Prasanna Mana (Pristine/ Tranquil Mind)

Thousands of people travel every year in the month of Jeshta/Ashadh for the pilgrimages from Dehu / Aalnadi to Pandarpur in Maharashtra, India.

From childhood, I always had a lot many questions in mind. About Tukaram and the Varakari,
- How the devotees with self discipline travels yearly together ?.
- What drives them so crazy to walk hundreds of kilometers with the name of Lord Vittal the god of vaishnava’s ..
- Who inspired them about love, humility and peaceful co-existence.
- How there mindset has become so tranquil to visit to god with minimum requirement.
- What is the essence of there peaceful happy life.

When I started reading the Tukaram Gatha, I realized the essence of sayings of Saint Tukaram. The originator of vaishanavas, bhakti tradition. His below Abhang (Poem) is the true form of all motivating self help books. It gives a true sense of how to have positive mindset. How mind can help you to achieve the results with tranquil mindset.

Meaning -
Make your mind pristine and tranquil, it is the only way of achieving all Perfection.
So about happiness, Peace, and all accomplishment.
Either haven or turmoil both are possible with the mind use.

Mind is like a god, you can make a frame of God in mind, You can pray the god in mind the wish will be completed by the god in mind. Thus a mind is a like mother of all almighty thoughts.

Mind is your teacher, Mind is your disciple, Mind can become a slave of you and give you tranquility. But if you become a slave of mind you can downgraded,

There is no god like your mind. Says Tuka…

Tukaram wrote these lines, about 600 years ago, it is true forever. You can’t live lively without positive mindset. No matter you have money fame , or all amenities , but it matters most if you have a tranquility of mind.

I still remember, the story of a saint and a king.
While King is going on his way to fort, he sees a saint on the road in tranquil mood and chanting the name of god.
King observes that while chanting saint is not saluting him. Even after guards asking saints to salute the king. The saint says he only salutes to lord almighty and he is happy with that. Annoyed with the remark from saint, King asks his guards to keep the saint in jail.

After 2 days, king goes in jail to see what the saint is doing. He thinks that two days jail,must have made morale of saint down. And saint can easily salute him. But king find that the saint is still enchanting the name of god. King asks to saint ‘Are you still happy ? ‘ the saint says ‘ Yes ! I am ! and with the name of god; . Ashamed king releases the saint and start a new life with tranquil thinking.

Thus I realized that if you have a pristine and tranquil mind you can win anything. No need to think about the negative sentiment.

The only part remain is how to make a mind tranquil from the dust of negativity and worries.
The major thing I observed myself it I tend to think about more about future based on past.
The best quote I find out about it that.
` Look at life through the wind-shield not the rear-view mirror.’

I must say, Tranquility of the mind which drives those all warkaris, who are visiting with devotion of god would be having in there mind ? No matter , what sun and rain and cold affect on there mind.

Leader and stories:

Till today, I have attended many formal and informal talks and read various article of leaders. Every time it fascinate me the way leaders narrate the story of there journey of achievement, they never say that this is a journey off success, the very reason is success is achieved at the end of journey. But for the leaders the journey is never ending. They never quit, they always transforms themselves to newer and higher level to for higher achievement with higher passion.

I will take an example of a leader who was a Managing directory of Indian industry. Now he is a president of Asia, Today he has more passion than I have seen 8 years ago, the same excitement but more broadened expanded vision, earlier he use talk about making achievement in India, and today he talks about making achievement in Asia. The canvas is bigger and so the footprints are. At this age when people are retired and making visits to temple, he is expanding the organization in Asia and visiting locations and factories. He is establishing new era of achievement at newer level.

He never said I am successful, It just like he has a habit to unsatisfying on own scale of achievement.
He always say or asks : Are we doing good?
Again his answer is : Pretty good !
But again he question himself : Could have been done better?
And the answer again comes from him : definitely better”

How and why this happens.
The only reason I can say is, never satisfying lust of higher achievement. There is always zest of doing things better that makes leader a perfect achiever by raising the bar higher.

It is not easy for leader to accept his achievement of even failures. There are small battles of loose and win. However at the end leader will achieve more than his vision, which is not respect to his goal but the experience and maturity he acquire from the project.

One important thing about Leaders story is they talk heart-to-heart. They candidly shares the win and lose. The leader always tells a story of only truth. No touch of fictive or imitation.
The story has plot (Vision & goal setting) drama,(Mission), characters (objectives), evils (Wastes) and finally like every story ‘The Truth prevails.’ This tells the achievement on basis of correct/incorrect steps taken during the projects.

There might be failures in each project like a tragedy story but the leader focuses on the reasons of failure and the analysis helps him and his predecessor. I have come across lot many leaders sharing the lose candidly, but they never blame the team,not the system. They takes it as own responsibly.

That helps us to understand them. And also about ‘what is not to be done when you are having a passion of to be a leader’.

In my view the storytelling from leaders helps not only for the organizational leadership but also for personal leadership.

But the important question is, how we are keen about listening and practicing from them ?

Each one must judge his own story on the small success and failures measurement. but on the experiments of achievements and the maturity you get for newer level.

The reason is “ There is no success or the failure cos, You don't choose the day you enter the world and you don't chose the day you leave. It's what you do in between that makes all the difference."

Power of words.

In my childhood, My grandfather was not allowing me to say word Bhakari (Indian bread made from Jawar /sourghum) and he insist on word Dhashami. Since my mother was working in small village as a teacher that time, where people/my friends use to say bhakar and we use to talk in typical native accent . So I asked my grandfather why to say Dhashami and not a bhakari or bhakar. Majority of people use this word. He said the the upper cast people must use word Dhashami. I was hesitant with his complex and orthodox views about caste. But I did let it go that time.

However I got fix in mind that Dhashami is a superlative degree of bhakari. We are supposed to use that only because I am from so called upper caste. The answer was not able to satisfy me that time.

After few years I realized the difference in Bhakari and Dhashami.
Bhakari is made using tapped water. But Dhashami was made from hot milk instead of water. The taste is different & sweet, It has high nutrition, If it is made in proper way it can be preserved to upto 10 days.

What a difference it would have been for my grandfather, as a Dashami who was about 60 years old has seen the good and bad part of life.
He was participant in freedom fighting movement, but never applied for the certification. He has seen Indo Pak Indo China war, the biggest draught in India and Yellow Milo days.(Yellow Milo is Sorghum imported to India during draught, which was a poor quality grain.This was only imported to feed Indian people due to scarcity of Indian grain . )
And due to the change in lifestyle all people along with my grandfather, that time needed to shift from eating Dhashami to bhakari. Though this was fall in the eating standard of the people . The standard of living indicator of country might not have changed, reason was demand was milk was still there for added population.

In spite of change in lifestyle, Still grandfathers thoughts were positive. And he was instilling the words with younger generation for future dreams if Dhashami, May be this was and effect of his spiritual journey.

Apart from that, I was a small kid that time and I used a slang word in front of my elder brother. I still remember the sound of slap on my cheek from him. The fault was using the slung word. He said no matter you stay with any other group. Never ever take there bad language. So I stated talking the good words

It hurt now to my mind if someone use a slang ward, if I also used it by any mistake. I heard recently from a one leader where a 'ridicules' word is humiliating in some of the countries. so with idiot, moran. etc.
so we have to use words wisely.

Beautiful thought from Upanishads is
“Watch your thoughts, for they become words.
Watch your words, for they become actions.
Watch your actions, for they become habits.
Watch your habits, for they become character.
Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.”

So the use of positive word is extremely extremely important ! along with positive thoughts.