Foolishness is better than smartness......

The above statement may seem very strange to many. Generally smartness is more sought after quality than foolishness. Let me clarify the statement, before proceeding into the blog. Smartness is referred as an attribute of the mind, while foolishness is referred as attribute of the heart.

There are famous quotes on "foolishness" which we find generally difficult to comprehend.

Steve Jobs's famous quote "Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish".
Why he is talking of foolishness? Even though most of us know that he one of the geniuses of present times.

"I learned pretty soon that it was essential to fail and be foolish."
― Daniel Day-Lewis, only three-time winner of the Academy Award for Best Actor

"Until you're ready to look foolish, you'll never have the possibility of being great."
― Cher

“People do not wish to appear foolish; to avoid the appearance of foolishness, they are willing to remain actually fools.”
― Alice Walker

Lets begin with a zen story.

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Ryokan, a Zen master, lived the simplest kind of life in a little hut at the foot of a mountain. One evening a thief visited the hut only to discover there was nothing in it to steal.

Ryokan returned and caught him. “You may have come a long way to visit me,” he told the prowler, “and you should not return empty handed. Please take my clothes as a gift.”

The thief was bewildered. He took the clothes and slunk away.

Ryokan sat naked, watching the moon. “Poor fellow,” he mused, “I wish I could give him this beautiful moon.”
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The story is such that, it takes certain level of foolishness, to get something out of it. Smart people may find it incomplete, and may not get an inch of it.

We often felt that decision that we take from heart (foolishness) are often the best ones. The decision that we take, after lot of deliberations and calculations, are mostly mind based. They may bring material gain, but not peace of mind and bliss in a long run. Why it is so?

Decisions by heart are often not you own decisions. These decisions are taken by you only, when you forget yourself as a person. It seems, these are the decisions of existence, not yours. These decisions are in tune with the existence and that is why, it bring peace and harmony  not only in our lives but for everyone. On the contrary, decisions taken by mind are centered on us as a person. While taking decisions by mind, we do not care for others and existence. The result of all such decisions can only bring stress and disharmony for you and all. People who practice smartness may achieve lot of things, but may miss life. On the other hand, people who can be little fool may be at peace and experience life. Also foolish people are lovable and liked by many, but that is not generally true for smart people. Foolish people have many friends, but smart people generally have opportunistic friends. 

So how to nuture foolishness in our lives. Foolishness is related to the wisdom. And it seems, it is not possible to achieve foolishness by mind. 

"Foolishness is a twin sister of wisdom."
― Witold Gombrowicz, Polish author

“Wisdom cannot be imparted. Wisdom that a wise man attempts to impart always sounds like foolishness to someone else ... Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.”
― Hermann Hesse

We can say that foolishness is the attribute of the wise. It is very similar to the saying that forgiveness is the attribute of the brave.

We can imbibe foolishness by lot of attention. Our attention is generally almost nil. That is why we are not able to concentrate. This is what even Karma Yoga is saying, “Just concentrate on your actions, forget the results”, as results disturbs our attention and concentration.

Everything around us is teaching us foolishness. But it is us who do not want to learn. That is the reason, everyone find peace in the company of serene and calm nature. People who are extremely peaceful, like great masters, are the ones who can help us learn foolishness.

Another easy way of learning foolishness is the company of children. Children are free from ego, past and future, and they are in joy state almost all the time. They can play with anything, it does not matter whether it is broken or inexpensive etc.  May be it is gift of nature that children, irrespective of whether he/she born in poor or rich family, is enjoying this bliss state. But as we grow, we start drawing happiness from material things, and bring endless suffering for us, which is stupidity.  It is even said that, it is better to spend time in the company of children in case you are not able to go to places of worship. There is a famous shayari (couplet) in this regard.

घर से मस्जिद है बहुत दूर चलो, यूँ कर लें

किसी रोते हुए बच्चे को हँसाया जाये

ghar se masjid hai bahut duur chalo, yuuN kar  len

kisii rote hue bachche ko ha.Hsaayaa  jaaye)

This couplet is from a famous poet Nida Fazli. There is an interesting conversation between Nida Fazli and a priest. Priest got angry hearing such a couplet. He asked Nida Ji, “How you can justify that; bringing laugh to a crying child is better than visiting places of worship”. Nida Ji said, “I know just this; it is you who have made places of worship they are artificial, but children are made by god himself/herself ".

There are few words, where their pronunciation in hindi has a close correlation to their meaning in hindi/English. Let us say word, pounced as ‘Buddhu’ in hindi, having a meaning ‘fool’. This word has close correlation with word ‘Buddha’. If you ask a smart person, he will say Gautama (Siddharta) was a fool to have left the kingdom and went to jungle. But a foolish person can only appreciate, the act and know what Buddha has achieved. Similarly, the word फूल pounced as ‘fool’ in hindi, having a meaning ‘flower’. It can be correlated as; someone who is ready to be little foolish, can only blossom and can have the fragrance of a flower.

Ending the blog on a lighter note. From now onward, if someone says to you that 'you are a fool'. There is no reason for you to be angry, you can say thanks to him/her for the compliment, and just laugh....

Your valuable comments are welcome. Learning by sharing.

We are responsible for all our actions and outcomes....

Sigmund Freud once quoted, "Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility." It seems that we are responsible for all our actions and all our results/outcomes. Other way of saying the same thing is: we are responsible for our destiny and freewill.

Most of us will acknowledge that we never accept the above claim totally. We always do it in parts, that too, as per our convenience. Also we always change sides, in such a way, that it suits our ego. For example., When we get rewards/awards, we claim that it was my action and freewill. But when rejection/criticism comes our away, we say that we are not responsible for it, and so and so person, or so and so situation (destiny), is the cause for it. Can you see the game, we are playing with ourselves. We are not even honest with ourselves. Most of the teachers mentioned that ''honesty with one selves is the key to bliss". But who want bliss? (see the Freud statement above).

We agree for a compromised life (slavery) because we do not want to take responsibility. We should either totally believe that everything in our life is due to others or external actions (destiny) or everything is due to our actions (freewill). In choosing the either way, we may reach bliss. But are these two ways of analyzing are different at all or are they same? They seem to be same. This Karma Yoga statement says the same, "Do your actions (freewill) without bothering about the results (destiny)". Destiny will be according to you, if you just concentrate on your freewill. 

It is rather interesting to see that, the attributes of a spiritually inclined person is totally in contrast or opposite to common person (which we discussed above). If someone gives him/her any reward/award, he/she will immediately disown it, mentioning it as effort of others, but if someone criticizes him/her for anything, he/she will immediately accepts and own it. Why this difference in thinking? Essentially, a spiritual person always tries to reduce his/her ego by his/her actions, but a normal person always enhances his/her ego by his/her actions. This observation is a good method that can help distinguish the nature of person, but not foolproof though. It is sometimes misused by few persons to cheat others. Anyway, truth cannot be hidden for long.

A really ideal person will not bother about either freewill or destiny. He/she just lives, without really thinking too much about it. So then how to reach this ideal state, where, both the notions (freewill/destiny) disappears from our mind. The notion can disappear, only when, we can prove that these are same. Destiny is same as freewill and vice versa.

Vivekananda had a deep understanding on this topic. One of my senior colleague today mentioned this to me. Vivekananda considered all past moments as destiny and future events as freewill. Destiny can be defined for events that are already happened, while freewill is futuristic. We will happy to agree with this statement. So if destiny has to merge with freewill, the past has to merge with future. In other way, time should disappear from our understanding, and we can reach timeless state.

Let us use notion of time so solve this mystery. Let us say, we are now at time T = 0. Then, let us imagine that we have freewill over next DeltaT time. After executing our freewill for next DeltaT time, we are in time (T = DeltaT). Now at time  (T = DeltaT) looking backwards, we cannot change anything, then it can be considered in the domain of destiny. Can you notice the difference? At time T = 0, we thought we have freewill for next DeltaT time, but at T = DeltaT, we think that the previous DeltaT is destiny. So it is really freewill time or destiny time? If the time is same, then the destiny and freewill are also same. What we have done here? We have taken assistance from Einstein Theory of Relativity. We have shifted the observer at different instants of time to define our notion of destiny and freewill. Basically, this understanding tells us that, destiny as well as freewill are only time notions and it is only our imagination. Going little deeper on this, if we make DeltaT tending towards zero, i.e. very very small time, we may be able to nearly merge destiny and freewill. 

There can be a another way of looking. We never acknowledge the enabling situations that exists around us which helps us to execute our actions. We take them for granted. Even when we are executing our freewill, there is infinite destiny around us which is present, that enable us in execution. Otherwise how we can do anything. This destiny is sometimes referred as 'grace' by many masters. Freewill can only exist with the help of destiny. Difficult to accept, but true.

Thanks for reading. Your valuable comments are welcome. Learning by sharing

Life is not a subject of the mind....

All of us try to understand life with our logical thinking.  But sages have always told that life is not a subject of the mind. So then how to understand life?  But scientific/logical mind never gives up. It tries extremely hard to understand life, without understanding that higher the degree of their inquiry, the farther they go away from life.  Mind is very very small product of life. Then how it can understand Life itself. So understanding life seems to be an impossible task.

It seems Life is a subject of experiencing, not understanding.  People who never bothers about understanding life, actually live better. This can be also understood in another way, that people who think they are spiritual are not spiritual at all.  Because a person is spiritual only when he/she is not aware of it. 

For logical people, this philosophy can also be understood from a mathematical equation. The product of mind and life is equal to constant. That means; Life is inversely proportional to mind and vice versa. More the mind less the Life and more the Life less the mind. In Geometric terms, we can say that, the axis of Mind is located perpendicular or orthogonal to the axis of life. They never meet. Mind can never find life. It can also be understood from physics point of view. The function of mind involves time, but the function of life does not involve time. Life is timeless. So how time can find timeless?

Karma Yoga tells us not to bother about the outcomes/results and to worry only about the task. What this is pointing at?  It is telling us to forget the results, which actually means it is asking us to forget time. Because the results can be only based in time.  But task should be done in timelessness (full of life) for perfect results.

It is also said by many teachers that life has no purpose. This is similar to karma yoga statement mentioned above. Purpose means results and therefore time. But as soon as we involve time, we invite worry, anxiety etc. Then how the task at hand will be done properly. Therefore, people who involve purpose in life, mostly miss life. They may meet the purpose. So why we want to have purpose in life?  We want to have purpose in life, so that we can be busy. We think that we will be satisfied, if we meet the purpose. But it is general experience that all purposes end in dis-satisfaction. People look for purpose, only because they are un-satisfied at present. But someone who is un-satisfied now, how they can be satisfied later. Life can only be experienced by people who are satisfied now. They are only alive, others are mostly dead.

People who have great purposes in life, like welfare of the society etc., never acknowledges that they have initially found fault in the creation. They generally try to save creation. How?  By actually harming creation. People who have great purposes, often go to other planets and galaxies to save the earth. But they do not recognize that they may be harming earth for that.

There was a short story. One needy person went to a scientist seeking help. Scientist was apparently working on space missions and he was extremely busy person. He got angry and said to the needy person, "Don't you see, I am a very busy person. I do not have time for you". The needy person asked 'Why are you so busy?" The scientist said, "I am working on space exploration, to help everybody on the earth". The needy person could not understand and replied, "Why don't you help me directly. Why you need to go to moon to help me". He added, "You rather need help. You get upset and angry very soon. Please try to help yourself before helping others".

The above story points to an paradoxical truth. A person full of life (timeless) have plenty of time for others, while person devoid of life (full of mind) does not have time for others. Life is now. Just experience it. Please do not try to understand it. You may be mislead.

Thanks for reading. Your comments are most welcome. Learning by sharing.

Nature teaches us Life all the time, But are we listening...

It is well known that we are made of five elements (Panch Buthas).    These elements are:   Prithvi  (पृथ्वी, Earth), Apas/Jal (जल, Water), Agni (अग्नि, Fire), Vayu ( वायु, Air) and Aakash (आकाश, Aether).  These elements have one common property: these are highly adaptable, enduring, acceptable, shapeable etc, for just everything. We cannot stop them, it just follows the best minimum obstruction path.

So how should a person, who is made of these five elements, should be ? It seems obvious that, our nature & behavior should be similar to the nature of these elements. But we mostly lack all these qualities. We get angry over small things. We are un-satisfied with almost everything. We do not have much patience. We are least adaptable.  

There are many Hindi movie songs, that describes the property of nature, and advises us to inherit them in our lives. One such song is given below. Please read the translation and interpretation.  (source: http://gurmeet.net/poetry/). 

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मधुबन ख़ुशबू देता है, सागर सावन देता है,
जीना उसका जीना है, जो औरों को जीवन देता है 

Translation

A garden gives fragrance. An ocean gives rainfall. 
Only he lives who infuses life into others. 

Interpretation

We should help others selflessly, just like the oceans give us rain and air helps us breathe. Likewise, only that life is worthy which infuses life into others, without asking for anything in return.

सूरज न बन पाए तो, बन के दीपक जलता चल 
फूल मिलें या अँगारे, सच की राहों पे चलता चल 
प्यार दिलों को देता है, अश्कों को दामन देता है 
जीना उसका जीना है, जो औरों को जीवन देता है 

Translation

If you cannot become the sun, be a lamp. 
Whether you get flowers or embers, continue walking on the path of truth. 
Love expands our hearts, it offers comfort to tears. 
Only he lives who infuses life into others. 

Interpretation

If we cannot shine as brightly as the sun, we should shine gently like a lamp. In other words, we should not wait to do something big for others; even small acts of kindness are helpful.

चलती है लहरा के पवन, के साँस सभी की चलती रहे 
लोगों ने त्याग दिये जीवन, के प्रीत दिलों में पलती रहे 
दिल वो दिल है जो औरों को, अपनी धड़कन देता है 
जीना उसका जीना है, जो औरों को जीवन देता है 

Translation

The wind blows gracefully, so that everybody may continue to breathe. 
People gave up their lives so that love may continue to thrive in our hearts. 
Only that heart is worthy which shares its heartbeat with others. 
Only he lives who infuses life into others. 

Interpretation

The last stanza has two inspiring examples of selfless service. First consider the wind, the sun, the air, the earth — these are bounties of nature that seek nothing in return. Then there are martyrs who sacrificed their lives to uphold principles of peace. They died so that love may continue to thrive among those who live. With our hearts full of thankfulness for both nature and fellow humans who have done so much for us, we must serve others.

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It is not a surprise that most the yoga postures were developed viewing the postures of animals and nature. Yogi's used to view themselves in the nature, and so able to learn from nature around them.

People who had ability to learn from nature, always thank nature for all that it provides. It provides life to us. They never do anything to harm nature. They try all means to co-exist with nature. They understand that, their existence is directly related to nature. One of the synonym of 'nature' is 'existence'.

So nature tells us how to live, but are we listening!!. We exist because nature (world) exist.  But most of the people think that, world exist because of them. But it is now well understood, that when you work for others, then only you will be in peace of mind. The choice is ours. 

Thanks for reading. Your valuable comments are most welcome. Learning by sharing.

Change is imminent; Embrace Change or Perish

Change is only thing that is continuous. Because change is time and it is changing. All forms of matter are changing. Even, all the planets are changing their positions. So it best for us to adopt changes in our life. If we are changing with time, then only we are alive, otherwise we are more dead than alive.  

People who do not adopt change become stagnant. And that is exactly the reason for their suffering.  Most of the values in society that were created or developed in the past, are out of place today, with little relevance. But people who are stick to these values invite suffering, not only for themselves, but also for people around them. The example of river can be used to describe this point. The river which is flowing, generally, has fresh water. But if the flow is stopped, it becomes contaminated.  

Religion/Society and its practices were developed with the intention of peace and harmony. Religion as well as society values can be divided into two parts :- eternal (un-change-able) and change-able. Eternal values are satya (truth), ahinsa (non-voilence), Kshama (forgive-ness), simplicity, contentment etc. The changeable values, are the religious and societal practices (or rituals), that are followed. The conventional rituals are based on, facilities and limitation available at the time of history, these were developed. But these rituals are still followed as it is, without considering the facilities and limitation of the present times. Continuing irrelevant practices creates friction, and people are not able to live in peace.

Similarly, there are norms in families. There are set of expectations from a son/daughter, father/mother, husband/wife etc. Most of people are not in peace, because of these expectations. These expectation generally takes away their freedom, and make them bounded. Nobody wants to be in bondage. So there is question, whether, societal expectations leads to our freedom or make us bondage.

Flexibility or change according to circumstances seems to be the key. Religious practices as well as societal expectations need to change with time. Therefore, set of people who are value oriented & who do not wish to change, should live in isolation from general society, so that they are free to continue their values and in return do not affect the changing society. If they do not do it themselves, anyway society will do it. But this will lead to un-easiness, and we can observe that, all the conflict in family and society, are based on values & expectations, rather than anything else.

At the same time, eternal values should be embraced by people of all generation. These values gives them the necessary strength to adapt change. People who have strong faith in eternal values, generally, never obstructs change. They rather assist in bringing change, that it is not only meaningful, but also peaceful.  People who are devoid of these eternal values, are the ones who are against change. They are roots of all troubles in society.

It is better to embrace change. But change, with eternal values, will be only worthwhile. 

Thanks for reading. Your comments are welcome. Learning by sharing.

Raksha-bandhan : Needs Redefinition

Raksha-bandhan is celebrated in most parts of India as bonding of love between brother & sister. Another festival which is similar to Raksha-bandhan is Bhai-Dooj.    In spite of such a pious festival being celebrated, how can there be so many incidents of sexual harassment, rape, murders etc.  In the context of increased violence against women and violence in general, this festival needs serious redefinition.

Quoting Wikipedia: "It is an ancient Hindu festival that ritually celebrates the love and duty between brothers and their sisters. The sister performs a Rakhi ceremony, then sister prays to express her love and her wish for the well being of her brother; in return, the brother ritually pledges to protect and take care of his sister under all circumstances." 

We mostly agree with the above definition. There is one thing, we can observe in above definition, that it seems to be relationship between one brother with one sister. This seems to be bottleneck, that is why, the fragrance of the festival is not able to flourish in society.

Sister worry about them and their brother, while brother worry about them and their sister. It just does not take into account of the others. It seems individualistic. The 'society' (or 'sansar' or 'world') component is missing from the festival. One of my senior colleague mentioned, that whey you pray, you should pray for others and not for yourself. Then only, your prayer will be listened too.  It also reminds of Vivekananda Chicago speech. He began his speech with salutation, "Sisters and brothers of America!".

In the light of above discussion, this festival needs to be re-looked and redefined such that it includes all. A sister should pray for the well being of all other brothers as well, while at the same time a brother should pledges to protect all other sisters as well. In this model, one sister worries for rest (n-1) sisters as well, and will be protected by rest (n-1) brothers as well.  At the same time, one brother will get the wishes of rest (n-1) sisters as well, and need to protect rest (n-1) sisters as well.

All brothers and sisters, if they abide to this model, and insist to their sisters/brothers to do the same during the festival, then there will no scope of violence against women.    

Thanks for reading. Your comments are most welcome.

When we evaluate others or ourselves, we are actually inviting stress and pain

The statement seems strange for many.   

We continuously evaluate others, events etc.  It is strange but true, that our evaluation of anything external actually tells more of us. Putting it more bluntly, it tells, who we are?

This discussion is not about mundane practical evaluations such as exams, appointment interviews etc. These are mostly rule based with little subjectivity.  This discussion is looking into aspects of more broad evaluations, such as evaluating others and ourselves, with respect to life, possessions, colour, caste, events (such as political, personal) etc.

Societies operate by evaluation. Any evaluation needs a reference point. We can see that, the whole world seems to moving, because of one or other evaluations. A person is expected to be the best employee/businessman, best father/mother, best brother/sister, best son/daughter, best husband/wife etc.  Why there is need to the best?  When they will finally become the best, after which they can relax? This depends on with whom/what they are compared with (the reference)? And reference points are generally unreasonable, and also dynamically varying, in such a way that, they will be mostly unreachable.

Society wants you to be the best, so that you can be enslaved. Not for your personal growth.  It wants you to be unsatisfied, so that you can be put to work for the purpose laid by societies.  Most of us are unsatisfied, because there is fear of rejection by the society, which makes us do whatever we do.

A person, who is unsatisfied at the present, will always be unsatisfied. The reason is that: they are choosing to be unsatisfied now. Similarly, the person who chooses to be contented now will always find a reason to be contented. Generally, the choice is ours. The tendency or the mind-set generally remains the same.  Also, the person who is contented will not fear their evaluation, as it does not bother them. Also they will try their level best not to be in the business of evaluation. On the other hand, we have seen that unsatisfied persons always fear evaluation, when they are below par. But they wish to be evaluated, when they are above par. They will be mostly seen involved in the business of evaluation.

An unsatisfied person is suffering from dis-ease, while the contented person is at ease.  An unsatisfied person suffers from stress that will surface up in the form of various medical ailments. That is why, it is said that, never be in the company of ambitious people. They generally go to any extent to fulfill their ambitions. Why they are so ambitious at first place? Because they are so unsatisfied. Their ambitions lead to stress and their concentration in everything is weakened, and hence their outcome will be of lower quality.  On the other hand, a satisfied person will generally do the best in everything they do. It is simply because; they are not carried away by the outcome, while doing anything. They work with more concentration, and they generally produce best quality in almost everything they do.

Best dad, generally means, someone who had all the money of the world. Why so much money is required? So that all the wishes of family can be addressed. What are the wishes of the family? Big home, bank balance, good health, good family time etc. Big home & bank balance requires slogging for earning money. The side effect will be sacrifice of health and quality time. So it seems that the some goals defeat other goals. Balance might be the key.

If we are in the habit of evaluating others, it implicitly means we are actually evaluating ourselves also on those parameters. Unknowingly, we are sowing the seeds of stress for ourselves. So we should try to abstain from unnecessary evaluation. Life has already given everyone almost infinite reasons to be contented.  But we always find few reasons to be unsatisfied. The choice is mostly ours.

Thanks for reading. Your comments are most welcome.