The Quiet Mind

My friend, the things that do attain
The happy life be these, I find:
The riches left, not got with pain,
The fruitful ground; the quiet mind;

The equal friend; no grudge, no strife;
No charge of rule nor governance;
Without disease the healthy life;
The household of continuance;

The mean diet, no dainty fare;
True wisdom joined with simpleness;
The night discharged of all care,
Where wine the wit may not oppress;

The faithful wife, without debate;
Such sleeps as may beguile the night:
Content thyself with thine estate,
Neither wish death, nor fear his might. 

- Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey

Sustained Satyagraha

I went to watch Satyagraha today.  I found it quite interesting for the most part.  It got me thinking on the issue - and I guess that means that Prakash Jha has not done a bad job.

Now, the movie is a lot about idealism, popular agitation, and so on, so we can't expect it to work as well as Chennai Express or Singham.  The movie did seem to inject a shot of inspiration in some part of the audience, but we all know well that this inspiration won't sustain, for it is not "practical".

So I was left to wonder, what exactly will motivate us to leave our daily humdrum and make effort towards common welfare?  Or should we understand that such a "revolution" is impossible?

I can say for sure that such a revolution is not impossible.  Gandhiji proved that, in a much more challenged environment, with poor communication systems, no voting rights, illiteracy, and social class discord.  Egypt, Libya, and Germany proved that people can get sick of the establishment and bring about a change.  So why do we not see such a revolution in India today?  Is it because our problems aren't really serious?  Is it because we are too selfish to look at the common cause?  Or are our politicians smart enough to keep us too occupied to think of our issues?

I like to think that the problem is our stupidity or immaturity.  Our immaturity prevents us from seeking action unless we are directly affected.  Our immaturity makes us hypocrites - stupidly lighting candles and sharing facebook posts and participating in rallies occasionally, without any sustained or planned effort - just like we say Jay ____ (fill your "God" here), and practice Faraali or Roja or Paryushan so that God overlooks our daily nonsense.

Most seriously of all, our immaturity makes us blind to the opportunity to find pleasure in bringing a positive change.  That is, we fail to see the obvious fun in working towards making the world more wonderful.

These initiatives and movements fail because we do not participate with the right mindset.  Some of us participate as a reaction to negative or irritating experiences we may have faced.  Some participate looking at these as ways to "contribute their share".  And of course, then there are the more stupid cases that seek fame or pursue hidden agenda.

I think we need to stop looking at this as a fight of good v/s evil.  We are all mixed people, with our share of compromises in character.  So are our representatives and public servants - it is just hypocrisy to expect them to be ideal or perfect.

We need to look at this as a long-term effort for self-improvement.  We need to seek perfection in our character.  We need to learn how to take principle-centric decisions even when they are inconvenient; we need to maintain loyalty for our conscience; we need to learn to ignore irritations (of negative experiences) and avoid reactions.
We need to acquire the patience to understand the people we conveniently declare as villains - see their good side, love them, befriend them by being their true well-wishers, and motivate them to change (primarily in their own interest).  We will do this naturally when we develop a strong, genuine character.

This effort for self-improvement is not so hard - in fact, it is fun.  We all enjoy upgrading our homes, our offices, our cars - we will find nothing as enjoyable and sustainable as upgrading our character.

The revolutions in Egypt and Libya seem unlikely to succeed.  The one in Germany did.  As did Gandhiji.  He succeeded because he sought to love everyone (as he enjoyed doing so), not discount anyone as an antagonist, understand and learn what "the right" might be, pursue that, seek improvement, and enlighten others to do the same.  His autobiography speaks not of his achievement of "kicking the British out", but of his efforts to strengthen his character, his efforts to define and pursue "the right".

The great thing about this attitude is that it is sure to deliver sustained happiness.  One pursuing environmental improvement through self-improvement need never worry about chances of his/her success.  Because speed and success in self-improvement is always in our hand, and we can get started with that "revolution" anytime, from any situation, including now.

Some Simple Principles

What is religion, but a collection of principles that help us navigate happily through life?  I am trying to figure my own such principles, and am considering settling with these:

(1) Believe in God (wholeheartedly).  Trust his plans, abilities, informality, and intelligence.

(2) You are your mind alone.  Life is a God-given opportunity to experience happiness.  The world is here to teach you, entertain you, and provide opportunity for you to work and love.

(3) Your happiness, your love, and your efforts are entirely in your control.

(4) Enjoy loving every aspect of the world around you.  Love sincerely and unconditionally.   Let this love motivate your efforts to improve the world.

(5) Make no efforts except those that are aimed to improve your self and your surroundings (a.k.a. the world).

(6) Enjoy these efforts naturally, for you are working for something you believe in or people you care about.  Don't bother about results and reactions, except for fine-tuning your efforts.

(7) Work very hard.  More efforts => more fun.

(8) Appreciate and use every opportunity to learn and improve.

(9) Focus on improvement (of self and efforts), not perfection or achievement.

(10) Take decisions based on natural principles driven by your conscience.



A few negatives, for those who didn't get the message clearly enough:

- Save energy from religious compulsions and explicit efforts to please / attract attention of God.  How can he be petty enough to need attention and pleasing, foolish enough to ignore your reality, yet powerful enough to perform miracles?

- Save energy from lying, faking feelings, acting without inspiration, or justifying wrong decisions.  Enjoy integrity and innocence; win them back if you've lost any.

- Avoid distractions of money, power, fame, relative success or failure, and anesthetic entertainment.  It's plainly stupid to choose the illusion of pain over the reality of a beautiful world.

Deviation from detached effort - our ultimate stupidity

"Nishkaam Karma" is perhaps one of the greatest contributions of the Bhagvad Gita to world philosophy.  It seems to be a sure-shot model for living a pleasant life.  Yet our religious gurus and self-help books rarely preach this vital concept; in fact, they go to the extent of misinterpreting it in models such as "work and you will definitely be rewarded" and creating the notion of a gullible and corrupt God.  I wonder why this simple concept has become so rarely practiced.

On some reflection, I feel that we have been built physically and mentally only to work, to contribute.  We require food and shelter, so we may have energy to work.  We are given the ability and desire to learn, so that we can contribute better, work more efficiently.  We have been given the sense to identify excellence or laxity in our work, so we may ensure the former.  We have been given the sense of liking and choice, so we may identify what kind of work we can be best at.  And finally, we're gifted a conscience, which ensures that we choose a positive and constructive area of work.  Nature has clearly built us to work and contribute to the world in our own positive way.

Executing this right and duty to contribute seems to have no negatives or challenges.  Working keeps us fit to live and continue working.  Improvising on our efforts exercises and satisfies our mind.  Remaining synchronous with our conscience, and detachment from results ensure a mind free from anxiety, free to be innocent, intelligent and creative.  We can be our real selves, free to trust and love everyone, unhindered by the baggage of their past actions.  Our positive contributions, our trust and love deliver happiness to the world around us, which thereby becomes even easier to work in.  I find it hard to see any flaw in nature's design for us.

Nishkaam Karma builds utopia for us wherever we are.  We have the ability to pursue it regardless of age, sex, wealth, or location.  We can find Nishkaam Karma practiced by people across religions - the famous ones range from Mother Teresa to Warren Buffett to Gandhiji to Albert Einstein to Peter Drucker's grandmother (read his autobiography sometime).

Yet this practice is almost extinct in our world today.  Despite longer lives, excellent technology for convenience, and stronger world peace, we are not at peace with life.  We worry about wealth, security, reputation, what not!  We look for opportunities to feel hurt, rather than opportunities to serve.  Rather than take moral judgments through our in-built conscience (which only gets stronger through practice), we outsource them to religion.  We observe religious practices with zeal and lack of logic matched only by that of OCD patients.  While nature gives us friends and colleagues and family to love innocently and contribute positively to, we seek importance and superiority.  We deliberately choose not to trust people and find it wise to be "shrewd" and protect our possessions - wasting energy securing ourselves from many who may actually desire only our well-being.  Seriously, are we this stupid?!

Organized religions of today reinforce our deviation from happiness.  They ask us to bypass our conscience and sense of logic, and outsource judgments to their "one-show-fits-all" illogical rules, many of which were actually defined to be practical centuries ago.  Our religious leaders interpret and even evolve our philosophical heritage for their convenience - it is much easier to tell stories of demons and family feuds of Ramayana and Mahabharata, than to teach the concepts behind the Upanishadas and Vedas, or guide us in figuring the principles that should govern our lives.  It is obviously easier for them to sell the idea of a "Transactional God" - a Being full of limitations, who punishes and rewards, who can be bribed and fooled, and who we can distract through daily pujas and offerings.

I am not against religion.  True religion is nothing but philosophy.  Religion offers suggestions about life.  Hinduism is not the only religion talking of detached service - Jainism is not merely about wealth offerings and paryushana, but rather absolute detachment (which is now merely symbolic and ignored); Buddhism is about a quest for spiritual awareness and a benign life, not the creation of gold-plated Buddha statues; Christianity is not the set of rules on abortion and gay marriage - it is about seeking "to understand, not be understood; to love, more than be loved".

It seems plain stupidity of us to go against our natural inclination and choose a life of misery over happiness.  My preliminary analysis says that our tendency to learn from others (who currently practice this stupidity) makes us defy our natural inclination and logic.  This has strengthened over generations, and here we are.

Fortunately, we can reverse this any day, very easily, by changing our choice.  It is also on us to make sure that we do not distract the still-innocent next generation from following their natural inclination, right and duty to only enjoy making positive contributions throughout life.

The Weakness of Positive Emotions

I was giving a pep talk to my colleagues yesterday, when I had an interesting realization - we fail at achieving our positive targets because of the weakness of our positive emotions.

Interesting words, "positive emotions" and "positive targets"...  Let me clarify.  Negative emotions include anger, vengeance, fear, desperation, etc.  Negative targets are the targets we seek being driven by our negative emotions - say the desire to hurt someone, desire to save someone, to escape from a scary place, and so on.  Positive emotions include enthusiasm, care, ambition, etc.  They are usually propelled from within us, and not by some negative situation around us.  Positive targets, ones that emerge from these positive emotions, include the desire to grow, improve, become slim-n-fit, help, etc.

We all know the story of the lady who, on finding her infant trapped, gets a miraculous bout of energy out of nowhere, and succeeds in saving her child.  We know countless stories of weak people exacting revenge on big villains.  We ourselves get driven when we are desperate - when we are chased by a dog, or when we have to give a critical examination - we know no fevers, no ailments, no tiredness.  Yet we do not have this desperation when we work for our careers, our products, our pro-active fitness plans, and so on.

For most of us, positive emotions are much weaker than negative emotions. People who can strengthen their positive emotions - who can maintain a resolve even when no desperation exists - end up succeeding.  I read once that Azim Premji and Narayana Murthy work 70-80 hours a week.  The President of the United States puts in no less.  Follow Mukesh Ambani or Bill Gates - you will find no difference.  It's not that they won't survive if they don't work this hard - they have far surpassed levels of achievement that most of us dream of.  They succeeded, and continue to succeed, because they have reinforced their positive emotions.

It is uncommon to find positive emotions succeed.  When we try to build our careers, we allow social occasions, travel excursions, health issues, family problems, TV shows, pretty much every little thing, to distract us.  We therefore fail to achieve great successes of the scale that people tend to reach through fear or vengeance.  And it is therefore unsurprising that positively successful people are also uncommon.

We need to ask ourselves - why can we not wake up at 4 AM and put in 12 or 14 hours of work even if we don't have external pressure?  It is fine if we accept that we are not serious about our positive ambitions - that we wish to achieve them by fluke if at all - rather than apply halfhearted efforts that are bound to fail.  Let the serious amongst us realize this common weakness, and choose to apply thrust towards their positive targets no less than the miracle energy we tend to receive under duress.

Empower politicians to make a better India!

It is commonplace for us to complain about poor governance in India.  Projects are not completed in time, promises are not kept, benefits do not reach beneficiaries.

I believe the solution for improving this poor state of governance is in empowering our elected representatives and expanding their number.  I realize that this might be quite contrary to the prevailing (fashionable) mindset of disgust towards the incumbent politicians.


I believe that the key cause of inefficiency and ineffectiveness of governance is the fact that essentially nobody is responsible for good governance.  Let me elaborate why:

Our first reaction towards poor governance (failed projects, sustenance of corruption, etc.) is to hold our elected representatives responsible.  But the reality is that they hardly have any power.  Even Narendra Modi, with all his supposedly dictatorial mgmt style, cannot choose his team.  He must work with the same bunch of IAS, IFS, GAS, etc. officers that Gujarat has been bestowed with (by a body that reports neither to him nor to us the people).  He cannot fire them; he cannot hire them; he cannot penalize or reward them with real performance incentives - he just has the limited ability of transferring them and maybe threatening them with pathetic assignments or dummy cases.  He does not even have the ability to choose his ministers in charge of various departments - the finance minister must be an MLA popular in some constituency, while even a Nobel laureate in Economics is disbarred from being appointed!

The team given to ministers and the CM has lifetime job security.  They will not even face any penalty for performing badly - in fact, they can indirectly threaten the minister to lose his department (and constituency) by choosing to ignore his directives.  These "cadres" themselves form a power center, protecting each other from other layers, while within their layers, create a merit-less hierarchy.  Seniority and authority must be given through age and time spent in service, and not on basis of effectiveness or service delivered.

It is not that these cadres have any authority either.  Even the seemingly all-powerful IAS officers are forced to work with a team of much older and often motivation-less deputies, who are appointed entirely without his say, and also enjoy a lifelong job guarantee.  Very often, the best an officer can do is insult or humiliate his subordinates, hoping (in vain) that  maybe that the perceived fear might motivate his team, but his team is too smart to fall for that.

The ensuing result is that anyone in the chain can stop an initiative from succeeding, a project from completing.  So the best our helpless-yet-responsible politicians can do is make some money at it while hearing their constituents' curses.  We force them to make promises that they can't possibly keep, and them blame them when the inevitable happens.  We do not give them authority, we do not pay them decently, we despise them and blame them for things beyond their control, and then we expect them to be honest and magically effective - are we that unrealistic and stupid?


Another reason for poor governance is the way authority is distributed.  The city of Gandhinagar got a Municipal Corporation recently, but this corporation has hardly any authority to serve people - they cannot enact local laws, cannot spend for public welfare beyond a tight budget supported by meager taxes, cannot improve police security, cannot promote industries.  How can this body be considered the authority over Gandhinagar?  No wonder we never bother to remember who our councilor is!

In fact, given the deadlocked system, how can we even expect those councilors to do anything in our interest at all?  Think of it, what motivation can these people possibly have?


I feel particularly disappointed at this situation because it has a simple solution, which we fail to follow - a solution proven and sustained over centuries at other countries, like the US:

The solution expects us to recognize the fact that we are a democratic nation.  By definition, being a democracy implies that we must govern ourselves.  We (through our representatives) must have complete direct authority to define our policies and priorities.  We cannot be taken for a ride by a select few that passed a UPSC/GPSC examination.  In fact, we must have authority to elect all senior officers - in the US, not just lawmakers, but even judges, public attorneys, police chiefs, heads of several departments, etc. are directly elected.

Hence the first step is to increase the range of positions that require getting elected to.  Note that this need not be costly - these elections can easily be consolidated with others at fixed intervals by setting a chain of replacements.  The US, over the past 200+ years, has not once required an emergency election of Congress or the President.

Thereafter, we must focus all executive authority to one Chief Executive.  This CEO must be able to choose his/her team, ways of managing the team, ways of reporting, ways of managing projects and responsibilities, and so on.  We must ensure that the CEO gets all the necessary flexibility and authority required to successfully fulfill the role we entrusted him/her.  With this CEO in place, we are no longer victims of lack of accountability.

Next, we must set up systems to ensure that the CEO doesn't take us for a ride, say like Indira Gandhi did, or Narendra Modi might as some fear.  We must maintain a set of basic guidelines and principles that our CEO cannot violate, and cannot modify without our direct and wholehearted consent.  This set is what the "constitution" is supposed to offer.  We must also set up checks to ensure that our CEO chooses appropriate people as senior colleagues - the way the board may have a say in appointing CFOs and EVPs and Presidents, an independently elected board (aka "legislature") (and not a politically appointed governor) must approve the CEO's appointments.

And finally, let us keep it our own business to determine the laws and objectives that the CEO should enforce and attain - the way shareholders elect a board to set the direction for the CEO, we should appoint this independent legislature.

At lower and more local levels, let us again set up similar structures, like say a council of directly-elected representatives that decide priorities for the city, and a CEO mayor that executes those priorities.  Let us hold the board responsible if it charts bad priorities, and let us hold the CEO responsible if he/she fails to achieve the targets.

At the top few levels, we can maintain a decent critical body, like the shadow cabinet in the UK, or simply the opposition in the legislature, to continually monitor the role of the CEO and point out flaws that might go unnoticed.  In today's age of information technology, the media can play that role even better than the opposition.


The system I have proposed has been proven to work and sustain.  It will increase our faith in our representatives, because now they will be empowered to actually represent us.  It will help our executives do their jobs, because they will not remain bound by rules (or appointees) that nobody really wanted in place.

Those of you who have bothered to read this write-up entirely: I ask you why we cannot or should not switch to the model I have suggested, and if you agree with me, suggest how we can manage this transition.

Hope to have your inputs!

Greatness

It's only by seeking simplicity and service, and by shunning all pretensions of greatness, that we can achieve true greatness and lasting satisfaction.

We often think that money, fame, power will deliver success and happiness, and we keep chasing these, always unsatisfied and lusting for more. Hardly do we realize that not one of the great people that we admire from history - be it Gandhiji, Einstein, Lincoln, Tagore, anyone - looked for such kinds of success. Yet they are quite alive and matter to us even today. Even if Bill Gates or Tata get into history textbooks, it will be not for their wealth, but their creations. Why just history, even our fictional heroes - Superman to Singham - are admired for their service, not their self-centered achievements, like making a big house or a hefty portfolio.

Let us pause in this stupid race and reflect if we have chosen the right road to the right destination, and correct ourselves if we're just running after mirages and imitating the wrong models.

New Year Resolution: Be important!

Happy new year, folks!  It's once again that time of the year when we make resolutions, with full confidence that we are not going to follow any of those through... ;)  Just kidding!  I hope you are better at pursuing resolutions than I am, cuz I have one resolution to suggest today, in case you might want to take it up.

The resolution I propose is: "Be important".  Kinda catchy, isn't it?  Let me explain:

I keep feeling that most of us tend to ignore, and therefore fail to use, the wonderful gift of getting a life as a human being.  We just try to survive, spending away the precious 70-80 years of our lives in our routine chores.  We learn in order to earn, we earn in order to maintain our family (people who will also learn / earn), and by the time we think we've learnt and earned enough, we're done with our quality time on earth.  We are no different than ants and pigeons and dogs, who also live lives just around their daily food and instantaneous pleasures / pains.

I think this is a pretty pathetic waste of the opportunity we've been given: to enjoy life as humans.  We have been given the awesome power to change the world by using our brains.  We know that we will find great pleasure in bringing about that change and seeing people happier, yet we ignore/forget that.  We justify not doing this with our limitations of time and money.  I see this especially in case of NRIs and professionals: despite their better abilities and financial position, they spend their entire lives in the same old cycle.  It's so pathetic that we don't find time to do what we are made to do, what will give us the most happiness - immediately and in the long run.

So, friends, resolve to discover and use the human potential inside yourself.  Get up and change the world around you!

You'll have opportunities to make a difference almost everywhere you look, I'm sure. Guide and influence someone's career decision.  Change someone's way of thinking.  Bring education within reach of someone who can't afford it.  Make a product or launch a service that serves an unfulfilled need, or raises our standard of living, even if by a teeny weeny bit.  Find ways to utilize hidden or unused potential in people, say housewives and senior citizens.  Train people to deserve employment.  Agitate to bring about a change in a law.  Spread awareness about some good health practices.  Help your friends make money in the stock market.  Build houses.  Solve a family feud.  If nothing else, just find time to sit and listen to people who only want your attention once in a while.

Be someone who matters.  Don't be yet another ant or pigeon, whose presence or absence will make no difference to the world.  Touch and uplift the lives of people around you.  Be someone who made the world a richer place.  It will make you feel important, one of the feelings humans crave most for, right since infancy.  And you will earn lots of good wishes, which I consider as the main raw material for "luck".  Most of all, it will give you sustainable satisfaction, for you will be living a meaningful life.

Our days and years are too few and too precious to waste away in daily crises and efforts to survive.  Let us resolve to use them to make a difference to the world around us.

Once again, my best wishes for a fun-filled yet meaningful year ahead!