One day a young disciple came to his Guru with a very worried look on his face.
The Guru asked, "What happened? Why do you look so gloomy?"
The disciple replied, 'Oh, Guruji, there is one question that is weighing heavily on my mind.'
Curious, Guruji asked, 'What is that?'
With lot of hesitation in his voice the pupil narrated his problem, 'Well, I wanted to know the secret of earning wealth. My family is not very well off and I feel that time has come for me to help my family become wealthy enough and live life without much anxiety."
The Guruji broke into peels of laughter. 'Well then young man, now listen to this mantra that holds the secret of gaining wealth.' With this the Guruji unveiled the sacred mantra for success.
" As you know Saraswati and Lakhmi are two sisters. And you also know that while Saraswati stands for knowledge and wisdom Lakhmi stands for wealth. However, of the two sisters, Lakhmi is very jealous of Saraswati though Saraswati is the kind, forgiving and the gentle one. So here is the mantra. If you choose to love Lakhmi more than Saraswati, Saraswati won't mind that and let you be with Lakhmi. But then Lakhmi would soon desert you. But if you choose to love Saraswati much more than Lakhmi then Lakhmi would be very jealous and would constantly follow you and try to allure you all the while. Do keep taking her costly gift of wealth but don't desert Saraswati because once you have done that Lakhmi would desert you soon."
The disciple was more than happy to receive this sacred mantra before he left his Guruji's place with Saraswati clearly placed in his heart.
Vivek Sharma, a young and upright officer, working for one of the premier central police organization (CPO), stood in attention as he listened to his boss --- the Inspector General of police. Vivek was the Deputy Superintendent of police and lived with his wife and six year old son in Rohini area of Delhi.
Vivek was mediocre in studies but was very good in sports. He always wanted to join the armed forces. Unfortunately he could not make it but got a lateral entry in a CPO. He had high ideals which he had imbibed from his father and grand parents.
“I have firm belief that only you can carry out this operation, though you have to stay away from your family till the mission gets over”. The IG looked to see the reaction of Vivek. He was in cloud nine as he could not believe that he has been included in such a secret mission. Yes, I have the ability and I can do better than others, he thought. Vivek was given the choice to choose his team members.
Vivek’s first stop was at Anupgarh in Sriganganagar district (Rajasthan). He stayed there for a couple of months and as decided his next destination was Bikaner in Rajasthan. Vivek was given the task of finding out the nexus of government officials with the narcotics cartel operating along the Indo-Pak border. Vivek was not allowed to phone back home nor was he allowed to disclose his destination. He was strictly forbidden to use his official identity and stay at government buildings. Vivek had also a cover name “Rajiv Dubey” which he often forgot.
In the last phase of his mission at Bhakasar (bordering town of Gujarat, Rajasthan and Pakistan Sindh province) Vivek was very happy. A sense of fulfillment and achievement had been accomplished. He did his work to perfection and had collected scores of evidence. He was startled by the fact that many of his own colleagues, famous politicians both at the state and union level were hand in glove with the narcotics smugglers. Vivek was depressed.
Back in Headquarters Vivek Sharma submitted the report to his boss. It was appreciated. The zeal in Vivek’s work went missing. A constant question kept hammering inside him. Am I working for these corrupt people who are not clean in their hearts?
The next day’s morning newspaper headlines read--- “DSP, Vivek Sharma shot dead while returning from office”.
Sitendu De is the author of this story.
Disclaimer: All characters in this story are fictitious and their resemblence to any actual character might be a strange case of co-incidence only.
Naropa was a great scholar, a great pundit, with ten thousand disciples of his own. One day he was sitting surrounded by thousands of scriptures--ancient, very ancient, rare. Suddenly he fell asleep, must have been tired, and he saw a vision. He saw a very, very old, ugly, horrible woman--a hag. Her ugliness was such that he started trembling in his sleep. It was so nauseating he wanted to escape--but where to escape, where to go? He was caught, as if hypnotized by the old hag. Her eyes were like magnets. "What are you studying?" asked the old woman. He said, "Philosophy, religion, epistemology, language, grammar, logic." The old woman asked again, "Do you understand them?" Naropa said, "Of course... Yes, I understand them." The woman asked again, "Do you understand the word, or the sense?" Thousands of questions had been asked to Naropa in his life--thousands of students always asking, inquiring--but nobody had asked this: whether he understands the word, or the sense. And the woman's eyes were so penetrating--those eyes were going to the very depth of his being, and it was impossible to lie. To anybody else he would have said, "Of course I under-stand the sense," but to this woman, this horrible-looking woman, he had to say the truth. He said, "I understand the words." The woman was very happy. She started dancing and laughing, and her ugliness was transformed; a subtle beauty started coming out of her being. Thinking, "I have made her so happy. Why not make her a little more happy?" Naropa then said, "And yes, I understand the sense also." The woman stopped laughing, stopped dancing. She started crying and weeping and all her ugliness was back--a thousandfold more. Naropa said, "Why are you weeping and crying? And why were you laughing and dancing before?" The woman said, "I was happy because a great scholar like you didn't lie. But now I am crying and weeping because you have lied to me. I know--and you know--that you don't understand the sense." The vision disappeared and Naropa was transformed. He escaped from the university; he never again touched a scripture in his life. He became completely ignorant, he understood--the woman was nobody outside, it was just a projection.
It was Naropa's own being, through knowledge, that had became ugly. With this much understanding, that "I don't understand the sense," ugliness was transformed immediately into a beautiful phenomenon, which we now know as 'emergence'.
In my last blog post I wrote about the meaning of 'Dharma'. In Indian philosophy, for thousands of years, people have believed the whole dynamic life cycle of any human being might be aptly described by four significant concepts represented by four words pregnant with layers of meanings. These are Dharma, Artha, Kama and Moksha. Much latter in the development of Indian philosophy, Buddhist philosophy leaned heavily on this basic framework which it laid out in a more elaborate fashion in the form of 8 fold path. However, these four concepts are deeply interrelated and flow from one other to make a meaningful whole. It puts forward a 'wholistic' view of life that not only offers us deep understanding, meaning and purpose of human living but also provides us a path to live it or a way to live it successfully.
I would now dwell on the meaning and significance of the second concept, i.e. Artha as I understand the concept in its different levels of reality.
Level 1
The most ordinary meaning of it is 'money'. It is obvious that we all need some money to survive, live life with dignity and do some useful work for self and for the society.
Level 2
But there is something deeper than that. Artha means 'resources' or a set of well defined 'resources' that help us to consistently and constantly engage with the perils and hazards in life. What are these? Well, there are five important resources we could possibly ask for in life, which are the following:
1. Knowledge -- of physical phenomena that go around us along with the methods of expressions and teaching others -- in modern day context we can say this as knowledge in arts, science, technology, communication etc...
2. Courage -- a kind of courage that comes from the heart, which is courage to act from the heart. More often than not we are blocked in life for this lack of this specific resource to act from our heart thereby also missing the psyche energy that comes along with it.
3. Wealth -- money and property in the usual sense of the word. But there is also a special significance which I would highlight little later.
4. Wisdom -- note that this is the link to the earlier concept of Dharma, which was nothing but the development of empathy and wisdom. So wisdom provides the basic link between Dharma and Artha indicating that without Dharma there can't be any Artha or the Artha gained and utilized is meaningless.
5. Network -- the strength provided by our group of good friends, well wishers, coaches, teacher and others in society. The strength of the network is also important for purposeful living.Without a reasonable and meaningful social network we are as good as dead. We stop learning and we stop growing.
Further explanation of wealth: -- The consistent symbol of wealth in India is the cow. Hence it is not killed though earliest Vedic literature does mention killing of cows. Hence it is obviously a later day development, say around 4000 BC. Whatever it might be the symbol of 'cow' as understood in context to Artha represents Nature. So it means that Nature can't be killed under any circumstances, whatever it might be. That to my mind was a tremendous leap in human understanding and thinking especially if we consider people thinking of ecology and sustainability 4000 years back. Therefore, it wasn't unusual in India to measure the wealth of a person in terms of cows. That was crafty thought indeed. More the number of cows that would be available more open spaces must be ensured for cows to graze on. Grazing meadows and cows are inseparable. One can't be without the other. In this way both Nature and ecology was preserved. It is no wonder that India still has the highest cow population in the world and along with it enough open spaces for them to feed upon. A beautiful balance has been maintained for over 4000 years without launching a single campaign or educating the public on Sustainability and Ecology and Global Warming etc. ... This is a brilliant stroke of wisdom to my mind.
Level 3
At the third level, the concept of 'Artha' is meaning. There are two parts to it. While the first focuses on the means by which wealth is earned, the second focuses on the way it is meaningfully spent. There exists till this day a sort of social or peer pressure on these two critical points. Ilegal means of earning wealth is looked down upon in society. Too much wealth, more than what is needed, is also despised. And people are always bothered about the way wealth is spent.
Therefore, it no longer remains a mystery to me as to why the business of 'credit cards' miserably failed in India. People simply refused to spend money without having earned it in the first place. Or in other words don't spend beyond your means. It has done India good. The way the country waded out of crisis during the Asian Crisis and the more recent recession bears testimony to this fact. Self respect or self esteem comes before earning money in illegal ways and spending it wantonly. Perhaps for the same reason the recent campaign in India championed by none other than Bill Gates, his wife Milenda and his fast friend Warren on philanthropy failed since most Indians believe that family wealth is a thing to be passed down generation by generation. No wonder, India retains its top slot as the gold hording nation in the world for the past 2000 years of its history. Every family, according to its capability, converts money into solid gold. I see even very poor families (even under poverty line) engaged in converting their wealth into gold and storing them for hard or harsher times.
Conclusion
So 'Artha' has different layers of meanings which are really significant. At the basic level it means money. At the next higher level it means 'resources' made up of five different elements. And at the third level it is all about meaning.
The way to earn Artha is through Dharma that springs from 'empathy' and 'wisdom'. So, it is not very surprising to hear Mahatma Gandhi saying, 'The customer is the most important visitor to your premises....." This is simply a modification of the age old saying 'Guest is God'.
All empathy and wisdom spring from this intention.
No doubt Artha gained through Dharma is well worth its weight in gold -- both symbolic and factual.
And it does provides the means to lead a meaningful life. It would be foolish indeed to turn away from it.
In the next post I would deal with the generally controversial issue of Kama, the third concept in this series -- the superficial meaning of which is 'sex'.
Today everything would be closed in the state. The streets would wear a deserted look. Schools, shops, offices and even Government offices would be closed.
Why? Are people protesting or rising in revolt like the Middle East and elsewhere?
No, not exactly. It is a day of celebration and happiness. Today is a Public Holiday. India as a nation celebrates this day as a "Day of Knowledge".
This is more popularly known as Saraswati Puja (Puja means offering of love and deep respect). Saraswati is the Goddess of Knowledge representing speech and creative expression of science and arts. Most things in India are symbolic and the image of Goddess Saraswati is not exception to this fact. The image is therefore a metaphor or representation of what knowledge is all about.
Want to know the story of how it all came about?
Well, as most things in India, the story goes back thousands of years to the era of the Vedas, which most historians agree was around 5000 years ago.
A group of wise sages were travelling all night. Just as the day was about to break they reached a river. The river was gently and rhythmically making its way down the snow clad Himalayas. The water was pure and sparkling. As it gushed over the numerous pebbles it encountered in its way, a sweet tinkling noise emanated. They could see the bottom of the river clearly and were fascinated by the numerous ripples that danced around merrily occasionally catching the glitter of the sun rays as the sun peeped over the distant hills.
They were mesmerized by the whole experience! It suddenly struck them that knowledge had the exact characteristics of what they just experienced. How was that?
They realized that knowledge is dynamic and always changing and flowing like the river. One can't capture it. It can't be imprisoned. If held it soon loses its freshness and flow
They understood that knowledge is a product of numerous ongoing interactions that produced music. The music is only produced by the flow going against the resistance offered by the pebbles. More the obstacles (pebbles) more subtle and more varied is the music. The deep experience provided them the insight that knowledge develops through repeated movements of passing over the numerous pebbles and emerges in a chaotic fashion in the form of waves.
It was also clear to them that the primary source of knowledge was through transparent observable (through all our senses) work that flows -- an understanding gleaned from the transparent flowing waters. Everything was observable but transient.
They likened the occasional glitter of the sunrays ricocheting off the waves to the sudden flashes of insights that create new knowledge.
Such a splendid metaphor remained with them for years before they decided to give some physical form to it so that people recognize the importance of knowledge in their lives and live with a vision or mental image to go for it and develop it for themselves. With this in mind they came up with the splendid image of the Saraswati.
The image of the beautiful lady represents the creative nature of knowledge, the force behind all human activities. .
The swan reminds us of the river and also the sharp discriminating characteristic of knowledge. This is because a swan has a strange ability. If offered a drink of milk with water a swan drinks the milk without taking in a drop of water. It can separate the two. In other words knowledge helps us to discriminate between the real and the unreal.
The musical instrument called the vina (a much older form of the present day sitar) reminds us of the music of knowledge as it flows over pebbles and obstacles.
The symbol of the white lotus is significant. While the whiteness of the lotus stands for stainless purity of knowledge the lotus informs us that knowledge is rooted to reality which might be full of dirt, muck and darkness from which the purity emerges. It depicts the journey called knowledge from the unconscious or unseen or unknown to the consciousness of reality or the known.
It is also interesting to note that the image tells us how knowledge is created. This is shown by the four hands of Saraswati. Her two hands are engaged in playing the vina (Playing and Hearing). It means that the fundamental way knowledge is created is through transparent observable work that flows (remember how the sages could clearly see even the bottom of the river and sense everything around them). The image of the rosary that she holds in one of her hands depicts the need for deep mental reflection and repetition to gain real knowledge. The fourth hand shows a slim volume of documents representing that only a small part of the knowledge can be really documented and read.
The scattering and reflection of the golden sunrays on the waves representing intuitive insights are shown in the form of the golden crown that adorns her head meaning that all intuitive insights come from the mind. And the halo behind her head represents the energy and brightness that emanates from ever increasing wisdom.
So, to summarize:
1. Knowledge is rooted in reality. It then moves from the physical reality to the energy field of playing, listening and engaging in our chosen domain from where it moves to the mental plane which then makes its way to the planes wisdom and enlightenment.
2. Like the flowing river, knowledge can't be captured (it is not an object but waves and a field) since it an on-going phenomenon of the numerous interactions, always changing course and fleeting in nature. Such movement of knowledge is only possible through facing resistance and overcoming obstacles encountered in its path generating the necessary music.
3. A very small part of knowledge can be really documented. That represents the explicit part of knowledge.
4. Major part of knowledge is implicit in nature that is created by constantly playing in a chosen domain, improvisations, repeated practice, deep reflections and sudden insights.
5. True knowledge in any field can be obtained through discrimination between the real and the unreal, between the meaningful and the worthless.
6. Knowledge leads to enlightenment and is the creative force behind all that we do.
7. And above all knowledge must be free and shared to maintain its flow that benefits all. This is the only thing in the world, other than love, that keeps growing and developing in strength and character when shared. It is unending and beautiful but can't be precisely defined or described. The more we try the more incomplete it seems.
Today we usher the coming of spring signifying the blooming of the hidden, the latent and the unknown into conscious reality just like the first baby leaves that spring to life after winter. Isn't that what we understand by knowledge?
It is therefore not surprizing for Indians to believe River Saraswati to be an underground river hidden from view only to meet the great rivers Ganga and Yamuna at Kumbh. Another great symbolic abstraction underlying the fact that Knowledge plays between our actions and emotions to elevate us to our true human potential. Those who use it rise to meet their potential. Those who don't are unfortunate.
So do we listen to the music of the spheres and celebrate the joy that is knowledge?
Notes:
1. The video is there to highten the visual experience of this rather deep and 5000 years old philosophy on knowledge.
2. India is probably the only country in the world to celebrate a special day in honor of Knowledge. What a country!
I think Design Innovation matters in everything we do as human beings. In fact, Design Innovation Rules the World!
It is the fundamental tool we have to create competitive impacts, improve the performance of companies, create wealth, create jobs and improve the society as a whole.
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