Perfection

What can be considered perfect? Only 2 entities. Nothing and Everything. All other things lack something or have something, but are not perfect. Hence the secret is in being "NOTHING".
All answers to attain inner peace have been found, but are hard to realize and inculcate in to our lives. For me it is the distance between writing and living that is hard to bridge. World always wants one to become something however imperfect it may be :-).

Kung Fu Panda, Zen and My niece

Zen teaches us to live in the moment - being mindful of actions. I tried to practice it while I was eating. Tried to savour the food that I ate and involve myself fully in that action. Doesn't it seem a simple thing to do? but I think it is worth trying :-). I realized this is meditation 24*7.

My niece turned 2 years old recently. She is a precocious kid. She has learnt speaking, & watches quite many cartoon movies and keeps my brother-in-law and sister on their toes all the time. Whenever I visit their house - which is quite frequent, I get to see the cartoon movies like Mowgli, Tom and Jerry, Kung Fu Panda etc. This time I ended up seeing Kung Fu Panda. The essence of this film is "Believe in yourself, Be passionate about something, Do what you are passionate about / are happy doing / can be in meditation kind of state most of the time. Realize what one is trying to attain is being nothing - The secret ingredient is NOTHING". The same message comes across in "The Alchemist" - The boy when he tries to become wind realizes that he is not different from the entity that pervades this universe. The same message comes across through Hindu philosophy - know yourself. Which is again the essence of "The Matrix" and Neo :-).

As a note on excellence why Steve Jobs' has his place can be seen by watching Jungle Book - Part 2 created by Pixar and Kung Fu Panda created by DreamWorks :-). Think, think, think.

Desire and Destiny

Do I control my life or is everything pre-dermined. I believe it is not an either/or answer. I think it is both. Destiny gives a set of range of values. My effort determines which value I end up with. So this sequence keeps repeating.

Can "I" determine where I get born? - No. Can I determine my set of genes? Can I determine which diseases I don't want to have? On many major things in life I don't have much influence. I can always choose to put in the effort to choose more desirable of the alternatives or just think everything is destiny and give up.

Accepting what is there and trying to make the best out of it is a better way to live a happy life.

Ctrl+Z life

In some context we were discussing about experimental learning. Somehow the meaning of experimental learning seems to have become do something and see if that thing works. In this age of computers, and ctrl+z (undo); I see people hardly stopping to think. The sequence of actions seems to have become - do, then see, then undo, and keep redoing till we somehow convince ourselves that, whatever we have done is good (mostly we think it is the best :-)).

I see these people managing their life also in this do/undo sequence. Somehow we seem to have forgotten we need time to do anything, and as we keep doing the same thing, we lose more than one non renewable resource such as time, health, our reputation and so on. I also think most of us have forgotten that, most of the things in life that we do, can't be undone.

Why can't we take some time to think? Where has the wisdom of look before you leap gone? I believe in our quest for more, we have given up the quest for perfection.

Desire

I was reading the "world book of mythology". The quest for "liberation" from the cycle of birth and rebirth is a recurring theme in Indian mythology. Ok, I am making lot of assumptions like the life and death is an eternal cycle (body dies but there is something within this body that does not die. That is true considering the fact that the atoms that make up the body don't get destroyed but merely get converted in to some other form of matter). The purpose of life is to find liberation from living again :-) etc. When we achive this it is called Mukti (liberation). The cause of rebirth is supposed to be our unfulfilled desires during our life. The thought that goes beyond this is Buddha's simple words that "the desire is the root cause of all misery" that we suffer in life.

My question is how to conquer desire or how to be desireless? This builds on my previous post. To become desireless you either have fulfilled all your desires or you don't have any desire. Each of these is really hard to do. However much we strive we may not achieve all the goals, as not everything is under our control. Hence the only possible way to become desireless may be is to be without desires.

Hm, if we became desireless - what about our fundamental animal instinct for self preservation? Do we need need to give that one up? My current though is whichever desire is causing misery to me I think I should give that up. That will keep leading me towards a state where I am happy all the time. I believe intrinsically all beings are happy.

Yin-Yang/ Shakti-Shiva

The principle says the absolute maximum of any entity or form is the beginning of its complementing entity or form. Utmost ruthlessness is the grounded in being right which in turn is rooted in being selfless. That is where the compassion begins. Similarly when two opponents are fighting and if they are skilled; even though the fight is most violent, it transforms itself in to the most harmonious exhibition of skill ie; a dance. I think you would see this the picturization of the fight between Hector and Achillies in the movie Troy.

Steve Jobs, Opportunity in Life and Disillusionment

I was feeling a little bit off color in the days in between. Read through biography of Steve Jobs. May be I got a glimpse of the other face of the man who has been a force in the computer industry. He, I believe understands clearly what his strength is. It is at the level of a genius and he uses it well. That some what covers up for his other short comings. It is easy to break Apple and him if somebody attacks using his weaknesses instead of trying to outdo him in the areas of his strength. I can write a theory on that. It does not give such a good feel. This definitely is not what I intended. On the positive side the thing that I realized is as long as we are good - it is never end of the road. Need to believe. Need to be passionate and need to strive.

Now "what is the opportunity to do right". Every time I feel low and think, why should I keep striving to excel - something says "Use your ability to create something in this world, even if you don't need anything and undersatnd everything is transient, there are many who could use the fruits of your work". I read an article about few girls scavenging for food in the garbage dump. So even if I don't need, I believe I need to persevere and build something the right way. I should always let go of the things that are in excess with me. Isn't the life an opportunity for us to do something selfless and something right once our basic needs are met?

A good government would have done this job well by taking money in the form of taxes and providing opportunities like education, food and healthcare to the needy, but our government has become a conglomerate of the greedy that sucks out the resources, and doesn't put them to the right use. It is more bothered about impairing the system more with subsidies, reservations and minority quotas. What an opportunity lost.

I started somewhere and ended somewhere, but let me end with a good story that made me realize the bad impact that I have been having till date due to my bad temper. It is here - http://www.indianchild.com/bad_temper.htm.

To Know God

Sacred space in Times of India on most of the days is thought provoking. Today there is an assertion from Kena Upanishad. "The ignorant think that the Brahma (the supreme entity) is known, but the wise know Brahma to be beyond knowledge." - What does it mean to know? Most of us understand, data --> Information --> with ability to interpret and reason --> knowledge --> and then wisdom.

Is the assertion true? Does anybody know how does the supreme look, behave, or its attributes? Is it bounded by the dimesions that human mind can comprehend? Or is it just the experience? As none of us know what is supreme is like, even if we find it in dimensions that we can comprehend, we will never know it as the supreme entity. So it is simply unknowable as Brahma. It may be known by some other name, but we will never realize that it is the Brahma or whatever you or I may call. Thus the supposition that Brahma is unknowable is right.

Funny and Serious At the same time

I read an article in Businessweek. It is about how much we live in the world of vitamin "M".
Love and Bank Account
Cost of Love

ನನ್ನ ಮೊದಲನೆಯ ಕನ್ನಡ ಪುಟ

ತುಂಬಾ ದಿನಗಳಾದ ಮೇಲೆ kanndadalli ಬರೀತಾ ಇದ್ದೇನೆ. ಸಂತೋಷ ಆಗ್ತಾ ಇದೆ. ಇದೆಲ್ಲ ಸಾಧ್ಯ ಆಗ್ತಾ ಇರೋದು ಗಣಕ ಯಂತ್ರ ಮತ್ತು ಅದನ್ನು ಹೊಸ ಹೊಸ ರೀತಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಉಪಯೋಗಿಸೋದನ್ನ ಸಾಧ್ಯ ಮಾಡೋ ತಂತ್ರಜ್ನ್ಯರ ಕೃಪೆಯಿಂದ. ಸಂಕೀರ್ಣವಾದ ಶಬ್ದಗಳನ್ನ ಕೂಡ ತೊಂದರೆ ಇಲ್ಲದೆ ಕನ್ನದಲ್ಲಿ ತರ್ಜುಮೆ ಮಾಡೋ ಇದರ ಶಕ್ತಿಗೆ ನಾನು ಮರಳು ಆಗ್ತ ಇದ್ದೇನೆ.

ಮಹಿಳಾ ದಿವಸದಂದು ನನಗೆ ಈ ಹೊಸ ವಿಷಯ ಸಾಧ್ಯವದದ್ದು , ಮಾತೃ ಭಾಷೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಬರೀತಾ ಇದ್ದದ್ದು ತುಂಬ ಖುಷಿ. ನಾನು ನನ್ನ ಜೀವನವನ್ನ ಇಲ್ಲಿಯವರೆಗೆ ರೂಪಿಸೋದ್ರಲ್ಲಿ ನನ್ನ ಜೀವನದಲ್ಲಿ ಬಂದ ಮಹಿಳೆಯರು, ಹುದುಗಿಯರು ಇವರ ಪಾತ್ರವನ್ನ ಯೋಚಿಸ್ತಾ ಇದ್ದೆ. ಅನಿಸಿದ್ದು ಏನೆಂದರೆ ಇಲ್ಲಿಯವರೆಗಿನ "achievements" ಎಲ್ಲದಕ್ಕೂ ಕಾರಣ ಅಥವಾ ಗುರಿ ಕೊಟ್ಟದ್ದು ಅವರೇ ಅಂತ. ನನ್ನ ಆಯಿಯ ಸ್ಥೈರ್ಯ, ನನ್ನ ತಂಗಿಯ ಸಹನಶೀಲತೆ, ನನಗೆ ಕಳಿಸಿದ ಅಧ್ಯಾಪಕಿಯರ ಪ್ರೋತ್ಸಾಹನೆ, ಮೊದಲು ಕೆಲಸಕ್ಕೆ ಸೇರಿದಾಗಿನ ಬಾಸ್ ನ ಭರವಸೆ, ಉಳಿದವದರ ನಿಸ್ವಾರ್ಥ ಪ್ರೀತಿ ಎಲ್ಲಾನೂ ನನ್ನ ಈ ವರೆಗಿನ ಜೀವನವನ್ನ ತುಂಬಿವೆ. ಇವರೆಲ್ಲರಿಗೂ ನನ್ನ ಮನಹ್ಪೂರ್ವಕ ಅಭಾರಗಳನ್ನ ತಿಳಿಸಬೇಕು.

Being Human

There was a strange thing that I viewed on TV. There was a guy named Raghav Bahl who was interviewing the finance minister of India - P. Chidambaram after the budget for 2008-2009. The temerity of this Mr. Raghav Bahl unfazed me. He was obnoxious to say the least. Why have we started becoming more of animals in the way we behave than humans. His behavior contrasted so much with the 2 stories that I read from the two of our great epics - Ramayana and Mahabharata. After mortally wounding Ravana, Rama knowing that Ravana is one of the greatest statesmen and a scholar, goes to him and stands at Ravana's feet with folded hands & requests Ravana for his knowledge. Similarly in Mahabharata Arjuna and Duryodhana end up at Krishna's place to ask for his help in the great war that is about to ensue. Duryodhana sits on a chair that is near the head of the Krishna and Arjuna stands near Krishna's feet. Arjuna gets the chance to present his request before that of Krishna. Why have we started forgetting "Vidya vinayena shobhate"?

Why small time thugs and terrorits get more attention in our news channels than people like Baba Amte - who really made difference in the lives of the people?

Only explanation is the human civilization as such has had its peak in being "human". Now the only way is to deteriorate.