Business to the Buddha

Tag: vasudhev kutumbakam

  • One world







    Can we have a world where there is no need of defense and police?

    Earlier human beings had fear of wild animal now of other humans. Have we become like wild animals or we’ve civilized bit more? Recently there was a terrorists attack in Egypt. I wonder what’s wrong with us human beings, we’ve become dangerous than wild animals. Animals kill to eat and that too when required. One animal does not kill the other because the other is not following what one is following, teaching or has learnt.

    [Tweet “Earlier human beings had fear of wild animal now of other humans.”]

    Recently, when I landed in a country for the first time, my suitcase was thoroughly checked. As usual with most Indians, I too had taken home made, Indian food because the country where I went was predominantly a non-vegetarian food eating country and I am a vegetarian. I opened by suitcase, the security person took out the food and dumped it in dust bean. There are two different types of feeling – 1. individual level and 2. social level. Individual level 1. there is a saying in Marathi – anna he purna bramh (roughly translated as food is divinity) 2. people die hungry and you are throwing the food and 3. that is my at least 10 days ration! and Social level 1. Can someone likely be so dangerous to a country 2. why so much concern even with food items and 3. have we become worst than animals.

    This incident translated into two way thinking 1. defense budget of countries and 2. death due to hunger worldwide. Some statistics (source 1) suggest that USD ~4 Billion is required to feed 66 million school age children per year and daily total of 800 million go hungry worldwide. Defense budget (source 2) of the whole world is USD 1686 Billion. If we do number crunching defense budget comes out to be about more than 10% of budget required for food for hungry people. Alas, effectively the defense budget is utilized to kill people. What have we become? Imagine if we utilize the worldwide defense budget money in doing something constructive.

    The other downside emerging with this thought was a news of likely death of 44 crew members submarine of Argentina. Its not that only others are at risk, even the risk of those who are working in defense are equally there.

    A perspective will be that defense is needed for self defense for example against terrorism or other military hostility. Perhaps there will be time, when we will fight for food and water at that time we will need military! Well, in last so many millenniums we are fighting all in vain, when are we going to have a world – one world, without boundaries – as a family?

    Related blogs – Border-less world, world is imperfect, Ambitions selfishness and fear, size of the universe and dont divide we are interdependent.

    1. Image source –Hindustan Times
    2. Hunger statistics source – FoodAidFoundation and DoSomething
    3. Defense budget source – Wikipedia

  • Family Occasion







    I some times contribute to LBC (Loose Bloggers Consortium) where a couple of people write every weekend (Friday to be precise). This week the topic was “Family Occasion”.

    Sounds weird as a topic, isnt it? This topic has two words Family and occasion. Family we generally define as a smallest social unit of society. This small social unit has parents and kids, dictionary.com has one alternate explanation to the definition – all those persons considered as descendants of a common progenitor.

    I have been taking interest in theory of evolution for some time of late. According to that we are all evolving and have evolved over the years. If we take the definition of family too much back in time, we all are a family. This point brings me back to a concept of Buddhism – interdependent co-arising and another of Hinduism – Vasudhev Kutumbakam (one world family). Effectively according to both the concepts we are all related (in terms of a family) and connected (in terms of something affecting you has an impact on me too). These two concepts are too subtle for understanding on gross level. But since we are struggling at global level from climate change it becomes easy to understand. A car driven in Mumbai is affecting the whole world, because it creates pollution. Hope the point is clear.

    The other word of the topic is Occasion which according to dictionary.com means – a particular time, especially as marked by certain circumstances or occurrences. Well, climate change is an occasion in this definition. Climate change is a definition for family occasion for all of us. Recently we saw Chennai Floods – what is that? That is a family disaster, and largely all of us are responsible for such events – because all of us are responsible of climate change. The mobile I am using for twitting #ChennaiFloods, the laptop I am using for writing this blog all impact climate. Think it over!

    4On a lighter note – I had two family occasions last week – my 1st marriage anniversary (6th Dec) and my fathers 75th Birthday (7th Dec).

    The topic of LBC Family suggested by Maria the gaelikaa for the weekly Friday Loose Bloggers Consortium where currently eight of us are supposed to write on the same topic every Friday. The seven other bloggers who are expected to write regularly are, in alphabetical order, Ashok, gaelikaa, Lin, Maxi, Padmum, Rummuser and Shackman. 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!

  • Family – Lingayats







    “Vasudhev Kutumbakam” is a concept in Indian (Hindu philosophy) culture. It means “one world family” that is – whole world irrespective of caste, color, creed or belief system is one family. I received this message recently on whatsapp –

    I crossed my street ?, they asked my caste
    Crossed my district/town???, they asked my city
    Crossed my state ???, they asked my native language
    And I became an Indian ?? only after I crossed my country ✈!

    These things sound different but are related. It may have been true with many, but I had another experience recently. Basaveshwara – poor fellow – died this time in similar sounding country – Canada – than the Kannada where he belonged 800 years back. I feel bad to write “poor fellow” to refer to the saint. I wrote that because of the community he created – Lingayats. I belong to the same and it has missed his thoughts completely.

    I am in Canada and went to attend an event recently. In that event, people generally asked me where are you from where do you work, where do your parents live (as I am from India and others are also Indians). It was all fine to me until one young lady (I will call her Ima) asked me the same questions. I made her name as Ima for Ila’s Mother. I was playing with this 4 year old baby for a while and to hide the identities of these people I have changed the names.

    I said I work in Mumbai, my parents live in MP. Ima said ‘so you are from MP?’ I said yes, I am born in MP but basically I am a Kannadiga.

    Ima probed – Ok where in Karnataka?

    I said our forefathers migrated long back we belonged to Gulbarga.Lingayatism Wiki

    Ima took little more interest this time and further asked – What community are you?

    “I am a Lingayat of Karnataka. Are you aware about the community?” I asked.

    Ima said – “Yes I am a lingayat too, do you worship the ling?”

    The worship she was referring to is a fundamental practice of Lingayats. I was told this by my father, and at times he did it, I said no to her question on the worship.

    “So what kind of lingayat are you?” Was a very blunt statement she made.

    I said except eating rice I am a North Indian.

    The next thing she said was – “You know in Lingayats there are various divisions?”

    This lady knows me as a Lingayat in last two sentences not more! The first question was about the ritual and second was about Caste! According to my knowledge When Basava formed Lingayatism he created it because he disagreed with the caste system. Check image.

    I told Ima – “You know what? Basveshwara formed or say resurrected Lingayatism on a concept of – all humans are born equal, and a person is known from his deeds and not his birth. This is what I have read on wikipedia.”

    Ima did not speak with me after that. Yes that is true, I was sitting there for next 5 minute, in fact I was playing with her 4 year old daughter Ila also. On the other side of the hemisphere Basvershwara died once again (after 800 years). Not in Kannada speaking place but a place which sounds similar – Canada. This is how the Families we have created in India. Are we becoming hypocrite? We talk about one world family and then we ask about caste perhaps the sub-caste!

    I feel very good when I connect with one of the Indian concept – “Vasudhev Kutumbakam”. Vasudhev Kutumbakam means one world family. Art of living foundation promotes the same, unfortunately I met Ima in an Art of Living event in Canada.

    Wish the statement of Whatsapp becomes a reality beyond the country point too – Vasudhev Kutumbakam.

    The topic of LBC Family (Generally, I change these topics a bit) suggested by Maria for the weekly Friday Loose Bloggers Consortium where currently eight of us are supposed to write on the same topic every Friday. The seven other bloggers who are expected to write regularly are, in alphabetical order, Ashok, gaelikaa, Lin, Maxi, Padmum, Rummuser and Shackman. 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!

    Related Blog on Lingayatism.

  • “Social Strategy” – a step in the future!







    A couple of days back I was on Facebook. Yes it happens when you are too occupied with work and commitments are such that you are socially cut-off – even if you do not want to. I checked Facebook update of one of my friends – Nishant Jain, a Supply Chain specialist with HCL – “Outsourcing is dead. Co-sourcing is the only way to go” by Vineet Nayar. This comment of Mr Nayar and subsequently sharing the statement by Nishant makes an statement that we are going to grow together, there is no other way out! I wrote on this earlier – Collaboration in logistics… What we call competition or what we see as “servicing clients” is actually helping client perform their duty better and there needs to be more ‘open-ness’ and involvement in what service/product we are offering. I started writing my blogs with the same concept (Refer – Why this title?).

    …“When Ferrari and Honda run on the racing track competing for the first spot, they are not eying at the first spot, they are racing to offer best product to their customers.” The Buddha’s teaching on ‘Dependent co-arising’ teaches me this. “Each one of us is a rung of a ladder to the other and vice versa, hence for self development and moving higher up, one’s ladder should be strong enough, even one’s competitors.” I believe this will be the extension of P&G’s present approach of Connect & Develop in future; working on various fronts with the competitors such as IPR – strategically innovating – besides others…

    I requested Nishant that would it be fine if I refer you in the blog? He is kind enough to say yes. Around the same time, when I was drafting this blog I happened to read an article in McKinsey Quarterly – The social side of strategy.  This article, Nishant’s facebook update and my owns earlier blog connected all the dots. I could see the relationship between Business and the Buddha in another dimension yet again.

    According to the McKinsey article companies are trying their hands on social strategy. Further it states that such strategy planning efforts would be more inclusive, action oriented, detailed and of course measurable. The other advantage of such efforts would be enthusiasm people would have; it would provide ownership to the execution. The reason for these strategic initiatives to be far more measurable is that these would increase accountability. Everyone in the organization would review progress of each initiative resulting in improved quality.

    Effectively, we are moving toward a more inclusive society and more inclusive organizations. Caution – the idea of open strategy or social strategy is to provide a platform to the organization for brainstorming, yet the whole idea is not yet completely evolved. So, companies need to open up slowly in some regards such as intellectual property.

    As Indian philosophy states – Vasudhev Kutumbakam (one-world family), I sincerely hope to see that happening.

    I would continue this in future blogs, too. Until then thank you for reading.

  • …there is a new beginning!







    I was reading – Living with the Himalayan Masters by Swami Rama and came across an interesting analogy which I am sharing here.

    “…A candle light is extinguished by the breeze very easily, but if that light is protected and allowed to catch the forest, it will grow into a forest fire. Then the breeze helps that fire instead of extinguishing it. Similarly, when an aspirant, with the help of discipline, protects the flame of desire burning within, it grows more and more. Then all the adversities instead of becoming obstructions, in fact, start becoming means. The obstacles which are supposed to obstruct the path of self realization are not really obstacles. Our weaknesses and the values we impose on the objects of the world create these obstacles for us. Attachment is one of the strongest obstacles created by us…”

    End result changes when context changes. A breeze may extinguish or support fire. I read few lines long time ago –

    …पेड़ थे मजबुत वो जड़ से उखड कर गिर गये (stronger trees have been uprooted)
    और पौधो ने किया है आंधियो का सामना … (however, saplings/plants have faced storms)

    Here definition of strength becomes a weakness. Strength of a tree is being tall and ability to withstand forceful blow. However, this strength becomes a weakness in case of a storms. Here we need to think – the context defines many things, at times changes the approach to the decision making also. I remember my Professor of MBA – Prof Lopez – we used to have animated discussions on various things because context used to differ. He always suggested that there are no ready made solutions – one size does not necessarily fit all…

    With reference to the economic problem I may say that there are many issues. Initially, it was love for the ‘Free Market Economy’ (with respect to the above para – ‘attachment’) by the policy makers of USA, and later the other extreme (protectionism) is one of the issues. We may say that – ‘…any time world economy may crumble’. However, when I change the context I think the time has come to move on to a more inclusive world – Vasudhev Kutumbakam (in one way “not protectionist”). I am of the opinion that we need to think of each one of us as a unit. The solution is there, provided we move from ‘I’, ‘Me’ and ‘You’ to ‘Us’. The changed context will show us new possibilities – I think there is a new beginning. … Destruction sometimes has value!