Business to the Buddha

Tag: Time

  • Time – thoughtful Welcome 2020

    So, another year of our life passed! Everyday we are living, in another words everyday every living thing is dying too. The only uncertain thing in life is – “which would be my last breath?” This thought of uncertainty must make us feel that every moment we are living is a gift. Every moment, the time in itself should be a welcome moment. Here I am to help you read a section of Yoga Vasistha The Supreme Yoga (a discussion between Lord Rama and Sage vasistha). What better day to write this to you and make you too think about welcoming the 2020 thoughtfully?

    Yoga Vasistha starts with Dispassion of Rama and his long speech / question regarding life. I am yet to complete reading the book, however I could not stop posting this part of the book for two reasons – appropriate time (end of this year / beginning of new year) and just read this chapter.

    Vairagya Prakaran (Dispassion)

    Rama:
    …All the hopes of man in this world are consistently destroyed by Time. Time alone, O sage, wears everything out in this world; there is nothing in creation which is beyond its reach. Time alone creates innumerable universes, and in a very short time. Time destroys everything.

    Time allows a glimpse of itself through its partial manifestation as the year, the age and the epoch; but its essential nature is hidden. This Time overpowers everything. Time is merciless, inexorable, cruel, greedy and insatiable. It is the greatest magician, full of deceptive tricks. This Time cannot be analysed; for however much it is divided it still survives, indestructible. It has an insatiable appetite for everything – it consumes the smallest insects, the biggest mountains and even the king of heaven!

    Even as a young boy plays with a ball for his pastime, Time uses the two balls known as the sun and the moon for its pastime. It is indeed Time alone that appears as the destroyer of the universe [Rudra], the creator of the world [Brahma], the king of heaven [Indra], the lord of wealth [Kubera] and the nothingness of cosmic dissolution. It is indeed this Time that successively creates and dissolves the universe again and again. Just as even the great and mighty mountain is rooted on earth, this mighty Time is also established in the Absolute being [Brahman].

    Even though Time creates endless universes, it is not wearied, nor does it rejoice; it does not come, nor does it go; it does not rise, nor does it set. Time the gourmet sees that the objects of this world have been ripened by the fire of the sun, and when he finds them fully ripe he consumes them! Each epoch of Time is decked, as it were, by the lovely jewels of colorful beings for the pleasure of Time that playfully wipes them all out.

    To the lotus of youthfulness, Time is the nightfall; to the elephant of life-span, Time is the lion. In this world there is nothing, high or low, that Time does not destroy. Even when all these are destroyed, Time is not destroyed. Just as a man after a day’s activity rests in sleep as if in ignorance, even so Time, after the cosmic dissolution, sleeps or rests with the creation-potential hidden in it. No one really knows what this Time is.

    Time – thoughtful Welcome 2020

    We have become slaves of time. We rush to office seeing 7:30 AM, have lunch at 1:30 PM (at times when not hungry too) and so on. I remember writing recently – this too shall pass. Yes, we shall be consumed by time as Rama says in his dispassion. It is an opportunity that when you are celebrating the new year, think about some serious thoughts in life regarding work, fun and spirituality.

    Source: The Supreme Yoga, Yoga Vasistha

  • Does Time Run Out? Terror Attacks







    This is the same thing as sunset and sunrise. Time is the way existence just ‘is’! Time runs out for us because we believe that our existence is limited to our this life. A person on deathbed may think that time is running out, because he may die soon – again because our perception of life is very limited to the body.

    Ok! I got it. Many people will say – “I don’t believe in past life or future life”. Many would say – “We do not believe in the concept of life beyond this body, because our scriptures do not support this concept.”

    Let me try to explain a perspective from those scriptures – is it a possibility that they say there is no life beyond, because they do not consider the physical death as death? Is it a possibility that the scriptures suggest that death of this body is not death of something which is beyond the perception of existence?

    What is time? Time is not what you see on your wrist watch. If that was the thing TIME, you would start calling yourself as “173CM” or may be “75KG” because you measure as much in height or weight respectively. The measurement is not the THING. Measurement is a dimension of the THING, isn’t it? If you say I am overweight and reduce say 5 kg, would you reduce actually? So, if the belief is the exact time in your clock is TIME. Why is it different in US Vs Europe Vs India? Have you ever thought that how did the first person who created watch know “what is the time right now?” Why does time not remain same (figuratively too) if we are on the same planet earth? What is earth stop revolving around its axis? What is earth stops revolving around sun? The point I am trying to make is – we are very limited by our perception and that creates our realities. Same is the case with time, when I say figuratively too – it means the words of astrologers – “you are going through a tough time, do not get involved in such and such things”. Or this is the best time for you to invest in XYZ. Besides these I came across an interesting video on Time and theory of relativity, here it is

    This was the line of thought for this week’s LBC post, I suggested this topic. You can see what the other writers of the LBC have to say in their respective blogs.  Maria, Rummuser, Ashok and Shackman. However, after thinking this much and after Manchester attack, I have to think in a different way too. The time is really running out for us as humans. If we know correctly Dinosaurs did not invent weapons yet they are extinct. We have a bigger problem, we are more susceptible to higher losses.  In that sense of the world time is running out. When I was a kid, I used to think Kashmir terrorist problem (early 90s) is only limited to India. Now, when I read news like this – UK, France, Indonesia, etc terrorist attacks and a remote island country Philippines fighting ISIS I get surprised, terrorism may have been a local phenomenon but seems no more now.

    I read on Twitter – the suicide bomber was a 22 year old Salman Abedi, a son of immigrant from Libya. The irony is – he was born in UK! People of Twitter were making observations from both the sides – stop immigration and what will you get if you stop immigration the lad was UK born. I asked myself another question – if this person was born in UK do we need to contest immigration or we need to look at the other sources where the root cause of such attack reside? The other thought that ran through my mind at that time (and I love thinking about it) how would the Buddha (or any other spiritual master of our time) handle such brat?

    Source - https://hateandanger.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/albert-einstein-i-know-not-with-what-weapons-world-war-iii-will-be-fought-but-world-war-iv-will-be-fought-with-sticks-and-stones-1.jpgSA – I would die for my religion. TB – Why dont you live of it? SA – I’ve been commanded to spread the message, those who do not follow must be killed. TB – Can your death justify spreading the message? SA – ??!! (I’m confused what he will answer.) TB – What happens when you get killed or you kill them? SA – I will go to heaven. TB – What is the proof that you will go to heaven? Is not the earth where you live is a heaven? You live in the UK one of the most developed country, is not it a heaven? What happens to those who die due to your attack? SA – they will rot in hell. TB – Can you prove it? What if they also join you in heaven? Or what if the opposite happens – you go to hell and they in heaven? SA – That is not possible. TB – Do you have any proof, that wont or cannot happen? I think you can guess the response of SA. I hope people like SA get to meet the Buddha type of enlightened masters when alive and change their perceptions – that will help eliminate the underlying problem- root cause.

    I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones. – Albert Einstein

    When I raised this question to myself about root cause – I realized – we are really running a race against time, and before it is too late, we need to unequivocally, categorically, without any denial of any sort accept that the boy was brainwashed somewhere and need to stop this menace. Yes in such situations we can say time is running out for existence of humanity.

    Image source Einstein quote- https://hateandanger.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/, image 1 – unknown

  • Time







    In the war of Mahabharata, there were days when one or the other side was looking at the sun to set as soon as possible. The rules of the war were set that war will happen between sunrise and sunset. When Arjuna took oath to kill Jayadrath before the next day’s sunset or immolate himself, Kaurava’s were waiting for day to end sooner.

    On the other hand when Bhishma was the supreme commander of Kaurava’s army everyday was a mayhem for Pandava’s army. Bhisma killed thousands of soldiers and hundreds of chariot warriors everyday. Krishna’s frustration (though frustration cannot be the right word here) was at peak, when he felt that Arjuna isn’t fighting with Bhishma with all his capabilities and took weapons in his hands to kill Bhishma – Krishna had vowed not to fight from either side, but was a Charioteer for Arjuna.

    At this Arjuna requests to Krishna not to break his vow, and he promises to fight with his full might to not just defeat Bhishma but also end the war today itself “only if the sun does not set (as fast for the day)!” Arjuna even if was a great student yet had missed occasionally – Krishna’s loudest message to him in the whole of Geeta was perform your duties, do not think of results. Arjuna kept on missing this during these 18 days. Once here and other time at Jayadrath’s killing, Arjuna wanted the sun to be bit slow – Time to stop. I wish he had remembered the beginning of the war when Krishna was teaching him the Geeta – time must have stopped at that time, how can time fly when the god himself is speaking about the truth. Perhaps time must have not even existed when the Bhagvad Geeta was narrated.

    Time is a difficult concept to explain, oxford dictionaries define it as – “the indefinite continued progress of existence and events in the past, present, and future regarded as a whole.” What is the start and end of time? There seems to be none. In Indian philosophy time is defined as Kala. Kala has a lot of small to large measurements, that is for some other day. However when I thought about Time as a topic for LBC I could think of two things – one commentator of was Old Hindi TV Serial Mahabharat, and other a consultant saying – time is the commodity I sell. It is the most precious commodity I have, I cannot get it back once it is gone.

    The commodity is really very important and extremely perishable plus nontransferable, it cannot be restored once gone or consumed. The best thing is each one of us have the same amount of it – unlike any other commodity. What use we make of it is something to be decided by each one of us.

    We all want the time to move slowly when we are happy and to just vanish when we are in trouble. However, we always feel that when we are elated time elapses fast and vice-versa. Isn’t it? The following I wrote long back when I was doing my engineering (about 2 decades back, 1998-99 – my god I am old!) Hindi and English translation side by side

    स्वर्ग भी है यहाँ, नर्क भी है यहीं Heaven and Hell are ‘here and now’
    तुमने जैसे जिया जो पल The way you pass each moment
    तुम ही परिभाषित करोगे, कि तुम जो स्वर्ग याकि नर्क मे You define whether you are in Heaven or a Hell.

    Ramana uncleji suggested this topic for the weekly LBC blog posts. You can see what the other writers perspective is on this topic at their respective blogs Maria, Ramana and Shackman uncleji.

    Image source – http://sathyasaiwithstudents.blogspot.in/2013/06/bhakti-part-1-story-of-bhishma.html

  • Relativity







    When I was a kid I heard that when Vishnu (One of the Trinity God according to Indian traditions) blinks his eye a whole Yuga (Refer Wiki) passes. So his blinking is so long. This “So Long” is in my frame of reference. I, or say you, blink every 10 seconds and Vishnu blinks in say about million years.

    As a kid I could never comprehend these things, and still as per my limited abilities, I wonder about this. However, I was thinking about it once, Let me compare my blinking and an mayfly blinking. As an average human life span I live say about 70 years a mayfly will live just for a day. So, is it likely that mayfly will also blink every 10 or 15 seconds?

    It was an inteRelativityresting question in my mind, however I am not a Zoologist, I need to go to some experts to analyze these things. In the mean time, I found something relevant to my understanding. Here is a comparison to those who are Engineers specially for those who have learnt Microprocessors in their Engineering. Below is a proportional timescale, perhaps someone made this comparison just for fun. It is quite interesting though.

    How to read this table – Left column (e.g. 1 CPU Cycle) is the base time field, second column is actual time of that base time field (Human clock time 0.3 ns nano seconds) and a proportional conversion (e.g. 1 Second).

    According to this table, a physical system reboot will actually takes 5 minutes (Human clock minutes), if that is converted to the proportional timescale that would be equal to 32 millennium. Now, I can relate to the life times and blinking of Vishnu. Though I can still not comprehend God Vishnu as a God in Human form.

    I shall write on relativity as a scientific concept and applied to spirituality, may be in future blogs.

    Image source – LinkedIn updates, unknown

    This is a scheduled and thus auto published blog, author is currently having limited access to the internet.

  • Time is just a reference







    [Tweet “Mumbai has taught me the value of time”]Mumbai has taught me the value of time e.g. after 7:55 am, there is 8:00 and then 8:02 am… not necessarily 8:05 am.  8:02 because I used to catch an 8:02 local for office :). [Tweet “Value the time, it never comes back.”]

    I went to meet my cousin sister and my aunt yesterday. My brother in law – Jay Phadke – is an electronics engineer. He actually is one, otherwise Indian engineers irrespective of their field of engineering become software developer or MBAs (I am on of them :)). He designs electronics devices and interesting ones. At my cousin sister’s home there was no wall clock at least in drawing room.

    Clock 1I could not see a wall clock anywhere, but while speaking when we went to the Kitchen, there was a digital clock which shows temperature as well – of course he made it. We started speaking on “Time”. Here is edited talk

    I am going to contradict myself from 1st para – Time is “just a reference”. In our generation we have become slaves of time.  [Tweet “Time is “just a reference”. In our generation we have become slaves of time.”] Our work is defined and decided by “What is the time?”.

    If I show you the first column second row clock to you (7:50 AM) on a working day morning, you will start rushing to office. If it is, the second column and first row (2:20 PM) you might have just had your lunch in office. Now look closer (corners of each clock), all those 4 clocks are actually one clock tilted by 90 degrees. That is the mad rush we have created for ourselves.

    Now if you look at the other set of images on right, you would realize, there is a dial without numbers and thereClock 2 are numbers on dial without hour/minute hands. Both these hands are just references. These references are driving us crazy in the competitive world. I am of the opinion that – One’s purpose should drive the person and not necessarily the hour/minute hands of a wrist watch. [Tweet “One’s purpose should drive the person and not necessarily the hour/minute hands of a wrist watch.”]In my opinion one must take things seriously but not so seriously that one becomes salve – as we are of time. The best day for human being will be a day when the first dial becomes the clock – no digits and no hour/minute hand – we would be free.

    Mumbai has taught me a lot – I respect and value time. At the same time, Mumbai has taught me a lot to think while traveling more than an hour daily. Think about why am I doing what am I doing?

    Related – Fruit will arrive in its season…

    Race – never ending

    Race – never ending
    Race – never ending
    Race – never ending