Author: onetusk

Book of The Month – June 2022 : From Strength to Strength

/ onetusk / Leave a comment
From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life by [Arthur C. Brooks]
The roadmap for finding purpose, meaning, and success as we age, from bestselling author, Harvard professor, and the Atlantic’s happiness columnist Arthur Brooks.

Many of us assume that the more successful we are, the less susceptible we become to the sense of professional and social irrelevance that often accompanies aging. But the truth is, the greater our achievements and our attachment to them, the more we notice our decline, and the more painful it is when it occurs.

What can we do, starting now, to make our older years a time of happiness, purpose, and yes, success?

At the height of his career at the age of 50, Arthur Brooks embarked on a seven-year journey to discover how to transform his future from one of disappointment over waning abilities into an opportunity for progress. From Strength to Strength is the result, a practical roadmap for the rest of your life.

Drawing on social science, philosophy, biography, theology, and eastern wisdom, as well as dozens of interviews with everyday men and women, Brooks shows us that true life success is well within our reach. By refocusing on certain priorities and habits that anyone can learn, such as deep wisdom, detachment from empty rewards, connection and service to others, and spiritual progress, we can set ourselves up for increased happiness.

“To the overachievers, success addicts, and tired strivers who are fairly confident you can’t keep it up forever but will try anyway—this book is for you. Arthur Brooks shows you it’s possible to build a life that really does get better with age.” —Simon Sinek, optimist andauthor of Start with Why and The Infinite Game 
 
“From Strength to Strength is a wise and inspiring guide to reimagining the rest of your life. If you’re a striver tired of striving, this remarkable book is for you.” —Daniel H. Pink, author of Drive, When, and A Whole New Mind 
 
“Brooks appears to have a clear strategy here: first he horrifies you, then he bucks you up. An alternate title for this book could be The Good News About Your Inevitable Decline. Most of us strivers believe we can keep racing until we run out of road. Arthur is trying to save us pain and maximize our contributions to the species. Every ambitious person should read this.” —Dan Harris, author and former ABC News anchor 

Thought of the Week 23rd May 2022 (3)

/ onetusk / Leave a comment

I asked Acharya what is the one piece of advice he would give men and women my age who have been workaholics and success addicts—special, not happy—and who tremble at the thought of leaving grihastha*. He paused for a long time. “Know yourself,” he finally said. “That is all. Nothing else. Nothing else can release.” “How?” I asked. “By going within,” he replied. “When your mind is quieter, you will find that treasure waiting for you within.

– Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life
Arthur C. Brooks

*grihastha : ”the second stage in the Brahmanic ashrama in which a man assumes the duties and responsibilities of a householder.

Thought for the Week – 16th May 2022 (3)

/ onetusk / Leave a comment

Like everything mental, the so-called law of causation contradicts itself. No thing in existence has a particular cause; the entire universe contributes to the existence of even the smallest thing; nothing could be as it is without the universe being what it is. When the source and ground of everything is the only cause of everything, to speak of causality as a universal law is wrong. The universe is not bound by its content, because its potentialities are infinite; besides it is a manifestation, or expression of a principle fundamentally and totally free.

-Nisargadatta

Thought of the Week – 16th May 2022 (2)

/ onetusk / Leave a comment

There is still a widespread denial of death in Western cultures.  Even old people try not to speak or think about it, and dead bodies are hidden away.  A culture that denies death inevitably becomes shallow and superficial, concerned only with the external form of things.  When death is denied, life loses its depth.  The possibility of knowing who we are beyond name and form, the dimension of the transcendent, disappears from our lives because death is the opening into that dimension.  

People tend to be uncomfortable with endings, because every ending is a little death.  That’s why in many languages the word for “good-bye” means “see you again.”                                                               
          
Whenever an experience comes to an end  –  a gathering of friends, a vacation, your children leaving home  –  you die a little death.  A “form” that appeared in your consciousness as that experience dissolves.  Often this leaves behind a feeling of emptiness that most people try hard not to feel, not to face.  
 
If you can learn to accept and even welcome the endings in your life, you may find that the feeling of emptiness that initially felt uncomfortable turns into a sense of inner spaciousness that is deeply peaceful.
          
By learning to die daily in this way, you open yourself to life….
          
Whenever death occurs, whenever a life form dissolves, God, the formless and unmanifested, shines through the opening left by the dissolving form.  That is why the most sacred thing in life is death.  That is why the peace of God can come to you through contemplation and acceptance of death.

Eckhart Tolle

(contributed by Mr. Balasunder)