Alexandra has practiced Heartfulness for over thirty years and is a certified Heartfulness trainer. She holds a Ph.D. in Agricultural Sciences and spent six years in research and development in Nepal. Since 1999, she has taught the Alexander Technique to individuals, companies, and trainee teachers. She lives in Vienna with her family.

Alexandra Mazek

Alice Russo

<hr><h4>ALICE RUSSO shares her journey of letting her heart guide her life.</h4><hr>I have made the awesome realization of having reached a place where it is no longer primarily my mind influencing me, but my heart influencing my mind. And this seems to be the safest, most secure way of life. For a long time I have understood that the mind needs to be surrendered to the spirit, and it has always been my intention as a woman of faith. But I suppose the subconscious mind was still preventing that friendship, mergence, oneness of mind and heart, practically and experientially. It was always a ‘coming back’ to the truth of grace with effort, rather than something automatic or abiding.My life experiences have repeatedly brought me to the edge of a physical sense of safety and well-being, with no choice but to take a leap of faith in being upheld by the Invisible. Time after time I have found myself to be completely supported, aided, and provided for. These challenges have exercised and strengthened my belief, and proven the complete reliability of our Source. I had always been brought back to a sense of solid ground under my feet for stretches of rest. I now feel as though I am safely established in a life of faith alone, living willingly and happily with a moment-to-moment dependence on the Invisible.<hr><h4 style="text-align:center;">There is no worldly sense of security that tops a life governed by the heart.</h4><hr>The mind needs to know the truth that is contained within the heart, but there is often a disconnect because the old, unconscious, habitual patterns of the mind keep us separated and limited. We see a certain experience and we auto-react and define it as trouble, so we take action to try to rectify the problem. We end up in a life of struggle, continuously striving to putting out fires, rather than resting in the understanding that we can just walk right through them untouched.There is no problem; there is only something the mind is defining as a problem.This is where the uninhibited heart will leap out and adjust that auto-thought if the heart has the dominant role.The heart has always been there, ready and waiting. It’s the clutter, the dross, and the unconscious, subconscious patterns and impressions that block our liberation. Although I have been a dedicated seeker for many years, it is without doubt the help of Transmission in the Heartfulness way that is clearing the path to my heart, allowing that mindheart connection. There is nothing in the world more important that this. There is no worldly sense of security that tops a life governed by the heart.<hr><hr><h4 style="text-align:center;">Article by ALICE RUSSO</h4><hr>

The invisible

Alice Walker

Imagination

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Aline Nicolai

<hr>I have French genes, but my appearance is the only European factor about me! I was born in Tamil Nadu and have spent most of my life in the south of India being chased by cows. I think I have had a very “blended” upbringing – a concoction of European and Indian influences that has shaped my worldview in a unique way.<img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/aline_nicolai_9ccfcb689f.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-05T03:25:21.497Z"> My passion for languages probably developed first from the fact that I lived in a bilingual household, and also in a country where most people speak at least two or three languages. The environment sharpened my ear to hearing, interpreting and recreating unknown sounds. When I started interacting with a sea of international people, it irked me not to be able to communicate with them in their own languages, and it seemed unfair that they were the only ones putting in effort to be understood. So, I started picking up any language I could get my hands on and ended up trying Spanish, Tamil, Hindi, Mandarin Chinese, German, Russian and Italian. I have varying grasps over these languages and it is tough to remember them when there is no one to practice with.When I do have the opportunity to practice, I enjoy it so much, and when I don’t have a class or language partner, I use websites or texting applications to practice with native speakers. I really need to feel the drive from inside to sit down, learn and improve myself.My current vision is to work at the UN, a multicultural and multilingual environment. It took me a while to realize that I could use my passion for languages as more than a hobby, and now I’m ecstatic that this is a possibility.I haven’t really felt a compulsion towards any one career path, so I don’t have fixed career plans, and I am open to living in any country and culture. Given that, there is one thing that I know I couldn’t do without, and that is meditation. Keeping that part of my life has proved challenging, especially in the West – being a 20-year-old who is vegetarian and doesn’t drink is already enough to set me apart. I have had a hard time balancing out that spiritual side with my everyday life, so much so that the discrepancy between the two has sometimes shocked me into stopping my practice. That isn’t the solution though, as I have found that being less centered makes it harder to deal with conflicts and stressful situations.So, although I don’t have a specific dream to follow, I know it will pan out in time. I try to remind myself to focus on developing myself in the present so that I will be ready for any situation that arises along the way.<img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/pursuit_dream_aline2_80576f75fa.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-05T03:26:32.070Z"><hr><h4 style="text-align:center;">Article by ALINE NICOLAI</h4><hr>

In pursuit of a dream

Alison has worked with people in prison for 22 years as a Therapeutic Recreation Practitioner. She has developed interventions to support healing for people with complex challenges resulting from childhood trauma, poverty, and mental health issues.



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Alison Granger-Brown

<h4>ALISON GRANGER-BROWN lives on Gabriola Island, BC, Canada, and works with indigenous women in the prison system. She shares one woman’s story of courage and personal transformation. It is a reminder that even the most marginalized can find their way toward peace and purpose in life.</h4><hr>This is about my journey alongside an Ojibwa woman who was my client and who became my friend. We met in the women’s correctional system in British Columbia, Canada. At first I was afraid of her. That fear diminished as I became increasingly involved in her healing passage, and she grew from inmate to mother to researcher to colleague and finally to hospice patient. I traveled through many systems with her and saw first-hand the deeply ingrained racism in every institution and government organization with which she had to navigate and negotiate.She was the victim of childhood poverty, daily sexual abuse, and intergenerational trauma as the daughter of a residential school survivor. She experienced institutional racism from early childhood when she was removed from her family at the age of six and taken into government “care” through her childhood, to her involvement with the justice system’s over-incarceration of Indigenous people, especially women. From an early age she used drugs, alcohol, and violence to survive and manage the emotional pain of a life fraught with injustice. The group home she was sent to as a little girl was so diabolical that she set fire to the school room. How hurt is a child to act in such a way?Gradually, over time, her strong self-will and determination transitioned from harmful manipulation to healthy independence to helpful influencer in supporting other women like herself. She drew on her strengths and reshaped how she applied them, for example her sense of humor. She could see the absurdity in some rules and shifted from aggression to humor. Her survival skills turned from anti-social and criminal, to creative and legal, in order to meet the needs of herself and her young son.I watched and wondered at her resilience and commitment to change, with the absolute devotion to breaking the cycle of her family’s trauma from colonial oppression to the growth and development of her son and his future. She succeeded in change; the system did not and has not. This is the lesson – we cannot change the situation, the system, or the story, but we can change how we respond and react. That pause between input to output is where we have our personal power.Her resilience stemmed from the true ability to live in hope. Not false or unfounded wishful thinking, not a mulling over the potential probability of optimism, but a real belief in the possibility that we can effect change in our own capacity to manage and succeed. Here lies the lesson of hope.<hr><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/hope2_1_1b731d7820.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-11T12:58:42.391Z" alt="hope2-1"><hr><hr><h4>This is the lesson&nbsp; – we cannot change the situation, the system, or the story,&nbsp; but we can change how we respond and react.</h4><hr><hr>We may dream of systems changing, of the “other” seeing it our way …well good luck. Hope rests on finding and nurturing our self-will and building our capacity for creative thinking to find new pathways, new strategies, and new solutions. Every one of us has this capability if we look inside. We are the system, we are the only change possible, “We got this.”My friend died of cancer because she went undiagnosed, even with repeated requests for an examination by her doctor. That is another story. She never lost her sense of humor, her acute observations of the absurd, and her fierce determination. She survived several years longer than predicted out of pure love for her son, to make sure he would have a memory of her. He was six when she died. He is now sixteen, six foot five, and a gentle, funny, healthy, hopeful young man. He has already overcome painful challenges in his life, and I believe he will draw on the resilience he learned from his mother for the rest of his life to continue to grow and heal the historical wounds his family and his people have endured. He is the best next generation image of his mother, as she hoped he would be.<hr><hr><h4>Hope rests on finding and nurturing our self-will&nbsp; and building our capacity for creative thinking&nbsp; to find new pathways, new strategies, and new solutions.&nbsp; Every one of us has this capability if we look inside.&nbsp; We are the system, we are the only change possible, “We got this.”</h4><hr><hr>

Hope: one prisoner’s emancipation

Alok is a school student living at Kanha Shanti Vanam, India. He loves music, gardening, writing, and has a zest for life and discovering new things.



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Alok Anand

<h4
 class="block-heading"
 id="h-alok-anand-is-almost-a-teenager-here-he-answers-questions-on-friendship-and-how-his-friends-bring-peace-courage-and-confidence-to-his-life"
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 ALOK ANAND
 is almost a teenager! Here he answers questions on friendship and how
 his friends bring peace, courage and confidence to his life.
 </h4>

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 <h4
 class="has-text-color block-heading"
 id="h-the-qualities-i-value-most-in-friends"
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 The qualities I value most in friends
 </h4>

 
 When we like the same things and like to play the same games. I love
 friends who have the ability to understand me, and to care for me when I
 need it. On the surface, I am very funny, energetic, optimistic, crazy,
 and sometimes very annoying; but inside I am very sensitive and can
 easily get hurt. People are unpredictable, and I don’t mind that, but I
 still have feelings, and some people can’t seem to understand that. The
 ones who do understand are those I call my true friends. This is the
 quality I look for most in a true friend: to be able to understand and
 care.
 

 <hr class="vertical-space1" />

 <hr />

 <h4 class="has-text-align-center block-heading">
 The ones who do understand are those I call my true friends.
 This is the quality I look for most in a true friend: to
 be able to understand and care.
 </h4>

 <hr />

 <hr class="vertical-space1" />

 <h4 class="has-text-color block-heading" style="color: #265269">
 The type of friend I want to be
 </h4>

 
 I want to be a friend who is playful, fun, caring, funny, not too
 annoying, and kind. Most importantly, I want to be a friend who is able
 to understand others, so if they need to share something, they can come
 to me and I can help them solve it. I want to be a friend who is
 trustworthy.
 

 <h4 class="has-text-color block-heading" style="color: #29556b">
 How my friends have affected the way I deal with life and others
 </h4>

 My friends have helped me realize things about myself, like:

 <ul>
 <li>
 Sometimes, in excitement, I hurt people. Now I understand that I need
 to calm down. This came from Harita and Pushpa.
 </li>
 <li>
 I should never ever give up, because if I do I will tend to give up
 more easily next time. This came from Rahul.
 </li>
 </ul>

 When I am bored, I look forward to playing with my friends.

 
 I am sometimes scared to do the things I must do. But my friends Stella,
 Rahul, and Saral have told me that they shall be there for me, and that
 has made me bold and strong.
 

 <hr class="vertical-space1" />

Friends

AMELIE SU

<h4 style="text-align:center;">AMELIE SU offers a blessing to her friend.</h4>In the serenity, I feel a love that is everywhere.It comes from the sky and from the earth.I am not searching for it, but was already in it.It is like the air that surrounds me, and enters me silently, gently, but surely, supporting me.I began to understand that life is not about constant acquisition, but about learning to loosen the grip between loss and possession.I would like to pass on this love that I touched in meditation to my friend and her family.&nbsp;May her father be less sick, and may they be surrounded by tenderness even in the midst of their suffering.&nbsp;May they not be consumed by fear, but be drawn by the unseen light.&nbsp;May they find a place of peace even in the midst of storms.May this love return to my own heart, so that I may continue to practice—to <a href="https://heartfulness.org/magazine/destiny-freedom-of-choice" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">practice freedom</a>, to practice letting go, and to practice compassion, to regain my agency over my life, one deep breath at a time.May the world be soft on all lonely souls, and may we all be illuminated by <a href="https://heartfulness.org/magazine/gratitude-companion-kindness" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">kindness</a>.Even one moment is enough to light a lamp in a long dark night.<hr><h4 style="text-align:center;">Artwork by LAKSHMI GADDAM</h4><hr>

Prayer - from meditation

Amir is a trained psychologist and educator with an interest in mind-body-heart medicine. He has been practicing and investigating how silence and stillness plays a role in our well-being and happiness. Amir is a heartfulness and mindfulness trainer, holding workshops and retreats internationally in close collaboration with Heartfulness Institute and other centers of excellence. He lives with his wife and two children in India.



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Amir H. Imani

<hr><h4>AMIR IMANI explains the root cause of stress and what we can do to remove it.</h4><hr><h3 style="text-align:center;">What is the ABC of stress reduction?</h3>This question takes us to the root cause of stress, and the one effective way out of it. The very root of stress is really the lack of compassion and kindness we have towards ourselves. This is the A of the ABC of Stress.<h4>A. The root of stress</h4>It may sound odd, but if we dive deep inside when we are really under pressure, we will see that it is not only the toothache, or the upcoming mortgage payment, or the feeling low and depressed, but the fact that we do not want to feel the pain or the worry that makes us suffer.The closing of ourselves to life and what we are going through at difficult times is what causes us the most pain. Put it this way: it is not only the stressor that determines our level of suffering, but the quality of our relationship with it.Here is an example: first consider a day when you wake up early in the morning, spend some quiet time with yourself, walking, reading, breathing and stretching, before starting your working day. Then take a day when you jump out of bed and hit the road, hurrying all the way through your day. Your reactions to life and what it brings you are different. I welcome you to test it. An incident of, say, somebody cutting you out on the expressway will affect you differently on those two days. Perhaps on the first day you have more space for life. This brings us to the question: what can I do to deal with stress in a better way? This is the B of the ABC of Stress.<h4>B. What can I do?</h4>The answer is in the question. If the root cause of suffering is the lack of kindness, then the remedy is compassion and gentleness towards ourselves at all times, even when things are really stressful and out of our control. Having a soft corner in ourselves for the bad and miserable to come, stay and leave, maintains a degree of balance and reduces suffering tremendously. It is like being in the midst of a storm, but not getting lost in it; being in the water but not getting drowned. This is possible if we permit ourselves to be the way we are moment-by-moment, no matter how unwell we feel.How can we do this? This is the C of the ABC of Stress.<h4>C. How can I do it?</h4>Cultivate heartfulness and compassion. Take time to practise opening up to ourselves – to the way we are and the way we feel, in whatever way it works for us. This gives us the ability to do so even when things are not that good in our lives. There are numerous ways of training the heart to rest and return to its original state of openness and acceptance. Here are some of my favourites:A slow and silent walk in nature, with no aim in mind. Just walk and take in nature the way it is through our inner and outer senses.Sit silently and in a relaxed way with the mobile phone switched off. If you wish, you can bring the attention to the heart very gently and allow the heart to be the way it is without forcing anything.Lie down, staying awake, and pay attention to the way your body is, however it might be from moment to moment.Eat a meal with your awareness in the present with the food. Stay with how it tastes and feels to be nurtured by nature, thankfully.When feeling peace and gratitude, share these feelings with others by allowing the heart to open up and send joy and calm to all beings.<hr><hr><h4 style="text-align:center;">Article by AMIR H. IMANI</h4><hr>

ABC of Stress Management

A self-professed liberal who at the same time loves the religious traditions of his native India, Amish has brought to life the mythology of Lord Shiva and the Ramayana for readers worldwide, and has developed a pop culture celebrity status as one of India’s most popular authors.

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Amish Tripathi

<h4>In this exclusive interview, AMISH TRIPATHI speaks with ELIZABETH DENLEY about what propelled him to write fiction. A self-professed liberal who at the same time loves the religious traditions of his native India, Amish has brought to life the mythology of Lord Shiva and the Ramayana for young readers, and has developed a pop culture celebrity status in the process.</h4>Q: Welcome Amish.Thank you.Q: Through your books it’s obvious that you love mythology and the ancient traditions of India. Where did this love come from?<img class="image-style-align-left" src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/Amish_4e3065f3a4.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-05T07:59:54.351Z" alt="Amish">It’s my good fortune of birth. It’s not just the ancient traditions of India, but ancient traditions across the world. My grandfather was a pandit in Kashi, in Benaras, and he was a teacher as well at the Benaras Hindu University. So I learnt a lot from the family. We grew up learning our stories, our traditions, our philosophies. Both my parents are deeply religious, and one of the good things they poured into us is the respect and love for knowledge and an attitude of questioning everything. Nothing should be taken on blind faith.So one of the things I learnt early in life from my family was that in Vedic Sanskrit – the language of the ancient Indians – there was no word for ‘blasphemy’. Since the concept didn’t exist, the word didn’t exist. No one was beyond question – no one and nothing. And if you have that kind of attitude and yet you’re willing to learn philosophy, willing to explore faith, willing to explore spirituality, you can have a very rich life. It’s my good fortune that I learnt this from the family.We weren’t a very well-off family; we had a very humble beginning. But despite the constraints, there were always a lot of books at home. And since we saw our parents reading, it was natural for us to start reading. I read, my wife reads, and my son also reads. Children tend to do what their parents do, not what their parents say. So maybe these were the two things: learning from the family, and lots of reading.<img class="image-style-align-right" src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/tradition3_7ef4337981.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-05T08:00:36.003Z" alt="tradition3">Q: Did you always follow the religious traditions of your parents, or did you challenge this?I was deeply religious when I was young, but at the age of 15 or 16, when I entered college, I became an atheist. I was an atheist for more than a decade – an extreme atheist. I thought that God was wrong, and religion was wrong; that it was silly. Writing my first book, The Immortals of Meluha, slowly brought me back to faith.Q: Can you tell us how that happened?I think all of us discover the form of the Divine that works for us. For someone like me, who is naturally rebellious and anti-elitist, I guess Lord Shiva was the best god to pull me back to faith, and I say this with no disrespect to any other god or goddess. He is the ultimate god of rebels. He is a rule-breaker. He exists outside society, and he is a brilliant dancer and musician. He is very attractive for those of us who are rebellious by nature. For me this worked best.Q: So is that what drew you to write about him in your first trilogy?It was actually the other way around. Writing about him kind of pulled me back.Q: Okay, so why did you start with him?My book began with a thesis of pure philosophy, an explanation of the question ‘what is evil?’ And that was converted into a story later. The idea was to convey the philosophy through the story. And if I am writing a story to convey a philosophy on evil, the best hero is the destroyer of evil, Lord Shiva.Q: Your first book was published in 2010, and since then you’ve gone on to become the celebrity pop-culture author of India. It’s a big change from your humble beginnings. How has it been?It’s been fantastic! I worked in banking for fourteen years, and I resigned only after my second book. Part of having a humble beginning is you tend to be pragmatic about your life choices, so I resigned when my royalty check became more than my salary. It’s been a fantastic ride. I get to do what I love, which is writing, reading, traveling to historical places, and I actually get paid for it!Q: Why do you think your books have been so popular? Each of them has sold millions of copies. They are about traditional Indian mythology, and most of your readers are young. What’s the magic formula, Amish?When my first book was ready, every publishing house rejected it, saying,“This has no hope of success, because the primary readership today are the youth and youth aren’t really interested in religion. Even if the story is fast-paced, you’re writing about a god.”One of the publishers said, “You have these ‘gyan sessions’ where you are discussing philosophies, and this will not work with the youth.” I was advised to write a campus romance instead. So I actually self-published the first book, and it took off, and then many of the publishers who had rejected the book came back to me. It’s not that I predicted it and hence wrote it a certain way. I just wrote the book the way it came to me.So the pendulum swung to the other extreme, where every tradition was attacked, and many people felt unmoored and uprooted. If there are no roots to hold onto, that doesn’t feel like a good life either. Today humanity is doing so well materially; we have never had it better. In terms of physical security we’ve never had it better. Per capita violence is the lowest humanity has ever seen. And yet loneliness and unhappiness have probably never been higher.Many people want to find an ideal means to be traditional and also liberal: where you can feel a sense of connectedness to the Divine and tradition, yet still respect LGBT rights, respect women’s rights, respect the environment etc. I think many of these ancient stories serve that need.<hr>There is no point judging others. There is no point mulling over the past&nbsp; or worrying about the future. Learn from your past, plan for your future,&nbsp; but don’t get obsessed by it. The only thing in your control is this moment&nbsp; and your decision in this moment. So life should be about learning to make better choices now, and that’s the way to approach these stories.<hr>Q: <a href="https://heartfulness.org/magazine/ramayana-to-reality-the-continuous-search-for-sanjeevini" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Mythological</a> stories are incredibly dynamic and non-judgmental. Tell us more about that.In fact that’s another intriguing thing about the ancient Indian way. Vedic Sanskrit did not have a word for ‘judgment’ either. Again, that concept did not exist.The entire approach to these stories was not to judge them, and it’s not that the gods or goddesses judged us, either. The entire perspective was to look at those stories, see the archetypes, learn from them and apply the knowledge in our own lives. The philosophy is very clear: the only thing that is in our control is our own choice within this moment. Our past is not in our control, our future is not in our control, and what other people do is certainly not in our control.So there is no point judging others. There is no point mulling over the past, or worrying about the future. Learn from your past, plan for your future, but don’t get obsessed by it. The only thing in your control is this moment and your decision in this moment. So life should be about learning to make better choices now, and that’s the way to approach these stories.If you take judgment away, the floodgates open up for learning. Judgment actually stops our ability to learn. In the Ramayan, Lord Ram is the hero and Ravan is the villain. We can learn from Lord Ram, but we can also learn from Ravan. Our task is not to judge him but to learn from him.Q: The first series was the Shiva trilogy. The second one is the Ramayan. Tell us more.The Shiva trilogy has three books: The Immortals of Meluha, The Secret of the Nagas, and The Oath of the Vayuputras. And that was my imagination of what could have been the adventure of a man called Shiva, who lived 4,000 years ago, whose adventure was so grand that he was looked upon as a god. He discovered the Divine within himself.The Ram Chandra series is an interpretation of the Ramayan, literally ‘the travels of Ram’. And I am experimenting with a slightly complex storytelling style, called the multi-linear narrative.The first book, Ram – Scion of Ishvaku, is from the birth of Lord Ram to the kidnapping of Lady Sita. The second book, Sita – Warrior of Mithila, is from the birth of Lady Sita to the kidnapping of Lady Sita. And the third book, Ravan, which I am writing right now, which will come out by mid 2019, is from the birth of Ravan to the kidnapping of Lady Sita. The fourth book will be a common book up until the death of Ravan, and the fifth book will be about Lord Ram fighting his actual enemies. Ravan was only an opponent; his actual enemies were in his own land.<hr>Perhaps the way to look at Ravan is that he was a genuinely brilliant man, with an uncontrolled ego. Even if you are as talented as him, if you cannot control your ego, it’s not going to end well for you.<hr><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/tradition2_b5b2c861c2.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-05T08:01:19.020Z" alt="tradition2">It’s a mix of different interpretations. You know, the modern Indian version of the Ramayan is actually a 1980s television serial, and if you see the really ancient version, the Valmiki Ramayan, he is not presented as a pure evil demon. He had strengths too. So the first Ramayan, the Valmiki Ramayan, was actually written from that nuanced perspective. He was a devout Lord Shiva worshipper, he was extremely intelligent, and he was a master of the Vedas. There’s a stringed instrument called the rudra veena, and it is like the sitar turbo-charged. Even the musical masters can’t play it, let alone master it. And it is believed that Ravan invented the rudra veena. Perhaps the way to look at Ravan is that he was a genuinely brilliant man, with an uncontrolled ego. Even if you are as talented as him, if you cannot control your ego, it’s not going to end well for you.Q: You’ve also written a non-fiction book, Immortal India. Tell us about that.Till Immortal India, I’d written fiction books. Step 1 was always some philosophy that I wanted to convey. The story was step 2, like a wrapper around that philosophy. The core philosophy at the heart of the Shiva trilogy is, “What is evil?”As the first step is normally the philosophy and the second step is the story, there are many readers who go deeper into the philosophy. So I wanted to write a book that just speaks of step 1, the philosophies, in simple bite sized articles. This book has my thoughts and musings on various subjects like spirituality, historical issues, science, and things like that.Q: What next, Amish?Right now I’m writing Ravan, the third book of the Ram Chandra series. I have various story ideas in mind, enough to keep myself busy for at least 20 to 25 years. I have 9 or 10 book series in mind. I’ve left clues for all of them in the Shiva trilogy. So even if I release a book 30 years from now, I have left a clue in the Shiva trilogy. I have enough work to do to make sure that I finish all those books before I die. I don’t want to carry them to my cremation pyre.<img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/tradition4_696bb3dad5.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-05T08:02:13.082Z" alt="tradition4">Q: A lot of your readers are young. How do you engage with young people? What role do you think your books play in helping them move forward into modern India?Today India is a country of youth. Coupled with that are the dramatic changes that have been happening in India since 1991.In fact, many say that our true mental independence as Indians started from 1991, not 1947, because after centuries of failure we started rising again in 1991. And that started the return of the historical self-confidence that defined India for many centuries.Angus Maddison, the British economist, has shown that for 15 of the last 20 centuries, India was the number one economy in the world. Of the remaining 5, thrice we were the number two economy. And we were extremely productive in science, medicine, navigation and everything else. We lost all of that in the last few centuries. Now you see a return of the historic self-confidence, but there’s also still the element of insecurity, which is why you find unnecessary aggression at times. And there’s also this youthful charge with it. This is a process of massive change.And in that story, who drank the poison so that it would not hurt others? It was Lord Shiva. That is why he has a blue throat. And that is what I suggest to people who are devotees of Lord Shiva: behave like a god. There is a process of change that’s happening right now. A lot of the effects will be positive, and will be good for India, but there are some negatives too. All of us devotees of Lord Shiva should behave like Lord Shiva: drink that poison, take that negativity out. Speak politely, speak nicely, speak positive things. Take the negativity out so that India moves in the right direction.<hr>This is such a wonderful time to be Indian! Nowadays you can dream any dream, and chances are you can pursue it. We’re doing well.<hr>Q: So is this your main guidance for young people today? How would you tell them to live their lives?I would say this is such a wonderful time to be Indian! When I was growing up there weren’t so many opportunities. Why did I choose banking as a career? Because there weren’t many opportunities. Nowadays you can dream any dream, and chances are you can pursue it. We’re doing well.This was our traditional way. Can we revive that? Then we will create a society of which our ancestors can be proud. How can we deserve that pride and support the rest of the world in the journey as well?Q: It’s a great note to end. Thank you!Thank you.<hr><h4 style="text-align:center;">Interviewed by ELIZABETH DENLEY</h4><hr>

Tradition, liberalism, and Lord Shiva

Amit founded the Turning Point Rehab in Surat, Gujarat, in 2015. A recovering addict himself, he works with clients to help them recover physically, mentally, and spiritually. Turning Point is a pioneer in world-class holistic programs and amenities.



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Amit Karekar

<h4>AMIT KAREKAR’S story is one of deep inner challenge and triumph over darkness. With help from loved ones and professionals, and the determination to live, he turned his own life around and is helping others to do the same at Turning Point Rehab, a safe haven for all souls who have lost themselves to substance abuse.</h4><hr><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/dealing_with_addiction2_ad3d95392e.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-12T04:50:37.068Z" alt="dealing-with-addiction2"><hr>My story has been a roller-coaster ride. A lot of ups and downs. As a child, I was obedient and soft natured. During my school days, I became rebellious, probably because I always liked to be the center of attention. I was so obsessed with certain things that I couldn’t really strike a balance, and as I grew older, I became stubborn. During my college days, I could not tell my parents that I did not want to do an engineering degree, and so I wasted two years of my life instead. They said I shouldn’t be wasting time and that I had never known responsibility in life. Taking things for granted and being stubborn took me downhill.I was born with a silver spoon, having everything at my disposal. I just had to enjoy life, or so I thought. My parents loved me a lot, but I took undue advantage of their feelings. Instead of using my privilege for my benefit, I abused it. That’s how it all began.I had a girlfriend in school, and breaking up with her gave me one big reason to start self-sabotaging. In college, the drugs and alcohol started. First beer, then marijuana, then “brown sugar,” the kind of heroin we get in India. And so I became a hardcore “smackie” within a period of six months.I was completely powerless over that addiction. I didn’t realize it and my parents didn’t intervene because they thought I would be okay, and obey them one day. They kept waiting for that day, while my addiction went to another level, and I became suicidal. 18 months down the line I was completely messed up. They took me to a psychiatrist and I took medication. I did a drug detox, but it didn’t work. I relapsed and was taken to rehab when I was 18. I did a program for around 35 days, but me being me, I picked up all the notorious guys from there, got their contacts and planned what I would do after getting out: more drugs. That was how I was.I had a long journey of rehabs and relapses, seven to eight rehabs, and every time it was the same thing: I went to rehab, got clean, did the program well, and all the counselors were very impressed with me. I liked to be in their good books. And I was good at sports. I would never receive any punishment and everything was pretty smooth. So fear of rehab was not something that worked in my case. This went on for around 20 years.Finally I got married, and one fine day my wife told me, “You know, this is not working out. Let’s just stay apart for six months and I’ll see what you do. Take your time to decide whether you want to carry on with our life or you want to live your way.”I packed up everything and thought, “Wow, this is amazing. I’m gonna be free from today. No responsibilities. Super. God works.”I met a friend and told him, “Just set me up in some ashram where I can stay. I just want to disconnect from everything.”Escapism was everything for me.I wanted to escape from each and every situation in life. I did not want to face it; I did not want to fight it; I only knew “flight” and that’s what I did. But for some reason, my friend didn’t comply. He said, “You’ve gone nuts. I’ll set you up in a rehab facility. Go there and do some service work, help them out, and you’ll be able to figure something out. Do it for 20 days.”<hr><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/dealing_with_addiction3_187d49bbfc.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-12T04:51:09.212Z" alt="dealing-with-addiction3"><hr>That’s how my journey of recovery began.Service is one of the final steps to recovery. You are supposed to motivate others that recovery is possible, and give hope and strength to the people who are suffering with addiction.They accepted me in a rehab center in Mumbai, and I started taking sessions, but I was just faking it. There’s a slogan, “Fake it till you make it,” and it’s been true in my case. I started helping people to realize what was wrong, why they should turn their lives around, and how to learn the concepts of balance, etc.And then I was shifted to Surat to start a center there. The adventurous me said, “This is it! You’ve got to go there. Whatever you will do in the future doesn’t matter at this point in time. This is the best you have in front of you – just go for it.” Honestly, I didn’t have anything else in front of me, and my parents and wife had also given up hope.So I packed my bags, moved to Surat, and stayed at the rehab house to set things up. People said the house was haunted, but that’s what kept me there – I was all in for the adventure. I hung around for some time and then we got a client. And so my journey began with that connection with another person, who arrived fresh to recovery. He compelled me to stay, and I stayed for around 8 months.I was working for True Care in Surat. My father figured out that this is what I did best, so he encouraged me to start up a center. That’s how Turning Point was created.My wife came back to me, and has supported me a lot. She’s the backbone of the center. She’s always been the backbone in every walk of my life, and if not for her I would not have become a responsible man. I look at it this way.In a nutshell, I had everything at my disposal, but I took things for granted. I had never understood my responsibilities, and I was never left alone. Even if I was busted by the cops, my father would bail me out. I didn’t have anything to worry about. These things allowed me to hold on to bad company, and I did not know where to strike the balance.I was enjoying life and ruining it at the same time. I thought I was having fun, that I was happy, but I was not.<hr><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/dealing_with_addiction4_23a0bf8d6b.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-12T04:51:51.452Z" alt="dealing-with-addiction4"><hr><hr><h4>We have a slogan in our program,&nbsp; “If you want to keep what you have, the only way is by giving&nbsp; it away to others.”</h4><hr><hr>The events of 8 years back changed everything for me. Taking responsibility for myself and my life was a turning point. When my parents and my wife backed out, that’s when I realized, “I’m on my own. I have to sort it out. I have to get it together.”Now I’m going well. It’s fun. Doing the same thing that got me back to life 8 years ago keeps me going. We have a slogan in our program, “If you want to keep what you have, the only way is by giving it away to others.”<hr><hr><h4>Illustrations by LAKSHMI GADDAM</h4><hr>

Dealing with addiction

Amit Ray

The essence of life

Mr. Ghosh is one of the world’s most celebrated authors and thinkers, best known for his historical fiction. He holds two lifetime achievement awards, and has been awarded the Padma Shri, the Jnanpith Award, the Dan David Award, and is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.



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Amitav Ghosh

<h4>AMITAV GHOSH is one of the world’s most celebrated and awarded authors and thinkers. In conversation with TARA KHANDELWAL and MICHELLE D’COSTA, he talks about his latest book, The Nutmeg’s Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis, a non-fiction story highlighting the origins of our current climate crisis.</h4><hr>AG: Thank you for your very generous words of welcome.TK: Your latest book, The Nutmeg’s Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis, weaves history, colonialism, migration, superstition, and much more, to tell us an origin story of our current climate crisis. As a millennial, I am really interested in this very urgent issue. Why did you choose the lens of the nutmeg to tell this story?AG: The story of the nutmeg I take as an analogy for what is happening in the world right now. The nutmeg tree was a miraculous plant that existed only on the tiny Banda Islands and their surroundings in the Maluku province of Indonesia. For millennia, the nutmeg tree brought wealth and prosperity to these islands and the islanders. They became great entrepreneurs sailing across the Indian Ocean. Ultimately, the Dutch arrived and wanted to gain complete control of the nutmeg trade. So, what did they do? They wiped out the islanders. The islanders were destroyed because of their miraculous tree.It is an analogy for what has happened to our planet. We were given a beautiful planet full of all kinds of miraculous things. And now we have set about destroying this gift. The story of the nutmeg and the Banda Islands is one of the earliest examples of what’s now known as the resource curse, that is, a resource that ultimately creates devastation around it. Another example is oil in Iraq or Libya. In the same way, the vast gifts of the Earth have now been exploited to the point where the whole Earth is becoming subject to the resource curse.<hr><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/The_resource_curse2_5367552113.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-11T06:32:26.531Z" alt="">&nbsp;<hr>MDC: That’s really heartbreaking. I will never see the nutmeg in the same way again after reading your book. The first chapter is one of my favorites, because you talk about how one small incident of a lamp falling changes the course of history. You were haunted by this particular incident while you were writing the book in Brooklyn during the pandemic amidst all the ambulance sirens. Will you please narrate this story to our listeners? And what did it feel like writing this book in the middle of the pandemic?AG: It was a very strange time. You’ve lived through the pandemic, so you will be aware how strange it was. Everything was changing in the world. New York City, especially Brooklyn, is a very lively, vivacious place, and suddenly everything went quiet. On the street you could hear a dog bark from blocks away, except for when the ambulances were racing through. And that was happening all through the night and day. My house is not very far from one of Brooklyn’s largest hospitals, and outside there were refrigerated trucks for all the bodies of the dead. It was a very eerie time of great fear, as you will remember from your own experience.I had been planning to write this book for a long time, and just as the lockdown started, I began work on what ultimately became The Nutmeg’s Curse. Very little is actually known about what happened in the Banda Islands in those days. I first learned about it from a very short book by an American historian, Willard A. Hanna, Indonesian Banda: Colonialism and Its Aftermath in the Nutmeg Islands. That’s where I read about the lamp that fell in Selamon on the night of April 21, 1621. It really caught my attention and I thought, “How does the falling of a lamp lead to this calamity?” I wanted to see what had happened in greater detail, and I discovered that the only book that addresses this history was written by a Dutch archivist, J.A. Van der Chijs, published in Dutch in 1886.I discovered this when, on impulse, I did a Google search and found a pdf of the book. I printed it, but it was in Dutch so I couldn’t read it. On another impulse, I typed some of the Dutch sentences into a translation app. Then mysteriously, miraculously, something comprehensible appeared. I began to spend hours, days, typing in paragraph after paragraph, page after page of this Dutch book until I was able to piece it together with some help.TK: I love the way you describe this in the book. Was this the most challenging part of researching this book, not having access to the language?AG: It was so frustrating, but I’ve dealt with many languages and I didn’t allow myself to be intimidated. I thought, “If I persevere I’ll be able to do it.”MDC: I think it’s also an intellectual challenge that pushes you forward in a way.Your book addresses some of the many violent ways in which Europeans have invaded places and impacted their original inhabitants. One shocking fact I learned was how the Lord Chancellor of England, Sir Francis Bacon, justified the massacres on the islands as having been willed by God. So, what did you discover when researching this book that was really shocking to you?AG: When I got into the historical sources about what had happened during the colonization of the Americas, the scale of the violence was absolutely unbelievable. Between 70% and 90% of the Indigenous populations were wiped out through extraordinary orgies of violence. What happened in the 16th and 17th centuries in the Americas was quite unprecedented. The scale of that violence really has no match anywhere, honestly.But I think it’s important to understand that climate change, the way that it is unfolding, is also a kind of violence. It’s the kind of mediated violence that has also unfolded in the Americas. The violence of the Americas was of a particular type; it was not like the Second World War where people were killed with machine guns – that technology didn’t exist back then. In fact, a large part of the violence of the colonization of the Americas unfolded via the environment. Environmental changes wiped out people’s ways of life. The environment itself became an instrument of violence. And this is what we are seeing today; the environment has again become an instrument of violence.For example, the people in Bengal are losing their lands, losing their livelihoods, to rising waters and intensifying cyclones. Climate change is not merely a thing of greenhouse gas emissions and policy decisions. Climate change is a kind of war. We’re confronting a form of ecological violence.<hr><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/The_resource_curse3_e40fedd8a5.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-11T06:34:07.891Z" alt="">&nbsp;<hr><hr><h4>But I think it’s important to understand that climate change, the way that it is unfolding, is also a kind of violence.</h4><hr><hr>TK: And it’s so visceral, the changes that people deal with on a day-to-day basis. I’m really interested in the way you wrote about climate – this paradigm shift. It made me think very differently. You said that literature needs to change the way climate is written about. Michelle and I were trying to think of books in which climate is front and center or the plot vehicle. In all the books we came up with, either the genre was dystopian or it was self-help or non-fiction, like Bill Gates’ latest book, which gives suggestions like a manual. Yours was such an interesting paradigm shift. So, can you tell us how you feel fiction should address climate change? You mentioned that one way is to give voice to non-human entities. Can you elaborate on that?AG: Yes. The problem that arose in the 17th century is that the Earth came to be thought of as dead by elite westerners. Over time, across the world, people accepted this view. Farmers and fishermen don’t accept this view, nor do the Adivasis [Indigenous communities in India]. For them the Earth is alive and filled with many kinds of beings – Adivasis think of forests as living beings, and now we know that forests are living beings. But you can’t compensate for the loss of forests by planting trees somewhere else, because a forest interconnects the multiple species and entities.&nbsp;<hr> &nbsp;&nbsp;<hr><h4>Adivasis think of forests as living beings, and now we know that forests are living beings. But you can’t compensate for the loss of forests by planting trees somewhere else, because a forest interconnects the multiple species and entities.</h4><hr><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/The_resource_curse4_418a6f312f.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-11T06:35:56.432Z" alt="">&nbsp;<hr>For me, the most difficult challenge facing us today is to do with ethics – what our ancestors did, what you read in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, and so on. Those texts are filled with the voices of non-human beings of many kinds. The Mahabharata begins with snakes, and they are an important part of the Mahabharata. That is the greatest challenge facing us today – how we write about non-human beings of various kinds. In modern Indian literature there are writers who are giving agency and voice to these non-human elements.MDC: Yes, another Adivasi writer I’m reminded of is Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar. I absolutely love his writing, his stories are full of nature, everything comes to life. You don’t usually see that in stories that are set in urban spaces.You have addressed climate through fiction in your book, Gun Island, and through your non-fiction. So, what are the takeaways you want your readers to go away with about climate from fiction versus nonfiction, because they are two very different forms?AG: They are different, but they’re also not so different. Gun Island is a novel while The Nutmeg’s Curse is non-fiction, but in many ways there is a huge overlap. In Gun Island I wrote about migrants who are instances of the crisis, and I’ve written about the migration crisis in The Nutmeg’s Curse. They are interconnected in many ways. In order to really write productively about our situation, we have to forget some of these ironclad distinctions that were made in the past between fiction and non-fiction, and so on. There was always a lot of overlap between these genres.A famous example is the work of Herman Melville. Melville used huge amounts of non-fiction in his work. He was an ethnographer, so Moby Dick is filled with information about whales. In fact, the whole story is based on an historical incident. I think we are going to have to loosen the boundaries as we go ahead.TK: Your research also involves speaking to travelers, climate refugees. You’ve spoken about Bangladeshi migrants who move to places like Italy because of climate conditions in the Bengal region. Could you share an anecdote about this? What kind of things were foremost in their minds? What were they running from?AG: Well, I met many Bangladeshi migrants who told me the stories of how they left. Often, agriculture had become impossible in their villages, because of the erratic rainfall, because of changes in the seasons, and so on. That’s increasingly the case across the world. Many of them were forced to leave because of those reasons, but if I asked them, “Are you a climate migrant?” none of them would accept that. I was very struck by that because Bangladeshis are well educated about climate issues. The Bangladesh government and many NGOs in Bangladesh disseminate a lot of information. We would do well to study what Bangladesh has been doing in terms of both education and resilience measures.<hr><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/The_resource_curse5_2a7aac66cd.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-11T06:37:27.836Z" alt="">&nbsp;<hr>It was very interesting talking to these guys. I would say, “Are you a climate migrant?” and they would say, “No,” because it wasn’t just climate. It was as Margaret Atwood said, “It’s not just climate change, it’s everything change.” There were political difficulties, family issues, and so on. In these Italian migrant camps, there were lots of Bangladeshis and Pakistanis, but very few Indians. I think the Indians who have been displaced by climate tend to migrate within India, except for the Punjabis. They are migrating on a large scale now, abandoning their lands. Other than that, most migration tends to be toward Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, or the West Coast.One story I particularly remember was of a young Pakistani boy from a farming family in the Punjab. I was speaking to him in Rome, and he had fought with his father. It happens all the time, everywhere. At any other time, he probably would have gone off to another village, or to a relative, and spent a few weeks there. Sooner or later, his father would have said, “Son, please come back,” and he would have gone back. In his case, he was sulking and he went to the railway station. There he met up with a group of migrants who were making their way to Europe and he fell in with them. He made this incredible journey, half walking, from Pakistan to Iran, then crossing Iran to Turkey, where he was shot at by Turkish soldiers. From there he finally ended up in Rome. This is one of the ways in which the world has really changed.TK: I just can’t wrap my head around that story! You know, I recently reread your book, The Hungry Tide. It’s amazing the way you brought the Sundarbans to life. You have also depicted the Sundarbans in other books like Jungle Nama and Gun Island. How have things changed in your portrayal of the Sundarbans from The Hungry Tide to Gun Island?AG: The Sundarbans is a landscape and ecology that is being absolutely devastated. Each of the cyclones that has hit the Sundarbans in the last ten years since The Hungry Tide has made the situation incredibly dire for the people there, much more than I imagined. Cyclone Aila was a devastating blow to many people, and every year it’s gotten worse. Cyclone Amfan in 2020 was completely devastating – a lot of the reclaimed land, which was fertile, rice producing, was submerged under seawater. Those lands may not be cultivable again for years. Many people have lost their livelihoods.MDC: Yes, it feels like a dystopian world, but unfortunately it is our reality, and it is something that we can’t escape.TK: On that note, thank you so much for being here today and talking to us, sharing your insights. The books you’ve written have changed the way I think, and they’ve added a lot to my life. Thank you.AG: That’s wonderful to know. Thank you very, very much.<hr><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/The_resource_curse6_980322347f.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-11T06:38:43.455Z" alt="the-resourse-curse">Image Source: rawpixel.com<hr>To listen to the original podcast ‘Books and Beyond with Bound’, please go to <a href="https://boundindia.com/books-and-beyond-podcast/">https://boundindia.com/books-and-beyond-podcast/</a><hr>

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