Vedantic Wednesday: Vedanta in your backyard

When we close our eyes and think of any self-realized master – the image that we conjure up is almost always a person in an ochre robe, thin, maybe bearded, with intelligent eyes, no family ties, no friends, no cell phones and definitely no twitter account. We also know they were very contended and happy.  But then the description for many of us is far from the happiness we know of. The price that we need to pay – moving away from family, giving up business, senseless chatting, the air conditioner and the branded shirts, etc seem quite high in comparison with a ‘probable state’ of happiness in almost assured obscurity. This is what if one would notice keeps many of us from embarking on the journey to discover our inner selves. The journey that seemingly says you need to trade everything of your today for not so assured tomorrow – will NOT entice many.

Having started the baby steps on reading Vedantic texts and listening to some of the masters (ochre robed and otherwise), I have just begun to understand the ignorance associated with our seeking of SELF.

It is not necessary for us to become a person of austerity. It is not necessary for us to stop reading paper backs and start reading large voluminous terse texts. It is in fact not even necessary for us to stop anything.  You don’t have to join a course, leave your family or enrol under a realized master so that you can become realized.  All you have to do is to decide that you want to take this journey.

If from your day at your convenience you even take out 15-20 minutes just to sit by yourself and contemplate on what is the purpose of life – you will be surprised at where you reach. If you decide to dedicate amidst all your commitment – one listening of even a soothing chant like the Bhaja Govindam, everyday as you drive or walk – you will be surprised at the calmness that it will bring.

This is one road trip where there is no preparation required for the traveller. The road adjusts its contours to match your heart beat. It is one walk where the milestones pace themselves to encourage you. It is a journey where fellow travellers join you from nowhere and leave you more enriched, moving away from you as quietly as they came – in the form of books, people, CD, dreams and even your own thoughts.

Start the journey of your search for the self and enjoy every bit of it!

Happy Journey!

Vedantic Wednesday: Born Vedantin?

Born Genius! Born Leader! Born Actor! So is there a Born Saint? A Born Vedantin?

Is the understanding ones’ SELF reside in the hours of serious study that one would have to invest in scriptures?

Is it necessary for a man leading a normal life (samsara) to forsake and make amends to all his bad karma before embarking on the journey to realize SELF?

Is that the reason that there are so few realized souls amongst the multitude of many?

These questions have been churning in various versions in my mind as I began my journey in understanding the Vedanta philosophy. 

Many times despite being an ardent fan of the Vedantic teachings – I found myself feeling helpless as though one lifetime of mine is not enough to grasp the meaning of SELF. Very often I have thought the more I understand the more I am getting paranoid that I may not be able to find answers as I have started off this journey late in life.

The answer however for this FAQ jumped out of a rather innocuous experience of power-cut in the middle of the night. Within seconds the whole house was bathed in thick and silent darkness.  We all waited for sometime for the current to come back so that we could escape the humidity and humming of mosquitoes. When the current did not come and we were running out of patience – I saw the room suddenly bathe with wonderful light – just for 2 seconds.  I realised my mom had stuck a match stick to light a candle.

In that matter of seconds, a small match stick was enough to dispel the heavy darkness that had engulfed all of us over the period of 20 minutes. That one spark was enough for us to see light and create more. We did not require an equivalent amount of light as that of the darkness that had descended on us earlier.

Albeit a transient experience – I felt stuck by the brilliance of the scheme of things that are planned for us.

A lifetime of darkness, spent without realizing our potential and purpose – does not require another lifetime of self-realization. All it needs is that one moment of connect between us and the supreme within us.

That one moment of WOW does not require you to plough through the oceans of texts – years of tapas – eons of renouncement. That one moment just requires you to fine-tune your vibrations to hear what is within you.

Vedantic texts and their teaching are the guide that help us fine-tune our instruments to the frequency of the supreme – and thereby experience the bliss of unison. The best part of this is that it can be experienced at will.

Think!

Vedantic Wednesday: Three Vedantic World Views

The beauty of Vedanta lies in its tolerance towards world view.  In relation with realization of the eternal truths – there are not one but three broad perspectives that find place next to each other. When observed superficially they not only seem unique but many a times contradictory to each other. However these three schools of thought have been in existence and have been recognised and followed by a large set of believers.

The first school of thought is that of Advaita as propounded by Shri Adi Shankara.  This school puts forth the thought that man, god and universe (objects) are all manifestation of the same force. It talks about non-duality. It talks about the ONENESS of atman and Brahman. In essence it says ‘You are God’

The second school of thought is that of Visishtadvaita, qualified non-dualism wherein Brahman alone exists but is characterised by multiplicity. It realises the independent manifestation of Ishvara in the sentient (Jiva) and the Jagat (insentient).  This school of thought as put forth by Ramanujacharya, considers matter and souls are real and are creation of God.  Both these manifestation are eternally real and distinct.

The third school of thought that finds its place in Vedanta is Dvaita or dualism. This doctrine by Madhavacharya considers a strict distinction between GOD and his creations.  This school of thought considers GOD to be a supreme power with substantial distinction from Jiva (soul) and Jagat (material energy).  Ishwara is independent while the other two are dependent entities.

As one looks at the expanse one can see the canvas with strokes from thought of absolute oneness to one that talks about marked separation.

However each of these schools of thought perfect within themselves the method of realising one’s inner SELF.  A follower from any school can reach fulfilment and realization.

It is surprising to note that while these three different approaches are independent and complete, none of the schools of thought seem to be indulging in corrective action on the others.  There is a healthy co-existence amongst the principles that allow acceptance of alternate world-view even if it sounds contradictory to one’s beliefs. The magnitude of openness practiced by the founders of these paths – to further their individual thinking while allowing others to experiment theirs is something that you seldom find in the ‘REAL’ world among the lesser mortals!

When one studies Vedanta to pick up lessons on life, one also gets touched by these lessons for life that makes life not only complete but more enjoyable!

Vedantic Wednesday: World’s Greatest Curator

In today’s world if there is one thing that is being given as much importance as creation if not more is curation. Curation is the act of bringing together and preserving objects of importance.  Curators are not interesting only from the historical perspective but also play a much greater in advancement of human evolution and development. Curation has always been in existence as a discipline but is receiving heightened recognition in the information era (rightly so).  The primary reason for this recent recognition is the increased access to information.

Looking back in history it is fascinating to note that India housed probably the world’s earliest curator – The great sage Vyasa. To guess the period of Vyasa’s existence seems futile. But his contribution as a curator of the greatest body of knowledge known to the world  is indisputable. Veda Vyasa is attributed with the act of bringing together and giving structure to the ancient wisdom that had been accumulated across generation by realized masters. He organized these works into four Vedas namely Rig, Yajur, Atharva and Sama

As discussed in an earlier blog (http://rajshankar.wordpress.com/2012/01/18/vedantic-wednesdays-structuring-of-vedas-technical-and-spiritual/) each Veda has four parts – the last of which is the Upanishads. It can be safely assumed that when Veda Vyasa compiled the entire knowledge base he realized that most average seekers would get overwhelmed by the vastness of this knowledge warehouse.  Hence he added another work distilling the essence of the Upanishads. This distilled work by Vyasa is called Brahma sutras. Through the Brahma sutras, Vyasa attempts to provide a gist of the essential truths about Atman and Brahman, in a logical text that sets forth the philosophy systematically.

When someone refers to Vedanta apart from the Upanishads in many cases it includes two other texts namely Brahmasutras and the Bhagavad Gita. Vyasa also is seen to play a critical role in the context of Bhagavad Gita by scripting the Mahabharata while playing a role in it as well.

The three texts – the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita and the Brahma Sutras are referred to as the “Prasthana Traya” – the authoritative source of Vedantic philosophy.  Understanding of Vedanta is considered incomplete without a complete study of these three works

So Vyasa’s role in preserving and making available the knowledge regarding the eternal truths for the future generation is immense!

Isn’t this enough to make him not  only the world’s earliest curator but also the greatest?

Vedantic Wednesday: The Authorless Masterpiece

Something that has been debated – discussed and remains unresolved is the authorship of vedic literature; rather the lack of claim on authorship.

Some questions that strikes me are:

1. How did an authorless piece of work sustain thousands of years – across eons and ages?
2. The vastness of the literature indicates it to transcend one lifetime or even multiple lifetimes of the same period. Then this work must have been gathered across generation by individuals living in different periods, geographies etc. How is this conceivable in the land sans wiki’s?
3. Why was there no claim whatsoever in whole or in parts to the literature if they actually evolved over ages  -  surely enticing someone down the line to realise the potential of staking claim to such a masterpiece?
4. For what would so many individuals forsake such a claim?

The lack of ownership claims on this vast and eternal masterpiece(s) intrigues us today as much as it must have, for the hundreds of generation that lived before us.   One analogy that comes to my mind when I consider the above is this: While Newton can claim ownership over discovery of Gravity –he cannot claim ownership over gravity

What then these nameless authors came upon was discovery of the ‘Absolute / Eternal Truth’! And as they realised it all that was there in front of them was to share in all possible ways their experience with people around them – without staking their claim on the ‘Eternal Truth’ because doing so would render it instantaneously meaningless.

To Trust or Not To Trust

The beauty of ‘Trust’ can only be realized by trusting. But you can also be ‘cheated’ only by trusting. So how does one decide to trust or not? The question should be ‘why’ not ‘how’!

The answer is you have no control or decision with respect to the outcome of trusting. It is whether to trust or NOT; that remains the question. Be it personal/professional/ business or societal – this question always arise with respect to trusting. Almost all know that without trusting there is no relationship. We evaluate and make choices. Sometimes we are right and sometimes wrong. But the result is known only when we start ‘trusting’ .

If ‘experiment more’, ‘fail –often’ and ‘fail-early’ mantra is employed; we may understand what ‘trusting’ really is. But without ‘trusting’ life (which itself is an experiment) cannot be lived.. at least to its fullest.

So try it..get ready to be cheated/treated and learn what trusting is all about – TRY IT!

WHERE GOOD IDEAS COME FROM

What an audacious title for a book on innovation!!

This book  by Steven Johnson is an atypical book under the category of Innovation/Business /Creativity. No review can substitute reading the book – so instead of a review I am sharing with you some of my best moments with the book .

This is one of those books where I found myself marking “WOW” many times across the margins. There were times I would close the book and set off into another world of thoughts guided by inquisitiveness that this book invoked in me. The joy of imagination is never attributed to the trigger. But here I want to share these triggers because experiences are personal.

The central premise of the book is best captured in the following sentences towards the end of the Introduction “We are often better served by connecting ideas than protecting them. Like the free market itself, the case for restricting the flow of innovation has long been buttressed by appeals to the “natural” order of things. But the truth is, when one looks at innovation in nature and in culture, environments that build walls around good ideas tend to be less innovative in the long run than more open-ended environments. Good ideas may not want to be free, but they do want to connect, fuse, recombine. They want to reinvent themselves by crossing conceptual borders. They want to complete each other as much as they want to compete.”

Good Ideas range from the most abstract scientific paradigms to pure artistic forms while also encompassing simple daily improvements. There are common properties across all these forms of creative pursuits – as there are also differences. Understanding the way in which these ‘innovators’ conceive, collaborate and innovate brings out some patterns which when recognized can lead us to being more creative.

Kleiber’s law, the 10/10 rule (a decade to build and a decade to find adoption), how it has become 1/1 rule, ideas coming from spare parts, importance of adjacencies, the beauty of carbon and its connection abilities, the proactive design of liquid networks which are meant to allow free flow of ideas, importance of hunches and allowing their evolution by writing them down, the inseparable link between reading and writing, serendipitous discoveries as a result of inter disciplinary exchanges, importance of exploring errors, the power of exaptation are just some of the points where I indulged myself to reading ecstasy. The story of the forest wetlands with beaver, woodpecker and songbirds was a WOW to understand the power of platforms.

To see the patterns in generation of ideas was amazing. What stunned me as I read was that we are moving towards a world of collaboration, free idea movement, interconnected and faster world. The power of connectedness and collaboration as explained in the book is simply superb!

The one thing that this book does NOT DO and for which I liked it that much more is that  there is no ‘To Do list’ or ‘exercises’ claiming to make you more creative. The book makes an earnest appeal to constantly tinker with what’s available so as to unlock possible doors. It leaves the control to the reader after making a strong case for being open, seeking collaboration and searching connections.

Apart from the feeling of constant WOW, I also found the following piece in the book to be a key takeaway:

“The patterns are simple, but followed together; they make for a whole that is wiser than the sum of its parts. Go for a walk; cultivate hunches; write everything down, but keep your folders messy; embrace serendipity; make generative mistakes; take on multiple hobbies; frequent coffeehouses and other liquid networks, follow the links; let others build on your ideas; borrow, recycle, re-invent. Build a tangled bank”

I enjoyed the journey with the book and I will strongly recommend this for anyone who is even remotely interested in creativity / innovation

STOP MOTIVATING!!! START INSPIRING!!!

Over the last fifteen days  I have been having frequent and intense interactions with the group that I love spending time most – students.  I interacted, discussed and debated over these days with them on a variety of topics around entrepreneurship. What impressed me was the high degree of enthusiasm, interest and fire to achieve something beyond the ordinary. Most of them had great ideas and a large group of them had also started piloting their ideas as ventures on campus. 

When I participated in a panel discussion on the same subject the questions posed by these young minds were pointed and deep. Even during my intense two day workshop on business design the sustained level of motivation of students even towards the end of the second day surprised me. 

Why then is there so much discussion amongst the teaching and mentoring community about the need to motivate these students? What greater than this intrinsic motivation can we feed to this Gen-Y?

However it is also true that somewhere this enthusiasm in entrepreneurship is not getting translated into real action. What then is stopping this group from taking that bold step in becoming entrepreneurs? While a number of reasons such as lack of funds, experience etc.  can be readily sighted, I disagree by categorising the above as plain vanilla excuses.  Let me expound this further.

Anyone watching these youngsters will agree on one thing that this Gen-Y are not characterised by inaction.  Very often we have seen them go on to garner resources, support, funds, friends and tools that we thought were far beyond their reach. They have broken many of our accepted limits of performance and possibilities. They are innovative, motivated and result driven – however only on those things where they are convinced. When they decide the end is worth it – they have the drive to figure the means.

Today when you notice the effort in the ecosystem to expose the young minds to entrepreneurship – the energy we are expending is directed primarily at motivating and energizing them. The thrill of the journey is spoken more than the end result (achievement, contribution, wealth creation, recognition etc). Except for making feeble attempt at appealing to their emotions; we are not providing them with a strong enough case to pursue entrepreneurship.  This is where the weakness is.

In my view, the singular factor that can catalyze their jump to entrepreneurship is inspiration.  

Inspiration cannot be drawn only from the stories of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. They need to be shown Indian success stories of the likes of Narayana Murthy, Dhirubhai Ambani, Karsenbhai patel etc. But even more importantly they need to be exposed to the regional-local stories which may not yet be popular; but with whom the students would find easier to relate.

 Since these local entrepreneurs would have started and grown their enterprise amidst the same conditions and constraints – it will provide inspiration of the highest order.  When the students constantly listen to only examples from west and exceptions from India, their logical minds start weighing the possibility of success.

If one can inspire them with the thought that while it is fine for all to aspire to become Narayana Murthy, there are many business owners who have created profitable and sustainable socio-economic ecosystem – supporting multiple families, creating and sharing wealth in many planes right from their locality, who they can also become. All these examples are not for pure emulation – but to provide the needed inspiration at multiple levels. Inspiration then also needs to be sustained by constant interactions with such entrepreneurial minds. And this will be extremely powerful once again if they are local!

Once these young minds are inspired by the larger end – I am confident that they will work out the means to achieve it.

All our hopes for a stronger and younger entrepreneurial India can come ONLY if we start inspiring our already motivated Gen-Y. Do we actually have another choice?

Vedantic Wednesday: Structuring of Vedas- Technical and Spiritual

In the greatest level of abstraction Vedanta means knowledge of the absolute reality.  Vedanta espouses that such knowledge is not gained by symbolic practices, consumption of voluminous scriptures but through direct experience. In the physical manifestation, Vedanta – represents the end portion of the Vedas – ‘Veda-anta’.

Thought to have been composed over thousands of years, the Vedas are as per religious tradition considered to be created for the benefit of humanity by the supreme Being – ‘Brahman’. They contain within them the eternal truths and become manifest as per the need of the age.

Each of the Vedas is considered to be made of four distinct sections.

• ‘Mantras’ – the collection of hymns and prayers through which one can seek almost everything that is conceivable in the physical world from the numerous gods and goddesses.
• ‘Brahmana’ – collection of rituals, rules and details for performance of various sacrifices and conduct of yagnas.  It interprets the word of Mantras and how they are to be understood in the conduct of sacrifices.
• ‘Aranyaka’ – is the beginning of the purely spiritual elements of the Vedas, where one moves from the performance of sacrifices to understand and inquire about their context and meaning.
• ‘Upanishads’ – following the Aranyakas represents the repository of spirituality.  It is in Upanishads that one finds the inquiry into ultimate reality, where oneness of Atman and Brahman and the universal implications are recorded as seen by sages. The journey from Mantras to Aranyakas through Brahmana prepares the mortal mind to grasp this truth.

Upanishads – as sacred texts are called Vedanta – the end portions of the veda. Situated physically at the end of each Veda, they hold within them the eternal truth that is found by powerful internal inquiry, with the power to liberate us from bondage.

Upanishads poised at the end of each of the vedas propound the oneness of Atman and Brahman. Aitareya Upanisad of the Rigveda states “Prajnanam Brahma“ (The Brahman means realising the jnana that is the highest ),  ” Aham Brahmasmi” (I am the Brahman) is stated in the Brhadaranyaka Upanisad of the Yajurveda., “Tat tvam asi” (The Paramatman and you are the one and the same)  is from the Chandogya Upanisad of the samaveda and “Ayam Atma Brahma” (This Self is the Brahman”), is from the Mandukya Upanisad of the Atharvaveda.

The structuring of these ageless scriptures, all based on the concerted note of oneness is  a strong indication of the singular view of the universal truth. 

While trying to grasp and experience what is contained in these texts is akin to emptying ocean with our cupped palms ; every dip one takes, however brief – has a cleansing effect that is undeniable!

Vedantic Wednesday: Lesson in Negotiation

As I was scanning the pages of “Tattvabodha”, a publication of Sri Ramakrishna Math, I came across the passage, which I present below:

There are many nuances of truth: ‘Some one is sitting there’ is true. ‘Rama is sitting there’ is also true. ‘Rama is sitting on the bench there’ is a greater truth. ‘Rama aged 30 is sitting on the bench, in the park and reading a book’ is still greater truth. Evidently, gradations in truth reveal the clarity of comprehension of something. That which is very hazy and unclear is only half-truth, while that which is perfectly and absolutely clear is the highest truth.

Each of the above by themselves are true independently from a particular standpoint. Be it business, work or personal life we always strive to prove ourselves right and benefit by opting for the convenient worldview. The benefit could be tangible or intangible. However when we believe that our worldview is the absolute truth, we trample even better judgments /opinions, which disallows us from progressing towards greater understanding. Only with greater understanding and greater acceptance of alternate worldviews comes the opportunity to move towards gaining clarity of the absolute truth.

Many negotiations in politics, business, communities, families etc fail to produce win-win solutions because people involved are not willing to let go of their worldview, for a better one. Purposeful action can result only when you allow yourself to be led to the absolute truth. Everything else will fall short of that measure of ‘Punya’ or virtuous action.