​By the happynesswalas™, Vaani and AVIS

2-minute read
​Synopsis:
No matter how talented and successful you are, you have to go through what you have to go through. So learn to accept pain and be happy despite the circumstances. Be happy with what you have. Also, learn to appreciate the impermanence of everything: Of Life itself surely. Also, of name, fame, wealth, success and glory. And of failure too. Focus instead on what you love doing and do it very, very well. Simply, if you create great, unputdownable work, both you and your work will be remembered. Forever.
​

​Style guide: Vaani and AVIS spell Life with a capital ‘L’ and Happiness with a capital ‘H’. This is because both of them believe that Life is the greatest teacher and Happiness is the biggest wealth. However, when quoting the subjects of their writings, they use these two words without the accentuated capitalization of their first letters.

We love R.D. Burman (Pancham).
It is his birthday today. We celebrated it by listening to his music over coffee this morning.
When ‘Tujhse naaraz nahin zindagi, hairaan hoon main’ (‘Masoom’, 1983, Gulzar, Anup Ghoshal, Lata Mangeshkar) played, we paused the song to look up the lyrics.
All of what Gulzar has written is powerful. But these two lines stand out:
‘Tujhse naaraz nahin zindagi, hairaan hoon main…’
‘Jeene ke liye, socha hi nahin, dard sambhalne honge...’
They mean:
‘I am not angry with you Life, I am baffled (by you)…’
‘I never imagined that I will have to deal with pain in order to live (during the course of Life)…’​

​Pain is non-negotiable
Gulzar makes a very important point: You cannot negotiate with pain. And pain is integral to the process of Life. His lyrics convey the sense of stark bewilderment that all of us go through when we encounter pain in our Life.
Well, obviously, nobody wants to deal with a painful situation. So we keep wishing that it just went away. We try to push it away. But Life doesn’t operate like that. A painful situation always arrives uninvited. And it stays on and on and on. Simply, you cannot negotiate with pain. You have to accept it and cope with it till it goes away. Or, as it often happens in some situations, you have to learn to just co-live with your pain.
It’s Pancham’s music that makes Gulzar’s lyrics memorable. That’s why we believe that Pancham was a genius. He not only made great music, he made sure his music seeped into and stayed on in the listener’s soul.  

​Life lessons from Pancham’s remarkable journey
Interestingly, Pancham too had to grapple with his share of pain: Although he had ruled Hindi film music for two decades, he struggled to get work in the last 10 years of his Life. Bappi Lahiri’s disco music had taken over and nobody wanted to touch Pancham. Chroniclers of Hindi cinema say that Pancham died a heartbroken man because he felt that the industry had abandoned him.
Yet, ironically but fittingly, recognition came Pancham’s way again – after his death. He died on January 4, 1994. The music of Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s ‘1942: A Love Story’ (Pancham’s last film) released a week later, on January 12, 1994. The album was a huge hit. It still remains an all-time favorite for generations of Hindi film music lovers.
Well, here’s what we can learn about Life from Pancham’s remarkable journey: No matter how talented and successful you are, you have to go through what you have to go through. So learn to accept pain and be happy despite the circumstances. Be happy with what you have. Also, learn to appreciate the impermanence of everything: Of Life itself surely. Also, of name, fame, wealth, success and glory. And even of failure. Focus instead on what you love doing and do it very, very well. Simply, if you create great, unputdownable work, both you and your work will be remembered. Forever.
As the lines of another iconic Pancham song (‘Dharam Karam’, 1975, Majrooh Sultanpuri, Mukesh, Poornima) go:
‘Ik din bik jayega, maati ke mol, jag mein reh jayenge pyaare tere bol. Dooje ke honton ko dekar apne geet, koi nishaani chod, phir duniya se dol…’
These lines mean:
‘One day (when you die) you will be dust. What you will leave behind dear are your words (how you treated others). (So, make sure to) leave behind your music for others to sing, leave your mark, and then leave this world…’

[Vaani and AVIS are the happynesswalas™. They are expert writers and biographers, accomplished speakers and conversationalists, and culture specialists. To know their fascinating story, click here.] 

 

​By the happynesswalas™, Vaani and AVIS

7-minute read
Synopsis:
Having a companion who is willing to hold your hand, and your heart, through Life’s inscrutable journey, is a priceless blessing. It is Happiness.
Now, you may meet a lot of people in Life. Some of these people may turn out to be good friends too. But beyond such friends, and close family, only a fellow voyager is a true, long-term companion. They alone walk alongside you, every step of the way – no matter what the circumstances are. Such companionship is possible only when both partners go beyond the event of falling in love, and continuously rise in love and stay loving.
When such companionship happens, any challenge can be patiently faced – and overcome – together. 

​Style guide: Vaani and AVIS spell Life with a capital ‘L’ and Happiness with a capital ‘H’. This is because both of them believe that Life is the greatest teacher and Happiness is the biggest wealth. However, when quoting the subjects of their writings, they use these two words without the accentuated capitalization of their first letters.

Our young friend Prashanth asked us a question the other day: “Don’t you ever get bored of each other?”
Prashanth is 25. We often meet him at our neighborhood grocery store. Sometimes we pause in the aisles to have a chat with him. We talk about the weather, cricket, movies, books and politics.
Of course, we found his question intriguing. Sensing this, he expanded on it: “I see you both always together. I wonder if you ever get bored of being with each other. Or is this what they call ‘true love’”?
We both smiled at each other and then at Prashanth. AVIS replied first: “Love is staying loving, no matter what the circumstances are or what’s happening around us. And staying loving is celebrating each other’s presence in our Life.” And Vaani added, “To us this means enjoying being with each other and being happy with what we have.” 
Having known each other for 37 years and having lived together for 35 years, we have gone past the cliched state of ‘falling in love and being happily married ever after’. 

​Rise in love
We have come to believe that the popular definition of ‘falling in love’ restricts the entire process of romance to a single event – to when the ‘falling’ happened. Also, marriage signifies a second, defining and epochal event. And then it is as if it is all over. The romance is done and dusted with marriage. Besides, over time, the marriage grows older and, in most cases, it is therefore boring.
But, interestingly, that’s not how we have experienced each other and our being together, our companionship.
We married in February 1989 to fulfill societal norms that were tough to negotiate back then. AVIS was 21 and Vaani was 22. We had a lot of fun growing up together. We built a family and home with our two beautiful children. We traveled the world and ran a successful pan-India business in the first 19 years of our Life as a couple. And then, over the next 18 years, up until now, we have been enduring a prolonged bankruptcy.
Yet, in all this time, we haven’t quite grown bored of each other. We believe we have celebrated our lows as much as we have celebrated our highs. Now, a bankruptcy can take a huge toll on a family: It is not really the lack of money alone that is crippling. Those experiencing the situation are crushed emotionally. And, when it spans two decades, everyone has grown older and has lost several precious years dealing with a complex Life situation.
Many relationship experts have talked about a couple breaking up when a crisis hits them. We have seen it happen to couples around us too. But we both have not just survived, we are thriving through our crisis. And if there is one reason why we believe this is happening, it is because we have stayed loving.
Loving, yes, in the present continuous tense. Clearly, we didn’t just stop with falling in love, we have continued to rise in love. We learned about rising in love from one of Osho’s discourses. He asks in it, profoundly:  “People who fall in love have every chance of falling out of love. But what if people rise in love all the time?”
We could instantly relate to that perspective. We are the rising-in-love type in every possible way. 

​The importance of companionship
Now, is it possible for everyone to find love, stay loving and rise in love?
Before we answer that question, let us understand why companionship is important in Life.
Anyone who has reflected on the process of Life will know that it is completely inscrutable. Life guarantees us nothing. And yet it continuously surprises us.
When you like the surprises you receive you believe that Life’s beautiful. That’s when you are getting what you want. You are then happy and think that you are in control of your Life. Having a companion by your side further accentuates the high you are experiencing. In such times, you are also surrounded by many other people who you think like you and love you: Friends, extended family, business associates and hangers-on.
But, as it always happens, over time, Life changes. You may be saddled with what you don’t want or you may not get what you want. Also, despite all your efforts, integrity and intelligence, you simply can’t gain control of your Life. This phase may sometimes last for a long, long time. You also then discover that all the people who were around you have now drifted away. For some people, their companion too has moved on. You find that you are very unhappy and lonely. That’s really when you long for love, understanding and companionship.
Importantly, having a companion who is willing to hold your hand, and your heart, through the darkness, is a priceless blessing. A companion does not necessarily have a magic wand to solve Life’s problems, but their presence in your Life is magical. It makes the toughest of journeys bearable and meaningful.
Now, you may meet a lot of people in Life. Some of these people may turn out to be good friends too. But beyond such friends, and close family, only a fellow voyager is a true, long-term companion. They alone walk alongside you, every step of the way.
True companionship has no label. It is free of restrictive societal frameworks. It has no gender bias. It just calls for both partners to walk together. It requires them to go beyond the event of falling in love, and perhaps of marriage too, and continuously rise in love and stay loving.

​Understanding what loving is
When such companionship happens there is no boredom. There’s only loving and Happiness, 24/7. Any challenge then can be patiently faced – and overcome – together.
We use the word loving consciously. It is above the idea of love, the noun. Loving is a verb, in the present, continuous tense. Loving is a continuous flowing of love. It is a celebration of each other’s presence no matter what the circumstances are.
You see, when two young people meet, and are drawn to each other, there is usually a physical quality to the attraction between them. But when they spend more and more time with each other, the physical attraction begins to wear off. Simply, it is not only great sex that they are looking for from each other. The couple may not be able to always articulate their feelings clearly. But what they are looking for is a more engaged presence, a deeper friendship, an unrestricted companionship between them. This shift in needs is quite natural. Besides, over the years, how people look also changes. They often put on weight as they grow older. Now, if the relationship between two people was based on how they once looked, these physical changes will begin to take a toll on their relationship.
Additionally, the circumstances in anyone’s Life are constantly changing. The couple may come by more career growth, wealth, prosperity, fame and power. Or they may lose all that they once had. Or one of them may have a serious, debilitating health condition or an addiction that holds them hostage. Or each person in the relationship thinks the other has changed because of the circumstances.
Which is, overall, you begin to feel that the person that you fell in love with is no longer the person you are living with.
But what if you saw the whole situation differently? Is the person you were loving back then someone that you are still loving now? The emphasis is on the loving. Not on the looks. Not on the circumstances. The act of loving takes many factors into account: Is this person understanding, is this person caring, is this person feeling, is this person listening? Is this person there for you – always? And are you, in turn, understanding, caring, feeling and listening? Are you there for this person – always? So, loving really means this: “I am loving you for who you have always been and are. It doesn’t matter if how you look has changed or what you do has changed or our circumstances have changed. What is important is that the way we are loving each other remains unchanged. It is the same as the way we were loving each other back when we first met.”
If the loving has not changed over time, it may not change in the future too. But if the loving has changed, then the couple must sit down and talk about it: Calmly, candidly, compassionately. This must happen over several mature conversations. And either they must agree to revive the way they can stay loving or they must choose to move on. The single criteria governing that choice must be their mutual and collective Happiness.
To stay loving is to rise in love. Loving does not need any societal approval like the stamp of a marriage. Importantly, marriage does not necessarily make a couple happy or loving. And to stay loving and happy a couple don’t need to be married. Look around you. Consider the stories of a few couples you know. And you will find this truth staring you in the face. On the other hand, it is companionship, and companionship alone, that inspires loving and Happiness.   

​Let the celebrations never stop
Loving also means always making the time to celebrate momentous milestones and memories, however simply.
AVIS proposed to Vaani on Monday, February 22, 1988, under a rain tree near her home in Chennai. He asked her, “Aren’t we getting dangerously close to each other?” And she replied instantly, looking into his eyes, “Yes.” However, it was only a week later, on the following Monday, February 29, 1988, that both of us firmly agreed to move forward with the idea of a Life together. We celebrated that moment with a box of Cadbury Nutties – the first gift that AVIS got Vaani.
Every leap year, we celebrate our decision to be together: Quietly, beautifully.
This year we had a box of Cadbury Nutties marking that celebration. Nutties cost Rs.5 a pack back in 1988. A pack of Nutties costs Rs.45 now. In a sense, the price inflation mirrors our loving. Both have risen; but our loving has risen, well, limitlessly. 

Focus on the relating, not on the relationship
It is important to remember that each person’s Life journey is unique. Some people, like us both, find love, meaning and companionship early in Life – and find the loving flowing continuously. Some others find a loving companion but are not able to live with them. Some people get married and find their partner to be loving. Others in a similar context do not have the same experience. Some find companionship and love outside their marriage. Some get stuck in unhappy relationships and keep longing for love.
No matter what the context is, pausing to think deeply about Life helps. You will then realize that Life is a gift. And it is a limited-period offer. No one can afford to squander the time they have left on this planet.
So, if you are unhappy in your relationship, or are seeking companionship, act now. Urgently. When there is no relating between two people, no matter what the relationship is called, the relationship is not just dysfunctional, it is dead. There is no point clinging on to a dead relationship if you can’t relate to the other person in it. You must simply let go of the relationship and move on.
And almost always, when you let go, when you uncling from a relationship, you will find a believing, trusting, loving companion waiting for you out there with open arms.
‘Humsafar’ is the word commonly used for companion in Hindi and Urdu. It denotes a soulmate and literally means fellow traveler or fellow voyager. It has Persian and Arabic origins. This word amplifies the point we have been making: Which is, the presence of a companion, a ‘humsafar’, a fellow voyager, makes this inscrutable journey of Life magical, beautiful and meaningful.
Being together, staying loving and rising in love with this fellow voyager, on your Life’s journey, is what Happiness truly is. Now, when you are happy in someone’s presence, how can you ever be bored of them?

[Vaani and AVIS are the happynesswalas™. They are expert writers and biographers, accomplished speakers and conversationalists, and culture specialists. To know their fascinating story, click here.] 

​By the happynesswalas™, Vaani and AVIS

​9-minute read
Synopsis:
Life is a mind game. Forget about winning this game. No one can win against Life. But to even stay in the game, you must learn to tame your mind. You must be in control of your responses to your thoughts. And not allow your thoughts to control you.
In this blog post we share what we have learnt about the art of taming the human mind from our lived experience.
We reflect on the wisdom of the Buddha, Kabir and Kannadasan, and explore some powerful ideas:

• How can we be non-suffering?
• Why must we tame and train the mind?
• And how do we do this?
• How can we find inner peace and Happiness in tumultuous and traumatic times?

Style guide: Vaani and AVIS spell Life with a capital ‘L’ and Happiness with a capital ‘H’. This is because both of them believe that Life is the greatest teacher and Happiness is the biggest wealth. However, when quoting the subjects of their writings, they use these two words without the accentuated capitalization of their first letters.

​Our friend is grieving the death of his young daughter.
It has been a year since she passed on. He calls AVIS frequently to share how he is feeling and AVIS plays the role of a good listener. It is difficult to see him go through so much pain and suffering though.
​
In the throes of thavippu
There is a word in Tamil called thavippu. It means suffering. But thavippu, in essence, has a grimmer connotation. It is a feeling that you experience in a dark, lonely, place within you. It is an unbearable ache that gnaws at your soul. It makes living feel pointless. It makes grace, prayer, divinity and other known forms of spiritual reasoning appear grossly inadequate. They turn irrelevant, in fact.
No one can escape thavippu. At some point in your Life, in your unique, personal context, you will experience and struggle with thavippu.
Just like our friend who is caught in its throes. 
He spoke to AVIS again yesterday. He said, “My mind is not peaceful. It is constantly throbbing with the same questions: ‘Why? Why me? Why us as a family? Why our child? Why now?’” He felt that he was traveling through a tunnel that was apparently endless. “It is inky black inside the tunnel. There is no light in sight,” he added. He wondered what was the way out for him.
We are glad that our friend reached out and sought perspective. That itself is a sign that he is seeking help to climb out of the dark depths of grief.
While thavippu is a natural human response to a traumatic situation, we surely have the opportunity to choose to be non-suffering. We can be non-suffering by dropping the ‘why’ questions in Life: ‘Why? Why me? Why me now?’
Asking these questions is not wrong. All these are normal questions that human beings crave answers for in any context. But asking these questions is futile. Because Life is never going to answer them. You see, pain is integral to the process of Life. You don’t get to choose pain. It will always arrive uninvited, unannounced and will stay on for as long as it wants to. We add suffering to any painful situation by asking the ‘why’ questions.
Consider the example of a headache. Surely it is painful. But instead of dealing with the pain, we bring suffering upon ourselves the moment we start asking the ‘why’ questions: ‘Why do I have this headache? Why now? Why?’ Suffering almost always makes an already painful situation unbearable. Choosing to be non-suffering is an intelligent way of dealing with pain.
The truth is that we humans cannot fight Life’s design. For instance, when someone’s time is up, they just have to go.  When this understanding is complete, there will be a realization that carrying on grieving is futile. That’s when you exercise the choice to be non-suffering. However, being non-suffering does not mean that there will be no pain. You cannot negotiate with pain. You have to simply accept it. But when you are non-suffering your ability to accept pain and deal with it improves significantly.
Reaching this point of choosing to be non-suffering requires some serious effort from the individual, from you. In most painful situations, we humans are held hostage by the turbulent mind. Now, the only way to deal with Life’s upheavals, and to learn to remain unmoved despite all that Life throws at you, is to work on your mind. On your thoughts. We know this from our own lived experience. Once you are aware of what you are thinking, and you are able to control your responses to your thoughts, you can experience equanimity and inner peace in any situation. 

​​Drunken monkeys
Simply, Life is a mind game. Forget about winning this game. No one can win against Life. But to even stay in the game, you must learn to tame your mind. You must be in control of your responses to your thoughts. And not allow your thoughts to control you.
The Buddha is known to have referred to the human mind as a place that is infested with drunken monkeys. What he meant was that while monkeys by nature are boisterous, imagine the havoc that drunken monkeys can create.
Modern scientific research reveals that the human mind, on average, thinks up 60,000 thoughts daily. These thoughts are randomly swarming the mind every single day. The Buddha referred to most of these random thoughts as drunken monkeys.
He was surely right. Like drunken monkeys would screech, chatter and jump around endlessly, most of our thoughts too are rushing through our mind wildly – they are restless, chaotic and unrestrained. Fear, anxiety, guilt, worry, anger, jealously, self-pity, temptation, hatred, sadness and frustration – these are some of the dominant and drunken monkeys. The mind thinks up quieter, calmer thoughts too. These are thoughts of Happiness, grace, gratitude, peace, love and compassion. But, like in any other context, the exuberant, bullying types dominate the space they inhabit. So the human mind is controlled by the drunken monkeys. This is why the human mind rarely finds peace or Happiness or celebrates grace and abundance in everyday Life. Whereas, it is incessantly steeped in worry or held hostage by debilitating thoughts – fear, anger, guilt, grief, hatred and jealousy, among several others. Understandably, therefore, most of humanity is more unhappy than happy. 

​Don’t be led by the mind
Kabir, the 15th century weaver-poet, describes the restless nature of the mind and warns against being led by it:
Mann lobhi mann lalchi mann chanchal mann chor,
Mann ke maate mat chaliye, mann palak palak mein aur.
It means:
The mind is greedy, the mind is avaricious,
The mind is fickle, the mind is a thief.
Don’t be led by your mind,
Because the mind changes every moment, in the blink of an eye.
Kabir calls the unsteady, wavering mind a thief because it robs you of your inner peace. The inference is that you cannot be anchored, calm and peaceful, if you keep responding to every thought that arises in your mind. Well, if you did that,  you will possibly be pulled in 60,000 different directions – daily!
Actually, think of the untrained human mind as an untrained dog. When a dog is not trained, it will tug at the leash and lead you to wherever it feels like going. Similarly, an untrained mind is running around in a frenzy. Fearful in one moment, angry in another, greedy and jealous at some time, and anxious and worried in yet another moment. All this aimless, uncontrolled, hyperactivity, in fact, can leave you exhausted, exasperated, overwhelmed and very, very unhappy.
But there is a way you can transform this situation and learn to be calm and happy despite the circumstances. For that to happen, you must train the mind through a meditative practice.
The key is to organize your 60,000 thoughts daily. Normally, these thoughts are in a state of constant chaos. When you become aware of the debilitating nature of a majority of these thoughts, you will realize that they must not be given any attention. Worry and fear, for instance, are powerless when you don’t give them any importance, when you don’t pick up those thoughts. Instead, when you learn to give attention to thoughts of grace, love, compassion, Happiness and peace, you will naturally feel calm and content with the Life you have.
Almost all our thoughts arise from our circumstances and experiences. You lose someone or something, you are bound to feel sad. You realize you made a mistake, you are likely to experience guilt. Someone lets you down, you will naturally get angry. You must not push away these feelings. In fact, you must hold them up and ask yourself if they are making you feel good or feel lousy. Invariably all debilitating thoughts make us feel unhappy. Importantly, when you understand the futility of holding on to thoughts that are making you unhappy and are injurious to your mental health, you will instantly set them down. Because, intrinsically, you dislike being unhappy, stressed, anxious and overwhelmed.
The good news is that the human mind is like the human body. It responds well to training. A trained mind obeys its master – you. And when they are not given any attention and importance, the drunken monkeys, sloshed that they are, pass out. That is, the debilitating thoughts become powerless. They no longer control you. 

​Amazing return on investment
We both practice mouna, a form of meditation. This practice does not require us to find a quiet place and be in a certain posture to meditate. It simply calls for us to be silent for a certain period of time daily – doing what we love doing.
This practice is easy to understand and simple to follow. You just have to do what you love doing – for at least an hour daily. It can be practicing music, art, writing, cooking, dancing, gardening or whatever else you love doing. What is important is that you must not sleep. Ideally, when you are indulging in the activity, you must be silent. Which means that you must not engage with others around you verbally. But, of course, when you are practicing music, you may surely sing. Also, the activity you choose need not be what you normally do at work, and yet, it must be something that makes you lose track of time, and even yourself. It must be immersive.
In essence, the practice of mouna is this:

• Be silent.
• Do what you love doing for at least an hour daily.

And this is what you will experience: You will lose yourself to the process. You will lose track of time. You will let go of the worldly issues that worry you and hold you hostage. You will be non-worrying, non-frustrated and non-suffering. And so you will be happy in the moment, celebrating your love for what you love doing.
Now, for one hour of your time daily, wouldn’t that be an amazing return on investment?
When you experience the power of mouna, you will want to do more and more of what you love doing. That will, in turn, make you calm and happy no matter what situation you are facing in Life. 

​The antidote to fear, worry and anxiety
Kannadasan, the legendary Tamil poet, recommends precisely this approach to help us navigate through the upheavals of everyday, turbulent, worldly Life.
He wrote this song for the Tamil film, Sumaithaangi (1962):
Makayamma, kalakkamma?
Manathile kozhappama?
Vazhkaiyyil nadukkama?
Vazhkaiyendral aayiram irrukkum,
Vasal thorum vedanai irrukkum.
Vandha thunbam ethuvendralum,
Vaadi nindral oduvathuillai.
Ethayum thangum idhayam irunthaal,
Iruthivaraikkum amaithi irrukkum.
Yezhai manathai maaligai aaki,
Iravum pagalum kaaviyam paadi,
Nalai pozhuthai iraivannukku alithu,
Nadukkum vazhvil amaidiyai thedu,
Onakkum keezhe ullavar kodi,
Ninaithu paaru, nimmadi naadu.
It means:
Are you confused, confounded, distraught, lost and fearful in Life?
Know that everyone has their share of pain, sorrows, grief and challenges. By allowing yourself to be beaten and pinned down by your circumstances, your problems are not going to disappear. Instead, if you have a strong heart, you can possibly last the course of this lifetime.
Now, how does one develop a strong heart, you may wonder. Kannadasan recommends that you focus on doing what you love doing. Of course, in the song, he refers to writing poetry, as that was what he loved doing. But you could surely do what you love doing, do whatever makes you come alive.
Kannadasan continues:
The impoverished mind must be transformed into an abundant palace by doing what you love doing. Do this day in and day out and make this doing, this process of enjoying what you love doing, an offering to your inner God. That’s the way to inner peace in any given circumstance. Also, spend a moment reflecting on the innumerable people who are faced with bigger challenges in Life. Then count your blessings, be grateful and be content with what you have.
Kannadasan’s reference to the impoverished mind is important. He is pointing to that fact that the mind that is caught in the throes of thavippu, or that which is held hostage by debilitating thoughts, is impoverished. And so he invites us to consider filling this mind with thoughts of abundance, by doing what we love doing, and transforming it into a palace. We must not do this for fame or money or seek anything in return. He suggests that we must follow this routine selflessly, day in and day out, making each day’s effort an offering to our inner God.
Clearly, when the God within you feels satiated, you feel fulfilled. You can then only be happy.

Happiness is the way
We have wholeheartedly embraced this idea of training the mind, by doing what we love doing, prescribed by Kannadasan. And we have greatly benefited from it. We find that his advice is not just poetically brilliant, it is downright practical.
In fact, going through a crippling bankruptcy for 16 years is not easy. Yet we have not just survived, we are thriving because we have learned to be happy despite our challenging circumstances. This is how we awoke to our Life’s purpose of Inspiring ‘Happyness’™! This is how we learned that Happiness is being non-worrying, non-frustrated and non-suffering. This is how we are the happynesswalas™ today.
What we both have also realized, through exploring the journeys of others and from our own lived experience, is that no matter how hard you try to protect yourself, your Life’s journey is bound to have its share of lows, loss, pain, grief and darkness. Such is Life. So the only way you can navigate your way through Life’s upheavals is by staying anchored and calm. And that can happen only by learning to train your mind through doing what you love doing.
Like a gardener would tend to their garden by diligently weeding it, you have to weed your mind by putting the drunken monkeys to sleep. This is a daily process. And no matter how well the previous day went, you start over every new day. In fact, with discipline and diligence, you can perfect this process into an art.
Remember: Only when the drunken monkeys sleep, is your mind calm and you are peaceful – and happy.

[Vaani and AVIS are the happynesswalas™. They are expert writers and biographers, accomplished speakers and conversationalists, and culture specialists. To know their fascinating story, click here.] 
​​