Business to the Buddha

Search results for: “agashe”

  • From Wish Lists to World Peace

    From Wish Lists to World Peace

    I had the privilege of visiting several temples in Tamil Nadu last month, including the iconic Rameshwaram, one of the Char-Dhams for Hindus. It was an eye-opening experience that stirred memories of my younger days in Dhar, Madhya Pradesh, where I visited temples more frequently.

    Over time, however, my visits had become less frequent. The reasons were a plenty. Two that I feel important to discuss include first there is “no conversation” and second mostly I provide my “wish list” to the deity and leave. I’d ask for personal favors such as success in exams. Even if I go repeatedly to the same temple, I have no visibility of “fulfilment”.

    As I reflect on those early years, I find myself chuckling at the simplicity and short-term nature of those requests. It feels almost childish now. But there was another, subtler reason for my growing distance from temples: the lack of conversation.

    When I was in engineering, I started asking deeper questions about life: What is my purpose? What will I do 40 years from now, after retirement? What is the purpose of life? Is there anything that we are missing in our mundane life? There was confusion, there were questions in mind, no clarity who will answer and my point of not checking in temples was clear. Though, in hindsight, I wish I had tried asking few people in there.

    These existential questions expanded into a spiritual search. I felt a profound confusion, unsure of where to turn for answers. While I distanced myself from temples, I started reading different books (those days internet was just in its nascent stage). I was fortunate in my younger days that I came across some good people to guide me (my Engineering college professor Dr Anand Saxena was my first guide), help me and later on I joined The Art of Living foundation, which helped address many of my questions (My Art of Living teacher Dr Shrikant Agashe was a great help). Some were answered, some new added too.

    Slowly, the internal debate of why to go to a temple subsided. Though, I am talking about a journey of 20+ years here – 1997 till 2022. As I moved to Bangalore recently, my perspective has shifted. Whenever I visited a temple nearby (which is still a rarity), it no longer feels like a place to simply make personal demands. Instead, it began to feel like a sanctuary for service – an opportunity to give back and help those in need, rather than merely asking for favors. Slowly, I noticed a shift in my own approach to prayer. When I found myself asking for something, the request went beyond me and my immediate family. My thoughts began to expand, and I started wishing for the well-being of everyone—neighbors, society, and humanity as a whole.

    This growing understanding reminded me of a Sanskrit shloka I had learned in school:

    ॐ सर्वे भवन्तु सुखिनः, सर्वे सन्तु निरामयाः |
    Om Sarve Bhavantu Sukhinah, Sarve Santu Niraamayaah
    सर्वे भद्राणि पश्यन्तु, मा कश्चित् दुःख भाग्भवेत् ॥
    Sarve Bhadraanni Pashyantu, Maa Kashcid-Duhkha-Bhaag-Bhavet
    ॐ शान्तिः शान्तिः शान्तिः॥
    Om Shaantih Shaantih Shaantih

    In childhood, it was not as clear to me, now when I look at the deeper meaning and see my own’s prayers going in the same direction, I realize the futility of “The wish list” One’s prayer must call for universal happiness, health, and auspiciousness, extending beyond personal desires. The Shloka states exactly the same. I realize how important it is to move from asking for individual blessings to seeking blessings for the entire world.

    This shift in mindset became even clearer when I thought about recent global events—COVID-19, wars, and countless challenges faced by humanity. It’s more important than ever to pray for the collective good of society. When you step into a temple, it’s not just about you.

    So, next time you visit a temple, remember that it’s not about the wish list you carry with you. It’s a space for self-reflection, for expanding your consciousness, and for sending out your prayers not only for your own needs but for the well-being of all. It’s a place for peace – peace within, and peace for the world.

    The experience of going to Rameshwaram was unique, at the same time, it gave me many additional clarities be it prayer or be it running to Temples.

    Image source: freepik

  • Uncertainties and acceptance

    It has been more than a week, we wake up to the no-water in the overhead tank of our wing of our residential complex. Initially, it was annoying. Daily, I or my wife went downstairs to tell the security to switch on the water pump. We raised the issue to the society manager, secretary, etc. I think it takes about 3 days to form a habit, soon we accepted this challenge as part of our life. The new ritual now is – wake up, open the tap – hoping system is fixed, go downstairs tell security to switch on the pump, come back and proceed as per the available resources. After a week, now security calls me daily to ask “do you have water in your taps now?”

    Uncertainties and acceptance

    Uncertainties make us jittery and annoyed. It depends on the situations, in some cases uncertainties make us anxious too. There was news that Deepika Padukone wanted to face the Narcotics Control Board (NCB) with her Husband because of anxiety; it is just an example. This initial annoyance made way for the acceptance of the situation. Once, we accepted the situation, we started planning our next day before we went off to sleep. The morning started with the acceptance of the unavailability of water and our workflow was changed to accommodate the situation. Once we had figured it out, life was easy, the disappointment of delay in fixing the problem was there but the annoyance and frustration ended. This happens many times in our business too.

    A conversation

    We had figured it out for our daily life. I and my wife were talking about it in the morning, the same evening I received a call from my ex-colleagues – Deepak Taunk. By chance, we happened to speak about the certainties of the outcome. The discussion started with analytics, human intelligence, AI, and business processes. It was an interesting discussion on how our brain connects the dots from analytics and business processes to our daily lives. He is a creative person who questions assumptions. So, when we spoke about some business processes he shared his displeasure with the templatization of work. When I say templatization, I mean making work process-driven and asking others to follow the guidelines. It is not that he is not process-driven – he is a very successful project manager. His point was the templatization results in blindly “follow the guidelines”. People are discouraged to ask questions.

    It is a very valid objection. His point of view was – educated people must be allowed to understand “the why”, freedom to figure it out, otherwise what is the need of highly educated people when they have to always follow the SOP (Standard Operating Procedure). I personally have seen this issue that even intelligent people follow things blindly or are asked to follow blindly. In case some ask questions they are termed as “unfit” or non-cooperative. This becomes the responsibility of the team leader or the leadership, in general, to figure out the best course of action. There is no right or wrong in being templatized for few things and creative for others. We need both the ways to run a business well – follow the process and question the assumptions.

    World of possibilities

    In business, personal life as well as in spiritual path too both the approaches are required. I had been an inquisitive person, including on my small journey of spirituality. I asked a lot of questions to many of my guides – Dr Saxena, Ramana uncle ji, my father, Sai Kaka, Dada ji, and Dr Agashe, my art of living teacher. Dr Agashe told me – “…for a few things you need to trust the predecessors/process for others ask questions, do not stop any of these. Indian spirituality offers you both the ways…” Interesting isn’t it?

    Following the process brings certainty of outcome whereas questioning assumptions bring opportunities. Uncertainty many times brings opportunities. One has to be aware of the uncertainties, accept the situation, and find out options. When we look at situations, accept the situation(instead of fighting it), look for options, and be creative we have a whole world of possibilities.

  • Religion Vs Spirituality

    There is nothing as “versus”, there is no fight. It is always “and”, togetherness a company. It is our perception that creates this division. My first impression on the title “Religion Vs Spirituality” was this. This was the title for last week’s LBC (Loose Bloggers Consortium) topic. You can read other LBC authors opinions here – Rummuser and Shackman.

    spirituality-vs-religionIt was a Diwali weekend so I came home and thus the delay. Wish my readers a very happy and prosperous Diwali and hope you inhaled less polluted air this Diwali.

    The title for this week was interesting, I met my art of living teacher Dr Shrikant Agashe; and asked him how he would define religion and spirituality. His answer was very clear and straightforward. He said – “There is some Truth, what that is, one does not know. Spirituality is experimenting and finding the Truth without getting biased; religion is accepting a path which is suggested by others with faith (and with perhaps assumptions) and trying to fine the same Truth.” In a way there is less opportunity of trials and exploration in religion whereas spirituality is full of experiments.

    I went on a very different line to define spirituality and religion. Excuse me for my words but this is how I defined it – Spirituality is like love and religion is like sex. There can be sex without love, but love has every flavor beyond sex too. Spirituality is like love, it can exist without religion. Spirituality is the essence of our existence wither religion exists or no.

    I reviewed couple of websites on evolution of religion and came to understanding that the Abrahamic religion (Christianity, Jews and Islam) and Eastern religion (Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism et al) started / started evolving / documenting the teachings about 2500 BCE. What is a religion? It is “a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally followed by its followers”. In the end, what remains or leads religion to the end is spirituality.

    According to some sources religion word is originated from Latin religare which means “to bind”, again a Latin words religio which means obligation or bond. This makes religions to be exploited such as present day terrorism is mostly based on interpretation (or misinterpretation) of Islam. There are religions that are no less than businesses. In many cases religion is distorted to such a level that it seems more of an organized crime. Thus, to sane people it becomes more important to either not get bound to the religious dogmas or experiment and find out own’s interpretation, way of life or truth.

    My take – The religion binds makes things (rituals) as obligations whereas spirituality liberates. That is where we may say versus. Yet, religion is a set of path followed by many (and suggested by some masters) towards spirituality towards liberation.

    Image source – SlideShare

  • Amazing, isnt it?

    When I was thinking about the title of this blog – I literally went to Thesaurus. I wanted to write the best possible word for <Hindi> “आश्चर्य”! This word reminded me of Ashtavakra Geeta. Janaka repeatedly says “आश्चर्य” in that – a different Geeta. Well, I am no scholar to write on most succinct knowledge bank – Ashtavakra Geeta –  on Enlightenment. That book takes you in a different dimension.

    I was amazed with Nature. This is what this brief story all about.

    It was January 2000-2001, I was traveling to Gwalior early morning train reached Jhansi at about 1:30-2:00 may be 3:00 AM. Of course I was a student and thus was traveling in General (unreserved) boggy. It was so cold that I was wearing 1. thermocoat 2. Banyan 3. Shirt 4. Sweater and 5. a good quality jacket. I went on platform for having a cup of tea. Cold was such that I was shivering, even after wearing those many cloths. While sipping tea, hands were shivering and jaws wrecking. I have that image always as definition of cold one may face in North.

    Recently, I went to Indore and Gwalior. I have been living in Mumbai for 8+ years so had not seen in that cold thus didn’t have cloths of that kind with me either. The experience of winter I have raises hair, thinking of cold of Gwalior 3-7 degrees scared me. No doubt it was cold in Indore & Gwalior; for a Mumbaite (now at least), it was too much. Nevertheless I survived, in fact I did not have trouble in facing the cold. Neither I fell sick (which I was afraid of).

    No, before coming back to Mumbai, I asked my Art of Living Teacher Dr Shrikant Agashe – a professional MBBS Doctor. How is that possible? I haven’t been living in Indore; I was in Gwalior more than a decade ago, how could my body not give up on this cold? How is that possible, when every month or quarter – may be – at cellular level we are completely new! What he answered me, amazed me about us – more precisely the nature!

    He said every cell has a memory (somewhat amazing! For example, in case of any allergy even if you think that 25 years would be enough for forgetting about something at cellular level – your allergic nature wont be lost. Bigger amazement.

    I still remain amazed about this memory stuff. This amazement is overall for the nature, isn’t Nature amazing, functioning in its own surprising ways? “आश्चर्य”! I know I am no Janaka, nonetheless, I can be amazed with Nature

    Ashtavakra Geeta in English here

    Here Sanskrit verse, word meaning and English translation

  • Music and Yoga

    For a long time I refrained from writing on this topic on my blog. Here it is today…

    I was learning Indian Classical Music (ICM) during 2008-2010. I felt that there is relation between ICM nd Yoga (the chakra of Human body). There are seven swars (Notes) in ICM and seven chakras in body, can any raaga be used to invoke a chakra or help in spiritual practice of an individual? This was the question when I started working on this. My Art of Living teacher (Dr Shikant Agashe) and my Guruji of Music class (Mr B G Tilak) helped me explore this further until I left for further academic pursuits.

    Honestly speaking, I do not have any conclusive research report/measure for the same currently, however a strong feeling says there is some relation. With a few challenges we also devised an experiment and in fact we communicated with few other doctors and experts of ICM.

    People have helped us in providing information about use of ICM in medicine as alternative method and Nad Yoga. So, there are many paths going out from ICM, the path I am considering here is ‘ relation between ICM and The Chakras of human body.

    At a later stage, I happened to read a book titled Music As Yoga by Patrick Bernard (visit PatrickBernard.com). In the book I found something interesting – Page 109 – …According to Young: “when a specific series of harmonically related frequencies are continuous, in more definite way, the sound thus produced stimulates a psychological state which is felt by the listener given the fact that such a series of frequencies will continually trigger a specific series of auditory nerves which, in turn, will carry out the same transmission operation from a periodic model of impulses to the series of points determined by their counterparts in the cerebral cortex…” The above part I feel – somehow – relates to the ICM and yoga. The term written above “specific series of harmonically related frequencies” seems to be specific raaga.

    Still the search (research) is to be continued and for that measurement system is needed, things to do and cart to move… Just thought to share it on my blog – perhaps some strings can vibrate, some can resonate and some find the right tune… and we find something interesting.

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