Stay with me

Past 6 months have been a roller coaster in many ways. I have been constantly tested with stuff that, depending on my perspective, at that time looked like problem or an opportunity. It wasn’t easy but having a routine in a day plus having a practice of regular mindfulness and meditation got me through a lot of that.

I was traveling recently and got an opportunity to catch up with my buddy who lives in Singapore. On that layover, as we hung out, he was literally taking me down a memory lane. We sat in Lau Pa Sat over drinks and chatted. I was taken back to times where I would spend 16 hours of binge working and come to this amazing place to get dinner and end the day.

Those were some great times. I always have loved Singapore and if fate didn’t intervene I would have ended up living there! Anyhow, as I was talking to him about my life and past few months – he said something profound that stuck with me. We were talking life, trials, tribulations and Swami. He said, he never asked Swami for a trouble-less life. He was aware that life is a mixed bag of good and bad. But all he asked was whatever happens he wanted to Swami to be with him all the time. He just wanted to look inside and find Swami irrespective of what was happening in outside world.

That was so profound and made me stop in my thoughts and reconsider past 6 months of my life in a new light. It was just so, on my flight there I was re-reading Zen and the art of happiness. The book teaches to live by only one truth and it promises if you embed that truth in your heart – happiness is guaranteed irrespective of what is going on in this world and around you.

It says (paraphrasing it) “Everything that is happening to me is the best thing that could ever happen to me

I have been mulling it on my flight and what my friend said completely complemented my thoughts and empowered me to look back my past 6 months in a different light.

So I asked the higher power/Swami to not to remove my obstacles but to stay with me whatever is happening to me. And to give me the awareness to keep in mind that whatever is happening to me, around me is the best thing that could ever happen to me!