The thing to do about To-do lists

To-do lists get things done. How would you know what all needs to get done unless you had written down a To-do list? There is always a chance you will miss doing something that needed to get done because you had not recorded it on your To-do list. That would just cause waste of time, and potentially money and convenience as well, since it would require additional effort or another trip to the same place or something of similar nature or even of greater repentance.

I hence created To-do lists with a fervor that few can match or imagine. I had multiple lists on my phone, some written on paper at the house, couple in the car, and several at work. These lists found me their diligent follower and servant as I feverishly worked day-in day-out, on weekdays and on weekends, to help reduce their load while keeping a diligent eye out for where they needed to be perfected by new additions.

I got things done!

Recently, however, I have come to realize a few other aspects of these To-do lists, which have been eye opening in other ways.

I have come to question life as a list of things to do. I believe life is more than a laundry list of things to be accomplished. Buried under my plethora of lists, I had some sense of this sentiment, but never truly actualized it.

Lately I have stopped creating To-do lists. When I say stopped, I mean totally, completely, absolutely stopped. I create them no more. Nada.

To those of us who still live in the world of To-do lists, it would sound scary and perhaps even stupid. Many may be going in their head, “Yeah, right! We shall see how long it would last. He would never get anything done and will always be playing catch up! Good luck buddy!”.

Yet, the truth of the situation is that even though I had similar concerns going in, I am yet to miss having these lists.

There are two very important lessons that I have learned by not having To-do lists anymore.

The first important thing I learned is about prioritization. Much of what we jot down on our lists is not all that important to begin with. It would be okay if half of those items did not get done at all. Then there are other items that do not need to be done right then-and-there, aka, they do not deserve the sense of urgency that they may find showered on them as when they are added to this elite To-do list. There are in reality very few items that are truly that important that they need to get done. For such items, I really do not need a list. For some who are totally remiss on memory faculties, a list may be a much needed aid. However, for most of us, average memory is good enough to remember these items and it may also improve our memory functions by learning to retain a couple of items, which we, with the advent and adoption of latest technologies, are becoming increasingly stale at.

The other important lesson I learned has to do with our tendency to procrastinate. I realized that writing down a thing to be done on the To-do list gave me an excuse to not attend to it at the moment - It is now recorded and I will get to it in due corse of time; I am assured it will get done and I can relax. Wrong! The list, given the nature of it and of one’s mind, continues to grow. Items get added all the time. It does not always get addressed in a first in first out basis. We address items of the list randomly. Consequently, the items that were not all that important to begin with, continue to weigh on the list and on our minds as we continue to defer them until a later time when we will be able to attend to them. Or conversely, we busy ourselves with the not-so-important items at the expense of the truly important ones, to get a sense of accomplishment and busyness, without really getting much of import done. Lists accentuate procrastination.

In absence of lists, I remember to do that which is important and do it as it needs to get done, without deferring. This is not to say that there are things that on occasion do need to get done and do not get done. It also does not mean that this system is for everyone. There are people who will swear by To-do lists - and I was one of them and I know how you feel - and more power to them. To me it has really come down to understanding what is important for me in my life at this point of time - and it is not about getting more things done in less time nor is it about getting done everything that possibly can be done.

I have come to the realization that my life is not about checking things off a To-do lists. I want to experience an abundance of time to dwell in the seemingly trivial acts of a day. These acts may be of no importance to other but to my own quality of life - reading, meditating, spending time in nature, and like. I do not want my days to be filled with running around managing lists and being managed by them. I trust myself to do that which is important and needs to get done. And I am comfortable with assuming responsibility for dropping a few balls here and there in interest of this new found freedom and relief.

Now that I do not have these lists, I find my weekends to be truly relaxing. I am able to read much more than what I was able to before. I am less stressed. I am less hurried, I am more at peace with myself, and, best of all, my efficiency has gone up! This sounds paradoxical but it is true - that which is truly important gets the required attention and that which is noise, gets ignored. 

For now, I am basking in my new found freedom and joy at being free of the heavy chains and bounds of needing to constantly check things off a silly list of things to do. I am more at ease in accepting myself with my accomplishments as well as with any misses.

After all, the joy of the journey is available only to the traveler riding the chariot. For the one pulling the chariot, there is only labor and a feverish hunger to arrive expediently at the destination. I have decided to let the chariot of life pull itself forward while I witness and contemplate upon, in reverence and in gratitude, its unfolding mysteries in their ever-pristine unsung glory.

The Journey Within

I feel tired

the road seems long
I feel I have been traveling
for long, forlorn.

So far I have come
Yet so far to go still
What distances have I covered
What roads await still

To what end
I sometimes ask
All this travel
All this running about

A voice, my own
tells me to move on
There is no arrival it says,
Only moving on

Moving on to what
I ask
It does not know
it says

It itself
keeps moving on
So should I
for that's the way

The way to what
I ask again
You ask too much
Is all she says

I then
look ahead
I then
look behind

Nowhere
From where I have come
No place
To which I may arrive

The world moves
As I stand still
Sands of time
Burn in my eyes

From this stillness I watch
The roads go by
Decorations of flowers
Tears from swollen eyes

The common journey of a unique life

All our lives are spent in hunting and gathering for tangible and intangible things that would add to our happiness. Yet the irony of it all is that the greatest moments of our life’s joy are marked by self-forgetfulness.

Happiness is as fleeting and as available through so called worldly pursuits as it is through so called spiritual pursuits. In reality, the spiritual pursuit is nothing more than wisdom applied to our worldly living. Whether one seeks the state of joy through yoga or through relationships or through power or through wealth, there are times when we feel we have made it and then there are moments when we fall short of our own demands and expectations. The so called witnessing consciousness is witness to our rise and to our fall regardless of our pursuits. It is ever available and ever fleeting.

Human life is fraught with combination of joys and sorrows. A spiritual seeker’s pursuits as well as a worldly person’s aim are both congruous. They both seek to come upon a state of joy devoid of suffering by use of their faculties of body and mind and through running after a self-created or borrowed image of possibility of such an existence. Both paths are marred with frustrations of failure and of discoveries of delight. In truth, these seemingly different paths are like the many different rivers, all coalescing towards the same ocean - seemingly different and yet formed of the same origin and merging into the same eternity.

Spiritual seeker carries the pride of renouncing, the worldly person is burdened by the arrogance of accumulation. The spiritual seeker sees the latter as greedy while the former is labeled as lazy. Yet it is like the person blaming his own image in the mirror as if it were someone else.

I know joy is real since I have experienced it. I know some paths that lead to it and others away from it, which too I have experienced. I also know that no path that I have traversed thus far has succeeded at retaining joy perpetually. Sooner or later, no matter what the means, it has met its demise.

Life then is not an arrival but a journey. A journey in which there is much gained and much lost. A journey in which we learn much and unlearn a lot. A journey in which we experience the grace of togetherness and are burnt by the harshness of loneliness alike. A journey in which no matter how much we give or how much we receive, our lives continue to oscillate between the fullness of our hearts and the emptiness of our hands. A journey in which the desire to arrive is the only constant companion.

On such a journey one asks oneself what makes one carry oneself day after day. What is it to which one rises to each day and wishes to dream of every night? For some it is the a relationship, for others it is a passionate scientific or artistic pursuit, for some others it is a self created goal of achieving something that they consider meaningful. And yet there are some for whom none of these exist and yet they wake up each morning and go about their day knowing that this journey, which could end any instant, is not over yet and that, which seems to come quite easily to many, requires on their part courage drawn from the deepest core of their beings - the simple ability to place one foot in front of the other.

However, regardless of one’s disposition, the idea of finding lasting fulfillment through activity, whatever that activity might be, is as fictitious as the idea of the sun shining through the night. One may get indications of such possibility just as the moonlight validates the existence of the sun at night time. However, the indication of a thing is never the thing itself. Only in the dawning of contentment is there completeness of action. Action that spurs from a place of incompleteness fails to dispel restlessness. 

When faced with an unending night one may deny the sun, ignore the moon or make other philosophical claims. Yet when the sun does dawn, words give way to silence, doubts dispel in experience, and the acute longing of a lifetime finds solace and respite. The journey continues.  

A journey from living to being truly alive

That who suffers in you, suffers in all suffering everywhere. None cause hurt to another unless they are hurting themselves. This understanding is the beginning of compassion, is the room for forgiveness, and is the place of love.

With the innocence of a child be completely convinced at all times of the following truths:

1. Everyone loves me
Ignore any and all of another's seemingly insolent acts, rooted in ignorance, in the  same way as a mother ignores the outcries of her child while continuing to attend to her child's needs with great care, love and compassion.

2. I love everyone
Regardless of what negativity may arise within, act and speak only from a place of great love. Truly care for the well being of those around you regardless of their attitude or action. Speak less, speak well.

3. I want nothing
Life has taken care of you this far and it will continue to take care of you. Have unflinching faith that your needs will be taken care of. And realize that the need is not always for food, sometimes the need is to experience hunger; the need is not always for acceptance, sometimes the need for us is to experience alienation. Only one who is not afraid to till the soils of scarcity gets to experience the true joy of fields of abundance. Continue to diligently attend to your duties in life without demand for anything.

4. Whatever I have is for the service and good of everyone
Do all the good that you can, in all ways you can. Do not hold back, do not calculate. In any situation, always ask what is needed and how can I help?

5. Commit to happiness
Above all, do not let your happiness be a victim of your circumstances. When something makes you upset, make it a point to truly and genuinely smile from the core of your being, your heart. No negativity would be able to stick to you, your heart would be free of all resentment. Declare your freedom to be happy unconditionally - for conditions are always changing.

The Human Divinity, Determinism, and Free-will

‘God created man in his own image[Genesis 1:27]’. The Supreme Spirit, which manifests itself as everything in this Universe - from rocks to humans - created humans as the closest clone to its own nature. To this effect, just as figs do not sprout from mango seeds, abject slavery is not born of infinite freedom. To believe otherwise is false understanding.

Man’s freedom, though not unlimited like that of the Supreme Spirit, does exist (it also has the potential to be that supreme freedom, when freed from the ‘I-am-ness’ of itself). This freedom, though limited, is real. It may be referred to as the free-will or it may be called as discrimination - the power to choose or to act based on the contents of one’s consciousness. The only entities who are devoid of free will are those who are either not human (which is why human birth is of such great significance since only through this birth form is it possible to realize the Supreme) and those who have actually attained the state of enlightenment while living in the human body. The enlightened beings in human form have no personal self and are a mere instrument of the Supreme will. Every other human has the capacity to exercise free will in accordance with his/her knowledge/experience/memory. This discriminatory power or intelligence may be used to elevate oneself towers life’s greater truths or be ignored at the risk of miring oneself down with its illusions. The choice is there. This is why in Gita it is said that one's own mind can be one's greatest ally or one’s worst enemy.

This can also be understood through the example of a hospital patient. Although the patient does not have the same freedom as the person who is not in the hospital, within the hospital the patient does have some degree of freedom, which if rightfully exercised, could lead to an expedited expulsion from the institution, although it does not guarantee such outlet.

Same is the case with man. Man has the ability to exercise discretion/intelligence over the contents of his consciousness towards attaining greater wisdom or demerit. And although such efforts do not guarantee that one would realize the Truth, they certainly improve upon the possibility. Hence the paradox - one cannot attain the Truth by effort alone but effort is essential nonetheless.

One cannot so easily dictate the circumstances of one’s life but the response, based on one’s knowledge at the time, is definitely within one’s reach. Hence all scriptures emphasize the use of one’s intelligence. Hence we are able to make choices and learn from them. Hence we do not have to burn our hand every time on a hot stove to know that it hurts.

Free will exists in the form of discrimination. It is not limitless because its quality and extent are limited by the contents of one’s consciousness. The contents of one’s consciousness are a gift from consciousness itself, as is the ability to play with them and to refine them. This 'play' is also governed by inescapable rules. Rules such as the inability to give up the search for joy, rules which enable an inherent understanding and struggle to decipher right from wrong (when all is one), inevitability of the death of that which takes birth, inability to deny or to ignore the truth forever, the rule of karmic cycle (what goes around, comes around), and more. The entire play is set up for man to see it for what it is - a game. For man to learn to play an active part while recognizing oneself to be not the player. The only meaningful lessons from this game of life are about moving from being a token on the game board to recognizing oneself as the detached witness of the game. Man’s ability to learn is man’s ability to exercise choice. These choices can serve to expand one's consciousness by virtue of greater inclusivity or to shrink it by denial or negation of that which is. As the expanse of one’s consciousness increases, one’s freedom also accentuates.

In addition, man is not dictated to always act on the strongest impulse or loudest thought either. The ability to be in the company of these loud noises and stay unaffected is called awareness.

Also, space is not a helpless impotent comatose patient. Space is the most alive, living, and vibrant entity in this creation. Even science is unable to find anything more alive and active. It is this space that is us, the Universe, the consciousness, and that which is even beyond the consciousness. Space is not only the spectator. It is also the play as well as the stage on which it is being played. It is Space in which all knowledge arises and then manifests in human beings as intuition or insight, the source of all of our  knowledge. It is Space in which all knowledge and everything else eventually dissolves.

Human beings have free will. It manifests itself in their ability to learn and to apply that knowledge towards greater wisdom. Life as a human being is of immense significance because only in this life form there exists the possibility to live either like an animal, or like a human, or like an Angel, or to be the Buddha. All choices are available.

However, although the exercise of one’s discrimination to seek the Truth may create the possibility of coming upon the Truth, it does not guarantee it. Just as keeping a window open makes it possible for the sunlight to come through but cannot force the sun to shine. Discovery of truth, like the happening of Love, is a gift from the Supreme. And upon whom the Supreme chooses to bestow such a gift, is part of the Supreme’s free-will, of which we are a tiny but a precious part.