Is it a good theme for 2023? I bet, it is. This should have been a theme yesterday but today is also not late. Life happens only today, it won’t be wise to postpone it for a tomorrow that may or may not come. If it comes, it will have different colors which might not necessarily suit the portrait you are painting.
Explore
Exploring is a huge phenomenon. You can explore places, people, books, technology, human behavior, patterns, and yourself. The list could go on forever. I constantly keep reminding myself to explore more, while I have resources, while I have time. The people I met during my road trips, and pilgrimage make me think a lot. What I have been doing with my life? What more do I need to start exploring? What more I can explore? Exploring is learning, getting to know something more, something different. Exploring is going beyond your limitations, exploring is accepting that you know only this much. Exploring is being prepared to listen, to open the eyes, exploring is waking up from a deep sleep.
This year I am planning to visit all 12 Jyotirlinga, one jyotirlinga a month can cover all 12 that are situated by the width and depth of India. It is mesmerizing to explore Kedarnath at the north of India in the Himalayas, go down the Indian Ocean, and meditate at the Rameswaram. Visit the west and bow down to the Somanath and to the east visit Baidyanath with the rising Sun.
Explore professional opportunities and challenges to widen my horizon, connect with new people, visit new places, share my experience and learn from theirs. Explore new Cloud Technologies.
Experience
In the way that I experience life, the physical world is really just the tip of the iceberg or reality. Wether it;s trees or stones or water or animals or stars, everything has an ineffable interior quality.
Forty is an interesting chapter of your life. You have experienced enough that you can come up with a better version of yourself. There are enough stories that you can share and touch lives. Experience is not only what you have achieved, experience is also how you failed and fell flat on the ground and stood up again to conquer. There is a beautiful photo of an iceberg in my office that speaks about the experience, so little that is visible, so much that is hidden below water that one has been through. I am grateful to all my great mentors for the life lessons they lived in front of me.
Read
I keep reminding myself to read good books, and learn from history. You dont have to go through everything to learn, sometimes you can read what the great leaders and great failures been through. Some of my favorite books I read in last year are, Hitler, Shehenshah, Panipat, Shriman Yogi and Swami.
I am going to continue reading this year. These has been some books on my list to start with and explore more, once I could digest something form this.
- Savarkar: Echoes from a Forgotten Past – Vikram Sampath ( currently reading)
- Pathway to light / Prakashvata – Dr Prakash Amte ( currently reading)
- History of the Freedom Movement in India – RC Mujumdar
- Yugandhar
- Bhagwad Geeta
I would give a book review once a finish reading it.
Live
What is it to live? I am alive, but am I really living? I wonder sometimes. There have been some moments to cherish, certainly. Living is probably a summary of many things. Living a healthy life, eating good and healthy, not products and junk. Reading good books and getting inspired. Travelling and exploring new places. Meeting people, different than you or your type. Living a Yogic life, practise a little bit of detachment. Being happy for no reason. Giving, and sharing, caring and loving. Small values I learnt growing up and often keep reading, even preaching. I am affirmative to all of this. But how much from these is implemented in the life? Being aware of the very fact of what I am doing and what not, is a good start they say.
|| श्री कृष्णार्पणमस्तु ||