Just Me: The Kratik Malhotra Blog

“Science asks us to prove, spirituality wants us to feel.” The difference is small but massive.

You know, I grew up in a pretty spiritual family and from the get-go, I was always taught that God was one, and took different forms during various periods of humanity. Thousands of years ago, he once came as Krishna, once as Ram, once as Jesus, once as Allah, once as Shiva, once as Ganesh and the list goes on.

Right from how Lord Ram defeated Ravan and came to Ayodhya, to how Ganesh got an elephant head, to how Jesus Christ was crucified and was reborn, I was raised on their stories. To be honest, Hanuman-ji was an icon or a superhero for me. However, in spite of all the tales, the first-time spirituality really made sense to me was when I walked into an auditorium in Pune and it changed my outlook, forever.

An ancient Indian legend says, “When it’s time, your Guru finds you,” and He found me when I felt rock-bottom.

One of the first things I was told was that religion is just a coating and the fruit is spirituality. What it exactly meant was that one can follow any religion which he/she pleases because they all teach more-or-less the same thing: love, respect, integrity, wisdom, creation, transformation, maintenance and patience, and one must take the good and throw-out the bad. I really connected with this very concept because it was in line with everything that I had ever been raised on.

I also learned the five secrets to happiness: living in the present, opposite values are complimentary, don’t see intentions behind other people’s mistakes, don’t become a football of other people’s opinions and the most important, accept people and situations the way they are.

I thought accepting people and situations would’ve been the toughest but to be honest, it was the easiest. The day that you give up judgement and accept people and the situations the way they are, you tend to make peace with this world. I taught relaxation to about a hundred American college students and close to a hundred people who lived in homeless shelters in Florida and speaking to them and knowing their stories was brilliant. Now, there is a difference between accepting people for who they are, liking them for who they are and letting them affect you. In that case, one needs to communicate. Accepting situations was crucial too. One needs to see the bigger picture and accept where he or she is now and how he can turn this situation around into achieving the goal that he has set out to achieve. Before one does anything, being real and accepting the situation is very important.

Not seeing intentions behind anybody’s mistakes was a tough one and one that required dumping out the garbage. It needed a clean slate and having been dumped by your childhood sweetheart, along with screwing fifth semester engineering exams provided – even though I didn’t know – that perfect opportunity to let go everything that I was holding on to. People often think that the other person is doing something deliberately to hurt them and this often is a product of overthinking. Overthinking happens when we overanalyze things. In the past ten years, I have always wondered why people think so much. Now, don’t be a fool and don’t let people walk all over you but don’t be negative. Fight and fight hard when it’s necessary but see the good in people. Even Anguilimala life was transformed by Gautam Buddha. Let’s be a Buddha in someone’s life 😉

Life one of my friends says, “Trust people till the time you can’t trust them anymore,” and like my Guru says, “Walk with light feet and leave your footprints behind.”

People who know me, know that I often talk about the ‘I don’t give a shit’ attitude and yes, that’s true. Now, I do give an awful shit about what’s important to me but people’s opinions aren’t one of them. If I am true to myself, to everyone whom I love and to everything that I work for, what people think about me shouldn’t matter to me, should it? In India they say, “What people will say has killed more dreams than anything else,” and it couldn’t be truer. I was working as a sports journalist while studying engineering and some of my teachers cussed me out on a daily basis for chasing my dream, telling me that I am wasting my time. To see from their standpoint, they weren’t wrong. Any sane person would think that I was wasting my time because I was studying engineering but going around town covering national and international sports stories. There will be a time when everybody will call you crazy, but you need to believe in yourself, believe in God and trust that only the best will happen to me. It’s incredible what disregarding people’s opinions, faith and self-belief can do,

‘Opposite values are complimentary’ is a difficult one to explain. Let me give you a personal example. When I had first started working as a journalist during my days of engineering, I began my work full of excitement and enthusiasm but as time went on and it became a little mundane, I stopped enjoying it as much. I mean they were 16-hour days everyday but what can one do; I had a crazy engineering schedule, I was writing two, maybe even three, stories a day, and I tremendously needed a break. So, I took a few months off and started heading content writing for a cricket league in India and I realized that after the break I had, I began enjoying writing about sports and analyzing games once again. It’s funny, isn’t it…one loses enthusiasm if he keeps at it for a good period of time. I guess that’s why vacations and breaks from work are so important. Last year, I climbed a mountain. It was madness but it was brilliant. I came back buzzing and glowing!

After knowing and practicing these four pillars early on, I still hadn’t experienced ‘living in the present’ all the time feeling. I am a dreamer and my mind would oscillate between the past and the future, many a times, and that’s when I received the golden words from one of my spiritual teachers. I heard him say, “When you’re in the present, smiling is automatic.” As I listened to that I was like, “Why not flip it?” Why now smile all the time and see if it helps me live in the present? And it worked. I smiled and I started living in the present. Obviously, there are things that still take me back to the past and I think of what’s going to happen in the future but it’s not as much as it used to happen. It’s been a fantastic transformation.

I would often joke with people that out of Brahma (creation), Vishnu (maintenance) and Mahesh (transformation), transformation was my super-power. Spirituality installed such self-belief, confidence and faith in me that I thought I could achieve anything. Thus, journalism, sports marketing, working with Indian soccer teams as a sports analyst, Ireland and America.

I have learned a lot and clearly, this is not it but let’s leave the blog post here. I got an early start tomorrow and I need to go to bed but I thought I’d scribble something that brings about gratitude.

Let’s win every day and give our 100%!

Good night, people.

Love,

Kratik