Business to the Buddha

Category: Business to Buddha

  • Owning up things







    alien-house2Recently I got married. Before marriage, I always planned and lived with minimum stuff. I never owned even a wheel of a bicycle. The most surprising stuff started just two days before marriage. Somebody broke into my apartment. When I reached home, my first reaction was – “com’on you must be kidding! How can one think that I would have stuff at home to steal?” The only possession I owned until recently was – 1. consumables, my books & my degrees; everything else at home is from my landlord. My landlord has been kind to offer fully furnished apartment.

    Anyways, so this journey of conversion from being a nomad to settler started just some time back. When we – I and my wife – traveled from her home to my home we had 60KG of suitcase stuff. A lot is still at her parents home. My luggage weighs at least 3 times that much; that is besides the point. Let me qualify the stuff I am talking about – its everything I own.

    Now, as a settler I am planning to buy things, we have started with a scooter, planning washing machine, fridge, TV, car and home etc. The list is almost endless. I am sure the burden of these purchases going to be more tiring.

    Now, I am changing, I have learnt – from Mahavir and the Buddha – “no hoarding, no stealing etc we have forgotten… we will leave everything here but still we want to own stuff.” Now, I am calling all those things written above as – “convenience”, “required to make life easier”. That is being mean – defining everything at one’s “convenience” (bending the definitions).

    But who says one must become masochist in the name of being an ascetic?

    I know owning up things should not becoming things owning me. Reminds me of The book of Mirdad, more blogs on the book here 

    Less possession less possessed.

    Image source – http://www.maydolly.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/alien-house2.jpg

  • Reaction and response







    RR-at-weddingI have an adopted uncleji (Uncle – for Hindi is father’s brother) – Ramana Rajgopaul (picture on the left side). Question should not be asked whether I adopted him or he did, ;). What is important is he has been a great support to me always. He writes almost daily at www.rummuser.com the first question I asked him when I contacted him was is it Rum User or R-Musser or r-muser. A gratitude blog on him in future. Here is a story he shared with me recently.

    The cockroach theory for self development.

    At a restaurant, a cockroach suddenly flew from somewhere and sat on a lady.  She started screaming out of fear.  With a panic stricken face and trembling voice, she started jumping, with both her hands desperately trying to get rid of the cockroach.

    Her reaction was contagious, as everyone in her group also got panicky.  The lady finally managed to push the cockroach away but it landed on another lady in the group.  Now, it was the turn of the other lady in the group to continue the drama.

    The waiter rushed forward to their rescue.  In the relay of throwing, the cockroach next fell upon the waiter.  The waiter stood firm, composed himself and observed the behavior of the cockroach on his shirt.  When he was confident enough, he grabbed it with his fingers and threw it out of the restaurant.

    Sipping my coffee and watching the amusement, the antenna of my mind picked up a few thoughts and started wondering, was the cockroach responsible for their histrionic behavior?  If so, then why was the waiter not disturbed?  He handled it near to perfection, without any chaos.

    It is not the cockroach, but the inability of the ladies to handle the disturbance caused by the cockroach that disturbed the ladies.  I realized that, it is not the shouting of my father or my boss or my wife that disturbs me, but it’s my inability to handle the disturbances caused by their shouting that disturbs me.  It’s not the traffic jams on the road that disturbs me, but my inability to handle the disturbance caused by the traffic jam that disturbs me.  More than the problem, it’s my reaction to the problem that creates chaos in my life.  Lessons learnt from the story:  I understood, I should not react in life.

    I should always respond.

    The women reacted, whereas the waiter responded.  Reactions are always instinctive whereas responses are always well thought of.

    Reminds me of a story in the life of the Buddha. That story some time in future.

    Disclaimer – Author neither owns copyright on the photo of Mr Rajgopaul nor on the story.

  • I was robbed… learnt something







    IMG_20141204_194356I was very happy. Just before I was planning to leave for my wedding ceremony, I had received a congratulatory message from my friend, philosopher, guide and deity – all in one person. Whenever I had communicated with my personal god – all in one – I have always felt blissed.

    I reached home after office at about 7:30 PM on 4th Dec. I was shocked when I saw there is no lock at the door. I live alone and there was no reason for door to be unlocked. With shock, surprise and a question in my mind – “who could have done this?” I went inside. I saw my stuff was scattered all over the places. In utter shock, dismay and puzzle I took some pics (bag), informed my landlord and told him that I am going to police station to lodge a complaint.

    I had never thought that someone would break into my apartment. I am just a nobody in the crowd of millionaires/billionaires in Mumbai. I was thinking do I have any valuables that someone should break in my apartment? Except consumables everything is owned by my landlord. I think thieves do not know that I am a guy next door.

    This incident helped me learn a very important lesson. I had been robbed and an unknown amount of things have been robbed and some thousand rupees physical damage was done. However, beyond these material possessions there are some things that none can steal from a person. One I had owned the day my apartment was broken by robbers. Deep down somewhere in my heart I was happy/elated/blissful, I had just had a communication with that special person. That blissful experience could not be robbed from me. I wondered in all ados around the world, somethings cannot be stolen – one should strive for that possession not the material ones. Who knows these material possessions can be taken anytime without your knowledge.

    I had another parting thought when I wrote this blog – why should one STRIVE for even this possession. Mirdad says in The Book of Mirdad –

    Less Possession Less Possessed.

    Wish I can live upto it sooner rather than later.

  • Blasphemy – cry of wisdom







    It took a lot of time for me to title this blog. Do not confuse the words on right and word on left of the hyphen. Read the story and understand the title 🙂

    One day Mulla Nasruddin saw the village schoolmaster leading a group of children towards the mosque.prayer of frog

    “What are you taking them there for?” he asked.

    “There is a drought in the land,” said the teacher, “and we trust that the cries of the innocent will move the heart of the Almighty.”

    “It isn’t the cries, whether innocent or criminal, that count,” said the Mulla, “but wisdom and awareness.”

    “How dare you make such a blasphemous statement in the presence of these children!” cried the teacher.

    “Prove what you have said, or you shall be denounced as a heretic.”

    “Easy enough,” said Nasruddin. “If the prayers of children counted for anything there wouldn’t be a school teacher in all the land, for there is nothing they so detest as going to school. The reason you have sur­vived those prayers is that we, who know better than the children, have kept you where you are?”

    Source – Prayer of the Fro Vol 1, Prayer of the frog Vol 2, by Father Antony De’Mello

    This is a scheduled and thus auto published blog, author is currently having limited access to the internet.

  • Relativity







    When I was a kid I heard that when Vishnu (One of the Trinity God according to Indian traditions) blinks his eye a whole Yuga (Refer Wiki) passes. So his blinking is so long. This “So Long” is in my frame of reference. I, or say you, blink every 10 seconds and Vishnu blinks in say about million years.

    As a kid I could never comprehend these things, and still as per my limited abilities, I wonder about this. However, I was thinking about it once, Let me compare my blinking and an mayfly blinking. As an average human life span I live say about 70 years a mayfly will live just for a day. So, is it likely that mayfly will also blink every 10 or 15 seconds?

    It was an inteRelativityresting question in my mind, however I am not a Zoologist, I need to go to some experts to analyze these things. In the mean time, I found something relevant to my understanding. Here is a comparison to those who are Engineers specially for those who have learnt Microprocessors in their Engineering. Below is a proportional timescale, perhaps someone made this comparison just for fun. It is quite interesting though.

    How to read this table – Left column (e.g. 1 CPU Cycle) is the base time field, second column is actual time of that base time field (Human clock time 0.3 ns nano seconds) and a proportional conversion (e.g. 1 Second).

    According to this table, a physical system reboot will actually takes 5 minutes (Human clock minutes), if that is converted to the proportional timescale that would be equal to 32 millennium. Now, I can relate to the life times and blinking of Vishnu. Though I can still not comprehend God Vishnu as a God in Human form.

    I shall write on relativity as a scientific concept and applied to spirituality, may be in future blogs.

    Image source – LinkedIn updates, unknown

    This is a scheduled and thus auto published blog, author is currently having limited access to the internet.

  • Inconvenience of established practices







    One of my friends was grumbling about his office. He told me that their company is bringing a new dress-code policy. According to the policy everyone has to wear formal outfit in office at least from Monday to Thursday irrespective of the role a person is in. He told me – “I dont feel comfortable in formal pants, for past so many years I wear jeans and sports shoe. In fact, when I wear leather shoe I have trouble in walking.”

    After this conversation I started noticing, many older people – kind of retired – wear formal cloths but prefer wearing sports shoe. They dont go to offices. They general going for a walk or say in the market in formal cloths & sports shoe.

    I am from the old school, I prefer wearing sports shoe on casual wear, but if I am in formal outfit I need leather shoe. When I saw older people wear formal outfit and sports shoe, I wondered, really? Com’on! I thought my friend who was grumbling about his office’s dress-code policy is done – he is an old man now 😉 I told him so.

    I realized that sports shoe are more comfortable for walking over leather shoe. I noticed the difference when I started jogging in the morning and then going to office – of course I wear formal shoe for office. Sports shoes are better. Perhaps thats the reason these old folks wear sports shoe on their formal attire. So, I asked myself, why do I wear leather shoe when I am far comfortable in sports shoe? Reason is for more than 15 years I have been wearing typical formal attire and now if I wear formal cloths but sports shoe, I feel completely out of place and extremely uncomfortable (in my mind and not in activity of walking).

    The problem is with our established, Traditionsassumption based belief that formal cloths goes well with formal shoe (leather shoe). This is the case with many of our beliefs, social practices and rituals. We are forced to do somethings which we do not feel comfortable doing. Some beliefs or practices are considered “normal” even if people are uncomfortable doing them. If someone is not comfortable doing those things and does not follow the established practices, that person – unfortunately – is considered as “abnormal”. As is the problem with my friend in his office.

    Let us take the same example of wearing formal shoe on formal cloths, in particular the office setup. Disruptor are those who question these practices. They tend to something new. How far people should accept inconvenient established practices in the name of following the norm? This going out of established Norms is a trouble for the society. Society by and large tries to create an order. But, since the Big Bang entropy of the world is only increasing. More on entropy some time in the future.

    My friend – poor guy – getting hassled for wearing formals because that is being “normal”, better and more “office type”! Wonder if his work will count in his appraisal 😉

    Image source – http://tuanmalam.blogspot.in/2009_05_01_archive.html

    This is a scheduled and thus auto published blog, author is currently having limited access to the internet.

  • Karma







    The Endless Knot

    Associating Karma with financial success seems completely falsified way of using the doctrine of Causality.

    I was reading an article and it referred to financial success of people as the results of their Karma. Specially when we speak of “Karma” the context is effect of past life on the current one. Additionally, Karma of current life influencing the future life.

    The conceptual explanation of financial success of people to their Karma made me question the concept of Karma itself. Does Financial success mean everything and is the END in itself?

    I believe – Not necessarily.

    I have seen kids playing with mud, plastic bottles & almost without cloths very happy and kids with LEGO toys at home crying for something else. Just let the kids be little old and see adults or old aged people – they start grumbling about money! But we forget we leave empty handed. Karma in my opinion should be construed as – something that will help us progress. Progress spiritually – if finances help in spiritual progress – be it. But otherwise putting the whole concept of Karma around Financial success is not agreeable.

    Specially, when west misunderstands the concepts and tries to prove every point of their belief using concepts such as Karma – I remember Ashtavakra. I remember reading that Ashtavakara in his Geeta denied the concept of Karma.

  • Guide – Duel Between Mind & Heart







    Rarely, you get to see commercially successful yet very profound movies. ‘Guide’ is one such movie. It was a distinct movie by Dev Anand. Though he has made unique type of moives, but Guide is class apart. The end of the movie is a duel between the Bad Guy (within Dev Anand) and the Good Guy (within Dev Anand), this part discusses Bhagvat Geeta at extent and whole of Indian spirituality.

    If I write more it would be less, instead watch the video. Apologies I do not have English translation or script of the same. I will try and post that here some time.

    Watch online Guide (Movie), R K Narayan Novel – The Guide

  • Kashmiri Saint – Lalla







    I was listening to Osho’s discourse and in one discourse he was referring to a Kashmiri woman Saint – Lalleshwari. I was impressed with the first verse I read from her. Thought to share it here for many others to read –

    Whatever work I did became worship of the Lord;Lalla
    Whatever word I uttered became a prayer;
    Whatever this body of mine experienced became
    the sadhana of Saiva Tantra
    illumining my path to Parmasiva. -138

    So wonderful, profound meaningful and to the point. I plan to read more of her writings.

    Read this – The Hindu Article – Mystic insights

    Image source – Poet Seers

  • landslide







    When Alan Greenspan said in 2008 – “I really didn’t get it until very late.” It was as if someone was digging under his feet and Mr AG did not know. May be Mr AG really did not know, because he was keeping his eyes and ears closed. May be he was so inebriated in the wheel of growth that not just Mr AG but any banker was not willing to feel the “overheating economy”, hear or see that someone was digging deeper – under their feet.

    These words overheating and digging remind me of environment and when I received the above video* from someone on Whatsapp I could relate this video to one and only thing – economy.

    When I was watching this video, I was having strange feelings in my mind that the economy is going to do in down turn once again in 2015-16. “Everything just works as perfectly as it can…until it stops working!” That seems to be the case yet again for the economy.

    There are other reasons to believe that we are going to have a tough time. Though I do not want to be a doomsayer or conspiracy theorist, but here are few things – Developed world wages freeze analysis (The Economist), ISIS is likely to help economy sustain (wars have helped bring economy back on track), Upcoming elections in the USA, France unhappy and rise of EU opponent leader there. Though when it comes to EU, I wish it remains an integrated unit, that is a start for unifying the world in the lines of – interdependent co-arising.

    Watch that video once again – remember Economy goes down like this. Have we ever questioned the actual reasons for these things? Dig deeper! This digging deeper to make some extra pound creates the problem. Economy crumbles like this when we do not nurture it the way we – as a collective group – fail to maintain the hill which just crumbled in the video. As capitalists too – we are individually smart collectively dumb.

    *The origin of this video is unknown to the author – video shared by Dr Mala Kapadia.