Happiness Express Read online

  HAPPINESS EXPRESS

  Khurshed holds an M.Sc in Mathematics from IIT Bombay. He is a Parsi and is fondly called Bawa, a nickname he inherited from his IIT days. More than 20 years ago, he decided he would rather teach people how to meditate and make them happy instead of teaching them math and making them miserable. He became an Art of Living teacher and this allowed him to do exactly that and gave him the freedom to explore many of his varied passions.

  Dinesh holds a B.Tech in Metallurgy and Material Sciences from IIT Bombay. He’d always wanted to make a difference to the people around him and the world in general. At the age of 21, he became an Art of Living teacher and has taught the secrets of the mind and meditation in more than 30 countries. He is a fitness enthusiast and thoroughly enjoys his daily workouts. He does awesome Yoga. He has a unique, and often, humourous take on current affairs which he prolifically expresses through his tweets.

  They live in a beautiful home surrounded by nature in the Art of Living Bangalore Ashram with their friends who are their family, all of whom contribute in some way or other to everything they are involved in.

  First published by Westland Publications Private Limited in 2018

  61, 2nd Floor, Silverline Building, Alapakkam Main Road, Maduravoyal, Chennai 600095

  Westland and the Westland logo are the trademarks of Westland Publications Private Limited, or its affiliates.

  Copyright © Khurshed Batliwala and Dinesh Ghodke, 2018

  ISBN: 9789387894198

  All rights reserved

  The views and opinions expressed in this work are the authors’ own and the facts are as reported by them, and the publisher is in no way liable for the same.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  CONTENTS

  PREFACE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Chapter 1 BRAIN

  Chapter 2 SLEEP

  Chapter 3 MEDITATION

  Chapter 4 FOOD

  Chapter 5 EXERCISE

  Chapter 6 LEARNING

  Chapter 7 THE FEYNMAN TECHNIQUE

  Chapter 8 MIND MAPPING AND RADIAL THINKING

  Chapter 9 FOCUSED MIND MAPPING

  Chapter 10 MEMORY

  Chapter 11 PROCRASTINATION

  Chapter 12 HAPPINESS SUTRAS

  Appendix 1 SRI SRI RAVI SHANKAR

  Appendix 2 THE ART OF LIVING FOUNDATION COURSES

  Appendix 3 WORKSHOPS OFFERED BY KHURSHED & DINESH

  Appendix 4

  Appendix 5 A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF THE BACH FLOWER REMEDIES

  SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

  PREFACE

  People often ask us how we manage to stay so happy and what our secret is. This book is the answer.

  The recipe for happiness involves five major ingredients, and that’s how this book is structured. The chapters are quite independent of each other and you could read them in any order.

  Do you have trouble resting? Do you feel tired and worn out a lot? The chapters on Sleep and Meditation are for you. One of the best things you can do to get that elusive smile could well be simply closing your eyes. We can almost guarantee that following the steps in these chapters will dramatically improve the quality of your sleep, as well as your life.

  Feeling unfit and unwell? Read the chapters on Food and Exercise. Being physically active and eating healthy, tasty meals can make a huge difference to your well-being.

  Feeling stagnated? Head to the chapters on the Brain, Learning and Focused Mind Mapping. There’s an incomparable joy in understanding and learning something new. Quite a few adults deny themselves this pleasure because they think they cannot learn new things or are afraid of making mistakes. That’s where these chapters can come to your rescue.

  Do you tend to forget things? Do you wish your memory could function better? The chapter on Memory unravels the mystery of how our memories work and explores two memory enhancement methods: The Memory Palace and The Spaced Repetition System (SRS).

  Keep getting into trouble because of habitually postponing stuff you have to do? The chapter on Procrastination provides insights into the working of your mind and includes an approach we call the S.T.A.R. technique to help you get over this and other infuriating habits.

  Want some quick tips on becoming happier? Read Happiness Sutras. This is your go-to chapter whenever you feel low. If you are doing everything right, yet somehow not finding yourself in the best of spirits, perusing this chapter should help you out and restore your smile in a jiffy.

  We were recently asked what our dream was. We replied: we are living our dream!

  Life is a dream. This book ensures it doesn’t turn into a nightmare. Welcome aboard the Happiness Express!

  All the very best.

  Jai Gurudeva!

  Love,

  Bawa & Dinesh

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  We have the Brobdingnagian fortune of being blessed by our beloved Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. We are grateful for the magical, enchanting world of the Art of Living that we are overjoyed to be a part of.

  Dinesh is the solidity of the Himalayas and the love of a few saints, rolled into one. Life is absolutely incredible because of him.

  My mom passed away while this book was only an idea. There’s a little story about her and me in this book. Mom, wherever you are, I love you! Dad, you are in here as well. Thank you for everything. I love you, too.

  I thank Dinesh’s parents for their love and support, and the car.

  Thanks to Abhiram, Salman and Chakri for all the work that you guys so cheerfully do, both online and offline, allowing Dinesh and me the luxury of time.

  To Gowrishankar for helping when it was most needed; without him most of the illustrations in this book would not have been possible.

  To Lalit for making me enjoy exercise.

  To Dr Ankita Dhelia for her osteopathic treatments. This book wouldn’t have been possible if she hadn’t used her extraordinary skills to get me out of bed after my back injury.

  To Devang for being the initial inspiration for us to even think we could write a book.

  To Bhanu Didi for her music, love, sweet gentleness with everyone, and the coolest, cutest quote for our cover!

  To Arvind and Srivi for ensuring we look as great as we feel.

  To Susha for the beautiful suitcase on the cover and her ideas and insights.

  To Harish Ramachandran for his laughter and ideas and his wife Bharathy for the timely help.

  To Rajesh (Myla) Krishnamurthy for all the pointers we used in the Memory chapter.

  To Atin and Pooja for the title of this book.

  To Rosy for making us fly!

  To Sowmya for ensuring that Rosy could make us fly.

  To Manak for guiding us.

  To Perviz, my sister, and Carl, her husband, for being there, and Aarman, Ahun and Bhuvana, their children, for all the problems and craziness they create.

  To Shiv, Sakshi, JD, Tanu and Anya for all the great food and silly jokes.

  To Chakri for the photos in the Memory chapter.

  To Mayur and Esha for celebrating their birthdays and anniversaries with us (inside joke, don’t bother).

  To Hanoz and Rimpy for their supreme generosity.

  To Kapil, Puja and darling Aarna for the good times in London.

  To Uppi, Manisha, Dhara, Sourav, Rupal, Saleel, Rajesh, Shilpa, Rohit, Shibani and Rashmin for the silent encouragement (I wish they had been more vocal though).

  To Esha, Santosh and Kamatchi for reading the book aloud to me, so I could hear how it sounded in order t
o edit it better.

  To Harshal for singing.

  To Chirag for dancing and being such a good sport.

  As always, thanks to Prama and Ranji Bhandari for sharing their beautiful home with us and for the fantastic food and superb conversations; Shavina for all the pampering; and Abhay Joshi for those little and big things that make our life easier. To Chaital, Milan and their families for all the lovely times.

  To Amarja, Raghavan, Anjana and Vivek for the lovely food and all the fun.

  To Jai and Pramod Khanna for taking such good care of us in Mumbai. To Nisheeta for being the silent, systematic force in the city, making each visit special.

  To Adi Kabra for being our man Friday in Hyderabad. He is actually Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday as well. We give him the weekend off.

  To Dr Rangana Chaudhary for teaching us EFT and NLP and being such a dear friend.

  To Anuraag Agarwal, CEO of Amar Chitra Katha, for stepping in and helping us at the last minute with some of the beautiful illustrations in this book. To Neel from The Amar Chitra Katha Studio for coordinating on many of the illustrations we have used. To Gauri Gupta, Shrungi Panchal, Pankhuree, Jordan and Sakshi who cheerfully gave their time to draw and redraw things just the way I wanted them.

  To Nirmal, Poonam, Avinash and Mahika for being a part of so many adventures with us.

  To Ram and Sita in Jakarta for sharing their lovely home with us. We finished a huge part of this book while staying with them.

  To all my chefs at Café Vishala—Kamesh, PD, Kuldeep, Prasad, Carlotta and a host of others—who provided me with the much-needed food and drink whenever required.

  To Bali, all the people who accompanied us for the Vigyan Bhairav course there, and Louisa for graciously allowing our mad bunch to stay at her place. It was highly rejuvenating and so much fun!

  To Konstantin and Villa Sonya in Bulgaria for giving me the time and space I needed to put the finishing touches to this book.

  To Debasri from Amazon-Westland for saying ‘Yes’. . . again!

  A deep gratitude to all those who’ve read bits and pieces of the book and suggested ideas to make it even better.

  And to you, dear reader, thank you for buying this book and reading it. Enjoy the Happiness Express!

  Jai Gurudeva!

  Love,

  Bawa & Dinesh

  Chapter 1

  BRAIN

  The brain is only 2% of the body. Yet our genes accord it great importance. Roughly 50% of the information in our genes is devoted to the brain. The rest is about the remaining 98% of our body.

  Many ancient civilisations didn’t agree with our genes, though. The ancient Greeks apparently considered the brain a ‘secondary’ organ, whose only function was to cool the heart. Herophilus and Erasistratus believed otherwise. After studying the brain and a few of its structures, these legendary physicians made a dramatic observation. According to them, human intelligence was possibly linked to the ‘convolutions of the neocortex’. We now know that it is these convolutions (folds) that result in the computational power of the brain, owing to their large surface area. Unfortunately, the reigning physicians at the time rejected these findings. If they had bothered to investigate these insights further, it could have changed the history of neuroscience forever.

  Cut to the first century AD, when the Europeans believed that the brain was nothing but a cold, moist organ made up of sperms. However, by the time of the Renaissance, the brain was elevated to being the ‘seat of the soul’. Leonardo da Vinci dissected many brains in search of this elusive seat. He never found it, though he made a number of detailed diagrams of the brain from different angles.

  In 1663 the famous English doctor Thomas Willis published The Anatomy of the Brain, by which time terms like cerebrum, cerebellum, medulla were already being used. He used India Ink injections to figure out cerebral circulation of blood, which laid the foundation of neurology as we know it today.

  The Brain

  Ancient Indians were well aware of the supreme importance of the brain and were performing complicated brain surgeries thousands of years ago. Contrast this with the Egyptians and the Greeks, who would pour milk in both ears if the head (brain) was bleeding.

  Even though the brain is only 2% of the mass of the body, it uses a whopping 20% of the blood and oxygen produced in the body. It is 73% water and more than 60% fat (you do the math). In addition, 25% of the cholesterol of the body is found in the brain, where it plays many vital functions. Through its various parts and by receiving information from the rest of the body and the environment, the brain coordinates thought and voluntary action, plus posture, balance, coordination, speech and other movements, to ensure smooth and balanced muscular activities. Most importantly, the brain is involved in regulating and maintaining vital bodily functions such as heart rate, breathing, sleep and digestion.

  More than one lakh chemical reactions take place in the brain every second. Electrical energy like that of a thunderstorm is discharged every few moments on a microscopic scale. The brain guzzles over one thousand litres of blood each day while performing this tumultuous, frenzied activity to maintain what we call life.

  There’s another role our brain plays. It allows us to think, learn, and remember whatever we’ve learnt.

  Survival?!

  As our remote ancestors descended from the trees into the savannah, they had only two survival strategies before them. Get stronger or get smarter. We chose the latter, and we took over the planet.

  While other species tried adding muscle to their bodies, we added neurons to our brain. Our progress was super slow. For the first few million years, we only threw rocks at things. Fast forward a few more million years, and we knew how to make sharper rocks (by bashing rocks with rocks), which we still threw at things. Then came fire and cooking. I’m sure our brain had to become smarter simply to remember all those recipes. Maybe that’s the reason we chose smart instead of strong. Did we take over the planet just so we could have great pizza? (It could be an interesting topic to debate on: Is evolution really about sex, or does it have more to do with taste?)

  Then, forty thousand years ago, we abruptly took up the arts. Think painting, jewellery and sculpture (and possibly fine dining). Thirty seven thousand years after that, we built the Pyramids. Five thousand years later, we landed on the moon. We didn’t make too many trips there—after all, there’s no food on the moon ☺

  We learned and learned and learned. Which brings us to. . .

  How Does Learning Happen?

  There’s quite an orchestration that goes on in our heads to make all those neurons do what they are supposed to do. Learning happens through a combination of stimuli. When we hear, see, touch, smell, taste, read, write, practise, discuss, teach, or feel emotions, we learn.

  Neurons

  Our brain is home to a hundred billion neurons. Each can grow 2,000-10,000 fibrous structures called dendrites. The neurons and dendrites interact with each other and pass information through chemical and electrical signals called synapses. The volume of these interactions surpass the number of elementary particles in the universe! Ancient Indians probably referred to this when they said ‘Yatha pinde tatha brahmande’ more than 8,000 years ago. (The proverb means ‘Whatever is in the microcosm, i.e. the body, is also in the macrocosm, i.e. the universe.’)

  For any learning to happen, in the dense, fibrous neural network of the brain, some specific neurons and dendrites would need to communicate with each other through synapses, forming a kind of circuit. This circuit would represent some type of information—it could be your name, where you live, how to bake a cake, how to solve a differential equation, how to say ‘I love you’ in Tamil, or anything else, depending on the subject. In your lifetime, your brain will process around one quadrillion bytes of information. That’s 1 followed by 15 zeroes! That’s a lot.

  This means that we have an almost infinite capacity to learn. Because learning a particular bit of information is simply the a
bility to create a neural circuit, we can indeed learn anything!

  Even as you read this, masses of neurons and dendrites are swelling, swaying, slithering and splitting within you. The neurons are breaking some connections, moving around, and making new ones. Others are staying put, strengthening their existing connections.

  Newly formed synapses are fragile and can dissolve quickly. This is the process of forgetting. The stuff you do again and again is what makes the neurons that are wired together fire together, fortifying their connections. This makes remembering easier and allows you to do certain things without thinking, almost effortlessly.

  What’s 5 times 5?

  See, you didn’t even have to think. The moment you read that line, 25 popped up in your head. That’s a very strong neural connection.

  What did you have for breakfast yesterday?

  Unless it was a really memorable meal, you may have to think about this one before you get an answer. The neural connection is there, but you require some effort to get it to fire.

  What did you eat for dinner on 21 September last year?

  Chances are you have completely forgotten about this. You may have not even had dinner that day. This is a case of dissolved connections. It’s unnecessary information that your brain has decided to delete.

  This gives us an insight into how our memories work, and we will explore memory in a later chapter.

  Be Careful About What You Do

  Neural connections form for exactly what you do. Watching someone solve a physics problem would create circuits that make you good at exactly that—watching someone else solve the problem. If you want to learn and remember how to solve physics problems, you would have to do them yourself.

  Be careful about what you are doing, because you are becoming really good at doing it. Watching TV the whole day will make you really good at watching TV. Not a very interesting life skill to develop. Practise makes one perfect, but wrong practice will make you perfectly wrong.

  The Anatomy of Inspiration