Business to the Buddha

Tag: Art of Living

  • Coronavirus and questions on wealth

    On the wake Coronavirus and market bloodshed, I leave you with some question this week. These questions are directly related to Coronavirus and on wealth. Our sense of defining wealth – and at times success – need a contemplation. To begin with let me share a story with you:

    Church

    Once a man won a lottery worth ten lakhs (1 million) rupees. When his wife heard this news, she was worried, how should she break this news to her husband. The man had a weak heart and a sudden such news might give him a shock or he might even suffer a heart attack due to sheer excitement. So, the wife went to a priest requesting for help. The priest said “Don’t worry, I will come with you, and together we’ll give him the news”. Next Sunday, priest went to the lottery winner’s home and asked him “My child, suppose by the grace of God you won a lottery of ten lakh, what would you do with it?”

    The man answered, “I will give half of it to the church Father.” No sooner the priest heard this, he had a heart attack.

    Wealth should bring peace. Being wealthy should not bring arrogance, hostility, jealousy, disgust or boredom.

    Coronavirus and questions on wealth

    Wealth should not be something that becomes a reason for happiness or sorrow or a cause of shock. We live in such an artificial world that a virtual belief in wealth governs so many things. Recently I read worldwide markets are down and names of people who lost millions because of outbreak of Coronavirus. The shares are down and thus many people are losing their unrealized profits; some have lost the previous day’s profits and squared off at lesser margin. What to do with riches that are dependent on outside influences. A virus hits the world and (for no faults if yours, you become poorer) the wealth is wiped out.

    I leave you with some question this week – what is wealth? How money / wealth should keep you? How should it affect you? Why do we define wealth the way we define it? Should we’ve a different way of measuring wealth? Should we revisit our definition of money / wealth?

    Relevant other blog

    http://business2buddha.com/2012/10/14/currency-for-the-future/
    http://business2buddha.com/2016/03/13/kanhaiya-to-mallya-why-lessons-from-buddha-prevail/

    Story source – Commentaries on Shiv Sutra by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, The Art of living foundation.

  • How to transform society?

    We’ve seen a lot of ups and downs in last few years across the world – be it social unrest, terrorist attacks, individual gun attacks or rapes. There are good things also happening, however as an evolved and superior generation, are we really up to our own marks? The answer to this question for me was “no, we can do better”. Naturally the answer followed with another question how can we improve ourselves and transform society? This question needed a bit more understanding of the so many unpleasant issues.

    Starting 2010 we have been social uprising in Middle east to terrorist attacks in Europe or teenager attacking in school or a recent rape and killing of a girl in Hyderabad India. We can divide these incidents as individual and group incidents. Incident where a single person is involved, we can call it Individual and group where a group was involved. Society is made up of collection of individuals. In society we have groups of people who are insane and they are more active, thus we end up have bitter incidents more in our society. I believe for improving the society we must work at individual and group level both. The Buddha also said – there is cause of suffering and a way out.

    Why are social problems there?

    As a whole we as a society have become identified with race, religion, region, social status etc. This at a subconscious level makes us identify ourselves with a limited identity. We are human being and just by chance we are Indian or European or Christian – we need to understand this. Further, if we believe or feel deprived that would be manifested and would come out.

    As an individual and as a society we can give what we have. If I ask you for 100 dollars, you can give it to me only if you have 100 dollars or more. How can an individual or society be peaceful when individuals and groups are stressed? The stress manifests itself in different forms – be it gun attack, terrorist attacks or rapes. A society that feels it is unfairly treated – whether it is right or no – will created unrest, possibly terrorists. This needs a solution.

    Art-of-living-logo
    The Art of Living

    I do social service under Art of living foundation. I have conducted meditation sessions for people. My personal experience seeing the participants pre and post meditation and the participant’s experience itself makes me feel that everyone must meditate. Since, I have personal experience of Art of living courses, I can vouch for the difference it makes to people, in fact the prison program has transformed prisoners too. Have you heard of a Bandit Angulimala? He was a dreaded terrorist, The Buddha transformed him too? Many people are far better than him. Meditation has immense power to transform.

    How to improve society?

    • First thing we must do it, good people must be more activity and get more attention / coverage by media too – This is what Guruji (Sri Sri Ravishankar) says.
    • We humans must go beyond our limited identity – be it the ego or social identity (race, religion or region)
      • Stop comparing yourself with others
      • Get out of your superiority / inferiority complex
    • Know your freedom is till your nose not beyond that. This can help you understand that you do not have right to kill, steal or rape.
    • Accept diversity, anything written / spoken which signify hatred must be discarded; even if that comes from any authority book. Guruji said something similar recently.
    • The easiest is – attend an Art of living Happiness program.
    • Meditate, I have decided to make a difference by helping people meditate.

    Ethics cannot be taught in class to be followed in life. Ethics need to be imbibed, my personal experience is that teaching of ethics and being happy with oneself can be imbibed by a meditative mind only. If you need help in learning meditation reach out to me. If you want to attend Art of living course – go here.

  • Knowledge and spontaneity

    The ability to remember and to think a lot about our previous impressions, limits us. Is it a possibility that our intelligence is our stupidity? Our ability to remember a lot of things is probably something that hampers us to explore the unexplored? Or this knowledge hampers our ability to look at possibilities beyond the past experiences that we have. Some times some things happen around us that is beyond our ability to comprehend and beyond justification of our past experience / learnings.

    Is it possible that these abilities are making us limited or in some cases mad? Can we be more enlightened more aware, having attention in now? If we have an ease of forgetting things and probably a very limited attention span, is it likely that we will be more aware and be an observant. Higher the attention span it may make us intelligent compared to other animals. Is it a possibility that this boon of attention, remembering things is driving us away from the consciousness?

    You may also like

    Anand Utsave with sri sri brief experience of a course that I attended under sri sri.
    Buddha Purnima A guided meditation that you can try on full moon, guided by sri sri himself
    Why-Analysis – Karma A part of knowledge session on karma
    Adviti and genes of generations Another guided meditation by Guru ji

    How our mind thinks – we analyze, we compare, we try to create analogies and thus we tend to lose spontaneity. Our education system makes us remember things instead of being creative and spontaneous. I was thinking about all this a couple of weeks back and came across this wonderful knowledge sheet by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (Guru ji).

    alogies and thus we tend to lose spontaneity. Our education system makes us remember things instead of being creative and spontaneous. I was thinking about all this a couple of weeks back and came across this wonderful knowledge sheet by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (Guru ji).

    Weekly Knowledge #217 Bangalore Ashram 19 Aug 1999 India
    KNOWLEDGE AS A BURDEN – Knowledge is a burden if it robs you of innocence.
    Knowledge is a burden if it is not integrated into life.
    Knowledge is a burden if it doesn’t bring joy.
    Knowledge is a burden if it gives you an idea that you are wise.
    Knowledge is a burden if it doesn’t set you free.
    Knowledge is a burden if it makes you feel you are special.
    Knowledge session Kanakdhara Mumbai
    Sri Sri Ravishankar, Art of living, Guruji
    Guruji

    The best thing about Guru ji is – he makes complex things simple and easy to understand. At times, this simplicity makes one wonder – why a spiritual master is not that esoteric in his teachings? The beauty of the best teacher is making the most complex subject easy to understand, Guru ji does that with perfection.

    Guru ji is visiting Mumbai on 28th and 29th Oct 2019. Do attend the sessions – and experience – music, meditation, knowledge and spontaneity.

  • Anand Utsav

    Anand Utsav

    Bangalore-Ashram

    I recently attended a course of the Art of living foundation – Anand Utsav. Anand Utsav is a Hindi word (rough translation “festival of bliss”). Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (Guru ji) himself guided the course via webcast. This has been happening for last couple of years in the month of August. I could not attend Anand Utsav earlier. This time, the moment I got message, I was determined to attend it.

    Sri Sri Ravishankar, Art of living, Guruji
    Guruji

    I am associated with AoL for a long time now, whenever someone asks me about the happiness course (basic course or part I course as it is known), I say only one thing – “Before you die, do Sudarshan Kriya at least once.” There are two reasons for this statement. Firstly everyone has a unique experience because everyone’s life circumstances and situations are / have been different. Further, something inside changes profoundly. Something that is not easy to define. With both these points, I can only say – do it before you die.

    So, when I attended the course, thankfully, I had plans of vacation in subsequent week. The course finished on Sunday, I attended office on Monday (a typical chore day) and came the much awaited vacation. It was interesting because during our routine we may not be able to identify or sit back and reflect. During the vacation I could reflect. In my case typical Monday was same, the usual chasing the clock and running to office without contemplation. Tuesday morning we had to travel out. My daughter, Adviti, is an infant. When you’ve infant at home, everything moves as per the infant’s schedule.

    We had a plan to start at 7 AM but we started at 7:40 or so. We were late, however it was different from being late on any other weekdays. I knew when we’re late there will be lot of traffic on roads, the Mumbai traffic which irritates me almost daily (can make any sane person insane), was not a problem for me that day. There was no rush to reach somewhere, almost daily it is a race to reaching office. We are running an endless race daily as professionals. This race is in many shapes and forms, right from boarding our regular train, acquiring a seat in bus, owning the dream job / car / home / kid scoring certain score or getting the deal signed by prospective client.

    This day there was a difference in my approach to things and situations around me. Few things that made me get frustrated soon, were not making me like that. I looked at the sights on / around highway after a long time with such ease, amusement and astonishment as I did this time around. I was centered / focused from within.

    When we reached Mumbai again, I lost wallet, all my credit and debit cards. I had given it to my wife, she forgot it on a counter. She panicked, I did not. With full composure, I handled Adviti, consoled Simple (my wife) and walked where she felt she misplaced the wallet. I inquired and got the cards back full 15 minutes later. Any other day, I might have got more restless than Simple but this day I was not. Even Simple was surprised.. This time when I attended Anand Utsav this something changed in me. I was like this a couple of years back (I remember my MBA days), centered, peaceful and in control. Things changed a lot for me, I needed to attend Anand Utsav long back – Better late than never.

    Honestly, you must attend the Art of living Happiness Program once. Just go with the flow, sit in the course, follow instructions until the last day, ask every question that you have on the last day. Do not interrupt yourself from any instruction. Just do as directed without bothering for anything – not even the results. If still you are not sure to attend the Happiness Program – read the blog again – do Sudarshan Krita before you die.

    My Anand Utsav (festival of bliss) is continuing will you join me? I am sure you would thank me for this blog post later :).

  • What will people remember you for?

    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.

  • 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.

    Bal Chetna Shivir Art of living

    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.

  • Buddha Purnima

    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.

    Do read a brief about Full Moon Meditation here.

  • The observer







    After my regular spiritual practice of Art of living’s Yoga, Pranayam and short sudarshan Kriya, I opened my eyes. The birds were chirping, Adviti – my daughter – was playing with my mother. Our drawing room was shining with the morning Sun light.

    I was sitting on my yoga mat with my eyes open. The light was falling on my eyes. Objects – the dining table and chairs – were making reflections. It was a fraction of a second that these objects were there visible to my eyes yet there was something within me that was an observer – no more than that. This observer was witnessing everything as it was. There was no filter of naming the objects, sounds were falling on the ears – sweet and pleasant – yet there was no division or interpretation of the sound. Sound was just experienced, no label on sound such as “my dauther’s voice”, kuku or pigeon or sparrow. Most intriguing of this label is the experiencer was just there, I dont remember if the word “My” was there in the dictionary at that moment.

    The intelligence that defines all the objects of senses was there, yet there was only observer. There was no definition. I thought to write about it for a couple of weeks. However, it was difficult to explain and felt very small incident to write as a blog pos.

    Today, suddenly this picture popped up in a Mumbai Police tweet. This made me think about the previous Sadhna incident and a possible experiment.

    What if someone is sleeping and we somehow slowly – without waking that person up – open his eyes. Assume the person is still asleep, would this person – be able to see, discern and still remain asleep? What gives us power to interpret what our eyes see, ears to hear and define these?

    When do we become more aware? Is it a time when the intelligence that interprets is still there inside yet someone within only observes without contaminating the observed with the biased interpretation? Is it true?

    The intelligence gives us only as much possibility to interpret, as much it can fathom. A very cliché example of this in Indian spirituality is – seeing a piece of rope as a snake. Intelligence in that way seems limited in its abilities, yet the observer does not.

    Disclaimer – I am a practitioner of spirituali practices, the thoughts were complicated to explain. Therefore possibly confusing.

    Image source – Twitter handle of Mumbai traffic police.

  • Adviti and genes of generations







    As I shared last week, we are blessed with a baby girl – Adviti. Our daughter has just turned 6 months. With her coming in, and our near and dear visiting us, comparison of “who does she look like?” started. Some say she looks like me others say she looks like my wife. Yet others say, her face will change for first couple of years and we cannot make a final judgement until then.

    Besides her looks, we have observed a peculiar behavior of Adviti. She has a sideways smile. This smile resembles bit of my smile. It surprised us in the beginning. Initially we brushed it aside as a random observation. However, when we saw Adviti smile often sideways, plus stretching herself after waking up, we realized that she probably has got some behavioral traits resembling mine. We started asking ourselves, besides the physical appearance does baby have behavioral similarity too with parents? It is not some behavioral trait at a later stage of (learnt by) the baby but an infant as young as 3 months.

    When my wife and I had this question, we realized the value of building ourselves into a better person. We are not only building ourselves but also our coming generations. This brings me back to spirituality and meditation. You can read an interesting article on advantages of meditation at this link. Have you ever questioned how does your present life impact your offspring (born or unborn)? Perhaps meditation has some keys of evolved future generations.

    Now, I am firm believer that we must teach meditation and spiritual practices to our kids, these are more likely to impact our coming generations positively. At times, when I see kids playing violence based games or watch gory movies I feel that we need to put some discretion somewhere.

    I believe Sri Sir Ravi Shankar (or some other spiritual master), said somewhere once – “…meditation done by a person impacts his ancestors as well as coming generation…” When I see Adviti’s some behavioral traits I have no doubts about the impact now.

    Instead of writing / reading about meditation try one (and many others), here

     

  • Why-Analysis – Karma







    In operations consulting we used to do why-why analysis. It is a method to identify cause of an occurrence. There are other methods also available for doing such analysis. The objective of such different methods is be to find the root cause of some occurrence.

    Why this happened? Because of that. Why that happened? because of something else.This why question is asked on the answer of previous question until an actionable cause is identified. Mostly a root cause is reached in maximum of 5 why’s. It is a very commonly used cause and effect analysis tool in operations management.

    I watched this video and could relate to karma, our entanglement to karma (Maya) and that root cause analysis technique mentioned above. The lesson here is, one must try to find “The cause of cause”.

    Guruji (Sri Sri Ravi Shankar) is saying in this video that when you stick at one or lower levels of the cause attribution you do not get to the real cause. On the contrary that entangles you, in Karma, even more.

    If we do not perform Why-Why analysis correctly, we get frustrated and the operations do not get improved. Thus, properly performing this analysis will get to the root cause – mostly management. How and why a decision was made which resulted in the issue say for example high inventory or poor quality output. Thus that can help improve operations of the organization.

    Similarly when we analyze karma we would reach to the ultimate – the cause of all the causes. Guruji calls it – Shiv tatva in this video.

    Karma plays a role everywhere, be it spiritual life or professional. However, doing a why-why analysis on operations is easy on the contrary doing a why-analysis on “the cause of all the causes” is easier said than done.