Business to the Buddha

Tag: Yoga

  • Coronavirus – Lock down? Stop and introspects

    Coronavirus has put many people across the world in a lock down situation. Many cities in Europe, China and US are standstill. In India also, some states govt or cities authorities have closed malls, cinema halls, schools etc. Who have got the luxury for them, it is a great time to sit at home to stop and introspect. People should not become couch potato at home and watch Netflix / Youtube day in and day out. This is a time to sit and introspect, what I did and what is my take? Here it is.

    Phylogenetic analysis of Coronavirus

    Introspection

    I started off with asking a question to myself – have we become dinosaurs of current times? Animals evolve, even the virus evolves check this last para of CDC website on Coronavirus – “…coronaviruses … can evolve….” This research by The Lancet states the virus has evolved and closely related – 88% – to two bat derived virus. Imagine how fast the virus is evolving from 2002 to now. It is an amazement that the tiniest virus evolves. How about human beings? How are we evolving? We’ve improved our healthcare system from outside, is this healthcare restricting us from developing our inherent immunity that has been there in every organism naturally? If your belief system does not allow you to accept the theory of evolution be it. However, this evolution is evident scientifically and being researched and discussed on the science fraternity widely.

    Dinosaur’s extinct one fine day, we are still struggling to hypothesize how this happened? Is it a possibility that something like Coronavirus happened with them too? I do not intend to scare with conspiracy of dooms day. My thoughts are still on introspection, we have developed a lot of technologies. Example is mobile phone, I have a 6 GB RAM mobile, I hardly require such configuration, My father has a smartphone too, he only accesses calling feature and one fitness app. Our technologies have grown multi-fold; many of us we do not even know how to use these. During this lock-down of cities, people are going to waste time on entertainment and create havoc on social media. Instead, we must spend this time with self sitting silently. It could be above conspiracy theories war, economy, healthcare and evolution.

    Conclusion

    I introspect on evolution and meditation. We spend time on how we can remain fit. Here is an interesting research done by Oslo University on a Breathing technique (Sudarshan Kriya) taught in Art of living courses. The research says Yoga Changes your Genes (Oslo university, Norway) and improve your immune system. Until the natural selection helps human beings evolve, practice Yoga and meditation it will help you – as the research states that “…changes in 111 genes expression patterns were observed, improving immune system…”.

    I leave you with this thought – stop, meditate and introspect.

    Image Source – The Lancet “Phylogenetic analysis of Coronavirus”

    Disclaimer – I am associated with the Art of Living foundation and practicing Yoga, Meditation and Sudarshan Kriya from 2004 onward.

    Related other blogs –

    http://business2buddha.com/2013/07/06/yoga-secular-or-not/
    http://business2buddha.com/2019/04/06/the-observer/

  • At times capitalism it is!







    CD of Jane Fonda can be more useful for you to learn Yoga – an Indian physical, mental and spiritual practice. When you watch her video you are likely to feel as if she is a native to this art, have you ever thought why? It is not a case of go Yoga alone that many Indians would neither know nor will be able to practice such things well. It is the case with practice of meditation – an eastern method of consciousness – too. Would not you be impressed with many foreigners not only talking seriously about meditation but also practicing meditation religiously and needless to say better than many Indians.

    Have you ever wondered why? What happened that we have relegated such a unique knowledge to either books or only to religious institution? At the same time how the Western world has been taken to these practices with ease and are excelling in it? It would not be surprised that in next 100 years there would be more spiritual readers from the Western world than from India or South East Asia.

    There was a time when India was prosperous. Prosperity makes one question the significance of life, after life and whys of existence. It is unlikely for a hungry stomach to think beyond food. It is difficult for a person in danger to think about higher purpose of life; not impossible but difficult for sure. I remember my professor Dr Anand Saxenasaxena-sir-25dec12 told me –

    गो धन, गज धन, काज धन, सबे रतन धन ख़ान|
    जब आवे संतोष धन, ये सब धुरी समान||

    Go dhan, gaj dhan, kaaj dhan sabe ratan dhan khan
    Jab aave santosh dhan ye sab dhuri saman.

    Meaning:

    It is true that owning cattle, jewels or kingdoms is mine of wealth
    But when you own wealth of contentment (satisfaction) those mines (cattle, jewels etc) of wealth become worthless (like dust)

     

    I love capitalism because it gives an individual the possibility to be prosperous. Prosperity, at least once, can give a person a chance to raise questions on existence. I believe capitalism and what follows, for example wealth, well-being, abundance etc may make one question – why and how of cycle of life. That is why probably Jane Fonda is a better practitioner of Yoga and many in West are turning towards meditation.

    When a person goes beyond food, shelter and social standing one can think of bigger purpose in life. It has been story of many warriors in India – Mahavir or Buddha. Shashi Throor in one of his famous speech said before Britisher’s arrived in India, India had 23% of the world GDP. That is as much as if not more than current GDP of USA’s proportional GDP to the world. When a society is prosperous that is when it starts or tend to move inwards – at times capitalism it is that provides opportunity to dig deeper within. It seems very counter-intuitive though but that is how the logic of Business to the Buddha; that is how the journey for within may start for the West.

  • Melting pot







    I am sure when we read the title we all will speak about culture and nation. My take apparently is no different. India as a country, culture and in terms of way of life has been a melting pot of thoughts. If we look at Mahabharat time – there were many kingdom fighting from one side or the other in the war. The range goes from present day Afganistan to South East Asia and Kerala.

    Afganistan reminds me of Bamiyan Buddha statues. The smaller statue was so big, check photo (sourced from Wikipedia), that a man standing at the foot measures only till the ankles. The statue reminds me of Gwalior fort Jain tirthankar’s statues. No wonder, when I saw them some had disfigured heads.

    The Buddha was basically from Nepal. He came to India for his quest of spirituality. India at that time too, was a confluence of different ways of life. Buddha studied with same master’s who were worshipers of fire, some teachers were of Yoga and Indian philosophies. After learning so many things we was still not self realized. After six years of hardwork, following many different teachings – including fast he was emaciated and almost on the verge of death. That day he was enlightened. Lord Mahavir was his contemporary – he had a different teaching. Both the teachings blended in Indian culture.

    Indian culture basically accepts many different approach of spirituality and religion. The best blend you can see is Bhagvad Geeta. It talks about Bhakti, Gyan, Dhyan and Karma yoga etc. Every chapter in the book is a type of Yoga – yoga means addition. What does a melting pot do – it mixes everything. Right? That is what Yoga is. I have written on Yoga earlier too – including a debate and court case in the US – whether Yoga is Secular or no!

    The question on secularism moves me to another dimension of India. We are secular, and in last couple of years Indian intellectuals (apparently others are equally intellectuals but are considered lesser) have returned awards for lynching of a Muslim Indian citizen. It was a sad incident in the state of Uttar Pradesh during Akhilesh Yadav Government (Samajwadi Party, which apparently is more Muslim centric political party). Recently, another lynching happened – a police officer was killed – muslim Indian citizen – in the state of Jammu & Kashmir, this time state Government is a coalition with BJP (more Hindu tilting political party). Last time the intellectuals returned awards, this time no one came forward! This is all economics of power.

    Economics reminds me of an interesting fact of Indian politics. The best economists – Mr Manmohan Singh and P Chidambaram – came up with farm loan waiver in last decade. When a non economics expert can understand that it is not a solution why a renowned economist takes such a decision – a melting pot you see. The decision was a confluence of politics in economics.

    All the above thoughts are in a melting pot here. My thoughts mostly are  multi-directional – so this blog moves from socialism to capitalism and spirituality to business etc. The melting pot includes few dreams I have – one is here, add to it wish to help Sindhutai Sakpal‘s Orphanage, Art of Living foundation projects and rainwater harvesting in Malwa region of MP. I wrote to one District Magistrate, never received a response, not even from CM’s office – is this a participative government?

    Melting pot was this week’s LBC topic where Maria, Rummuser, Ashok and Shackman write weekly. You can visit their blogs and read their thoughts on the topic.

  • Culture lost; lost cultures







    There is an old age home in Andheri East area in Mumbai. As a kid and an adolescent I lived in small towns. This old age home seemed awkward to me. I always thought to visit this place but until now I have not. In my childhood I have seen joint families, many people around. That one big family used to be social security. There were problems in that system e.g. no privacy, compromises etc. One of my friends – Dhaval Thakar – has one son, he keeps on saying there should be at least two kids to each family. He quotes many reasons such as, in old age when his son gets married and by chance his daughter-in-law also is single child, both his son and D-i-L will have burden of 4 dependents and then their kids. The old age home I cross often, becomes a reality when I think about what Dhaval says, but I somehow cannot digest that concept. I feel we as a culture are dynamically changing (specially in India) and not necessarily for good. All this is happening without any other safety net ready for next 15-20 or say 50 years.

    Natraj CultureI completely buy-in his point. However, now a days even educating a single child is very expensive. Furthermore, in present day economy we do not offer any social security in India. On the contrary there are questions on survival of citizen. So, these things make me question the way we are growing. [Tweet “We sacrifice our present in assumption of comfortable future. Future we know- never comes!”] In the name of GDP and growth and vibrant economy we are making everything expensive.

    [Tweet “Yoga is a commercial success in the US, in India we laugh at Baba Ramdev.”] [Tweet “Alternate medicine of Kerala became talk for Neymar’s WorldCup2014 injury we overlook it.”] The Western culture was actually a lost culture and in East we are losing our cultural heritage.

    I say lost cultures are the European and American… and culture lost is (kind of) Indian culture. Indian’s have been following many things blindly what happens in the developed nations. But have we ever noticed – there are broken families, there are psychological problems there is prosperity but not mental peace they may be overfed but undernourished!

    Image source – http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/Bronze_Shiva_as_lord_of_the_dance_CAC.JPG

  • Yoga – Secular or not?







    Patanjali Yoga Sutras
    Source – Art of Living website

    It takes a lot of time for courts to offer a judgement, there are argument and counter-arguments. Logic and intuition fails if you do not have proof. That’s why Indian courts take 20 years even for high profile cases (e.g. Mumbai bomb blast), small cases are either solved out of court or not at all during the life time of an accused / plaintiff. Galileo died and hundreds of years later (in 1992) Churches exonerated him of the heresy – of saying Earth if not flat. People do not think logically and thus recently I have been bothered by fanatics on Twitter (follow me on Twitter @krdpravin). So, I feel petty on some things. Well, today I want to write about whether Yoga is secular or not?

    Disclaimer – I am discussing Yoga as Patanjali Yoga Sutra I am not an “authority on Yoga”.

    There was a case filed in California- “Yoga can not be taught in schools as Yoga is not secular”. Effectively the contention was Yoga is actually Hindu religion. California Judge rejected this claim.  Yet there is little more discussion needed on this.

    Think – is breathing secular or not? In yoga Patanjali has talked about Pranayams – breathing exercise. Is remembering (concentrating, meditating on) any God or whether Jesus or other prophet related to only “Hinduism”? Yoga talks about meditating on deity too. Is speaking truth not secular? I can list few more food for thoughts, however let me instead brief on Patanjali Yoga Sutra. Patanjali was a sage, he existed before Christ and had written Yoga Sutras. The sutras have eight limbs –

    1. Yama – 5 abstinence – non-violence, truth, non-covetousness, abstinence and non-possessiveness.

    In today’s world we need all these virtues, very importantly non-covetousness, non-possessiveness. Financial crisis is result of covetousness

    2. Niyama – 5 observances – cleanliness, contentment, austerity, reading scriptures, surrender to god.

    Here one may argue – reading scripture is religious. Did Patanjali say do not read Bible? Even in Surrender to God it is not mentioned that the God has to be only HINDU God!

    3. Asana – Discipline of the body and body posture.

    Largely – people all over the world (include many Indians and Hindus) think Yoga means Asana. Asana is just 12.5% (e.g. 1 part of 8 fold path of Patanjali) of what Patanjali said about yoga. Also, can you say that whatever games played in Olympics are religion? In this context – Hinduism? No! right?

    4. Pranayam – Control of breath

    Common we call breath and this would be idiotic to call breathing non-secular.

    5. Pratyahar – withdrawal of senses from their external objects.

    Well, many of us would not understand this. This is not talked in many religions – this helps in being non-covetous, non-possessive and being content. This is where I think Yoga is far more evolved and different than any Western religion. Though Yoga is not a religion.

    6. Dharana – concentration of the Chitta upon a physical object (say a photograph of Jesus, a frivolous example – Computer mouse).  Take an example of Rosary (a bead) and remembering any mantra / God. Use of bead is common in Islam too. Who says Dharana is about only one religion? It can be followed by any person whether following a religion or not.

    7. Dhyan – Meditation. It is largely professed by Indian religions e.g. Jainism, Hinduism and Buddhism. So, meditation is also not specific to only Hinduism. Additionally if someone prays with complete devotion that can become meditation.

    8 Samadhi – oneness with the object of meditation.

    Yoga is a very evolved science, of course developed and practiced more than 2000 years ago. But yes Yoga is science, there is no religious seal on it. My Indian and Hindu friends may argue against me saying – it is Hindu practice with various arguments. Foreigners may argue on same lines and state Yoga is religion.

    Well, I am of the opinion – religion is very personal matter and not a group matter. So, if I follow yoga practice (which I do not) I may say Yoga is my religion. But otherwise yoga is a way of life beyond and above all the so call religions of the world – which effectively are cause of troubles, war (include terrorism), fundamentalism and superiority complexes. And yes, Yoga is above the courts and laws too.

    Most importantly – Now do you follow what religious fundamentalism is? I am putting Yoga above everything which is what happens when fanaticism creeps in making a suicide bombers. I did the same in above para (by stating Yoga is above all).

    Yet please remember – 1st step of Yoga has first abstinence – non-violence. This includes not having superiority complex also.

    Image source – http://www.artofliving.org/patanjali-yogasutra

    One of the Authority on Yoga is – Sri Sri Ravishankar (Guruji)

  • Don’t be empathetic







    Do an experiment – do not empathize with people. I mean try this, when you are talking to someone or listening to someone just do not empathize. Just listen as if the other person is talking to a stone.Be completely disinterested. Than once the person is through with his/her blabbering just reflect, reflect that the person is/was in this mood or that mood. Continue doing this experiment for few other people. You would realize that this other people or persons are in some mood. You are just “a third party” “an observer”. In some time you would realize that people fall in different mood segments. Our mood changes and therefore we move from one segments to other.

    I was doing this research on relationship between Indian Classical Music and Yoga. In that research I came across music therapy and color system’s relations with it. Each color reflects a different emotion, Ragas do the same. Each Swar of Indian classical Music is associated with a Chakra in human body. These chakra’s have an associated color too. This research made me connect a couple of things. Approach note here. Ragas are called Colors of life that is emotions.

    Each color reflect an emotion, each one of us reflects an emotion. When you observe people disinterestedly (here I have called it without empathy) you would observe people are reflecting a particular emotion or color.

    Now look back – before that person came to you, were things different? Things were same – air was flowing, sun was shining, perhaps it is/was raining, birds chirping.  The nature did not differentiate before that person came to you and after that. It is only you who (if empathize with other person) change your mood. Observe around you the world is same whatever you think, feel or do. That is being consistent (in Hindi – eksar). Related blog – Swasthay – dwelling in oneself.

    We are like a Prism. A “consistent” sunlight falls on it and it scatter the color components of sunlight.

    http://chipl.edublogs.org/files/2010/11/Reverse-light-spectrum-yy6cje.jpg

    We also scatter our mood in surrounding. Otherwise place (space) is consistent. The color can be a rage – red color or a serenity – blue color. We should strive to be a “combination Prism” which reflect light without scattering it. (Image source)

    I say – be empathetic but do not get rundown by the emotions of others. That would be being Swasthay – dwelling in oneself.

    Disclaimer –
    1. The Author does not endorse “being non-empathetic”. The author is trying to make a point “assuming” if we do not empathize for this experimental purpose we would be able to understand that nature does not change if we are in one mood or the other. Nature is consistent with itself (as Sunlight). We are the Prism which reflect particular color of the consistent sunlight.
    2. Most importantly – author does not preach and does not believe he is someone who should preach.

  • Music and Yoga







    For a long time I refrained from writing on this topic on my blog. Here it is today…

    I was learning Indian Classical Music (ICM) during 2008-2010. I felt that there is relation between ICM nd Yoga (the chakra of Human body). There are seven swars (Notes) in ICM and seven chakras in body, can any raaga be used to invoke a chakra or help in spiritual practice of an individual? This was the question when I started working on this. My Art of Living teacher (Dr Shikant Agashe) and my Guruji of Music class (Mr B G Tilak) helped me explore this further until I left for further academic pursuits.

    Honestly speaking, I do not have any conclusive research report/measure for the same currently, however a strong feeling says there is some relation. With a few challenges we also devised an experiment and in fact we communicated with few other doctors and experts of ICM.

    People have helped us in providing information about use of ICM in medicine as alternative method and Nad Yoga. So, there are many paths going out from ICM, the path I am considering here is ‘ relation between ICM and The Chakras of human body.

    At a later stage, I happened to read a book titled Music As Yoga by Patrick Bernard (visit PatrickBernard.com). In the book I found something interesting – Page 109 – …According to Young: “when a specific series of harmonically related frequencies are continuous, in more definite way, the sound thus produced stimulates a psychological state which is felt by the listener given the fact that such a series of frequencies will continually trigger a specific series of auditory nerves which, in turn, will carry out the same transmission operation from a periodic model of impulses to the series of points determined by their counterparts in the cerebral cortex…” The above part I feel – somehow – relates to the ICM and yoga. The term written above “specific series of harmonically related frequencies” seems to be specific raaga.

    Still the search (research) is to be continued and for that measurement system is needed, things to do and cart to move… Just thought to share it on my blog – perhaps some strings can vibrate, some can resonate and some find the right tune… and we find something interesting.