Delighting in the Being of Consciousness
It was two years ago that I practice serious Yoga. Two years ago, my schedule started to get busy over the weekend, and it was hard for me to follow conscientiously the Saturday afternoon class, I quitted the class of Florence the Yogi. Occasionally I joined the yoga class in the gym. But it was hardly the same calm and still atmosphere that embraced every class of Florence.
Mani is the teacher of Jessie. Every Tuesday she will leave the office on time with her lime green bag of Yoga gear tug neatly under her arm. I thought is time I pick up my serious Yoga in view of the increasing hectic schedule of airports hopping and irregular sleeping time.
The house where Yogi Mani teaches is a semi-D bungalow at Brickfield. There was a writing inscribed on a wooden panel on the door that says “House of Yoga”. The class has commenced when I arrived. Large size paintings of various Yoga pose adorned the wall. Jessie said her teacher teaches Yoga to other Yogi. He is lean and dressed in dark blue T-shirt and pants and yet you could sense steely calmness from his tone and the gaze in his eyes.
The rhythms are slow and yet focused. Contrary to what most people belief, slow and calm not necessarily means relax. Yoga has the same effect as Tai Chi. As Yogi Mani recites the count, he instructed us to feel the weight of our body on the floor. “Only when you feel the weight of your body on the floor”, said him, “you are in a state of mindfulness, completely aware of your body and your surrounding”.
I smiled at this very enlightening advice of his. How many times in our day-to-day life have we allowed ourselves to feel completely without judgement, just like we allow ourselves to feel the weight of our body on the floor? The feeling of my weight on the floor was very real and fulfilling.
On the way driving back home, I allowed myself to feel my weight in the seat of the car, how the car suspension shook when I drove over the bumps and how the left car stereo seemed to be louder than the right one. There is a joy in this feeling, that I can feel my surroundings, myself - the joy that I am like someone coming alive again from hibernation, recognizing again myself.
I love Malaysia
I woke up today feeling recharged. I left one window opened last night. The morning breeze sneaked in with a tinkling chill like ice on my toes. The sleepy Kuala Lumpur landscape is so alluring under the distant mist of the mountain range. I wonder how long will the folks be celebrating the Hari Raya for it has been 2 weeks now and KL is still very quiet.
Kuala Lumpur is so different from hectic Hong Kong and competitive China. Jeffrey told me that during Kelly Rally Friday night, Kelly told the graduates that Malaysian graduates are the warmest and the most passionate lot. However good Kelly did not conceal the truth that Malaysians are less result-oriented when compared to our East Asian fellow neighbours.
Nothing is perfect. You lose some. You win some. I curled up in my bed finishing the last chapters of Zahir, the book that caused such a concussion in diehard diamond bachelor Jeffrey that he is now a happy man with his girlfriend Weni. Jeff said Puteri could not get across the third pages. I don’t blame her because she could have seen herself suffering like Marie if not Esther. Esther is my hero. She has the courage to leave the comfort of being with her husband to pursue the ultimate universal love for mankind and the real meaning of love.
While I was musing over the journey of Esther in Zahir, I realized that these few weeks I have come in contact with many people from the far away land like Utah, Tibet and Benin. I feel like an L license space traveller who has in panic, stepped on the accelerator of my time travel machine which is now speeding out of control into space time tunnel. From Queenie to Minnie, from Ray to Rae, from Teacher Chin to the sleepy Indian guard at my hotel, my world has sped past me faster than the bullet train. Is this a movie trailer of the journey to come? Probably my horoscope will say something like the stubborn taureans loath changes. But they often missed out the fact that taureans, stubborn as they are, do not change their mind once they have made their decisions.
Or have I? I believe I have. But in this real world, I have chosen not to be nonchalant as Esther who could leave practically everything behind to live in the Steppes. As we have always been taught in the leadership-training program that a good human being will leave a place better off, I invested enormous amount of energy to balance this transition stage. At times I wonder if this effort is worth it, especially when I see how strenuous trying to balance myself standing on two boats. When push comes to shove, I know my choice will be with the one who is still paying my salary. Dad would say a bird in hand is better than thousands of birds in the forest.
It is easy to lose myself in the excitement of whirlwind corporate circles. Despite what Kelly said about Malaysians being less result-driven than our neighbours, Malaysia makes me grounded. Ultimately what is the point of life without getting in touch with whom we really are? At least I know, Malaysia is where my family, my friends and my paintings are.
Till death do we part
It was a bright sunny afternoon out there. Tree leaves next to a distant house were bathing in the glitters of the late afternoon sun. I sat down at my desk and started to scan through all new incoming mails. There is one from As.
“Dear Wendy,
F has taken the selfish decision to leave me and the children. Is a long story, I will talk to you when I see you”
What do you mean by leaving you and the children? Where and who is F leaving to? How is H their eldest 10 years old daughter going to understand this about what goes on between her parents? Thousand of thoughts tear through my head. Sense of disbelief and helplessness choked me. I dialled the number of their house. If I could travel through space to Belgium where A and F live, the phone on the teak wood table in the study would be ringing frantically. It was the teak wood table they brought from Malaysia 4 years ago. An answering machine came on with the recorded voice of A. She was not at home but where could she be at 11 in the morning in Belgium?
“Please pick up your phone”, I whispered nervously while counting impatiently the dreaded ringing of her mobile phone. Everywhere was silent except the irritating and monotonous ring tones. When I was just about to give up, she answered. There was not a second wasted before I posed the cruellest question, which I only realized later. “A, I got your email. What do mean by leaving?” Even though we are separated across 1000 km away, I could sense the pain and anger in her voice. “It means what it means, Wendy”.
I froze. Instantly I felt like a door slammed right in my face. F has walked out on his family. F is one the most brilliant and capable man I have ever met in my life. He is the CEO of a great multinational consulting firm and my mentor during the founding years of my career. Under his leadership, the company grew from strength to strength and no one has achieved so much under such a short time.
“There is no third party. He just cannot feel anything any more”, the pain in A’s voice made me realized that this break up has completely devastated her. “He said he felt numb all this while. He wants to take a break to be by himself and to think of what to do next”. F and A were childhood sweethearts. He a brilliant graduate from one of the most prestigious universities but she was just a high school graduate and worked as a secretary. Their education background has been different but she has managed to put together a lovely home with three beautiful children. She is kind and funny and her warmth and hospitality makes everyone around her feeling instantly at ease and cared for. Her character is a stark contrast to F who is sharp, smart and decisive. Every one of us has thought that this is the most perfect couple on earth.
“He has no right to make this decision. It is not just him that he is deciding for. He is affecting the lives of the children and mine.” A is right. The reality in a divorce is that there is no way to turn back the clock. The marriage between two persons is a commitment to the journey together, in sickness or in health, and in heaven or in hell, and till death do they part. What was said in front of the pastor sounded like the flash back of a black and white movie, hardly real and was almost mocking.
It is sorry to see how they have grown apart despite staying together through thick and thin and having three children. But what saddens me is that what feeling was he looking for. Or was it more accurate that he has lost the ability to connect with his role of a husband and a father despite being such a successful leader? Has he been so hardened by the corporate world that he has not allowed himself to feel love?
F has made the inevitable decision of a break up and to distant himself from his family. I pray for my mentor he soon will realize that he has not lost his heart. He just need to exercise his emotion muscles because he has stopped using it for too long. Hopefully this will all come in not too distant future. For only with the ability to experience, all the creations in his life make sense. Otherwise it will just be black and white, safe and objective but with no passion and regrets. He deserves more than this. His family deserves more than this.
Friendship, food and a marriage
Akan Datang
Will all talented individuals in this room please stand up ?
The comment from Simon Kuper in the Sports Column of Financial Times about Lindsay Davensport left a resonance in me. At 29, after half a lifetime on tour, Davenport remains unappreciated. Despite her ranking, Linsay Davenport remains unappreciated. This is partly because the world demands that female tennis players be beautiful. Partly it has something to do with Davenport remain unaware that she’s a tennis genius.
Linsay was born for sport. To borrow the paragraph from Simon Kuper, Linsay’s serve is so hard she regularly hits aces even on clay and the only woman’s groundstroke bigger than Davenport’s forehand may be Davenport’s backhand. She brings the power play of men’s tennis to the woman’s tour.
Since January 2000, though, she has won none. Of course this is unfair. Davenport’s failure to win the Grand Slam is curious. Last month she won her 50th title and yet in the biggest matches, her attitudes of “take it if winning means so much to you” make tennis fans of the world ignore her as a no body. Faced with hypercompetitive women like Venus Williams or media savvy Anna Kournikova, Davenport is like a faceless peace-loving monk who shies away from confrontation. This is not what the fans are in for. Just like boxing and chess, tennis is largely a battle of two persons’ will.
When she lost to Venus in Wimbledon final this summer, she commented in a typical Linsay’s manner that “It was just amazing to me how Venus, every time the chips were down, played unbelievable. Every time I got up, she took it away from me.” This kind of respect and appreciation for your rival you see only in the King of Kings. It is hardly an act. Unfortunately nobody ever says that of her.
The problem explains itself when you hear her speak. Smiling, polite and eager to please, she spends her sparsely attended press conferences putting herself down. “The other night I saw myself on TV and ran of the room” is a typical example.
I met many talented individuals in my career and my volunteering work that share the same traits like Lindsay. Largely unaware of their own talents, they spend their life quietly contributing and supporting others to win. This seemingly noble act has one problem. Most of them have failed to acknowledge their own contribution and appreciate the power they have. Thus allowing us who could be friends, spouses, relatives or colleagues or even sport fans of these talented and gregarious individuals, to forget to express our appreciation.
Living in the world of consumerism, anything that gives an instant adrenalin rush, injects an instant satisfaction, than the dull accumulation of wisdom and gentle kindness. However instant satisfaction is largely short lived because they are easy to come by and hardly unique. Soon when the novelty is over, voids set in and no wonder we ponder if the kindness and beauties have disappeared in our world.
The truth is that beauties and kindnesses are all around us, in the seemingly ordinary individuals that we get in touch with every day. Start appreciating them, and before you do that, appreciate yourself too.
So, will all talented individuals in this room please stand up?
.......... .and are you standing up ?
It was two years ago that I practice serious Yoga. Two years ago, my schedule started to get busy over the weekend, and it was hard for me to follow conscientiously the Saturday afternoon class, I quitted the class of Florence the Yogi. Occasionally I joined the yoga class in the gym. But it was hardly the same calm and still atmosphere that embraced every class of Florence.
