yes, i am a creature of habit and appreciate a regular routine in my life.For the past few years my routine is like this:
1.get up at 4 AM..after morning duties go for two hours of swimming irrespective of the season /climatic condition.Just before going for swimming i take juice of 1 normal size lemon +5 glasses of water(about 1 litre)+2 table spoon of honey.....i am doing this for the past 40 years.!!
2.Religiously  prepare my  favourite cup of tea with the ingredients like:tea+cinnamon.tulasi(basil),cardamom,mint,and ginger with sugar for taste and enjoy sip by sip reading the day's newspaper. Oh! it is simply divine!!......My wife joins me and we will have  few mnutes of planning for the day.
3.Go for the veda class for half an hour and return home to do meditation for 30 minutes.
4.Have early heavy lunch and leave for office.
5.Office work coupled with surfing the net , reading some non fiction books/magazine whenever i find time..Consuming a plain glass of water every half an hour till 4 pm.
6.Go for an evening walk or any good religious discourse of the day.
7.After frugal dinner comprising light snacks+fruits+ raw vegetables+milk(i am 60) ....reading books from 8 to 12
...during week ends most of the time i will be reading something....not keen on watching TV .
.....Any suggestion for improvement and sensible invstment of my time is welcome.

Humble,

Content,

Grateful.

In Hindu mega-epic Mahabharata  in an episode called yaksha prasna , the yaksha poses a number of questions to Yudhishthira and one by one he answers them all.One of the poignant question was:


" What is the greatest wonder in the world?" 

and he answers:

"Every day, men see creatures depart to Yamas abode and yet, those who remain, seek to live for ever. This verily is the greatest wonder."

......yes, this is what amazes me.....every day we see people dying around us , but we think we are immortal beings!!!.....in fact ,just this morning  i greeted my neighbour who arrived from his native place,but when i reached my office i got a 'phone call from his son conveying the sad message that his father just collapsed and breathed his last while waiting for his morning cup of coffee!!!.....and that's life!!.......

(Yama is god of death in Hindu mythology)

For the first time this year i participated in  Karnataka State Masters Swimming competetion .I regularly used to swim 25m butterfly stroke......only 25m at a time...but in order to ensure sure win i entered into 100m 'fly and with great difficulty swam the whole course and came second!!...even today i can't believe that i made it to second place!!

My regular two hour SWIMMING session in the wee hours of the morning!!....it fulfills a deeper need within me ...it's a sort of devine meditation!!!...--.I find that in quiet rythmic movements of swimming, somehow all the knots in my busy day seem to detangle. You can't swim keeping your body tense .And when you are relaxed all your tensions seem to dissolve in the medium .I invariably come out of water energised to live through the day and with a sense that no problem is insurmountable.You swim more efficiently when you don't resist the water; you simply flow with it......I just extend the same philosophy to my life.

After my regular morning swim while taking the shower!!...you will be all alone after an exhilarating swim and naturally the mind will be free of all cobwebs making it quite conducive to enter into thinking mode....

When i am SWIMMING laps after laps after laps.......

swimming, hot daily cup of masala tea.and reading non-fictions......, net surfing of late!!.......

Non-Vegetarians and Smokers into Vegetarians and Non-Smokers!!!

I wish i could have spent more time with my late Father and learned a lot of things from him about Life in general and about our Religious Scriptures and Philosophy in particular.....i could have taken life less seriously and more sincerely ,not much worrying about what future has in store for me......i could have learnt Swimming and Meditation much earlier  which i am crazy about now as a late beginner .....anyway, i am making for the loss of time by pursuing things which are/were close to my heart so that i don't have to regret in my late life......

DETACHMENT.........  In Samskrita (an Indian Language) there is a saying-- PADMAPATRAMIVAMBENA meaning   ' like a drop of water on a lotus leaf '....A drop of water on a lotus leaf remains as such without moistening the leaf , yet it lends a glow to itself and the leaf !........

When i look outside the window i find it's neither too dark nor bright ...it's somewhere' in-between' in the early morning of 5.30......so glorious ! ....makes me send my silent prayer of gratefulness to that unseen benevolent force whom i call God...an ideal  and lovely time to go for my regular Swimming session which is simply Divine and difficult to capture  in words, has to be just experienced day after day after day..ad-infinitum to be felt ........