Foreword

The Meaning of Life Challenges

The first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want--Ben Stein

You don't lie down when the gusty winds blow nor do you let the winds sweep you away. You face challenges, come what may. Life is what you live for. It is YOU who has to decide what you live for. You live for Yourself? Your family? Your friends? Your religion? Your community? Your country? Your world?. You live for what? Once you visualize it, you move on to 'missionize' your destination and the path that you will take to reach your destination.

It may or may not be one-time exercise: it is more likely to keep changing as the time passes and as you become more and more knowledgeable, experienced and enabled to view, perceive and act your priorities. Life is a journey; not a destination. Destination is what you ultimately achieve, what you really get out of your life and what others get out of your life. Life revolves around the give-and-take phenomenon; the sooner you realize it, the better it is.

The world cares ONLY for those who reach their destination. It is like reaching the FINISH line and winning the game.Are you ready to win the game? It makes no difference to the world whether we succeed or fail; but it does make a difference to us, to our families, our friends, our community.

The very purpose of writing this autobiography is to share beliefs, values, perceptions, opinions, ideas, hopes, fears, and unforgettable experiences, events, debacles, triumphs and defeats with those who are much younger than me and who are yet to face the challenges that I have already faced and succeeded. So far, so good.

This autobiography is supposed to help; how much, I can't say, but I do promise, it will. It depends on you, my reader. It is you who is to see your life, direct the course of your life, reach your goals. I can only give you a helping hand. I can't make your life, but I can help you modify it if you haven't already done it.

What happens to you when you get what you aim for and what happens when you don't get it, is what matters to you and the people around you and the country you live in and the world you cherish. How you treat your joys and sorrows, successes and failures, triumphs and defeats, and still keep going is what really matters in life. Life is NEVER all joy; nor is it ALWAYS all sorrow.

What you need to survive the pricks and pangs of life is the indomitable courage, confidence and conviction. Your Faith in God, Trust in Yourself, and Hope for the Better can lead you to accomplishments that might, at times, appear to be more of a miracle than human deed. Every thing has a reason and the reason is ALWAYS good, as the saying goes. And I do believe it is really so.

Let me invite you in all sincerity, love and faith to join my entourage and travel with me through the journey of my life and, I am sure, you will hit upon many commonalities between your life and mine, in one way or the other, big or small. Very few souls on earth must have gone through the overwhelming odds as a child, teenager and adult as me, but I am still physically and mentally fit and firm to face the challenges ahead. I am still living, still determined, still convinced that I CAN and WILL make it.Why not YOU?

Challenges NEVER end; Life Always does. You are here for a short while. So, why not do your best for yourself, your family, your friends, your religion, your community, your people, your country and the world that belongs to us. Nothing ever goes waste, nothing ever is impossible, nothing ever is unrewarded; your work, your deeds, your accomplishments will always be remembered, cherished and emulated by those who know them. That's MY assurance to you.

What is the secret of my success? My motto and motto ALONE. I coined and lived by my motto all my life: 'Every thing is impossible until you make up your mind to do it.'

As you go read through 'Living Beyond Self,' you will feel, see and learn that I have had hundreds of thousands of miracles and incredible happenings in my life and the lives of those around me. We were all human beings like YOU. And we were all successful in our own ways sooner or later.

Before I close this preview, let me assure you of an interesting, meaningful and enjoyable journey through 'Living Beyond Self.' Do remember me in your prayers: I need a lot of them for the challenges ahead for me, my people, my country and the world I love.

Wishing you Happy and Meaningful Life!

Mumtaz A. Piracha

My Beliefs

ALLAH or GOD

'When nothing works, talk to God, tell him how helpless you are and ask Him to help you. And be sure in your heart and mind that He will.'

WORLD

'World belongs to those who own it.'

LIFE

'Life is never the same. It has the heat of summer, pleasantness of autumn, coldness of winter, and tranquility of spring.'

DEATH

'The last destination of a long and arduous journey.'

FAMILY

'Father is like the sun. Mother is like the moon. Kids are like the stars.'

CHANGE

'Nothing changes unless you are there to change it.'

POWER

'Power belongs to those who can take it.'

HUMAN

'You are human if your heart bleeds at the sadness of your fellow beings.'

LOVE

'The most enduring, the most beautiful and the most inspiring emotion.'

HATE

'To hate someone is to light a fire within you.'

KINDNESS

'To be good to others who are the creation of the same God.'

JEALOUSY

'It is for those who rest on the pathway and let others pass by.'

FORGIVENESS

'Forgive others if you want to be forgiven by God.'

CHARITY

'It is something that we share with others out of what God has bestowed upon us.'

GENEROSITY

'To be generous is to be kind, mindful, and supportive of your fellow beings.'

Destiny

Everybody is born with innate intelligence, aptitude, and tendencies that need to be discovered and nurtured. Knowledge is acquired, skills developed and experience gained to utilize the innate faculties. Destiny is determined by how far you are able to discover and nurture your God-gifted inborn human faculties. God does not differentiate between believers and non-believers while endowing His people with innate mental and physical characteristics for He is the God for All.

Remembering the military friends

When I was a teenager, my agemate Pukhtoon servant and companion told me one 

day that he had befriended a soldier on duty on the Ravi bridge in Lahore and asked 

me to meet him. So, one day we both bicyled to the bridge. 

That meeting was the beginning of my lifelong craze to move among the military's rank-and-file. I still remember having said to myself after meeting the soldier that one day his commander-in-chief will be my friend.

That dream came true when the late General Zia-ul-Haq become the COAS. I never asked him for any personal favour even after he became the mighty president. When I proposed to him to set up a 'fair price shop' network in the public sector to provide relief to the general public, he asked me to do it in the private sector and that he would provide me the bank loan. USCP wasn't in existence at that time. I never availed his offer. 

In-between, I had the opportunity of befriending the late Lt Gen Shams-ur-Rehman Kallue. His father Brig Fazal-ur-Rehman Kallue was a friend of my father. From the days of his captaincy till his death, our friendship lasted for 27 years. I used to meet him wherever he was posted but I couldn't meet him when he became the DG, ISI. On a visit to Rawalpindi, I phoned him but he was busy in some meeting. He was good enough to call on me at PC late at night but I couldn't come out of the convention that I was addressing at that time. I phoned him around midnight. He was leaving for Peshawar next morning at 6:00 am and offered to take me with him for a chit-chat. I politely declined because of a conflict of interest at that time. I used to call him 'a jewel of the army.'

When I planned the wedding of my youngest daughter, Brig Shaukat Yaqub Malik and his wife came all the way from Okara to Karachi to attend it. Begum Shaukat found the 2-day wedding program on the desk when she entered the room at the army guest house. She asked Shaukat if I were ever in the army. It was a meticulously planned wedding, moment to moment. Luckily it went through as programmed.

Excerpts from the autobiography 'Living Beyond Self' by Mumtaz A. Piracha

Female best friends are hard to .......

Female best friends are hard to find and hard to understand. A Facebook friend who became best friend in real life never told me that she wanted to marry me. Instead, she off and on offered to find a wife for me. She could not find one since 2011.

One day a common female friend said to her: "When Piracha looks at you, your face glows and you become a girl of 16. Why don't you two get married? She replied: "I can't marry him because he is of my father's age but I can't let him marry another woman." Reason: my wife may not let me keep her as my best friend.

After that revelation, she never again promised to find a wife for me, nor did I ask her to do it.

(Excerpts from the autobiography 'Living Beyond Self' by Mumtaz A. Piracha)

Beware of an 'ideal' beloved for it doesn't exist in real life

I have had the passion to study psychology, parapsychology and spiritualism (tassuvuf) for decades, starting with psychology at the age of 15. From psychology I moved to parapsychology and ended up with tassuvuf. It has been a long and arduous journey of 'hide and seek' within the self to unravel the mysteries of the the human psyche: mind, emotions and actions.

From my study, I can say it with absolute confidence that EVERYONE, and I repeat EVERYONE, carries an 'ideal' person in his/her mind. It doesn't matter whether the person is educated or illiterate, though his/her perception of the 'ideal' person may vary with the person's level of education and exposure.

By 'ideal', we generally mean 'perfect.' There is no such thing as a perfect person. It ONLY happens in movies, not in real life. The more we are exposed to movies and novels, the more we are driven towards 'My Ideal Person.'

All our lives we carry the 'ideal' person with us in our conscious, subconscious or unconscious mind. It is NEVER eroded unless you have the ideal person matching with your perception of the 'ideal' person in your real life. That's almost impossible to happen in real life.

What really happens is that you put a value on a single aspect of a person's personality: beauty, intellect, physique. This value overrides all other personality charateristics. When you find the 'overriding value' in anybody's personality, your emotions jump on him/her. That's not logical: its emotional. That one 'overriding value' may not make the person perfect for you in real life.

So, always think logically. Set your parameters on logic, not emotions. And change over from your 'perceived' emotion-based ideal beloved to the 'real' logic-based ideal beloved. That's the key to happiness in real life.

(Excerpts from the autobiography 'Living Beyond Self' by Mumtaz A. Piracha)