“Do not be unfree in a free world.”

In the modern world, life is complicated. We make a living to please others in our lives and keep up with strangers on social media. Achieving personal freedom is not an easy task; to attain something, one always has to let go of something. To seek immense personal freedom, let go of your fears and horrors. Overcoming the fear of pain, fear of suffering, fear of success and fear of failure and criticism would lead you to attain personal freedom. Fear blocks your mind with clouds and hinders your own attitude. It is like dark clouds in your mind disrupting you to see the good in you. The biochemical state that fear creates in your body affects your immunity and enhances your risk to viruses. Here are some steps to turn your fear into faith. 

NOTICE YOUR FEARS. Do a scan through your whole body and assess where you feel the fear. It shall help you break the fear trance. BREATHE. Take a deep breath and this will calm your bodily sensations and lower your blood pressure. TAKE BABY STEPS. Start small towards the road of approaching your fear. FOCUS ON THE BIGGER PICTURE. When you are up against any kind of fear or a challenge, always a bigger picture lies beyond – the ultimate goal.

 Keep in mind – Words are cheap but real freedom is expensive. It requires giving up things that are standing in the way of your freedom. Give up your stability – there is no such thing as certainty. Get rid of incompatible people, some people have different values than you and it is perfectly okay. Stop fearing money; otherwise, you will not be able to make more. Wishing, hoping, wanting all is waste if you take no action. Develop a warrior’s attitude and be brave to fight your own battle. Fears are nothing but just your mere state of mind. Everything you ever wished lies on the other side of the fear; so I encourage you to step out of your comfort zone and face certain challenges. When one experiences peace and power together, the feeling is amazing. You start balancing yourself and you are filled with rage and challenging yourself. You start expressing yourself to the fullest and start loving yourself.

““Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.”

—John Rockefeller

Greatness is no longer the physical strength inside a person, it is something innate; the desire to become most powerful.  Today we live in a world which according to the famous author Steven Pinker is the most peaceful era of all time. We have freedom like we never had before and the technology that is best to suit our needs. Medical science has bestowed us with longevity and yet with all this abundance, we are unhappy.  We are happy and yet we are unhappy. The reason being that we are not wired for complacency. We are meant to become what we can be. We are meant to express ourselves to the fullest of our potentials. If this world is a cocktail then we are a steady mix of Intuition and rationality. We have to make the most of it. All of you who are now reading this book, have that hunger inside of you to not just be happy, you have this insatiable desire to settle for nothing less than being great.  

We must seek greatness and not happiness – Happiness is our natural state of existence. Look at the animals around you, and the birds, and butterflies, they are all happy and carefree. But that is what sets us apart from the rest of the creatures. There is a blueprint for greatness inside each one of us, which yearns and craves for scaling the zenith of our potential. Happiness will make us all feel hunky-dory, but sooner or later we will all languish into complacency. At all times we must avoid the garden of low hanging fruits. We must choose what must be done over what makes us happy. We have to push our limits and make some tough choices. That is how we shall all turn into indomitable forces of greatness. There is a beautiful movie by the name “Hurricane” about a former middleweight boxer who was wrongly convicted for a triple murder in a bar in Paterson, New Jersey. I love a statement made by the eponymous Rubin Hurricane Carter- “I will always be the Hurricane and the Hurricane is beautiful” We must all strive to raise a storm of greatness in this happy life of ours. We must be great.  

We hear a lot about self-realization and knowing yourself, but in this path of self-realization, it’s equally important to know who we can be. Moving from Self- realization to self-actualization makes you transcend from who you are to who you can be.  To become the best version of yourself and to express yourself the best, keep focusing on the power of your core; your inner self. Recognize your inner being and stimulate your energies towards the good. One should walk towards the infinite route, only to find their true self. The thirst is eternal. Create stories and live them. When the future is uncertain, make sure you step slowly on the path leaving no trails. 

 On the route of such an adventurous journey, push yourself to achieve the extraordinary. “If you rise in love with yourself, Life itself will fall in love with you.”

“Your Attitude and Thinking are the potent source towards Stress.”

The experiment of “is your glass half-empty or half-full?” reflects your outlook towards life and your personality. Research has suggested that traits such as optimism and pessimism affect many areas of your health and wellness. The positive thinking that comes with optimism is usually an effective part of stress management. You ought to approach unpleasant problems in a more positive and productive way. Chant the mantra, “ Try, try till you succeed.” The whole process starts with self-talk which if done always leads to greater changes in your attitude. If you run negative thoughts in your mind, you shall develop a pessimistic approach.

“If you think good, you perceive good.”

Research done by a doctor at Stanford University suggests the same – your thinking reflects the way you handle the stress. Remember, a negative mind can never give you a positive life. It is only when you step out of your comfort zone, you endure the path of growth and transformation. Whenever you are faced with a problem, follow the steps:

ACKNOWLEDGE THE PROBLEM. Accept that the problem exists and question yourself about them. Denial is not a solution to all the problems that we face in life. However, acceptance rather than avoidance is a better solution.

DON’T OVERTHINK. It is a human tendency to exaggerate all our problems into situations that don’t exist. You need to monitor your own thoughts and check them for any kind of fault. 

HIT THE ORIGIN OF THE PROBLEM. Sometimes you may not be able to detect the root cause of the problem for a long time. Get up and find it out because that is where you need to hit it.

EMBRACE THE CHALLENGE. Dealing with problems and embracing them will make you more competent and more empathetic towards others.

If you tend to have a negative outlook, do not expect to develop a positive mindset overnight. Nevertheless, with developing positive habits of self-talk and self-acceptance you may become less critical. When you eventually become optimistic, you shall be able to handle everyday stress in a more organized way.

“Energy and matter dance together to create reality. Your way into this dance is through your capacity to consciously regulate and harness your emotions.”

― Amy Leigh Mercree,

“Plant your own garden and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.”

—Veronica A. Shoffstall

Self – Love in Mahatman is a power that nurtures and builds; it is not to be mistaken for narcissism and self-delusion. It is for this reason that the Mahatman concept of love is based on the attitude of humility – I am only too aware of the complexities and intricacies of human relationships and so very consciously and humbly I say that the only real way to love another is by loving oneself. It is arrogance to think that two people can understand each other, let alone be fused together in love. An individual is virtually a universe by himself or herself – just think of all the influences from the first day of this person’s life which has gone to make the person that he or she is today – all the myriad experiences, thoughts and feelings which make up his or her personality at this moment. How can two individuals even begin to understand this enormous and complex universe that each of them is inhabiting? This is the reason Mahatman adopts an attitude of extreme humility where Love is concerned and believes that the only person we can really understand and therefore truly love is our own self. But mark how true self-love helps us become more aware of our deepest thoughts, fears, and motivations. The more aware we are of ourselves, the better we will be able to seek and make loving relationships.

Conventional advice on love talks about innumerable ways and strategies to build relationships. But think for a moment – what control do you really have over the thoughts, feelings and actions of another human being? No matter how much you trust him or her, is that enough for that person to be faithful to you? No matter how much you give and sacrifice, is it any guarantee that you will receive in the same measure? None at all. So why this preoccupation about how someone else should feel and think about you, why so much energy wasted on attempts at influencing his or her behaviour towards you? It is sheer impracticality to commit so much time, energy, and resources into another person over whose emotional and behavioral choices you have no control.

Indeed this unhealthy need to control others has been responsible for heinous abuses in the name of ‘love’. Somewhere a husband prevents his wife from working because he loves her so much that he cannot bear her to leave the house to have a career; somewhere a woman ‘loves’ her boyfriend so much that she gets angry when he hangs out with his friends or goes for a game of golf. Parents love’ their children so much that they decide what their kid will study, where he or she will work and even who he or she will marry. On the other hand, a child can ‘love’ parents so much that he or she wants the power of attorney over their assets so that the old couple need not be bothered about financial things. All these are expressions of manipulation and abuse, unfortunately carried out in the guise of ‘love’.

Instead follow the Mahatman concept of love which says the only relationship worth building and nurturing is the one with your own self. Invest in acquiring valuable skills, high self-esteem, positive experiences; take time to look after your health, and make the effort to look your best. All these Self-love practices will make you so attractive that potential partners are bound to be drawn to you. So rather than getting bogged down by tips and tricks to get a partner to think, feel and do your bidding, channel all that energy towards a goal where all your efforts will reap the greatest reward – your own self.

Finally I believe that Self-love is the surest way to enjoy a relationship because it makes for a continuous stream of positive emotions – a stream that will never run dry so long as you love and respect yourself the most. You love yourself so much that it organically flows out of you and towards people you are close to.

But to experience the full benefits of Mahatman way of loving, you have to keep in mind that self-love is not greed or vanity or pride. When you blow up your entire paycheck on a pair of shoes that will be dated the very next season or binge drink just because you have won that coveted contract, you are definitely not acting out of Self – love. Instead these are harmful actions that would make you poorer in your resources.

Most importantly, Self Love is not self-centredness when you don’t care whether your actions are hurting others as long as they make you feel good. Let me see if I can explain this with a real-life example. Self Love is taking time off during the weekend to go to an art gallery or attend a meditation retreat on your own whereas self-centredness will be dragging along an unwilling partner. In case of the latter, your action is driven by that elusive  – and ultimately mistaken – desire to feel good but it ends up causing self-harm, through ruined relationships.

Mahatman says that in the state of true Self-love, when you reach out to a significant other – be it your partner, parent or child – you do it from a position of strength and maturity. You already know that you are a being who is full of potential, skills, goals and energy, who is worthy of and is already treated with respect, kindness and promise. Hence you engage in relationships not from a state of neediness but in order to give generously and fully. In this way, Self Love frees you from the needy, dependent bondage which has unfortunately been glorified in pop culture as ‘love’.

Then there are those who put forward Respect as an alternative to Love, believing that if you replace the sentimentality, desire and control associated with romantic Love with the regard and esteem for a loved one, the relationship can be more fulfilling. While respect is more mature than love, my point is, even that cannot guarantee a trouble-free relationship. You may deeply respect your partner but he or she may not reciprocate with the same regard for you, at all. What then – are you going to rage and cry and throw a tantrum over how your partner is not respecting you? Or are you going to swallow the disrespect meted out to you and seek refuge in online articles about how to get more respect from your partner and other such half-baked strategies? Eventually all such mistaken attempts boil down to the fact that you are trying to control another person’s thoughts, feelings and actions, which we agreed above – as in the case of love – is just not practical.

So what are your options – how do you get your partner to really respect you? Mahatman gives you the only foolproof answer – by building respect and esteem for your own Self. And there are many ways of doing this.

Now to this passionate and unconditional zest for work, when we add the fire of interest and aptitude, we get OBSESSION; So Passion squared = Obsession. Thus Obsession emerges when you not just approach your work with passion, but bring your psychological resources to it as well. In the above example of the McDonalds employee, when he or she is passionate about work, orders are correctly taken and executed with a smile. The employee is a good team worker and is diligent about learning more. However when this passion at work meets his or her aptitude for culinary innovations, interest in creative food and goal of opening own fast food chain, Obsession is in action. When that employee becomes obsessed with creating a unique fast food menu and popularizing it, only then he/she will achieve personal mastery in his or her work and in this way, it is obsession that will fuel the journey from big dreams to reality.

Now we come to the really useful part – how do you harness the powers of Obsession to achieve your own goals? Here is a 5 step program: