the daily commute, through the sun, the snow and the rain. You haven’t even got to work with all of the political machinations that are a part of our daily life and you are already exhausted.

But every day, put your heart and soul into your life and squeeze every last drop of juice out of it. And do it without any thought or expectation of results or reward.

Persistence
My mother had a sign up on the wall that said, “Gardening provides therapy in knowing that some things can’t be hurried. It slows you down. There is no such thing as an instant garden”.

I haven’t managed to track down the originator of this quote, but it haunts me through my life. Working in Sales & Marketing, I’m constantly pressured to make it rain on demand. Looking around at colleagues of mine, it’s almost like people rushing through the forest frantically looking for a deer to shoot. Or flinging line after line

I’m hitting 40 later this week and I can frankly say that I have spent most of my life working to support my passion for spiritual enlightenment and personal growth.

But then things caught up with me. I found myself at the end of my spiritual path and I was sitting in the midst of fields. There was nowhere else to go. So I had a look around and suddenly saw my more mundane life and wondered what to do about it.

Things weren’t too bad. I’m married to a lovely woman, have two wonderful children, just bought a beautiful house overlooking a golf course in a leafy suburb of London and head the Sales & Marketing of a Pension & Benefits Administration solution company.

What was that again? Head of Sales & Marketing of a Benefits Administration Solution company? Could I have veered further from my spiritual home ?

My sister calls me from time to time asking me why I don’t become a social worker or why I don’t teach meditation for a living and whether I am ‘really’ happy at the bleeding edge of the commercial world.

I do teach meditation to individuals who are interested and I am always ready to lend a hand with a Dream Analysis or Hypnotherapy session. But my financial wellbeing clearly comes from something completely alien to my life’s ‘true work’.

Keeping this thought in my mind, I spent time meditating on the problem, incubated it in my dreams and analysed the various options that stood before me at a cerebral level.

But the breakthrough came, as it usually does, via a casual conversation with a friend of mine over a glass of Lemonade in Starbucks.

On that fateful day, I reminded myself of one of my Osho’s key statements on the topic of work. It doesn’t matter what you do he said. If you are cleaning the toilet, enjoy cleaning the toilet. If you are chopping wood, chop the wood.

Here I was, enjoying a financially rich life selling large-scale HR software solutions to FTSE 250 companies in the United Kingdom. My job leverages my key strengths of persistence, analytical skills, communication and a general love of people. What was I complaining about?

Suddenly, everything had changed. I woke up in the morning with a glint in my eye. I wanted to get out there and meet more people, spread the message, sell some software. I truly believe that my company implements some of the best Benefits Administration software in the world. Why should I feel ashamed? Someone has to do this job.

And tomorrow? Will I be selling Pension & Benefits Administration solutions tomorrow? I don’t know. But I do know that the perfect opportunity always shows up at the perfect time. All I have to do is stick to doing what I need to do.

No work, no food
The Zen master Hyakujo toiled in physical labour even at the age of 80. His students begged him to stop and finally hid his tools. Hyakujo refused to eat and memorably said to them, “No work, No food”.

The message is pretty simple really. If you don’t have a job – get one – any one. Step out of your house and get a job serving coffee in the local coffee house. Just do something. If someone offers you a job as an analyst in a hedge fund – take it. Nothing is too menial or too badly paid. Accept what is on offer.

Work hard with no expectations
In the Bhagwadgita, Krishna tells Arjuna to go into battle without any expectations.

“Therefore, O Arjuna, with your mind firmly in meditation all your deeds you consign to me, without any expectations and without any attachments, freed from your fever, join the war.”

Life is one big battle. You wake up in the morning, get your children to school and wheedle your way through the daily commute, through the sun, the snow and the rain. You haven’t even got to work with all of the political machinations that are a part of our daily life and you are already exhausted.

But every day, put your heart and soul into your life and squeeze every last drop of juice out of it. And do it without any thought or expectation of results or reward.

Persistence
My mother had a sign up on the wall that said, “Gardening provides therapy in knowing that some things can’t be hurried. It slows you down. There is no such thing as an instant garden”.

I haven’t managed to track down the originator of this quote, but it haunts me through my life. Working in Sales & Marketing, I’m constantly pressured to make it rain on demand. Looking around at colleagues of mine, it’s almost like people rushing through the forest frantically looking for a deer to shoot. Or flinging line after line

don’t teach meditation for a living and whether I am ‘really’ happy at the bleeding edge of the commercial world.

I do teach meditation to individuals who are interested and I am always ready to lend a hand with a Dream Analysis or Hypnotherapy session. But my financial wellbeing clearly comes from something completely alien to my life’s ‘true work’.

Keeping this thought in my mind, I spent time meditating on the problem, incubated it in my dreams and analysed the various options that stood before me at a cerebral level.

But the breakthrough came, as it usually does, via a casual conversation with a friend of mine over a glass of Lemonade in Starbucks.

On that fateful day, I reminded myself of one of my Osho’s key statements on the topic of work. It doesn’t matter what you do he said. If you are cleaning the toilet, enjoy cleaning the toilet. If you are chopping wood, chop the wood.

Here I was, enjoying a financially rich life selling large-scale HR software solutions to FTSE 250 companies in the United Kingdom. My job leverages my key strengths of persistence, analytical skills, communication and a general love of people. What was I complaining about?

Suddenly, everything had changed. I woke up in the morning with a glint in my eye. I wanted to get out there and meet more people, spread the message, sell some software. I truly believe that my company implements some of the best Benefits Administration software in the world. Why should I feel ashamed? Someone has to do this job.

And tomorrow? Will I be selling Pension & Benefits Administration solutions tomorrow? I don’t know. But I do know that the perfect opportunity always shows up at the perfect time. All I have to do is stick to doing what I need to do.

No work, no food
The Zen master Hyakujo toiled in physical labour even at the age of 80. His students begged him to stop and finally hid his tools. Hyakujo refused to eat and memorably said to them, “No work, No food”.

The message is pretty simple really. If you don’t have a job – get one – any one. Step out of your house and get a job serving coffee in the local coffee house. Just do something. If someone offers you a job as an analyst in a hedge fund – take it. Nothing is too menial or too badly paid. Accept what is on offer.

Work hard with no expectations
In the Bhagwadgita, Krishna tells Arjuna to go into battle without any expectations.

“Therefore, O Arjuna, with your mind firmly in meditation all your deeds you consign to me, without any expectations and without any attachments, freed from your fever, join the war.”

Life is one big battle. You wake up in the morning, get your children to school and wheedle your way through the daily commute, through the sun, the snow and the rain. You haven’t even got to work with all of the political machinations that are a part of our daily life and you are already exhausted.

But every day, put your heart and soul into your life and squeeze every last drop of juice out of it. And do it without any thought or expectation of results or reward.

Persistence
My mother had a sign up on the wall that said, “Gardening provides therapy in knowing that some things can’t be hurried. It slows you down. There is no such thing as an instant garden”.

I haven’t managed to track down the originator of this quote, but it haunts me through my life. Working in Sales & Marketing, I’m constantly pressured to make it rain on demand. Looking around at colleagues of mine, it’s almost like people rushing through the forest frantically looking for a deer to shoot. Or flinging line after line

>Here I was, enjoying a financially rich life selling large-scale HR software solutions to FTSE 250 companies in the United Kingdom. My job leverages my key strengths of persistence, analytical skills, communication and a general love of people. What was I complaining about?

Suddenly, everything had changed. I woke up in the morning with a glint in my eye. I wanted to get out there and meet more people, spread the message, sell some software. I truly believe that my company implements some of the best Benefits Administration software in the world. Why should I feel ashamed? Someone has to do this job.

And tomorrow? Will I be selling Pension & Benefits Administration solutions tomorrow? I don’t know. But I do know that the perfect opportunity always shows up at the perfect time. All I have to do is stick to doing what I need to do.

No work, no food
The Zen master Hyakujo toiled in physical labour even at the age of 80. His students begged him to stop and finally hid his tools. Hyakujo refused to eat and memorably said to them, “No work, No food”.

The message is pretty simple really. If you don’t have a job – get one – any one. Step out of your house and get a job serving coffee in the local coffee house. Just do something. If someone offers you a job as an analyst in a hedge fund – take it. Nothing is too menial or too badly paid. Accept what is on offer.

Work hard with no expectations
In the Bhagwadgita, Krishna tells Arjuna to go into battle without any expectations.

“Therefore, O Arjuna, with your mind firmly in meditation all your deeds you consign to me, without any expectations and without any attachments, freed from your fever, join the war.”

Life is one big battle. You wake up in the morning, get your children to school and wheedle your way through the daily commute, through the sun, the snow and the rain. You haven’t even got to work with all of the political machinations that are a part of our daily life and you are already exhausted.

But every day, put your heart and soul into your life and squeeze every last drop of juice out of it. And do it without any thought or expectation of results or reward.

Persistence
My mother had a sign up on the wall that said, “Gardening provides therapy in knowing that some things can’t be hurried. It slows you down. There is no such thing as an instant garden”.

I haven’t managed to track down the originator of this quote, but it haunts me through my life. Working in Sales & Marketing, I’m constantly pressured to make it rain on demand. Looking around at colleagues of mine, it’s almost like people rushing through the forest frantically looking for a deer to shoot. Or flinging line after line

labour even at the age of 80. His students begged him to stop and finally hid his tools. Hyakujo refused to eat and memorably said to them, “No work, No food”.

The message is pretty simple really. If you don’t have a job – get one – any one. Step out of your house and get a job serving coffee in the local coffee house. Just do something. If someone offers you a job as an analyst in a hedge fund – take it. Nothing is too menial or too badly paid. Accept what is on offer.

Work hard with no expectations
In the Bhagwadgita, Krishna tells Arjuna to go into battle without any expectations.

“Therefore, O Arjuna, with your mind firmly in meditation all your deeds you consign to me, without any expectations and without any attachments, freed from your fever, join the war.”

Life is one big battle. You wake up in the morning, get your children to school and wheedle your way through the daily commute, through the sun, the snow and the rain. You haven’t even got to work with all of the political machinations that are a part of our daily life and you are already exhausted.

But every day, put your heart and soul into your life and squeeze every last drop of juice out of it. And do it without any thought or expectation of results or reward.

Persistence
My mother had a sign up on the wall that said, “Gardening provides therapy in knowing that some things can’t be hurried. It slows you down. There is no such thing as an instant garden”.

I haven’t managed to track down the originator of this quote, but it haunts me through my life. Working in Sales & Marketing, I’m constantly pressured to make it rain on demand. Looking around at colleagues of mine, it’s almost like people rushing through the forest frantically looking for a deer to shoot. Or flinging line after line

the daily commute, through the sun, the snow and the rain. You haven’t even got to work with all of the political machinations that are a part of our daily life and you are already exhausted.

But every day, put your heart and soul into your life and squeeze every last drop of juice out of it. And do it without any thought or expectation of results or reward.

Persistence
My mother had a sign up on the wall that said, “Gardening provides therapy in knowing that some things can’t be hurried. It slows you down. There is no such thing as an instant garden”.

I haven’t managed to track down the originator of this quote, but it haunts me through my life. Working in Sales & Marketing, I’m constantly pressured to make it rain on demand. Looking around at colleagues of mine, it’s almost like people rushing through the forest frantically looking for a deer to shoot. Or flinging line after line into a lake hoping for a bite. That’s just not how life works.

We need to go back to the story of the ‘Three Little Pigs’ to remind us how businesses are built and how lifestyles are made.

Stop when you’ve done enough
I asked my first Guru, Rishi Prabhakar, what I could do about a certain situation. His reply to me was, “Do what you can and if you can’t do more…don’t”.

Advice that’s just a bit on the edge, just a bit cryptic, but something that stays with me when times get tough. I always remember to stop for lunch and at the end of the day. Take time off to meditate and to spend time with your family. Of course, there will always be exceptions, for that major presentation or in the last few days of a project. And if you earn above a certain amount, long hours and working on the weekend are pretty standard. But that’s a choice that your body-mind has taken. Accept it. But equally accept that all you can put in is your own effort, the results will depend on a million different things.

I can only end with a conversation I had with Ramesh Balsekar, the Mumbai based mystic, many years ago. I asked him what I could do about my stress at work. He asked me what I did and I replied that I worked in Advertising. He replied, “What do you expect”.

Have a nice day.