Keep the Promise you made to the child within you

25th June 2013, is a day for me to remember for it was the day, I met one of the most amazing person on this planet. His name is Nik Halik. He addressed a large gathering in Chennai and I was thoroughly inspired on hearing his life story and felt that I should share atleast a glimpse of what he shared, with you all.

Nik is an Aussie born Greek. His parents migrated from Greece to Australia, to make a living. His father was a truck driver and his mother a school teacher. Nik was the last of the 4 siblings and his life was confined to a small room in his house till the age of 10, owing to some illness. During these years, he had no formal schooling. All he read was his favourite comics Tin Tin and often kept referring to the Britannica Encyclopedia. Nik,like most of the small children was very imaginative. He often used to look at the moon through the window of his small room and used to tell himself, one day I will go and walk there.

At the age of 8, Nik made a list of 10 goals that he would achieve in his life time (all inspired by his favorite hero, Tin Tin). His goals were'nt small. It was as big as his imagination. It looked more like crazy ideas rather than goals to be achieved, but he decided that he will pursue them all. His 10 goals were: to be a rock star, to be a millionaire, to own houses in exotic locations in the world, to travel at least 100 countries, to run with the bulls in Spain, to climb the world's tallest mountains, to go under the sea and have lunch at the sunken ship Titanic, to be an astronaut, to live in a space station and finally to walk in the moon.

At the age of 17, Nik left the comfort of his home with just one suitcase, a guitar and one way flight ticket to USA, in his quest to make his dreams come true. As one of his goals was to become a Rock star, once he got there he joined a rock band and soon achieved the status of a rock star.

In the meantime, he started making smart investments in share market and real estates. He became one of the youngest millionaires in the country and achieved yet another goal.

The next goal on his list was to become an astronaut. Nik

had myopia and it was not possible for someone with a

vision problem to enroll for the space programme. So he

was looking for a way out. Those were the days, when

there were no laser surgeries. He came to know of a latest

yet complicated surgery, to correct the vision problem.

The surgery was considered very risky because in case the

surgery fails, the person will lose his eye sight forever. Still his passion to be an astronaut made him to take the risk.Nik underwent the surgery and luckily the surgery wassuccessful and his vision problem was rectified. Next came the obstacle of his academic qualification. It was not possible for him to embark into a space programme in the USA, with his academic background. So he approached the USSR and they said, if a civilian has to enroll for the space programme, it would cost 3 million US dollars, which was non refundable in the event of the person not passing the health checks. He took a bold decision and went through it, facing all odds and came out of it successfully. He finally went to space.

Similarly, he went about achieving each goal he had set at

the age of 8, one by one. Now at the age of 44, with 8 goals down in the list, he has just 2 more to go. In addition to the list of goals, Nik has been doing many amazing feats, which is far beyond our imagination. It would not be an exaggeration to call him a “Real life Superman”.

One exceptional quality of Nik that differentiates him

from others was that he was never willing to take NO for

an answer. He was so much determined that he

negotiated his way through any obstacle he faced. These

lines, said by Nik were what impressed me the most. He

said “I made a list of promises to a child within me and it is my duty to keep up the promises. I can cheat the child by saying it is not practically possible, the systems are not in favour, the law does not permit it or whatsoever, but my inner child will die disappointed. I do not want that to happen. All our life, we live to please others but if we do not live to fulfill our own passion, we will end our life on a frustrating note.”

Nik likes to call himself a Thrillionaire, because he loves to live his life filled with thrill. He says, “Many people die at the age of 30 and get buried at 90” by which he means by fearing to take chances in life, people live like a dead man. His life philosophy is, “Live with passion and dare to dream, make your life an epic extraordinary adventure”

Happy Reading,

D. Senthil Kannan

Article Dated Aug'13

Discover the Genie within

In one of the friendly chat I had with my friend, we talked about how we human beings have lost on our innate strengths, in the process of becoming excessively dependent on technology.

She said, “It is because of the concept of pen and paper, that we have lost our innate potential to remember and recall. We take down notes, for the want of referring back to them in case we forget it. Instead, if we choose to focus our mind and listen attentively to something, with the belief that our brain can record all that is being said and be recalled anytime we need it, our brain can do so. But when we do not have faith in our own innate capabilities, we depend on a backup system, like the pen and paper the backup systems, which takes over control. I felt this is true. If we look at the way how the great seers of the past transferred their knowledge from one generation to the next generation, it was through oral rendition. The Vedic scriptures composed between 1700 and 1100 BC were also said to be passed on by this method. It is only after a certain period, a portion of it got transferred to Ollaichuvadi (Palm Leafs). It is a proof that it is possible.

Consider this: With the advent of calculator, we have lost our ability to do mental arithmetic of even simple calculations. With advent of computer, we have lost our capacity to store and recall data. All our knowledge has been fed into the computer and is made available to us at a press of a button. This comfort of being able to outsource our physical and mental work has made us technology dependent.

We are all aware that we human beings have a natural immune system, that serves as a health defense mechanism. But how far do we trust it? A saying goes, “It takes 7 days to cure cold without medicine, but it takes just a week to cure with medicine.” Though this may sound funny, this is the truth. Our body has the innate ability to fight the disease, but we in a hurry for quick cure, choose to go for medicine. Once medicine becomes our back up system, our body loses its innate strength of immunity.

This excessive dependence on technology has in a great way locked our innate potential. The Western culture is in one way responsible for this. The key differentiator between Western culture and Eastern culture is that the Eastern culture is 'human centric' whereas the Western culture is 'technology centric'. The Eastern culture relies on the infinite human potential, whereas the Western culture believes in finding an easier way of doing things, and therefore focuses on technology development. Western culture, no doubt has made life easy. It has eased the work load of every human being right from the home maker, the office goer, the factory worker and the farmer. But at the same time all these inventions have weakened us in terms of trusting our own innate abilities.

As human beings, we are blessed with vast amount of innate strength, physically and mentally but we do not even use a fragment of it.

The brain is often called a super computer, for the simple reason that its processing power is about 100 million MIPS (Million Instructions Per Second) and its memory storage capacity to something closer to around 2.5 peta bytes ( million GB).

Our body structure is so precisely engineered and built, that it can handle enormous amount of work load, which is out of proportion to our body weight. The Olympic record proves that a weight lifter weighing 56 Kgs can lift a weight of 305 kgs, which is almost 6 times his own body

weight, which logically sounds impossible.

We have been amazed, as to how Pyramids were built as early as 2500 BC, in the days when there were no equipment to carry such massive stone blocks to such great heights. These types of herculean tasks were possible because man trusted his innate potential.

In short our mind and body are capable of doing much more than what we think. It is just we do not have faith in our innate abilities. This lack of faith in our innate potential, has led us to trust technology rather than our own selves. Let us take the time to realize and understand our innate abilities and develop trust in it. Next time when you face a challenging situation, don't ask, “Can I?” instead say, “I can” because, you really can.

Happy Reading,

D.Senthil Kannan

Article Dated July 2013

SELF MADE MAN!REALLY?

A dialogue from one of Ajith’sTamil movie - “Billa 2”, goes like this. Ajith says, “En vazhkaiyila, ovarunaalum, ovarumnodiyum, naanasedhukinathu, which literally translates to, “I have sculpted every moment of my life, all by myself”. This dialogue gets huge applause and whistles from his fans at the movie hall. As I walked out of the theatre, I could over hear his fans endorsing this dialogue, by saying, ” Yes, it is true. Ajith is a self-made man”. I felt glad that this was a good messagethe actor has conveyed to his fans, to think in the lines of taking 100% responsibility for their life.

As a member of CII, I have had the opportunity to attend some of the ‘Star Trek’ sessions, wherein  successful businessmen are invited to come and share their success story. This event is generally a crowd puller, because people are excited about the opportunity to meet a VIP face to face and ask questionsthat would guide them in their growth process. What I have invariably noticed, during their speeches is that most of them have come from a very poor background or from a remote village where there was no infrastructure,  such as schools, hospitals, connecting roads, electricity, drinking water etc.Most of them did not have a strong financial backing or educational backing, but it was their mere grit and determination, that has triggered them to achieve such great heights.Quite often,they end the speech with a silent proclamation, “I am a self-made man”. Then, there goes a thunderous applause to appreciate them and cheer them up. When we hear that someone is a self-made man, it creates within us a sense of awe and places them on a high pedestal and makes us to look up at them as role models.

I sincerely bow down with great respect to such people who have toiled all the way up from scratch. The rags to riches story, never fails to inspire me or for that matter anyone, who is aspiring at achieving great heights in life.

In parallel, one more thought runs in my mind. It may sound critical, but it is a genuine question that lingers in my mind. Is it possible for someone to be self-made? By proclaiming, that we are a self-made person, are we not discounting the contribution of so many people, who have directly or indirectly, actively or passively helped us to achieve what we have achieved in our life?

Right from our parents, who introduced us to this world.They may have not given us good education, but without them we would not have be existing in this world today. Especially in a country like India, where infanticide is so high, if we have survived, it is because they cared to make sure we were fended enough to live.

What about our siblings?  It is in the nest called family did we learn to care and share. In some cases by sibling support or in some cases by sibling rivalry, we would have been motivated to grow.

How about the contribution of teachers? When I say teachers, I am not talking just about our school or college teachers, but all those who came into our life to teach us a lesson. More often, I have realized that the greatest of our teacher, come to us in the form of an enemy. They teach us lessons, we will never forget.

How about our true friends, who stood by us during the time of distress? Even if they did not give money to help, they would have at least given some good leads, genuine advice or moral boosting words.

If not anyone else, how about God or the Supreme Power? If not for His divine blessings or invisible interventions, how would we have been, what we have become.

May be we could say, that we had a difficult past, before reaching this level, but to say that, I am a self-made man, does not sound justified to me. 

To sum it up, we personally have a greater admiration for people who have the humility to accept that they have been successful, by the contribution of so many people in their lives, rather than taking all the credits to themselves. I am sure that when someone gives credit for their success, to their parents, their family, their teachers, their co-workers, their employees, or whosoever who genuinely deserves it;  they will not be looked down as insignificant, but looked up with a higher regard of significance.

Happy Reading,

D. SenthilKannan

Article Dated June 2013

Is God Playing Fair

One of my friends recently posted a question on Facebook, “Have you ever experienced the state of 'Whyness'? This question was quite intriguing. I am sure all of us, at some point of time, would have experienced this feeling of “Whyness”. Why is this happening to me? Why is God giving me so many problems? Why is it that it is always me who has to go through this suffering, while all others around

me are living so happily? Many such questions tend to crop up in our mind. Most often this question of 'Whyness' arises under 2 circumstances

1. When bad things happen to good people

2. When good things happen to bad people

But we fail to ask the same question under the

following two circumstances.

1. When good things happen to good people

2. When bad things happen to bad people

It is because in this case we feel it is normal and fair. This is what we have been taught and believed in. The whole theory of Karma revolves around this

concept, that if you do good to others, good will happen to you and if you do bad to others, bad will happen to you. To give it an extra allowance, it also

includes a clause “sooner or later”.

On the contradictory, in the first two circumstances, we feel that it is not fair. How can someone who committed a mistake, escape from the punishment

of God. If it is so, where is divine justice? Why is God

not fair?

If you closely observe our feeling or reaction, to these different situations we may notice something similar to this: When good things happen to good people or when bad thing happen to bad people, we feel it is normal and justified. We feel the person deserves exactly what he has got. There is no debate on that. However, when good things happen to bad people or when bad things happen to good people,

our instant reaction is anger, frustration and disappointment. Because what is happening is not in alignment with the Karma theory, which we so strongly believe in. It is something we cannot digest. We know he is a criminal, but overnight he has become a socially recognized political figure. We know that he is a thief, but all of a sudden he has attained the stature of a business tycoon.

In the first two circumstances, we feel that God is fair, but in the next two circumstances God is unfair. And the irony is more often, we come across the last two circumstances. It is not that such incidents happen more, but we generally tend not to notice what is normal and fair. Just like, how. It is always the black dot in the white board is visible to our eyes, similarly only those circumstances that we feel unfair are visible to our eyes.

First and foremost we need to accept that, Good things and Bad things happen to all without the prejudice of seeing whether the person is good or bad. For example, a road accident might happen where the person who got killed in the accident, was

infact driving on the right track with a sane mind, but the person who hit and ran, was drunk and intoxicated. There are instances when people have lost their life, in their struggle to save someone else. The victims of a natural disaster such as a Tsunami or Earthquake, are mostly innocent people. The person who gets killed in a communal clash, could perhaps been the person who was trying to stop the fight. The captives of a flight hijack or a terrorist operation is often the common man, who has no vested interest.

These kinds of situations, undoubtedly lead us to doubt the divine existence. It is then natural for us to ask questions like, “What for should I be good? In

what way being good, has helped me or my family?. The only answer is, let us be good for our own sake i.e to please our own conscientious. By you being a good

person the world is left with one bad person less. The logic is as simple as that. It may make sense to some, but not to many.

Whenever you encounter this question of 'Whyness' just settle with this thought, “Life unfolds itself in mysterious ways and it will always remain beyond

human reasoning and comprehension”.

Happy Reading,

D. Senthil Kannan

Article Dated May 2013