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Left Vs Right economics

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I was reading an article which states that leading economists are now tilting towards left centric economic practices. Just to give you a perspective – There was a time when governments tried to reduced its control on many fronts such as reduced taxes, regulations and privatization et al. This resulted in perceived Free-Market and growth. At times I wonder growth for what? And growth towards where?

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Flashback to 2005-2008 – When these activities went berserk we saw financial crisis one after the other, we can blame that some were more created than “systemic risk” as the “experts” call it. Recession of last decade was an example of the same. Until things were going great everyone was saying it works, suddenly something went wrong and everything crumbled. Alan Greenspan who was at the center of last decades recession stated this – “You know, that’s precisely the reason I was shocked, because I have been going for 40 years or more with very considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well.” He further said – “I really didn’t get it until very late”.

Fast forward to 2012 onwards – we are seeing economists are talking about left centric economic practices.

The problem with economic analysis is – it is always dependent on me Vs you or internal vs external. Would we be able to see a view where the analysis is done on a single monolith?

If we do the same mistake (of leaning too much towards the left) which was done in 80’s (leaning too much towards the right) when more laissez-faire capitalism was proposed, these activities of leaning far right to far left will end up being into a pendulum kind of moment. We would see more recession or other social challenges.

My opinion of Economics is – learning about the sentiments, action and effects of individuals (micro-economics) and groups (macro-economics) to create theories. These theories will replicate how the world is likely to behave. In proposing some theories we state – “everything being equal”, “rest of the things being constant” etc. However as we move on the irrationality of human / group activities take place. These irrationalities will always be there when economic theories of complete left or complete right are applied. The irrationalities will be more troublesome (as the case we saw in last few decades) if one sided approach of economics are utilized. The irrationalities can be reduced (managed) by approaching the economics in more centralist way – The middle path.

Should there be a way to reduce the causes of irrationality?

What I wrote earlier here [blog – cause…]- The macro problems I wrote above, can be solved when we start solving micro problems, it is collective wisdom which would play a major role when we are individually wise.

Image source – http://carolynbaana.com/2012/05/01/defining-balance/ searched via http://duckduckgo.com

June 9, 2015
Societal impact of Interdependent Co-arising

Interdependent co-arising is a very fascinating concept of Buddhism. I could relate to it deeply, in fact inception of this blog website lies in that. We are “social animals” and thus interdependent co-arising is no foreign concept to us. However, off late many of us have become too greedy, self-centric and indifferent to others that we forget we are social animal, we create hierarchy in society itself or we create a circle of community, economic strata or any other such characteristic be it race, religion or for that matter line of thoughts (left vs right) etc.

On 31st May, we concluded a Bal Chetna shivir. It is an Art of living initiative for under privileged children. The volunteers involved in the course included Nalini, Siddharth, Dhruv, Deepshikha, Soumya, Megha and Shweta. This course was conducted at Durgadevi Sharma Marathi School. The energy of these kids is outstanding. It becomes difficult at times to manage them! It was a wonderful experience. Thanks to the social service initiatives of Ms Gauri Bhasin who is founder and president of the Seed Foundation that we could do the course there. She has been engaged in social service for a long time now, her dedication speaks through her work, action and words. I heard her on 30th May and that clicked me to write this blog.

We were discussing about the initiative, our background and what we are trying to achieve. She very eloquently said that “If we want a peaceful society, we must help each other, more so to these underprivileged children. If we impart right education and involve them in our society, chances of them becoming antisocial reduce significantly. We must work towards inclusion and helping them feel we are there and we – as a society – care. It is good for our social well-being at large to help these kids.”

I could instantly relate to these words with interdependent co-arising. Everything is dependent on another. My definition of interdependent co-arising is – “we all grow when we help each other to grow whether it is our subordinates or our competitors.” A more technically correct (according to the philosophy of Buddhism) meaning is “everything depends on something else for its existence”.

As a society we are all dependent on each other, none of us as an individual can exist without the others support him/her. Ms Bhasin very easily put it out in a societal context. A peaceful society needs a peaceful, socially accepted and involved individual. We need to make everyone feel that they are part of us be it from any social strata, race, religion or line of thought.

June 1, 2019
Opportunity cost of being Humans

It was a 2013 evening, my sister and I went for a walk after dinner. It was a daily practice for us those days. Chinu was playing with the stray dogs – well behaved and good dogs of our area. This habit also included feeding left over chapatis to these stray dogs. We had started eating multi-grain chapatis, my sister used to prepare the composition (of course sourced from internet) of different grains – usually five. One day my sister told me – “I have noticed that these stray dogs do not eat these chapatis, earlier when we were making wheat chapatis it did not happen.” I jokingly said – “They have not developed a taste for it!” Her observation was correct, these dogs did not touch these chapatis, matter became bit serious and a learning – eat chapatis of one grain at a time. Perhaps the animals are closer to the nature than us, they know what will suit their body more than we know about our body. That is our problem – we have moved away from listening to our natural instinct. I wonder if animals have glutton intolerance or lactose intolerance etc. We humans have such eating disorders. I believe the reason is our not listening to our body. I believe our body can give us signs that – you should not eat it. But we do not listen.

I could remember incident of 2013 when I had been watering plants at home. I noticed that the pots were discarding water that the plant did not need. Plants also take as much as required, we do not, our greed is for more money than what we need to survive, we’ve huge wardrobes and eat more for taste than for nourishment. Have you seen a fat leopard? But obesity is a problem with us. We go to gym to be fit, yet our eating habits belie our natural instinct.

Have you heard a saying birds of a feather flock together. Needless to say, many must have seen birds of same species flying together from season to season. Literal meaning of this saying actually changes in our (human being’s) context. Because we humans have divided our existence by color of skin, our way of thinking and our religious following etc. We have been fighting for Left Vs Right or religious supremacy – be it ISIS in Syria (for Islam) or Rohingya (against Islam). That is an opportunity cost of being Humans.

We have – somewhere – missed our intelligence in our growth (smarter phones but dumb people), our belief of being morally correct (building stock pile of nuclear weapons for self protection – war for peace) and proving one being religiously pious than the other (my religion is better and correct than your religion is). That is opportunity cost of being human!

The question to ask is – are we really “being” human? Animals are better in some sense, they don’t kill to either propagate their religion, control other animals and show supremacy.

In Indian theology it is said that a person is born as human after a million+ lives as other creature. Well, few people would not accept this concept because of their way of thinking or conditioning of mind. Why there is harmony in nature but not in our cities, countries? Isn’t it the “cost” we are paying for the opportunities we have got as human beings?

This was topic for Sept 7th 2017 LBC, I wrote after a month. You can see what the other writers of the LBC have to say in their respective blogs. Maria, Ramana uncleji, Ashok and Shackman.

PS – English meaning of Opportunity cost – the loss of other alternatives when one alternative is chosen.

More on opportunity cost as concept of economics at investopedia

Image source – http://www.jamieatlas.com/2008/07/24/stepmill-most-underrated-machine-in-your-gym/

October 2, 2017
Mindful or Involuntary action, are you spiritual or religious?

I lived in Dhar, a small district headquarters in Madhya Pradesh. It is a small city or say a town. It is a peaceful city with low crime rates. I hope it is still like that. This small place taught me how to handle your fears, it does not include the Fear of the God. Those days there was no fear kidnapping or children lost in the city. So, we kids used to go from one place to the other alone unquestioned.

Dog of our area

In Dhar, like any other city in India, you could see domestic animals on road. Stray dogs were no surprise either. There was a stray dog in our area. We walked that place multiple times daily. This dog was tough to handle. It used to bark, run behind, fight with other dogs, and occasionally bite. We kids were scared to cross the place when we learnt about the dog. In fact, we were “dog fearing”.

We could not stop going to school because of the dog. We devised a plan, we started keeping stones in our hands. Whenever we saw the dog, we threw stones at him and ran away from that area. This dog-fear gave us a solution to scare the dog away rather than be scared.

But why am I telling this story to you? This story has a very nasty relation and question to you – How can you “respect” someone as scary as a mad dog? I know when you read further you may hate me or be disappointed because I am questioning your beliefs. But I must pose this question to you. How can you be “God fearing”? If God is such fearful entity, it must be called a demon, isn’t it? If God is good, we should have a healthy relation with him/her and not a fearful one.

God fearing

If you have followed my blog for past few years you must have read about my marriage alliances. In my matrimony profile I had written “I am spiritual but not necessarily religious”. Some of the prospective alliances confused it with “religious”. So, prospective bride or bride’s family told multiple types of stories around their being religious.

At some of the interactions I smiled and explained to a few that I rarely go to a traditional temple. I may call few places as places for my worship such as my art of living center where I go for weekly sadhana or meditation practices.

After a few attempts, I started ignoring it – spirituality does not necessarily mean religious. I had lost interest to explain it to people. Why? Because I met about two dozen families or alliances for the alliance discussion.

Once, I heard a very interesting new term. “I am god fearing”. I had never heard it earlier, I was impressed and surprised too. Probably I was less educated about religion. I had to ask around what does this mean? Is it “religious?”

Spiritual not necessarily religious

Fortunately, I have some great mentors, one is Ramana uncleji. I shared this profile with him and asked him what does “God fearing” mean?

Uncleji told me – “None of the Indian religion teaches you fear. In fact, none teaches you fearing from God in specifics.”

I added – yes, I understand – Krishna is embodiment of love.

Uncleji continued – “Yes, the concept of fear of God is from Abrahamic religion (religions that started from the Central Asia). The girl is from a convent school.”

I was shocked, how could he figure it out? He was correct, though the profile did not have specifics of primary education. He said I understand it because mostly this is where you may learn the concept of fear from the Gods. Regular Indian family may hardly teach “Fear the Gods” at home.

He further added, the concept of fear from the God works when you must keep people in check and let them follow you “unquestionably”. Indian religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism etc) hardly force you to follow the diktat without questioning.

I further mumbled – that’s correct, Arjuna asks questions to Krishna in Bhagvad Geeta. Vashishtha answers to Rama in Yog Vashishtha. In Ashtavakra Geeta, Ashtavakra discusses with Janaka and Shiva Sutra is full of questions from Parvati. We Indians have argued with almost every God.

Spiritual vs religious the difference

I have met many people who keep on bowing whenever they see a temple. It happens at times when the closing of eyes and folding of hands looks like an involuntary action. Involuntary action means something that happens without your conscious choice; examples are breathing, digestion and closing of eye in case of sudden light.

Namaste on the back

If you are just folding your hands without even your knowledge or without any deeper respect in your heart what is the meaning? It is like you closed your eyes when you saw a danger.

The idea of bowing down is not necessarily incorrect. Devotion makes you bow. This comes out of reverence and not fear. Bowing down can be a great mindful act and not an involuntary action, isn’t it?

Rarely, I saw that bowing down out of devotion or reverence. Mostly people bow down crossing any place of worship because of two reasons either they have some demand, or they are scared.

Fearing the God

In fact, I am amazed, the convent educated are a step ahead in the confusion. I saw these convent educated to make a cross on their face (similar to a Christian would do while crossing a church). I asked to one – what is that? She said we passed by the temple.

I smiled and said shouldn’t you be folding your hand?

I further inquired, why did you do that? The response was – it has become a habit. Really? A habit? Did you not learn something known as “respect”?

Fear created this habit. It is like an involuntary action, as a kid we used to keep stone when we saw fearsome dog in Dhar. How can you be a God-fearing person? How can you call yourself religious if you fear God?

At best the creature who gives you fear can be a fearsome villain, a monster or demon, if I say in Hindi an Asur or Rakshasa. You can fear a stray dog not the God. If you fear the God, it simply means you are taught incorrectly, there is likely a problem in your religious learning.

Next time, when you bow down remember – the temple or the Murti in the temple is just a representation. The God is omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent. You would know soon if you are religious – as conditioned in childhood – or spiritual. It is better the bowing down happens due to reverence and mindfulness rather than fear and involuntary.

Image source – Husky dog by Ilya Shishikhin on Unsplash, Lotus by Jay Castor on Unsplash, Yoga pose by Avrielle Suleiman on Unsplash, Love and fear quote frame by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

February 6, 2022
Are you facing a behavioral issue – here is a magic bullet

Recently, my father had a severe stomach ache. Doctors prescribed pain killers. It helped to a certain extent, however, two days later again he had the same issue. Some diagnoses gave no conclusive reasoning to the issue. The further diagnosis helped us figure out – the causes, possible approaches to avoid it in the future – what to eat, what to avoid, and what should be the lifestyle – besides the medicines.

Behavioral issue

How often do we make similar kinds of errors in treatment? If you get angry often, you are asked to undergo an anger management course. Attending an anger management course is like administering a painkiller. It would help – but how long? Do you think it is going to help? How often does it help the person?

It is often found that the cause of anger is impatience, inability to handle pressure, unwillingness to accept the situations, etc. On a lighter note – it can be a sense of entitlement too that causes anger – as they say often in Delhi “Janta hai mera baap kon hai?” “Do you know who my father is?”. This question sometimes provides a sense of entitlement to commit a mistake and get scot-free. Well, that is for some other day.

The solution to these problems is not attending Anger Management courses. The deeper analysis and reflection is the better and long-term solution. As in the case of my father’s severe ache, the solution to your behavior also lies in a bit deeper diagnosis, identification of the right causes, and lifestyle.

The behavior here goes beyond the act of getting angry or losing a temper. The behavior encompasses multiple possible ways one reacts to situations or people. I am a strong believer that spiritual awakening is a big solution to mental health. I mean spiritual awakening as in – Indian spiritual methods. The methods were taught by the many spiritual masters of India including the Buddha.

When I say meditation and spirituality are some of the solutions to many behavior issues, it may sound like this is a magic bullet. In a way it is. Especially, when you are concerned about you yourself – spirituality and meditation are the potent solutions. When I say that I mean Indian mysticism.

How and why spirituality and meditation for the behavioral issues?

Have you seen two sets of people standing in a queue – one worried, restless, and one overjoyed and happy? You can observe it in – a cinema ticket queue or a sports event ticket purchase. You could have observed it (in old days) Indian Railway’s reservation counters too. Have you ever asked yourself this question, why do two people in the same situation may have different mindsets or behavior?

The reason for different people behaving in the same railway reservation counter is different. One may be going home after a long journey and the other leaving the loved one behind. Same place, the same action of booking a ticket but different feelings. The reason is different people behave differently.

In fact, the first thing one learns in Marketing – respond to different customer or customer segments differently! This applies to our daily lives too. So, each person standing in the queue of reservations may have a different mindset and each mindset may require handling situations differently. Isn’t it correct?

Spirituality and meditation

Now when we have established that the different mindsets require different solutions, how can a set of religious practices or methods solve the same problem? This is where religion fails many of us. Religion deals with the masses and is like a herd mentality. Spirituality is for self and soul. So, mostly religion may not solve your problems but spirituality can.

You can solve your behavioral problem with your working “on yourself”. Meditation is the technique that works on “your” self. The problem of anger – for example – is an individual’s problem therefore the solution of that also lies at the individual’s level. It requires a diagnosis. The one that gives some conclusive reasoning to the issue. Spirituality gives that one. As was the case with my father’s stomach issue, a deeper analysis was required for the solution.

Our behavioral issues also require deeper analysis. And that my friend can be done with spiritual practice such as meditation. Give it a try. I can vouch for the Art of Living Foundation as I have done their courses – check a few online courses here.

January 30, 2022
Education, religion and spirituality

Adviti is attending school now, this started off with thoughts on education, religion, and spirituality. She is three years and we opted for online schooling finally. We avoided it initially, but the Chinese virus (Covid-19) gave us no option of formal school for her. It has been only two weeks. This time around the questions were more than just why do we educate kids? and also the race we start with our kid’s schooling.

During our primary education, we read this story in our syllabus. This is apt for our life in general and I take a parallel from this story in religion and spirituality as well. Let me first narrate the story to you.

Hunter and the parrots

A jungle was famous for its species of parrots. One day a hunter crossed by this jungle. He was mighty impressed with these different types and colors of parrots. The hunter put his net and no wonder he could catch a lot of parrots. He sold those in the market and made a lot of money. He started visiting this jungle often.

A sage lived in this jungle too. He observed that the number of parrots was drastically reducing. Sage being sage, compassionate, and friendly to every animal of the jungle, started teaching these parrots.

The sage taught these parrots –

The hunter comes, spreads his net,
puts some grains, we should avoid this trap

The exact words we learnt in the Hindi version was

शिकारी आता है. जाल फैलता है.
दाना डालता है. हमें जाल में नहीं फ़सना चाहिए।

The parrots learned it quickly. They started singing it all the time. When the hunter came he was taken aback. He was fearful now he won’t get these parrots. With a heavy heart, he put his net again. To his surprise, all the parrots were in the net and singing the same song

The hunter comes, spreads his net,
puts some grains, we should avoid this trap

With immense pleasure, he took his prized possession. This time he had value-added parrots – parrots who spoke language!

When the hunter crossed sage’s hut, sage was smiling. He saw all the parrots singing the song inside the trap that they had to avoid.

The moral of the story

We must learn instead of rote memorization. we must learn instead so that conceptual learning can be applied in many walks of life.

Additionally, there are chances that someone says one thing but does another. We must learn two things – first, we must walk the talk, and second, identify people who do not walk the talk and be cautious.

Education

When Adiviti sits for her school sessions, I sit with her. Initially, I was frustrated (at times now too) with her slow response. She knows the things but does not respond, at times she does not understand – because she predominantly understands Marathi and Hindi and not English. She does not follow instructions.

We learn a lot of very basic and important things in our schools. How much do we apply in our life? Be it learning instead of rote method or the basics – do not steal, do not tell lie, etc.

Religion

Another thought triggered in my mind. We learn almost all the ten commandments of Abrahamic religions in School, isn’t it? Most of the religion teach such basic things in our life. If this is the only lesson of religion our school or syllabus of school education is no less than a religious book. In fact, in this case, the schools and education are much more than many of the religions of the world.

Though I know I have made this comparison on a very high level. In whatever case, what more the religions teach? Follow what is taught, in some cases do not use your brain. Do not question the authority, isn’t it?

Religions that do not allow questioning is far lesser than school education. At least school education allows asking questions!

I am a born Hindu (a Lingayat), I have questioned almost everyone and everything religious since childhood. When I was unconvinced I stopped going to temples. When I started understanding few things about Hinduism and started reading few scriptures, I realized many scriptures are dialogs. On the battlefield, Arjun asked questions, Janaka asked questions to Ashtavakra, and Vashisth and Rama discussed multiple things. When someone wrote Upnishad no one asked to believe those by force.

The Buddha or Mahavir (and other Tirthankaras of Jainism) also gave the point of view without forcing others to accept those as gospel truth.

Spirituality

I have written on religion vs spirituality earlier. In that blog, I had given an analogy between religion and spirituality to sex and love. Since now I am looking at education, I created another analogy between education and learning to religion and spirituality. You can learn without formal education. I have heard of a past CM of Maharashtra – Vasant Dada Patil He was educated to only 4th grade. However, he was the harbinger of the robust canal and irrigation system of Maharashtra.

If we look at multiple definitions of spirituality what best comes to my mind is – “search for meaning in life”. I can connect to the Indic religion (Buddhism, Jainism, and Hinduism) to a large extent. Spirituality is beyond any geography, religious rituals, and believing in a single book alone. Spirituality includes every living being – I can write more on that however that is for some other day.

In fact, if I take the freedom to extrapolate the story, the hunter (शिकारी) is our false sense of self, net (जाल) greed, lust, ego etc and the grains – bait – (दाना) is our false sense of satisfaction or pleasure. We should not get in the net (जाल), here WE is the SELF.

Education, religion, and spirituality

What I have observed is that education and religion are like parrots in the cage. They know what they are saying but they do not understand the meaning of what they are saying. It is with many people and religions worldwide. In fact just because of that either we see terrorism or atheism in the world. People have either lost trust in religion or they are so faithful that they see killing those who do not comply with the point of view of the killer.

At the same time, learning and spirituality are conceptualizing, synthesizing, and questioning, and exploring. Learning involves a sense of experience similar to spirituality. Look at religion you would get a lot of people who can reiterate books word by word without knowing and experiencing. This is what differentiates religion and spirituality.

I saw a tweet from Elon Musk once – “I hate when people confuse education with intelligence, you can have a bachelor’s degree and still be an idiot.”

The corollary, in this case, is – one can be known for religion and religious knowledge without actually being a spiritual master. Whereas Spiritual masters many times are against the dogmas and are more practical and clear about what they say, do, and mean.

Adviti’s schooling is a learning experience for me. I have to get off the showjumping thing we have observed. I have to let her learn at her own pace. What matters is how intelligent she becomes with the education not how much she scores in school. What is more important is she becomes a virtuous person who walks the talk – not like the parrots who are in the cage reiterating the lesson –

The hunter comes, spreads his net,
puts some grains, we should avoid this trap

The exact words we learnt in the Hindi version was

शिकारी आता है. जाल फैलता है.
दाना डालता है. हमें जाल में नहीं फ़सना चाहिए।

June 20, 2021
Me too in Buddha’s life

In recent days #MeToo has been talk of the town in India. I do not intend to hurt sentiments of the affected girls. In fact in my social circles whenever such discussions came I supported the girl’s story. Yet, when I am writing this post, I know there has to be a balanced approach, when I vehemently supported them there were always questions – why now? why so late? etc etc. So, here is a story that happens in the life of The Buddha.

During the time of the Buddha, there was a similar incident. Though, I am not trying to justify or deny harassment cases in of Me Too as fake or if the cases / stories are coming out to malign people unnecessarily. In fact, the Bollywood is notorious for such incidents (casting couch) etc, however, someone has spoken openly about it after a long time. In fact, there were cases of journalists (read Vinod Dua) and when a Tehlka founder-editor (read Tarun Tejpal) was accused by a girl – of the age of his daughter – about molestation. Long and short journalism is not sacred either. In fact in the recent times the way journalism is getting exposed – be it Radia tapes or AugustaWestland news for cash cases – is shaking faith in print / other media itself.

There was a CD that came in public for a very short duration wherein a very prominent politician had sex in his parliament (a sacred place for democracy in India) building room. The reason for the quid pro quo was to become a judge in a high-court in India. The woman lawyer compromised for becoming a judge. Off late a news is making rounds that Chief Justice of India (CJI) harassed his staffer some time. Another politician – died recently – was dragged in court for DNA test to prove he is the biological father of an adult – recently that son of the politician died.

In essence many systems where power plays a key role are not clean – be it limelight based Bollywood or fancy journalism or being a politician or judiciary. In another such power system is spirituality and religion, a bishop in an Indian church is accused of raping nuns. The result? Nuns are in question not the bishop! Even though the nuns have come out in open! This is not just one case in isolation, there were many such harassment cases, only few were / are reported.

As the case is with Churches, the power center in olden days in India used to be the spiritual teachers. The Buddha was also accused of raping a women. What happened there may not be the case in general with above mentioned cases of recent times. Let me narrate this story from the book – Old Path White clouds.

Story from Old path white clouds

During the time of the Buddha, his teachings were becoming powerful. There was a big challenge to the establishment of that time. So some people conspired to falsely accuse the Buddha of sleeping with a woman and making her pregnant. They found an attractive, young woman and told her that the Buddha had caused a rapid decline in the faith of their ancestors by luring many young men to become his disciples. Anxious to protect her faith, she agreed to the plan.

Every day she went to Jetavana dressed in a beautiful sari and carrying a fresh bouquet of flowers. She did not arrive in time for the Dharma talks, but waited outside the Dharma hall as people left to return home. At first, whenever anyone asked her where she was going or what she was doing, she only smiled. After several days, she answered coyly, “I’m going where I’m going.” After several weeks of such vague comments, she began to answer, “I’m going to visit Monk Gautama.” And finally, she was heard to exclaim, “Sleeping at Jetavana is delightful!”

Such words burned the ears of many people. Some laypeople began to feel doubts and suspicions, but no one said anything. One day, when she came to one of the Buddha’s Dharma talks. Her belly was noticeably round. In the middle of the Buddha’s discourse, she stood up and loudly said, “Teacher Gautama! You speak eloquently about the Dharma. You are held in high esteem. But you care nothing for this poor woman made pregnant by you. The child I carry is your own. Are you going to take responsibility for your own child?”

A wave of shock passed through the community. Everyone looked up at the Buddha. The Buddha only smiled calmly and replied, “Miss, only you and I can know whether or not your claims are true.”

The Buddha’s calm smile made this woman feel uneasy, but she retorted, “That’s right, only you and I know whether my claims are true.”

The community could no longer suppress their astonishment. Several people stood up in anger, the woman suddenly felt afraid the people would beat her. She looked for a way to escape, but in her panic, she ran into a post and stumbled. As she strained to stand back up, a large round block of wood fell from where it was tied onto her abdomen, and landed on her foot. She cried out in pain and grabbed her crushed toes. Her stomach was now perfectly flat.

A sigh of relief rose from the crowd. Several people began laughing and others derided the woman. Bhikkhunis stood up and gently assisted this woman out of the hall. When the two women were gone, the Buddha resumed his Dharma talk as if nothing had happened.

Summary

The life in current times is not that easy to prove innocence or guilt. Court cases are long drawn and at times the one with influence wins. Many girls / women will be facing defamation suits in the battle of right vs wrong. Many cases may be correct however the point is – how to prove the allegations?

The intentions of this post is not to support or oppose the accused or complainant. Because there may be prima-facie the cases such as Megha Sharma where girl seems to be the culprit.

The point is every generation faces such moral bankruptcy. Some end up on the side of one gender some on the other. This is an opportunity to sensitize everyone that what is inappropriate in discussions, the same must be avoided in actions too.

It is incorrect to ask woman to hide from head to toe, not go out alone, how to dress or they invite rape if wear small cloths! We must teach the boys to respect girl. I believe that only spirituality and practices taught by Indic religion Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism can help our societies. In particular Brahmacharya (celibacy), Aparigraha (non-possession).

April 26, 2019
Options, analysis and decisions

I have been analyzing buying a house vs living on rent and buying a four wheeler vs riding a cab. This is not a new comparison and analysis for me. Most of the time, answers to these two were – buy a house and rent a car or use a cab service.

How did I arrive at these conclusions? Of course after some calculations and considering options. The question is – what was the measure on which I measured these things to come up with some conclusion? The measure was “utility”. In economics utility means resultant benefit achieved from something (usage or consumption of product or service). When you eat Idly on road side @20 INR and when the same idly plate is served to you in a better place it could by @60 INR. We may argue about taste, hygiene etc of idly from 20INR to 60INR. When one moves from basic utility to additional utilities we measure that in terms of marginal utility. Marginal utility, is the incremental benefit one gets from consumption or usage of an offering.

We can continue from our situation of buying a four wheeler. The first question one may have is – which car – SUV, Sedan, Hatchback. Once that is decided which company which brand and what amenities such as AC, power window and music system etc. There are obviously many more questions in making a decision. The other option is hiring a local taxi or app based service. After all this analysis – what one gets is drop from point A to point B. At times pain of parking – if it is owned car or self driving. The drop from A to B is utility in this case. Marginal utility is – can you play music of your choice while driving or is the vehicle air conditioned during the trip. In the bargain of ability to play music and air conditioning you need to pay extra. This extra amount vs the additional benefit you get defined marginal utility.

Many of our life decisions are made emotionally and justified rationally. I analyzed a lot with a decision of buying a house and renting a car. Currently, I live in a rented house and drive a car. How often do we take decision by listening to our heart and mind? Is there a rational justification to our decision? Why do we take such decision? When we have to really take a plunge with faith, we falter. When we have to take a decision with full analysis we do the opposite!

Give it a thought – Mahavir and Buddha – both were from warrior families and were to be the kings. Why did they renounce everything, how on earth they both might have taken such step? Had they both done enough analysis possibly both had stayed back. I know more about the Buddha so can think of an incident, when he was following extreme austerity such that he could had died of hunger, he decided to eat. In short term his five best friends went away saying he has left the path. But the Buddha was right, austerity and self affliction may not necessarily help. He said to himself, if I die of hunger I wont be able to achieve what I strive for.

In my analytics practice one of my senior’s Eron Kar used to say – “If you torture data enough it will confess to the story you want it to narrate.” Always it is not right to over analyze, at times leaders need to take a leap of faith and decide.

Prof Mankad told me once – “Pravin, when you become a leader, sitting in the 76th floor of your corporate office when you have to make a tough choice do one thing. Leave aside all the papers and analysis. Walk toward the window. Take out a coin from your pocket, toss it and you will have the decision.” Dr Mankad continued “Pravin, sometimes you should stop over analyzing.” I need to learn a lot to do that one I have to become that big a decision maker of a company and two stopping the urge to analyze everything, I still analyze a lot!

Image source – http://novalo.com/flat-fee-self-employed/

October 15, 2017
Hidden potential

I had inflammation of gums recently and was not able to eat properly. Instead of looking for solution first, I started looking for causes why I had this swelling? Root cause of the same of my eating roasted corn. So, next time onwards I will be careful when eating roasted corn. Currently, I am having backache, all due to wrong postures while working in office seating in office.

We do not even notice small integral parts of our body such as gums or back until we have a trouble with them. These parts exist and function as per their role in the physiology of our body, yet we are in oblivion of them, until those have some issue – for us those are almost nonexistent until they let us know they exist and have some limits, in my case it was backache and gum’s swelling. I had kept on noticing gums every time I put something in my mouth, back is reminding me of it’s existence until now.

What is hidden? Hidden – to us human beings – is something that we cannot perceive. The gums and back was something hidden until I had troubles there, it existed physically, I knew it existed but I did not notice it.

Perceptions are another limitation, our perceptions are limited to our five senses. If something exist beyond these senses we may not know of it’s existence such as noise beyond a certain range.

We cannot see air, it does not mean it does not exist, we know air is there because our sense of touch can feel it – breeze or cold. A seed has a possibility of become a tree, that is it’s hidden potential. We cannot see it manifested and thus we do not believe in it; that is our problem. Our perceptions are actually created by our previous learning. In the image here, there is no gate or fence, it is all in the minds of sheep.

I have written on it earlier on perceptions and specially here what I learnt from Sai kaka, about our past impressions –
Sanskar yukt chaitanya jab (संस्कार युक्त चैतन्य जब)
1. chintan karata hai to usko chitt kahate hai (1. चिंतन करता है तो उसको चित्त कहते है)
2. manan karata hai to usko man kahate hai (2. मनन करता है तो उसको मन कहते है)
3. nirnay karata hai to usko buddhi kahate hai (3. निर्णय करता है तो उसको बुद्धि कहते है)
4. asmita ka bhan karata hai to usko aham kahate hai (4. अस्मिता का भान करता है तो उसको अहं कहते है)
inme se sansakar nikal jaye to jo bachata hai vo shuddha chaitanya hai (इनमे से संस्कार निकल जाए तो जो बचता है वो शुद्ध चैतन्य है)

A rough English translation of the same is –

When a conscious filled with rituals (or say the lessons learnt about ‘way of living’, include religion)

1. thinks we call it mind (imagination)
2. contemplate we call it Mind [there is a difference between Chitt and man which I am not able to translate in English]
3. makes a decision we call it intellect
4. perceives pride we call it Ego

Now when the rituals, religion or ‘way of life’ learnt, get out of this conscious mind, what is left is the pure consciousness.

It means “pure consciousness” is blurred by our different (Sanskara) learning about life. Therefore in some cases religion becomes a problem.

This is the problem of our perceptions such as we think East is far different from the West. Can we try experimenting – a kid born in Say US should be reared in India and vice versa. Would these kids grow up to behave in similar manner such as US born kid raised in India, would behave like any kid born and raised in US and vice versa? When we talk about East Vs West our perception are based on the “sanskar”, at times those are the hidden potentials.

Hidden potential was an old LBC topic, I wrote on it today. Loose Bloggers Consortium is where Maria, Rummuser, Ashok, Shackman and I write. You can visit their blogs and read their thoughts on the topic.

Image source – unknown currently.

July 31, 2017
Does Time Run Out? Terror Attacks

This is the same thing as sunset and sunrise. Time is the way existence just ‘is’! Time runs out for us because we believe that our existence is limited to our this life. A person on deathbed may think that time is running out, because he may die soon – again because our perception of life is very limited to the body.

Ok! I got it. Many people will say – “I don’t believe in past life or future life”. Many would say – “We do not believe in the concept of life beyond this body, because our scriptures do not support this concept.”

Let me try to explain a perspective from those scriptures – is it a possibility that they say there is no life beyond, because they do not consider the physical death as death? Is it a possibility that the scriptures suggest that death of this body is not death of something which is beyond the perception of existence?

What is time? Time is not what you see on your wrist watch. If that was the thing TIME, you would start calling yourself as “173CM” or may be “75KG” because you measure as much in height or weight respectively. The measurement is not the THING. Measurement is a dimension of the THING, isn’t it? If you say I am overweight and reduce say 5 kg, would you reduce actually? So, if the belief is the exact time in your clock is TIME. Why is it different in US Vs Europe Vs India? Have you ever thought that how did the first person who created watch know “what is the time right now?” Why does time not remain same (figuratively too) if we are on the same planet earth? What is earth stop revolving around its axis? What is earth stops revolving around sun? The point I am trying to make is – we are very limited by our perception and that creates our realities. Same is the case with time, when I say figuratively too – it means the words of astrologers – “you are going through a tough time, do not get involved in such and such things”. Or this is the best time for you to invest in XYZ. Besides these I came across an interesting video on Time and theory of relativity, here it is

This was the line of thought for this week’s LBC post, I suggested this topic. You can see what the other writers of the LBC have to say in their respective blogs. Maria, Rummuser, Ashok and Shackman. However, after thinking this much and after Manchester attack, I have to think in a different way too. The time is really running out for us as humans. If we know correctly Dinosaurs did not invent weapons yet they are extinct. We have a bigger problem, we are more susceptible to higher losses. In that sense of the world time is running out. When I was a kid, I used to think Kashmir terrorist problem (early 90s) is only limited to India. Now, when I read news like this – UK, France, Indonesia, etc terrorist attacks and a remote island country Philippines fighting ISIS I get surprised, terrorism may have been a local phenomenon but seems no more now.

I read on Twitter – the suicide bomber was a 22 year old Salman Abedi, a son of immigrant from Libya. The irony is – he was born in UK! People of Twitter were making observations from both the sides – stop immigration and what will you get if you stop immigration the lad was UK born. I asked myself another question – if this person was born in UK do we need to contest immigration or we need to look at the other sources where the root cause of such attack reside? The other thought that ran through my mind at that time (and I love thinking about it) how would the Buddha (or any other spiritual master of our time) handle such brat?

SA – I would die for my religion. TB – Why dont you live of it? SA – I’ve been commanded to spread the message, those who do not follow must be killed. TB – Can your death justify spreading the message? SA – ??!! (I’m confused what he will answer.) TB – What happens when you get killed or you kill them? SA – I will go to heaven. TB – What is the proof that you will go to heaven? Is not the earth where you live is a heaven? You live in the UK one of the most developed country, is not it a heaven? What happens to those who die due to your attack? SA – they will rot in hell. TB – Can you prove it? What if they also join you in heaven? Or what if the opposite happens – you go to hell and they in heaven? SA – That is not possible. TB – Do you have any proof, that wont or cannot happen? I think you can guess the response of SA. I hope people like SA get to meet the Buddha type of enlightened masters when alive and change their perceptions – that will help eliminate the underlying problem- root cause.

I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones. – Albert Einstein

When I raised this question to myself about root cause – I realized – we are really running a race against time, and before it is too late, we need to unequivocally, categorically, without any denial of any sort accept that the boy was brainwashed somewhere and need to stop this menace. Yes in such situations we can say time is running out for existence of humanity.

Image source Einstein quote- https://hateandanger.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/, image 1 – unknown

May 28, 2017

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