the Sadguru notes

Ever since I'd seen Sadguru Jaggi Vasudev on NDTV's Walk The Talk I'd been interested in his personality.. From time to time I'd discuss him with a colleague at work and I knew about his Isha Foundation.. Suddenly I got a chance to do a one week three hours a day course from Isha Foundation and that too in Bangalore -- which meant I could do this 6--9AM everyday for six days and wouldnt have to go to Coimbatore etc. for the course...I was soundly encouraged by Shalu since she'd heard me mumble stuff from time to time that she roughly mapped to this sort of stuff and she wanted me to go check it out...Prior to enrolling myself I once more checked out some of his videos on Youtube -- for eg this one where he is so effective in convincing that if you want to change figure out what you want to grow within you (focus on a constructive program) rather than despairing when you dont meet with 100% success with the approach of removing your faults...And so I joined...

The course of course is usually not carried out by the Sadguru in person but thanks to multimedia technologies, the Sadguru now has a distance education program! Most of the time he speaks via a pre-recorded video : A reasonably smart audience asks the typical questions one would think of asking and for others there is a local teacher who you can approach...

At least for someone like me -- a middle class Indian, who went to an English school and whose formal education completely followed the Western model and system of knowledge (incl studying in the USA) -- the Sadguru is unbelievably charismatic... I'd tried to listen to some other Gurus earlier but wasnt sufficiently motivated even though they had some of the same traits -- poise, smiling eyes, equanimity -- and I realize why now.. This Sadguru is much more 'normal' (likes driving a Landrover -- now a Tata as he pointed out in a video -- speeds too, doesnt come across as self-righteous), is significantly smarter and is a much more effective and structured communicator when it comes down to explaining stuff even though spiritually what he has figured out is probably the same as the other Gurus..

Day Zero: On the first day the Sadguru motivates Yoga..Yoga is not a 'physical exercise' (he emphasizes) although it can have good side-effects; it is fundamentally a technology to make sure physical, mental and life forces that define you are in allignment or in sync and furthermore that its not your mind and body that takes away your life force (which happens whenever fulfilling your mind or body's routines or fiats/desires stresses you out) but it is your life force that drives your mind and body. The body is simple and unambiguous about what it wants; it is the mind that is constantly changing and throwing your life off-gear and confusing you. The solution is not to quell desire -- Desire literally makes the world go round -- all the good things, activities, human creations, are the outcome of desire so how can it be bad? (This seems to contradict Buddha's concept of desire; I think.) But of course unfulfilled desire is what stresses us out and causes unhappiness... So understanding the nature of desire is key: Desire has only one nature: It wants more of what you think is good -- thats all. For some it could be knowledge for some it is money whatever...By its very nature desire is never satiated; will always want more ==> So desire seeks the infinite.. A minimal necessary pre-condition to have a go at 'happiness' therefore would seem to be that one has to be in a situation where attaining the infinite is at least a possibility, a potential....But if one thinks about it, when one defines oneself in terms of body and mind (by mind he means 'knowledge' of the analytical kind and the ordinary experiential kind) one's definition of oneself is inherently finite (can we count to infinity or represent infinity even? its all defined in limits) .. Therefore if the mind and body determine our fate then one is doomed to finiteness and the infinite potential desire longs for is guaranteed to be unavailable... This is where the life-force (something within you other than mind and body) comes in -- Awareness of the life-force and getting it to be the driver or your mind and body so that this life-force may even determine what you want to do is the focus of Yoga -- Why? Because empirically there have been tons of Yogic practitioners who have claimed to experience the inifinite and there is an unwavering consistency across their descriptions (in writings and utterings) of what that experienced infinity (ananda etc) is.... Maybe its not the only way to get to this inifinity but it is certainly one way... That is the reason one must at least aspire to do Yoga...

Any more descriptions of subsequent days probably may make even lesser sense than the above -- I think one has to do actually go through those days to get a fair idea of what this Inner Engineering stuff is about

Collaborative governance for India

Just came across this: http://punetech.com/tweet-for-pune — pretty cool.

I have often felt that a mashup of:
(a) Wikipedia like interface (for an ‘archival slowly evolving knowledge base’) edited by the community
(b) Something automated that essentially crawls news updates as well as tweets etc.
(c) Combined with an editorial blog for a community-nominated ‘owner’
would be a very useful combination. Say we have one for each district of India. So for each district or some other granularity there is a Wiki page, a blog, a tweets-page, an automated news page (something that can be built using the likes of BOSS at Yahoo for free) and so on.

There could be special subsections (just like news, tweets etc) even for updates on recent searchable district-based RTI Applications (an OCR module may be useful) and response threads as well as updates on NREGA scheme. The ease of uploading photos etc can be used further.

Wonder what folks think about this… One issue, it seems, may be that if we want free hosting then it will have to be in one of the silos of Wikipedia or Google Apps or whatever —

But the current Pune Governance Wikia is a promising start! For starters Bangaloreans can populate http://government.wikia.com/wiki/Bangalore -- See http://government.wikia.com/wiki/Pune for starters

Jinhe Naaz Hai Hind per Voh Kahaan The

Hands down one of the best Indian music videos and modern songs.
Artist: Rabbi Shergill.

Inspired generally but very different/original lyrics and composition from a song in Guru Dutt's Pyaasa of the same name penned by Sahir and SD Burman.

Ode to Sam Manekshaw

I was just reading about Field Marshall Sam Manekshaw who passed away yesterday. Primarily known as the mastermind behind the military operations that led to the creation of Bangladesh, the only country that can be said to be successfully 'liberated' by means of a military operation by another nation, post WWII.

This guy was a true leader -- dwarfing so many of today's 'leaders' -- There was a photograph in The Hindu which doesnt seem to be on their website -- where he is shown casually walking with his baton in military fatigues with hundreds of soldiers on either side sitting on the ground and looking up to him -- I think this may have been just post victory in Bangladesh...

Some points I am quoting from multiple articles in The Hindu of today :
* Born in 1914, he served in the British army in India and was even an instructor in the military training college in Quetta (Pakistan) before WWII
* In WWII he fought in the British Army in Burma against the Japanese in combat operations -- In one he took seven bullets in his stomach and his British CO thought he wasnt going to make it so took out the bravery medal/cross from his chest and stuck it on Manekshaw; since that medal couldnt be awarded posthumously.
* Manekshaw was involved in policing operations during the Partition; and also played a role in the several post independence wars with Pakistan which India won. OnePakistani military historian attributes the near-perfect war gaming models used by the Indian army to training by Manekshaw.
* Manekshaw was a flamboyant character who didnt think twice about being 'expressive' even to powerful politicians -- One spat caused the then Defense minister to sideline Manekshaw and promote some other guy; who eventually was in charge of military operations in the theater of war in the 1962 war with China; which India lost badly.
* In 1971 he was intensely pressured to start the military operations in B'desh asap because of the political situation -- But he backed his commanders and put in six months of preparation tactically working out eventualities ranging from monsoon timing as well the possibility of Chinese interference from the East.
* One anecdote is: Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, lobbying for early operations in B'desh, asked Manekshaw "Are you ready" (for the war), to which he replied "Sweety, I am always ready!"; but stuck to his ground on timing. No one talked to Mrs. Gandhi that way! After he was ready, Defence Minister Jagjeevan Ram said to him "Sam, ab maan bhi jaao" when he relented.
* I guess the nature of the Pakistani occupation of B'desh was such that Manekshaw felt the need to do this: He adjured his troops not to in turn be rapacious in victory and told them to treat Pakistani women with due respect; and that if they have "negative urges" of any sort they must put their hands in their pockets and think of Sam Manekshaw!
* He coined the phrase : "If anyone tells you they're never afraid, either he's a liar or a Gurkha" -- he led the Gurkha regiment for some time.

Harbhajan Symonds sledge

Whats said on the field stays on the field

The Event

and the analysis:

Second video also shows some of the regrettably shameful treatment Symonds got in India at the hands of the Indian spectators.

Anyways, "Whats said on the field stays on the field" -- This is the way Aussies supposedly (used to) play cricket. One very notable thing is that Ricky Ponting felt nothing of violating this Aussie way-of-cricket when he reported Bajju for sledging.

Visualize the scenario: After getting major help from Mr Bucknor, the Aussies managed to erect 450 odd runs. And here were Sachin and Bajju chipping away past that total. And Bajju was mercurial -- slapping the bowlers quite a bit. In Ponting's mind he is thinking man now this f***** is also going to be bowling next to us; that too the fourth/fifth day on Sydney. Most importantly, if Ponting didnt win this match, he would be distinctly a lesser captain than Steve Waugh (recall: This is the test Ponting had to win to equal Waugh's captaincy record streak) -- so he is desperate. Along comes this opportunity where Bajju and Symonds sledge each other. Symonds had been called monkey in India and complained about racism. So Ponting -- in his desperation -- seizes the opportunity and thinks nothing of violating the Aussie way-of-cricket by taking on-field conversation off the field to mind-game Bajju. It did work to some extent I think Bajju was affected by the sceptre of a disciplinary hearing that may conclude he is a racist...

As Mark Taylor said, this is a Pandora's box Ponting has opened. Indians and others would previously feel obliged to not really report sledging to the referee. Now Ponting (of all the people -- the pot calling the kettle black!) has set the precedent...His over-reaching will probably have interesting consequences:

Consequence #1: I will bet more teams will not think a great deal before reporting sledging -- further affecting the Aussie way-of-cricket.

Consequence #2: His over-reaching has already led to ICC meeting a BCCI demand for a Code of Conduct Commissioner...Obviously the whole issue of sledging will be revisited... Eg : Why is it ok to call Ranatunga fatso (because its not a racist comment) while these other things cannot be mouthed ? ... Again the Aussie way-of-cricket will likely be impacted....

Of course Ponting == Steve Waugh for the record; and maybe if our batting capsizes once more Ponting > Steve Waugh. But long term impacts may linger.

More on the amazingly sporting Mr. Ponting:

NHL and LA Kings' Lubomir Visnovsky

I have played field hockey; but ice hockey is so different. Skill sets required are very different. I made myself sit through one of the games -- one of the teams that played was LA Kings -- they won. I was surprised to be able to watch Lubomir Visnovsky videos on my phone; quite instructive to watch this guy.