Business to the Buddha

Tag: Perspective

  • 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.

  • Adviti and perspective change







    Adviti is growing up, she has started turning and every now and then she turns. When feeding her, she turns that makes putting food in mouth difficult. It was surprising initially to feed her used to be irritating that she is turning in no time. Once, I was talking to a relative, she said – Adviti will keep on doing it because it provides her a different perspective to the world. As an infant, how good and easy for them to change perspective – make it exactly 180 degree and enjoy. How difficult for us to change our perspective?

    This change in perspective gave me an opportunity to question my own opinions. So, first was marriage in particular caste. The other apparent Indian customs such as – girls parents to not step in her home once girl is married! Yes that I have heard in conservative families. I don’t know how much is it followed now. So, when I badgered Lingayat community for disrespectful behavior on marriage issues, today I try to look at another perspective.

    perspectiveOne of the possible reason for people looking at their own community or professional background could be that a girl grown up in similar environment may find it easy to settle in new family with similar customs or work requirements. If a farmer marries a goldsmith’s daughter would not it be very difficult for her to get accustomed to the new way of living?

    Second, when society used to say not to go to girl’s home after her marriage, the possible reason could be – avoiding conflicts. Indian soap opera’s show it often. Additionally, olden days, it used to be a wish that girl is married in a family of economically higher standing. So, possible that girl or her parents should not feel uncomfortable, or should not be named for their out of place demeanor by the boy’s family. My small mind could think of only these possible reasons.

    Lastly, eastern religion – all have concept of rebirth and karma. Personally, I not only follow but also believe in these concepts. A different paradigm from these seemingly good concept is here. If you tell a student that you’re not good at mathematics because in last life time you moneylender and did mischievous calculations to let the borrowers keep on paying you unnecessarily, that is a bad perspective on the concept.

    There are many wars, fights and arguments due to perspectives. Be it capitalism vs socialism, one religion vs the other or political biases. We can be passionate about our perspective yet should be compassionate to listen to others view too. Otherwise there will always be wars, fights and arguments.

    Adviti is teaching me a lot of things with her growing up. The recent one is changing perspective and looking at the other side, even if it seems incorrect prima-facie. This is a difficult task, I am trying to learn though, she changes her perspective by 180 degree easily at this age. Are we as adults going to learn something from our next generation?

    Image source – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Point_of_view_bias.jpg

  • Right And Wrong







    Recently, one of my friends Piyush ‘Jayant’ Arora published his poetry’s book. The title of the book is Rang Leela.

    When I received his email stating from these places I can buy the book –

    I told him that I rarely read poetry out of my educational requirements. The title seems interesting I would like to read it. I got a copy this week. So, I started reading it from cover.

    This was the first time I was reading a poet whom I can imagine as an individual. When I read Dharamvir Bharati (Andha yug) or Ramdhari Singh Dinkar (Kurukshetra), I always felt poets are super humans from a different world. Piyush is like me – he has done his engineering and an MBA. So I can think of a a human [not a super human writing].

    The first thing I read in his book was back page cover.

    [Hindi] ना खुशियों की बहार … आ गामो का दरिया है…
    ज़िंदगी और कुछ नही… बस अपना अपना नज़रिया है…

    [Translation] Life is all about our perspective and we all see it with our own lens. Our experiences and interactions fill in the color of the canvas of our lives.

    When I was reading the good small poems I wrote to him about referring to some in my blogs. He readily agreed.

    This week’s LBC (Loose Bloggers Consortium) title perfectly matches with Piyush’s perspective.

    There is nothing right and nothing wrong. These are all our perspectives. Piyush’s poetry’s are also on the same. Another Poem I am referring here from his same book –

    [Hindi] अगर सत्य से हमेश असत्य है हारा…
    और सब कुछ होता सिर्फ़ गोरा या काला..
    तो क्या अब तक बह रही होती यह धारा?
    यह तुम्हारी हमारी विचारधारा.

    [English – my words] If truth has always been triumphant over false… and everything is completely black and white… had there been a flow of different perspectives?

    Everything is our mind game, a perspective. There is nothing right and wrong. Everything is just “IS”

    This topic was suggested by Maria, for the weekly Friday Loose Bloggers Consortium where currently nine of us write on the same topic every Friday.  I hope that you enjoyed my contribution to that effort.  The seven other bloggers who write regularly are, in alphabetical order,  Ashok, gaelikaa, Lin, Maxi, Padmum, Ramana Uncleji,  Shackman and The Old Fossil. Do drop in on their blogs and see what their take is on this week’s topic. Since some of them may post late, or not at all this week, do give some allowance for that too!

  • Dichotomy on happiness…







    “There are some things money cannot buy…” I am not talking about Master Card! Generally speaking, I was thinking that there are many things money cannot buy. In fact, the Buddha left his whole empire! He too knew there are “somethings money cannot buy”. This is where I had two minds, and thought to share these thoughts and request for feedbacks.

    The first and foremost thing money cannot buy is LOVE, you are a better judge for this. Other important thing is happiness, in a spiritual context ‘bliss’.

    Sometime back I decided to leave a very lucrative offer the reason was I knew at my heart of my heart, I would not want to do this work and would not enjoy the work. The other option was – nothing! So, it was a tough decision to leave something (something immensely rewarding) for nothing. Recently, I met one of my friends (he knew my previous decision) his first and repeated question to me was – ‘Are you happy?’ And all the time my answer was – ‘YES, are not you happy with what you are doing?’ His response was with many riders – “yes for ‘X’ I am happy, but because of ‘Y’ I have some issues, you know this and you know that and this is what and whatever whatever etc”.

    I thought we take so many decisions “for” or “because of” some or the other things e.g. money. We tend to give drivers seat to our ‘mind’ for making criteria and decision too, while a rear seat to our ‘heart’. Relationship, emotions, all these relate to heart and we largely overlook these while making decision. However, being human we are driven largely by emotions and therefore there has to be a balance between rationality and emotion in decision making too.

    Then came the second perspective – if one wants to be happy no one can stop him/her from being happy. Happiness is a very personal matter. Two persons in similar circumstances could have different feelings (one ecstatic and other wretched). Peace of mind cannot be bought in the market, it has to be felt. If it has to be felt, why cannot one be peaceful while doing whatever he/she is doing? … So the dichotomy is – do we make decision based on few factors and that is the reason for us to be happy or we are happy because we want to be happy and irrespective of the decision we make or irrespective of what happens in our life.

    The question to ask is – happiness requires fulfillment of the CONDITIONS we create for being happy or it is a feeling irrespective of what happens in our life/to us? These conditions, to me, are never ending… as it happens to the squirrel in Ice Age-Trilogy and to Chaipau in Salaam Bombay“. Dichotomy of happiness is you decide on what you enjoy doing or you remain happy irrespective of the situation you are in….

    Related blogs – Cause…, the Middle Path, No judgement its all about perception and Balancing Act, When will we stop?

  • Blind men and the elephant







    I read this story in a book. A father once gave his son a telescope. One day the boy was using the telescope, he was little disappointed with the performance, he went to his father and said “father it is useless, I can see better without it. Everything is too small.” Father smiled, the boy was looking from the wrong side, he was not getting the BIG PICTURE at all. The boy had a narrow outlook through the glass. The father turned the little telescope around.

    The father had widened the son’s outlook. The boy grew up and improved the primitive telescope and with it discovered the moons of Jupiter, the rings of Saturn and the Mountains on our moon. The boy was Galileo.

    What is important is seeing things in proper perspective and we must widen our outlook. So it is generally about the perspective, outlook and the way we look at things on which I wrote earlier. Similarly, there is a story about blind men and the Elephant. I took it from Wikipedia for the blog, however this story is very famous in India and we learnt this as kids. The story goes like this…


    A king has the blind men of the capital brought to the palace, where an elephant is brought in and they are asked to describe it.”When the blind men had each felt a part of the elephant, the king went to each of them and said to each: ‘Well, blind man, have you seen the elephant? Tell me, what sort of thing is an elephant?” The men assert the elephant is either like a pot (the blind man who felt the elephants’ head), a winnowing basket (ear), a plowshare (tusk), a plow (trunk), a granary (body), a pillar (foot), a mortar (back), a pestle (tail) or a brush (tip of the tail).

    I searched for books on blind men and the Elephant and found out that there are many books with this title for professionals are –
    Blind Men And The Elephant : Demystifying The Global It Services Industry
    The Blind Men And The Elephant: Mastering Project Work and
    on spirituality The Elephant And The Blind Men, Finding The Oneness Of God And Man you can check these books if you want to read them.

    Image source – http://history.cultural-china.com/en/38History960.html