That Which Matters
Ephemeral thoughts on eternal ideas
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Origin of TWM
Things that matter most must never be at the mercy of things that matter least. Johann Wolfgang van Goethe The above quote from Goethe was the first of three triggers that inspired me to begin this blog. I came across these words during a time when I was just emerging from a dark phase of […]
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The Artist’s Way – A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity
This is the second time I have picked up this remarkable course on self-discovery. I last did it in 2021, when I bought it as a New Year’s gift to myself. On the first page, I had then written: Dear Arvind, I wish this book unlocks the artist in you. I had worked through the […]
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The Buddha in Daily Life
Alright, I am finally here on this topic. I had created a placeholder for this post but never got around to writing it. I kept putting it off for some reason, not sure why. There were other things I wanted to write about in the meantime: There might have been some other reason for not […]
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Beyond Rare: The INFJ’s Guide to Cultivating Growth & Self-Awareness
When I wrote Discovering INFJ, the plan had been to write about this book by Elaine Schallock Drenth. But that did not quite happen. I had to suspend writing that blog post then and did not find the inspiration to return to it. Until now. Today I was reading through the last chapter of this […]
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No More Mr. Nice Guy
Shortly after my divorce in 2022, I decided to get into therapy and ‘sort things out.’ I have written a fair bit about that phase of my life previously: At around the same time, I came across a book that made me do a double-take: For someone who had identified himself as a ‘nice guy’ […]
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The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom
This is a remarkable book and it is exactly what it says it is: a practical guide to personal freedom. When we hear the word freedom, we might think it is about having more choices, or doing whatever one feels like. However, the idea of freedom in this book is much deeper: that of being […]
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The Way of Integrity: Finding the Path to Your True Self
Have you had times in your life when things seem serendipitous? When things come together in some unseen orchestrated manner that leaves you wondering: wow! Increasingly, life (not “my” life) seems to be just that. Spontaneous happenings that make me wonder and laugh! Sometimes cry too, but I think the crying season has largely passed […]
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Yes to Life: In Spite of Everything
Alright! This seems like a good thing to write about on the first day of a new year. A new year is celebrated around the world with great joy and fanfare. It is a marker for possible change for the better, a time to somehow put aside the inevitable difficulties of the year that has […]
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You Are the Happiness You Seek
When the student is ready the teacher will appear. When the student is truly ready…the teacher will disappear. – Tao Te Ching About a year ago, I stumbled upon a video by Rupert Spira on the non-dual approach called The Direct Path, and I immediately recognized I had found my teacher. (He does not know […]
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Thanks for Always Being There
And with those five words, my brother took his life. As I replay all that has happened these past six weeks since I got the damned phone call early morning on 7 July telling me Rajesh was gone, I can only think of how I had hardly been there for him, let alone always. There […]
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Denmark to India, and Back
A few months ago, my friend forwarded a set of emails that I had written while I was at the Necessary Teacher Training College, Denmark. It was fun to read them after 25 years, and I thought I would put them up here, as-is, to capture some aspects of that crazy trip. 4 Aug 1998: […]