As I sat down to meditate in the dimly lit room, I looked at the Linga Bhairavi picture. Her large eyes looked straight at me and were fiery...somewhat frightening...as though she was angry. Over the years, I have come to realize that whenever I smiled at her, she was smiling back. When I was sad, it appeared that she was sad too. When I was angry, it appeared that she was angry too. Whatever type of energy I gave out, I seemed to get back from her. She was reflecting my mood!!!
Likewise, in every aspect of life. What you give is what you get. If you sow happiness, peace, calm, truth, respect, love, you get back all of these and you get them back in abundance. If you sow anger, jealousy, hatred, lies, violence, you get back all of these and, I believe, in good measure too. So, you have to choose what you want. People call this Karma - the Universal Law of Cause and Effect - As you sow, so shall you reap.
I came across this story which is from Associated Press and reported by Kurt Westervelt. I must thank my good friend, Anoop Bakhtani, for forwarding this story to me.
On March 23, 1994 the medical examiner viewed the body of Ronald Opus and concluded that he died from a shotgun wound to the head. Mr. Opus had jumped from the top of a ten-story building intending to commit suicide. He left a note to the effect indicating his despondency. As he fell past the ninth floor his life was interrupted by a shotgun blast passing through a window, which killed him instantly. Neither the shooter nor the deceased was aware that a safety net had been installed just below the eighth floor level to protect some building workers and that Ronald Opus would not have been able to complete his suicide the way he had planned.
"Ordinarily," Dr Mills continued, "A person, who sets out to commit suicide and ultimately succeeds, even though the mechanism might not be what he intended, is still defined as committing suicide." That Mr. Opus was shot on the way to certain death, but probably would not have been successful because of the safety net, caused the medical examiner to feel that he had a homicide on his hands. The room on the ninth floor, where the shotgun blast emanated, was occupied by an elderly man and his wife. They were arguing vigorously and he was threatening her with a shotgun. The man was so upset that when he pulled the trigger he completely missed his wife and the pellets went through the window striking Mr. Opus.
When one intends to kill subject "A" but kills subject "B" in the attempt, one is guilty of the murder of subject "B". When confronted with the murder charge the old man and his wife were both adamant and both said that they thought the shotgun was unloaded. The old man said it was a long-standing habit to threaten his wife with the unloaded shotgun. He had no intention to murder her. Therefore the killing of Mr. Opus appeared to be an accident; that is, if the gun had been accidentally loaded.
The continuing investigation turned up a witness who saw the old couple's son loading the shotgun about six weeks prior to the fatal accident. It transpired that the old lady had cut off her son's financial support and the son, knowing the propensity of his father to use the shotgun threateningly, loaded the gun with the expectation that his father would shoot his mother. Since the loader of the gun was aware of this, he was guilty of the murder even though he didn't actually pull the trigger.
The case now becomes one of murder on the part of the son for the death of Ronald Opus. Now comes the exquisite twist.
Further investigation revealed that the son was, in fact, Ronald Opus. He had become increasingly despondent over the failure of his attempt to engineer his mother's murder. This led him to jump off the ten-story building on March 23rd, only to be killed by a shotgun blast passing through the ninth story window.
The son had actually murdered himself, so the medical examiner closed the case as a suicide.
There are so many such stories. Bring this to the corporate world and you see the same everywhere. The people you meet on your way up are the same you meet on your way down. It is those relationships that you build that matters. It helps build trust and confidence in the long run at an individual level.
It has been over 3 years that I have moved out of active corporate life. It took me over a year to settle down to do what I wanted. However, I was not fully occupied. So, I decided to keep myself busy. As I was wondering what I should do, I felt that my key strengths were Leadership and Innovation. So, I decided to focus on Leadership Workshops initially and then, few months later, took up Workshops on Design Thinking. As I went about marketing my services, it was wonderful to see all my old friends come forward to help. They trusted that I would do a decent job and gave me assignments. Clearly, the time I had taken to build relationships was working for me now. As a dear friend put it, "It is Brand Ravi working for you now. Before long, the brand of the work that you do in this new avatar will take over."
When I look back, I believe that it is good Karma. As I close this post, I think of what Buddha says, "Be kind to all creatures. That is true religion."
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