Life

Many people in this world seem to be firmly determined to suffer as if they have started enjoying the suffering. It seems quite strange but that is a reality. They would not grow as human beings and would continue to be stuck and fixated on their limited perspective of life. If they fall weak at any point in time, they would just seek validation from their fellow members of the same society, who would just validate their worldview and they would continue to be determined not to grow.  Sometimes I wonder as to what are the reasons for such an adamency. I feel that there are primarily two reasons viz Loss Aversion Bias and Confirmation Bias. Psychologists have carried out a lot of research to understand loss aversion bias. Generally, the pain of losing 100 rupees would be far greater than the pleasure of getting 100 rupees. This is called loss aversion bias. Say, for example, somebody gets Rs 1,000 as a surprise gift in the morning and while coming back home in the evening, he loses ...

Yesterday, I finished all three seasons of Kota Factory. It is an amazing series and I must congratulate the director, actors, and all the crew members for coming out with such a beautiful portrayal of the stress that students go through while preparing for the competitive exams. I could relate quite a lot with my preparation for civil services. In fact, of late OTT came out with the series titled Aspirants and that was also quite commendable in bringing out the stress that students go through during the preparation for civil services. However, that was more focused on nuances of friendship and politics after the hero of the series became DM. The key highlight of Kota Factory is Jeetu Bhaia. He is an IITian who turns a teacher of Physics. On the one hand, he is the best teacher of Physics because of his teaching style and on the other hand, he takes personal responsibility for each of the students studying with him. He solves their personal problems. In fact, he seems to have solutions...

  This is a chart representing the Dunning-Cruger Effect. In the beginning, we feel "I know, I don't know" many things in life and set our motivation around such things. For example, as a student, we know that we don't know different subjects being taught in schools and aim at learning different subjects. However, there comes the point when we feel "I know, I know". We are full of confidence at this point and stop learning further. This is called Mount Stupid. Most of us stop learning further at this point. However, some continue learning further and pass through the valley of despair. In this phase, we keep learning, however, our confidence reaches its lowest because we learn that there are so many things that we don't know.  There is a gap between the requisite skill set and competence.  We remain in the domain of "I don't know, I know". For example, after graduation in commerce, I felt as if I knew accounting and commerce until I started...

"Ego" is a very loosely defined term. It is often said that along the spiritual path, the ego should drop. However, we all have the ego. In fact, it is quite difficult to think of our existence without ego. It seems that without ego, we will be in a vegetative state where anybody can exploit and damage us. Therefore, there is no question of dropping ego. Probably, confusion arises because we do not give enough attention to the words and their true meanings. The ego is different from the self. In fact, it appears to me that if the self is like water, the ego is like the well that contains water. However, generally, while referring to ego, we refer to both the well and water. In the initial stages of the evolution of human beings, we have a quite limited existence almost confined to our bodies. That is the reason in this stage, we are quite disconnected like a disconnected well. We try to somehow survive and in the process, we become "impulsive"  when our emotional mi...

While interacting with the children, in different schools, I was often surprised to see the confidence among the kids about the decisions they have taken regarding their careers because when we talk to the people working in those careers, people in their 40s and 50s have an altogether different view of the professions/careers. But the kids are quite sure of the choices they have made. There is no problem with any choice. The problem is with the uninformed choices because they are the biggest reasons for the dissatisfaction and frustration in the 40s and 50s. It is because initial 10-15 years, people are busy with explorations that different careers offer and there is a lot of hope for improvement. The reality sets in when we cross the midpoint of the career or are about to cross that. I went through a lot of books and literature to understand that stupidity and was surprised to see that it has actually been given the name of "Mount Stupidity" in the Dunning-Kruger effect that...

We see so much exploitation all around in families, organizations, and the whole of the world. Stronger countries are exploring the weak countries, and the powerful and the rich are exploiting the poor. Whatever systems are developed, there will always be few who will find the ways and means to exploit the systems. Not only will they exploit the systems but they will also justify the exploitation. In fact, I was amazed to see the movie Kalki. The movie appears to be a hyperbole in the first instance where they conceptualize a scenario where a few powerful people have absorbed all the resources of the world including the water and people can kill each other for an apple. They have conceptualized something called complex wherein all the resources are being used for the benefit of a few wealthy people. When I see people spending crores of rupees on unnecessary ceremonies and functions, while so many are dying hungry, I feel that we have probably also built "Complexes" wherein th...

I see so many jokes, as well as real-life conflicts around marriages. I often feel that we need to discuss marriage with an open mind. Probably, two people marry because there is a deep desire within all of us to have a companion, with whom we can share our lives, we can take care of ourselves and we can take care of him, and we can explore this world together. This desire is the manifestation of an inner connection with the divine. We have a deep connection to the divine just like a drop of the ocean has a relation with the ocean. Since we have been and are always a part of the divine, we too have the same nature of oneness as the ocean.  However, every drop has its own size and shape which is a result of the surface tension that ensures the unique size and shape of the drop. We may call this tendency, to protect our uniqueness, the ego. Since our basic nature is like the ocean, love is quite natural to us. Love means merger. When two drops merge with each other and in fact all th...

 सेंट्रिपेटल और सेंट्रीफ्यूगल बलों नामक दो बलों के बीच एक अच्छा संतुलन होता है जो किसी अन्य वस्तु के चारों ओर घूमने वाली किसी वस्तु पर कार्य करते हैं। उदाहरण के लिए, पृथ्वी सूर्य के चारों ओर घूमती है, चंद्रमा पृथ्वी के चारों ओर घूमता है, या सूर्य आकाशगंगा के केंद्र के चारों ओर घूमता है। ऐसा प्रतीत होता है कि सेंट्रिपेटल बल केंद्र की ओर आकर्षण का बल है जबकि केन्द्रापसारक बल वह बल है जो घूमती हुई वस्तु को केंद्र से दूर ले जाने का प्रयास करता है। ऐसा प्रतीत होता है कि मानव जीवन भी इन दोनों शक्तियों की परस्पर क्रिया है। माया केन्द्रापसारक शक्ति है जबकि आध्यात्मिकता केन्द्राभिमुख शक्ति है। माया इच्छाएँ उत्पन्न करती है और इच्छा की वस्तुओं को प्राप्त करने के लिए हम गति प्राप्त करते हैं और ऐसी वस्तुओं के पीछे भागते रहते हैं। यह एक केन्द्रापसारक बल के रूप में कार्य करता है, जबकि आध्यात्मिकता की केन्द्राभिमुख शक्ति हमें अपनी आत्मा से जोड़े रखती है। इन दोनों शक्तियों की सापेक्ष शक्ति यह तय करती है कि हम अपना जीवन कैसे जियें। जब केंद्र से उचित दूरी होती है तो सृष्टि होती है, जैसे पृथ्वी पर। जब...

There is a fine balance between the two forces called centripetal and centrifugal forces that act on any object revolving around another object. For example, the Earth revolves around the Sun, the Moon revolves around the Earth, or the Sun revolves around the center of the Milky Way. It appears that Centripetal force is the force of attraction toward the center while centrifugal force is the force that tries to take the revolving object away from the center. It appears that human life is also an interplay of these two forces. Maya is the centrifugal force while spirituality is the centripetal force. Maya creates desires and in order to achieve the objects of desire, we get the momentum and keep running after such objects. This acts as a centrifugal force, while the centripetal force of spirituality keeps us glued to our spirit. The relative strength of these two forces decides how we live our lives. When there is a right distance from the center, creation takes place, like on the Earth...

Today, I somehow recalled these few lines from the writings of the famous saint Kabir: माया महा ठगनी हम जानी।  तिरगुन फाँसि लिये कर डोलै, बोलै मधुरी बानी।  केसव के कमला होइ बैठी, सिव के भवन भवानी।  पंडा के मूरत होइ बैठी तीरथहू में पानी।  जोगी के जोगिन होइ बैठी, काहू के कौड़ी कानी।  भक्तन के भक्तिन होइ बैठी, ब्रह्मा के ब्रह्मानी।  कहैं कबीर सुनो भाई साधो, यह सब अकथ कहानी॥  Kabir says the following at a different place: माया मुई न मन मुवा, मरि-मरि गया सरीर।  आसा त्रिष्णाँ नाँ मुई, यौं कहै दास कबीर॥ Maya is a very interesting concept in Indian spiritual texts. This entire world is a product of 3 Gunas: Satva, Rajas, and Tamas. These three Gunas have the same source: consciousness. However, when consciousness manifests itself in three different forms, due to the effect of Maya or illusion, we are not able to see the reality behind different forms. We develop attraction towards one or the other form of Maya and repulsion towards the other form and live...

Today, I was just recalling my childhood. We had very limited resources. Good books were rare. We had to visit the bookshops in different corners of the small town on our bicycles just to get a hand on a good book. Sometimes, we used to come to Daryaganj's old book market to get our hands on some good books. It will be a day tour for which we will take a train from home town and after around 3 hours, we will reach Daryaganj. After spending a whole day long, somehow, we may be able to get our hands on some good books at a cheap price. There were very few teachers and in fact, the teachers also had a monopoly on the subject. There was no internet at that time and there were hardly any libraries in small towns. Despite all these limitations, parent's motivation was always available. Expectations were not so high. Today, with the invention of the internet, almost every information is available on the screen. mobile apps and coaching institutes have mushroomed. Students can get onli...

Yesterday, I had quite intense discussions around the concept of self-respect with 3 good friends. In fact, one of my friends is a surgeon and that's why I was keenly interested to understand the physiology of pain. All of us undergo pain, both physical and psychological. We fall down, have a cut, undergo surgeries, have malfunctioning of some internal or external organs, have stones, give birth to a child, and there are many more occasions when we undergo physical pain. I asked her what happens in such situations. She explained that the neurons carry the message to the brain and the brain perceives the same as pain. We further discussed as to whether there is a "choice" to take cognizance of the pain. Do different patients have different reactions to the pain? The answer was "yes", as I understood. When the neurons carry the signals, the brain will definitely recognize that as pain, however, the brain has the "Choice" to or not to react. It may react ...

I am always surprised when I read or listen to Sundar Kanda. How could Hanumana cross the ocean to reach Lanka that nobody from the mainland has ever reached earlier and challenge the most powerful person in the world "Ravana" in his own kingdom? It seems almost an impossibility. However, to make it possible, Hanumana used all the mental and physical faculties. The most important attribute was his flexibility to be small or big, harsh or soft, depending upon the situation.  On the other hand, we often get fixated. We get fixated on our desires and comforts. We find it difficult to work without air conditioning, once we get used to the same. We get used to mobiles and keep looking at the notifications almost every few minutes. We get used to the comforts of home and find it difficult to have tours. We get fixated on the relationships and find it difficult to think of an existence without them. We get fixated on our office and roles in the organization and find it difficult to ...

The world is full of choices. Choices are increasing day by day. Two decades back, when we used to go to the market, there were fixed grocery shops and few brands of soaps, oil, shampoo, and every other daily use item. We used to pick one or the other without spending much time. In fact, we used to leave the decision to the shopkeeper in most of the cases. After coming back home, generally, there was not much to compare and we used to feel happy. Today, the scenario has changed. Firstly, the Departmental stores are full of the choices. Add to that the options available on Amazon, Flipkart, Zomato, and Blinkit. We are flooded with the options. So much so that there are different websites just to make the comparisons easy and presentable to us. We should be happy with so many choices. However, we seem to be more unhappy. We are spending disproportionate time making the decisions because there is always a FOMO. We are afraid to miss something we do not know. Even after making the decision...