Commenting on the blog article – Hack Your Time, Do More of What Matters – a long-standing friend and a spiritually evolved and worldly successful person, RN Bagdalkarji, suggested to me to “write one more blog wherein you can bring out how effective people make use of their time.” This led me to wonder how confusing this issue actually is. While I was pondering over this, an image of a person from a small town, who has been watching films in an old theater since his childhood, now going to a multiplex with eight screens showing different films with no one really restricting entry if one wants to see a little bit of every film, came to my mind.

What if this person decides to maximize his expenditure by enjoying the best of eight different films – a song here, a dance there; a fight here, a love-making scene there; a courtroom argument here, a devotional song there? Of course, it is funny and silly. But this is exactly what most of us are doing with our one life – we are not living through the drama of our own world as our seers advised. We are indulging in the various dramas going on around us, including those where there is no role, or even a dialogue for us in the script. Surprised? See people betting during an IPL cricket match; getting emotionally involved with the characters and events in soap operas; investigating suicide-murder mysteries and passing judgements on the happenings of the world.

We exist in two states – the waking and the sleeping – divided into 16 hours and 8 hours respectively. Wise people divide the 16 hours of waking into two equal parts of 8 hours of work – their livelihood, and 8 hours of leisure – family commitments and pastime. The eight hours of sleep are also divided into two parts – the sleep with dreams, and deep sleep. In dream sleep, our mind “watches” a grand emotional drama where we are naked in a public place, have lost our way in a maze of lanes, are being chased by a beast, bitten by a snake, or flying over things and people, and so on. 

In his 2017 book “Why We Sleep,” Matthew Walker, a neuroscientist at the University of California, Berkeley, explains that we naturally sleep for 5 cycles of 90 minutes each, totaling seven-and-a-half hours. Most of the earlier 90-minute cycles are deep sleep and later, towards morning, most of it is dream sleep. So, if you are sacrificing the initial cycle by staying up late partying, or watching TV, or whatever, you are losing deep sleep, meant to repair your body. If you are sacrificing the later cycle, getting up early to catch a flight, you are losing the dream sleep meant to repair your mind. Of course, some people do recommend getting up early morning to take advantage of the calmness and the solitude. However, if one follows the saying, “Early to bed and early to rise…” one can do so and yet fulfill one’s need for proper sleep. 

Bill Gates recommended Matthew Walker’s book for everyone saying, “I realize that my all-nighters, combined with almost never getting eight hours of sleep, took a big toll.” So, all of us, who are nowhere near Bill Gates in our accomplishments live ignorant about the importance of sleep, causing our health – both physical and mental – irreparable damage. The damage caused by inadequate sleep is compounded by sleeping with the mobile phone under the pillow, the LED light in the bedroom, watching TV in bed till your eyes close, and drinking tea/coffee after 8 p.m. Alcohol is a big disruptor of sleep cycles, leading to permanent damage of the brain over time. 

So, having made a mess of your sleep, the Rta of repairing your body and mind, now come to the waking hours. Commuting long distances to work is a curse for a large number of people, especially those living in metropolitan cities. Doing a job you don’t like is another torture, the stress of which does not end after finishing the day’s work; it lingers beyond that and comes home with you. Similarly, arguments and fights at home reach the workplace. 

Now enters the TV with a “manufactured reality” presented by every channel in its own taste and style. And finally, the Internet, the free-for-all gutter of profanities, sacrileges and misinformation that initially started with the omnipresent stream of knowledge with good intent and has now turned into an “Indra Jaal” – hacking human minds like insects trapped in a spider net. The AI engine knows what you are doing, where are you going, what mails you are typing, which calls are you taking and making and then turns you into “an ideal consumer.” And then we are taught to manage our time, when in reality, we have lost control of our lives – like a drowning man holding a stopwatch to see if his sinking is perfect!  

Shakespeare wrote so sagaciously, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players; they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.” So, first and foremost, live your age. Allow your children to live like children, take risks when you are young, travel, live your dreams, and as age sets in, settle down, withdraw from the world gradually and then bow off the stage with grace.

Know yourself as a soul – an eternal witness – now in this body, watching this particular film in the small-town single screen theater. Connect to your childhood. Remember your grandparents, and your primary school teachers. Life is like a yarn over a spindle, everything is right here, with you every moment. In your struggle to become somebody, you have lost somewhere your real self. But the good news is that it can be recalled and felt. And it will also bring you a lot of healing. 

Close your eyes and remember sitting in a theater, enjoying a movie. None of us is born to sit through different screens in the multiplex. Still better, don’t miss out on the drama of your own life, while watching the film that is this world. Find out your lines in your drama, say them with conviction and get out of the limelight as soon as your part is over. You will find yourself living with a deep sense of satisfaction, peace and fullness during the time that you spend on earth. 

Say “Thank you” and “I am sorry” more often, even if you are not. This is the easiest way to participate in the world. Don’t manage time, manage yourself. You are actually the eternal consciousness, which is true, pure and blissful – Sat, Chit, Ananda. It is the ever-changing mortal body and drama around it that is not this – that is false, deceptive, and painful – allow it to roll over, like a scene in the film. Cry, laugh, jump or sink in your seat, but don’t try to run into the screen and break your head against the wall behind it.

This blog is coinciding with the occasion of India’s 74th Independence Day observed under the shadow of the coronavirus pandemic. On high notes, the construction of the Ram Mandir finally began with a billion people watching the Bhoomi Poojan ceremony live; the New Education Policy 2020, with long-pending major reforms in education, has finally rolled out, and five freshly purchased Rafael fighter jets flew into the Indian skies escorted by two Sukhoi-30 jets that reminded me of Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam.

I was with him at HAL when on 4th January 2001, Wg. Cdr. Rajiv Kothiyal flew in the very first LCA, named KH 2001 to honour its designer Dr Kota Harinaryana. On June 8, 2006, I was at Lohegaon Air Force Station in Pune when President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam flew in a Sukhoi-30 fighter plane. He was donning anti-gravity suit. It was a majestic site to see a line of Sukhoi-planes on that occasion. Later on March 7, 2007, I attended Fleet Review by President Kalam coinciding with the Platinum Jubilee of the Indian Air Force and watched the awe-inspiring fly past by IAF aircraft when 17 Jaguars fighter planes flew in a formation of number 75 over our heads with a deafening sound. Of course, we took mortal body of Dr Kalam to Madurai in the gigantic The Lockheed four-engine turboprop military transport aircraft C-130 aircraft on July 29, 2015. 

My latest book “India Wakes” found initial acceptance and appreciation. It was called “the most democratic book published in years.” It received praise with the words, “the book’s value lies in its timeliness and straight talk.” The book audaciously proclaimed, “India is increasingly well positioned to replace China as part of the global supply chain, and India is now and likely will continue to be a rapidly growing market.”   

We called the first chapter of the book, “Botched Up Independence,” quoting an eye-witness, Mr. Narendra Luther, “It was independence for those who were not disturbed from their homes and hearths. It was partition for an estimated twenty million people who were uprooted from their moorings and became penniless refugees.” The book put before the modern generation the three burdens that India has carried since independence — a hostile and always scheming, troubled neighborhood, many decades of economic stagnation, and the delay in the weaponization of our military forces, as we were spreading the message of peace that no one was really taking. 

Even today, our rich and powerful live in their own bubbles, as though not needing anyone in the world, or rather, living in the knowing that the world needs them to keep moving. Fed up with this hypocrisy, a large number of brilliant Indians went abroad, and it is not by chance that people of Indian origin are at the helms of giant companies like Microsoft, Google and IBM, whereas not even one Indian company can be called a global one. There are no buyers for many of our “Ratnas” as we call our public sector companies.

It is therefore important to understand the right meaning of the word “independence.” What Lokmanya Balgangadhar Tilak called “Swaraj” as a “birthright” in 1916, turned out to be “Swarthraj” by those in power. What Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru called India’s “Tryst with Destiny” was indeed murder and mayhem as Saadat Hasan Manto observing those times wrote, “Human beings had instituted rules against murder and mayhem in order to distinguish themselves from beasts of prey. None was observed in the murderous orgy that shook India to the core at the dawn of independence.”

According to the Principle of Dependent Arising, a key doctrine of Buddhist philosophy, any phenomenon arises in dependence upon other phenomena: “If this exists, that exists; if this ceases to exist, that also ceases to exist.” Later, Stephen Covey wrote in his famous book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”, “You cannot continuously improve until you progressively perfect interdependent relationships.” The fact that stares upon us is that while independence without interdependence leaves us isolated, interdependence without independence leaves us vulnerable.

My generation has seen the breaking up of joint families into “independent” nuclear families of their children. Our children are living through the stress of raising their “independent- spirited” children, expressing their adoration only on Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. The “independent opinions” floating on the Internet are as toxic and hazardous as plastic bags in a city drainage system – choking it and stinking. The profanity and crassness seen on social media are precariously detrimental to civil society. 

The most urgent need of the hour is to regain the spirit of interdependence for that is the basic truth of our lives. My friend, Dr. Mpoki Ulisubisya, the High Commissioner of the United Republic of Tanzania to Canada, calls it “Ubuntu,” an African term that means, “I am, because we are.” No human being can flourish without the support of the family. It is like “a circle within a circle” situation. Families flourish within close-knit communities. Communities depend on harmonious societies and countries become prosperous doing business as trading blocs. 

We have seen many “what if’s” in our history to the great lament and regret of the future generations. What if the British had never come to India, or say, by 1810 or so, a loose confederacy of Sikh, Maratha and Deccan rulers had managed to kick out the British, the French and the Portuguese? Or, had Mir Jafar, the commander-in-chief of Siraj-ud-Daulah’s army, bribed by Robert Clive, not betrayed his nawab? Or what if Cyril John Radcliffe had applied mind and method over a period of time and not partitioned India in five weeks’ time? Or, what if Prime Minister Nehru had not turned upside down the “village republic” ideal of his mentor, Gandhiji, in favour of the centralized economy of Soviet Russia? 

Another “what if” is staring at us today. The world has a predatory superpower on the prowl, and failure to act against the threat it poses will be a historic blunder. I read a story “Nanhi Laal Chunni” (Little Red Riding Hood) in my school. Re-enacting this fairy tale with China is too risky and scary. For the dream of a 5-trillion-dollar economy to turn true, we ought to bridge the 50-billion-dollar trade deficit with China. What if we do not? What if 20 million affordable houses are not built, and farmers’ incomes are not doubled by 2022? The independence of the country needs an upgrade by unwavering action to improve the living conditions of our people.

My longstanding friend and former CEO of HarperCollins for a decade, PM Sukumar, kept feeding me worthy reading material and last week, he shared an article by Dr Adam Bell about the hacking of one’s perception of time. After I shared the article with many, as is the trend these days, whatever you get – forward, I also read it keenly, something not many people bother to do, and indulged in ruminating upon it like even fewer people do. I am writing about it as I found it to be the real root of many of our problems, and the principal source of our dissatisfaction with life. 

We are all basically consciousness imprisoned into physicality. The eternal soul lives in a perishable body, which needs non-stop respiration and a thousand other internal activities to be alive. Surprisingly, all these activities are pretty regular and cyclic. Every minute, the heart pumps blood 72 times, circulating 5 liters of blood through the body. The lungs inhale and exhale 18 times, approximately the same volume of air. The entire blood in the body gets renewed every 120 days and all this happens, throughout our lives, most efficiently, independent of the watch and the calendar. These values of course vary from person to person but within a very narrow band.   

Now enters the mind, the slave of time. The mind is thought to be in the head, but actually it is a software operating all over our body – especially the gut, where billions of bacteria live – converting our food into nutrients and waste. These bacteria are not eternal but almost immortal; they are alive for billions of years and keep acquiring new human bodies to live and multiply. My friend, Dr Girish Sahni, Former Director General of CSIR and Director of the Institute of Microbial Technology (IMTECH), based in Chandigarh, tells me that there are ten times more bacterial cells in your body than human cells, using the human body to live safely and flourish. They also do not follow the time of the clock and whenever the mind forces food upon them, if it is not needed, they get upset, and even angry. 

So, the key to good life is freedom, even if it is not liberty, from the clock and the calendar, from the alarms and the deadlines and targets and schedules.

In Hindu philosophy, there is a principle of Rta (ऋत). It means order, rule or truth as one wants to understand it – the principle of natural order which regulates and coordinates the operation of the universe and everything within it. Understand the time of the clock and the date in the calendar as measuring tools and as references to carry out the business of the world – hourly payments, daily wages, monthly salaries, quarterly returns on investments, annual increments, etc. A day in the school is divided into periods and children are expected to toggle from one subject to another by the sound of the bell.   

Disorientation of what we do with our biological rhythms, called Circadian Rhythms, is our chronic problem. The Circadian Rhythms respond primarily to light and darkness in an organism’s environment. The 2017 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was jointly awarded to Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael W. Young for their discoveries of molecular mechanisms controlling the Circadian Rhythms.

As Adi Shankaracharya declared the cornerstone of Hindu philosophy – know this world as unreal and your soul as real – ब्रह्म सत्यं जगन्मिथ्येत्येवंरूपो विनिश्चयः – don’t allow the watch and the calendar to override the reality of your Circadian Rhythms. Yes, it is true that people have to work in night shifts, but they must be suitably compensated with less working hours and resting days, which is mostly not done, except in highly regulatory industries like the airlines. Resident doctors and nurses are even forced to do double-shifts by greedy hospitals, putting patients to the grave risk of errors in treatments. Most of the road accidents are caused by sleep-deprived drivers.   

Dr Adam Bell gives a modern version of “mindfulness” as taught by Buddha. He prescribes a 5-4-3-2-1 grounding exercise. Several times in the day, stop what you are doing, and “see five things” in your immediate vicinity; “be aware of four feelings” in your body (any itching, tense muscles, pain, pressure, whatever); listen to three sounds around you (your heartbeat, a bird chirping, a fan moving, a clock ticking); sniff the air for “two smells” you can pick up on (the aroma of any food or the fragrance of any flower); and finally, “taste one thing” you can have (a sip of water, for example). Doing this few times (say five times) every day will slow the passage of time for you.

Your life depends on your breath. Start counting your breath whenever you want to stop your mind from its excursions. Divide the time into small doses like we pour water from a jug into a tumbler, tea in a cup, soup in a spoon. Now examine every small interval. Is it worth spending this time watching TV, gossiping, reading the newspaper? Can you do something better? Go for a walk, take a nap! These two activities are much better than anything else people do. You will start changing and soon you will be doing only the task that matters in any individual time block. All other distractions will be discarded by you, yourself.

I am not asking you to be a hacker. I am telling to retrieve your reality that has already been hacked by the “world”. What we consider as our work, livelihood, business, are all means to live, not life. The purpose of human life is to flourish, to expand the consciousness further. How come you are reading my blog? Who created the Internet? Why are Adi Shankaracharya’s sayings heard and read even today? Why is Dr APJ Abdul Kalam loved and remembered by millions even after five years of his departure from this mortal world? Why do you cry while listening to good music? These are all examples of the expansion of consciousness.  

That consciousness is the Reality. When it enters a sperm and ovum fused together, it starts dividing the cell into a well-defined “Rta,” making a human body out of it. When it is separated from the flesh, the best of the doctors in the most equipped hospitals pronounce the patient “dead.” From where does Consciousness come? Where does it go? Nowhere, it keeps shifting!  This world is nothing but a simulation program where each player is free to make choices and score to reach the next level of the “game.” 

So, don’t allow your choices to be manipulated. Know yourself as an unchangeable eternal soul, now in this body, in this mental state, both temporary and changing every moment. This knowledge, this awareness, is what matters. The rest is time-pass, living a life hacked. 

There is negativity everywhere; oozing out of people in the form of anger, frustration, arguments, and general acrimony in the society. The uncertainties brought in by the coronavirus pandemic are not dispersing away. Four phased lockdowns were somehow endured but the unlock stages are bringing with them new fears and anxieties. 

No one seems to have any clue of what next. The media jumping on to every new sensation is the least bothered to tell people about the real struggles on the ground – the plight of students, housemaids, street vendors, courier people. Experts are strangely divided in their opinions as if science has turned dubious. The beautiful world of many hues and shades has been painted black and white. 

Where are people like Dr APJ Abdul Kalam – spreading hope, confidence and belief in goodness? There is not even one voice in this cacophony of concerns, accusations, and arguments, talking peace. Everyone seems to have taken a ‘for or against’ stand on every issue and the pursuit of the Golden Mean, preached by Buddha, seems to be abandoned in this country. 

Let us not be fooled by this dance of opposites. Whatever is bad, harmful and stressful is almost always man-made. Nature is full of peace and harmony. We are born as blissful – Sat-chit-ananda. English poet William Blake (1757-1827) described a man so nicely. 

For Mercy has a human heart,
Pity, a human face:
And Love, the human form divine,
And Peace, the human dress.

Peace must be sought from within and must first be practiced amongst the immediate family members, and the workplace colleagues. More and more people doing this will create a peaceful and harmonious society and once it becomes a norm, good effects will start manifesting. So, the question is not how to find peace. The question is how not to lose peace. 

First, understand peace as serenity – calmness of the mind, and harmony of the bodily functions. This understanding comes from health, clean and comfortable surroundings and living in a society of justice. A balance or equilibrium of powers tilted towards goodness is essential. Only then can you manage emotions like fear, anger, and hatred so that they do not harm you and others.  

Now see the engines of conflict around you – power plays among interests, capabilities, and wills – from simple ones like which TV channel is to be played, to food and fashion, to complex things like income disparity, to a corruptible criminal-justice system, and politics of vested interests – at every level there is a power play going on.  

In his 1989 book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey (1932-2012) distinguishes between people who focus on what they can do and can influence – and people who focus their energy on things beyond their control. He calls them proactive and reactive people respectively. Reactive people maintain an attitude of being victimised and blame others. This is the root cause of loss of peace. 

There is a Serenity Prayer: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.” There may be little you can do about many things, since they are outside your influence. But blaming others and living like a victim does no good to anyone – neither to you, nor to the others around you. 

The negative cognitive surplus created by electronic media is making people depressed. Devoting energy to issues beyond our control is such a waste of time – confinement due to coronavirus, the content shown on TV, noisy politics – you can’t change any of them. But what you can definitely do is to focus your energy on those things that you can influence.

You can follow a strict 8-8-8 hour regimen of work, leisure and sleep – equal hours for each. You can pick up a hobby from your childhood that you lost somewhere in the struggle of growing up. You can buy noise-cancellers and shut the TV off for yourself, when other family members are indulging with it. You can start waking up an hour earlier and sleeping an hour earlier to have valuable ‘me time’.

By making these small changes, you will feel peace, little and gentle, like a whiff of fresh air. All people are basically the same – names and forms differ. Everybody wants to be happy, healthy, reasonably prosperous, secure, and above all, to be loved and liked by others. What is life but a struggle to make tomorrow better than today! In their own way, everyone is doing just that, why interfere? 

Finally, write by your hand on a paper, The Peace Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi:

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace;
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
And where there is sadness, joy.

Read it once in the morning and again before going to bed and you will not only feel peace but will become a peacemaker. The Bible declares, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.” (Matthew 5:9). The Hindu prayer of peace seeks harmony not only among people but in everything. सर्वँ शान्ति:, शान्तिरेव शान्ति:, सा मा शान्तिरेधि – May there be Peace in All, May there be Peace Indeed within Peace, Giving Me the Peace which Grows within Me.

Human beings learn best by imitating others. Children pick up their language, manners and basic etiquettes by observance. The whole idea of saints living in society is to have the presence of live models of divine virtues amongst the people of the world. Places of worship are meant to be islands of serenity and peace in the hustle-bustle of human transactions. And there is a strong tradition of in Indian society followed by all major religions, where people learn from each other. 

During my student days at the GB Pant University, there used to be a weekly magazine JS (Junior Statesman). They would provide a full-page photograph of a celebrity and I would collect them. I can recall posters of Garry Sobers, Bobby Fischer, Rajesh Khanna, Sunil Gavaskar, Vijay Amritraj adorning ‘my wall’ in the shared hostel room. I would feel that there was something good radiating out of these posters. The idea of meeting these people in flesh and blood never even crossed my mind. They were ‘somewhere up and away,’ from my mundane world.

And then, these ‘idols’ started turning into human beings. Arun Shourie and Dr. Raja Ramanna came to the University and I was enthralled by their talks. When Gopal Das ‘Neeraj’ came and recited his poetry and song, it was surreal. In 1982, I relocated to Hyderabad. I was sitting in the small library of the Defence Research & Development Laboratory that was called Technical Information Centre (TIC), when I had a cursory look at Dr APJ Abdul Kalam. “He will be our new Director,” someone said in a hushed tone. I could feel some force pulling me towards him but aware of my low position, I dared not even wish him. 

The Biography page and Journal section of my website speak of the many great people I have met. Some who are not there, for want of a photograph with them, include Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, R.K. Laxman, Sir V.S. Naipaul, Amitabh Bachchan, Vinod Khanna, A.R. Rahman and a host of business leaders, whom I am now going to mention. Recently, my elder son, Aseem, asked me, “Dad, tell me about the framework of your success – how do you define it, map it.” He then defined success as money as well as the good done to the world. 

I decided to recall the people I had met in person. Fifteen people with more than 1-billion-dollar worth were listed. Ratan Tata, John Chambers (Cisco, USA), Chung Mong-koo (Hyundai, South Korea), A.C. Barman (Dabur), Azim Premji,N.R. Narayana Murthy, Anil Ambani, Sajjan Jindal, Mahesh Patel, Ramalinga Raju (Satyam Computers), GVK Reddy, Dr K. Anji Reddy, Venugopal Dhoot (Videocon), Noorul Ameen Mohamed Ishack (Qualitas, Malaysia), and Govindbhai Dholakiya (SRK Diamonds).  

Aseem asked me five questions: (1) Who amongst them did I consider an inspiration for people; (2) Who an aspiring MBA must choose as a role model; (3) Who could have done differently (4) Whose student one should become for life; and finally, (5) Who should be his own role model, in my opinion? 

My answers were spontaneous. Ratan Tata is inspirational, John Chambers is the success that every young MBA must look up to, Ramalinga Raju could have done differently, Azim Premji’s life is worth emulating and my son should make Narayan Murthy his role model.  “What about you?” he asked me. “Could you see beyond Dr Kalam in your life?” 

Only your children can dissect you with such neat and deep precision. Dr Kalam was not my role model. I could never imagine doing what he did. For me, following his instructions and accomplishing the tasks he assigned to me was all that mattered. And yes, I found Dr Varghese Kurian beyond Dr Kalam and perhaps my role model. If ‘Amul’ could have been replicated in other areas, India would not have sunk into an economic rut.

What makes someone your role model? The answer is you, yourself. Your role model is basically ‘your own’ definition of what you want to be, where you would like to reach, and what qualities you would like to develop, personally and professionally. Your role model, whoever you pick, is defined by how you embody the qualities of integrity, optimism, hope, determination, and compassion. 

The role model you choose for yourself is a person exemplifying what is important to you, and he/she in turn inspires you to put forth the effort to improve and create things that will make a difference. In your low moments, when you feel lazy, tired, or just plain annoyed, you think of your role model and are motivated to start working again.

So, choose your role model – a living person, whoever you want it to be. Make it public, on your FB page, computer screen, everywhere, and start imitating this person. There is an English saying, “Fake it till you make it.” The idea is that by imitating confidence, competence, and an optimistic mindset, a person can realize these qualities in his/her real life. So, by having a role model, you are not only making a statement about what you want to do with your life but are also elevating your consciousness to a higher level.