Business to the Buddha

Tag: Sadhguru

  • Behind our eyebrows

    The world that we see is not outside, it is behind our eyebrows unless we can qualify what we see accurately. Many times, what we see may not be the reality, it is a reflection of what we think we are seeing. Ashtavakra’s explanation is “the rope on the ground is seen as a snake because your mind thinks it is a snake”.

    Shut the mind off

    Mumbai has hardly any winter. This was Feb thankfully we were not sweating after our bath – as we do now in Apr. Thus, we feel good in whatever winter Mumbai has. As usual, this morning also I was doing my daily morning Sadhana (meditation practice). My daughter – Adviti – had just learned to enjoy a toy that moves, throws light, and plays song alongside. She had this toy with her for over a year. When we tried it a year back, she got frightened with the light, sound, and movement of this toy. However, off late, she accepted the toy, and now she keeps on playing with it. A drawback with this toy is – it does not have a volume control option.

    Adviti-with-me-Pranayam

    I was meditating and she was dancing around with the noise of the toy. After a while, I felt that I should go and stop the toy so that I can peacefully practice today’s Sadhana. Meditation aside, this thought followed up with others. First, it was a noise for me, music for her. She was unaware – as my wife and parents were too – that the sound was uncomfortable for me. The toy was the world for her, she was enjoying it with her heart and soul dancing around it, giggling, and inviting her mother and grandparents to join her. Generally, you feel elated when your child or grandchild is happy. My wife and parents were also engrossed in Adviti’s joy. At the same time for me, meditation was my world. In the same room, we were in two different worlds.

    This happened for a couple of days with me. Somehow, I could keep on continuing my practice without asking for stopping the toy. Within few days, I realized my meditation is my practice, it should not be impacted by external factors. If our mind feels something is a problem we can analyze it with disinterested reasoning or shut the mind off because it creates unnecessary noises behind our eyebrows that we do not even realize.

    The summer has set-in in Mumbai, now after the bath, we start sweating. We do not complain, we cannot change it. Every Mumbaikar has a response for summer of Mumbai – “accept it” – either put an AC at home or apply deodorant.

    Behind our eyebrows

    It happens with all of us. We end up creating our own problems. The mind makes us feel or believe something that may not necessarily be correct. Before assuming something or making a perception a verification can help.

    In March, someone accused me of a thing that neither I intended nor I did. In fact, I had no role in what was going on in this gentleman’s mind! The bigger surprise is – “I was not even the actor in what he though Mr X did, but I was the accused!” I was literally a third party, Mr X, the gentleman and I (one who had no active or passive role in actions of Mr X). I tried justifying myself to him. When I realized the mindset of the other person; I stopped defending myself. Since I had just learned a lesson with Advity’s playing with the toy I could relate the learning. I moved on thinking “if your mind is corrupted, you would be responsible for the words, actions, and consequences. How can someone help you until you are open to listening?”

    Actually, the thought in Hindi was this – “Agar tumhare dimag me bhusa bhara hai to aag bhi dimag me hi lagegi, koi aur uske liye kya kare?” अगर तुम्हारे दिमाग में भूसा भरा है तो आग भी तुम्हारे दिमाग में ही लगेगी, कोई और उसके लिए क्या करे? It would be great if someone can help me translate this effectively in English.

    Everyone lives in his own world. This world is made up of what we live in our minds. What we see is not ahead of our eyes, it is behind our eyebrows.

    After writing the blog, I searched if some enlightened master’s comment is available on these thoughts, I found a pertinent one from Sadhguru.

  • Millennials and the future







    Old days our ancestors used to communicate using sign language. Historians have found out wall painting in many civilizations and have discussed about usage of sign languages. We humans evolved, grew and became intelligent so started speaking, reading and writing when languages were born. Or perhaps the signs were difficult to remember over a period of time, thus language was born. We have evolved. With time, a lot of developments have happened. Now we communicate across the globe.

    Development happens in cycles, so now after so much of development we have again started speaking in sign language. We call this sign language – smiley. Many a times one has to refer to the ‘dictionary’ to understand what is the meaning of that smiley. Specially that is the case with older generation (I am a part of that). Millennials are different species – well that is how media, marketeer and many people think. Millennials understand these sign language with ease. Though as per definition I should be part of millennials but I dont understand the sign language.

    Many studies state that Millennials are different compared to the older counterparts. I am of the opinion that every generation is more evolved compared to previous one. Generation of my parents were busy settling down. My generation is little adventurous, millennials are freer, more connected and apparently they have more concerns for society.

    There are many studies on Millennials, because they are going to be the biggest spender & biggest target audience for marketeers. Some studies say that Millennials are more concerned about environment, more connected, driven by sharing, more inclined towards social justice & balance and are more spiritual than religious One study. Now organizations also care for CSR, however shallow that could be. Hopefully this will be true one day – let them fake CSR until they make it. I am sure millennials will make this transition sincere with time.

    When I read about millennials I thought in another direction. Sheer size of this generation is making us note these characteristics. Of course these are key traits of this generation, but still the sheer volume is making us notice this. There must have been people in previous generation who had similar thoughts but the numbers, perhaps the ability to measure was less at that time. There are very contrary analysis also done – Millennials less spiritual and less religious too, Millennials less religious but more spiritual either these are really contrary findings or it has been the norm for generations; earlier it was not measured now it is.

    Yuga – Sadhguru. Isha Yoga

    According to Indian philosophy, the generations evolve, this happens in a cyclic fashion. Yes perhaps therefore we are moving towards spirituality now. I came across an interesting video by Sadhguru on this same thought, the video is not available now but the article is, read it here.

    If I try to connect the dots of what Sadhguru said and that of characteristics displayed by the millennials, we are likely to see a more interconnected society and more compassion and empathetic time to come. Wish my this prediction comes out to be true and terrorism stops, not by guns perhaps by the power of interdependence.

    This was last weeks title for LBC, unfortunately I could not write last week as I had two sessions on IPR – one for faculty development and one for startups those two sessions took precedence over my weekly commitments. So I missed writing. Read other’s who write on LBC here – Rummuser, Shackman.

  • Morality, who is the judge?







    There is an after life, actions in past life have decided your current birth (Prarabdha) and future life will be a function of what you do in this life time. Does this philosophy remind you of something?

    The above is concept of re-birth, of almost all religion founded in India – be it Buddhism, Jainism or Sikhism no doubt Hinduism too. So, there are many questions around this. Personally, I believe in concept of rebirth but I have not understood the concept fully. What defines morality and who defines it, who and how my actions will be judged for next life? All these questions puzzled me, for few months.

    Just to give you a perspective here are few examples. 1. Say I eat non-veg (I don’t). But I don’t kill, I buy “Godrej” packed chicken. I never killed the chicken, who would take the blame of this killing? The poor fellow who killed that chicken; did it for his survival. Who would judge this situation. 2. A company does experiments on animals comes up with a cancer drug, animals are killed but many human lives are saved (prolonged to be more precise). Who to blame – the patient who fell sick of the disease of cancer (due to his misdeeds), the company (researchers, investors) or whole humanity? 3. Now replace cancer with AIDS. 4. Extra-merital affair, who to blame, if it is consensual who would decide the “punishment” for next life? etc

    I have been wondering about this, who decides what wrong I/someone did for decision on next life etc. At times, I say to myself “forget it! we get fruits of our deeds in this life time only, don’t worry about next life.” Than what happens to the belief of rebirth? Well, these questions are currently beyond me, while puzzled, I came across this video of Sadhguru so hope this question of morality dies here! Which actually has not died yet. May be I’d write on this in future too.