Happily ever after!!

Our fight for existence never ends, and why should it? We strive for excellence every moment of our life. Career, relationships, luxuries and status we need it, no we want it, there is no end. Yet but we do not like change and definitely not struggle.

Pain is a part of life as not everything we get is easy; we need to take the risk to better our lives. There is struggle, anxiety and hope but in patience we wait for the right moment to come. With pain in our heart and hope in our eyes we wait and wait and wait, not knowing the outcome, still pushing through the tough times; we know deep within they shall end. The only thing we can do is try harder. Keep reminding ourselves this is not a mistake nor is this the end. For every step we is a step closer to freedom, freedom of better choice. As reaching our goal does not mean stopping in triumph in glory of our victory it just means we have won just a battle and the war awaits us. Don’t give up hope on losing either for you are still alive, take charge of your losses know your mistakes better and come back as strong as ever.

My mind is deep in thought, “I have tried hard but victory just eludes me, I am still not a winner and am losing my passion to carry on. Now look everyone is sympathizing for me. How but how do I look forward to victory for I see nothing in front of me.” Look I say to myself, “ is this what you want? is this your destination? NO, then why stop here? Carry on further, it might take time and hard you might have tried but now it is time for you to try harder.”

Faith in our hope, that what keeps us going. As we all know how it is going to end but we don’t know how we are going to get started. All we can do is trust our start and take the first step towards the end that we imagined. And as in fairy tales it will all end “happily ever after!”

Cheers,

Ninad Dighe.

What Idols really means.

Over the years I believe that we have come a long way from the true meaning of what the idols in Hinduism really mean. We have just accepted many things to be true without a question mainly because we are brought up with ideas of our forefathers without questioning them. We have learnt to accept things because they are thought to be true by everyone around us and anyone questioning them are thought to be rebels; who have not been regarded highly in a society which I believe is formed on lies. We see this behaviour in our education system, our government, our corporate structures and cultures alike. If you think deep you might agree with me but overall these opinions are mine alone and you have the right to question them and from your own thought set up your opinions, whatever works best for you.

I got a chance to read a graphic novel on Shiva the Hindu God in which is the description of the Hindu God Ganesha. According to the author Deepak Chopra, who explains that the idol of Ganesha is a philosophy or a way of life more than a God in whom we put blind faith but except it as a model which should remind us of how to live our life. I detail that way of life here, as the Mr. Deepak Chopra’s description of Ganesha matches with my thoughts of the deity.

We all know Ganesha the Hindu God as an elephant headed God with a huge stomach, having four arms with a snake around his belly standing on one foot with his vahana (vehicle) a rat. Symbolically broken down as following:

Large head: We must think deeply and not just say whatever comes to our mind but rationally put forth our ideas.

Large ears: We must listen more and talk less.

The broken tusk: It is to reminder us that no one is perfect, even if it is God himself. So we must learn to accept people with their faults and not be ashamed of our own faults.

The long trunk: It denotes power as well as discernment. Just like an elephant who can uproot trees with it and when needed pick an needle from a haystack. It means that power is not freedom it comes with responsibilities to care for the week and provide a helping hand to those who don’t have the power.

The large stomach: Where most Hindus give the God offerings of food which we see as modaks in one hand of (an Indian sweet) every Ganesha’s idol. It means we must know that there is someone who always cares for us, and the offerings are our worries and anxieties for which we can find solace in God or speaking about them to other who may be able to help us.

Snake as his belt: Symbolises our ego which we must not let it get to our head because lives and countries have been destroyed by a person’s ego alone.

One foot on the ground and other in the air: It reminds us that no matter how high in the social structure or power we get, we must not forget our roots as humans and who we really are. As what has begun has to come to an end someday.

The four hands: One hand he carries sweets as explained above.

In the second he has a rope which means we must always strive to climb higher and strive to make ourselves better human beings. In the third hand he has a Vedic book which represents knowledge; I need not explain the importance of that. Lastly in the forth hand he carries an axe which reminds us that we must destroy our ignorance and arrogance with the power of knowledge which is again represented by book in his other hand.

Rat nibbling at the food close to his feet: The rat symbolises our greed and temptation which is the main cause of all the worries which is symbolized as food here. Do not let greed overpower your ambition and let it not rule your will to achieve your goals, it will only lead to stress in your life.

Doesn’t it sound like all the self help and success books you have read? My point is, understand what these Idols represent rather than just praying to them because everyone prays. Overall consider any religion the bases and foundation of them are the same and to remind its followers of these there is an Idol which is created. All idols have a meaning a way of life embedded in them, embrace that ideology and follow it. There are millions of idols which represent a particular way of life, and they are there for us to be reminded of that philosophy. Hence when we see an idol it must remind you of that way of life. Thu you can make your own visual representation of these Idols and follow what best suits you.

Thanks for reading.

Cheers,

Ninad Dighe.

The Right Balance

Why is it so difficult to strike a balance between what is good to do and what is right to do?

I believe when just one person (me) is concerned in a decision you can balance right.. but when your decisions influence or require the consideration of more than just you (many people).. The decision you make is a balance not of what you want but the collective wants of all the people involved... but that is the right balance though you might think it is not your balance.

Cheers,

Ninad Dighe.

Forgotten Truth

Hindu’s holy book Bhagvat Geeta which literally translates to ‘the word of God’, is a book of Hymns which speaks of philosophy of life. It is a story on a battle field telling what is the right thing to do and how we should be accepting life as it is. Whenever I feel low and whenever I worry about what to do I read the below summary of the book. I have translated it here in English; it always brings my sprit up, because it is not about religion here but a philosophy, a truth which we always forget. Hope it does some good to you.

That what happened, happened for good,

What is happening is happening for good.

What will come your way, will come only for the best.

What have you lost, for which you weep?

What have you brought with you, that which you have lost?

What have you created that which has been destroyed?

That what you took, you took from here;

That what you gave, you gave it here;

That what is yours today, wasn’t yours yesterday;

Tomorrow it would not be yours to keep.

You were born with nothing and you shall die with nothing.

Change is the only truth of life.

Bhagvat Geeta.

Cheers,

Ninad Dighe.

Do we have a Choice?

The world today as we know is the only way it could have been. You might not agree with me on this but that is something I ponder upon.

We have choices to make and each of our choices even though very hard to conceive; we do certain things of which the consequence is our present. Had we done things differently in the past now that we know the consequence of that choice in the present, would you change your choice? Might be the answer to that question would be yes, for many. However at the said point in your life you chose to follow the present path and if I ask why? You would probably say that that was the best choice then. So the fact is you did not have a choice after all, since you just followed what was best for you. And at present you cannot change the past that leaves you will no choice at all. All you can do is change your present and that is the best thing you can do to make changes in your life so then that is not a choice again.

The world at present is the collective choices of all the people in the past. So it is true for the future, that the future of the world is the collective choices of the people in the world at present. As they say when a butterfly flutters its wings in Mexico could cause a hurricane in the US, is for much true. Who would have thought that an act of a falling apple would one day land a man on moon. Or for instance Columbus had got what he was looking for and not discovered US, we would have had a very different world today, might be a better world or much worse.

The question really is do we have a choice? Or just doing what is best for us, is it a choice? When given choices and if we just follow what is the best for us to do at that moment in time and that is the option that we will always chose, then is that choice?

For example when you have been hungry for 2 days and you are presented with an option in front of you or a choice:

Freshly baked cake and a cake which is stale 5 days old with maggots, what would you chose.

Is there a choice in that?

Once your character or personality is built I believe we stop making choices whenever we are presented with an option we will always go for the best option available to us that is hardly a choice. What I mean is that always going for what best suits you even though when you say I have 10 choices, is not choosing or just following what you had already made up your mind about.

I hope I have been able to put in words what I meant to say. In the end if we just don’t have a choice, is everything just destiny? I have no answer to it myself.

Cheers,

Ninad Dighe.

The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)- My Take.

I had heard a lot about the book written by Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist and always wanted to read it. Considering it is one of the few books which has been translated in many different languages, it has to have something special, that it is a motivational book different from the rest- that is what I heard. After reading it I did realise, that the hype surrounding the book, in its true sense is not exaggerated and I am glad that I read it.

It is a story of a shepherd who is guided in his quest to fulfil his dream. In my blog I am not going to give a summary of the book nor am I writing a review. What I present here is my interpretation of what message the author wants to put forth. Everyone will have their own interpretation of the story, this is mine.

The Theme

“When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it." Is the main theme put forth" by Mr. Paulo Coelho. No matter what your dream is you will achieve it if you keep to it.

In your Quest

Certain things will happen which will test your willingness to retain the quest of your dream. But if you overcome the hard times with a will to achieve what you aspire these hurdles shall pass. Hurdles are put in your way just to separate the weak from the determined. For, if everyone one has the same goal only those whose determination is stronger than the rest shall pass to the next stage. As quoted in the book, “Every search begins with beginners luck and ends with the victor’s being severely tested.”

Gain Some, Lose Some

You might not get exactly what you wanted, in your path to success you will lose some but gain a lot in the bargain. As you may learn new skills, start to appreciate certain things and above all gain knowledge far superior than what books can teach you. As quoted in the book “When someone makes a decision, he is really diving into a strong current that will carry him to places he had never dreamed of when he first made the decision.”

Be Ready

Learn to listen to the signs of the universe. When you desire something dearly, opportunities come knocking at your door be wary of them. Learn to grab those opportunities; for, if you nap for a moment and don’t hear that knock you won’t lose but you will have to wait a bit longer. As the universe has its mysterious ways of getting you to your goal and none which show you the path directly.

As quoted in the book, "Not always in this way, but I always appear in one form or another. Sometimes I appear in the form of a solution, or a good idea. At other times, at a crucial moment, I make it easier for things to happen. There are other things I do, too, but most of the time people don't realize I've done them."

In the End

Mainly don’t expect thing to come to you and don’t be surprised if you don’t get exactly what you are looking for as what you get would be much better in return. Nevertheless you will always be richer in the experience.

I would recommend the Alchemist to any anyone who wants to read a good book. The beauty of the book is it does not give you steps to success. It tells you are story, and a very powerful one which is open for any interpretation as the reader pleases.

The author refers to the word Maktub quite a few times. Maktub means “it is written” or what has to happen will happen. Hence if you keep the pursuit of your dream it is your MAKTUB.
So my friends do not just follow your destiny, make a destiny to follow! And the rest will be Makbub.

Cheers,
Ninad Dighe.

Rationality in Faith!

If your question your faith and there arises even the slightest doubt about your beliefs in your mind, you are following your faith blindly. Blind faith I believe is like, walking into a hungry lion’s den believing the lion won’t harm you because your faith tells you so.

Why do people follow their faith so blindly? And why don’t most say, right I believe in most of what you said but hang on a minute, why should I listen to all you say without any rational consideration to all your arguments?

If anybody ever gets to reading this I would like to hear from you in my comments.

Cheers,

Ninad Dighe.

In My Religion

I don’t believe in Heaven and Hell as my religion speaks of none (this is intended as pun)…
I feel the notion of torturing someone for eternity for 60 years of sin is absurd

That too When you leave your body here on earth.

If you say God loves every living thing, then why didn’t he make the lions vegetarian and you say it’s a sin if I eat meat?

I am not an atheist but I do not go by religion, I believe that is what corrupts God.

If by changing religion I could meet God, I do not want to meet such a God who judges me by my religion. For if he is God he shall understand, if he does not I better not meet such a supreme being since now God shall not remains "the God" in my mind.

Do not ask me to pray to God through a medium when I can pray to him directly. Don’t give my God a form as I like God unseen.

If anything here must be a sin I would say it is blind faith. (Let me leave the argument at this, but I will argue why, some other day.)

What God desires from me, not that I know.

What you ask me to blindly follow is not that for sure.

What is God’s wish, how are you to know.

What God desires of me, he will tell me for sure!

In my religion I say, is no religion at all.

Ninad Dighe.

Nature’s Idiots

Nature and technology are at a constant war where technology produces idiot proof products while nature idiots... as of now nature is winning.. The exact quote by author Rich Cook, "Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the universe is winning."

I believe nature is producing more and more idiots because we are making products for idiots. Things have become so simple that we can now play games sitting at home while kids pop pills for everything that was normal when I grew up in the 1980’s (Hyperactivity, too enthusiastic and more). It is just evolution taking its course in the millions who refrain from using their brains by inhibiting all the functions which are not necessary and intelligence is one of them.

More so I believe that the developed nations are producing more idiots than ever. With all their schemes of providing the public with all the aids and public funds has taken away their ambition of becoming someone! I have seen this attitude among people “Why do I have to worry? My government will look after me. I just need some extra cash for personal enjoyment”. I won’t say government help is bad but, at what cost?

We are to be blamed for more idiots on earth now than before. As an old saying goes “Necessity is the mother of inventions”, what if we have no necessities remaining what will happen to invention? That just what’s happening where companies tell you what you need rather than you telling them what we want. For example: bottled water, sun cream (we survived a million years without it; how suddenly the sun’s causing cancers?), iphone, ipad, blue ray, 4g, wi and much more. But again not much is wrong with having these technological advances but where do we draw the line: saying this is good for us and this is not.

Think over it, if you still know what that means.

Ninad Dighe.

(30^th June 2010)

Margaret Stewart: How YouTube thinks about copyright | Video on TED.com

Margaret Stewart: How YouTube thinks about copyright | Video on TED.com

In my Religion.

I believe in your beliefs,

Not, my beliefs are wrong.

I reason with your reasons

Just, why my reasons are wrong?

You fight for your reasons

With which you were just born.

So when I question all faith

Tell me, why am I always wrong?

--Ninad Dighe--

The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, Summary.

I am not a big fan of motivational book but I kind of like reading them for the short stories within them. These stories are kind of more motivating than the book and the authors point of view. The first motivational book I read was “You Can Win” by Shiv Khera, the book had so many short stories in it, which I enjoyed reading. I don’t think I read much of what the author had to say about motivation but I do remember taking the books and reading almost all the short stories within more than once.

With the same motivation of finding short motivational stories in the book “The Monk Who Sold his Ferrari” by Robin Sharma, I borrowed the book from my cousin. I was disappointed as there were not any such stories, the one or two that were there, were not so captivating to me. However the book is written in a different style like a novel about the life changing experience of a very successful lawyer. The book is nicely written and worth a read, as I said I am not a fan of motivational book but a fan of books and believe there is always something to learn from everything. So I present to you the summary of the book here.

The Monk Who sold his Ferrari in Short by Ninad Dighe J

Disclaimer (like the ones in movies and advts) : If you want to know the why’s, how’s and what’s please buy the book and read for yourself.

According to the author there are 7 timeless virtues to enlightened living.

Mastering your mind:

Your mind is like a big garden which you can build and nurture the way you want yourself to be. The thought you plant in this garden is what you want to see yourself as or your dreams. Negative or bad thoughts are like weed which spoil the beauty of your garden and should be avoided. Thoughts are physical things which you as a gardener can control and with your conscious mind must allow only good thoughts to be planted in your garden (which is the subconscious mind).

The book “Power of Your Subconscious Mind” by Joseph Murphy is all about the above concept. Yes, I read that book too, just to see what the hype is all about.

Follow Your Purpose:

We are here for a purpose, now that is an age old mystery which we have not solved, I mean the question “why are we here?” According to the author our purpose is to follow our dream and act accordingly to achieve our dream. The author suggests that we break our dreams into smaller dreams as in personal, financial, family etc and achieve each one individually.

Practice Kaizen:

Kaizen is a Japanese concept of self improvement. Constantly review yourself and try to improve something about you, everyday. The author then explains the importance of rituals and says that we have to cultivate certain rituals that will help up make our life better. Example will be getting up early, meditating, listening to music and/or reading a book, etc.

Live with Discipline:

To put this in short, practice the rituals with discipline. It is important to stick to your routine and cultivate good habits and never delay anything that you thing might be beneficial to you. Do not put away anything for later just because you do not like doing it or you cannot find time for it. Sleep early and get up early, this will give you more time to do more things.

Respect your time:

Same old, time importance thing. Respect your time and the time of others. Give more importance to the people and things that matter to you, focus on priorities. Most importantly learn to say ‘NO’ and live as if today is your last day.

Selflessly serve other:

This is self explanatory. Give, whatever in whichever way you can, not just wealth.

Embrace the Present:

Live in the present or embrace the present of present. Enjoy what you have and do not just worry about what you could have. By worrying too much about what you don’t have, that way you will grow old not enjoying what you have. This is very true, though the author is not the first to suggest it, we have always had that feeling: when we were in school we wanted to be in college and when in college we said school was the best time in my life and so forth.*

(This chapter had one good story that I liked, but the story is similar to the movie ‘Click’ staring Adam Sandler.)

That was the summary of the whole book.

Something I did not like about the book was, there is too much emphasis on Sivana and Yogi Raman, why not use secondary reference like the teacher or the sage. The words Sivana and Yogi Raman appear so many time that it get annoying after some time*. And everything is good till the time he references hut of roses more than a couple of time. Come on keep it real, hut of roses is a bit too flimsy.

All the techniques mentioned are difficult to practice but not impossible. Overall it’s a good book to read. I would not say it is a motivational book but a book that would help you enrich your life.

*This experience might differ from person to person.

Ninad Dighe

You know what…

I have had this blog for a long time and haven’t typed in here for a long time.

Ya like ages.

So I thought to myself.. and I quote J“ why do I have a blog when I am not going to update it”. Hmmm so I thought let me update my blog every now and then from now on.

Some days back I saw this program on BBC iplayer called ‘Bang Goes the Theory’.. it was the first episode I saw of it and kind of liked it. In this particular episode they were talking about how to improve your memory or brain power. They also talked about are those memory enhancing games you get these days… if they are effective or not?

Over all the summary of the program is as follows:

You might be disappointed to know.. or might be you, might not be disappointed (how the hell am I supposed to know??) any way..

Memory enhancing games do not enhance your memory.. they may make you smarter at solving puzzles or doing crossword they surely do not make you any smarter.. now as it is : practice makes perfect.

Ya like Einstein invented E=MC^2 by playing games.

And playing games is going to make you remember your girl friend’s birthday.. but forgetting it once surely will…

Ya old joke

But sill rocks

Now coming to the point: listening to music and exercising before you do some brain cracking work will make you smarter.. that’s what they said.. yes and do not listen to music while working on something it distracts. Hmmm but I guess not everyone is distracted that way… whatever suits you man.

Ya like exercising and listing to music before you solve those memory enhancing games that will make you smarter…. What’s the point.

I have been thinking of getting smarter myself.. by listening to music while exercising … but most of the time I end up only listening to music.

I don’t know how long I am going to keep doing this.. but I hope to start now..

Ya as if anyone is going to read it or you could try getting a job.

Cheers,

Nd Ninad

What to make of this?

While taking an on-line aptitude test I got the following message:

"Do you want to try and automatically retrieve or manually enter your responses?"

1.Yes 2. NO

What do I make of this? Which response makes sense Yes or No?

And these are the people who design tests for graduate entrance....

If it has to be interpreted in any other way let me know....

Don't Just Follow the RULES

Treat books as facts, I don’t mean all the books, books which give you knowledge not comic books and novels. When you have the facts or let us say information with you it is up to you what you do with it.

If you take any thoughts presented in a book and use it as a way of life by following each and every rule in it, you become very predictable and your actions become very annoying. We could as well have a computer program your actions and we would not lose anything. Over all the beauty of that computer or robot is that we could at the least SHUT the freaking thing off.

The beauty of life is in its unpredictability. That is, given the same set of rules to you that everyone else has but you using them your way than just follow them would produce beautiful results which are different and more often than not, are better. I could go on giving you the example of Newton, Einstein and so on. Might be what you think is different to me but I believe “if it works for me it does not mean it will work for you.”

Example: When Newton talked about gravity every one following Newton created this Newtonian philosophy where everything could be given a formula and everything had to follow a given set of rules. However when few scientists found that the universe does not follow a pre-set set of rules, nobody believed them. This is evident in the lives of Alan Mathison Turing and Boris Pavlovich Belousov. Which had given the world chaos theory, which states that: given all the same set of inputs to a simple equation when everything about the input is known the output is always different when the equations are run in the same known condition. This is also known as the Butterfly effect and well explained by Edward Norton Lorenz and further mathematically explained by Benoît B. Mandelbrot. Just to make a point that when we follow a preset set of rules we tend to overlook the other possibilities that could make thing better.

In my MiNd- Ninad Dighe