Business to the Buddha

Tag: Wealth

Remember! We’ve to leave the elevator

Sigmund Freud is one of the authorities on the interpretations of dreams. He wrote a very famous book “The Interpretation of Dreams”. One of his quotes is “Dreams are never concerned with trivia.” I rarely dream or perhaps I dream but forget them before I wake up. If we give some serious thoughts to our dreams, few can teach a lesson or two. The lesson that I learned from a recent dream was – “remember we’ve to leave the elevator”.

My dream

Two weeks back I had a dream. This dream was a bit unusual. I was coming out of an elevator. I came out and saw a family – Husband, wife, and two of their children – one infant and one toddler waiting for the elevator. In this building, we had the provision of a room and kitchen for domestic help. This was a family of one such domestic help. I asked him – what happened Ram where are you going with so much luggage? He responded – we are going to our village. Due to Covid we are exhausted with our limited resources and have better chances in the village.

I held the door of the elevator so that the family can get in. Ram kept luggage and his wife took the kids in. Before I could leave the door for them to proceed, I noticed, Ram was arranging his stuff in the small place as if he has to put his kids to sleep here.

Before closing the door, out of curiosity, I asked him what are you doing? You will reach ground within a min or so, why are you arranging your stuff here as if you have to live here forever? Before Ram could answer this question, my sleep was interrupted; I woke up.

Food for thought

It was good food for thought. We keep on “arranging” things in life, parents ask children to “settle down”. Settling down is a euphemism in India for getting married and having a family. American research suggested that 1 in 8 Americans die in their sleep. We are unsure of waking up the next morning but we prepare life long to arrange things and settling. On a lighter note, “we are very optimistic, to be in the other 7”.

My point is, instead of being satisfied, which is here and now, and worth earning we become feverish and keep on running endlessly. In some cases, rather than being feverish, some activities become necessary because of other entanglements. It is complex to understand my previous sentence, so to understand the point I am making read this story of the entanglement of a Langot (undergarment).

Remember! We’ve to leave the elevator

We must pause and introspect some time. I had written about introspection about a decade back with this question – Why are you doing what are you doing? We must strive for goals and ambitions. At the same time, we must be mindful too. The point is, we must live life to the fullest, enjoy it, and make it comfortable for ourselves and those around us. After all this, we must remember – we are not going to stay here forever – we have to leave the elevator some time – however beautiful it is. The Ram within woke up to say – Ram, you have to leave the elevator sooner or later so watch your actions.

Image source – https://charterelevator.com/modernization/modernize-you-cab-image/

November 8, 2020
Coronavirus and questions on wealth

On the wake Coronavirus and market bloodshed, I leave you with some question this week. These questions are directly related to Coronavirus and on wealth. Our sense of defining wealth – and at times success – need a contemplation. To begin with let me share a story with you:

Once a man won a lottery worth ten lakhs (1 million) rupees. When his wife heard this news, she was worried, how should she break this news to her husband. The man had a weak heart and a sudden such news might give him a shock or he might even suffer a heart attack due to sheer excitement. So, the wife went to a priest requesting for help. The priest said “Don’t worry, I will come with you, and together we’ll give him the news”. Next Sunday, priest went to the lottery winner’s home and asked him “My child, suppose by the grace of God you won a lottery of ten lakh, what would you do with it?”

The man answered, “I will give half of it to the church Father.” No sooner the priest heard this, he had a heart attack.

Wealth should bring peace. Being wealthy should not bring arrogance, hostility, jealousy, disgust or boredom.

Coronavirus and questions on wealth

Wealth should not be something that becomes a reason for happiness or sorrow or a cause of shock. We live in such an artificial world that a virtual belief in wealth governs so many things. Recently I read worldwide markets are down and names of people who lost millions because of outbreak of Coronavirus. The shares are down and thus many people are losing their unrealized profits; some have lost the previous day’s profits and squared off at lesser margin. What to do with riches that are dependent on outside influences. A virus hits the world and (for no faults if yours, you become poorer) the wealth is wiped out.

I leave you with some question this week – what is wealth? How money / wealth should keep you? How should it affect you? Why do we define wealth the way we define it? Should we’ve a different way of measuring wealth? Should we revisit our definition of money / wealth?

Relevant other blog

http://business2buddha.com/2012/10/14/currency-for-the-future/

http://business2buddha.com/2016/03/13/kanhaiya-to-mallya-why-lessons-from-buddha-prevail/

Story source – Commentaries on Shiv Sutra by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, The Art of living foundation.

March 8, 2020
Clinging to wealth

There have been many Messiah, and many have learnt to have peaceful life because of them. There are many who have learnt violence, the lessons were given and listeners have learnt what “they wanted” to learn. It is up to you what you learn.

The invention of this story is not to hurt any religious sentiments. Here goes the story.

A wealthy farmer burst into his home one day and cried out in an anguished voice, “Rebecca, there is a terrible story in town—the Messiah is here!”

“What’s so terrible in that?” asked his wife. “I think it’s great. What are you so upset about?”

“What am I so upset about?” the man exclaimed. “After all these years of sweat and toil we have finally found prosperity. We have a thousand head of cattle; our barns are full of grain and our trees laden with fruit. Now we will have to give it all away and follow him.”

“Calm down,” said his wife consolingly. “The Lord our God is good. He knows how much we Jews have always had to suffer. We had a Pharaoh, a Haman, a Hitler—always somebody. But our dear God found a way to deal with them all, didn’t He? Just have faith, my dear husband. He will find a way to deal with the Messiah too.”

Source – Prayer of the Frog Vol I and Vol II by Father Antony De’Mello.

September 21, 2015
Wealth and Wisdom

Wealth is the abundance of valuable resources or material possessions. Wealth in itself is of no value, someone owning it gives “it” some “value”. Similarly Wisdom (Hinduism) is considered a state of mind and soul where a person achieves salvation. Again here salvation is achieved by “someone”. So salvation may not be anything in itself, right? Once you achieve it there is no “self”, that is another side of it though.

The definition of wealth (or for being wealthy) in my opinion is – when you have no more desire to earn more possession – when you have complete disinterest for money – you are wealthy. Because there is no end to earning. There may be a possibility that you are the wealthiest person on earth in the list of Forbes. You may not be interested to say “enough is enough!” I don’t need more money.

According to me one is wealthy – if one decides doing things because he/she enjoys doing the work and therefore does his/her work just for the hack of it. Say if I go to office with a motive of Salary at the end of the month, I am not wealthy. But if I do the same work because I enjoy doing it, feel self-satisfied and content. so the salary is not the desire but the fulfillment I achieve makes me wealthy. The later becomes reality with wisdom.

What if wealth and wisdom meet? The age old approach of the west (wealth) meets the even older approach for life of the east (wisdom). I do not think the world would remain the same, this world would become wealthy and wise. Largely we would stop running for growth, to bailout countries and to make more money. This would be the world where the Business would meet the Buddha and people would do their work as their duty rather than compulsion.

Definition source – Wikipedia

Image source – Pinterest

March 28, 2013