Future: It’s Coming

    A note before you read: I wrote this piece in the early hours of 26 January 2019. I’ve left my predictions as they were. You can judge for yourself how they turned out.

    As I write this, Google can predict the next few words of my emails and fill them in for me. It knows what I’m searching for, often before I finish typing. Based on those searches it shows me ads on other websites, recommending products I might like, with striking accuracy.

    Two codes of human buying behaviour

    Humans are emotional creatures. We decide with emotion, and then justify with logic.

    Computer algorithms are different. They understand logic and patterns, and only logic and patterns. Since we started using the internet, our patterns have been recorded: what we browse, what we buy, what we search for. Big companies have spent millions using that data to push products and services to us.

    In other words, they have cracked the second code of human buying behaviour: justification by logic.

    Chips the size of a blood cell

    Look at how electronics have shrunk. In the 1970s a supercomputer filled a room. Today, something a thousand times more powerful fits in your palm. We have smart switches, smart watches, smart everything. Put a chip in it, and it’s smart.

    As nanotechnology goes mainstream, I believe chips will become as small as a blood cell, and one day we will put them inside our bodies. The reason given will be longevity: better health, early warnings, longer lives.

    Right now you may be shaking your head: Never. I will never put a chip in my body. But remember, people said the same about the telephone (“we’ll never stop writing letters”), and about the internet (“we’ll never give up our privacy”). Today our privacy lives with Facebook, Google and Amazon, traded for the promise of faster, better service. Future technology will offer us better health, by monitoring our vital signs.

    And that will produce enormous data about our emotions: our fear, our happiness, our joy, our sorrow.

    When the machine knows how you feel

    Now imagine an artificial intelligence, already very smart, that knows your patterns and your logic, and now knows your emotions too.

    That is the first code of human buying behaviour: buying on emotion. Crack it, and the computer knows exactly how you feel. Combine that with your history, and it can predict what you need next.

    Feeling sad? It recommends just the right film, or sends you a coupon for your favourite ice cream to cheer you up. It will feel like a miracle: “How did my phone know?”

    Just as a mother knows exactly which sweet will stop her child crying, AI will become our grown-up mother.

    And you will accept its suggestions, because they will be uncannily accurate.

    The questions that keep me up at 3 a.m.

    I expected this to become reality somewhere between 2021 and 2025. Which leaves some open questions:

    • Will humans still be in control, or will machines and algorithms run us?
    • Will they decide what we think, what we read and buy, who we befriend, where we eat, where we live, what we watch?

    If you doubt it, pause for a second next time you’re on Facebook or YouTube. Watch yourself click to the next post, the next video, the next one after that, each one suggested by an algorithm running quietly in the background.

    So, honestly: are you in control, or is the algorithm?