Watch "Descartes Meditation III: Of God, That He Exists" on YouTube

https://youtu.be/A29gN7hL2gM 

Collection of classic english poems

Here is the collection of 60+ english classic poems I enjoyed the most. May be you will like it..

forever poems

Can stoics make us happy -the Nation article

Thus spake - Nietzsche

Poor are getting poorer - BBC article

Sir Angus said "people getting rich is a good thing" but not if it meant "enriching the few at the expense of the many".

• Report author Sir Angus Deaton: Nobel laureate expert on poverty
• Middle classes losing out to ultra rich
• Half of children born into families renting
• British Gas boss gets 44% pay rise after 'challenging year'
• A third of millennials face renting their entire lives

At the outset of this review, the IFS has published indicators of inequality - such as the average chief executive of a FTSE 100 company now earning 145 times the average salary, up from 47 times in 1998.

It suggests pay inequality in the UK is high by international standards - with the share of household income going to the richest 1% having tripled in the past three decades.

Read more here

Everyday Ideology - Slavoz Ziezek

Even when you are unaware you could be following an Idealogy.
ideology penetrates everything everywhere., even the smallest of the small says european rockstar philosopher and a socialist Slavoz Ziezek.

Here is his talk at Google

Wisdom of life - Schopenhauer

One of the simplest and the greatest advices you can get about life and living.
Schopenhauer explains that with such clarity and ease - Its a very pragmatic book.

Read the book here

Woman who influenced Socrates

Socrates' main biographers, Plato and Xenophon, knew him only as an older man. But Socrates was once young, and was a direct contemporary of Aspasia, very well educated courtesan. And, from surviving images of the philosopher, occasional information given by his biographers, and ancient written texts which have been generally overlooked or misinterpreted, a different picture of Socrates emerges: that of a well-educated youth who grew up to be no less brave a soldier than Alcibiades, and a passionate lover of both sexes no less than a intense thinker and debater.

Read more here

Personal Mastery 2 - You are the universe itself upanishat

YOU ARE THE MASTER OF UNIVERSE SAYS UPANISHAT - Personal Mastery 2
Man is master of his universe. He alone writes his destiny on his brow. He has in him an inexhaustible power that can bend the mundane and fling him to highs unthinkable. How world evolved, from horse carriages to self driven cars is a sure proof of his abilities. Underneath all such miracles is the individual who constantly strives to tame the universe. It is not easy for everyone to believe in this power of man. Glare of reality restrains thinking and endeavors of ordinary man while traditions subdue him to a narrow living. He needs to free himself from chains of limiting beliefs and embrace new vision of being the master of his world, frontier of his life.
Universe unfolds to man's potential, to his earnest seeking. It may sound like a pipe dream. But then, Well, it is a proposition from high physics. Man is like an atom of the quantum science. Hidden in him is an explosive energy. He is born free to shape his happiness, his achievements, his actualization. Unfortunately too soon social environment shows his helplessnes, conditions him to lead limited life. World of Neil Bohr, Heisenberg David Bohm is crazier than fiction. A large section of quantum physics believes that our thoughts create as much of universe as universe creates us. It is a difficult hypothesis for even the enlightened but science has mathematical and experimental evidences to believe. In personal mastery we are at the heart of universe and creation. We, as individuals, are the single most powerful entity creating this universe, sketching our life. Our inner world , beliefs, thoughts limit or liberate what we can make, who we can be, whether we ascend to peaks of excellence or descend to pits of despair. Not the outside world. This is a new bold vision of the cosmos. In personal mastery we invoke this daring new idea of universe, of life where we stretch who we are and what we can attain, to a new high. Polemy, Egyptian mathematician said earth is the center, Copernicus said sun is the center, sage Mandukya says we are the very center. We are the very epicenter of creation of the universe. This whole universe is born out of you, says a verse from the Upanishat. Essentially we create our universe and our life in it. This is an important idea. Such worldviews of life can change everything. For long watch makers thought, watch was time telling machine. But, Swiss watch manufacturers thought it could be a jewelry, a thing of fashion. Whole new industry opened up. Initially imagining you to be co-creator of universe may appear to be a ridiculous cult ideology. Once you begin to embrace this new vision of life, you gradually come to a totally new realm of living. It is not an idea you learn with your reasoning. It is a picture you hold in mind, perspective felt in depth your heart. It slowly gradually seeps in. It is like how there is brightened perception of a new world as we gradually wake from dream in the morning. It takes long before we can tune our sensitivities to this brand new vision of one power. No, one's self.
About two hundred years back world we lived in was way too simple. People traveled in horse carriages. It took years to make a road or build connecting bridge. A small infection wiped out villages and towns. Millions died when plague broke out. Electricity, TV, internet weren't even imaginable. Tallest buildings palaces perhaps, were only few stories tall. Common man mostly walked for his transport. Most people didn't read or write and ploughed soil for living.
The world that has evolved today from that very soil is unimaginable even for best of science fiction writers like Asimov. Distance that took us months to traverse is covered in minutes today. Eighteen year college undergraduates in India are designing the world's smallest satellites for NASA to launch. Malaria is not a threat, cholera is cured in hours, plague itself is wiped out. People went to moon and came back. Millionaires are buying houses in space stations, few hundred thousand kilometres away from earth. Mobiles in remote villages in Africa are streaming UEFA football championship from Paris. Point is, world of today seemed only a fancy imagination, a mere fiction two hundred years ago. Today's world was impossible even to imagine. But impossible has happened. Nothing appears beyond man's dream, nothing looks impossible to master.
Beneath all these wonders is an individual. Fair black, young, old, man of wonder comes in all shapes and from everywhere. Einstein day dreamed and couldn't speak till he was four. He evolved to iconic status later on; celebrety CEO of Apple was a dropout and almost went into depression for few years, Thomas Edison was a failure till his many thousand experiments. Narayan Murthy founder of Indian IT was a middle class Indian with no capital when he started, world's biggest living scientist today Stephen hawking has only his brain alive, every other organ his is dead. Naveen jain who is building business of luxury travel to moon, yes to the moon, is an Indian while man who privately built rocket Elon Musk is an American. Write Brothers who invented aircraft were high school dropouts and built their aircraft in their home garage, while Abdul Kalam was a scholar scientis and did his experiments in government funded institution. Newton conducted physical experiments while Schrodinger and Einstein mainly conducted thought experiments. Beethoven, one of the greatest musicians remained part deaf throughout his productive years. Mark zuckerberg built billion dollar company before he turned thirty while founder of KFC, David Sanders was broke and remained a failure till his early sixties.
Man of excellence is anyone on the street.
If there is any lesson we need to learn from two hundred year history of individual excellence, it is this, man can do miracles. He can evolve not only to his dream but also leap to his whim and fancy, ideals and daydreams. Universe unfolds not only to man's potential but also to his passion, struggle, ardor. Excellence has no preferred traits, colours or continents. It is accessible to all and even sundry if only he can dare it. Wilhem Friedrich Hegel, German philosopher who had far reaching influence on society in general and Karl Marx in particular - said that to excel, to master things, is man's deepest craving. It is his thirst. History of achievement assures man of his abilities to rise to power, thrust himself to greatness, often despite his biting circumstances. Blind rose to show the vision, deaf evolved to compose soulful symphony, who could have been cripple ran the fastest mile in the world, living vegetable is theorizing greatest physics, miracle list runs long. Greatness is achieved as much by ordinary men as it is achieved by the born to privilege. Internet today is replete with such stories of ordinary seeming rising to extraordinary. Physically challenged pianist, thirteen year old millionaire, there are million stories at few clicks. I quoted the more famous for ready credibility.
It is not going to be easy though. To convince yourself that you are the master of your universe, that you can dream, that you can still be someone you idolize, rise from your dead hopes. It is not automatic. There are many roadblocks to come to this new cosmic vision.
Grey gloom hangs over the heart of people. History perhaps, has spilled too much blood. Man is frightened to tread an unknown path, venture a new idea. Our life and happiness is still in the grips of religious overdose. Good many believe that life, money we earn, fame we attain, our long- standing intimacies, and every other important thing - is shaped by our birth stars, planets on our horoscope, hand of destiny. Though philosopher and psychologist William James believed otherwise, most people think their own initiative is too weak before the destiny. For both orthodox and liberal, success is a chance fortune decided mainly by the stars on the brow. Temples and churches, which served priests and clergy, had secretly designed these stars to hand us a life script that is five centuries old, path that is safe but dull. It doesn't allow us live to our potential.
Society has ways of of injecting this idea of safe norms and fear of unknown into our bloodstream. We may not be aware of it just as we may not be conscious of our heart beat. Upon little closer observation you can trace this belief working. You see it in schools that standardize intelligence and grade Thomas Edisons dumb, in states that poisoned Socrates to death for perceived difference, in studios that refused Amitab Bachhan the role for his deep voice and lanky long legs, in community of physicists that laughed at theory of relativity for varying with Newtonian views, in intolerance on the part of Nazis justifying holocaust of Jews, in everything where we penalize the deviation from the norm, different idea or block the new path. Centuries of civilization, history of religion, traditions and rituals have engraved the destiny hard on our brain. The idea that our fate is fixed and we better not try shaping it ourselves is deep in our soul. For reasons its main voice has been here is the way of many, do it just that way. This is scripted in our everyday living.
It made sense hundred years ago. Also It was dangerous to live otherwise. Even small deviations could socially outcast you and even toll your death. You were too vulnerable with daring outlook, trying to change your faith, preach a new political ideology like Socrates did or even live simply differently wearing a new symbol on the sleeve. In America , slaves were killed if they learned to read and write. Society and communities were inhuman and forced every small rule by sword.
First thing is to undo this. Free ourselves from this phantom constraint.
There is another bigger roadblock to our excellence. It is the mirage called reality. On being realistic man compromises his highest potential. Pragmatic mindset is antipathy to belief in power of shaping one's life. Idea of reality influences our future, what we dare desire. Too quickly people succumb to pragmatism. Seeds sprouting into plants, clouds falling down as rain, milk turning cheese, how we fix the broken arm or heal the wound, pedal that turns the wheel, all such cause and effects of realities, of things we see, - bias our reasoning of more complex, intangible things of life such as ways of becoming prosperous, traits of building wealth, how one nurtures trusting relationships, habits of creating excellence -phenomenon that are not so readily real.
Every morning as we wakeup dome of reality encloses us. It is so immense, so vast, of such depth, and we are such a speck in it, the sky, the ocean, stars, ever expanding space and all that; it appears as if physical universe with its chain of cause and effects control our lives. All our life is a series of predetermined actions of this gigantic reality. We cannot get all we wish. Reality dictates what we get. It has it's own ways. Sun rises every morning. Apple falls down every single time. One cannot walk through the wall however intensely one thinks it not there. World of objects, the world we see and touch has something very predictable, about it. This universe we live in, appears to be a serendipitous, complex well oiled machine. In it, our life is a small arithmetic, a predetermined phenomenon , not a controlling cause. This is the world how our brain has seen first as a child and has shaped its understanding and bias towards what we call reality. Over long years, it has become our primary mode of knowing. How we reason and understand physical reality is how we reason and understand everything of life. We know for instance, if it is real it is visible, that which burns must be fire, all effects immediately follow the cause, if it looks like water it is water, when it thunders it showers, water flows downwards and so on. All these over the years make us believe that everything in this world goes as per realistic reasoning, life is series of actions one causing the other. And we are mere cogs in the all too powerful reality. Hence our life is not in our control at all.
But there is a pardox here. Reality is understood and known only by mind which is unreal. We have known reality only through our mind. Without mind who understands? Proof of reality starts with mind and mind is not real at all. For one we cannot see it, two we cannot touch it. That is the paradox. So scientists such as Descartes arrived at first of all real things, mind, cogito. This part always has been prick to reality logic. Now particle physicists are saying mind is bigger than universe. Our mind is bigger than even ten such universes. Our body could be small, our brain could be smaller, but our mind pervades all bodies and space. We are like an infinitely large invisible ocean whose one fold of wave is our visible body. We are feeling small because we think we are only body, not the invisible mind. Body that is visible confuses us. Mind of ours is larger than infinite space, higher than sky, deeper than ocean. Quantum physics says we are not body, we are a all pervasive soup of quantum energy visible as body at level of human perception.
Upanishats of India said it long ago. Here is an interesting verse from Ishavasya upanishat which Rabindranath Tagore mentioned very often.
Tadejati tannejati , Taddoore tadwantike, tadantarasya sarvasya tatsarvsyasya baahyataha.
It moves it moves not, it is both near and far. It is inside everything and also outside everything.
Mind is not a concept but real physical thing much like space, though nothing, still exists physically. Just as space pervades everything our mind pervades everything. Mind is to matter what brick is to the wall, what ocean is to its wave. It is the very mass matter is made of. Mind is cause and matter is the effect. Many experiments, such as "double slit" experiment have conclusively proved our thoughts interfere with physical body. In this experiment smallest particle that we can break a thing into, behaves as if it knows which one of the two slits scientist is expecting it to pass through. Mind is essence and matter is form just as paint is essence and picture is form. If we are mind we are not helpless speck. We are the very essence, the earth, the water, the air of all creations. World that we see could be huge but with mind attentive, we have access to the guts of this universe. In fact we are the very universe, say Upanishats. Therefore, though we may not understand alchemy of turning our dream into things in reality, our own mind is but all too powerful entity. Our intent, part of our mind, is a turbo force. It is not just a small feeling of sorts within our body. It is tip of the iceberg floating on the universal intent. It can churn the whole world, just as religion or isms do. Carl Jung, in his advanced years proclaimed thoughts arise from infinite space, from the sky of universe. It's not a weakling vibration inside your neurons. Entire sky is its abode. It is as though with intent you can stop the rising storm, move the mountains, suspend the rain midair, seize the rainbow and lay it on your wall. Our mind can move the heavens.

Continued...

Time is a mental concept

Time is emotional says theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli. At most fundamental or elemental level of the universe, time doesn't exist he says.. physics equations cannot differentiate between past, now or future. I have heard many scientists and philosophers saying similar things about the hard reality - David Bohm, Richard Feynman, Paul Davis, Fred allen wolf and so on.. But this is a very refreshing view.

NOW THAT HOUSE WAS EMPTINESS
Juan Elia
Now that house was one emptiness, just emptiness was alive.
It all had taken my life away, lonely I was alive
Whole street lay desolate, in the death-wind of the noon-tide
In that courtyard of separation I was just a living shadow
Those two pigeons that lived there, which land they flew
One was named new and the other dead
The afternoon departing was a small betrayal
WIthin me my corpse arose, I was lie alive
Those who had to come were there and those who had to receive also
There it was whole street inhabited, every door was alive
A sever noon condoned fear of death to the green leaves
In the courtyard on the blind donkey just a crow was alive

Personal Mastery - What is Personal Mastery?

Ours is a world where people don't know what they want and are willing to go through hell to get it- says Don Marquis, American novelist and a playwright. We are constantly misled by the gleaming surface, shining exterior of things while essence is left unheeded, unexplored. Often people pursue fortune foregoing meaningful pursuit, observe rigid rituals forgetting yielding prayer. Life drags us away from the center, drives us to the periphery, to non essentials. By middle age most of us arrive at our dreaded nightmare. 

Unexamined life is not worth living, said Socrates. After the war with Sparta Socrates dedicated his life to what he called, pursuits of truth. He was known as the greatest philosopher of that time in Athens and beyond. One of the jurors came to him one evening, and said that the oracle at the temple of Delphi had declared Socrates as the wisest man. Socrates laughed and said God was wrong perhaps on this one. But he thought he would test if God wasn't so wrong after all. For several months Socrates went around Athens, asking learned men, ordinary men, statesmen, poets, craftsmen, philosophers - one thing, What was truly worthwhile in life? No one gave a satisfying answer. All were too caught in the urgency of everyday life. Finally the Greek philosopher gave up, and accepted himself to be the wisest, for he learned, he alone was willing to admit his ignorance. People are too busy to rethink what is truly worthwhile in their life. 

We have learned how to find the square root and area of a triangle, we know who invented the electric bulb, steam engine and how nuclear fusion works. We can compute standard deviations, draw a bell curve, rattle all historical events by the year. We have spent decades studying them. But about how to lead life, achieve excellence, greatness, how to succeed, earn a purposeful living, about paths to meaningful career, building wealth - we have no clue. Albert Einstein said once, what can be measured in life doesn't matter and what matters can't be measured. For all that matters we are left to seek popular advice, obliged to the chance blessings. We end up following a misleading hearsay or dangerous reasoning that often persuades common sense to our shock later. 

It happened long ago. One afternoon I received a call from home amidst a training session. Caller informed me that we had run out of cooking gas. In the next break, I grabbed the first cab and rushed to Sajjan Rao circle. The gas agency argued I could collect the cylinder only three hours late. I didn't have the time. Auto driver offered to collect the cylinder on my behalf. I agreed and handed him the receipt. By late evening we all knew he had disappeared with the cylinder. I was furious. I registered a criminal complaint. In about a week the driver was caught. Police were detaining him overnight, for he had sold off the cylinder. 

Midnight knock on the door woke me up. As I peered out through the drowsy gloom, I saw an old woman and a young woman behind her. Old woman in a trembling voice said " Sir, my son is a good man. He did it for his daughter's sake. A year ago his twelve year old daughter, my granddaughter, was diagnosed with bone cancer. Initially people donated. But, it stopped gradually. Few days ago a doctor asked him to buy an injection worth 3000 rupees." Old woman suspected that he stole the cylinder for the injection money. She pulled out a folder and a few papers, a letter from the consulting doctor appealing to the public with the driver's old photo in it, names of donors handwritten in Kannada, and a few bills from the hospital. All along, she was pleading in low tones. 

I was not hearing anything anymore. It was as though I was hit by a thunderbolt. It numbed all my senses. A deep piteous tenderness engulfed me. I thought I had killed a soul. It is that which you feel when you know you have wronged a child, refused a penny to the hungry. While I thought the guy a cheat, here was a destitute, desperate father betrayed by his fate, overthrown by his fortune, frantically trying his last luck in total despair. What can be a bigger sorrow for a father than watching his child die, standing helpless before fate? For me, the picture of his dying daughter sanctified all his actions, it altered my every emotion. I didn't feel cheated anymore. Deep compassion, a state of humaneness replaced it. He was not a villain, he was now my hero. 

How we experience depends upon what we are centered on. When I was centered on contempt the autorickshaw driver was a cheat, on compassion he became a hero. When wind is anchored to breath it sustains life, and it is death when released. The very medicine that cures in the right portion, kills in the wrong quantity. When emptiness is at the center of the wheel, it supports the movement, it is of no use merely as a miniscule space. In the right center we see the truth of things, says sage Patanjali. If the core of us is rightly centered, our mind can turn even hell into heaven. 

What turned my seething anger into moving compassion to charitable sentiment? Even help him with more money? Exteriors of the situation were more or less the same, the rickshaw, taking him to the agency circle, his offer to help me, his disappearance, all were same. But now a little information gets added, and all is changed in an instant. I feel guilty punishing him instead of feeling righteous. In the middle of the night I am willing to go to the police station to bail out a criminal. What caught my wit is the fact that behind seemingly cold cheating that naturally provoked negativity, there was a new possibility of experiencing it. Instead of feeling negative, cheated, bad , I could feel graceful, generous and compassionate. There was a center from which the whole cylinder situation could sooth me than burn me. 

We need to anchor our life to the right centers. Centers that help us see more positivity. For instance, we can turn work into indulgence while others are worn down beneath the habit. We can pass through a storm untouched while others may reel under anxieties, feel honest compassion on the misfortune of others instead of envious pleasure. Personal mastery is a set of principles, emotional skills, habits, mental models, creative insights that centers us to passionately pursue excellence, scale new highs of joy, dive into profundity of purpose. Mastery is a mind carved in fine, carefully cultured emotional sensitivities. With these skills instead of feeling anger, jealousy, depression feel more of compassion, a great inner drive to evolve, to grow to commit to excellence. We lose little by little our fears to adventure into a new temple of life whose limitless dome echoes with awe. 

Knowing others is intelligence, knowing oneself is wisdom, mastering others is strength, mastering oneself is true power. Lao Tzu. 

On the outside, you may appear the same. You walk the same street, sip the same coffee at your regular cafe, work the no frills project. Yet on the inside, nothing could be more stupendous than if mountains changed in their places. As your experiencing changes, little by little everything experienced also changes. Personal mastery is not spiritual training. It doesn't teach such practices. Nor is it a quick something you can learn while you are on the treadmill. Its ways are hard and steep, and is mastered over years of practice. Strictly speaking it is not science either. Personal mastery is a bird of the sky which can stretch its wings in a cage of science but cannot fly. When it comes to life and the inner world of man, science is too constrained a discipline, a very narrow path. Also it isn't some new philosophical fancy which endangers you when put into practice. 

We are following an old script for life. While we have questioned literally everything, we have not asked Socratic questions, what truly is worthwhile in life? What should we achieve, what should we master? Religion long satisfied man's quest for meaning. Every aspect of life was creatively woven with mythical, epic imagination or was steeped in ritual that cast mystical hue around it. Now such experiences are difficult as science and technology have torn every strand of religious belief and even threatened the foundations of its faith. The Sun is a star today, not God going round the earth in a chariot pulled by shining white horses. Even those who follow rituals, most do it merely by force of habit. Science has spread too wide and deep to keep up the awe of infinity and mystery of Angels. Man cannot fully lean on the pillars of temples and its script for satisfying life. Devoid of mythical beliefs, of rituals, religion has lost its majesty for meaning. 

Various research shows, for many, pursuit of material success, good life as we know it, has not been fulfilling, lasting, experience. Hi tech economy has left enough traces that two flats, two cars, and a high pay job didn't make everyone happy as expected. The deep lasting happiness is beyond sensualities of luxury, private dinners in island resorts, invites to celebrity parties or balconies of castles overlooking the green ocean. Research shows that after a point, more wealth is not the same as more happiness. Therefore ordinary success is at best a short lived fountain at worst, sacrifices most cherished intimacies. 

Personal mastery is a new guide to human excellence. Following chapters list a few key skills of gaining personal mastery. Mastering these means personal mastery. You master these skills by understanding it, practicing it and embracing it. 

Washington post experiment

It was a fine January morning.  A ragged  violinist was playing  violin in a corner of Washington DC railway station.   He  was playing classic melancholy.  Some two thousand of them passed through  the station in one hour.  On the third minute,  an elderly man stopped by, for a while listened, tossed a dollar and moved off. Few minutes later five year old stopped looking, his hurrying mother pulled him away. In about an hour violinist's  collection from forty people was  paltry 30 dollars in all.
This was a social experiment designed by Washington post.  The violinist was Joshua bell,  one of the iconic musicians in the world.  He was playing few  celebrated compositions of God of western classic, Chopin.   Two days  before, Joshua was sold out at a  theatre in Boston averaging 100 dollar a ticket.
 In an anonymous context people even ignore Sharuk Khan, ridicule Ustad Zakir, pass Amitabh Bachan for ordinary.

We may safely conclude. Some really really good may ago unrecognized.

Awakening the Awe

In 1986 I got  myself admitted to a hostel in Bangalore.   It  was run by Ramakrishna mission.    My heart regards its one ritual still warmly.  Just when the night fell they all  gathered  for  a prayer..  monks,  hostel inmates,  elderly living nearby and  even few curious  onlookers.  A senior monk, a trained singer with Harmonium and a  Tabala player -formed the lead group. Most of them  had a tiny  prayer book in their hand  and  knew every syllable.  Every evening  prayer echoed in the dome and a divine spirit rose  while to and fro  people swayed.

Awe is man's own guide  to personal mastery, and to God. I wrote this story about a Shiva temple -(click here to read ) to seek awe in the most ordinary.   Unknown  can be an ever deepening experience. An interesting myth inspires an urge within far more than pale reality. 

Working with love

Khalil  Gibran says when you work with love you bind yourself to your Self and to God. I have seen  bored surgeons and thrilled masons. Many in business and elsewhere I  know, enjoy their work not by the rank nor by what they do.  Some in very humble employ,  made me feel I wish I had their job. What we do may be important, but how we bring it alive defines our rendezvous with life.

A Muslim and a Hindu Festival  the story I wrote about the street toy vendor is based on a Fakir I have seen as a young boy. Few from my town saw him in the recent fair, braving death in dead cold at  the age of ninety.  He sells toys with importance that defies  Picasso.

I didn't write the story to  proclaim  this philosophy. That  would  first kill the story and then  bury the purpose.  I hoped if story came out well,   people would connect to  the joy of the trifles without any aimed effort. 

Your memory - Faiz ahmed faiz

YOUR MEMORY

Urdu poem by Faiz Ahmed Faiz

Translation - Sheshagiri hegde

Your memory kept coming back all night long

Moonlight kept paining my heart all night long

Now burning and now drowning a pale flame kept flickering all night long

A delicate fragrance kept changing its costume 

Some painting on the wall kept humming all night long

again a gentle breeze under shade of flowers told stories all night long

Who didn't come, him a chain on the wall Upon every ring kept calling all night long

With faint hope my heart kept consoling

An unknown longing kept hurting all night long

by faiz ahmad

Critic of strategic reason - Part 1

Board rooms are not unified on strategy. The most painful point of strategy making in large organisations is, as people rivet their views die hard to their intellectual inclinations to views as diverse as simple one-cell amoeba to complex billion-cell human brain about what is strategy, why it is critical, how it helps winning in the market place and so on – leaders often think strategy in contradictory terms. Each one’s view of strategy becomes practically roadblock, antithesis and a wall to the other’s view. People may change their religion, not their view about what is strategic and hence what is important for the organization. Even negotiating thin shared view, among the leadership team of what has been thought of as strategy, hoping something right is thought of in the first place, itself is a difficult challenge. No doubt strategy as a subject is researched extensively. Academic scholars such as Porter, Prahlad, Mintzberg Kaplan and others from eminent universities, business leaders of high repute, Jack welch, Louise Gestener, Andy Grove and so on - have demonstrated its importance for organizations by theory and practice, however to say that strategy is a method repeatably scientific is a huge ask. People used to social sciences- psychology, politics are used to uncertainty about their theoretical predictions which are generally obvious to commonsense. But apprehensions that persist despite their scientific claims wrapped with academic jargons, degree to which such complexity is stretched in case of strategy - is way too much for even a nuclear and God particle theorists. Only one needs to traverse through briefly, the confounding maze of ideas held together by frail logic to realize the slippery ground the business strategy making stands on.
This, confusing as it sounds, seems to be more a rule than exception whenever we make any attempt on theoretical construct at such higher levels. As we look around, we soon realize that this is not the problem of business strategy making alone. This seems to be the bane of all issues of social space that matters no matter how many Nobel prizes are given and won, economic models included. Take Marxism for instance. Power of theory of Marx, more popular as marxism, has swept through the world and has captured the intellect, imagination and conscience of human beings, only the way great religions - judaism, christianity, and Islam have done in human history. Marx however, who talked so much about money for most part lived moneyless in a dingy impoverished suburbs of London, would have been horrified by even a faintest suggestion that his work is anything like religion. One may debate whether Marx was right or wrong and whether his predictions were right. But to say Marxism is not a theory significant enough to influence people would be an intellectual suicide.
Suppose we begin a simple question. How useful and scientific is Marxist theory anyway? Can Marxism mean the same thing two people?
“Scepter is haunting Europe - scepter of communism” Said Marx. As you know, Marx theory deftly explains all human past as history of class struggles. Capitalist class is the most revolutionary class ever existed on earth so far, Karl Marx says. “The rising bourgeoisie has completely revolutionized the production and have dominated the world market. Bourgeoisie has achieved that far surpass wonders of Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts and gothic cathedrals”.

To be continued ..

Is universe part of me?

Ekhart said being,
Brahman said, Vedantin, 
World a will, mere an idea - said Schopenhauer, 
Bull inside you said kakuan, Tao said Lao?
Harder you try to catch it in the realm of known
Farther is it evades to be perceived.. What knowing is this 
Which is neither known nor unknown?

Am I part of the universe or universe a part of me?

Is body made of mind or mind made of body?
Is the reality basis of my existence first,
Or my presence the basis of the reality? Or all this
Ah! a mere confusion of the language?

What about science and reasoning?
Science must be true, lets be mathematical,
So said French philosopher, brought cogito,
and finally had to bring God to remove
Persisting doubt about one’s own existence..

Between certainty and uncertainty it flits–
And flows between reality and illusion
Emotion reasons and reason emotes..
Is reality as much an illusion believed,
An idea wrongly perceived?

A Ghalib Poem

Here is my translation of a poem by a Sufi saint.


Not a hope fills the heart
No beauty beholds the sight

Death is one day, definite
Why no sleep all night

Wound in my heart, why don’t I cry
for unheard is, sound of my cry

I am there somewhere, Where
About myself, even I am not aware

Mere curtsy then brought  a smile 
Not a thing brings now that smile

I Am dying  wishing the death sought
Death comes and comes not

As such there is something, for I am silent
Else can not one talk or what?


By Mirza Ghalib

Drop a coin into stretching hand - a poem

Here is a great poem by a Sufi saint.. Very simplistic looking, but possibly the only solution...

Our lamentations will not satisfy their

Hunger, and our tears will not quench their thirst;What can we do

to save them from between the iron paws of

Hunger? My brother, kindness which compels you

to give part of your life to any human,

 in the clutch of losing life is the only virtue which  makes you

Worthy of light of the day and quite of the night ..

Remember, my brother, that the coin

 Which you Drop into the withered hand stretching

 Towards you is the only golden bond that

Binds your rich heart to the loving heart of God