Granny Stories : A Pot of Gold

One fine morning,  Thangasaamy was walking along the road to Panaiyur. He is 5 feet, unshaved and walking with such an unwanted haste. This particular road is quite popular because of the forest accompanied with it. He made his bread by changing roofs and other wood work. He was thinking of his particular countenance with his wife this morning. She shouted at  rage as he failed to buy the pulses needed for their food. He thought he is done with his marriage life. At that time, his neighbour came to him and told that a roof work is there in the next town, Panaiyur. Thangasaamy accepted the work without a second thought. 


Panaiyur is a small village located at the outskirts of Poompuhar, the coastal city of Chola period. The village has all kinds of occupations soaring under the rule of the new King. Thus, he is on this very road, walking with the plans to  earn money, convince his wife by not letting their family to starve ever. Like all the forest roads of our ancient Tamil Nadu, people have built a Ayyanar temple in this road to protect the people from ill souls. 


Just as he crossed the temple, he heard a strong but cautious voice – “Stop!” 


Thangasaamy lost his balance. He is so sure that the voice came from the Ayyanar itself. A conversation with the God is not in his calendar of events. He tried to slip away. Again the voice stopped him. 


He brought some courage to himself, steadied his feet and asked – “What do you want from me? I’m bankrupt.” 


“Thangasaamy.. I know about you.  Do you know what lies under your feet?” 


He suddenly became aware of the ground. He wanted to run away, only to be stopped by Ayyanar’s voice. 


He asked in a feeble voice - “What is there?” 


Ayyanar replied “Well, how fast can you dig?” 


Thangasaamy bent down immediately and dug with all his might till his hands touched something which felt like clay. He found a pot wrapped with a yellow cloth. He unwrapped it. The pot is filled with gold coins, glowing under his greedy eyes. He emptied the entire pot inside his bag and threw back the pot to its place and began to run. 


The voice paralysed him this time. “Stop. You can’t get away with everything. Keep as much gold as your heart might wish to give to another person. Or else, you can’t move from here.”

Thangasaamy knew that it is an order. With wretched heart, he took four coins, counted them thrice and put it back in the pot. He closed the pit, thanked Ayyanar and walked away.

     Ponnammaal is a lady at her mid thirties. In Panaiyur, she is known for her good deeds as a Siddha doctor. Her life goal is to open a hospital and help the people. But, she doesn’t have the funds to initiate it. She prayed everyday to bring her dreams into reality. She led a life of happiness. She used to sleep for 6 hours everyday. But, last night it was different. At 11PM, she heard sounds of broken roof and got up. She was alarmed only to find coconut and broken roof pieces on her kitchen house floor. So, she waked her husband, asked him to repair the roof by morning. When Thangasaamy came, he asked her to keep his bag at a safe place and started the work. He told that the bag contains pulses for his dinner. So, she tied the bag under the same roof which is repaired. He wanted to finish the job as soon as possible and sell the gold pot. He worked hastily, without concentration, his mind full of thoughts of gold. He already started searching for a goldsmith shop in his mind. In his unaccepted stroke of luck, he forgot about the bag which is tied under the roof he is working. 


When Thangasaamy was working, she was cooking at the kitchen. Suddenly, she realized that her own supply of pulses has run out and she forgot to buy new supply in this broken-roof affair. She thought of Thangasaamy’s bag. She decided to take his pulses and later she can replace them when her husband returns from shop. So, she untied the bag from the roof, opened it. She found golden coins. She sat. Sweat pulses glittered on her nose tips.  No doubt, her lifetime prayers have paid off. She thanked God for turning a pot of pulse into Gold. Touch of gold brought up a change of mind. She emptied the whole bag, went to grocery shop, refilled it with pulses and tied it to the roof. She sighed. She will start a hospital soon.  


By evening, Ponnammaal’s house got its roof back. She paid him his salary and returned his bag. When he lifted his bag, he found it lighter than he did in morning. He untied and found pulses. All his imaginations shattered. Tongue tied due to his lie, he left the house with cold-heart. He reached the forest road, blaming the fate. As he crossed the Ayyanar temple, he heard that voice for the second time that day. 


“Stop!” 


Exploded with betrayal and anger, he asked - “If I doesn’t deserve the gold, then why give it to me?” He shouted back. “See, what have you done to me? All my hopes are shattered like a fort of sand.” 


Ayyanar replied in a calm soothing voice –"Every person deserves what his heart desires to give away.” “That gold is deserved to that lady. You are just a medium of transport.” 


Thangasaamy was on the edge of tears. Ayyanar continued – “Don’t worry. Everyone will get what they deserve. Go and take the pot which you kept in the morning.” 


With that, a abrupt silence filled the forest road. Ayyanar is gone. 


Thangasaamy blamed his memory for forgetting the four gold coins which he kept back in the pot. Suddenly, he cursed his greed for keeping just four coins. 


He realized what Ayyanar’s words really meant. God will give you only if you are ready to give away. He chose his luck of four coins. He wrote his own fate.  He happily took the coins and started to his house. His eyes are no more searching for a goldsmith. They are searching for a grocery shop. 


His eyes are devoid of vanity. Finally.

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Post night Post

My Titan is glowing with 4.10a.m. I thank the Curie couple. My body is functioning like an Indian parliament. Dormant. But, My mind is working like an Indian bedroom. Over Time.  I am here, lying down and trying to sleep.. Or is it? What am I trying to do? I dunno for sure. Nights are capable of giving life to the dormant memories fossilized in our heart! Nights are dark. They are quiet. Probably our brain shouts its inherent thoughts when the earth is whispering to the moon! As I write this sentence, I begin to think about the famous creators created by this night. Theoretically, everyone is meant to be created at night.  Big shots inclusive. To hell with my humor. At this moment, most of the people will be wide awake, saying a silent-same-pinch to me. I think of my friend in USA, who is actually in a different time frame and it is daytime for him. So what really is time? Few thousand miles are capable of bringing different calendars to different people. Perhaps the time should be measured by keeping the people as constant. I wonder about the way our life is deciphered.  Philosophy is puked from my mind. I think that the nights extend to life and the days diminish to death. I think this. I think that. I think all.

Nights are dark. Dark is black. Black is capable of absorbing anything and everything which comes to it. Nights are capable of bringing back our memories and sucking our joy or sorrow. Black is a color parasite! Night is an emotion parasite.

Oh, what am I doing? I got stuck in this vicious cycle of thoughts. Again my thoughts come back to time. When I think of it, time is like a feminine brain. It is a constantly changing variable. Time is perceived based on perception geography,  environmental physics and mental chemistry. Time is Einsteined! In time, I wanna embrace the sleep which is seducing me for a while. I wanna forget everything and just sleep all the way. In spite of that feeling, I am not welcoming the sleep to my mental condominium. Such a meta-state between sleep and awake is similar to the limbo oscillating between life and death. Meta-states are highly unstable. My chemistry professor has taught me that electrons acquire motion in such meta states. Electrons radiate from atom. Thoughts radiate from grey matter. Such electric thoughts are known as philosophy. I am asleep. I am awake. Yes I am a philosopher!

Suddenly my conscious pops out of my shirt, just like the way I have seen in the movies and it starts to do self-advising. It says -"If you really do what your heart craves to do, then you are in the real heaven". As I blink, it transfigures itself into my Mathematical teacher. It goes back and writes this formula in thin air.

Happiness Quotient = No. of actions performed / No. of actions desired by our heart.

Omg, the air is not thin anymore! Revelations. And it pops in back inside my Indian Terrain. At some distant, my brain is shouting at me that my present action is more of a blabbering than real thinking.
But, I.Really.Do.Not.Care.As.Long.As.It.Makes.Sense.To.Me! My thinking tank takes pity on me. Tired of philosophies, my body takes control over my mind. My blinking rate becomes directly proportional to our interests in studies. My muscles act as if I'm their college professor. Yet, I am going to be awake...in my dreams. I decide to do what I would like to do. I give up to sleep. To improve my happiness quotient, I am entering heaven. Dot.

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The Fountainhead & Bhagavat Gita - A Compare and Contrast

The Fountainhead is a famous philosophical novel written by Miss.Ayn Rand. It is based on the concept of individualism and epistemology.

An excerpt from Ayn Rand's  Philosophical Pinnacle - The Fountainhead:

Howard Roark: "Before you can do things for people, you must be the kind of man who can get things done. But to get things done, you must love the doing, not the people! Your own work, not any possible object of your charity. I'll be glad if men who need it find a better method of living in the house I built, but that's not the motive of my work, nor my reason, nor my reward! My reward, my purpose, my life, is the work itself - my work done my way! Nothing else matters to me!"

What defines a man? How a person is judged? Which scale is used to measure him?

A man is defined by the way he communicates to the nature. The way he responds to the input gained from this universe. And what defines his responses? Responses are based on the array of things he noticed/experienced/learnt/did/influence/influenced from his childhood. In short, a man is defined by what he does. 

 People do things all the while. Action composes the materialistic world. Inaction is also an action performed in the state of hibernation. A man's action is born with his birth and dies with his death. It is the intermediate time between birth and death which injects meaning to a person's inane life. One must do only those things which makes him/her happy. Performing an action under compulsion is the greatest insult you spit on the face of truth. Be yourself. Everyone and everything is unique in this world. Everyone is gifted with some skills to perform their own actions. Chaos emerges when man fails to recognize what he is destined to do and decides to take other person's route. Doing something just because everyone else do the same spoils the real purpose of God's creation.  In our human body, every organ does some unique function. If nose gets envy of the delicious food chewed by its neighbor mouth and decides to refuse oxygen, it chooses its own demise. Even the blood groups are unique. None of the animals copy from others. They learn to do the basic actions like locomotion, reproduction and food-intake from their counterparts. But they never copy when it comes to choosing their destiny. They act only to fulfill their need of the hour. They short sell their actions in the life stock market. But, man, being the zenith of species, must live for a cause. He must be a longterm investor. Otherwise, he will lose his own definition of human being. He must remember that the sole purpose of human being is being human and being human is determined by our actions.

A creator conceives what his mind imagines, thereby opening the doors of our world to a new invention. He is the prime-mover of the world. A second-hander depends upon the creator for his lifeneeds. An action takes the straight route for a creator and it takes a proxy for a second-hander. 

 In Miss. Rand's words -

"The creator faces nature alone. The parasite faces nature through an intermediary."

Such an intermediary is viewed as an act of charity by Bhagavat Gita and it is viewed as an act of killing the action by The Fountainhead. Never forget that the uncharitable Steve Jobs is hailed as the game-changer above the charitable Bill Gates. Steve Jobs criticized Mr.Gates as follows– “Bill is basically unimaginative and has never invented anything, which is why I think he's more comfortable now in philanthropy than technology. He just shamelessly ripped off other people's ideas.” Steve Jobs is the closest match for Rand’s Roark. 

Bhagavat Gita is the famous teachings of Lord Krishna to Arjuna in Kurukshetra. When Arjuna feared to do his duties in the battleground, Krishna told him the essence of karma yoga. Here, Man's action is defined as the 'Karma'.  People are here to do the actions to be performed. Both the books talk volume about the integrity associated with performing our actions. They say that the destined action is the greatest yoga ever done on any altar. This is where The Fountainhead and The Bhagavat Gita clasp their hands together. Rand says - ‘Feed the need, not because they depend on you, but because you like the action of public service.  Service is the action itself. Not the resultant of it.’ Krishna says – ‘Action must be performed without the dependence of its resultant'. My reward is the work itself.

In contrast to the above similarities between the two books of our discussion, Upanishads order men to be humble and selfless. But, The Fountainhead states that the man must be the proudest of all the creatures in our world. Because, he knows the purpose of his actions. He knows the effects and impact it can cause to his milieu. He can understand that performing an action is not just a transfer of energy from one form to another. But it is taking the current form of energy to the next level.

 Human mind could be the angel's philosopher stone or it could be the devil's horcrux. In Roark's conclusive speech, Ayn Rand states the following about human mind and its importance to stay aloof.  

"Man cannot survive except through his mind. He comes on earth unarmed. His brain is his only weapon. But the mind is an attribute of the individual, there is no such thing as a collective brain. The man who thinks must think and act on his own. The reasoning mind cannot work under any form of compulsion. It cannot not be subordinated to the needs, opinions, or wishes of others. It is not an object of sacrifice."   

According to Bhagavat Gita, man must perform him karma in order to attain mukthi. It is the method of associating a humble man with the supreme universe. According to The Fountainhead, man must realize his mukthi in his karma. It is the method of associating the vast universe with the reverence of man’s superiority. 

Howard Roark could have been the Lord Krishna of our century.  But he won't, because there is only one Roark and only one Krishna.

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Raavana - A ‘Human’ King lurked in shadow!

Lankan King, Raavana is portrayed as a ten-headed monster, a demon king, a womanizer, a knavish fox by our epics. I wished to comprehend his character map from my viewpoint, which will be contentious in most of the cases and the resultant product is this short article. 

Raavana is known to be the greatest ruler of Lanka in the ancient times. His regime is roughly calculated around 1000 B.C to 600 B.C. He is depicted in epics as a ten headed monster. But in reality, his ten heads are symbolic representations of ten indriyas or chakras present in our body. Most of us know that Raavana is the main antagonist in Ramayana. But, many don’t know the fact that there are several versions of Ramayana in Jainism, Buddhism etc. In such epics, Raavana is depicted as a man of mind. In Jainism, Raavana is known to be the first King who abolished animal sacrifices. He is widely acclaimed as a sincere Shiva devotee. He is known to be a veteran Veena player and a great musician. He is a great astrologer and claimed to have written an astro-book in the name of ‘Ravana Samhitha’. In fact, this so-called womanizer king (as depicted by Valmiki Ramayana) is a person who took oath that he will never touch another man’s wife without consent. He is known to be the greatest art-lover ever ruled our continent. Under his aristocratic and diplomatic measures, Lanka cherished with all the affluence.

Raavana is an orthodox Tamizh ruler who placed his pride before everything else. So, when his sister is defamed by Lakshmana, he played the situation and decided to avenge against the defamer. He acted upon his sister’s version of the tale. When he confronted love in front of Sita, with his artistic nature, he fell in love with her. As per Ramayana, he captured her with his foxing techniques. But as per the Veda Upanishads, Raavana acted according to the rules of dharma. Those rules state that if you win a woman with your eloquence, it is not considered as a beguiling act. Sita defied the rules set by her brother-in-law and fell for Raavana. She doubted the capabilities of Rama, crossed the borders and paid the price for her arrogance. Raavana, on the other hand never snubbed his oath. He never touched Sita and never kept his presence when she liked no longer.

Unlike Rama, Raavana never indulged in Guerilla warfare (e.g. cunning assassination of Vaali). He always defeated his foes face to face. Unlike Rama, he never used his friendship as an exchange rate in the market of favors. Unlike Rama, he never sent his spies to the enemy territory. Unlike Rama, he placed his love for Sita in front of his Kingdom. (Later, Rama sacrificed Sita for the people of Ayodhya! Whatta husband? After all the hardships??? Shame on you Rama!!!)

Raavana always believed for what he is. An action is christened as guilt only if there is a bearer for it. In that purview, Raavana never bore any guilt for his actions. In the final battle, he marched his troops even after his precognition of his demise. He merely played his part in his life drama and achieved a brave death. It is this same reason for which Greatest Greek emperors of our generations are hailed for. In Iliad, it is known as the greatest virtue of a true martyr; in Bhagavad Gita, it is praised as the definition of Karma; but it is depicted by us as the characteristic of a demon. One should never forget that history is man’s refracted version of truth!

Alchemist, the bestselling book of our generation taught me the following things:

1. Chase your love.

2. Chase your dreams.

3. Never give up, how impossible your goals might be.

4. Always stand by your word.

5. Always support your relations.

If these are the characteristics we need to make our soul an elite one and if these are the same things which act as a differentiator for a man from other species, then I’m overwhelmingly proud that I came from the same Tamizh clan as that of Raavaneswaran - The Human King of ancient times buried by our darned epics!

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Cogent approach for Decision Making– Valluvan Way!

What is meant by decision making? What are the things to be given proper weightage before making a right decision? And what must be done mandate after making a right decision?
I have pointed out three Kurals (a small drop from an ocean of examples) in order to answer the above questions.

• Vital role of Planning:

Think, and then dare the deed! Who cry,
'Deed dared, we'll think,' disgraced shall be. [Kural - 467]

Hundreds of decades before the Kaizen is introduced, Valluvar has given the steps for making a right decision. A good manager must give foremost importance to planning. As the adage goes, a well-planned activity is always half-done. Starting point of planning is analysing the situation and the end point is prescribing the action to be performed on a step-by-step basis. In this Kural, Valluvar describes a person as disgraced, he who has undertaken action without proper ground planning.

• Ill-consequence of ‘Non-action’:

'Tis ruin if man do an unbefitting thing;
Fit things to leave undone will equal ruin bring. [Kural - 466]

Consider a person who has taken a wrong decision. Obviously, he will end up being guilty for his erroneous judgment. Now, consider another person who has taken the right decision after careful planning; but, he fails to put his ground-plan to action. Valluvar regards the latter as the guiltiest than the previous one. Famous management Guru Peter Drucker also stressed the same point in his books. ‘Greatness never lies with TAKING the right decision. In contrast, it always lies with DOING the right action based on those right decisions.’

• A blunder called ‘Delay after decisions’:

Resolve is counsel's end, If resolutions halt
In weak delays, still unfulfilled, 'tis grievous fault. [Kural – 671]

This is one of my favourites.
My suggestion is to make this Kural a legal act, make it compulsory to all the bureaucrats of our nation. If our politicians and the planning commission members are forced to act as per this Kural, then half of the underdevelopment in our country will be rooted up. People tend to put a lot of effort in the process of decision-making so that they eventually forget the main aim of decision-making, which is to perform the right action! You can take all the time in the world to make a decision. But once it is done, you must act. Any delays after that will depict fallacy in our integrity. No wonder about the integrity of our Government since, more than 72% of development plans are under pipeline for a long long time.

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To follow in the footsteps of Valluvan…

Thirukkural is THE best thought-book ever written in human history. It is not a statement. It is a time-tested fact.
If u haven’t read Bhagavat Gita or other spiritual books, nothing is lost; unless, you read the Arathupaal of Thirukkural. If u haven’t read Chanakya’s Artha Sasthram or the writings of Bismarck, nothing is lost; unless you read the Porutpaal of Thirukkural. If you haven’t read the techniques for maintaining good-relationship with your partner, nothing is lost; unless you read the Inbathupaal of Thirukkural. But, if you haven’t read Thirukkural, then everything is lost.
Hereafter, you will see quite a number of posts regarding this greatest book. For those who would like to read the book, they can surf through the following link.
http://kural.muthu.org/

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Emerson’s perspective of Love

“All other pleasures are not worth its pains”. – Ralph Waldo Emerson’s quote about Love.

Ralph Waldo Emerson is a famous philosopher of 19^th century. He is renowned for his elite concepts of individualism and transcendentalism. His perspective of the Universe is defined as the addition of soul to nature.

Didn’t get it? Don’t worry. Neither do I ;-)

People, who love literature, can check out this link. It contains some of the most impenetrable lines of English with some cogent thoughts hidden beneath them.

http://www.online-literature.com/emerson/605/

Happy Valentine's Day!

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Multiple Lifetimes in a Single Life Span - Concept of Impermanence

Have you recently heard the phrase - 'Man is living his life fastly'?
Life span is defined as the expected number of years of life remaining at a given age, whereas a lifetime is defined as the period during which something is functional (as between birth and death). Lifetime is a functional derivative of the number of situations came across by a man. In short, it is the experiences gathered by him during a particular interval of time. When we consider our past generations, they took some days to communicate with their distant friends and some months to travel from one geographic location to another. But, people of our generation do all these activities in a matter of seconds. Man of this decade acquires the same amount of experience, for which our ancestors have taken few lifetimes. 

As the old adage goes, 'Change is the only thing which doesn't change'. 

But, man of our contemporary world has learnt to use that 'Change' as his vehicle to travel from one situation to another. Hence, he becomes an integral part of the change which governs the lifetime in our planet. Because of such drastic changes in the human lifestyle, impermanence becomes the core concept of our lives.

Proverb says that, 'Necessity is the mother of invention'. But in our century, almost all the inventions are driven by 'Impermanence'. Impermanence has taken control over the Necessity. We can see the reflection of impermanence everywhere. Impermanence is the most omnipresent thing in this world next to God (at least we have evidence for the existence of Impermanence :P). For example, our tendency to use the ink-filled Fountain pens has been overridden by the use-and-throw ball-point pens. Everything right from the electronic gadgets to human relationships to human organs have become a replaceable item.

What are the impacts of such changes? A business model which has quality and permanence as its core idea becomes an invalid entity in this world. People opt for things which suffice themselves with temporary satisfaction. The concept of long-term becomes an extinct vision.

What we need to do about this? Nothing. Just have the awareness that the situations we are facing is a by-product of this Impermanence. It will avoid confusion, lessen the mental stress, give a clear insight about our life. 

So, when some elder people criticize us for being running with all our legs, don't conclude that they are alien entities of anachronism. It is us who are the real entities of anachronism!

It is time for us to coin the adage of our times - 'Impermanence is the only permanent entity'.

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