Dear All,
All those who have time and who feel that they need to know
the major factors that drive their lives may read and respond. You may read the
foot notes and cross reference to blog links after reading the whole article as
they may otherwise distract you from the main theme, even otherwise this
article may sound as diverting but for an unbiased understanding it is
inevitable to meander through these territories.
I agree with most of the
observations of the present day youth and their generation. The elder generation,
to which many such article writers
belong to , presume that they have the right to sit on judgments over the
pathetic plight of the more intelligent, more learned , at least more
knowledgeable and for more talented and toiling younger generation. It is easy
to generously sprinkle criticisms and observations from cozy comforts of air-
conditioned rooms by arm chair critics. While it is welcome in the larger
interests and scheme of things and the long term benefits that may accrue due
to certain modifications in the approaches to life, profession etc .
In fact in July 2011 I gave a rejoinder to INFOSYS Narayanamurthy for one of his similar comments [A] I feel contents of that letter I wrote are of relevance here. Those interested may also read my brother Sundar’s reply to that which reveals the other side of these people with very high public views and extremely low private operations, the typical hypocrisy of those who become successful by fate . [B]
In fact in July 2011 I gave a rejoinder to INFOSYS Narayanamurthy for one of his similar comments [A] I feel contents of that letter I wrote are of relevance here. Those interested may also read my brother Sundar’s reply to that which reveals the other side of these people with very high public views and extremely low private operations, the typical hypocrisy of those who become successful by fate . [B]
While
the youth have just reacted in a very mild way I would like
to dig a bit deeper into some of the very fundamental issues involved in a very
general way because if I get into specific neither my head nor my heart will
work but only my adrenal will flow virulently and violently.
These types of articles stimulate debates and discussions, or at least instigate arguments and bring out
strong reactions in many forms but if any solution or change can emerge out of
all these or at least any initiation or serious thought towards changing the
scenario then these articles would serve the purpose.
Before that are we to find fault with the present generation
of students, job seekers, young professionals? Or have the situations and circumstances
wronged them by making them undergo too many rigors academically and otherwise,
very often in too many area of irrelevance, inanity and throwing them into the
mire of identity crisis as to what they must do? Who they must become?
Life and
growth for any individual or institution or nation involves shifting priorities
and preferences [1], changing trends and taboos, different perceptions with all
its fallible tools [2], new and multiple problems etc. In this inevitable process,
we can neither deny the importance of anything nor defy the occurrence of
anything. Therefore everyone resorts to interpreting the facts, fictions and
fancy ideas and ideologies according to their priorities and perceptions.
But try
however hard we may, most of our activities are our choices [3] and attitudes towards
certain basic ingredients that affect our lives or are dear to our lives with
varying degrees of their manifestation, in many directions, multiple methods
and mutations. These basic ingredients [within which you can categorize/include
most of things that happen to your life or that you strive to make them happen]
for want of space, may be broadly classified as Love, Money, Sex, Death and
Fear.
But life itself ,
unfortunately for the majority is a dichotomy of Living Aspect of life and the Survival Aspect of life and living
with all the activities is a mere pendulum pathetically swinging between
these two aspects trying to strike a balance. The fact is those from lower
middle class, middle class and upper middle class who form the majority of
these job seekers and employees are hardly left with many options other than to
fall into some safe, secured groove and once they are in that groove, many of
them even totally forget the Living aspect of life. Having said all these we
must also understand the following things.
Life is, unfortunately, often subjected to the following
tools of evaluation and perception. As I have already written in an article
presented to an International Peace Organization in Australia some years back
While exploring the facts we
must desist getting distracted from the following major traps:-
1] Mutilating the facts,
2] Analyzing them with preconceived notions or prejudices,
3] Generalizing the particular and particularizing the general,
4] Approaching facts with unloving criticism or uncritical love,
5] Evaluating facts with our pet isms or philosophies,
6] Resorting to statistical justifications,
7] Unleashing unworkable utopia,
8] Mask them with logical fallacies,
9] Bury them in pleasant jargons, and
10] Give historical justifications.
You can find this in my blog
entry
and when it comes to evaluation
Evaluate
the purpose of life by the amount of happiness you have given to others.
Evaluate
the value of life by the extent you have been useful to others.
Evaluate
the meaning of life by the love you give to others.
Evaluate
the destiny of life by the amount of love you get from others.
Evaluate
the quality of your life by your attitudes.
Evaluate
the wisdom of your life by the experience you have gained and the lessons you
have learnt and the knowledge you have acquired from your experiments and
actions.
Evaluate
the worthiness of your life by the amount of or extent of realizations you have
had.
Evaluate
the totality of life not by owning anything or even trying to own life itself
but by living life.
But
the best way to evaluate life is to live it.
And
you live based on what you have and who you are.
Even
if you are schooled in irrelevant, inadequate, out dated, useless, erroneous
trivia at least do not base your belief systems or thoughts on them because
Your
thoughts and beliefs decide your life irrespective of whether you are
prosperous, peaceful and happy or the other way.
Because
they help you to make the choice and the choices you make decide who you are
and what you do depends on who you are and ultimately what you do gets you
whatever you have.
But
unfortunately we tend to think the process topsy-turvy. We want to have
whatever we want and think that it will make us and shape us.
Be on your
own don’t choose for others nor let others choose for you. So have your own
set of resolutions to make and break.
My blog link
My latest fad is evolutionary psychology. I am studying in
detail almost all the facets of life ,life forms and even those areas we
normally classify as lifeless but they have their own justification or role to
play in the scheme of things. I have already read some 400+ very interesting
research papers, plus 100+ books , I am also trying to cull out the relevant
observation made centuries ago by some rare scripture. I am doing this after
getting inspired by some great authors and two great books namely , THE SEVEN
MYSTERIES OF LIFE by GUY MURCHIE , THE HUMAN DESTINY by Le COMTE de Nuoy and
almost all the books of Donald NEALE WALSCH his 3 volume CONVERSATION WITH GOD,
and his other works like Friendship with God, COMMUNION WITH GOD and Home with
God etc and of course Devi Bhagavatham, SOUNDARYA LAHARI , BHAGAVAT GEETHA ETC
.
My main thesis is going to be that Everything is
Situational or Contextual . I am collecting lots and loads of
material to establish the many facts to establish this truth. I am just presenting
below part of my preface here.
Starting from the movement of a tiny ant to asteroids; from
the evolution of an embryo from an egg to engulfing environment everything
emerges, evolves, erupts or entrenches according to the situational demands or
circumstantial exigencies i.e. they are created by them or they create the
situation or circumstances. This has been a phenomenon for millions of years.
It has more or less continued to be the same for millions of years, the only
difference being the types, quality and quantity of resources and the
resourcefulness of the species to use them. It is this aspect of life that has
made the essential elements of all life to be interactive, interdependent,
interrelated among different species and environments or within the same
species. Throughout intelligent evolution has taken care to ensure that these
interactions, interrelations and interdependencies have been initially either
to ensure the survival and safety of the physical existence of the species and
then those that contribute to the enhancement, enrichment and enlightenment of
the body, mind, soul, society and the environment. Once these were ensured they
veered towards those activities that gave pleasure and promoted perfecting existing
modes of perception, utilities, comforts etc
Ultimately we shall understand the brief wisdom of
THE BHAGAWAD GITA is one of the clearest and most
comprehensive summaries of the perennial philosophy ever to have been done.Such
is the obvious teaching of this sacred book.It is composed of the beautiful
flowers of spirutual truths as collected from the voluminous upanishads.Gitas
door is wide open to anyone who knocks. It occurs in the Bhishma parva of
mahabharatha and comprises eighteen chapters from 25th to 42nd.This good book
of practical living marked a positive revolution in Hinduism.
THE BHAGAWAD GITA
I have simplified it as follows for easy and quick reference
Why do you worry without cause?
Whom do you fear without reason?
Who can kill you?
The soul is neither born, nor does it die.
Whatever happened,
happened for the good;
whatever is happening,
is happening for the good;
whatever will happen,
will also happen for the good only.
You need not have any regrets for the past.
You need not worry for the future.
The present is happening...
What did you lose that you cry about?
What did you bring with you,
which you think you have lost?
What did you produce,
which you think got destroyed?
You did not bring anything,
whatever you have, you received from here.
Whatever you have given, you have given only here.
Whatever you took, you took from God.
Whatever you gave, you gave to Him.
You came empty handed,
you will leave empty handed.
What is yours today,
belonged to someone else yesterday, and
will belong to someone else the
day after tomorrow.
You are mistakenly enjoying the thought
that this is yours.
It is this false happiness that is
the cause of your sorrows.
Change is the law of the universe.
What you think of as death,
is indeed life.
In one instance you can be
a millionaire, and
in the other instance you can
be steeped
in poverty.
Yours and mine, big & small
erase these ideas from your mind.
Then everything is yours and
you belong to everyone.
This body is not yours,
neither are you of the body.
The body is made of fire, water, air, earth and
ether, and will disappear into these elements.
But the soul is permanent -so who are you?
Dedicate your being to God.
He is the one to be ultimately relied upon.
Those who know of his support are forever
free from fear, worry and sorrow.
Whatever you do,
do it as a dedication to God.
This will bring you the
tremendous experience of
joy and life-freedom forever.
Honestly live to the ideals
Implement the way taught,
in your Day to Day Life
Therefore
Be regular in your pursuits.
Be sincere in your studies.
Be heroic enough to live to the postulates.
Don’t blindly believe.
Keep smiling, live every moment with bliss.
THE BHAGAWAD GITA
I have simplified it as follows for easy and quick reference
Why do you worry without cause?
Whom do you fear without reason?
Who can kill you?
The soul is neither born, nor does it die.
Whatever happened,
happened for the good;
whatever is happening,
is happening for the good;
whatever will happen,
will also happen for the good only.
You need not have any regrets for the past.
You need not worry for the future.
The present is happening...
What did you lose that you cry about?
What did you bring with you,
which you think you have lost?
What did you produce,
which you think got destroyed?
You did not bring anything,
whatever you have, you received from here.
Whatever you have given, you have given only here.
Whatever you took, you took from God.
Whatever you gave, you gave to Him.
You came empty handed,
you will leave empty handed.
What is yours today,
belonged to someone else yesterday, and
will belong to someone else the
day after tomorrow.
You are mistakenly enjoying the thought
that this is yours.
It is this false happiness that is
the cause of your sorrows.
Change is the law of the universe.
What you think of as death,
is indeed life.
In one instance you can be
a millionaire, and
in the other instance you can
be steeped
in poverty.
Yours and mine, big & small
erase these ideas from your mind.
Then everything is yours and
you belong to everyone.
This body is not yours,
neither are you of the body.
The body is made of fire, water, air, earth and
ether, and will disappear into these elements.
But the soul is permanent -so who are you?
Dedicate your being to God.
He is the one to be ultimately relied upon.
Those who know of his support are forever
free from fear, worry and sorrow.
Whatever you do,
do it as a dedication to God.
This will bring you the
tremendous experience of
joy and life-freedom forever.
Honestly live to the ideals
Implement the way taught,
in your Day to Day Life
Therefore
Be regular in your pursuits.
Be sincere in your studies.
Be heroic enough to live to the postulates.
Don’t blindly believe.
Keep smiling, live every moment with bliss.
Summing it up everything is contextual Manu smruthi
"The laws of Manu are intended for the Satya
Yuga,
those of Yajnavalkya are for the Tretayuga; those
of
Sankha and Likhita are for Dwaparayuga; and
those of Parasara for the Kali Yuga.
The laws and rules which are based entirely upon
social positions, time and clime, must change with
the changes in society and changing conditions of
time and clime. Then only the progress of the.. refer my blog
link
1] “Everything
in any process of growth is just a step, important and inevitable, but not a
stop. It is so with mother’s milk [our biological
aspect of life]; it is so with learning of alphabets, words and numbers [our
intellectual aspect of life]; it is so with hugging, kissing and cajoling as
babies [our emotional aspect of life]; it is so with our learning and
understanding of different concepts [ our philosophical aspect of life]; it is
so with all forms of worship, devotion and all its concomitant rituals and
religious practices [ our spiritual life] and so on. This is the inherent
wisdom. A normal human being has to go through a process to grow in everything
or into something. There may be exceptions like a Adi shankara, or a Bhagawan
Ramanamaharishi.
We can neither avoid the steps nor get struck to them. That’s why I cannot accept the snobbism of so called intellectuals parroting pet slogans like religion without rituals, god without religion or religion without gods, spiritualism without god or religion etc. In fact I have books titled in each part of the slogan.”
We can neither avoid the steps nor get struck to them. That’s why I cannot accept the snobbism of so called intellectuals parroting pet slogans like religion without rituals, god without religion or religion without gods, spiritualism without god or religion etc. In fact I have books titled in each part of the slogan.”
It is not often our
perception but the scale of observation and frames of reference which creates
the phenomenon. The scale of observation depends on man; it is he who creates
it. In nature, different scales of observation do not exist. There is only one
immense, harmonious phenomenon on a scale which, in general, escapes man. The
structure of man's brain necessitates dividing into arbitrary compartments and
cutting up into isolated pieces. With the aid of several instruments science
creates more phantasmagoria: "on our scale of human observation, as
pointed out before, the edge of a razor-blade is a continuous line. On the
microscopic scale, it is a broken but solid line. On the chemic scale we have
atoms of iron and carbon. On the sub-atomic scale we have electrons in
perpetual motion which travel at the rate of several thousand miles per second.
All these phenomena are in reality the manifestations of the same basic
phenomenon, the motions of the electrons. The only difference which exists
between them is the scale of observation" [Human Destiny, Lecomte du Nuoy-
a marvelous book that everyone must read – if I remember correctly this comes
in 34th page I have read that book at least 8 times].
A] N.K MURTHY’S unwarranted comment about IITs and the coaching
classes.
I wanted to write a long rejoinder to N.K
MURTHY'S comment but then I did not have time and felt there was no need either
but still I felt people who have benefitted maximum out of such system
should not hypocritically criticize . Those who live in glass houses should not
do two things they must not throw stones at others and also must not walk naked
in their glass houses.
So I would like to put it in brief the
reason for the fall in standards is precisely due to people like N.KMURTHY'S
successful ventures like info sys which degraded our engineering and IIT GRATS
to either dignified telephone operators for US clients sitting in call centers
with changed CHRISTIAN names or using them a mere software maintenance
and service providers. The creative aspect, the research aspect, the
manufacturing aspects etc were thus never encouraged nor supported. In fact
thanks to private pirates who started the multiple engineering colleges
we had many INDIAN students studying and passing out with flying colors in
various field of engineering but unfortunately these corporate beneficiaries like INFOSYS whose bosses who now do the tall talk spoiled the
very thought process of the educated youth who were paid very good salaries by
these corporate houses and in a country with huge population of educated middle
class the priority becomes monetary incentive or earning, so, everyone opted for
this, putting aside all their aspirations for creativity, foraying into
research , setting up manufacturing units etc as there are no financial
incentives for these activities in INDIA barring a very few exceptions. It is a
case of when milk is available in sachet why to own a cow, feed it and try
milking it syndrome which afflicted the educated middle class for whom these corporate
houses provided enough money for them to evolve from middle class to upper
middle class.
The very few who still felt that they had to
do something creative, of course ,did, and there are many IITians in
this. What they did initially, they forayed into setting up restaurants, good
and novel ones, wherein they were assured of immediate returns without credit
and some forayed into capitalize the other segment wherein they could cash in
and it was a field close to their heart as well, it was academics, so, they
started these coaching classes. If they had earned enough money like
N.KMURTHY they would have started huge research facilities outwitting
the IITs.
The arena of higher educational
institutions like engineering colleges, medical colleges etc are run by only
people who have been either liquor barons, political looters , religious
missions and mutts and their priority is naturally something else and the
middle class youth getting educated in these institutions is an incidental
benefit to the students and excellent source of supply for the INFOSYS, TCS
,CTS etc who have been the ultimate beneficiaries as all that they had to do is
to pluck the fruits of brilliant and useful students suited to their relevant
activities readily available in these institutes through campus
interviews. So instead of making press statements let these corporate
bodies start institutes of excellence where students of merit could be
sponsored for their creativity, research activities and manufacturing skills
etc . Probably as corporate bodies, they can enter into any financial buy back
system of agreement with these scholarly students like the royalty that come s
out of their research or creativity will be shared by the corporate house
sponsoring them and the manufacturing activity also can be designed similarly.
We as a nation have suffered enough due to
uncritical love of our heritage and unloving criticism of many activities,
instead let the corporate giants who have benefited due to the many
institutions do something positive for the future of this nation by investing
and promoting real merit based research, creative and manufacturing activities.
B]
Dear balayogi,
Dear balayogi,
you are right. Infosys thrived on y2k software and also
Finacial software application for all banks and made Billions, by painting an
image that Infosys is A SUPER GOVERNANCE Entity, roping in as many so
called wizkids from USA/ Europe etc to their Exc Board and sub committees.
their present MD, Kris Gopalakrishnan 'openly' flouted
'INSIDER trading Regulaitons of SEBI , but before SEBI Could slap
a penalty, the wrongdoer[ kris gopal at that CEO] reporting to NRN &
parallel reporting to Nanden Nilekani donated part of the whopping money &
margins he collected thro' INSDIER MALPRACTICE to a leading hospital @Mumbai,
which was shamelessly flashed on first page as second headlines in Eco Times in
2007-08 Fin Year.
Infosys had at that time a WHISTLE BLOWER policy in place ,
but at that time either the Whistle did not blow or the person who is supposed
to blow the whistle did not have enough courage to blow it.[ dhum illee]
Infosys , of LATE HAS BEEN more of a body shopping software
with solid systems in place, parking SW pros in US, Latin Americas, AUZ, Europe
et all; so much HYPE was created to project Infosys as the Indian Industrys'
ambassdor to the World and taking advantage of the BULL LOBBY at Dalal street
and with the same FIIs investing in NYSE where its scrips were listed in many
overseas bourses , creating an imaginative MARKET CAP , PROTECTING the TOP LINE
& ebdita quarter on quarter without any'REAL VALUE ADDITION';
Infosys went on a recuitment spree by sucking
& luring young professionals for an astronomical package and making
them slog like slaves' to SW programs than 'innovative thinking and risk
taking ability and entrepreneural leadership, which the IITs &
professionals from IITs are well known for.[Infosys has so many MBAs
from IIMs
& mgt grads from many such biz schools who are so
paranoid with templates, formats and fundaas...]
NRN should shut his mouth having made so much of fortune
and created wealth for himself and his team members, so much of un wnated
support to the largest Borrower in the Universe, USA.
more in my next edition .
sundu.
if he and his team members are so capable, why not while he
was a faculty @ IIM [ known for fundas only and not anything , anywhere near
IIT on scientific innovation and analysis] could think of forming a Technical Institution
like IIT?
Regards
Balayogi
balayogiv@gmail.com