Saturday, April 01, 2006

AGILE??..........WILL SURVIVE


Change, accepting change, dealing w/ change, etc. seem to be the buzzwords of our rapidly changing world. Many good books have been written about the same. To successfully survive the changes of time and tide, one needs to accept the fact that change is inevitable and having accepted that, brace oneself to make the best of these oncoming changes.
Azim Premji; successful businessman, founder of Wipro gave a presentation at IIM-A about “The Changing World”. He based this presentation on his own experiences and it can be summarized in the following 11 points. I happened to read this presentation in a Marathi newspaper. My summary is a loose translation of the same.
  • Be a good sensor - Know the signs of change and watch out for them.
  • Change is always lurking around the corner. Be proactive and try to prepare yourself for the same.
  • Change always brings along new opportunities. Look out for these.
  • Avoid getting into the comfort-zone of your routine.
  • It is natural to fear the insecurity that change brings w/ it. Use this fear positively, to plan for change.
  • Renew yourself constantly.
  • Be in the company of pro-change people Vs anti-change.
  • Play to win; give it your best shot.
  • Maintain your self-esteem.
  • Never forego your values and morals.
  • Being successful is far different and important than just living/existing. Your success not only positively affects you but also society at large.

TEACHINGS OF OSHO


Recently I happened to read “LIFE’S MYSTERIES – An Introduction to the Teachings of Osho”. Never before had I read or listened to the teachings of any spiritual guru – never felt like it. A family friend urged me to read the book, I agreed, partly to sate my curiosity that gossip about Oshoites and the Ashram had created.

It took me a while to finish the small book. Some of Osho’s thoughts made sense to me, some were beyond me, whereas some sort of made sense yet the traditional teachings of my mind did not allow for ready acceptance.

Osho says that all the religions of the world are anti-life and his arguments in this regard were convincing.

Here are my interpretations of some thoughts that I liked and would like to remember.

  • Touchstone to differentiate between the important from the unimportant – Anything that can be taken by death is unimportant and that cannot be taken by death is important.

  • Don’t be life negative, be life positive. Celebrate life – live life to the fullest.

  • Focus on rejoicing instead of renouncing. Focus on the present and live this moment to the fullest.

  • Don’t believe in anyone – find your own path and walk on it. Follow your inner voice. When you do so, you will be on the right path. You might stumble along the way, might commit mistakes, but that is alright. In the end all these efforts contribute towards your ultimate growth – no effort is wasted.

  • Each individual is unique and each individual life has a beauty in its uniqueness.

  • Life’s aim is life itself – more life, better life, higher life, but life always!

  • Man ordinarily functions out of the past, out of the knowledge that he has accumulated in the past and thus has standard, mechanical responses. But life is continuously changing. Right and wrong are not fixed entities. So avoid functioning through your past. Act out of awareness. Awareness means being in the present

  • Receptivity is the door to the divine; it is a state of no-mind, state of awareness. Being receptive means dropping all the garbage in your mind, like your past. If you can drop this then you become more open, more receptive.

  • A man of awareness does not react; he acts or responds. He is responsible. He is his own master and acts according to himself and not by anybody else. Osho gives a beautiful analogy of a mirror to the man who is aware and that of a photoplate to the person who reacts. The difference between a mirror and photoplate is that the former is dynamic whereas the latter is static. Life is dynamic and hence one should try to be a mirror instead of a photoplate.

  • Love can be dependent, independent or interdependent. In the 1st two cases it always brings misery and should not be termed as love but as an arrangement. The 3rd case brings happiness because it is when two people are in complete synchronism and this is true love.

  • To grow during our life is a choice that we have to make. Osho compares our existence to that of the seed. The seed has the potential to grow and flower, so also we have the potential to grow. The seed is very safe and secure whereas a flower is vulnerable and fragile. People prefer this security over growth and the insecurity associated w/ this process and hence many of us choose to live as seeds and just remain as potentialities.

  • Avoid nouns instead emphasize on verbs. So focus on living instead of life.

  • Nobody is born for the other. Nobody is born to fulfill your ideals of how a person should be.

  • You can give as much as you want, but cannot demand (love for ex.) from the other – nobody is your slave. You have control only on yourself.

  • Ego is something that you can feel but that which does not exist. Osho compares it w/ darkness which is nothing but absence of light. To drive away darkness you have to experiment w/ light. Similarly to be egoless you have to raise your level of consciousness.

  • Meditation is neither concentration nor contemplation. It is a state of no-thinking or no-mind. Simply put no-mind means that your mind becomes your servant.

  • Meditation is when our mind, body and soul are functioning together in rhythm. Any activity that achieves this can be meditation. So running, dancing, singing….all these can be meditations.

  • Everybody is born w/ the same potential. Differences arise because we do not use our potential to the same extent. Meditation can make you aware of your potential, can make the passage in which your potential can grow and can find its expression.

  • Ego is the root cause of fear in you.

  • Fear always exists – about security, safety. When surrounded by such fear, remember this- the only thing that is secure or certain in life is death. Being dead is the ultimate security. So if you want to live, grow then you have to take risks. Don’t be shackled by these exercises of the mind - remember you have nothing to lose. Stop postponement

  • Freedom and responsibility are the 2 sides of the same coin. If you want freedom you have to be responsible. Responsibility means that whatever you do it is your response. It is different than duty. When you act out of duty it becomes a burden whereas when you act out of responsibility there is no burden because it is your response.

  • The inner (soul) is as real as the outer (body, material aspects), both are equally significant. One has to attain a balance between the two.