Self respect or Self obsession आत्म सम्मान या आत्म मुग्धता

Self-respect is important as it gives us the strength to stand and deal with any situation. However, self-obsession is an extreme where we consider ourselves as always right and others as always wrong.  

Self-respect can turn into self-obsession if proper guards are not put in place. A right level of self-respect is needed but it also comes with an understanding and appreciation that we can also do mistakes. This also brings empathy towards others and gives a better perspective to deal with mistakes from others. However, self-obsession can lead to a situation where nothing wrong can be done by me. This also leads to tense relationships. 

स्वाभिमान महत्वपूर्ण है क्योंकि यह हमें किसी भी स्थिति से निपटने और खड़े होने की ताकत देता है। हालाँकि, आत्म-जुनून एक चरम सीमा है जहाँ हम खुद को हमेशा सही और दूसरों को हमेशा गलत मानते हैं।

यदि उचित ध्यान नहीं रखा गया तो आत्म-सम्मान आत्म-जुनून में बदल सकता है। आत्म-सम्मान के सही स्तर की आवश्यकता है लेकिन यह समझ के साथ आता है कि हम गलतियाँ भी कर सकते हैं। यह दूसरों के प्रति सहानुभूति भी लाता है और दूसरों की गलतियों से निपटने के लिए बेहतर दृष्टिकोण देता है। हालाँकि, आत्म-जुनून एक ऐसी स्थिति को जन्म दे सकता है जहाँ मेरे द्वारा कुछ भी गलत नहीं किया जा सकता है। इससे रिश्ते तनावपूर्ण भी हो जाते हैं।

वीडियो लिंक: https://youtu.be/NSZCR9sXpzI

How we think? हम कैसे सोचते हैं ?

We all think. It is a very natural thing to do. But what is the process of thinking? How we reach conclusions and decisions? This video takes us to the journey of understanding how we think. We will do an exercise to understand the mechanics of thinking better. The exercise is about finding one concept or person whom we like most and another whom we hate most. Then we will try to list down three attributes of both the good and bad. This is an attempt to detail out our thinking and find the levers behind the thinking. Then we will find evidence in support of all the attributes. The exercise will ask us to do it in reverse. Find the good things about bad and bad things about good and again support it with evidence. Evidence is important as that motivates us to find data to support the thinking. It makes it more data-driven. Do comment below on your experience of doing the exercise.

हम सब सोचते हैं। यह करना बहुत स्वाभाविक बात है। लेकिन सोचने की प्रक्रिया क्या है। हम निष्कर्ष और निर्णयों तक कैसे पहुँचते हैं?

यह वीडियो हमें यह समझने की यात्रा पर ले जाता है कि हम कैसे सोचते हैं। हम बेहतर ढंग से सोचने की क्रियाविधि को समझने के लिए एक अभ्यास करेंगे। अभ्यास एक अवधारणा या व्यक्ति को खोजने के बारे में है जिसे हम सबसे ज्यादा पसंद करते हैं और दूसरा जिसे हम सबसे ज्यादा नफरत करते हैं। फिर हम अच्छे और बुरे दोनों के तीन गुणों को सूचीबद्ध करने का प्रयास करेंगे। यह हमारी सोच को विस्तृत करने और सोच के पीछे के लीवर को खोजने का एक प्रयास है। तब हम सभी गुणों के समर्थन में प्रमाण पाएंगे।

अभ्यास हमें इसे उल्टा करने के लिए कहेगा। अच्छे के बारे में बुरी और बुरी चीजों के बारे में अच्छी बातें खोजें और फिर से सबूतों के साथ इसका समर्थन करें। साक्ष्य महत्वपूर्ण है क्योंकि यह हमें सोच का समर्थन करने के लिए डेटा खोजने के लिए प्रेरित करता है। यह इसे और अधिक डेटा-संचालित बनाता है।

वीडियो लिंक: https://youtu.be/c_B4h9Bnhz8

क्या ईश्वर और धर्म एक है? Is God and Religion same?

Is God and Religion the same? We look at God mostly through our understanding of religion but do we have to? Let's critically examine this relationship and evaluate if that is the way to look into the concept of god and religion. Religion is reflected in what we eat, what we wear, and various customs that we follow. However, this concept is very human. We find religion only in humans.  

In Part 1 we will more closely to the concept of religion and how it can be understood. 

क्या ईश्वर और धर्म एक ही है? 

हम धर्म की अपनी समझ के माध्यम से भगवान को देखते हैं लेकिन क्या हमें ऐसा करना चाहिए? आइए इस विषय पर विचार करें और समझें कि क्या यह ईश्वर और धर्म की अवधारणा को देखने का सही तरीका है?

धर्म क्या होता है?

हम जो खाते हैं, जो पहनते हैं और विभिन्न रीति-रिवाजों का पालन करते हैं, उसमें धर्म परिलक्षित होता है। हालाँकि, यह अवधारणा मानवीय है क्योंकि धर्म  भी मानव द्वारा ही परिभाषित है। 

भाग 1 में हम धर्म की अवधारणा और इसे कैसे समझा जा सकता है, इसके बारे में अधिक जानकारी प्राप्त करेंगे।

वीडियो लिंक: https://youtu.be/bVcDdzAEd4U

In Part 2 we will delve further into the concept of God. Can we define god or is there a possibility to define God? God is said to be formless but what does that mean? Is there any way to define God?

भाग 2 में हम ईश्वर की अवधारणा के बारे में और अधिक जानकारी प्राप्त करेंगे। क्या हम ईश्वर को परिभाषित कर सकते हैं या ईश्वर को परिभाषित करने की कोई संभावना है। भगवान को निराकार कहा जाता है, लेकिन इसका क्या अर्थ है? क्या ईश्वर को परिभाषित करने का कोई तरीका है?

वीडियो लिंक: https://youtu.be/dyrQWqjUin4

In part 3, we will discuss the relationship between God and Religion. Are they the same or are they different? Is there a duality between them? Can God exist without religion? Can religion exist without God?

भाग 3 में, हम ईश्वर और धर्म के बीच के संबंध पर चर्चा करेंगे। क्या यह दोनों एक हैं या अलग ? क्या उनके बीच कोई सम्बन्ध है? क्या धर्म के बिना ईश्वर का अस्तित्व हो सकता है? क्या ईश्वर के बिना धर्म का अस्तित्व हो सकता है? इस अवधारणा को बेहतर ढंग से समझने के लिए हम एक अभ्यास करेंगे

वीडियो लिंक: https://youtu.be/PDVea55nabk

मैं कौन हूँ ? Who am I? Understanding oneself

We want to understand ourselves better. Why we behave and react in certain ways? Let's do the journey of trying to understand I. Is it possible to do that? Are there models which can help to do that? How we build our mental models? It is a function of where we take birth, our teachers, various people, and experiences that we have in our life.

हम में से हर कोई खुद को बेहतर ढंग से समझना चाहता है । हम कुछ खास तरीकों से व्यवहार और प्रतिक्रिया क्यों करते हैं?

आइए इस को समझने की कोशिश करते हैं। क्या ऐसा करना संभव है? 

क्या ऐसे मॉडल हैं जो ऐसा करने में मदद कर सकते हैं? हम अपने मानसिक मॉडल या किसी चीज की कल्पना कैसे बनाते हैं?

हमारी कल्पनाऍं इस बात पर निर्भर करती हैं की हमने कहाँ जन्म लिया। हमारे शिक्षक, विभिन्न लोग जिनसे हम मिले और हमारे अनुभव |

वीडियो लिंक: https://youtu.be/y88vhOZhxOQ

Split wide open

Covid19 is turning out to be a Samudra Manthan of human society. It is surfacing both deep-rooted poison and elixir of life. It is evaluating the deep-rooted notions and questioning the structures and formations. If it is surfacing a lot of good and human side of life it is also exposing the deep-rooted faults of the society. All around the world, one thing is very clear. It makes a difference in life and death if one is rich. The first to sacrifice are the poor be it in terms of access to food or healthcare. The same poor are put in full force to serve the rich however at the first moment when they become incapacitated, they are thrown like a fly on milk.

We have seen how the rich are ferried all over the world. It is true in every part of the world. Everything was pressed into service to get them safely to their homes. However the poor are left to their own destinies. It's true that governments are feeding them but there is more who are falling out of the circle. They don't even exist in the scheme of things. There are people who are going the extra mile to help them out and salute to them. But at some point, everyone will start straining. 

Life is so random

Life is so random and we are seeing the full-blown randomness with the coronavirus. We all have at a personal level seen randomness in our life, both positive and negative type. However, what is happening to the world right now is beyond any level that anyone of us would have imagined. The moments are also though allowing us to see life in different ways, ruminate over things in different dimensions. Many of us are probably calibrating ourselves and evaluating the pattern of life. Why we were living the way we used to live? Is that the only way of living? 

Life in itself is a very interesting concept. Look at the animals' life or even the life of a tree. All of them apart from humans born and die and do a certain set of things, which are well defined to a large extent. Sometimes just watch a cat or dog and read their eyes. So emotionless yet so deep. Either they know nothing or they know everything about the world. 

Corona has made the human race to take a step back and has forced them to think about things that they were considering as absolute truths. A car, a house, an exotic vacation, the best school for kids. We were engrossed completely in those thought processes. But suddenly the only most important thing is to survive and have a good square meal. Unfortunately, for many on the low strata of societies, the calamity has exposed them to the fault lines of human social and economic structure. The people who were inconsequential. The news channel that would be filled with entertainment stars is replaced by the faceless folks. It even is raising the question if the current model of economics is the right one. What is the use of such a model which puts the major part of the population over the fault line? 

But will it change? I doubt as the people bearing the burnt are anyway inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. We might see complete lower strata dead, yes human death, That is where the virus is hitting hard also. Malnourished, having a low nutrition system and hardly any access to healthcare we are going to lose many of the folks. A lot of other folks will do the journey from the middle class to the lower class. 

This is a time to step back as a human race and understand what we are up to. A couple of months the race was talking about conquering the galaxy and here now we are fighting for survival. 

हनुमानजी की जाती और हनुमानजी का धर्म

आजकल एक चर्चा जोरों पर है। हनुमानजी की क्या जाती है। बड़ा जटिल विषय है और लोगों की आस्था से भी जुड़ा है। वैसे कहते हैं आस्था से नहीं खेलना चाहिए नहीं तो आप का वो कहते हैं नाश्ता बना दिया जायेगा। शब्द थोड़े साहित्यक नहीं है मगर हकीकत के काफी करीब है।  इसलिए हनुमानजी की जाती के प्रश्न को हम यहीं पर छोड़ देते हैं। मगर फिर भी सवाल उठता है की जाती और धर्म का निर्धारण कैसे होता है?

What a world !!!

The human race in its present form has been residing on earth for probably more than twenty thousand years now. No one in the history, till two thousand years back has the notion of my land or your land. Now we hear about migrants, immigrants, legal and illegals. We have wired ourselves so much with so many discriminatory concepts that it's hard to find the real human inside. We define ourselves by our possessions. We get comfort in the physical manifestations around us. We don't meet with humans nowadays. We meet with positions and titles. We meet to serve our needs and wants. 

The many worlds

Take a stroll on the sidewalks of Silicon Valley. Overhear the conversation. People are talking about driverless vehicles, spaceships, and the next billion dollar idea. You might happen to see through the corner of your eyes a driverless car passing by. Life is fast. There are billion-dollar dreams in the eyes and to become one of the blue blood. The buzzwords like robots, machine learning, artificial intelligence paint the air. They are on a mission to replace human in every way in the world, not even realizing that they are also human. And they will have kids which will be humans and not robots.

My Lord! How do you judge?

India has seen some high profile decisions from the Supreme court. Notable of them are the following

• Section 377 - Decriminalisation of consensual sex between homosexuals (Score: 5-0)
• Section 497 - Adultery is not a criminal offense. (Score: 5-0)
• Sabarimala verdict - Allowing woman in Sabarimala temple (Score: 4-1)
• Aadhar verdict - Aadhar is valid and government can use it for identification (Score: 4-1)

These are some of the high profile cases that got judgments recently. Apart from the first two cases which got the judgment unanimously, the last two cases did not have the same clean sweep. It's not important that what you or I think about it. A judgment from SC is binding and has to be followed independently of our inclinations.

Is your Saint genuinely a Saint?

The history is full of Saints. The present is full of Saints. People who claim to have exceptional power and perceived to be near to god. None of us know but they claim and we believe. Many of them live in opulence, travel in luxury cars and still, we claim how simple is their life. Do you also follow one of the saints, who sort of cajoles you to serve them as your master? The serving usually in the form of donations in cash or kind. Do you?

Who am I?

The biggest myth of this world is the notion of which place, nation, caste, or religion I belong to. Let me ask you to trace your roots. Are you Indian or Australian or Chinese or belonging to one of the European countries or an American? Ok, let's change the question. Which religion you belong to? Pop comes an answer and the sound of that word has no meaning if you think deeply about that. Why am I saying so? 

गॉड

मंजर मेले जैसा है | यह गॉड की जगह है | गॉड शब्द का इसलिए प्रयोग कर रहा हूँ क्योंकि यह बड़ा ही धर्मनिरपेक्ष शब्द है | आजकल डर भी लगता की किसी भी धर्म को अगर किस विशेष शब्द से आपत्ति हो गयी तो शब्द के चयनकर्ता के जीवन में संकट पैदा हो जाता है | खैर हम मेले की बात करते हैं | वैसे आप किसी भी धर्म की विशेष जगहों में जायेंगे, मंजर एक जैसा ही मिलेगा | 

The ethical dilemma of Artificial Intelligence

Robots and Humans at crossroads

The world of Numbers

This is a world of big numbers. In every aspect of life, what matters is numbers. There are billions of sites in the web. Some companies have revenues running in billions. With advancement in medical science and control over epidemics, we have billions of people on earth now. The most respected people on earth are people with billions and millions of worth. There is terabytes or petabytes or not sure which byte of data on the web and in all the machines all around. Yes, we have progressed a lot.

Adam Smith vs Mahatma Gandhi

In "The wealth of nations", Adam Smith promotes the concept of invisible hand. He pursues the path of reasoning that the more good to society is done, if we let the invisible hand of market to function. The division of labour is the core tenet which is important for the invisible hand of market to function properly. The natural extension of this theory is the extreme globalization of the world, where division of labour works all the way up and down.

The theory of extreme globalization, however on the face sits just opposite to the concept of self sufficiency promoted by Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhiji basic unit of self sufficiency is a village, which

God Religion : Why we are confused?

At present the major threat to the world is terrorism. And unfortunately, the major reason behind terrorism gets attributed to god. In the name of God, people are massacred mercilessly. The most affected people in this are the people on the street, who work hard to earn their living and has nothing to do with these extreme philosophies. They do believe in God and religion, but it's a private affair for most of them. God and religion is a personal affair for them, which provides them with mental solace and has nothing to do with bombs and bullets.

Divided by Destiny

At one point I was working in projects in the smaller cities and rural area of Maharashtra. I used to travel to those places often. I happen to be in an inauguration function, where there were heavyweight political leaders. It was like a fare out there. There were couple of thousand people from nearby villages, coming to see and hear political bigwigs. One of my friend was accompanying me and one of the plan of the day was to do some photography. As part of that we just happened to meet some people from a makeshift colony of laborers. Looking at the camera in our hand, they got excited and invited us to take some of their photographs. They thought we are from some news agency, and there is an opportunity to get published in a paper. They were living in a makeshift hut with hardly 4 by 4 feet of space and for sure you cannot stand in the house. I just compared that with the big cars that

Bad is Good, Good is Bad

Is bad good or good is bad? It's very difficult to ascertain that what is bad and what is good at an absolute scale while it is much easier to define bad or good at a relative scale. When two are in dispute, than one's bad is others good and vice-versa. When a tigress kills a deer, it's good for tigress cubs but bad for deer's kids. The bad or good is more of a perspective than an absolute theory. Also the relativeness of the theory has to be judged not only on a spatial scale but also on the temporal scale. A certain thing might be bad in the immediate temporal scale but may turn out to be very good
in the longer timeline. Change the sides or the scale and same thing may appear in a different way. A bad will become good and a good will become bad. So Bad is Good and Good is Bad.

If we look more closely on any aspect of life, or for that matter any aspect of any happenings, there is this tension of trying to define it in terms of goodness and badness. Look little more closely and one realizes that the good and bad is more dependent on the power of people or machinery trying to push it in that direction.

I am refraining to quote any example and trying to keep this discussion at an abstract level as this quickly becomes controversial. But do this exercise at your end. Take any phenomena or happening for which you carry a very strong opinion. Does not matter if you feel good or bad about it. Now see if there are any other who holds an extremely opposite view to yours. Try to understand why the other side is holding the opposite extreme. Do you find that bad for you is good for others or vice- versa. Also try to look at the same thing on a time scale. Is it good or bad for that given second and does it remains good or bad in the same way in a bigger or may be in a smaller scale? 

So Bad is Good and Good is Bad.

Is there an alternative?

We do need certain structure in society for it to behave orderly. To say that the notion of nation and religion is all wrong is not a right proposition. Even if we remove these notions they would again appear in some other form. The only change would be different geographical boundaries and a different overlap of religious notions. There would still be boundaries. Certain social structures are also important in the context that they prevent chaos.

The problem happens when these notions are stretched beyond the need of maintaining the order in society. When they become the tool of manipulation in the hands of people holding those powers, the trouble starts happening. In the severity of that chaos, revolutions are breeded. The power is vested in