Business to the Buddha

Category: Business to Buddha

  • Beggar and a Celestial being







    One day, by the side of a beggar, a golden chariot with divine being descended from the sky. The beggar thought that he was lucky and would become rich. But to his surprise, the divine being asked him for alms. Cursing his stars and out of disgust, the beggar took out a small Piece of grain from his bag and offered it to the divine being.

    The whole day, the beggar was very unhappy that he had lost a grain. Before going to sleep, the beggar opened his bag to see what he had collected throughout the day. To his great surprise, he found a piece of gold in the form of a grain. He immediately realized it was in return for what he had given to the Celestial being. He cursed himself for not having given all that he had in his possession.’

    Learn to give. The more you give the more will you receive in return; if you hoard, it would only be for others.

    Related blogs – Interdependent coarising, Random act of kindness, Just do it… ok try it, Three Avocados

    Source – I read this story in a book of Swami Sukhbodhananda Oh Mind relax please.

  • Tolerance







    Recently I heard of Sahitya Akademi award controversy. The issue at hand is – many intellectuals are returning their awards conferred to them by the Govt. Sahitya Akademi is a National organization for literature, it is under the ministry of culture Govt of India.

    Since, I am not in India currently so the source for all this happening was internet. The spark for these events is – brutal murder of an author, rationalist and scholar Mr M M Kalburgi. By the way, I searched on Wikipedia – he was a Lingayat. No, I am not going to say that READ HERE again! Resignation

    So according to my knowledge – Mr Kalburgi was a Sahitya Akademi awardee of 2006. He – being a rationalist – opposed idol worshiping. In India it is fine to follow any religion and practice the rituals suggested in the religion. Idol worship is prominent in India. I too believe it is fine not to worship idol. At the same time, I am fine with people worshiping idols, it is their preference. However, killing Mr Kalburgi – who is against idol worship – is not acceptable.

    I came to know about the Sahitya Akademi award return (by many previous awardees) is influenced by another event in India – a cold blooded murder of a person. Mob killed a person because it was rumored that he has eaten beef! Eating beef is a norm in western world are we going to kill the foreigners too? I am a vegetarian and my belief is we should not kill to eat. Also, if selling/eating beef in India is not legal it does not mean mob can kill a person based on that rumor. Here is a video in which Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev is sharing his opinion on why one should not eat beef (and other things)

    Another news I read recently is killing of 2 kids of Dalit family in Haryana. What are we doing? It is surprising.

    All these points boiled down to tolerance for me. We need to be accepting people’s opinion and not be selective.

    Out of curiosity I thought to check opinion on Ramana uncle (generally I call him to ask for his opinion, but currently it is expensive to do that). I searched on his site for tolerance and found this blog – Ramana Uncle on MF Hussein. This blog is on events happened around the kind of work M. F. Hussein has done.

    Even if we talk about tolerance, freedom of expression etc it does not mean one gets the right to evoke sentiments the way Mr Hussein did neither it gives authority to kill others.

    Image source – Twitter (unfortunately I dont have the link)

  • Family – Lingayats







    “Vasudhev Kutumbakam” is a concept in Indian (Hindu philosophy) culture. It means “one world family” that is – whole world irrespective of caste, color, creed or belief system is one family. I received this message recently on whatsapp –

    I crossed my street ?, they asked my caste
    Crossed my district/town???, they asked my city
    Crossed my state ???, they asked my native language
    And I became an Indian ?? only after I crossed my country ✈!

    These things sound different but are related. It may have been true with many, but I had another experience recently. Basaveshwara – poor fellow – died this time in similar sounding country – Canada – than the Kannada where he belonged 800 years back. I feel bad to write “poor fellow” to refer to the saint. I wrote that because of the community he created – Lingayats. I belong to the same and it has missed his thoughts completely.

    I am in Canada and went to attend an event recently. In that event, people generally asked me where are you from where do you work, where do your parents live (as I am from India and others are also Indians). It was all fine to me until one young lady (I will call her Ima) asked me the same questions. I made her name as Ima for Ila’s Mother. I was playing with this 4 year old baby for a while and to hide the identities of these people I have changed the names.

    I said I work in Mumbai, my parents live in MP. Ima said ‘so you are from MP?’ I said yes, I am born in MP but basically I am a Kannadiga.

    Ima probed – Ok where in Karnataka?

    I said our forefathers migrated long back we belonged to Gulbarga.Lingayatism Wiki

    Ima took little more interest this time and further asked – What community are you?

    “I am a Lingayat of Karnataka. Are you aware about the community?” I asked.

    Ima said – “Yes I am a lingayat too, do you worship the ling?”

    The worship she was referring to is a fundamental practice of Lingayats. I was told this by my father, and at times he did it, I said no to her question on the worship.

    “So what kind of lingayat are you?” Was a very blunt statement she made.

    I said except eating rice I am a North Indian.

    The next thing she said was – “You know in Lingayats there are various divisions?”

    This lady knows me as a Lingayat in last two sentences not more! The first question was about the ritual and second was about Caste! According to my knowledge When Basava formed Lingayatism he created it because he disagreed with the caste system. Check image.

    I told Ima – “You know what? Basveshwara formed or say resurrected Lingayatism on a concept of – all humans are born equal, and a person is known from his deeds and not his birth. This is what I have read on wikipedia.”

    Ima did not speak with me after that. Yes that is true, I was sitting there for next 5 minute, in fact I was playing with her 4 year old daughter Ila also. On the other side of the hemisphere Basvershwara died once again (after 800 years). Not in Kannada speaking place but a place which sounds similar – Canada. This is how the Families we have created in India. Are we becoming hypocrite? We talk about one world family and then we ask about caste perhaps the sub-caste!

    I feel very good when I connect with one of the Indian concept – “Vasudhev Kutumbakam”. Vasudhev Kutumbakam means one world family. Art of living foundation promotes the same, unfortunately I met Ima in an Art of Living event in Canada.

    Wish the statement of Whatsapp becomes a reality beyond the country point too – Vasudhev Kutumbakam.

    The topic of LBC Family (Generally, I change these topics a bit) suggested by Maria for the weekly Friday Loose Bloggers Consortium where currently eight of us are supposed to write on the same topic every Friday. The seven other bloggers who are expected to write regularly are, in alphabetical order, Ashok, gaelikaa, Lin, Maxi, Padmum, Rummuser and Shackman. Do drop in on their blogs and see what their take is on this week’s topic. Since some of them may post late, or not at all this week, do give some allowance for that too!

    Related Blog on Lingayatism.

  • Cheating, with whom?







    The air I breath you too breath the same so does the ex-CEO of VW Martin Winterkorn.

    Recently, there was a huge issue of VW vehicles cheating emission testing, it resulted in heads being rolled and stock price plummeting. VWWhat Volkswagen did was – it programmed its models starting 2009 till 2015 such that during US standards testing (NOx) were met only during laboratory testing. According to Wikipedia the NOx emissions during normal driving was ~35X higher.

    Similarly Toshiba had been involved with accounting fraud. Toshiba continued doing this under three different CEOs. Had it been under only one we would have thought that it was more on personal level and not on organizational level. There are many more such cheating by the way. ToshibaThese things affect not just one person, it affects everyone – irrespective of whether you drive VW car or you are a Deer (may be a lion) for that matter. I wonder if those sitting on the top wants to go where from there! These cheating made me think – who are these people cheating? It was a question during rainy seasons in Mumbai. Roads of Mumbai get terrible during rainy seasons. You can barely avoid seeing a pothole on road. This is a normal scene – generally – across India. I asked this once on Twitter –

    The point I am trying to make is – the constructors of Mumbai roads are driving their vehicle on the same road, the employees of VW are also breathing the same air which is polluted by their vehicle. Similarly, Toshiba employees must be holding shares of Toshiba! Who are they trying to cheat? And why?

    Wish these people who are involved in such activities realize that they are effectively cheating themselves too. If they do world would become little better.

    I am sure some or the other interest groups, political circles must be pickin’ and grinnin’ and enjoying those events – VW and Toshiba. Wonder if those pickin’ and grinnin’ now would help improve the overall system instead of being selective.

    The topic of LBC was pickin’ and grinnin’ (Generally, I change topic of LBC) suggested by Lin for the weekly Friday Loose Bloggers Consortium where currently eight of us are supposed to write on the same topic every Friday. The seven other bloggers who are expected to write regularly are, in alphabetical order, Ashok, gaelikaa, Lin, Maxi, Padmum, Rummuser and Shackman. Do drop in on their blogs and see what their take is on this week’s topic. Since some of them may post late, or not at all this week, do give some allowance for that too!

    Related blogs – Games Indians play.

  • Work is worship







    I was speaking with Fateh uncleji for more than 1/2 an hour. We were talking about many things from Indian politics to my work. When we were to conclude the talk after these long discussions, I told him I called you because I connect with you on spiritual level, I didn’t want to talk about Indian politics, corruption and my work.

    The voice from the other side said – “Work and spirituality live in the backyard of each other” The conviction in the voice was tremendous. I asked “seriously? Is that? It never happened to me.” (I was not sure if it had happened to me)

    When I blog on business to the Buddha – I see the relationship at a macro level. The daily struggles of activities does not make me realize if operationally it is happening.

    The conviction was tremendous. I was puzzled. It was already a long call so we concluded the call. But the resounding words were enough for me to lose my sleep. I felt is it really happening with people? I could not find the relationship at operational level. Am I missing something? Am I missing something in my daily execution? How do I achieve it? What do I do differently?

    As usual, I called Saxena Sir (Dr Anand Saxena, my Engineering college professor), in general and specially to discuss this one sentence – “Work and spirituality live in the backyard of each other”. I have always found that he adds a perspective on my questions; opinions that I never thought. He changes my paradigm of thinking, always.

    I called Saxena sir and told about my meeting with Fateh uncle and my telephonic conversation. When I said “Work and spirituality live in the backyard of each other”, and continued that it has never happened to me as such. He responded without a second’s delay – “Pravin, do you remember the logo of MITS?” [Madhav Institute of Technology and Science is my engineering college where I studied and Dr Saxena was HoD of my Department]

    MITSI responded – “yes of course.” I had the pictures in my mind, snakes and sun, water, it’s easy to remember pictures.

    He asked – “what is written on the logo?” I knew what is written on the logo. I got the drift, because until a second back I was thinking of the pictures on the logo but now I was thinking – “Work is worship.” I understand where he is going.

    It was a very small, straightforward and simple explanation. Saxena sir always surprises me. He makes things look easy, adds a perspective and takes me to a different plane.

    Perhaps, these discussions were very commonplace for you; however these two telephonic conversations made me unclutter myself a bit. There is still a lot of room to do that.

    Saxena sir and I concluded the call. And I questioned myself – am I making things complicated? Is it really too simple? Perhaps.

    That is where the real Business to the Buddha lies. Is not it look so simple? The Buddha also suggested that what he achieved could have been achieved without taking Sanyas. Perhaps that is why he proposed The Middle Path. What is your take?

    Did it occur to you – “Work and spirituality living in the backyard of each other?”

  • Clinging to wealth







    prayer of frogThere have been many Messiah, and many have learnt to have peaceful life because of them. There are many who have learnt violence, the lessons were given and listeners have learnt what “they wanted” to learn. It is up to you what you learn.

    The invention of this story is not to hurt any religious sentiments. Here goes the story.

    A wealthy farmer burst into his home one day and cried out in an anguished voice, “Rebecca, there is a terrible story in town—the Messiah is here!”

    “What’s so terrible in that?” asked his wife. “I think it’s great. What are you so upset about?”

    “What am I so upset about?” the man exclaimed. “After all these years of sweat and toil we have finally found prosperity. We have a thousand head of cattle; our barns are full of grain and our trees laden with fruit. Now we will have to give it all away and follow him.”

    “Calm down,” said his wife consolingly. “The Lord our God is good. He knows how much we Jews have always had to suffer. We had a Pharaoh, a Haman, a Hitler—always somebody. But our dear God found a way to deal with them all, didn’t He? Just have faith, my dear husband. He will find a way to deal with the Messiah too.”

    Source – Prayer of the Frog Vol I and Vol II by Father .

  • Think it over!







    This is a wonderful video. I just got it on Whatsapp thought to share it without any opinion, just watch and ponder, writing anything regarding the thoughts of speaker would make me wander in very many directions. So better just watch it.

    “Oh my god!” Have you ever thought about those things, speaker is speaking?

    This video made me literally say – Oh My God! the topic for LBC (Friday Loose Bloggers Consortium) blog. But I thought that those who can understand must think seriously on what the speaker says. So, I didn’t title this blog – Oh my god. Other bloggers who write regularly are, in alphabetical order – Ashok,  gaelikaa,  Lin,  Maxi, Padmum,  Ramana Uncleji,  Shackman and The Old Fossil. Do drop in on their blogs and see what their take is on this week’s topic. This time I was the one who posted very late, do visit blogs of others they must have posted their opinions too.

  • Mayhem, is that?







    Last month when I heard the word “mayhem” with respect to the share market, instead of checking the SENSEX I checked dictionary. Though I knew the meaning of Mayhem (thanks to my preparation for GRE, when I learnt a lot of English words). I am sure many would know the meaning of the word.

    I had always related the word Mayhem to violence. Is the share market drift up or down a mayhem? Is it not extending our imagination and making share market swings more important than the actual violence around us? For me Mayhem is what is happening in Syria. What has been happening in the name of religion, what is happening around man-made borders of the nations, man-made mental borders (barriers) around ‘my religion’ is better than yours and ‘my belief system’ is better than yours. Have you seen the photographs of Aylan Kurdi? A 3 year old kid who drowned. Those situations are mayhem and not the perceived value around stocks rising and dropping. These perceived values or more valuable to us than the actual values of human life!

    NYSE 10 yearsThose who can pour in their comments about ‘collateral damages’ or ‘life ends one day’ – The teachings of the Buddha about impermanence. Please understand two things – 1. This value of stocks you value and are defending right now, is also impermanent and 2. yes our life is limited (in human form), but it does not give anyone the freedom to kill someone else, which ISIS is doing selectively. All these are man made problems (stock value or terrorism), solution too has to be from us.

    “This too will pass” – No judgement its all about perception. Please apply this not just on the false causes you are fighting (for example ISIS or the terrorists) for or valuing (share market) too much. Some day or the other we will see correction in the values of stock (check image above, 2008-2010, it will keep on repeating at different levels). Are we sure we are going to see appreciation (correction) in the values of our Morales? Our defining one event as “Mayhem” and the other as a twitter trend and moving on? Are we really working towards solving such issues as Terrorism?

    would we please call a right thing “Mayhem” than a share market correction, which is driven by greed and blind following (technical analysis / algorithmic decisions) rather than fundamental position of economy.

  • Assumptions







    I’ve heard of a variation of the following story, I don’t want to come between you and the story. Read it, enjoy it and remember – try to avoid assumptions – as much as possible – in professional and personal life.

    Source – The prayer of the Frog I & II by Father .

    prayer of frog

    AWARENESS

    Many years ago, back in the Middle Ages, the Pope was urged by his advisors to banish the Jews from Rome. It was unseemly, they said that these people should be living unmolested in the very center of Catholicism. An edict of eviction was drawn up and promulgated much to the dismay of the Jews who knew that wherever else they went they could only expect worse treatment than was meted out to them in Rome. So they pleaded with the Pope to reconsider the edict. The Pope, a fair-minded man, offered them a sporting proposition: Let the Jews appoint someone to debate with him in pantomime. If their spokesman won the Jews might stay.

    The Jews met to consider this proposal. To turn it down was to be evicted from Rome. To accept it was to court certain defeat, for who could win a debate in which the Pope was both participant and judge? Still, there was nothing for it but to accept. Only, it was impossible to find someone to volunteer for the task of debating with the Pope. The burden of having the fate of the Jews on his shoulders was more than anyone man could bear.

    Now when the synagogue janitor heard what was going on he came before the Chief Rabbi and volunteered to represent his people in the debate. “The janitor?” said the other rabbis when they heard of this. “Impossible!”

    “Well,” said the chief Rabbi, “None of us is willing. It is either the janitor or no debate.” Thus for lack of anyone else the janitor was appointed to debate with the Pope.

    When the great day arrived, the Pope sat on a throne in St Peter’s square surrounded by his cardinals, facing a large crowd of bishops, priests and faithful. Presently the little Jewish delegation arrived in their black robes and flowing beards, with the janitor in their midst.

    The Pope turned to face the janitor and the debate began. The Pope solemnly raised one finger and traced it across the heavens. The janitor promptly pointed with emphasis towards the ground. The Pope seemed somewhat taken aback. Even more solemnly he raised one finger again and kept it firmly before the Janitor’s face. The janitor thereupon lifted three fingers and held them just as firmly before the Pope who seemed astonished by the gesture. Then the Pope thrust his hand into his robes and pulled out an apple. Whereupon the janitor thrust his hand into his paper bag and pulled out a flat piece of matzo. At this the Pope explained in a loud voice, “The Jewish representative has won the debate. The edict of eviction is hereby revoked.”

    The Jewish leaders promptly surrounded the janitor and led him away. The cardinals clustered around the Pope in astonishment. “What happened, your Holiness?” then asked. “It was impossible for us to follow the rapid thrust and parry of the debate.” The Pope wiped the sweat from his forehead and said, “That man is a brilliant theologian, a master in debate. I began by sweeping my hand across the sky to indicate that the whole universe belongs to God. He thrust his finger downward to remind me that there is a place called Hell where the devil reigns supreme. I then raised one finger to signify that God is one. Imagine my shock when he raised three fingers to indicate that this one God manifests Himself equally in three persons, thereby subscribing to our own doctrine of the Trinity! Knowing that it was impossible to get the better of this theological genius I finally shifted the debate to another area. I pulled out an apple to indicate that according to some newfangled ideas the earth is round. He instantly produced a flat piece of unleavened bread to remind me that, according to the Bible, the earth is flat. So there was nothing to do but concede the victory to him.”

    By now the Jews had arrived at their synagogue. “What happened they asked the janitor in bewilderment. The janitor was indignant. “It was all a lot of rubbish,” he said. “Look. First the Pope moves his hand like he is telling all the Jews to get out of Rome. So I pointed downwards to make it clear to him that we were not going to budge. So he points a finger to me threateningly as if to say. Don’t get fresh with me. So I point three fingers to tell him he was thrice as fresh with us when he arbitrarily ordered us out of Rome. The next thing, I see him taking out his lunch. So I took out mine.”

  • Not so trickling down!







    How would you define prosperity of a society?

    imf_sealThis is a question many have been asking for so many years. The answers to this question lies in not finding the average income of the society – the metric used globally is – income per capita. This very simplified measure is like saying – what Professor Moradian told us in class of operations management – putting one hand in boiling water (100 degrees) and other in freezing water (0 degrees) and saying I am at an average of 50 degrees and kinda ok! We see a widespread income inequality across the globe.

    The definition of prosperous society should be defined by meeting basic needs of the people of the country. Communication and Internet is one thing which has become a part of basic necessities now a days. Human development index the other measure. For a couple of years when I am writing about business and its relation with spirituality (my interest being the Eastern philosophies – teachings of the Buddha and Hinduism) I see a measure is contentment as well is a measure – What more you need?

    I was reading a recent news – Trickle down economics is wrong, says IMF of IMF research. This seems to be an interesting conclusion. We have been running behind capitalism during 1980’s now we are running on the other side in 2010’s. The research says – Trickle down economics reduces the GDP.

    What is Trickle down economy? Ronald Regan – President of US of A – coined this economics by providing special benefits to rich. The assumption of this theory is – if rich are provided tax benefits (reduced taxes) they would eventually invest in economy and growth will occur. In last 3 decades we have seen the impact of that economy.

    According to the said IMF report –

    A 1% increase in the income share of the bottom quintile results in a 0.38% increase in GDP. Meanwhile, a 1% increase in the income share of the top 20% results in a 0.08% decrease in GDP growth.

    There are a couple of take-aways –

    • Trickle down does not work, it does not mean tilt towards the socialist approach.
    • There has to be a balanced approach – as stated earlier – the Middle path
    • And yes – how would you measure prosperity? Well, by checking how content is each individual. That comes from within not outside. Remember the measure of contentment should not be like putting one hand in freezing water and other in boiling.

    Research document link – https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/sdn/2015/sdn1513.pdf