SEEING GOD

Today, while on my morning walk, I experienced a moment of truth. It struck me that we are all parts of the universal consciousness or soul, who have assumed bodies to live in this world. So, whenever I see another person, instead of looking at the body , I should immediately connect to the God inside him. This will help me to like and love all persons , irrespective of their physical characteristics. Remember all the instances when I had fallen in love. In all the instances , I had felt a deep connection at the level of the soul. The sense of unity that I had felt at that time was at the root of the intense love both of us felt for each other. We all yearn for this sense of union with each other, and yet all of us are locked into wasteful and fruitless power struggles with our fellowmen.

By extension, by taking care of our health and our bodies, we can ensure that the God inside us does not experience any discomfort or pain. The God inside us is like the Kamadhenu. If we take good care of our physical and mental health and thus of the God inside us, he will take care of us and grant us all our legitimate wishes.

Take care not just of the God inside you but also try to do the same for the God inside all your fellow human beings and living creatures around you.

Adopting this approach in life should solve many f the dilemmas I face in my day to day living.

Parables of Leadership

by W. Chan Kim and Renée A. Mauborgne

Students of management have sought for years to understand why the very same activities lead to renewal in one company and to more-of-the-same performance in another. Almost always, the answer that is given is leadership, the ability to inspire confidence and support among the men and women on whose competence and commitment performance depends. Yet while we intuitively recognize leaders whenever we meet them, it has never been easy to answer the question: What is leadership? The essence of leadership cannot be reduced to a series of personal attributes nor confined to a set of particular roles and activities. It is like the challenge of describing a bowl: we can describe a bowl in terms of the clay from which it is made. But a true picture must include the hollow that is carved into the clay—the unseen space that defines the bowl’s shape and capacity.

We have searched for ways to capture the unseen space of leadership. The longer this search went on, the more we found ourselves talking about lessons which one of us first heard as a youth in the temples of Kyung Nam province of Korea. These lessons came from Oriental masters who taught the wisdom of life through parables, and they gave us a fresh understanding of the essence of leadership. They provided us with the inspiration and insights we needed to create parables that could capture the unseen space of leadership.

The parables that follow show the essential qualities of leadership and the acts that define a leader: the ability to hear what is left unspoken, humility, commitment, the value of looking at reality from many vantage points, the ability to create an organization that draws out the unique strengths of every member. These parables provide an occasion for reflecting on the essence of leadership as well as on one’s own work and life.

The Sound of the Forest

Back in the third century A.D., the King Ts’ao sent his son, Prince T’ai, to the temple to study under the great master Pan Ku. Because Prince T’ai was to succeed his father as king, Pan Ku was to teach the boy the basics of being a good ruler. When the prince arrived at the temple, the master sent him alone to the Ming-Li Forest. After one year, the prince was to return to the temple to describe the sound of the forest.

When Prince T’ai returned, Pan Ku asked the boy to describe all that he could hear. “Master,” replied the prince, “I could hear the cuckoos sing, the leaves rustle, the hummingbirds hum, the crickets chirp, the grass blow, the bees buzz, and the wind whisper and holler.” When the prince had finished, the master told him to go back to the forest to listen to what more he could hear. The prince was puzzled by the master’s request. Had he not discerned every sound already?

For days and nights on end, the young prince sat alone in the forest listening. But he heard no sounds other than those he had already heard. Then one morning, as the prince sat silently beneath the trees, he started to discern faint sounds unlike those he had ever heard before. The more acutely he listened, the clearer the sounds became. The feeling of enlightenment enveloped the boy. “These must be the sounds the master wished me to discern,” he reflected.

When Prince T’ai returned to the temple, the master asked him what more he had heard. “Master,” responded the prince reverently, “when I listened most closely, I could hear the unheard—the sound of flowers opening, the sound of the sun warming the earth, and the sound of the grass drinking the morning dew.” The master nodded approvingly. “To hear the unheard,” remarked Pan Ku, “is a necessary discipline to be a good ruler. For only when a ruler has learned to listen closely to the people’s hearts, hearing their feelings uncommunicated, pains unexpressed, and complaints not spoken of, can he hope to inspire confidence in his people, understand when something is wrong, and meet the true needs of his citizens. The demise of states comes when leaders listen only to superficial words and do not penetrate deeply into the souls of the people to hear their true opinions, feelings, and desires.”

Fire and Water

In the fourth century B.C., hidden within the state of Lu, lay the district over which Duke Chuang governed. The district, though small, had prospered exceedingly well under Chuang’s predecessor. But since Chuang’s appointment to the post, its affairs had deteriorated markedly. Taken aback by the sad turn of events, Chuang set out to the Han mountain to seek the wisdom of the great master Mu-sun.

When the duke arrived at the mountain, he found the great master sitting peacefully on a small rock looking out at the adjoining valley. After the duke had explained his situation to Mu-sun, he waited with bated breath for the great master to speak. Contrary to Chuang’s expectation, however, the master whispered not a word. Rather, he smiled softly and gestured to the duke to follow him.

Silently they walked until before them lay the Tan Fu River, whose end could not be seen, it was so long and broad. After meditating on the river, Mu-sun set out to build a fire. When at last it was lit and the flames were aglow, the master had Chuang sit by his side. There they sat for hours on end as the fire burned brilliantly into the night.

With the coming of dawn, when the flames no longer danced, Mu-sun pointed to the river. Then, for the first time since the duke’s arrival, the great master spoke, “Now do you understand why you are unable to do as your predecessor did—to sustain the greatness of your district?”

Chuang looked perplexed; he understood now no better than before. Slowly shame enveloped the duke. “Great master,” he said, “forgive my ignorance, for the wisdom you impart I cannot comprehend.” Mu-sun then spoke for the second time. “Reflect, Chuang, on the nature of the fire as it burned before us last night. It was strong and powerful. Its flames leapt upward as they danced and cried in vainglorious pride. No strong trees nor wild beasts could have matched its mighty force. With ease it could have conquered all that lay in its path.

“In contrast, Chuang, consider the river. It starts as but a small stream in the distant mountains. Sometimes it flows slowly, sometimes quickly, but always it sails downward, taking the low ground as its course. It willingly permeates every crack in the earth and willingly embraces every crevice in the land, so humble is its nature. When we listen to the water, it can scarcely be heard. When we touch it, it can scarcely be felt, so gentle is its nature.

“Yet in the end, what is left of the once mighty fire? Only a handful of ashes. For the fire is so strong, Chuang, that it not only destroys all that lies in its path but eventually falls prey to its own strength and is consumed. It is not so with the calm and quiet river. For as it was, so it is, so it will always be: forever flowing, growing deeper, broader, ever more powerful as it journeys down to the unfathomable ocean, providing life and sustenance to all.”

After a moment of silence, Mu-sun turned to the duke. “As it is with nature, Chuang, so it is with rulers. For as it is not fire but water that envelops all and is the well of life, so it is not mighty and authoritative rulers but rulers with humbleness and deep-reaching inner strength who capture the people’s hearts and are springs of prosperity to their states. Reflect, Chuang,” continued the master, “on what type of ruler you are. Perhaps the answer that you seek will lie there.”

Like a flash of lightning, the truth seized the duke’s heart. No longer proud but embarrassed and uncertain, he looked up with his enlightened eye. Chuang was now blind to all but the sun rising over the river.

The Lesson of the Babbling Brook

The time was the fourth century B.C., the period of the Warring States in China. The grand general of the Chin State was seated in his chamber in the king’s palace with Meung, the soon-to-be-appointed general of the Third Division, at his side. A messenger, Lieutenant Yu, had just arrived with a report on the logistics of the upcoming battle between General Li’s First Division and the Second Division of the Wei State, led by General Su.

“Grand General,” said Lieutenant Yu, “I bring good news. The First Division enjoys a significant advantage—our troops outnumber the Second Division’s four to one, weaponry is in abundant supply, and the regiment remains well fed. General Li bids me assure you that victory will be ours, the Chin flag will fly forever.” As the grand general glanced at the report, a look of anguish came over his face. He clenched his fists and ordered Lieutenant Yu to dispatch reinforcements and return to the battlefield at once.

After the lieutenant had fled, the grand general walked over to the balcony and looked out to the horizon. “Alas,” he said to Meung, “yet another division of our state will fall.”

Meung was perplexed. “Grand General,” he said, “forgive my impudence, but I fail to understand your conviction. General Li’s division has many times the manpower and weaponry of General Su’s division, and yet you are convinced victory will not be ours. How can this be?”

The grand general looked somberly at Meung but did not answer. Instead, he brought Meung to a large lake behind the palace. When the grand general and Meung were seated on a rock, the general threw a small piece of paper into the water. It did not move but simply floated on one spot. After observing the still piece of paper for some time, Meung became restless and inquired again: “Grand General, what does this mean? I have meditated on the paper for more than one hour, and your lesson has not enlightened me nor provided the answer to my question.”

Once again, the general did not respond but had Meung follow him. They walked until they came to a very narrow, babbling brook. Again the grand general threw a small piece of paper onto the water. This time it did not stand still but sailed swiftly along and vanished. The grand general turned to Meung, “Now do you understand why General Su’s regiment will carry the day and not ours?”

Meung, still perplexed, asked the grand general to explain further. “Meung,” said the general, “the first regiment is like the lake, large with much weaponry. But note General Li’s position. He so arrogantly assumes victory that he does not fight. He has stationed himself behind the back line. It is not so with General Su. He is in the front line, side by side with his troops, and he has placed the rear of his regiment next to the river. His commitment to die in order to win will beget the troops’ commitment in turn. Just as the babbling brook, which rushes in one direction, carries the paper easily while the large lake cannot, so it is that a regiment small in size but unified in commitment will win. Remember, weaponry and manpower are important, but it is the general’s commitment that determines victory.”

Four days later, Lieutenant Yu and his reinforcements arrived at the site of the battle. The Wei not the Chin flag graced the sky. The First Division had been defeated.

The Wisdom of the Mountain

In ancient China, on top of Mount Ping stood a temple where the enlightened one, Hwan, dwelled. Of his many disciples, only one is known to us, Lao-li. For more than 20 years, Lao-li studied and meditated under the great master, Hwan. Although Lao-li was one of the brightest and most determined of disciples, he had yet to reach enlightenment. The wisdom of life was not his.

Lao-li struggled with his lot for days, nights, months, even years until one morning, the sight of a falling cherry blossom spoke to his heart. “I can no longer fight my destiny,” he reflected. “Like the cherry blossom, I must gracefully resign myself to my lot.” From that moment forth, Lao-Li determined to retreat down the mountain, giving up his hope of enlightenment.

Lao-li searched for Hwan to tell him of his decision. The master sat before a white wall, deep in meditation. Reverently, Lao-li approached him. “Enlightened one,” he said. But before he could continue, the master spoke, “Tomorrow I will join you on your journey down the mountain.” No more needed to be said. The great master understood.

The next morning, before their descent, the master looked out into the vastness surrounding the mountain peak. “Tell me, Lao-li,” he said, “what do you see?” “Master, I see the sun beginning to wake just below the horizon, meandering hills and mountains that go on for miles, and couched in the valley below, a lake and an old town.” The master listened to Lao-li’s response. He smiled, and then they took the first steps of their long descent.

Hour after hour, as the sun crossed the sky, they pursued their journey, stopping only once as they approached the foot of the mountain. Again Hwan asked Lao-li to tell him what he saw. “Great wise one, in the distance I see roosters as they run around barns, cows asleep in sprouting meadows, old ones basking in the late afternoon sun, and children romping by a brook.” The master, remaining silent, continued to walk until they reached the gate to the town. There the master gestured to Lao-li, and together they sat under an old tree. “What did you learn today, Lao-li?” asked the master. “Perhaps this is the last wisdom I will impart to you.” Silence was Lao-li’s response.

At last, after long silence, the master continued. “The road to enlightenment is like the journey down the mountain. It comes only to those who realize that what one sees at the top of the mountain is not what one sees at the bottom. Without this wisdom, we close our minds to all that we cannot view from our position and so limit our capacity to grow and improve. But with this wisdom, Lao-li, there comes an awakening. We recognize that alone one sees only so much—which, in truth, is not much at all. This is the wisdom that opens our minds to improvement, knocks down prejudices, and teaches us to respect what at first we cannot view. Never forget this last lesson, Lao-li: what you cannot see can be seen from a different part of the mountain.”

When the master stopped speaking, Lao-li looked out to the horizon, and as the sun set before him, it seemed to rise in his heart. Lao-li turned to the master, but the great one was gone. So the old Chinese tale ends. But it has been said that Lao-li returned to the mountain to live out his life. He became a great enlightened one.

The Wheel and the Light

Back in the third century B.C., the outbreak of fighting following the collapse of the Qin Dynasty had just ended. In its place now stood the Han Dynasty, whose emperor, Liu Bang, had consolidated China into a unified empire for the first time. To commemorate the event, Liu Bang had invited high-ranking military and political officials, poets, and teachers to a grand celebration. Among them was Chen Cen, the master to whom Liu Bang had often gone for enlightenment during his campaign to unify China.

The celebration was in full swing. A banquet grander than any ever seen was being held. At the center table sat Liu Bang with his three heads of staff: Xiao He, who administered the logistics of unification; Han Xin, who organized and led the fighting activity; and Chang Yang, who formulated the diplomatic and political strategies. At another table sat Chen Cen and his three disciples.

While food was served, speeches given, honors presented, and entertainment performed, all looked on with pride and exhilaration—all except Chen Cen’s three disciples, who sat awestruck. Only midway through the festivities did they utter their first words. “Master,” they remarked, “all is grand, all is befitting, but at the heart of the celebration lies one enigma.” Sensing his disciples’ hesitation, the master gently encouraged them to continue.

“At the central table sits Xiao He,” they proceeded. “Xiao He’s knowledge of logistics cannot be refuted. Under his administration, the soldiers have always been well fed and properly armed, whatever the terrain. Next to him is Han Xin. Han Xin’s military tactics are beyond reproach. He understands exactly where to ambush the enemy, when to advance, and when to retreat. He has won every battle he has led. Last is Chang Yang. Chang Yang sees the dynamics of political and diplomatic relations in his palm. He knows which states to form alliances with, how to gain political favors, and how to corner heads of states into surrendering without battle. This we understand well. What we cannot comprehend is the centerpiece of the table, the emperor himself. Liu Bang cannot claim noble birth, and his knowledge of logistics, fighting, and diplomacy does not equal that of his heads of staff. How is it, then, that he is emperor?”

The master smiled and asked his disciples to imagine the wheel of a chariot. “What determines the strength of a wheel in carrying a chariot forward?” he asked. After a moment of reflection, his disciples responded, “Is it not the sturdiness of the spokes, Master?” “But then, why is it,” he rejoined, “that two wheels made of identical spokes differ in strength?” After a moment, the master continued, “See beyond what is seen. Never forget that a wheel is made not only of spokes but also of the space between the spokes. Sturdy spokes poorly placed make a weak wheel. Whether their full potential is realized depends on the harmony between them. The essence of wheelmaking lies in the craftsman’s ability to conceive and create the space that holds and balances the spokes within the wheel. Think now, who is the craftsman here?”

A glimmer of moonlight was visible behind the door. Silence reigned until one disciple said, “But master, how does a craftsman secure the harmony between the spokes?” “Think of sunlight,” replied the master. “The sun nurtures and vitalizes the trees and flowers. It does so by giving away its light. But in the end, in which direction do they all grow? So it is with a master craftsman like Liu Bang. After placing individuals in positions that fully realize their potential, he secures harmony among them by giving them all credit for their distinctive achievements. And in the end, as the trees and flowers grow toward the giver, the sun, individuals grow toward Liu Bang with devotion.”

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Lose your ego and bow down!

Gautam Buddha was once travelling from Shravasti to Varanasi. When he got tired, he rested under a tree, on an ancient podium. A poor farmer saw Buddha and came to pay his respects, but before bowing down before him, he prostrated himself in front of the podium. Buddha asked him why. He replied: "I'm uneducated but it is our village tradition to bow to this podium. I feel a certain reverence towards this podium and I feel very happy when I follow the tradition."

Buddha blessed him and told him to continue the tradition. Buddha's other disciples asked him: "We don't understand this. You don't teach any prayer. You don't support tradition. Why didn't you advise the poor farmer to be free from this blind faith? Just the other day, you scolded a Brahmin Agnidatta for doing the same thing!"

Buddha replied: "This farmer bows in innocence. Agnidatta is educated and egoistic. His prayer has no heart. It is important to learn the art of bowing down and being humble. Then, it does not matter where you bow-to this podium or to any temple. Agnidatta is a scholar, and he is proud of his scholarliness. He has a mindset but no humbleness. I had to shake him and wake him up. I don't give the same advice to two people, as every individual is unique."

After explaining this to his monks, Buddha asked them to meditate near the podium. All of them experienced divine light radiating from the podium. Wonderstruck, they asked their master about the mystery of the podium. Buddha replied: "This podium is 'alive'. It's the samadhi of Kashyap, a past Buddha. In my last life, I met him. I was simply a seeker then. Kashyap told me: 'You will be enlightened in your next life. I see it.'" Buddha went on: "Kashyap made me aware of my potential and I have attained it. There have been thousands of Buddhas in the past; there will be thousands in the future. What is important is to learn how to bow down. It rids you of your ego. It makes you divine."

The modern world is becoming intellectual and rapidly losing touch with innocence. Everybody knows a lot but feels very little. The head becomes heavy and suppresses the heart's softness. The head creates a false centre in us and we lose our individuality. Ego is false life.

Osho explains: "The ego is not an individual. Ego is a social phenomenon. It gives you a social hierarchy. If you stay satisfied with it, you miss the opportunity to find yourself. That's why you are miserable. With a false life, how can you be ecstatic? Ego creates miseries, millions of them." You cannot see it, because it is your own darkness. You are attuned to it. All miseries enter through the ego. It cannot make you blissful, only miserable. Ego is hell.

Whenever you suffer, watch and analyse. You will find that ego is the cause. And the ego goes on finding causes to suffer. You are an egoist. Everyone is. Some people are grossly egoistic, just on the surface, so they are not so difficult. Some are subtly egoistic, deep down-they are the real problems. This ego clashes continuously with others because every ego is under confident about itself. It has to be, for it is a false thing. A man who attains his true self will never clash with anyone.

Osho illustrates this with a Zen story: "A Zen master was walking. A man came and hit him. The master fell down, got up and started walking, just like earlier. He didn't look back once. His disciple was shocked. He said, 'If one lives in such a way, then anybody can come and kill you. And you have not even looked at that person... Why did he do it?' The master said, 'That is his problem, not mine.'"

You can clash with an enlightened man, but that is your problem, not his. If you are hurt in that clash, that too is your own problem. It is like knocking against a wall!

Kurukshetra counsel

28 Sep, 2007, 0510 hrs IST,Devdutt Pattanaik, TNN

Of the 18 days of the Kurukshetra battle described in the Mahabharta, nine days were indecisive. The Kauravas , with 11 armies, outnumbered the seven armies of the Pandavas. For the Pandavas, it was critical that Bhisma, the old but very able commander of the Kaurava forces, be killed. So Krishna decided to make Shikhandi ride on his chariot alongside Arjun. Shikhandi was born with the body of a woman which later transformed into the body of a man. Bhisma believed that a creature such as this was a woman and so refused to raise his bow against her. The Kauravas protested her entry into the battlefield but the Pandavas saw Shikhandi as a man. Arjun had no qualms about using him/her a human shield, raising his bow at the invincible Bhisma and pinning him to the ground with hundreds of arrows. Bhisma can be seen as a man who is paralysed by his own interpretation of a situation . But any situation can be seen in many different ways. Through alternate interpretation , it is possible to challenge anyone. Defeat is inevitable if one is unable to accommodate an alternate point of view. Had Bhisma accepted that Shikhandi was a man there was no way he could have been defeated. Drona, the commander of the Kaurava army after Bhisma, was a ruthless killer, who broke Pandava morale by killing Arjun's son Abhimanyu and even making his soldiers fight at night, against the rule of war. To defeat him, Krishna spread the rumour that Ashwatthama was dead. Ashwatthama happened to be the name of Drona's son and Drona was extremely attached to him. Ashwattama was the reason for Drona's life. On hearing this rumour, his heart sank. Was his son dead? Yes, said all the Pandava warriors surrounding him. Yes, said Krishna. Drona turned to Yudhishtira, the most upright Pandava. Yudhishtira knew that the Ashwatthama being referred to was an elephant. Still he told Drona - either a man or an elephant, Ashwatthama is surely dead. In the din of the battle, looking at the petrified face of Yudhistira, Drona was convinced that his son was dead and that Yudhishtira gave him the strange answer to break the terrible news gently. He lowered his weapons. Taking advantage of his this, the leader of the Pandava army raised his sword and beheaded Drona. Drona can be seen as a man who is extremely attached to something personal . To break such a man down, that which he is attached to must be destroyed. Or at least he must be given the impression that it is destroyed. His obsession will cloud his judgement; he will not bother to delve deeper and check the facts. Many leaders have strong likes and dislikes and this can be used by corporate spin-doctors and gossip mongers to destroy relationships. Leaders have to be wary of this. They must check facts especially if the news relates to those who matter most to them. Otherwise, like Drona, they will end up beheaded. Shalya who became commander of the Kaurava army on the last day, had, according to the Indonesian Mahabharata , a demon that came out of his ears every time he was attacked. This demon became stronger if the attack against Shalya became more intense. To defeat Shalya, Krishna suggested that Yudhishtira fight him, not with rage but with love. So Yudhishtira walked towards Shalya with great affection. The demon in Shlaya became so weak that it could not even come out of Shalya's ears. When Yudhishtira came close to Shalya, with no malice in his heart, Yudhishtira raised his spear and impaled the last leader of the Kauravas. A powerful lesson here. There are people who become strong in confrontations . Such people must never be confronted. Their point must not be validated through arguments. The best way to invalidate them is to simply agree with them. This unnerves them. They come prepared to face all arguments and, in the absence of any, feel disempowered . Confused, they become vulnerable. Vantage Point PeoplE around him, seeing there is no one arguing their point will doubt their viewpoint and start to withdraw . Thus through agreement can a point of view be destroyed. Barbareek is a little known character whose tale is told in many folk Mahabharatas. He was the son of Bhima by a snake princess and was stronger than all five Pandavas put together. Not wanting him to join the Kauravas, Krishna asked him for a boon. Barbareek was too nice a man to say no. So Krishna said, “Give me your head.” Barbareek immediately severed his neck and offered his head to Krishna with one request that he be allowed to see this great battle from a vantage point. Krishna therefore placed his head on a hill that overlooked Kursukshetra . At the end of the war, the Pandavas asked him who was the greatest warrior in the battlefield. Barbareek replied, “I saw no great warrior on the battlefield. All I saw was Krishna’s discus whirring around cutting the heads of warriors and their blood washing the hair of Draupadi, who had long ago been publicly disrobed by the very same warriors.” It is a good idea, in the middle of corporate political wrangling, to step back and see who is provoking the fight and stoking the flames. Often the two parties involved fail to realise that out there is another man — a Krishna maybe — making them fight for his very own agenda. So ask yourself: are you fighting your own battle in Kurukshetra or are you a pawn in someone else’s much bigger game?

Make Vishnu's four symbols your management tools

Make Vishnu's four symbols your management tools

Hindu Gods are distinguished from each other by the symbols they carry. Shiva , the ascetic, for example, is identified by his trident and rattle drum. Brahma, the priest-teacher , is identified by his books, rosary and pot. Vishnu, the leader-king , is identified with four symbols: conch-shell trumpet or shankh, discus whirring around his index finger or chakra, a mace or gada and a lotus or padma. Come to think of it a good leader also has only four tools to get his work done. His very own shankh, chakra, gada and padma . Only, one does not identify his tools using mythological vocabulary. Vishnu’s shankh or conchshell trumpet is blown to announce his presence on a battlefield . In Vedic times, this instrument was used by the commander to rally their troops. Warriors also used this to demonstrate their stamina before their enemies for blowing a conch-shell trumpet was a measure of lung-power and mind control. Every warrior in the Mahabharat from Krishna to Arjun had his very own conch-shell . The conch-shell can be viewed as an instrument of communication. The first rule of leadership is to be an effective communicator. Your team must know who you are, what your capabilities are, what your vision is and what you expect them to do, and why, and how this will help in achieving your final objective. Your competition also needs to know that you are powerful and they must avoid confrontation . Unless you communicate , nobody is aware of your presence. ‘Blowing your own trumpet’ and getting your thoughts across is necessary if anything needs to get done. Vishnu’s chakra, which whirs round his index finger, is both a weapon as well as a symbol of life that Vishnu sustains . As a weapon, it strikes a target, trims the unwanted and undesirable elements like an electric saw and returns to Vishnu’s finger like a boomerang. As a symbol of life, it indicates time (what goes around comes around in this life or the next) and space (the circular horizon of our worldview). The chakra can be viewed as a symbol of review. A good leader’s job does not end with communicating what he desires and what he expects from his team. He reviews their progress regularly by organising daily meetings, weekly meetings, monthly meetings. In these meetings, he checks what has been done and what has not been done. He ensures that the team has not drifted from the goal. He discovers what has worked and what has not. He identifies new creative thoughts and anticipates possible hurdles. This he does again and again and again. Repetition is the key word. With each review, things get trimmed and the vision gets sharper and clearer so that a new horizon of possibilities emerge. To keep your team on track, the traditional method is to use the system of reward and punishment discretly. Vishnu’s carrot and stick approach of leadership is represented through his mace or gada and his lotus or padma. The mace is like a teacher’s ruler, to punish those who do not do what they are supposed to do. The lotus rich with nectar and pollen, that attracts bees and butterfly, is for those who do what they are supposed to do and more. The one he uses to strike down the rule/law/system breakers. The other he uses to reward the rule/law/system followers . Thus he keeps his team on the straight and narrow, ensuring they achieve what they set out to achieve together. The one ensures that errors are not repeated. The other ensures that best practices are always followed. In some organisations, the four tools generate fear and anxiety. When this happens, both the goal and the tools have to be relooked at. Is the goal driven by reality or falsehood ? Is it motivated by greed? Is the conch-shell trumpeting or the rotation of the wheel excessive? Is the mace too harsh or the lotus too stingy? In some organizations , the tools serve no purpose . People continue to do what they are supposed to do, moving in different directions, with no alignment to each other. When this happens, the communication has to be relooked at. Has the message gone through correctly or is the message changing repeatedly confusing all or is there a message at all? The message of ten contains only the goal - what must be achieved. The conch-shell , however, must also communicate how it must be achieved. The aim of the review is to focus on the how - if the prescribed methods are working or failing, the reasons for the success and failure. Often review meetings are not used for review what has been planned - they are used to generate new ideas and discard old ones. New whats and new hows to replace old whats and old hows. Review meetings can generate new insights but it must never be at the cost of the planned agenda. New ideas must be parked, reviewed later and then communicated accordingly. Otherwise , the review loses its purpose and the conch-shell only produces cacophony, with things going in every direction. If all is well, if the what and how are clear, and if short term results show that they are achievable, then the only way to reach the ultimate goal is to make things happen is by using reward and punishment to drive the team. Reward need not be monetary; it can be a kind word, recognition, acknowledgment. Punishment need not be a public humiliation or a cut in incentive; it can be a simple awareness of failure. Good leaders typically reward the team in times of success but punish themselves in times of failure. By taking the ownership of failure, they generate a more powerful relationship with the organisation. Mahabharat tells the story of Kuru who used his own flesh as seed and his blood as water when drought struck his kingdom. This suffering for the sake of his people earned him the admiration of the gods who declared that those who die in Kuru’s field and live as Kuru did would go to heaven. Proof of optimal tool usage comes when Vishnu, the leader, creates Vaikuntha, an organisation which is stable and harmonious , where every individual thrives, where the team works in alignment, and where organisational goals are achieved to the satisfaction of all stakeholders.

SET: Go with the flow

Holding on has a way of dampening the spirit and moving you away from being in harmony with yourself, says Sandy Thibault A friend of mine has always said that there is nothing in life more constant than change. The more I learn the more I have to agree with my friend that, indeed, life is always in a constant state of flux. If there is this movement all around us, we have the opportunity to change in response to it. But the truth is that sometimes we are resistant to doing things in a new way and it is hard to let go of ideas, relationships, and the way things have always been done. It is even harder to let go of fear, anger, hurts and the resentments we carry. When I think of letting go, I can't help but think that if I have something to let go of, then I must be hanging on to something. The question itself seems to ask us to name it, the very thing we are holding on to. Sometimes we know exactly what it is as we have a long standing relationship with it. We might have even carried it from our childhood to adulthood. Whatever it is that we carry with us, we have the tendency to keep building on it, giving it more and more power until it becomes almost too big to look at. Certainly this is not a conscious act on our part, but one that happens outside of our awareness until we are faced with something that makes us look at it. People often talk about dealing with the issues of their life when faced with an illness. Eastern medicine looks at the emotional life of the person when assessing their medical condition, knowing that when we hold on to emotions, it shows itself in the physical body. Many believe that disease is really dis-ease with the emotional aspect of ourselves and literally being out of harmony with our emotions. Whether this is your belief or not, holding on has a way of dampening the spirit and moving you away from being in harmony with yourself. I know for myself, I came to adulthood with a lot of ideas about who and what I was based on what I had been told. I had been taught how things had to be and the rules I needed to abide by to succeed in the world; only to find out later that these ideas, beliefs and all the emotions around them did not fit me. I was surprised to find that what I came to believe about myself and life had driven my life in a way that kept me from getting what I wanted. It was with this awareness that I had the capacity to change it, if I let it go. In the process of letting go I could make room for something new to come in. You don't have to have something from your childhood to get familiar with letting go. The process of life itself gives us a steady stream of opportunity. In particular, I remember what it was like when my children got on the school bus for the very first time. All the parents were at the bus stop, many with fear and apprehension, unsure about this first big step in letting go. Now my youngest son has graduated from high school and will attend college in a far away state. Again I stand in this place of letting go. At first it does not feel all that different from that day thirteen years ago when he boarded the school bus, but I know that I have learned a lot about letting go. I also know that life will continually remind me in case I forget that it is a necessary part of life. It is vital to us to learn how to let go so that our burden does not become too heavy to bear. The more I have looked at my life, the more I realised that change is ever present and life is a constant process of change, making peace and letting go. I understand that this is not always an easy process but I have learned that it is even harder to hang on to it. When we let go, we energetically make room for something new to come into our awareness. Letting go of what no longer works is a wonderful freedom that allows us to imagine something else. And every time we can imagine something else we have a universe of possibility that opens to us. It makes me wonder who we could be if we were willing to let go of the things we are carrying. How would we participate in the bigger picture for our life? What if we could start each day with a clean slate? The native Hawaiian people practise something called Ho'oponopono, which means to 'make right.' Each evening they close their eyes and practice the gentle art of letting go of everything from the day. How might you find your own centre of peace if each evening you could let go of the day? Understanding that as you do this, you are making room for new possibilities to emerge. Blessings to you as you learn that letting go is a process for life.

What is it that keeps India ticking ?

For long, we just had our 5000-year-old culture, our heritage, our awe-inspiring traditions and our breathtaking landscapes to offer. Didn't mean much to an average American, or British, did it? But today, it's no longer difficult for us to explain the goodness in our country. From music to fashion, from cinema to art - the vibrant energy is there for all to feel. Today we have an A R Rahman rubbing shoulders with Andrew Lloyd Webber, Himesh Reshammiya performing to a one lakh-plus crowd at Wembley, actor Irrfan Khan smearing greasepaint alongside Angelina Jolie. We can boast of a Prasoon Joshi bringing home two Lions from Cannes, Aditya Chopra and Karan Johar taking to Western shores our jingoism-laden technicolour cinema. A Sania Mirza stirs as much controversy with her skirts as a Paris Hilton with her wild escapades. A designer label by Rajesh Pratap called 'Pratap' has a nervous Prada scurrying to his doors to alter the similar-sounding label. Shah Rukh Khan and Aishwarya Rai rock wherever they go, including Madame Tussauds. In short, it's no longer bindi and multani mitti packs that foreigners are buying from us. Young India is selling dreams - not only to zillions of its brethren but also to the West. When newspaper reports scream of a woman scrap dealer becoming a millionaire or a rickshaw puller's son topping the civil services, we know that India has arrived. These are stuff dreams are made of. If anybody were willing to wager a snap poll, pride and confidence in the nation would rank high with the average Indian. We may be a country, which is still a mess of antiquated procedures, with a slothful public sector and bureaucracy, but it doesn't deflate our egos or make us bury our heads ostrich-style. No, we are not trying to shrug off our Indian-ness in our rush to embrace global standards. "We are becoming modern but not Westernised. In fact, Indians are becoming more conscious of their identity as there's a new confidence to accept Indian-ness. Take our music, film, art, fashion - they are essentially Indian, showcasing India with a pride never seen before," says ad filmmaker and lyricist Prasoon Joshi. If we were to talk about our comfort level with our Indian-ness, what better than Hinglish- our own concoction of the Queen's dialect? Are we afraid of ending each oh-so-propah English sentence with a yaar? Nah! "Identities should be a healthy mix of both Indian values and Western culture. Today, there's a greater sense of confidence and optimism about India internationally than it was, say, a decade ago. The country's values are far more cherished today," says young parliamentarian Milind Deora. "Adding values is not bad as long as we don't lose our identity. But we also need not latch on to our values unnecessarily just because we are treading the path of a global superpower. The respect should come from within," explains Milind. Does the feeling come from deep within? "Being an Indian gives me strength. It makes me feel rooted," says Prasoon. The sense of pride that polo champion Angad Kalaan felt when the Indian national anthem played in the World Cup is inexplicable. "It was a proud moment. In fact, I love to flaunt my Indian roots when I compete abroad," he beams. If love's in their heart, it's in their craft too. "I've tried to weave in 100 per cent Indian-ness in my couture. To go global we need to address our roots," says designer Sabyasachi Mukherjee, whose designs have graced the New York and London Fashion Week. "Everybody wants to make a mark. To regret being part of the heritage means losing out in a crowd. It makes us wannabes," he emphasises. "The whole world is looking at India. Those who shrug off their Indian roots lack self-confidence and belief," says Prasoon. Why shy? India's never looked this charismatic and energetic before. And our new slogan is 'chakk de India'.

Truth is stronger than fact!

West has always focused on facts, while the East has focused on truth. As a consequence the west moved forward in science while the east moved forward in spirituality. When the great sages of the east looked inwards and realised the truth of their existence, they expressed these in the form of scriptures, the sruti and sastra. In order that the common man could understand these spiritual truths, some of these masters wrote the purana, the epics. These epics created role models who exemplified these truths that they had experienced in a form that anyone could understand. The purana had characters like Rama and Krishna who the ordinary person could identify with and follow. These characters were based on truth not on fact. When Valmiki talks about the monkeys that occupied Kishkinda, the numbers he uses are so large that Kishkinda could not have physically held so many monkeys. What he is referring to is the impact of those monkeys upon Rama and his mission. When Krishna as a child killed monsters and when Hanuman lifted a mountain, the incidents were meant to convey the truth and impact of the incident upon human consciousness. Incidents as recorded in the purana are metaphysical, not physical. They are not factual history but truthful experiences. Our sages recorded not day-to-day history, but only those incidents that impacted upon the collective consciousness. When a scientist conducts an experiment to prove his theory, he does so in three dimensions. These are the easily understood dimensions of length, breadth and depth. A master goes beyond these in his inner experiments to discover truth. He travels in space and time as well. He experiences, expresses and records what is permanent in different space and time dimensions. It may be difficult for you to grasp and accept this, but this is the truth. That is why our scriptures have withstood the test of time and cultures. Expressions of the experiences of our great masters were recorded as sruti. The rules and regulations that they recommended based on these experiences for societal organisation were the smruti. Sruti was the truth and permanent. Smruti were facts that needed to change over time and space. Spirituality is based on sruti. Religion is based on smruti. Both need to be used for every day life, as theory and practice. However, one needs to understand the difference between truth and facts. Truth transcends facts; spirituality transcends religions

The jigsaw puzzle of nationhood

An interesting piece.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Opinion/Todays_Features/View_Point/The_jigsaw_puzzle_of_nationhood/articleshow/2276384.cmsIn

• Mukul Kesavan’s somewhat underrated novel looking through Glass, the narrator, having been transported back to 1942, finds himself living through the narratives of Muslim League/Congress politics. Here, he meets a central character called Masroor, an employee at a jigsaw puzzle printing press, who works out his anxieties about the threatening partition of the country by making puzzles based on the map of undivided India. Masroor’s mother, meanwhile, ends up forming a counter to the contending political discourses of that time by forming her own political party, the “Society for the Protection of the Present”.
• Literary readings against the grain notwithstanding, history had its own telos, partition did happen, and the subcontinent is still grappling with the attendant traumatised identities and borders.
• The division was many things, but the residual guilt and burden arising out of Radcliffe’s (a lawyer with no cartographic experience whatsoever) lines inflects South Asia’s imaginings of nationhood even today.
• There were, of course, many partitions, and all remain incomplete, the fuzzy lines of invented geography and maps continuing to be the locus of bloodletting.
• The Durand line, chopping off Afghanistan as part of the Great Game, was in 1893, perhaps the first major one, and for once, thanks to tribal identities, a border that doesn’t really exist.
• The 1905 partition of Bengal was the first amputation along religious lines, foreshadowing both the Hindu and Muslim fundamentalist’s idea of segregation both along territorial and religio-cultural lines. That segregation, and for that matter any notion of nationhood, is part of the narrative of the nation as an “imagined community”. As much a falsification as the idea of sacrosanct boundaries, of the map, per se, defining and constituting the nation.
• Perhaps fittingly, no historical, political or social tract has managed to “contain” the slippages and absurdities of these partitions, these fevered imaginings, better than fiction.
• The savagery in a Manto or a Bhisham Sahni is acutely important to remember, but contemporary writers, hesitant to use the perhaps all-too-ready trope of violence, can posit the indeterminate nature of the nation rather more tangentially like, say, Amitav Ghosh in the seminal Shadowlines, where a character in Calcutta measures a map with a compass and finds, disturbingly, that an obscure town in China is much closer to ‘home’ than a central city in one’s own nation.
• Maps are the imagined nation writ large as it were, an attempt at the spatial concretisation of the myths of the nation. A small example can perhaps suffice, the uninitiated, both in India and Pakistan, would perhaps be somewhat taken aback to realise that their inherited, accepted cartography isn’t quite ‘real’.
• Both countries ‘map’ the entire state of undivided Kashmir, including, obviously, territory under the other’s control, as a part of the nation’s body. Political claims notwithstanding, a more accurate map of the actual territory of the nation is thus confusingly different, parts of the crown, Kashmir, are missing. Masroor’s anxiety about missing pieces of the puzzle, patently, isn’t simply fictional.

Fear of finance on the march

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Opinion/Todays_Features/View_Point/Fear_of_finance_on_the_march/articleshow/2276393.cms

An interesting article explaining why people working in the finance field behind computer screens in air conditioned rooms earn much more than people doing the "real" work.

Fear of finance is on the march.

• Distrust of highly paid people who work behind computer screens doing something that doesn’t look like productive work is everywhere. Paper shufflers are doing better than producers; speculators are doing better than managers; traders are doing better than entrepreneurs; arbitrageurs are doing better than accumulators; the clever are doing better than the solid; and behind all of it, the financial market is more powerful than the state.

• Common opinion suggests that this state of affairs is unjust. As Franklin D Roosevelt put it, we must cast down the “money changers” from their “high seats in the temple of our civilisation.” We must “restore the ancient truths” that growing, making, managing, and inventing things should have higher status, more honour, and greater rewards than whatever it is that financiers do.
• Of course, there is a lot to fear in modern global finance. Its scale is staggering: more than $4 trillion of mergers and acquisitions this year, with tradable and (theoretically) liquid financial assets reaching perhaps $160 trillion by the end of this year, all in a world where annual global GDP is perhaps $50 trillion.
• The McKinsey Global Institute recently estimated that world financial assets today are more than three times world GDP — triple the ratio in 1980 (and up from only two-thirds of world GDP after World War II). And then there are the numbers that sound very large and are hard to interpret: $300 trillion in “derivative” securities; $3 trillion managed by 12,000 global “hedge funds”; $1.2 trillion a year in “private equity.”
• But important things are created in our modern global financial system, both positive and negative. Consider the $4 trillion of mergers and acquisitions this year, as companies acquire and spin off branches and divisions in the hope of gaining synergies or market power or better management. Owners who sell these assets will gain roughly $800 billion relative to the pre-merger value of their assets.
• The shareholders of the companies that buy will lose roughly $300 billion in market value, as markets interpret the acquisition as a signal that managers are exuberant and uncontrolled empire-builders rather than flinty-eyed trustees maximising payouts to investors. This $300 billion is a tax that shareholders of growing companies think is worth paying (or perhaps cannot find a way to avoid paying) for energetic corporate executives.
  
• Where does the net gain of roughly $500 billion in global market value come from? We don’t know. Some of it is a destructive transfer from consumers to shareholders as corporations gain more monopoly power, some of it is an improvement in efficiency from better management and more appropriately scaled operations, and some of it is overpayment by those who become irrationally exuberant when companies get their names in the news.
• If each of these factors accounts for one-third of the net gain, several conclusions follow.
• First, once we look outside transfers within the financial sector, the total global effects of this chunk of finance is a gain of perhaps $340 billion in increased real shareholder value from higher expected future profits. A loss of $170 billion can be attributed to future real wages, for households will find themselves paying higher margins to companies with more market power.
• The net gain is thus $170 billion of added social value in 2007, which is 0.3% of world GDP, equal to the average product of seven million workers.
• In one sense, we should be grateful for our hard-working M&A technicians, well-paid as they are: it is important that businesses with lousy managements or that operate inefficiently be under pressure from those who may do better, and can raise the money to attempt to do so. We cannot rely on shareholder democracy as our only system of corporate control. The second conclusion is that the gross gains — fees, trading profits, and capital gains to the winners (perhaps $800 billion from this year’s M&A’s) — greatly exceed the perhaps $170 billion in net gains.
• Governments have a very important educational, admonitory, and regulatory role to play: people should know the risks and probabilities, for they may wind up among losers of the other $630 billion. So far there is little sign that they do. Finally, finance has long had an interest in stable monopolies and oligopolies with high profit margins, while the public has an interest in competitive markets with low margins.
• The more sceptical you are of the ability of government-run antitrust policy to offset the monopoly power-increasing effects of M&As, the more you should seek other sources of countervailing power — which means progressive income taxation — to offset any upward leap in income inequality. Eighteenth-century physiocrats believed that only the farmer was productive, and that everyone else was somehow cheating the farmers out of their fair share. Twentieth-century Marxists thought the same thing about factory workers.
• Both were wrong. Let us regulate our financial markets so that outsiders who invest are not sheared. But let us not make the mistake of fearing finance too much. (The author is professor of economics at the University of California at Berkeley).
  

The end of risk as we knew it

Interesting article by Ruchir sharms in the Economic times.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/View_Point/The_end_of_risk_as_we_knew_it/articleshow/2276381.cms

• Psychologists refer to it as ‘zeteophobia’ — the fear associated with making a major decision which may require far too much effort to implement. This psychological condition has afflicted global investors for much of this year.
• Although the environment for risk-taking has been deteriorating since February, many investors were frozen in their tracks, daunted by the prospect of adjusting the portfolios to a tougher regime after enjoying the rather easy money ride of the past few years. But as it becomes increasingly apparent that the unusually long period of taking on risk at any price has decisively come to an end, with the Federal Reserve’s higher short-term interest rates finally beginning to bite and the US housing sector suffering a widespread slowdown over the past year, there is panic in the financial marketplace.
• A forced liquidation of risky assets is now underway and the bears are on the hunt for all those holding low quality debt on their balance sheets. After reaching euphoric levels earlier this year, credit markets led by those in the United States are in deep funk, true to the manic-depressive nature of markets.
• The financial community took on too much risk as the good times rolled on, pricing risk progressively lower and extending credit to people who should have never been qualified to acquire debt.
• The US subprime market was the weakest link in the chain and therefore the first to be affected by the turn in the credit cycle. As losses kept mounting in the subprime segment, a more fundamental reassessment of risk got underway.
• Once psychology turns, all the practices and beliefs held by investors begin to shake. Currently, there is complete lack of confidence in the pricing of any risk in the credit markets, raising fears of a credit crunch in the system.
• For instance, Wall Street underwrote $1.5 trillion of subprime and other lower quality housing-related debt in the two years through 2006 and now analysts are predicting losses to be more than double the number initially forecast.
• The confidence crisis arises as people begin to wonder if earlier forecasts built on databases of many thousands of transactions were bad then how can any estimates related to the credit markets be trusted.
• The important question now is whether markets are merely over-reacting after being too complacent or if they have sensed a more broad-based financial problem, which has major economic implications. It seems unlikely that the unwinding of such a massive credit cycle will have no macroeconomic follow through. While some previous episodes of financial turmoil in the United States, such as the blow-up of the LTCM hedge fund in 1998 or even the sharp bond market sell-off in 1994, did not have any meaningful economic consequences, this time around the origin of the current troubles lies in the real economy — the US housing market.
• The US housing sector has been in a downturn over the past year, with prices declining in nominal terms on a year-on-year basis for the first time in recent history. Delinquency rates on all subprime adjustable rate mortgages originated in 2006 are running a massive 75% above those written a year earlier.
  
• A tightening in housing-related credit is likely to put further pressure on investment in this sector. The danger is a significant slowdown in consumer spending, which has been the engine of economic growth in the US for time immemorial. The consumer could well feel compelled to save more to offset the erosion in wealth from the drop in housing prices as well as due to difficulties in accessing more credit. While the consumer has been the critical linchpin of the US economy, the market bulls hope the strength of corporate balance sheets will cushion the blow for the overall economy.
• After all, on the corporate side, interest cover remains high and leverage quite low. However, with consumer spending accounting for 70% of US GDP, it seems more likely that credit woes will indeed drag down the economy. The question then becomes how deep and how long will the hit to US consumer spending last and will the rest of the world be able to weather the storm. Given the key role the US housing sector played in the current expansion phase, it seems the best case scenario for the US economy in the coming year is sub-par economic growth but not quite a recession. As far as emerging markets are concerned, until a couple of weeks ago, it appeared as if they were indeed decoupling from the US. With China contributing more to global growth than the US this year and developing countries comprising the largest economic bloc in the world economy, emerging equity markets seemed well justified to trade independently. In the debt markets as well, the US and developing economies are at opposite ends of the spectrum; the US economy is highly leveraged but the credit up-cycle has only just begun in many emerging markets. However, a sharp setback in emerging market equities over the past two weeks has once again led many investors to believe that regardless of local economic fundamentals, US still sets the trend in the global marketplace and that emerging markets remain risky assets. Well, there could still be another twist in the tale.
• It’s interesting to note that while the major indices in the US have retreated to April levels, emerging markets are more than 10% higher than April even after the latest sell-off. The theme of decoupling may well materialise in a more subtle manner with emerging markets following a trading pattern that takes them two steps forward, but then one step back due to events in the US. The current scenario could play out like the years 1997 and 1998, but in reverse. In that period, emerging markets were in crisis and at times very brutal price action in those markets affected the US as well. But in the end, the US bull market remained intact. A decade later, we could be in a situation where the US is in financial trouble but emerging markets keep heading north despite sharp volatility.
• Of course, if the US implodes completely or a new factor, such as inflation in China, becomes an issue then all bets are off. For the time being, however, the parallel to the late ’90s turned upside down should be the working assumption. In that regard, global investors will need to distinguish between the truly risky assets that got priced at extremely high valuations, such as low-grade US credit, and emerging markets, where the risk profile has changed dramatically for the better this decade and valuations are still reasonable. This marks a paradigm shift. The period of taking on unbridled risk at any price is over and a de-leveraging cycle is underway in the US. But it would be a mistake to view all global assets through the US prism. As investors go about frantically readjusting their portfolios to the new risk environment, they will soon enough realise that the risk-profile of the US and emerging markets has traded places. (The author is head of emerging markets at Morgan Stanley Investment Management)
  

Indians predated Newton 'discovery' by 250 years

• A little known school of scholars in southwest India discovered one of the founding principles of modern mathematics hundreds of years before Newton according to new research.
  
• Dr George Gheverghese Joseph from The University of Manchester says the 'Kerala School' identified the 'infinite series'- one of the basic components of calculus - in about 1350.
  
• The discovery is currently - and wrongly - attributed in books to Sir Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibnitz at the end of the seventeenth centuries.
  
• The team from the Universities of Manchester and Exeter reveal the Kerala School also discovered what amounted to the Pi series and used it to calculate Pi correct to 9, 10 and later 17 decimal places.
  
• And there is strong circumstantial evidence that the Indians passed on their discoveries to mathematically knowledgeable Jesuit missionaries who visited India during the fifteenth century.
  
• That knowledge, they argue, may have eventually been passed on to Newton himself.
  Dr Joseph made the revelations while trawling through obscure Indian papers for a yet to be published third edition of his best selling book 'The Crest of the Peacock: the Non-European Roots of Mathematics' by Princeton University Press.
  
• He said: "The beginnings of modern maths is usually seen as a European achievement but the discoveries in medieval India between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries have been ignored or forgotten.
  
• "The brilliance of Newton's work at the end of the seventeenth century stands undiminished - especially when it came to the algorithms of calculus.
  
• "But other names from the Kerala School, notably Madhava and Nilakantha, should stand shoulder to shoulder with him as they discovered the other great component of calculus- infinite series.

• "There were many reasons why the contribution of the Kerala school has not been acknowledged - a prime reason is neglect of scientific ideas emanating from the Non-European world - a legacy of European colonialism and beyond.
• "But there is also little knowledge of the medieval form of the local language of Kerala, Malayalam, in which some of most seminal texts, such as the Yuktibhasa, from much of the documentation of this remarkable mathematics is written."

• He added: "For some unfathomable reasons, the standard of evidence required to claim transmission of knowledge from East to West is greater than the standard of evidence required to knowledge from West to East.

• "Certainly it's hard to imagine that the West would abandon a 500-year-old tradition of importing knowledge and books from India and the Islamic world.

• "But we've found evidence which goes far beyond that: for example, there was plenty of opportunity to collect the information as European Jesuits were present in the area at that time.
  "They were learned with a strong background in maths and were well versed in the local languages.
  "And there was strong motivation: Pope Gregory XIII set up a committee to look into modernising the Julian calendar.
  "On the committee was the German Jesuit astronomer/mathematician Clavius who repeatedly requested information on how people constructed calendars in other parts of the world. The Kerala School was undoubtedly a leading light in this area.
  "Similarly there was a rising need for better navigational methods including keeping accurate time on voyages of exploration and large prizes were offered to mathematicians who specialised in astronomy.
  "Again, there were many such requests for information across the world from leading Jesuit researchers in Europe. Kerala mathematicians were hugely skilled in this area."

• Link to the article

http://www.manchester.ac.uk/aboutus/news/display/?id=121685

Indians predated Newton 'discovery' by 250 years

A little known school of scholars in southwest India discovered one of the founding principles of modern mathematics hundreds of years before Newton according to new research.
Dr George Gheverghese Joseph from The University of Manchester says the 'Kerala School' identified the 'infinite series'- one of the basic components of calculus - in about 1350. The discovery is currently - and wrongly - attributed in books to Sir Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibnitz at the end of the seventeenth centuries. The team from the Universities of Manchester and Exeter reveal the Kerala School also discovered what amounted to the Pi series and used it to calculate Pi correct to 9, 10 and later 17 decimal places. And there is strong circumstantial evidence that the Indians passed on their discoveries to mathematically knowledgeable Jesuit missionaries who visited India during the fifteenth century. That knowledge, they argue, may have eventually been passed on to Newton himself. Dr Joseph made the revelations while trawling through obscure Indian papers for a yet to be published third edition of his best selling book 'The Crest of the Peacock: the Non-European Roots of Mathematics' by Princeton University Press. He said: "The beginnings of modern maths is usually seen as a European achievement but the discoveries in medieval India between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries have been ignored or forgotten. "The brilliance of Newton's work at the end of the seventeenth century stands undiminished - especially when it came to the algorithms of calculus. "But other names from the Kerala School, notably Madhava and Nilakantha, should stand shoulder to shoulder with him as they discovered the other great component of calculus- infinite series. "There were many reasons why the contribution of the Kerala school has not been acknowledged - a prime reason is neglect of scientific ideas emanating from the Non-European world - a legacy of European colonialism and beyond. "But there is also little knowledge of the medieval form of the local language of Kerala, Malayalam, in which some of most seminal texts, such as the Yuktibhasa, from much of the documentation of this remarkable mathematics is written." He added: "For some unfathomable reasons, the standard of evidence required to claim transmission of knowledge from East to West is greater than the standard of evidence required to knowledge from West to East. "Certainly it's hard to imagine that the West would abandon a 500-year-old tradition of importing knowledge and books from India and the Islamic world. "But we've found evidence which goes far beyond that: for example, there was plenty of opportunity to collect the information as European Jesuits were present in the area at that time. "They were learned with a strong background in maths and were well versed in the local languages. "And there was strong motivation: Pope Gregory XIII set up a committee to look into modernising the Julian calendar. "On the committee was the German Jesuit astronomer/mathematician Clavius who repeatedly requested information on how people constructed calendars in other parts of the world. The Kerala School was undoubtedly a leading light in this area. "Similarly there was a rising need for better navigational methods including keeping accurate time on voyages of exploration and large prizes were offered to mathematicians who specialised in astronomy. "Again, there were many such requests for information across the world from leading Jesuit researchers in Europe. Kerala mathematicians were hugely skilled in this area."

http://www.physorg.com/news106238636.html

PRINCIPLES OF ABUNDANCE

Feng Shui, Kaizan And Zen Abundance

• Our life has nine aspiration points and all are essential. They are: health, wealth, relationship, fame, children's growth, helpful friends, career growth, know-ledge and blessings.
• These are interlinked. Even if one aspiration point is missing you begin to feel uncomfortable.
• According to Zen masters there are five principles of abundance. They help us achieve our life aspirations in full.
• The first principle of abundance is: "God does not choose to discriminate while giving". For God everyone is equal. He gives all life aspirations. It is up to us to take whatever we want. We cannot blame God if any life aspirations are missing in our life. Then why are there differences between you, me and others? It is only due to two reasons. We create blockages in the mind and in the environment. Especially when we are young, we come across many people including teachers, friends, family members and others. All of them wish us good. But all have their limitations according to their circumstances and beliefs. These limitations they pass on to others also. Without awareness our subconscious mind accepts these limitations and these act as blocks in our thinking and in our growth.
• The second principle of abundance says, "Be a limitless person and accept the universe as it is". God has made you to get the best of everything in this world. You deserve it. There is no limit for your aspirations and dreams. If someone says, "It is not possible", it is his limitation, not yours.
• The third principle of abundance says, "Whatever be your intention you will get it". If you have strong intention, your efforts get adjusted to your intention and the universe ensures you achieve the same. When you have a strong intention of owning a house you somehow arrange finance. With only Rs 10,000 in hand you start looking for a new house and you find that within a short span of time you have managed the finance and moved to a new house worth several lakhs. According to Vaastu Shastra there are 32 directions in a house. Each direction is governed by a god or goddess. Whenever we speak something the deities say "Tathastu" — be it happen. The words that we speak also have energy.
• The fourth principle of abundance states, "Negative words multiply and come back to us hundred times. Positive words multiply and come back to us hundred times". When we say, "I am becoming poor", "People cheat me", "Children are not studying" or "No one loves or cares for me" — each sentence multiplies and comes back to us. For our life to be happy it is very essential to avoid negative words and use more positive words.
• Feng Shui, the Chinese science of balancing energies, and the latest Japanese management principle of Kaizan: Both have their roots in the fifth principle of abundance which believes "Clutter blocks energy". Clutter is anything which we carry in our life, which has no value for us now. We purchase a new shirt, wear it for some time and after a few years stop using it but still carry it in our storage space. This is clutter. Clutter can be anything — books, clothes, broken clocks, old electronic items etc. With awareness when we remove the clutter from our house, prosperity fills in. So, live in abundance.

60 years of Indian Independence

interesting article by Shashi Tharoor. Link to the article :
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Gurcharan_Das_Time_to_free_schools/articleshow/2274711.cms

PHILANTHROPY IN NATURE

• Evolutionary scientists teach us that human beings have evolved through a long struggle in which only the fittest have survived. The fittest are those who pass on their genes.
• But it is a mistake to believe that life is a tooth and claw struggle where only the selfish survive. Yes, we have evolved from animals — we share 98.6% of our genes with chimpanzees — but nature is replete with dharma-like goodness.
• Wolves and wild dogs bring food back for their young who cannot hunt.
• Dolphins will help lift an injured companion for hours to help him survive.
• Blackbirds and thrushes give warning calls when they spot a hawk even if it risks their own lives.
• Similarly, human parents make huge sacrifices for their children with little expectation of return. So, it is wrong to view nature as an amoral law of the jungle.

Link to the article from which the above excerpt is tken :

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Gurcharan_Das_Time_to_free_schools/articleshow/2274711.cms

calibrate our life and celibrate

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/2251762.cms
Life is celebration. In order to be able to experience the joy of celebration, you need to first learn to calibrate your life in a manner appropriate for celebration. Your life starts from a thought. The thinking process keeps generating thoughts. When you enact these thoughts you experience the fruition of your actions. Thought is the root and the outcome of action is the fruit. Life is evolving; it is changing constantly from the root to its fruit. Between the roots and fruits lie the trunk, branches, leaves, buds and flowers. These are our various thought processes. Thoughts make the mind. As are your thoughts and thinking, so is your mind. And that is your life. The 'tree' of life. Life also consists of feelings and emotions, called the manas or spiritual heart. Due to prana or the process of breathing, the spiritual heart is connected to the mind. In other words, feelings and emotions are linked with the process of thinking or its product, thoughts. This connectivity generates more thinking, creating thoughts that make your life emotion and feeling-based as well. The mind is the gateway to the brain which is the seat of intellect or buddhi. So once again, life reaffirms itself and reaffixes itself to the intellect. Your whole life revolves around your mind and intellect. Your mind and intellect together generate strong likes and dislikes — raag and dvesh — which create intense beliefs and disbeliefs. These lead us to love and hate relationships with fellow human beings and also with Divinity. When we understand this true aspect we can clearly see that our life is based on our mind, level of intelligence, strong beliefs and disbeliefs. Seers have established that we are a part of the Supreme Spirit. This is our link with the Divine source. We need to form our life around the Supreme Spirit, who is Parama, also known as the soul or atman. Soul also means spandana or vibrations. We need to get firmly established in the Divine source. We need to restructure our lives from being thinking-based to being vibrations-based. Just as an object vibrating at high speed does not allow even a single particle of dust to stick to it, intense vibrations of the soul blow away residual and negative thoughts, beliefs and disbeliefs. How should we convert our lives from being thought-based to being vibrations-based? To move from thought-based to vibrations-based life, seek the company of the holy and the wise, attend satsangs, read and assimilate wisdom from the Bhagavad Gita, Vedas, Upanishads and other world scriptures and learn more about the lives of the accomplished. Practise meditation, mantra chanting or japa, and intense sadhana. Try to follow spiritual and divine traditions. By doing so the mind, intellect, beliefs and disbeliefs, likes and dislikes, which have prevented vibrations of the soul to be felt and experienced, recede to the background and there is a spontaneous ignition of soul energy that is released. This energy release brings out waves of bliss, where we feel immense happiness, satisfaction, joy and contentment. The transition brings a blissful life without worries. We experience a joyful, thoughtless state of being, full of peace and contentment. Life is without anxiety and fear. We calibrate our life and celebrate forever. E-mail: shrinimishamba@hotmail.com . Website: www.shri-nimishamba.org .

PART OF A WHOLE

A human being is part of a whole, called by us the Universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

Albert Einstein

CALIBRATE YOUR LIFE AND CELEBRATE

Our mind is a bundle of thoughts. The state of our mind decides the quality of our life. We convert most of the thoughts that arise in our minds into action. This produces the Karmic reaction which rules our life. So we see that the mind is the cause of our happiness or dissatisfaction. Our external surroundings, circumstances and relationships constantly make our mind oscillate between joy and sorrow. So our mental equilibrium is upset. When we are strongly grounded in our Spiritual Tradition, we have complete control over the mind. Regular practise of the Spiritual techniques taught by the Sages and Scriptures will help us to control our thought process and use it to generate a happy and contented life. Ordinary thoughts can be transformed into wise, dynamic and divine resolutions, which will transform our lives and bring success with effortless ease.
When we gain control over the mind, the desires which are the root cause of sorrow are eliminated. We let go of all expectations and accept each day as a gift from God. Life becomes joyous, expansive and meaningful.
A person’s profession, fame, wealth, health and success are determined by his Karma. Even if he succeeds and scales the peak in any field through hard work and training, and accumulates enough to satisfy all his material needs, he still lacks mental peace. Peace and contentment can be obtained only through the Grace of God or the Guru.
When we worship the Divine Mother, who is the creator and sustainer of all creation, the mind attains equilibrium. Our thoughts become pure and our actions are selfless. All the negative Karma is dissolved, and our life is shaped only by the good Karma that remains.
When we practise spiritual techniques that propel us towards the Divine Mother, we transcend all human limitations and spiritual awareness dawns within us. As we surrender completely at Her feet, She annihilates our ignorance. We attain a state of complete Oneness with the Cosmic Will and the entire Cosmos. This establishes us in everlasting peace, unconditional love and eternal bliss.”






www.shrinimishamba.org/Photo_gallery/Spk_Tree_3Aug07.jpg

A NEW SCIENCE OF RELIGION & INTERDEPENDENCE

• Not many people will agree that it’s time for a new religion to emerge. But before going into that let’s have a re-look at what’s come to be known as the Gaia hypotheses, or Gaia theory.
• Named after the Greek goddess of the Earth, the theory was formulated in the 1960s by the research scientist James Lovelock. Lovelock believed that the so-called living and non-living components that go to make up the whole Earth actually constitute a new and emergent property which is more than the sum of its parts. In other words, “life” modifies the conditions on the planet to make conditions on the planet more hospitable via feedback it gets through “non-life”.
• Only together, can the two components comprise a true living organism. With this initial hypothesis, Lovelock claimed the existence of a global control system of surface temperature, atmospheric composition and ocean salinity.
• His arguments were that since life started on Earth, the energy provided by the Sun has increased by 25% to 30%; yet the surface temperature of the planet has remained remarkably constant when measured on a global scale.
• Also, atmospheric composition has remained the same too even though it should be unstable. And so has the salinity of the oceans, which is a mystery because river salts should have raised the level much higher by now than is observed.
• In spite of all this, however, mainstream science has had a tough time accepting that the whole Earth behaves as a single, self-regulating system composed of physical, chemical, biological and human components. It seems simply too pre-scientific, pagan and like some New Age religion.
• Especially since the theory almost posits endowing the planet with a kind of life of its own. Palaeontologist Stephen Jay Gould, for instance, criticised Gaia as merely a metaphorical description of Earth processes.
• Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, claimed “there was no way for evolution by natural selection to lead to altruism on a global scale.” Be that as it may, the Earth is now beginning to get a battering despite science and paganism.
• Global warming is no discriminator of life or non-life. In order to survive, humankind now needs a totally new kind of religion which embraces the entirety of existence and the interdependence of all its parts. Or as Gaia itself proposes, the entirety of the universe and the interdependence of all its parts too.

THE STORY OF SHIVA

• Shivs is also known as bholenath for his child like disposition.
• He is also seen as love personified.
• While his wife as Shakti is out battling demons, he stays at home to take care of the children.
• And when Shakti dances , in tandav , that sends tremors around - after vanquishing the demons, Shiva lies quietly beneath her feet, in the hope of calming her by making her aware that if she continued , she would end up crushing him under her feet.
• Many of these stories indicate gender equity and the importance and beauty of loving togetherness. People invoke the blessings of Shiva for a happy and peaceful life.

Annette Moser-Wellman

Annette Moser-Wellman is the president of FireMark, an innovation consultancy that works with some of the world’s leading companies.Her expertise spans the range of strategy and vision planning to leadership and executive coaching. She is author of The Five Faces of Genius, Creative Thinking Styles to Succeed at work. Website: http://www.fivefacesofgenius.com/ •
www. capital-me.com Success Factors On the Curve

• The successful business leader must start thinking of his or her career as an upwardly sloping sine curve, perhaps as a function described as y=2x+3sin(x). This graph is a series of gently sloping up-and-down undulations with an overall trajectory upward.The graph of your career must be a series of gentle waves, with up representing accomplishments and down representing fallow or transition periods. This shift from the linear path to the sine curve is an important delineation and here’s why I make it.

• As business leaders, we must become more comfortable with risk and the attendant failure that goes with it. Because change will so fully characterize the market and our work, if we are not failing, we will not be risking, and if we are not risking,we will not be succeeding. Fewer and fewer companies will be able to claim“good to great status,” as large, stable companies that can stand the test of time.This is because technology will accelerate the axis of time and we will see competition accelerating as well.New business leaders must now manage the sine curve of his or her career, the multiple up-and-down undulations of success and failure.
• They must seek to point this sine curve in an upward trajectory, always learning from the past and positioning themselves for success in the next venture.
• The key is to optimize the amplitude of success: the good position, the new enterprise, the great idea. But when the downward transition comes – loss of revenue,layoffs, market shifts – be able to step back, wait and create the next opportunity.
• Dealing with Dips This ability to make the most of the downward wave requires comfort in what I call“The Dips,” which are the spaces between the successes. They are the negative troughs in the waves of the sine curve.They represent the transitions from one change to the next.
• Most business managers want to avoid the Dips as much as possible. But it is here that the best ideas and new things are born.
• When we have the ability to withstand the troughs and even expect and welcome them, we find the best new opportunities.We can especially learn this skill from the creative greats of history.
• Artists and scientist scan teach the business leader how to perform this new math of success –how to keep this sine curve undulating upward in the right direction. Artists, scientists and literary greats are experts at managing the crests and troughs of innovation.They build their careers around the ebb and flow of their creative energy.Here’s what they teach us about the time in the Dip.The Dip is a time to learn.
• Conventional wisdom says that most of us will have anew job every seven years. Given the pace of change ahead, we will most likely have a new job every four years. We can bemoan this lack of “job security”(which, by the way, never really existed),or we can revel in the fact that we can transfer our skills to a different area and learn something new.
• What Comes Down, Must Go Up The physicist Richard Feynman had his greatest breakthroughs early in his 20s.But he went on make many other contribution in physics using his fascination for other areas: music, mythology, even drumming. He was able to further his field by applying learning from other interests.
• The Dip is a time to create. When we are in transition, we re-evaluate our priorities and can make decisions on what is really best for us and what we really want to do.
• As passion for work increasingly becomes a requirement for success, we can tailor our work more closely to what we really love and enjoy.
• The great Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy had a period in his life in which he felt so low that he could no longer write. But during this time he began to formulate his personal philosophy of nonviolence and wrote a book that highly influenced Mahatma Gandhi’s work.The
• Dip is a time to reflect. We cannot innovate when our conscious mind is overly active and managing too many demands. When we quiet down and listen to the new stimulus of the world around us, we begin to understand what the new opportunities are.
• Ralph Waldo Emerson would say that he denied all company so that he could follow his “whim.” When he would get even the slightest idea, he would lock himself away and listen to that inspiration.
• As a community of business leaders, we must get more comfortable with our Dips.In fact, we should consider the Dips others experience as badges of success.Because in the times ahead, if we don’t dip, we’ll slide. So maintain a sense of pride and enthusiasm for all that you have accomplished on your trajectory upward,even in your Dips. And you’ll be surprised to find that it’s the artist who can teach us the most about the new math of success.