Fuel your flame

Fuel your flame

January 2017

Passion is the petrol that keeps the engine of your life running. Its powerful energy is the secret behind success, achievement, and a joyous life. Suma Varughese explores how to achieve and retain this eminently desirable quality In March 2012, I went for a holiday to Kashmir, with two of my close friends, Harvinder Kaur and GL Sampoorna. We stayed with another close friend, Chitra Jha, one of Life Positive’s prolific writers.

One afternoon, we went to Dachigam, a national park situated in the midst of Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir, perhaps after Mumbai, the only city in India to host a national park. As Harvinder was unwell, only Sampoorna and I went, armed with an introduction to the director of the National Park, Naseer Ahmed. We caught him at a busy moment, and he sent us on our way to explore the beautiful park, which had a sanctuary for animals so tame that leopards would playfully nuzzle the hands of their keeper, or flop on the ground with their bellies exposed and paws dangling like giant tabbys, while massive Himalaya bears would rise on their hind legs, press themselves against the fence and grin at us. It was nearing dusk when Sampoorna and I returned and found Mr Ahmed free to attend to us. He was a slender man of average height, whose appearance I can’t quite recall.

What I can recall though, and vividly at that, was the incandescent passion that gripped him when he mentioned his beloved national park. The man was familiar with every flora and fauna in the park. He took us in an open-air electric cart (the kind that you find in airports to drive you to the gates) all the way to a hilltop to show us not just the most staggering view of the city, but also some lichen that grew only when pollution was absolutely nil.

He identified every leaf and blade of grass, and kept us enthralled with his stories of cavorting with Himalayan bears and other wildlife. He laughed and shared that he never, if he could help it, left his park and went into the city. But once his wife forced him to go to the dentist and there he was, a helpless babe, having to dodge traffic! By the time we tore ourselves away and were embarking on our return to the park office, night had fallen. Mr Ahmed continued to identify all sort of night sounds, when suddenly he paused and stopped the vehicle.

Turning to us with his eyes afire, he said, “A langur is signalling that he is trapped on a tree with a leopard below. Shall we go and see?” Sampoorna and I blanched. Go out and look for a leopard in the dark when we could hardly see about us, and the undergrowth was full of twigs that would crunch and alert the leopard about our whereabouts long before we were alerted about its? We politely shook our heads and declined his invitation. Mr Ahmed was shattered. It was clear that there was nothing he would have loved more than to witness this wildlife drama, but he was too much of a gentleman to leave us alone. Long after we left him, the memory of his love for the wilds hung about us like a fragrance, and we came back to our homes vowing that the next time someone asked us to take a walk on the wild side, we would be prepared! How fortunate Mr Ahmed was to have identified his passion for wildlife, and to have found the perfect job to further it. Thomas Carlyle wrote, “Blessed is he who has found his work. Let him ask no other blessedness.” How fortunate too, to have unlocked his passion. A question of passion Not everyone can boast of passion. Wasn’t it Thoreau who said that “the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation”? As a teenager I believed this to be true, because that was how I felt, but today I am not sure this applies to the majority. However, even if our lives don’t embody quiet desperation, how many of us can claim they embody passion? How many of us are afire with love of life every moment of the day? How many of us pour ourselves into everything we do? How many of us are consumed by a project, a person or a cause? Let’s face it, most of us just go through the motions, simply coping with the mountain of chores, duties and responsibilities we have to juggle every day, before we crash exhausted into bed. But that does not mean that passion is denied us in this lifetime. We too can lead a life of joy and brio; of passionate purpose that infuses our life with meaning and makes each moment a deep experience.

What is passion?

To start with the basics. What is passion? Passion is the power that drives us long after our energy forsakes us. It is what takes us back to the drawing board time and time again, until we finally have it right. It is what enables us to prop up our drooping eyes, straighten our slumping form and continue labouring into the night long after exhaustion has rung in. It is what enables us to climb mountains, discover continents, uncover the secrets of life and create enduring works of art. The script of excellence is written with the ink of passion. With passion as our partner, sooner or later success will be ours. Passion is the petrol that runs the engines of our lives. Without passion our lives sooner or later judder to a halt, or chug along lackadaisically. Among the millions of gifts life showers us with, passion is one of the choicest. Joseph Campbell rightly says, “Passion will move men beyond themselves, beyond their shortcomings, beyond their failure.” The reason why passion is such a power is that it is sourced in desire, and each of us is given the energy we need to attain any desire we may feel. Desire comes with an inbuilt energy pack.

For instance, if a desire for a pizza consumes us and we have the money to pay for it, most of us will immediately call for it, or if we cannot get through, send someone to collect it, or if that fails and depending on how strong our desire is, we will go to the outlet ourselves. If we live beyond the reach of pizza, we will get around to making it. The same is true for a movie we want to see, or a book we want to read. And if we want to meet a lover, nothing on earth can stop us. Tulsidas, the poet saint who wrote the Rancharitramanas, was full of lust for his wife, Buddhimati.

So much so that when she went to her parents’ house for a holiday, he followed her there late at night. It was a wild and stormy night and Tulsidas had to battle a raging river in spate which he did by the power of his passion. When he reached her home, he mistook a snake for a creeper and used its power to hoist himself into her room. The shocked Buddhimati looked at her dripping wet and panting husband and said reprovingly, “If you had half the passion for God that you have for this mortal body of mine which will soon fall prey to worms, you would surely attain enlightenment.” Stunned to the core of his being by the truth of what she said, Tulsidas turned on his heels and left her; he spent the next 14 years in sanyas, passionately immersed in his love for Lord Ram. Passion generates energy When his desire for his wife became converted to desire for liberation, Tulsidas’s energy pack magnified in proportion.

Thus, when we live life passionately we have at our disposal an endless supply of energy, because the more energy we use to achieve our purpose passionately, the more becomes available to us. We tap into an inexhaustible source. My friend Leena Thakker, (58) a businesswoman living in South Mumbai, is one of the most passionate people I know. She once told me that she was a dedicated packer, and I got a glimpse of it when I went on a trip with her and saw the focus and attention with which she placed clothes and objects into her suitcase until she got the perfect symmetry she was looking for, even if it meant arranging and rearranging several times.

“If I can’t give my 100 per cent to a task, I don’t do it until I find the time when I can,” she says. No mote of dust would dare enter her house, and if it did it would be summarily whisked away. Every nook and cranny is sparkling clean, her plants flourish in happy abundance, the drawers and cupboards in her house are arranged with absolute precision and cleanliness, her financial papers are always in order, and any time of the day or night, she has some task on hand. “I always have a to-do list that never seems to get over,” she admits. In 2011, after the passage of her father, Leena joined the company her father and his brother had founded, Monji Vishram, which manufactures balms. Within the next few years she meticulously, and with the same dedication and passion, worked on every aspect of the business. “Just like I nurture my plants in order to have them flourish, I nurtured the business by paying attention step by step to every area until I brought it alive,” she says.

The changes included refurbishing the factory, renewing the electrical and civil work, redesigning it, converting the bottles from glass to plastic, revamping the packaging, introducing new machinery and raising production by double the number of bottles. In every sense she upped the standards of operation, which also infused enthusiasm and energy among her colleagues. Always a successful product, Leena’s passion and meticulous approach enabled her to optimise sales of the balm and lift up its success curve substantially. Leena’s passion stems from her innate capacity to care, to pour herself deeply into life. “I never feel bored. When I feel I have had enough of one thing, I change the activity,” she says simply.

Maturing into passion 

For others, passion suddenly bursts out at a certain  point in time, almost as a maturation activity.  Sunny Malti Suresh was one of them.  

As a collegian, he was blithe and careless,  focussed only on fun. And then Aarti came into his  life. She was focussed, committed and compassionate, a member of the National Social Service  (NSS). She was also duty conscious and would  hare off home at 6 pm no matter what the tempta tion. The eldest daughter of a single mother, she  was responsible for caring for her younger brother  and sister. “I realised how difficult her life was, as  compared to mine, and yet she had the heart to  help others. She became a positive influence on  me,” he says.  

The closer they got, the more he changed. “If  she had not entered my life, I would have been a  big loser. I had even failed a year,” he says frankly.  

Then came the day that changed both their lives  irrevocably. In 2006, one of Aarti’s friends at col lege had brought along his Dad’s car. Aarti went  for the fun ride near Gorai beach, when the car  turned turtle. Aarti received serious head injuries  and slipped into a coma. 

From the moment he heard of the accident and  rushed to locate her, to the time she came out of  the Neurological ICU 100 days later, Sunny never  left her side.  

“I was the sort who could not even sit one hour  in a hospital, let alone 100 days.”  

What made him do it? 

 “I felt sure if the tables had turned and this had  happened to me, Aarti would have done the same,”  he confesses. 

The media got wind of this extraordinary love  story and newspapers and TV channels covered  them. Readers sent donations which helped to  defray some of the expenses. 

Even after she came out of the ICU, he stayed by her side, save that he would go  home to sleep every night. In 2007, Aarti  came out of her coma to the jubilation of her  family and Sunny, and was sent home. Until  she passed away in 2010, four years after the  operation, Sunny took care of her, and fed  her, along with her mother, Bharti Makwana.  “I felt I had lost my girl friend in 2006. This  Aarti was my child,” he says poignantly. 

This committed caring for one human  being for a number of years transformed  him. A couple of years after her accident, in  the midst of caring for her, Sunny left a  course in accountancy to pursue a Master’s  in social work at Nirmala Niketan. Today, he  works for Foundation Minim, a charitable  foundation for the education of underprivileged youth and children. “The whole experience made me vulnerable by putting me in  touch with my feelings, but also stronger,”  he says. “I was a careless person. Looking  after someone was a big shift for me.” 

He admits that he found both passion and  purpose through the ordeal. At his foundation, “even if youth fail, I  counsel them. If I can rise above  failure, so can they.” 

“Aarti may have died but she is  living through my work,” says this ardent young man, now 32. 

It soon becomes clear that the passion we are talking about is not  the kind that pulsates in pulp fiction. This sort of passion is not  merely lust or desire, not just a  craving induced by the senses. That  sort of passion is also a driver, but because it is purely driven by the  need for sensory fulfilment, it consumes us, and inevitably leads us to misery. No wonder desire has such  a bad rap in spiritual circles. But  even sages say that all we really  have to do is to transition to a higher desire from a lower one. Thus, if  we were to pursue excellence as  Leena does, or a commitment to  the welfare of the other, as Sunny does, we will actually tame and bridle our senses and point them in the direction of what we want to  achieve. This sort of passion actually purifies us, for it helps us rise  above the senses. 

Acquiring passion 

So how does one acquire passion?  

Or stoke its embers into a constant  

steady flame?  

The foundation for passion as for any good quality  is set in childhood. In his book, The Road Less  Travelled, Scott L Peck, says that it is the love that par ents give children in childhood that enables them to  develop the self-esteem that is essential for living. He  says.“When children have learned through the love of  their parents to feel valuable, it is almost impossible  for the vicissitudes of adulthood to destroy their spir it.” 

A sense of being valuable gives us clear access to  the energy flowing within us, which can otherwise  get blocked by self-doubt, fear, anxiety and negative  circumstances. 

But even if we have been deprived of self-esteem in  childhood, we can still find our way to passion, for life  itself often astonishingly makes us whole. 

I was born without a shred of self-esteem, and  between 16-32, I was so locked up in misery that I sim ply had no bandwidth to lead my life. With my head  wrapped in a million thoughts, I lived on auto pilot,  completely unavailable to the moment, devoid of all  dreams, passion or even ambition. It was a spiritual awakening at age 33 that gave me an understand ing of life and its true purpose, which was to grow  as a human being. I also discerned my own pur pose which was to help heal the world of its misery. That gave me my first access to caring. I now  longed to live but found that I was still too deeply  conditioned in negative concepts of myself to  access my passion. My self-esteem needed to  become whole, and I needed to free myself of lim iting beliefs such as that I was lazy, weak or indis ciplined. 

 Over the last 20 years, I have been doing this  work steadily. Although I would still not call  myself passionate, I am clearly in the zone of  enthusiasm and care. I deeply care about many  things, especially about the welfare of the other,  and it makes me extend myself more than per 

haps the average person would. I constantly  strive to excel as a writer and editor, because it  is vital to me that the reader benefit from each  article. 

In the writing workshops I have started in the  last two years, I am repeatedly told that I teach  with love, and give of myself unstintingly. 

But still, I have yet to overflow with the kind of  energy and zest that is associated with passion. I  feel sure that this is the next step and I eagerly await it for I have known what it was to be  possessed by a passion for what you do, and  I have seen how effortlessly work happened,  how potent my creativity became, and how  fused I became with the work, so that waking and sleeping, it figured in my conscious ness and led me to make some amazing con tributions.  

Once having known the heady power of  passion one would not want to settle for a  more lukewarm way of life, where one goads  oneself to do things because one must.  

Regaining what is lost 

Even those who are born with passion can  lose it in the vicissitudes of life. 

 Pavani Mavuri, a Delhi-based accountant  working in Amity International School, was  a passionate child, immersed in writing and  art, giving 100 per cent to all she did, deter mined to lead an independent and meaningful life. However, a challenging marriage  embroiled her in unhappiness.

But life is always on our side and slowly it  brings us in touch with our true nature. A  lover of God, she poured out her grief into the only ears she could confide in, and later  joined the Brahma Kumaris. The turning  point in her spiritual journey occurred when  she accompanied her sister-in-law on a  shopping expedition and glimpsed a copy of  The Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa  Yogananda.  

Reading the book gave her a powerful  sense of being guided and supported. Soon,  she found a job and began getting a modi cum of independence. Personal growth  workshops followed. A course in NLP triggered off introspection and made her recog nise that it was not her circumstances but  her belief systems about them that impris oned her in pain. 

Gradually, she took back her life in her  own hands, and found passion pirouetting  back. Art, writing and teaching surged back  and fed her starving spirit. 

 Says she, “I am enjoying every moment of  life. Passion makes me challenge myself and  venture into what seems impossible. I was  procrastinating working on a piece of art for  fear that I would not do justice to it. But one  day passion whispered into my heart, “You  can do it” and in three hours at a stretch I did  it. Now I do things without a sense of guilt or  fear of what others think or say. I am learning  and growing with passion each day and  happy to be crazily experimenting with life.”  

When we indomitably confront the circumstances that drain away our passion, we  will triumph over it, and not only will passion return, it will do so with ten-fold force. 

Find your purpose 

Another vital factor in building  passion is to find  your purpose.  Even the most disinterested person  is capable of getting electrified  when his purpose  is revealed to him.  Purpose clarifies  and distils your  focus, and enables  you to concentrate  your full energy  on one thing  instead of dissipating it in many activities. Purpose  gives meaning to  your life and puts you in the flow of the life force.  Everything you think, do and say gets dovetailed  towards that all-consuming purpose. 

Take the case of Dr Chandrashekhar Ranade, an  irrepressibly enthusiastic ENT surgeon from  Khambaliya, Gujarat. Not only is he a speed reader  with a speed of 1200 wpm, which enabled him at one  point to correct 440 answer sheets in three days in the  midst of his medical duties (while working as Faculty  in E.N.T. in Gujarat Adani Institute of Medical Sciences,  Bhuj), he is also a prolific poet, having written over  350 poems.  

Take the case of Dr Chandrashekhar Ranade, an  irrepressibly enthusiastic ENT surgeon from  Khambaliya, Gujarat. Not only is he a speed reader  with a speed of 1200 wpm, which enabled him at one  point to correct 440 answer sheets in three days in the  midst of his medical duties (while working as Faculty  in E.N.T. in Gujarat Adani Institute of Medical Sciences,  Bhuj), he is also a prolific poet, having written over  350 poems.  

But all of this pales in comparison with the magnif icent obsession that overtook him when he was introduced to mind mapping, a fairly new and enhanced  way of organising information, created by Tony Buzan.  

He says, “It was in 2010 that I realised my life pur pose, at the age of 48. That was when I attended  Dharmendra Rai’s frst open seminar in Mumbai on  mind mapping. After attending it, I was gripped by  excitement day and night, as I would before an exciting cricket or football match. It was even comparable  to one’s first crush!” 

He continues, “I would get up early in the morning,  take out huge volumes of medical textbooks and con vert them into mind maps. Any book, magazine,  newspaper or document that came into my hand got  mind mapped. I mind mapped events, e-mails, smses  and even scriptures like the Bhagavad Gita and the  Ramayana. I even mind-mapped telephone directo ries! I started seeing mind maps on every article in  the house, clinic, streets, vehicles and yes, clothes and  even the fan. I imagined seeing mind maps on a blimp  in the sky as well in the clouds!” 

What drives his passion is a powerful vision of the  possibilities of this technique: “I saw it as a solution to  many of the learning challenges that I faced as a med ical student. I see it as a solution for the many emerg ing challenges in the 21st century, especially time and  timing.” 

He is the only person in India to have taught medical  students using mind maps, and he says that it halves  the studying time. He is also known as the Bard of  mind maps because he has written innumerable poems  on the subjects, is recognised internationally as one of  the most prolific mind mappers in the world, and has  written a book on the subject, the first of a series! 

It is this sort of full-blown lunacy that fuels genius.  Dr Ranade’s passion for mind maps has sublimated all  his other senses in a frenzied pursuit of his goal. Who  knows where Dr Ranade might go with mind-map ping? Clearly, the sky is the limit! 

Similarly Mansoor Mirza, a homeopath and alterna tive practitioner, fell passionately in love with running  when he joined a running programme in 2012. He  says, “I could hardly run more than 100 metres, but  persisted with the training at 6 am every morning for  three months and gradually but surely ran 21 km (a  half marathon) in less than three months. Running has  become top priority and besides becoming fitter, I  feel mentally stronger, more relaxed and energetic.  When people ask me what religion I belong to, I simply say that I am a runner. I hope it reflects on my passport someday, though it’s already  embedded in my soul and sole.” 

The role of faith 

Mithu Basu, curator and founder of an art  organisation called Dolna, was passionate by  birth, “ I have always felt that whatever you  do, you should do fully. People talk a lot  about being in the here and now, but that has  always come naturally to me. I am a tea  addict, but my teapot turns stone cold if I am  immersed in painting.”  

Even so, her turning point came when she  discovered faith. “Then passion rolls on cas tor wheels. There is no longer effort. The ‘I’  is no longer there. There is only certainty  and flow. Integrity is the foundation for this.  If my plan benefits others, I benefit most  from them.”  

She experienced this practically when she  left her secure and plush job as General  Manager, Corporate Communication at the  Leela Palaces, Hotel and Resorts to pursue  her passion for art. Before quitting she took  a sabbatical to do a course in art at  Shantiniketan. Looking at the talent around  her, she stumbled upon her purpose – to give talented artists an opportunity to exhib it their works in urban cities and get known.  Four years into the journey, she says she is  deeply satisfied, and considers herself blessed to be surrounded by artists.  Anil Bhatnagar, a trainer, facilitator and life  coach, points to a few more vital ways to keep  passion flowing. “Stop trying to please others  or impress them or conform to societal stric tures. That is a surefire way to drain yourself  of your passion.” 

He should know. Having tried his hand at  the corporate life while working for the Steel  Authority of India Limited (SAIL), one day he  decided to quit. Today, a highly skilled and  popular trainer and facilitator, he says, “When  I look in the mirror, I am very impressed by  the person I see.” 

He also suggests freeing oneself of extrinsic goals such as fame, money, power in order  to follow your authentic passion.  

A major passion killer is the mindless rou tine of life. We get locked in the treadmill of  duties, responsibilities and doing what we are  doing and seldom have the mindspace to see  if there is a way to fulfil these responsibilities  without losing passion. Most of us lose touch  with what once gave us joy. 

“To rediscover passion, look at what you  loved to do as a kid,” says Vinita Suri, student  counsellor. 

Another factor that can dissipate passion is  our disproportionate attention to only those  areas of our lives that drive our passion, If our  passion is solely focussed on work and we  ignore other aspects, our lives will topple  into misery, and we will eventually squander  our passion. Says psychologist Neha Patel,  “One must be mindful of not letting passions  block one’s sense of rationality. While efforts  should be applied towards pursuing one’s  passion, it’s also equally important to be level headed and not get swayed so easily in that  pursuit that one starts to compromise on  other vital areas of life. You can truly enjoy  the fruits of your passion when you’re able to  maintain a balance in life at the same time.”  

In other words, make sure that you are  equally passionate about your relationships,  finances, health and community. How do we  do that? Try spirituality. 

The spiritual outlook 

Mostly passion dies because our default  approach to life is not guaranteed to keep it  going. What do you do when you can’t get the  work of your dreams no matter how many  doors you knock at? What do you do when surrounded by people who put you down and emotion ally abuse you? What do you do when your sweetheart  jilts you and takes along your passion for life with  them? How do you make sure passion flows through all  areas of your life?  

Only the capacity to work on ourselves, the willingness  to change and grow, and an access to the higher truths  can enable us to lead an ongoingly passionate life. A life  where we are passionate about everything, not just one  thing. A life that enables us to pay attention and focus  on the smallest task. A life that enables us to tend to the  flame ongoingly. In other words, a life attuned to spiritual growth. 

 Spirituality is really the journey of eliminating our  false self and finding our true self. This means elimi nating all the negative feelings that characterise our  ego self and reclaiming our true nature of peace, love,  joy, compassion and yes, passion. 

 The more we work on ourselves, the less vulnerable  we will be to outside forces that can dampen and  destroy our passion. Neither failures, nor societal pres sure, not discouragement or depression can affect us  for too long. Through paying loving attention to all that  arises, we learn to dissipate these forces and reclaim  our true heritage of enthusiasm, confidence and com mitment. 

 And eventually we reach a stage when there truly  is nothing between us and life. A moment when the  shadows of the past and future dissipate and disap pear. We are left in full possession of the moment, to  relish it, to squeeze every bit of juice out of it and to  slurp it up. Joy, passion and love surge out of us and  encompass all that we do. Everything, even the most  mundane act such as brushing our teeth or bathing  becomes deeply enjoyable, a memorable moment. It  is then that we know what it is to truly live, to be  what the sages call us: amrutasya putraha (children  of immortality). 

Osho describes this state of mind beautifully, “Death  is a constant reminder that, ‘I can come any moment.  Be prepared.’ And what is the preparation? The prepa ration is: live life so totally, so intensely, be so aflame  with it that when death comes there is no complaint,  there is no grudge. You are absolutely ready because  you have lived life so totally, you have known all its  mysteries — there is no point in living anymore. Death  has come exactly at the right time, when you may have  thought to die yourself. I call that death perfect which  comes at the moment when you yourself may have  thought, ‘It is enough.’” 

What more can we say?