Business to the Buddha

Tag: assumption

  • Open you mind, experience beyond your beliefs

    Alexa play “bum bum bole”. This is a Hindi film song. The song teaches opening you mind, thinking, experiencing, and dreaming specially beyond your belief or knowledge. The song made me think in different dimension, questioning few things and conclude – experience beyond your belief.

    Source Youtube, original – from Movie Taare Zameen Par

    Alexa started playing bum bum bole song, Adviti was happy. Slowly she learned the lyrics of the song, for her the lyrics are not that very meaningful, yet she learnt singing few lines. She keeps on mumbling them while listening to the song.

    She started saying “bhala machhaliya bhi kyu udati nahi? Socho, socho na.”

    The above line is in Hindi, it means “think why the fish cannot fly, just think”. Somehow it came to my mind that fish can fly if we start calling a bird a fish ?

    I asked Adviti, how about it? She didn’t understand. I reiterated Adviti let me explain

    1. a bird can fly
    2. if I start calling a bird. a fish
    3. so the fish will start flying isn’t it?

    A creative answer to a question that asks you to think.

    I’m answering your question Adviti, you are calling a fish a fish so you are asking the question why can not a fish fly? If you start calling a bird a fish it will start flying 😀

    I think she will need some time to figure out this logic.

    Well this is on a lighter side however in reality our perceptions actually create our realities and whatever we think is based on our beliefs.

    The formless

    Recently a big public, judicial and political debate started in India. The row is of a Shivling in a mosque. Before we proceed further – Shivling is a representation of formless. It is a symbol of energy.

    Gyanvapi Mosque Banaras
    Gyanvapi Mosque Banaras Source Sunday Guardian

    One group – Hindus – is saying that it is Shivling and the other group – Muslims – is saying it is a fountain. Let the competent authorities respond or prove to what exactly it is. The point I want to make is – this is how our belief systems are, we see what we want to see there may be some different reality out there.

    If you dig deeper, Muslims theology states that the God is formless. Hindu’s Worship the formless in the form of Shivling. If you try to connect these dots conceptually the idea is same – formless. Method of praying or bowing to the same concepts of “formless” are different. This underling concept is still not clear to masses. Why create a fight for one upmanship? There are many more dimensions to the debate. I do not want to digress.

    Belief system

    Our beliefs blind us. In Ashtavakra Geeta, Ashtavakra says – you are seeing the rope as the snake because your mind is saying that it is a snake. this belief is making you feel the rope as a snake. Until you open your eyes and mind, you will feel the rope is the snake.

    Our religions are also the same, some people believe in something, other people believe in something else. What is correct or what is true can only be proved when we become more objective, think, open-up and willing to experiment.

    This is the reason I like Indic religions – specially Buddhism and Hinduism to a great extent. After reading few philosophical texts of Hinduism I see Buddhism as a subset of Hinduism.

    Experience beyond your belief

    Hinduism has given philosophy of Yoga, Meditation, Bhakti (devotion), Karma, Gyan etc. There are many ways to experiment and experience. The best part is no one asks you to follow a certain path or approach. You follow or practice what you feel comfortable with. In one family you may find members of the family following different paths Bhakti (Devotion), Yoga, and Meditation in some cases questioning everything and not following any. This chaos is perfectly fine in the family.

    Prayer beads - Experience beyond your belief
    Experience beyond your belief

    Out of all these methods, the key is – “experience”. Some paths gave recipe of experiments too.

    Patanjali discusses Yoga Sutra, Shiv Sutra discusses 100+ meditation methods, Narad Bhakti Sutra discusses Bhakti (Devotion), Ashtavakra Geeta tells open your eyes see it, Krishna summarizes everything in Bhagvad Geeta. There are Upnishads, the list is very long to complete, contemplate, try everything and experience. Pick your options.

    If I were to say something, here is my approach pick one in the beginning. I will recommend read Bhagvad Geeta. It gives you a wonderful summary of different paths. Try one or the other path for experience. Whatever suits you from within, go deeper in that path with additional text!

    Interestingly, what the end results is? It is experience. All these paths proposed by the Indian theology are science. They do not want you to believe what is written. In fact, all the titles written above most have question between a speaker and listener. Do not just blindly believe what is written, ask what you have in mind.

    Open your mind

    What every human-being needs to do is – keep aside the belief system and move towards the experience system.

    The takeaway is – open you mind, put aside your battle of belief, and fasten your seatbelts for the journey of experience.

  • A leadership lesson

    It happened more than a decade back. We were at Offsite for a yearly strategy meeting. As it happens we had a team-building exercise during that offsite. In one exercise, we’re divided into three teams. I was leading one and there were two more people. Leaders were taken to one side by one organizer and explained what is expected and how to achieve it. Other team members of organizers were with the team members. Now we were brought back we were taken to our teams. We were surprised they were blindfolded. We were told that whatever we were taught get the same thing done from the team members. Conditions – they cannot open their eyes. You have to only guide them on what to do. You cannot touch any material. If we need some help, we’ve to guide and speak with the organizing team member.

    My team came second; the team that came third had our senior leadership rep in the team. Experience sharing started, this time team members were given the first opportunity to speak. The senior rep said – “Though our team came third however we were aware of what we were doing. Our leader explained what we have to do.” This comment was a bit surprising for me, I was not allowed to speak. So, one of my team members started sharing experience – “He said we were not able to understand what we were doing as we were blindfolded”. Now, this was even more surprising – every team’s team members were blindfolded, only leaders and the organizers were not. Leaders turn came – I said, I am surprised with my team member said he did not know what’s happening, everyone knew we were making a tent right? The way you explained to us, you must have taught how to make it when you were teaching us. I am thinking why you blindfolded the team members?

    So the organizers said, it is good that you came second, missed your top position only by few seconds. However, why did you think we taught you and the team members same thing? Is not it that you assumed team members were taught the same thing? I said yes I assumed they were. The organizer said – you were good at instructing your team, therefore, you were second. However, you did not win the trust of your team; see an open disagreement is there.

    Lesson

    I came to know that I was very good at instructing people. I had learnt it when I was in NCC, though I learnt only little there – I missed another learning big time. I realized in this incident that to become a good leader I needed to improve. Never assume anything; this was one of the biggest lessons for me from that offsite. Many people, as I did in the scenario, assume things such as and expect good results from others. We expect certain behavior from others that we take for granted. Every individual is different so few things must be communicated as much a good leader makes it easy to understand the vision – communication is the key to that.

    Recently it happened that when I spoke with a friend of mine, he said why do you communicate these things before making a decision? I felt a bit uncomfortable to answer the question. I realized he did not have the experience I got more than a decade back. I hope I am learning good lessons with each interaction to become a good leader.

    Related blogs –

    1. Assumptions
    2. Question your assumptions
    3. Every problem is a nail if you have the only hammer in your toolbox
    4. Teaching virtues to Adviti