Business to the Buddha

Tag: illusion

  • Perceptions, perspectives and expectations

    I was watching Mahabharat episodes. The epic is the best depiction of conflicts we keep on going through on a daily basis. The biggest conflict and learning is the shloka of Mahabharat that teaches the value of the action and no entitlement of the results. Dhritrashtra’s perception was he is the eldest so the throne belonged to him. Bhishma’s perspective was that he has to take care of the kingdom (even if the king is incorrect). Dronacharya’s expectation from teaching Kuru prince was to take revenge from Panchal king. Many in the epic knew that their opinions are based on ideology applied incorrectly in the given situation, yet they did not amend their ways. When the battle started everyone took side not based on what is right or lawful but which side my enemy is on. This is the result of these perceptions, perspectives, and expectations. The outcome was – people were fighting their own battles at the backdrop of Pandavas and Kauravas.

    Perception

    Aurora borealis

    When I was thinking about aurora borealis (or polar lights), I thought that such a phenomenon or any other related ionization must be happening at different wavelengths that are beyond the human eye’s abilities to see. Our incapability to see does not mean some things do/did not happen. Sound below 20 Hz and above 20,000 Hz exist, we humans are unable to hear it. Our senses and perceptions create our realities. I wrote last week “our past experiences – Sanskara – condition us”. We need to go beyond the conditioning to change our perceptions.

    http://business2buddha.com/2011/02/15/no-judgement-its-all-about-perception/

    Perspective

    In some of the satsangs of Art of living, I heard a few romantic Bollywood movie songs. Earlier when I had heard these songs I felt ok it is a romantic song sung by the lover for the loved one. However, when I heard the same song in a different setup it was as perfect in Bhakti too! These presentations of songs change my perspective, examples are in the below videos –

    The perceptions made these songs to be romantic songs however when I looked at these songs from a different perspective the meaning of the song itself changed.

    Expectations

    कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन ।

    मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भुर्मा ते संगोऽस्त्वकर्मणि ॥

    You have a right to perform your prescribed duty, but you are not entitled to the fruits of action. Never consider yourself to be the cause of the results of your activities. Bhagavad Gita, Chapter II, Verse 47. Effectively, we must do our actions as per need of the hour and do not be feverish about either the actions or the results.

    Conclusion

    http://business2buddha.com/2010/08/19/playing-golf-work-and-meditation/

    In Mahabharat, each person was living his perceptions, defining his stand in his own’s perspective and having different expectations. These three things blinded people. Isn’t it true that we live in the cage of our perceptions, perspectives, and expectations? Meditation can help change in all these three.

  • Sunrise or sunset







    Though sunrise and sunset are human perception, yet if with this limited perception we look at the concept we can learn – 1. something that has a beginning has an ending and 2. every coin has two faces.

    Our perceptions are illusions in this case the setting of sun or rising of the same. These perception create our reality even if half truth. Remember watching matrix? At one place in the first part of the movie, a kid says – Remember, there is no spoon! In the matrix there was no spoon, in the context of sunset and sunrise there was the concept of only visibility. Isn’t it? We only see setting sun because it’s not visible to us once it is set from our side of world. Whereas in reality it is on the other side.

    When writing this blog I came across a video on illusion, here it is (source unknown).

    After watching this video you would realize that there were many things that you perceived were put in specific manner but were not the reality when camera angel change. Our perception of reality many times are the same.

    Our such perceptions make us relate to everything in binary such as sunset and sunrise or bad and good . Just imagine if we start living at north or south pole, in these poles there is day or night for 6 months. Would not it be weird? Specially for those who live around the equator when we are used to seeing relatively even duration based day and night. This is why it is better to have a day and night, sunset and sunrise, good and bad everything happening around us. Otherwise life may become monotonous. Imagine how can we value lord Rama if there were no Ravana? In all these perceptions and illusions, the goal is to go beyond the false perception and be unflapped.  I cannot get a word for that in English – the word unflapped in negative of something (un-). I can just hope the meaning is conveyed.

    Sunset or Sunrise was the topic of LBC. I always miss out on OR in such type of blog titles of LBC, I am kind of integrative – I read the topic as AND. You can see what the other writers of the LBC have to say in their respective blogs.  Maria, Rummuser, Ashok and Shackman.

  • Perceptions and illusions







    Off late, I have – kind of – become forgetful. One of my friends shared someone’s phone number with me, a couple of days later, I bet with him that I ddin’t get that number. We checked Whatsapp, SMS, emails and not to miss address book too. I almost won the bet, thankfully it was not a monetary bet. I still kept on searching – in my “notes” app too I could not find. My friend told me the whole incident and I got a hunch, I think he did share the number! But to my utter surprise I could not find the number anywhere.

    Well, I asked him that number again, he was bit annoyed yet gave me the number. I recalled – he had shared such number once – though I did not remember the whole number. It made me think about what happened in this situation? This incident made me understand that many a times we take things for granted, we tend to ignore many things. When we ignore things we are likely to be bodily at one place and mentally at another – in some fantasy or illusionary world. Isn’t it? The illusion we create through such mental images either become our perception or mend it and thus our limited (or at times incorrect) realities are created. For example – my forgetting my friend’s sharing the number with me as “You didn’t share the number”. If such incidents are not realities how do we know what is reality? In fact I think we need to ask ourselves – what is reality?

    Life is simple – the illusions we assume as reality make it difficult. The fantasy we create are based on our perceptions or our belief of some reality. Our perceptions make our life difficult isn’t it? Let us say – an illusion – “our religion is under threat!” If a religion is one of the biggest in terms of number of followers – what is the threat?

    We are so preoccupied with our own illusionary world that we miss many small things needless to say important or that which are the realities.

    I suggested this topic for LBC, however for last couple of weeks I was not able to write regularly. You can read my fellow bloggers post on this topic at – Ramana uncelji, Shackman and Maria. I am trying to catch up with my backlogs of weekly blogs on spirituality, management and business.

    Related blog – No judgement – its all about perception

  • My Favorite Fictional Character







    Have you ever thought about fiction and reality? Fiction is something untrue, made-up or imaginary. How can I say that the Buddha or Krishna or Jesus was someone who actually walked the face of earth. Is it a possibility that these were imagination of someone? This thought puts me to another thought, what if I myself am is some imagination and a reality is somewhere, something else.

    Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world? Morpheus The Matrix

    What makes something real? Is it because I think, see, feel (perhaps smell or hear) and my mind makes me feel that this is something real because I can sense it? Or something is real because it exist without someone’s ability to sense it or no. Take an example of light – we cannot see light beyond a certain frequency range. Does it make the light non-existent?

    These questions remind me of a very interesting movie – The Matrix.

    “…The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work… when you go to church… when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth…”

    I have had a couple of Morpheus in my life to teach me. I have written about almost everyone on this blog. I would want to be Morpheus too, for someone or few in future. I love the character of Morpheus from The Matrix the most. Morpheus is a believer, he courageous. The best part is, the kind of confidence Morpheus has in Neo, it makes me feel that I want to be Neo too. Laurence Fishburne played the role so well that I keep on watching his teachings (dialogs) whenever I feel I should. There are a lot of learnings in those dialogs – “Do not think you are, KNOW you are.” I have written on the movie (red pill) earlier too. I was so fascinated with the movie that I used to tell people that I am fine being a spot-boy for the movie – alas I am in India :(. The movie is so philosophical and spiritual to me that I repeatedly watch it.

    Instead of me talking (writing), I would want to share some videos of the movie (Youtube), not sure about the copyright permissions there.

    I see many of my teachers in Morpheus – they are indeed my Favorite (they are real) human beings, this blog post is dedicated to all of them. This was the title of this weeks Friday Loose Bloggers Consortium. Con You can read other LBC bloggers thoughts here – Rummuser and Shackman.

  • Why not define smaller things?







    Last month I met Prof Mankad. I always think whenever I meet him I should record our conversation. He is indeed a library of knowledge in himself. We discussed about our education system besides many other things (blogs written last weeks) Purpose of education and Showjumping. Dr Mankad told me – “one of the real problems with our daily life is our weird definitions e.g. success. We define success as owning that BMW. Until we get that BMW we don’t feel content. Thus, we avoid being satisfied, we do not live a fulfilling life. Though as an individual we can, but the weird definition makes us estranged from many small things.”

    Vada Pav
    Vada Pav

    He further shared an experience. One of his friends landed in India from the US (at about 12:00 AM or 2:00 AM). Next day 6:00 AM he was at Prof Mankad’s home, and asked to just accompany him. They drew to Karjat had some special Vadapav of that place and drove back to Mumbai.

    Well, all this made me question few very basic things we generally overlook. We do not think much about basics of life, but still have some preconceived notion about those things. As Dr Mankad shared example of success, another example is beauty. I watched this video in my MBA Marketing class. Our definition of beauty is weird watch this <2 min ad of Dove, to understand how our perceptions are defined; at times created. Many girls want to be fair, those who have curly hair want straight and vice versa!

    How often have we thought on these seemingly simple, stupid, strange yet serious questions. What is the meaning of Success (for me or you)? Does our definition of success change over time? what is the purpose of life? Why are we studying (at least when in college)? How will I/you know when I/you reach the target (a 100,000 INR or 10,00,00,000 INR), the goal is always a moving one! What is the benchmark? I think we need to just pause at times, and think how we want to shape our life, what is important for ourselves at least that instance, isn’t it? I think that is what enlightened masters call “living in present”

    Related – 1. Why are you doing what are you doing? 2. What more you need? 3. Entanglement of a langot 4. Race – never ending

    Race – never ending
    Why are you doing what are you doing?
    Why are you doing what are you doing?

  • Red pill







    These dialogs of the Movie Matrix are very dear to me. The Matrix in Hindi was translated as Mayajaal. Maya means illusion. When this movie was released I was doing my Engineering and by chance I was learning about control systems, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Computer Networks. I along with one of my friends Vijayant Thakur did extensive work on the same.

    When I watched that movie, I could relate to so many things of my education that I started thinking that one day I will make my own AI based matrix :). Finally, I did my major project thesis on AI. Besides the technical aspects of the movie, it touched me on a spiritual levels too. Though I did not and (feel do not) understand spirituality much, I could feel some very strange relation between technology and spirituality. I thought to put the blog on Matrix because of the following few sentences of another beloved book of mine – Living with the Himalayan Masters by Swami Rama (page 62).

    “… My master said that avidya means individual ignorance while maya is both individual and cosmic illusion. Ma means ‘no’ and ya means ‘that’. That which is not self-existent yet appears to exist, like mirage, is called maya. Then he explained another school fo philosophy which maintains that maya is universal illusion and also the mother of the universe…”

    In the movie The Matrix the same happens – a universal illusion is created which makes people feel that it is the year 1999.

    The dialogs which I am sure many people know and admire (hats off to the screenplay and dialog writers).

    “Don’t think you are KNOW you are!” – and very interestingly this statement of Morpheus is contrary to Greek philosophy – Cogito Ergo Sum!. That is where difference between philosophies of East and West comes alive.

    “Com’on don’t TRY to hit me and HIT me.” Do not TRY, DO it.
    “The body cannot live without the mind.”
    “I’m trying to free your mind, Neo. But I can only show you the door. You’re the one that has to walk through it.”

    I used to tell my friends if given a chance to work in that movie, I would want to play the role of Morpheus rather than Neo. I enjoyed watching the movie, it relates to us on different levels and specially to us in professional and spiritual life. For example –

    [Conditions applied] One should do what one is passionate about (believes in) – Neo takes ‘red pill’ to know about the Matrix. [As long as one is not hurting the others privacy and not killing other – read terrorism].

    …Take a ‘red pill’ and see how deep the rabbit hole goes…