Business to the Buddha

Tag: Entanglement

  • Remember! We’ve to leave the elevator

    Sigmund Freud is one of the authorities on the interpretations of dreams. He wrote a very famous book “The Interpretation of Dreams”. One of his quotes is “Dreams are never concerned with trivia.” I rarely dream or perhaps I dream but forget them before I wake up. If we give some serious thoughts to our dreams, few can teach a lesson or two. The lesson that I learned from a recent dream was – “remember we’ve to leave the elevator”.

    My dream

    Remember! We've to leave the elevator

    Two weeks back I had a dream. This dream was a bit unusual. I was coming out of an elevator. I came out and saw a family – Husband, wife, and two of their children – one infant and one toddler waiting for the elevator. In this building, we had the provision of a room and kitchen for domestic help. This was a family of one such domestic help. I asked him – what happened Ram where are you going with so much luggage? He responded – we are going to our village. Due to Covid we are exhausted with our limited resources and have better chances in the village.

    I held the door of the elevator so that the family can get in. Ram kept luggage and his wife took the kids in. Before I could leave the door for them to proceed, I noticed, Ram was arranging his stuff in the small place as if he has to put his kids to sleep here.

    Before closing the door, out of curiosity, I asked him what are you doing? You will reach ground within a min or so, why are you arranging your stuff here as if you have to live here forever? Before Ram could answer this question, my sleep was interrupted; I woke up.

    Food for thought

    It was good food for thought. We keep on “arranging” things in life, parents ask children to “settle down”. Settling down is a euphemism in India for getting married and having a family. American research suggested that 1 in 8 Americans die in their sleep. We are unsure of waking up the next morning but we prepare life long to arrange things and settling. On a lighter note, “we are very optimistic, to be in the other 7”.

    My point is, instead of being satisfied, which is here and now, and worth earning we become feverish and keep on running endlessly. In some cases, rather than being feverish, some activities become necessary because of other entanglements. It is complex to understand my previous sentence, so to understand the point I am making read this story of the entanglement of a Langot (undergarment).

    Remember! We’ve to leave the elevator

    We must pause and introspect some time. I had written about introspection about a decade back with this question – Why are you doing what are you doing? We must strive for goals and ambitions. At the same time, we must be mindful too. The point is, we must live life to the fullest, enjoy it, and make it comfortable for ourselves and those around us. After all this, we must remember – we are not going to stay here forever – we have to leave the elevator some time – however beautiful it is. The Ram within woke up to say – Ram, you have to leave the elevator sooner or later so watch your actions.

    Image source – https://charterelevator.com/modernization/modernize-you-cab-image/

  • Solutions…







    The security guard welcomed with this question साहब, आज रविवार है! आज दफ्तर मैं? (Sir, its Sunday today! You came to office?)

    With a sigh I looked at the guard, asked him if someone is around ask him to give me a cup of coffee and some water. I’d not tell him – my wife and I fought, nothing new happens in almost all families. We were struggling with our personal relationship and there came another dispute of her relatives and my relatives. I could not stand that problem, came to office thought it would be a change and I can catch up with some of my deliverables.

    Neither coffee came nor water, it made me little annoyed adding fuel to fire. Well, I understand office boy was not in office on weekend. A couple of days went by, same thing happened next weekend. Again no water or coffee came in. Now I was very furious. No solace here too. I decided to join our office’s team which has organized a recreation trekking event the next weekend. My wife wanted a change she had already gone to her parents home.

    For a first timer like me the trek was tough. An accident happened and I sustained fracture and few bruises. I had to spend some days in hospital. My wife rushed to the hospital however there were same issues at the back of the mind. Those few days at hospital gave me time to think.

    I was running away from problems. I avoided one problem, just to meet with another. Running from this other problem, ended up in being hospitalized.

    How often this happens that we run away from one problem instead of solving that problem, just to bump into other. Solutions require patience and a serious thought. Why the problem occurred? What are the possible reasons, can we fix the reasons? In Operations Management these fixes are called – preventive actions and corrective action. According to ASQ corrective action deals with a nonconformity that has occurred. A preventive action addresses the potential for a nonconformity to occur.

    I observe short term quick fixes – patchwork (in Hindi – थूक पट्टी) everywhere. Look at the reaction to 2008 financial crisis. We should have strictly handled the responsible however some of the culprits made millions and left the world tattered. No action taken against them. We’re fixing the economies by pumping money, those who could not game the system earlier, came and made their millions. Now once things seem hunky dory, QE may going to put us back in trouble.

    The solutions we device in our desire for quick fixes are – avoid the problem. The same happened in above example at micro level, same is happening at macro level in national and international levels.

    Post Script – Author is unmarried. Story narrated is a work of fiction, any resemblance to living/dead is merely a coincidence.

  • Entanglement of a langot (undergarment)







    I heard/read a story when I was a kid, I think in some Osho discourse or book. Well, I have been thinking about writing this for a long time, but I didn’t remember the whole story so I called my gateway of last resort (Ramana Rajgopaul uncleji – he blogs here). “Gateway of last resort” is a Computer Networks term, when every other link fails send data packets to gateway of last resort, is how any router is configured.

    Actually, he is very different person – you (I mean, I) can speak with him on any subject matter (from Sex to Super-consciousness). He guides with different points of views and references (he speaks great sanskrit, speaks Shlokas of different scriptures and mind you – he is an MBA from IIMA OK!). By the way he is 70 year young; young because when I talk to him I feel as if I am an old man, he is full of life as young as a 15 year old can be. Coming back to the story…

    Entanglement

    There was a saint, ascetic. He used to live outside of a village as used to happen in old day India. He owned only 2 langots (Nappies, or undergarments), nothing else. One he used to wear while other is washed. As any Indian saint could be – he was fed by villagers. Once, one of his langot was nibbled by a mouse. So villagers gave him cat to shoo away mouse/mice. In some days our saint realized that he needed to take care of the cat and to feed her he needs something. Villagers gave him a cow for feeding milk to the cat.

    Well, now he needed someone to take care of his cow, he hired someone to take care. The story goes something like this – this hired person needed monthly salary so saint started teaching as well. Slowly, this saint – an ascetic – becomes a family man. This langot converts an ascetic to a family man…

    This is how (may be not because of your undergarment) all worldly entanglements are woven around our life.

    Life is like this, we try to do something and end up doing something else. May be to take care of a langot (business, family, self) your whole focus changes. So, take care of your purpose otherwise you would be entangled such that you would run around in paraphernalia than the focus.

    Oh yes, this story reminded me of Novel by Herman Hesse – Siddharth. Ramana uncleji has also written a story on similar lines here.

    Related blogs –

    What more you need?

    Why are you doing what are you doing?

    Race – never ending