Almost every Sunday, I go for Art of living follow up. Here we do some yoga, pranayams and Sudarshan Kriya. Whenever someone asks me about Art of living and eventually Sudarshan Kriya, I say – “one must do Sudarshan Kriya at least once before dying”. It changes you from within. After the session, not just me but many people feel tranquility and peace of mind. Personally, I don’t even want to speak (even think) for some time at least. The experience is wonderful, being with one’s Self – with a capital S.
So today too after the session I was in the same state. Our follow up teacher asked – “what would you want people to remember you for?” It was an interesting question. I had never given it a thought. Why would I want people to remember me? I gave an honest response – I never thought about it. Some responses were ‘I made people happy’, ‘for a peaceful life’ and ‘I did not bother people.’
All these answers were good, but were not my answer. I thought a bit – should I be remembered for my thoughts, blog articles, being a successful professional / entrepreneur, a wonderful father etc. What would I want people to remember me for? No single option was resonating with me. At the same time, my mind was wandering in another direction too. Why would I want people to remember me? Does not it sound like having a bit of ego, if not very overt and prominent one?
My answer was confusing; “I never gave it a thought”. As if I won’t die and people won’t get chance to remember me! But even if I die one day, why should anyone remember me?
The teacher then said a wonderful line of the movie Kung Fu Panda – “Your story may not have such a happy beginning but that does not make you who you are, it is the rest of it- who you choose to be” The teacher concluded find purpose in your life.
When the word purpose came on the fore, the only answer that resonated with me was – I want to be enlightened. The dilemma is – “I”, “want” and “remember” these things are kind of craving. Is not craving the thing that one has to drop? Even for that matter craving to be enlightened!
At times such question seems futile. Though it doesn’t mean one has given up or there is no purpose in life. If life-journey of a-person’s life inspires / makes some other person remember that a-person, the inspiration and remembrance is choice of other person not necessarily goal of a-person.
A couple of weeks back I wrote about problems with Socialism and probably how it can be improved with lesser gaming of the system. It is not that capitalism does not allow gaming the system, in fact there is immense lobbying that happens which is no less than corrupting the system. A few examples are – unsubstantiated loans to corporate houses (ICICI bank gave to Videocon group), Kingfisher Airlines and Jet Airways playing their own lobbying tactics to either get better slots / airports or getting competition out of the system.
The point is, in capitalism too many wrongful act are done at higher level too besides on personal level. Which is basically a case in Socialism too. The advantage in capitalism is everyone is trying to be rich whereas in socialism mostly the government control most of it. In many of these high level and individual level we tend to look at our own’s benefit over the collective good of the society. Effectively, we are individually smart and collectively dumb.
The technology enhancements are helping people game system can be done at various levels. A couple of days back I came across this small video on Twitter. In China, insurance companies offer discounts in the premiums of health insurance if a person is physically active. So, people have devised “a solution” to look fit. The point here is not to stay fit, but to let the insurance company believe you are fit. This step counter does the trick.
The above system is not only for fooling insurance companies but also to fool oneself. It defeats the purpose of having step counter, healthy life style and own’s health at large. Besides loss to the companies it is a bigger loss to individual – you only get on life to live.
Net net I would emphasis – you only get on life to live – live truthfully, why game the system? If you look at recent Indian businessmen’s examples be it Naresh Goyal of Jet airways, Vijay Mallya of Kingfisher airlines or Mehul Chowksi and Nirav Modi of Gitanjali group; by the way there are many more in the list; what is the result? Whole banking system and many consumers are at the receiving end. Why game the system – live life truthfully, isn’t it?
Over time, I have been analyzing socialism and capitalism from the lense of spiritual professional. Mostly, people think combination of words “spiritual” and “professional” sound as an oxymoron. No it is not. A spiritual person can be more thoughtful, it is not necessary that a spiritual approach only suits in Himalayas. On a lighter note – I do not intend to state that I am thoughtful. My looking at socialism and capitalism has also come from practically looking at people be it Aarti Amma or Shaku bai.
Well, slowly I have made a centrist approach, though leaning right. At least capitalism gives everyone an opportunity to become rich, understand the futility of being ultra rich and become a philanthropist. We can argue till cows come home about the eyewash of this philanthropy in many cases. There are many of these new gen millionaires in India, they are doing their bit of philanthropy in a different manner. They are helping other startups with funding or advice.
In last more than a decade, India probably has seen many young, competitive, hungry for more and problem solver millionaire. The list is long from Bansals of Flipkart, Ritesh Agarwal of Oyo, Vijay Sharma of PayTm, Byju Raveendran of Byju’s to others. The best part is, the list is very long. This kind of opportunity was less likely in India before 1990’s. This new entrepreneurial energy and problem solving for Indian and global context lets me lean to the right.
If we take examples of Sarla or Kishore, there is surely a better way of making everyone work towards becoming self dependent. This opportunity is better offered by capitalism – as much good as you can make good for yourself and society you can be better off and in return you are helping the society too. In a way capitalism gives you an opportunity to be more practical in implementing interdependent co-arising. If you are solving a pressing problem you will get buyers, you make buyers life easy, they will pay you.
Now, I see entrepreneurship also from an spiritual perspective. I believe that there will be someway and someone who will help Aarti Amma and Shaku Bai to grow beyond their limited means. Though when I look at socialism and capitalism I still emphasis, socialistic approach is needed in some cases such as healthcare, education and food safety. Here too a Public Private Partnership is fine. At one time or the other interdependent co-arising will work for Aarti Amma and Shaku Bai too with some entrepreneur helping them and make a financially viable business solution.
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.
This Buddha Purnima, I thought that I should share a full moon meditation that you can practice instead of reading any content on my blog. Please do spare 20 odd minutes to experience a meditation. The Buddha Purnima day is very special, it is said that Buddha was born, enlightened and passed-away on this very day.
Wish you a very Happy Buddha Purnima day.
“Full moon meditation is very well known. The moon is also very connected to spiritual practices. You can say that these meditations are more compelling.” – Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
This buddha Purnima, I wish everyone grows the qualities of compassion, peace, kindness and love.
At times after office, I take my daughter – Adviti – for a walk. It was such usual day when after office I took her to the nearby market area where there were seats to sit and gaze the moving vehicles leisurely. She enjoys watching buses, whenever I see her look at bus or point at moving buses I start singing a nursery rhyme – “Wheels on the bus go round and round…”. Recently, this outing taught me – once again – how can one unify heart, mind, and action together.
She is generally very observant – as with any infant – she also gets completely engrossed in the observation. This one day, I rediscovered and realized a very cliché known fact. She was sitting on a bench, watching the buses and enjoying the sight. After a while, an old man came and sat. A decent looking, in his mid-60s or early 70s, an old man who was new to both of us was sitting next to us. Adviti started feeling uncomfortable and started crying. I told her, see Advi he is like Aba (dadaji). She is too young to understand it. She kept feeling uncomfortable for some time. I tried diverting her attention and again showing her moving buses and singing the rhyme. The old gentleman too tried talking to her and pacifying her but to no avail.
After a while when it was a bit irritating to the nearby people, I took Adviti to another bench. When we sat at new nearby she repeatedly looked at the gentleman intermittently. However, this time around I could divert her attention to the original purpose of our visit – leisure visit to the market, looking around vehicles and causal amusement.
When she was happily looking at vehicles and had forgotten the incident, I revisited the event in my mind. Until she was focused she was completely engrossed in the activity. The moment she got a distraction she lost all her fun and joying. This happens with us also a lot of times. We get distracted with some or the other thing. It impacts our productivity in the office our personal life when we start looking at others rather than concentrating on what we do and enjoy doing. Small incidents teach us a lot.
Earlier I had written on focus. I had put a point in that blog – “Distractions are felt if you are not centered”. The corollary is equally correct – If one is distracted it is difficult to be centered. I always feel that the solution for this is meditation and spirituality. Meditation helps improve awareness which eventually makes it easy to bring together the heart, mind and action together.
Recently I wrote on why socialism fails? The article may sound a complete no-no to socialism. I believe any concept is inherently not flawed. The flaw is mostly in the execution – be it capitalism, socialism or any other “-ism. So, what can possibly be socialism the right way? I am sure many would know Venezuela going through hyperinflation and complete chaos – that is one gift that socialism may give you.
In economics many of the rules are written in some assumption or concept like – “everything else being constant…” the concept will work like this or like that. For an example – demand curve or supply curve. These curves are belied by the prices in some cases such as – price of oil or price of diamond.
Similar is the case of assumption in the underlying concept of socialism. The assumption is – no one will try to game the system. If I take the same example of Sarla or Kishore of the previous blog any Sarla or Kishore with average intelligence will stop working or will try to get a certificate that proves (s)he is the bottom 20% of Indian population to get the benefits of NYAY scheme announced by the Congress Party in its election manifesto.
In India, Amitabh Bachchan got a certificate of being a farmer long back. So, it is not difficult for people to get a certificate to the race to the bottom. Though, off late Mr Bachchan has paid off loans of many farmers in UP. The way a farmer’s certificate was easy to obtain for Mr Bachchan it is easy to get a BPL certificate too. What the scheme Nyay is most likely trying to do is – make youth and many Indians lazy or to game the system. This is how Socialism fails.
There is another example of similar scheme running in India – MGNREGA. I have heard of cases where there is immense corruption in this scheme. People are getting part of the allocated fund per person just for signing a document (rest goes to the chain of officials). Thus, the unskilled people for whom it was an employment guarantee, get money for free. If one wants to get the same work done by someone, the wages asked are higher. It results in increase in inflation.
With schemes like MGNREGA or Nyay, does not the leaders of the political parties implying that they do not have any idea for – 1. how to create more jobs (run the economy) and 2. how to increase skill level of the citizens so that citizen can do something for themselves rather than depending on others. It looks like these politicians have not heard the idiom – “Teach a man to fish and you feed him for life”. By the way, MGNREGA was started by one of the most renowned economists of the world!
If I recall 2009 farm loan waiver of Manmohan Government – again a Congress government – more socialistic in its letter and spirit that did not augur well to our economy. The impact of that according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch the farm loan waiver will cost 2% to the GDP of India by 2019. At times educated economists try to fix a problem at the wrong place. Possibly the Modi Government GDP numbers could have been 2% higher!
No doubt the basic principles of the right to food, shelter, water, education, and healthcare is considered given in today’s capitalistic economies and countries – example Obama care in the USA or Ayushman Bharat Health Scheme in India. There is a universal education program running in India Education for all (Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan). When I started looking at quick implementations of government’s schemes such as Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana I feel current Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is more socialistic than the Socialists / Marxists in India. In fact, recently I went to a village (about 500 KM from Mumbai), and I first hand saw – took some photos too shown here – the scheme being used by the villagers effectively.
However, good the intentions to keep everyone at an equal level, humans do not seem to have found a way for equality. Possibly in the ant world, socialism is practically depicted to a better extent. Why USSR failed and communism of China is not worth appreciating, why Venezuela failed? Because there is no incentive to work or there is no ownership (common ownership) involved. Further, the move from capitalism to socialism follows communism as a midway stop. Communism gives power to the few, who – like any other human being – would not want to relinquish their power? The result – communism does not seem to end ever.
Socialism (to some extent any -ism) can only work if we create a different scale for all of us – human beings. A different scale for success, survival, and growth. Many times greed and wish to control – people, things and systems – makes way and thus the Marx intermediary (read communism) from capitalism to socialism remains never-ending. Why can not we have a good execution, social good, and profit together? We can have it, provided we look at some new scale to measure ourselves.
If any form of socialism needs to survive it has to be a middle path – a mix of different approach to economics, policy making and system. A system where we reward work, we provide essentials at appropriate cost or subsidy or for free and let people benefit from their work. At the same time, all the world political, social, economic and cultural systems must include teaching spiritual practices, trust and fairness – example is concepts of Jainism – Ahinsa (non-violence), Asteya (non stealing), Aparigraha (non-attachment) and concepts of Buddhism – meditation, interdependent co-arising. These concepts are essentially from different philosophy of Hinduism.
Our maid – Sarala – works at about 4 homes. She works close to 6 hours a day. With this hard work she earns more than INR 15,000 per month. There are laborers who work at construction sites and as daily wage electrician or carpenter – Kishore – in our area. Assume laborer earns INR 250 per day that comes out to be more than INR 6,000 per month. I am giving these numbers for Mumbai’s unskilled workers. So, I did some back of the envelop calculations. Here are some questions that make us believe Why socialism fails?
Now let’s review
a probable scheme NYAY announced few days back. NYAY is promised by Congress
party (erstwhile Congress (Indira)). In this scheme they intend to offer 6,000
per month to the bottom 20% poorest people of India.
Many of the people identified in the beginning, will fall in that category. Why? Because there is no way you can define bottom 20% poorest people. The reason is none of the above are in tax bracket. There is no way you can define their being “poor”. You may argue that there is a Below Poverty Line (BPL) cards. Many of the Indians know that our systems are such that this card – like a Bangladeshi illegal immigrant can get an Aadhar – is easy to get. If you do not remember any such card being made, read here. At the same time, if without such verification a scheme is run – you would get to see a misuse like this. Both the points are seemingly contradictory, however this is how manipulation happens with Government schemes. Most of the money allocated goes to the corrupt party’s politician’s pockets.
This corruption is just one part of the story. Let’s dig a bit on how it can impact country’s economy. Now, since Sarala and Kishore are immigrants from different parts of India either they can get the benefits in their respective villages or the worst migrate back to the village – because they can get 6,000 for free per month. A village may not be as expensive so survival can be easy there. If they get the benefits staying here the NYAY scheme becomes UNNYAY (injustice) in itself. If they migration and so possibly many others. The shortages of unskilled labor in cities certainly will result in expensive labor. This expensive labor will translate in expensive stuff – be it real estate (the industry is in a tight spot anyway) or a house maids.
Assuming some numbers and bringing others numbers, I did some back of the envelop calculations, references are attached herewith. Click on the images to enlarge.
The worst is yet to come – one of the Congress’s think tanks Sam Pitroda says we will have to increase tax on income to manage in this expensive scheme. The outlay of NYAY can be as much as 22% of GDP. The numbers are calculated based on population estimates of 2017 and GDP estimates of 2017. Please check screenshots. This scheme would most likely cross defense budget of India. Effectively, it will reduce savings of middle class due to tax burden and higher inflation.
I will leave you with few questions on this scheme – why would Sarala or Kishore want to up skill him/herself and ADD to the economy if such free money is available to him/her? Would not there be a competition to show oneself poorer than the poorest to get this free money? Should not job creation and up skilling be the priority of government rather than splurging tax money? Just imagine if up skilling program gets such fund (3.8 trillion or 3.8 lakh crores INR) how much skilled labor we can create? How successful is MGNREGA? If it really was, we must have had pukka roads across country by now. If a report writes positively about the scheme – can it possibly be PAID for?
And the last question to you – if you were Sarala or Kishore what would you prefer – free money or a dignified earning, up skilling and job opportunity? If your answer is former – read individually smart collectively dumb.
Note: numbers of 2017 are taken as those were readily available on Google Search
Adviti – my daughter – is still learning to walk. She keeps on playing on the floor. What surprises every one of us is her finding smallest speck of dust or any material on floor. Otherwise, she does not eat much, but these specks are not visible to us and by the time we look at her she has already put it in her mouth. We always think where does she get such a keen eye to the detail? How can we keep our home mopped and swapped such that we can avoid such particles? In whatever capacity the floor is cleaned she always finds something, to show us our failure to clean the floor.
I started reading a management book for middle management and change management. This book is very interesting. When we grow in career, we have to let go of some details and start managing on slightly bigger scale. When one moves to this slightly higher level of execution, one tends to delegate work. The big picture, view is required some time. Additionally, when one moves to bit higher level one has to manage not do everything.
While reading this book, I was
wondering about the movement to middle or higher management. When we grow up,
we thinking about these movement and execution thus we – at times – miss the
finer details of execution. This is exactly what happens with us at home – when
we grow old, we start walking and the ground is too low for us to keep an eye
on it. More precisely, the difference is 15 cm to ground vs 165 cm to ground.
Adviti sees things from 11 times nearer than what we see. In management we too
have a gap, if not 11 times, it is 2-5 times. We miss seeing the minor things sometimes
we just overlook these.
It is said that the devil is in detail. Be it Adviti seeing small speck at floor or a senior manager missing out on the possible execution challenge. The devil is in detail, Adviti’s small actions helped me put an emphasis on this for my career and professional live.
Couple of weeks back, I was reading a psychology based assessment and relevant review of the same. In the review, I found one particular pointer – “I want to be the winner”. I read it, then re-read it. This stuck me and I paused.
Winning in corporate battle or academics
I have always been a very competitive person. However, this time when I was reading this statement it looked too complicated to define a person. So I re-read the statement – “I want to be THE WINNER”. Yes it is always a wish to be a winner, but THE WINNER! This drifted me from the overall review and psychology stuff to a general social issue.
Are we really making youngsters competitive or we are pushing them to be a “CUTTHROAT”. Just read the word again – cut throat. In another words it means kill!
So, the psychology questionnaire and its review had my attention even more. What defines a person as most likely or least likely for “I want to be the winner”. If someone is reading it in a passing reference, it will be just a statement, however if you look that statement in a social, personal, academic or professional context this statement may be very fatal.
This can be fatal when we think everyone wants to be the winner. Our education system makes us compete at times when it is not required! I have written on this reference earlier – the problem of top 5%. Why top 5%? Because I was never in top position in academics :). When I look back at myself 20 years when I was in 12th, I realize that what kind of damage I might have done to the class in which I studied. Now, when I look back I feel most of the times, it is about collective growth rather than me over you. After reading about interdependent co-arising I have always believed in collective growth. Even the economy cannot survive if only some people grow – bad precedent is trickling down economy, that is a mirage.
I believe, life is like a team sport, take an example Football. When you play, you play with a team on your side, you are competing to score a goal, it is not likely that a football team goalkeeper will score, but if the team wins, the goalkeeper naturally is one of the winners.
There is no problem in being a winner, wanting to be a winner, however “THE WINNER”?
