Business to the Buddha

Tag: Life is simple

  • 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

  • Ego







    Two men in a room, room is in an apartment, apartment is in a building
    Building is in a locality, locality is in a city, city is in a state
    State is in a Nation, Nation is in a continent, continent is on The Earth
    The Earth is in a solar system, solar system is in the galaxy
    The Galaxy is in the Milky way…

    We are so small still we create TWO WORLDs in a single room!

    Me on the top of the world
    ‘Me’ on the top of the world

    When I was in school, I read this poem in Hindi in my course. It is very meaningful and important story of our life. We are nothing if we follow the trace suggested by the poet. Yet, we create our own world and cause problems in our surroundings, our near and dears life and life of our colleagues. All this for what – to manage, boost and nurture our Ego. If the ego goes beyond our near & dear and colleagues, it goes to kill people in the name of our belief system. Majority of the wars fought in the world are because of Ego.

    Alexander the great – why “the great” because he conquered the world – with sword! Cold war – why? To prove WE are better than YOU. MY country is superior than YOURs. This applies to the recent attacks in cities of Afghanistan, social unrest in the Middle East (suppressed ego of citizen and suppressing ego of the respective rulers) and Nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea. We see political, religious, cultural and regional problems because of Ego.

    At the same time, I am of the opinion that ego is not a problem, the manifestation of the same is a problem. Self respect becomes ego when it crosses a certain line. I see many solutions to this, one is when we start looking at ourselves through the lenses of the poet who wrote the above lines. We are tiny small creatures and there are many things beyond I and MY GROUP. For some, ‘I’ and ‘My group’ becomes purpose of existence. Second solution I see is through the eyes of Mirdad. Other is through the peaceful methods e.g. meditation suggested by spiritual masters.

    What say you – is ego ‘purpose of existence’ or a problem?

    Related blog based on The book of Mirdad – Forbidden word

  • Forbidden Word







    I was thinking about few things and somehow it boiled down to one of my previous blog – Life is… Simple. I was thinking – when ‘I’ (Ego) would not remain many of our problems would end. Because physical problems happen to the body; bigger problems occurs because those problems germinate from our mind, right? Life is simple, we complicate it. When “I” think, “I” create a world with “my thoughts” and that world would always be imperfect. There would always be disconnect between the world created in mind and the world mind sees. Either the mind should create similar world, accept the world as it is or mind should cease to exist.

    I remembered The Book Of Mirdad when I thought about “I”. This book is very well written. The first chapter of the “Book of Mirdad” speaks about the Forbidden Word – ‘I’.

    The settings of the book are as follows – i. location Noahs ark and ii. out of many things – using the word “I” is forbidden according to the rules set by Noah centuries ago. The book of Mirdad starts with two chapters on “I”. Quoting from the book –

    …Your eyes are veiled with far too many veils. Each thing you look upon is but a veil.
    Your lips are sealed with far too many seals. Each word you utter forth is but a seal…

    In my understanding – we see what we want to see (a rope looks like a snake) and we hear what we want to hear. All because the interpretation is done by none other than our Mind. Further, Mirdad says –

    …The eye can veil, but cannot pierce the veils.
    The lip can seal, but cannot break the seals…

    The book is profound because in the very next chapter, Mirdad makes a completely opposite statement which is completely opposite to the decree of Noah (about using the forbidden word – “I”). On one page he says – avoid using the word “I” in your speech because this is not true on the very next page it says “I” is a “creative word” (it is source and center of all things). The rider here is – “…say forthwith in your heart ’ God be my refuge from the woes of I and be my guide unto the bliss of I’…”

    Effectively, when we say “I” it is largely the Ego talking, whereas when Mirdad says “I” (the creative word) it is the source of and from the creator of the world… Stop using “I”, harping and harnessing “the ego” and when you do that – “life is – Simple”.