Amogh, calm and practical as always, excused himself for a few moments. He went back to hotel, collected a few packed sandwiches, water bottles, tea and a warm mat for the three to sit and relax on the beach. The breeze was getting bit cold, and it was going to be a long night.

As they settled down, it was time to take the giant leap, in the words of Amogh, the reformer. To enter into the orbit of inner peace.

Shardul seemed to be at unease, all of a sudden. He had stepped onto something sharp beneath his foot. He gave a painful screech. “What the hell!” he swore. Limping, he got out of the mat and pulled it upward. Not yet noticing what the sharp object was, he slowly rubbed the sand away till his hand reached a broken shell that was creating trouble. Shardul pulled the shell rather gently and placed it outside the mat. “Ah, the art of peace!” he chuckled, perhaps stunned by his own gentleness. “Feels good…inner peace!”

Amogh was impressed to see the art of peace in ‘action’. So was Ojh, who remarked, “Really a remarkable transformation!” Looking at Amogh, he concluded, “The power of peace!”

With this incident, Amogh knew the stage was set. “That was incredible, Shardul and Ojh. Not just because how Shardul, the personality we know, reacted to a problem, but because his action showed how to uniquely face life, in general! I am speaking about a concept in the art of peace, called ‘Filter out to Figure out!’”

“I have been a CTO and not CMO or a marketing guy, but Amogh, the title of the concept is catchy, and anyone will buy into it! Can’t wait to listen more about it!” Ojh jumped onto the concept immediately.

“I saw something pricking me…I removed the mat, removed the sand to see what it was…so you mean to say, I filtered out obstacles to figure out the trouble…am I right, professor?” Shardul played back the scene.

“Spot on, as always, Shardul!” Amogh took a deep breath. “You filtered out obstacles one by one, to figure out what was at the core of the trouble. Similarly, we have to filter out to figure out the life too. Especially to figure out the purpose. Let me elaborate. For you Shardul, you are going through various obstacles…inability to pay fee and get required coaching, a girl who dumped you, the lobbying and the web spun to stop you from going ahead. Whereas your real desire is to pursue higher education in US. Now to succeed, you need to ‘filter out’ all the obstacles and ‘figure out’ your ultimate dream, the purpose of your life. How? That may be the ultimate stage of the art of inner peace: how to filter out to figure out. And I am going to tell that ‘how’. But before I start, I would like Shardul to vocalise Ojh’s situation, just as I did for you, Shardul.”

“I am honoured to having found suitable for identifying the core for Ojh!” Shardul began. “Let me see. Okay. In your case, Ojh, you are going through many troubles…your own company going against you, the fatherly guidance no longer available, not sure what lies ahead, etc. The main purpose of your life, as you inherently know, is to fulfil the dream of your loving father, that is, to rebuild the company and take it to new heights. So, you need to filter out all the obstacles posed to you and figure out how to achieve that dream.” The usually confident Shardul looked at Amogh a bit shyly, perhaps silently seeking approval to what he had just said.

“Yeah, that’s about it, Shardul. You summed up my situation well,” Ojh endorsed Shardul’s picturisation. Looking at Amogh, he asked, “Now the main question: how to filter out to figure out?”

Amogh was nodding in anticipation. He began what was going to be a long talk. “It is true that there are many layers covering our heart and mind. This is even truer, emotionally. Circumstances, and even we, ourselves, create many layers of feelings, dreams and desires. Hence to really understand what feelings, dreams and desires lie at the centre of our heart, we need to go beyond these layers. Shed these layers. You have to keep shedding layers of feelings, dreams, desires till you reach the core of your heart. Along the way, you realise that there are many things you desire, but very few - may be just one - that define you. That really is at the core of your heart. The one thing that you feel defines you is the one thing that is really at the centre of your heart. For me, it is my family and my institution of work. You also realise that as you try filtering out such dreams, there are those dreams, achieving of which is not in your hands.” Amogh looked at Shardul, and continued, “For example, you might be having your dream girl and a dream university in mind. Unfortunately, that girl is an uncertainty. However, if you study very hard, tick all the right boxes as required by the university, you might achieve that dream university.” Amogh paused again, expecting some reaction. He was not wrong.

“You hit the bull’s eye! Great thinking, Amogh! If only I can think so clearly!” Shardul made a submission.

“The moral is, we should pursue those dreams at our core, achieving which is quite in our control. These are the two criteria which help us move forward, decide. And when we feel we are meaningfully moving forward, we have that inner peace!” Amogh concluded.

It was almost mid-night. The breeze had become cold, but the warmth from Amogh’s words was nullifying it. There was a long pause, as the two pupils assimilated the profound knowledge that was just imparted.

“Believe me, Shardul and Ojh, I have gone through toughest of challenges, obstacles or lobbying, as you call. My core – family and the institution - got me out of that. Mind you, institution, at its core in this case, could be the constitutional powers or the organization policy, for that matter, that keeps you in the stead, and may not always be its people. I am telling you because when you introspect on this basis, you yourselves will know what is that one thing that defines you.”

Shardul was quick to speak on his ‘introspection’. “You partially guessed my introspection. Yes, achieving the dream of a girl is not entirely in my hands. Also, when I introspected strongly just now,” Shardul shied a bit, “It immediately registered that my heart wants to do MS in America, more than anything else. So that one thing – pursuing MS in robotics – is what defines me. And I have a bigger purpose. That is to help humanity to benefit from robotics and artificial intelligence. And guys, here’s a confession: my dream university is not Stanford. It is UCB – University of California at Berkeley!” Shardul had a broad smile, just like a kid, as he finished his straightforward speech, and an inspiring one.

“Well said, Shardul,” Ojh, along with Amogh were applauding Shardul’s self-discovery. “I am not as quick as Shardul, but I too have introspected. The one thing that defines me is our family business. That lies at the core of my heart. I got a clear realisation that I will be dedicating my life to grow my company, again. And that I will do it by realising my father’s wish for me – to foray the business from hardware to software. Amogh and Shardul, here, on this beach, I take my sacred oath: I will strive and take back the control of Mosfet Technologies from all the bad people and then make the enterprise into a world-class software products company!” As he concluded, Ojh’s voice seemed to have reached the peak of confidence. And more than that, self-belief.

There was another round of applause for yet another round of an inspiring speech. The smile on their faces said it all – the happiness and satisfaction that they were experiencing.

“My friends, you have grasped the stage one, and perhaps the toughest stage, of the art of peace – the inner peace!” Amogh exclaimed, though in an unusually controlled tone. Victory, especially the one over ourselves, doesn’t require to be loud. “You have overcome yourselves!”