Coincidences...

It sometimes happens with probably all of us that we're thinking of something and then, either instantly or after a short time, we see some manifestation of our internal thoughts in the material realm i.e. the very thing happens or is seen by us.  (And I'm not talking about supposedly random marketing links appearing on our Facebook page or stream right after we've viewed, and not even clicked, a certain product on Amazon! 😁 That's the art and science of AI-driven user manipulation as so tellingly expounded by industry insiders in the recent Netflix documentary 'Social Dilemma'.)

There are various spiritual explanations for this phenomenon.  Some hold that all of us are just flowing in a collective stream of consciousness, and so seemingly random thoughts are not really random but are plucked out of that same stream.  And so, since the collective consciousness, for want of a better word, is aware of such plucking, we're then presented with the next logical evolution of that thought in the material world, either as a thing discovered or a happening.  This is perhaps why it's said that 'Watch your thoughts, they become... your destiny'.  This view also holds that all inventions are actually discoveries, of things or properties of nature lying dormant, sometimes in plain sight, till someone seemingly stumbles upon them in a flash of inspiration, even though after a lot of research and efforts.

Lately, I've been ruminating on a few minor... ummm... injustices life seems to have handed me.  Typical thoughts in a mid-life crisis (on the lines of 'I've done so much for others, what have I got in return' yada yada yada), which have the potential to turn any once energetic young person into a bitter old man, snapping at those around him to take out the frustration seemingly for minor slights or irritants, mostly unjustified considering life's bounties and good fortune.  To avoid continuing down the usual path of self-pity and then anger, I started to train my mind on Bhagavad Gita's core philosophy of 'Karmanyevadhikarastay ma faleshu kadachana...' i.e. you only have a right to the action, not to the fruits thereof.  it's good to remember that this, probably the most well known verse of the Gita, also extolls the virtues of ceaseless action (after all, we all have to 'pay our dues' to this earth) by ending with 'Ma tay sangoastvakarmani' i.e. don't let yourself fall prey to inaction.

Now, one aspect of Karm Yog, epitomised by the above action, is the rising of the Karta inside us.  Action often fuels the feeling of 'I have done this' in our ego, much against the admonition in the above verse of not taking credit for our actions.  In this, what may perhaps come to our rescue is the other side of the coin, Bhakti Yog, which advises us to dedicate all our actions, and the results of such actions, to the almighty.  (There's a beautiful song by Ramprasad, the 18th century devotee of goddess Kali: 'Shokoli tomari ichchha... Aami jontro tumi jontri...' i.e. I'm only an instrument in your hands.). Once we deduce that, one, nothing is actually done by us but we only pluck the actions out of collective consciousness as an instrument, and two, that as a corollary we don't have a right to the fruits of such actions, then the rising ego should be well controlled.  So the right way seens to be to dedicate all our actions, and the fruits of such actions, to the almighty, while continuing to act out our part in this worldly drama.  (And just a drama it is, as the Maya philosophy tells us.)

Now, while I'm in the process of thinking all this through, what should I come across but the very thought in writing which aligns with the same throught process!  Having 'coincidentally' risen a bit early and thus having a few minutes extra in hand before my morning walk, I decide to read an extra page of my daily Gita read. (I tend to 'ration' meaningful readings, so as not to cram my mind but be able to understand a bit as I go along.). The last verse on the last page I read today (of 'Yatharth Gita', an interpretation by Swami Adgadananda) is verse 29 of chapter 13, which goes like this:

Voila - what a coincidence! Once we understand that it's nature which performs all actions, and that we're actually non-doer or non-agent, that opens up a whole new way of looking at and dealing with the world.  Now to actually put this in action (pun intended) is the challenge... Didn't someone say that life is a lifelong self-improvement project? (Well, that someone's wife also said that a husband is a lifelong improvement project for a wife, but let's not go there at the moment...😁)

Now, that I was inspired to put pen to paper (or, more aptly, keyboard to screen) to put down these thoughts, is that also a mere coincidence or...

Coincidence...

There is a cliched statement from the movies which goes something like this: "जब दो इंसानो  को मिलना होता है तो पूरी कायनात उनको मिलाने के लिए काम करने लगती है" (loosely translated as 'when two people have to get together, the whole universe works towards that').  The power of coincidence, that is...

One take on this thought is that whatever you believe in strongly (and send out 'signals' for) happens - see Making your dreams come true.  This is also the tack taken by Rhonda Byrne in her books 'The Secret' and 'The Power' which, however, are too materialistically inclined to be of taste to everybody.

I've felt this 'coincidence' sometimes while reading multiple books during a day (a quirk of mine).  I may come across the same, ummm..., 'theme' across (a) Bhagwadgita (Hindi interpretation by Swami Ramsukhdas), and (b) Bhagwadgita (different chapter/verse - English interpretation by Paramhansa Yogananda), and (c) Rubaiyat of Omar Khaiyam (interpretation by Paramhansa Yogananda).

Today again I felt the same thing happen.  I was sitting with a colleague (and a good friend) and listening, for the umpteenth time, to his grumblings about the workplace, bosses, et al.  (To give him credit, he also sometimes acknowledges that it's no good to grumble, and one should 'either shape up or ship out' - but then he reverts to the same mode of grumbling.)  Well, I've been thinking for quite some time to share some feedback with this colleague on his negative mode of thinking (not the least because some of the negativity seems to rub off on me too sometimes!).  It so happened that today, on the verge of starting to provide such feedback, I refrained from doing so, remembering an old adage that feedback (even if constructive) is best given when sought, in most situations.  And this is regardless of how much one thinks it'd benefit the receiver of such feedback, since the very act of sharing feedback may arouse certain negative feelings/resistance in the receiver if s/he is not receptive in the first place.

Well, after the colleague went off, I started reading my emails.  One of the regular emails I receive is a series of 'suggestions', based on thoughts of well-known thinkers of their time.  And what do I see, as the thought for the day, but this: 'Absence of criticism' - "...resist the urge to speculate about... neighbours unless with a view to their benefit" (see If I can).  (This was shown to be based on Jain Tirthankara Mahavira's thought "May no one speak harsh, bitter or unpleasant words.")

Regardless of what alternative interpretation/s I (or anyone else) can put on the above thought, the fact remains that it was relevant to my prevailing thought process of sharing feedback.  For me, incidents like these seem to indicate that (a) the teachings of thinkers and epics, Bhagwadgita among them, are not based on dry philosophizing or 'speaking from the pulpit' but are based on, and meant to guide, the living of life itself, and (b) we're all perhaps part of the same 'macrocosm' (for want of a better word), while existing as (within?) our own 'microcosm'...

Thoughts across language and much else...

What a coincidence!  I was going through verse 57 of the 2nd chapter of Srimadbhagwadgita (the 'Gita') last night - the Hindi interpretation with detailed notes by swami Ramsukhdas ji.  The shloka talks about the characteristics of a 'sthitapragya' (a person of equanimity), saying such a person should withdraw his indriyas (senses) within himself like a turtle.

Right after that, I started reading the Gita interpretation (in English) by Paramhansa Yogananda - verse 26 of chapter 6.  Eerily, this verse also turned out to be saying almost the same thing - how an aspirant Yogi should strive to keep his indriyas under control!

What a transmission of thoughts, across language, target audience (an ordinary devotee vs. an aspiring Yogi) and author (someone who spent his whole life in India vs. someone who spent the major part of his life in US).  But the underlying thought remains the same!

Were they both trying to say something (the same thing), communicating from beyond the boundaries of time and space?...

Backing the wrong horse(s)...

The headline news (or "breaking news", as most news channels are wont to call it!) in almost all Indian newspapers today is how Manmohan Singh, taking over Finance ministry after Pranab Mukherji resigned en route to the President House, choose to meet his old 'groupies' Montek Singh Ahluwalia and C Rangarajan for a start.  And how this signalled great things to come...

It's striking how we Indians as a people, raised as many of us are (or at least were, till a couple of decades back) on mythological stories, are highly susceptible to the 'history syndrome'.  At the slightest pretext, whenever we even get a hint of an incident (or even a persona) resembling anything that has happened any time in the past - right from Rama's time to Krishna's and all the way till the end of 20th century and everything in between - we are wont to clutch at the straws of history/mythology and get our danders up 

(or down, as the case may be) basis the similarity of circumstances.  Little do we realize the dynamic nature of history - things once gone are hardly likely to come back, not in the same form at least.  Even if we could at least learn something from history, it'd be of some use; but no, we're content with just being nostalgic and all rosy eyed...

The over-exhuberance with Manmohan Singh taking charge of Finance ministry, and pulling along his 'old' team on the first day, is another demonstration of the same syndrome.  Now, nobody has got anything against Dr. Singh - he's a decent enough man, who's come up the ladder by dint of his technical/academic brilliance.  But how in the world is this 'opportunity' - of being in charge of Finance ministry again (though there were snide remarks earlier that even as PM he preferred to deal with Financial and Economic issues rather than the wider ones, including political) - supposed to add to his ability to deal with the country's current economic situation any more than what he was already able to do as PM?  


And are we really sure he 'understands' the current world/economic paradigm the same way he did 20 years back?  Perhaps he does (being a brilliant economist himself), but there's a world of difference between understanding something and doing, or even being 'allowed to do' (ref. all the the talk of 'coalition dharma'), something to help the situation.  Do we expect that Dr. Singh would just pull out his magic wand (of 1990s vintage!), say "Abracadabra", and all our economic ills would just vanish?!  And that too when the wand itself has rusted quite a bit in the intervening 20 years.  Call it 'old wine in new bottle' or whatever you may, the reality is that Dr. Singh may find himself as flummoxed (and hand-tied) in dealing with the current situation as FM (esp. if he chooses to use 20 year-old methods) as he has been as PM.

As for Montek, the guy appears to have actually deteriorated in his outlook over these 20 years.  Part of the blame must be put in the

space he finds himself in - as head of a communist-style 'apparatchik' body lording over Central Govt. resources and granting 'doles' to provincial govts.  Never mind that the resources are raised in the same provinces (and then 'appropriated' by the Centre and part of it funneled into the black home called Govt. bureaucracy)!  And never mind whether the money so doled out actually reaches the target populations.  The fact that Montek has got totally disjointed from ground realities is borne out by many indications, one being his view that a 'normal' person an live on Rs. 30 a day (presumably, if that 'normal person' doesn't have to spend Rs. 3 million on a couple of toilets, of the kind recently built in Montek's fiefdom Yojana Bhawan), while 'Montek-ji' himself can fly around the world on 'official' tours at a cost of crores.  If ever there was a contest for the best 'armchair economist' (living within ivory towers), Montek will qualify without even running for it!

As for Rangarajan, the best one could say about him is that he prefers to 'stick to his knitting'.  As Governor of Reserve Bank of India, he excelled in dealing with esoteric things like repo rates, CRR, (theoretical) inflation trends and such like.  And one suspects he has continued to restrict himself to dealing only with faceless numbers rather than real people.  Probably he can talk at length on the shape of money supply in the economy, without even a hint of what that 'money' means to the person on the ground trying to survive with the same (or even reduced) 'supply' of it while prices of everyday items keeps going up and up and up.  Something that not only doesn't hit people like Rangarajan, insulated as they are from any level of price rise, but is sanitized by the same people into faceless concepts of 'inflation' ('double dip' or not), 'stagflation', 'recession' and the like - much more palateable to deal with than the ugly realities of abject poverty and penury at both urban and rural levels.

Is it any surprise that with such a merry bunch at the helm, our economy is in the doldrums.  These are the people who, even when they get themselves up to do something at last, start talking about dealing with 'investor sentiment' and 'market trends', not even making a passing reference to the plight of the same 'common man' to whom many of them have to go every five years.  As if their first accoutability lies with the 'international community' and not to their constituents.   Well, talk of investors and market all you like, but at least explain to the common man how doing something to improve these is likely to (it's only a possibility after all, not a certainty) lead to a better deal for him.  


A classic example is how the Govt. machinery dealt with the resistance to foreign investment in the retail sector.  On paper, a whole lot of downstream benefits could be envisaged, from better realizations for farmers to more competitive prices for the consumers, eliminating middlemen from both ends of the chain.  But no, the Govt. preferred to talk only of how permitting this would lead to a great improvement in investor sentiment (even as many farmers' bodies got wise about the potential benefits, and chose to take a stand counter to the agitating trader community who seemed to have a bigger ear of the powers that be across the political spectrum)!


And you know why they wouldn't talk about the common man's reality on any issue?  It's because, in his heart of hearts, in the privacy of his leir, any intelligent man (discounting the idealistic fools), either in the economic or in the political space, knows that the machinery and mechanism which has been built up since our independence (and even before) is so rusted and moth-eaten by corruption that come what may, only a very small portion of economic benefits actually reach the common man for whom it's meant.  


And that applies to 'trickling down' of any economic & social good under the sun - unemployment benefits (the NREGS chain riddled with corruption at all levels and leakink like a sieve), education (whole armies of teachers drawing salaries from Govt. but not setting foot in the dilapidated rural 'schools'; why do you think there are riots every time a recruitment drive for teachers or policemen is held - because it's a licence to draw a pay withouth working & thus 'loot of the treasury'), health (primary healthcare centre workers playing truant, just like their brethren the teachers), industry (e.g. mining, a daylight robbery industry the likes of which are alleged to be driver of Naxalism), even law and order (a special case - a force tied down to its British-era 'legacy' as a tool of repression in the hands of the powers that be).

Faced with such 'insurmountable' challenges of economic development to benefit the common man, what do smart men like Manmohan, Montek, Rangarajan, et al do?  Why, they keep tinkering with this or that 'rate' or 'indicator' a bit this way or that way, while making all the right noises at Davos and Mexico, if only to ensure that after retirement (if it ever comes, for this lucky group) they have plenty of offers from the 'international community'.

Is the situation totally hopeless?  Is there not even a glimmer of hope?  I believe there is.  Just that we've to learn, as a country and people, to stop putting our stock in hopeless personages.  A lot has been said about Indian 'jugaad', the proclivity of the Indian people to get around any roadblock by using 'whatever works'.  Some negative comments have also been made against the 'jugaad' mentality - legitimate complaints that this mentality is condoning social/economic ills, encouraging corruption and letting people get away with murder.  However, I believe it's the Indian ethos of micro-level entrepreneurship (in the widest sense of the term), whether called 'jugaad' or something else, which'd eventually help us rise above the conundrum in which we find ourselves.  And that would probably happen in spite of, not becuase of, any shenanigans indulged in by the holier-than-thou armchair economists and technocrats.

There is a passage towards the end of 'War and Peace' where Tolstoy puts down the realization that it's not great kings and emperors who win battles, but the soldiers on the ground whose courage or cowardice on a given day and in a given battle actually decides the fate of that battle (and eventually the war).  This resonates closely with the timeless Indian classic Bhagvadgeeta which says while being engaged relentlessly in work, one shouldn't even think that things come about because of his efforts ('maa karmaphalheturbhu...').  If only the self-important 'rulers' like Manmohan, Montek & Rangarajan would get the import of this philosophy and focus on 'getting out of the way' of the common man as he goes about building his dream with his own two hands...

Children and truth

Was reading a novel, set in Ireland, about a drug addict, Tony, and his struggle to regain his footing in life.  One of the main characters is his wife Allie (Alisha) who attempts to bring the hubby onto the right path, while taking care of her two sons, one pre-teen and one a toddler.  There is one scene where Allie returns home devastated, having just learnt that Tony, who was off drugs for a few months after rehab, has taken a 'slip' again, after having left home in a huff having quarrelled with her on learning that it was she who had got him thrown out of his job when she first learnt he was an addict (to keep him off money...  a long story).

Once she's home, she starts thanking the old neighbour who's been babysitting her sons (assisted by his own son, a comic TV artist) for a few hours.  But then she's told by the old man (goaded by his son into the 'confession') that he has been pretending to be Santa Claus to her elder son, who's been writing him letters asking for help on all sorts of things (some of which he helps the child with).  This provokes her to full fury - 'How dare he do this to my son' - and she screams at him "Get out...".  She forgets all the favours the old man has been doing for her family (besides babysitting) - protecting her son from local bullies, getting him a car ride with his famous son, etc.  She also goes on to dutifully check, discreetly, whether the old man 'had interfered' with her son (thankfully, not)!

Got me thinking.  Is the commitment to absolute truth really so high in the Western World?  Not being judgmental, but if something like this had happened with one of us, we would probably have brushed it off as an innocuous incident, at most with the remark that at least it gave the child a few days of innocent happiness.  Part of this attitude may be based on the rich Indian tradition of 'pari katha' (or 'roop kahini') fables, narrated by our grandparents and also published, where children were encouraged to delve into the dream world of fairies and kings, learning some good values in the bargain - the Panchatantra tales and Chandamama magazine may be good examples.

But another part may also be based on the Indian philosophy which seems to hold that truth is only what you perceive (there is only one absolute truth: God), and is dependent on circumstances.  Some scholars hold that even the venerable Bhagvad Gita seems to propound this philosophy of a 'context for the truth'.  And the epic Mahabharata has a famous incident where the God incarnate Krishna encourages the eldest Pandava brother Yudhishthira, known as the upholder of absolute truth, to be 'economical with the truth' ("Ashwatthama hata iti gaja") so that the Kaurava commander (and the guru of both clans) Dronacharya could be killed.  Even in our daily life, and perhaps especially when it comes to children, we seem to hold the view that only that part of truth need be shared which would do no harm to anyone, and truth which harms anyone is probably not worth sharing.

Back to the story.  It turns out that the old man's truth (about pretending to be Santa) was the last straw - the child learns during the evening that his mom had been lying to him about his dad being in 'America' (while he was actually in rehab), the mom had been lying to (or at least not sharing the truth with) dad about having had him thrown out of his job, and now this!  Even when the old man tries to explain that the whole thing started when the child presumed he was Santa 'coz he looked like Santa, and that he went along just to keep him out of his lawn (and he didn't pretend to be all powerful: he does tell the child when he asks Santa to keep his dad off drugs that he can't help and his dad has to find the 'magic' in his own heart), he gets no buy in for the argument.  So what's the big issue here?  Why is the old man's lie such a big deal, among all the other lies flying thick and fast?

And what about the effect of the truth on a child?  The story also tells us that Tony took to drugs while in teens because he could not 'fit in', because he was the adopted child of his parents (he keeps arguing with his adoptive mom Tess that it was she who was at fault, not he! - though he also makes up with her later).  Just wondering: would it have been better for Tony to NOT know the truth about his being an adopted child, at least till he gained the wisdom and stability to handle that truth?  Takes us back to the hit '70s Hindi movie 'Kabhi Kabhi' where the adoptive parents of Neetu Singh (Parikshit Sahni & Simi) decide to tell the daughter (ostensibly a teenager) about her adoption and the identity of her real mom (Waheeda Rehman) - a difficult decision (much crying by Simi!), but one taken 'in the best interest of the daughter'.

Of course, there can be two sides to the coin.  Some may say 'Who are you to decide what is the right age to learn the truth?'  Fair point, but don't we as parents make such decisions - as to what is good for our child and what is not - on a day to day basis?  The argument can go on.  But the point that strikes me is the difference in the World-view in this respect between Oriental and Occidental cultures, as pointed out above.  It also has some relation to the importance given in the Western culture to treating children 'with respect' from a young age - an honorable motive but sometimes abused by the recipients of such favour!  Some would say this is treating kids 'with kid gloves'(!) - look at the huge controversy generated by the book 'Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother', even when the author Amy Chua stated later that the book was a kind of self-parody memoir.

There are of course no right or wrong answers to this debate.  Each of us has to take a view based on our own judgment and in the best interest of our children.