Midnights with the Mystic

This book and other books of this kind (Diamond days with Osho, The New Path etc) are kind of like a niche segment. They detail life as it is living with a mystic. Here, just 4-5 nights form this book. Well, I read this mostly during my midnights!

Needless to say, living with a mystic will be a roller coaster ride - and this journey was exciting as well. There is one painful moment - the encounter with the native Indian. I do not know why this keeps coming back!

I wish I could get hold of the audio book. The companion DVD is great as well!

Two powerful TED talks

For once, the pain of standing over the gory bloodshed from the past is visible on the face of someone from that part of the world. History cannot be undone, but can we do some repairs now? They were stripped of their possessions, then their dignity and finally left to fend for themselves?




This talk by Bill Gates shows his penchant for science. The equations are not very complex. He unequivocally tells we must "innovate to zero" on our carbon emissions. By the way, his take on climate skeptics is exactly the same "silver bullet argument" someone produced earlier.

Satsang with Sadhguru @ Vellore - 18th Nov 2010, Thursday

By chance or whatever reason, in totally unplanned fashion, I had to be at Vellore on 18th Nov. So this meant another opportunity to be with Sadhguru that evening. As trend would have it, it was raining heavily at Vellore as well. This time though, they had closed the seating area, well 60% of it anyway, with tarpaulins. There was also a gallery seating area as it was a play ground. Chairs were arranged there as well.

I learnt an important life lesson that day. As life-lessons go, reminder is a wrong word. If you learn and forget, it is as good as learning anew isn't it? This was not a verbal lesson. It came from looking at someone living in a way that teaches ten or hundred times more than talking about it.

Trends in this nation are disappointing. From multi crore scams, vested interests, corporate greed, apathetic citizens - there is every reason to lose hope and sink into despair. Only one - ONLY ONE aspect keeps the human ("my") spirit alive. I saw a demonstration of it that day.

You can be living in hell. But YOU can be the change agent. And you cannot implement this by determination. This is an inside->out job.

Taare Zameen Par

After watching this, I couldn't help noticing how beautifully the movie was directed. It was nice seeing the directorial dimension of Aamir Khan. Reminded me of Kamal Haasan as well. Not saying they're the best in their fields, but they're one of the rare folks who have multi dimensional exposure/experience in the field called cinema. Strangely, there is one do-it-all guy, though he isn't that respected! The direction is "precise". Just the right pace - delves into details where required and skims across otherwise. Even in retrospect, I am wondering if it can be improved.

This movie is beautiful. At the end, I had to shamelessly watch tears roll down my cheeks! That boy - what casting! Innocence drips from him in every frame. The movie is very relevant to our educational system. Even if the system itself doesn't change, it should have at least made teachers think. I understand "individual attention" is close to impossible when sixty students are crammed in one class. But it can be a good check point to stop the ruthlessness against the "low performers". Guilt is a very strong medicine. It can actually make children think and believe they are doing something wrong. (I speak from personal experience during my childhood). They way we are setup, it is impossible to provide customized attention to each child. But it is very essential to make them not feel insufficient - more so because they fail to cater to society's needs. Today, children are forced through this tailoring machine called efficiency and productivity for the market place. Those who come out of the other end successfully lose their happiness and playfulness. Those who do not cope up [inevitably some will - because the treatment is one-size fits all] are discarded as failures.

We can do simple things without even changing the system drastically:

(All the below are written from the assumption that schooling is happening in a military fashion which is not going to change overnight. If education is happening in an enjoyable fashion, *none* of what I am saying will apply. Let it happen 24x7 in that case!)

- Stop taking classes on Saturdays. Here in our IT company which is driven for profit, we don't work Saturdays. Why children? Stop driving them so hard! I really wish the Govt brings a law on this aspect.

- Any school that physically abuses children must have its license disbarred. (I remember some teachers from my school who invented innovative methods to cause pain to children)

- Don't allow schools to teach 12th syllabus in 11th. Another madness!

- I hear there is this new madness of IIT coaching that starts from 8th grade. Seriously - give it a break!!

- Summer vacations - make any activity for students optional. Don't force anything - but encourage them to play a lot!

- Apart from rote education, make two other art forms mandatory.

- This pressure on 10th standard performance can be taken out. Only 12th matters. After 10th, gently inculcate the need and importance of that year.

Thank you Aamir Khan. Your directorial debut couldn't have been better! It really got me going! I wish it is remade or at least dubbed in multiple languages.

Footnote: Needless to say but required to say (!!), this entire post is India-centric! [except the fact that children must be happiest at this place called h-o-m-e!]

Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish

Steve Jobs' now classic "Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish" speech. I remember reading this many months ago. But listening to this as a speech in his own words is much better!

What really is the difference?

(I am writing the first two paragraphs entirely from memory)
Thom Hartmann once quoted about an incident when he was on a radio show. He was talking about protecting species that are endangered. One caller asked him - "Why? Aren't humans enough? For example, why the heck do we need a spotted owl?".

Another person was walking in a forest with a guide. The guide suddenly asks him to be quiet. The reason? That was the spot where spotted owls were living (in large numbers presumably). It was a sacred spot!

What was the difference between the caller on the radio show and the guide? It is not a difference in point of view. The difference is much larger. It is the difference in the extent of inclusion a person has to the rest of life. One can attribute a thousand reasons to why this level of inclusion varies between people. This is the reason why at one extreme I see people literally bleeding life strength through their words and eyes talking about saving species and the other extreme where people poach the very same species at the edge of extinction. This is the same reason why one nation can fund multi-billion dollar armies and weapons to invade another country under the guise of WMD while conservation groups go begging for funds to protect species which may well be hale and hearty if not for our screw up in the first place.

My take is that all these efforts will go to naught - or at best prolong the inevitable, unless we as a species become more inclusive. We are supposed to be stewards, not exploiters. If we try to enforce this through laws, corporations and people will work around it or in clouty places, break it. In spirit and understanding, people will do the right things at all time.

Now, we need a multi pronged solution. One person on the planet earth series remarked that sustainable development is an oxymoron of sorts. He called for sustainable retreat of human species. True! This is what we need. We shouldn't be looking for expansion - we should retreat. We need more wilderness and biodiversity. Which means populations should reduce. Which means that people should first be on board for mass scale reconfiguration of birth and death rates. CEOs of major corporations that wipe out acres of forest in a single day need to be on board. The whole human race needs to act on a single point agenda that involves multiple solutions [afforestation, population reduction, reduction in use of fossil fuels, heck may be mass-vegetarianism even]. To put the agenda positively - restore the eco-fabric of this planet. Conversely, to undo the cluster-fuck we are in. We need the majority of people seeing the situation that way.

But will preaching work? Never! Only inclusion will. The sad things are that - there isn't enough time and that by the time actually get to realize this, let alone act on the scale needed to make a difference, irreversible damage would have been done. May be it is already so.

Mahasatsang with Sadhguru @ Coimbatore - 31st Oct 2010, Sunday

After reading Sadhguru's description of what happened at Thanjavur, I realized that the conditions were similar @ Coimbatore as well. I just wanted it to rain until end of Sunday. Fortunately, things worked out that way. Right from 4PM, a downpour was happening at the venue but work was continuing without break. There was a brief hiatus of rains between 5:45PM and 6:15PM. By this time the event had started.

After the formalities (dignitaries, awards, brief speeches) Sadhguru started speaking and the downpour started and it never let up. Sadhguru said later (paraphrasing): When things go fine, you can put up a good act and get by. When things do not go as planned, the true colors of people come out. Today, you have showed what you're made of and I am proud of you!

As the rain picked up intensity, a colorful parade of fireworks lit up the sky and Sounds of Isha started "Mahadevaya Namaha...". Events were totally on a different plane thereafter. Sadhguru walked out into the rain among the people gathered while the music picked up momentum.

The whole celebration lasted nearly 45 minutes. The Mahasatsang did not happen as planned, but I think things couldn't have gone better!