Monday, May 24, 2010

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--

Friday, May 21, 2010

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

Saturday, May 1, 2010

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