Life changing turns

I always believed that there are always a multitude of factors or causes for the way events take place in life and I, at least, cannot trace back the seed for a particular event. An example to simplify this statement would be, say, you decided to become a film maker. When asked why you reached at such a conclusion, any rational person will back it up by saying that so and so happened and hence I came to that conclusion. In this instance may be after watching a movie or being inspired by another film maker or the idea of sharing your vision with public audience, etc can be said. But does it mean that it is the sole and foremost seed of your decision? I doubt it. In fact I am very positive it is not, because I attribute it to a variety of causes. First, this interest might have been there innately in you, it just needed a catalyst or a series of events made it to bubble up. Second, based on your past karma and a bunch of other present actions of yours, the future had to be such for which this is one of the turn points. Third, just like a life is a course of events, this event will trigger others in your life and so this is one of those triggers. I can think and come up with a few other possible causes but anyway the whole point is to illustrate that the major incidents or events that stand out in life, though are kindled by a multitude of cause-effect scenarios, everyone surely remembers the outstanding cause. I would like to share a couple of such turn points in my life.

One of such events was my entrance into junior college (+2 after tenth grade). The place where I come from has/had a huge craze about the entrance examination into Engineering colleges. This test was competed by a large number of students after +2. So, to get a good rank to secure a good branch in a good college of engineering, the junior college or +2 school played a pivotal role. When I say good, at that time it meant a division (computer science or electrical, etc) and college will yield a job immediately after you graduate. I think it had nothing to do with how much knowledge you gained or what difference it made to your life. Anyway, I being the topper in my class in the tenth grade and receiving a gold medal as an honor for the same, was very much excited and ambitious of joining a good junior college. I initially had high hopes and joined a college which coached for IIT. The entrance exam I talked before was a local or state level but IIT is a national level entrance test for engineering. Immediately after a week or 10 days, I couldn't cope with the classes at this college. The reasons being the college already started a month or so back before I joined and everybody knew what was being taught. Second, my tenth grade was a different syllabus (CBSE) and as a result I didn't had background in the concepts that other guys from a different syllabus (SSC) knew. Third, my first encounter out of the cozy, all stranger environment, where nobody knew me. Whatever the reasons were at that time, I later attributed it to my very low self confidence and fear, which led to my weeping in tears on the tenth day or so to go to college. My brother, older to me, jumped in and talked to the college guys and relieved me of the entire situation. I didn't had to go to that college anymore. Having chosen that initial college myself and dropping out later which cost my father some money, I then didn't dare to speak out another choice of mine. I wanted to go to anyone which my father liked. I didn't even dare to think of an alternative. Just to be clear here, my father never did anything like forcing me to something in this event. It was all purely my thought process. So I was all set to join a college in which my father had acquaintance and my brother went to same. One evening my brother suggested trying a different college. I told him how father might be angry if I tell him now about my second choice. But my brother insisted and asked to just talk once and see. I told my dad and he said that was fine with him. I happily joined that college and am happy to-date that I did so. I don't know if things would have been better or worse if I opted the other one but I can vouch I enjoyed the journey at my brother's judgment. This was a turn point for me and my brother is the outstanding person for it. I attribute a lot of good things that happened in my life to him and mostly the significant events which changed or happened to me. I will not be discussing all of them in this post. This one was one of those events. 

Second one was my selection of school in US. My whole view of thinking took a different angle after I attended the classes of Narsi Reddy Gayam, to whom I went to get coaching for GRE. He was the first teacher in my life to give a complete different view of things. Though the class was for only a couple of months and that too an hour and half each day, I learned a lot more than all my years of schooling or college till then. I haven't met a teacher that far to whose class I would wait very eagerly. This excitement was more to know about the new things he would tell in his stories and the new ideas he ignited in me while trying to explain about the different words and their origin. There was no internet or google to my access at that time and even the use of internet was very sparse overall. I haven't read any books outside of school/college curriculum and didn't knew much about outside world too. So, whatever he taught was fascinating. All this and his successful entrepreneurship coming from a low background left to a deep positive impression in me about him. I applied for a few schools in US to pursue my masters and after getting admissions from a couple, I didn't know which one to opt for. Just by looking at the name I was about to go to the one in Texas but for some reason I called Mr. Narsi Reddy to take his advise on it. He said both UTD and NIU are of equal value but then inclined towards NIU as he felt it has good stuff for computer science and I think a few of his students previously went for it. Before the phone call, I had all the imaginations of going to Texas and I psychologically prepared myself for that. After that phone call, it was like a complete upside down for a few moments. I then decided to go to NIU without any further analysis or research and I am so glad I did that. Today whatever I learned as a programmer or am earning is because of the classes, I took at NIU. I could hardly program when I graduated from my bachelors in India. I got educated for free too at NIU with all the tuition waiver and assistant-ships. I undoubtedly can say I learned so much more in a semester (or even during a single assignment) at NIU that I couldn't do in all four years of my bachelors. So, should I say that the action to go for NIU, which led to the current life, was because of past karma or because it was bound to be so to decide my future or destiny or my irrationality or something else, how am I to say. The only thing I can say is I attribute all this to the words of Mr. Narsi Reddy Gayam. He is the lynchpin of that event in my life. 

Out of all the cause-effect relationships which lead to the continuous changes in life every moment, the above are two great peaks that stand out of those infinite  in due course of those events and I am indebted to the aforementioned people who I believe are the ones have done it for me.

another voyage in the journey of discovering ultimate truth via the apparent truth...

My third Satipatthana Sutta course - June 19, 2010 to June 27, 2010 at CVC, North Fork, CA.

The following are the pieces that made a strong impression this time. I picked these from the discourses of S.N. Goenka ji. 

Pali abstract of the discovery of Buddha.
salaayatan paccaya phassa  [salaayatan = senses, paccaya = results in, phassa = contact] [senses when confronted with relative sense objects, result in contact]
phassa paccaya vedana [vedana = sensation] [contact results in sensation] = Discovery of Buddha.
vedana paccaya tanha [tanha = craving] [sensation leads to craving]

As the time passes after one Buddha and before the raise of another one, the Dhamma gets lost and it gets lost in the order of difficulty to practice. Dhamma is a sum total of Sila, Samadhi and Panna. [Morality, Concentration and Wisdom - in same order]. The wisdom or Panna disappears first as it is hard to practice. The samadhi disappears later and then sila or morality. In today's India you can very rarely find the practice of panna, then you can rarely find the practice of concentration e.g. there are some people practicing jhanas and then you can find the sila or partial/distorted sila e.g. fasting for a day, donation to a religious institution, abstaining from talking, etc. Distorted because some people extend the fasting for example for so long without any panna (wisdom), that it is of very less use.

loke = lujjathi palujjathi ithi. [The one which gets destroyed and then created]. It is referred in the context of the universe of senses.
lokiya jhana = the concentration techniques which keeps one rotating in the field or universe of senses.
lokotthara jhana = the concentration technique (jhana) which takes one out of the field of birth and death.

ariya = noble person - who has taken a dip at least once in Nibbana.
anariyo = ignoble person - who has not taken a dip in Nibbana.

sotapanna = stream enter-er. Max of seven lives to become fully enlightened. No power on earth can stop him/her from becoming fully enlightened within seven lives.
sagdagami = second stage of liberation. Max one more life on earth, otherwise in heavenly planets.
anagami = third stage of liberation. Only one more life but not on earth.
arahant = fully enlightened. There is no more coming back.

Fan

The recent backlash on Tiger Woods (Golf player), making Sachin Tendulkar (cricketer) god, suicides after the death of Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy (Chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, India), apology by Michael Phelps and a few other incidents made me re-think what a fan is.

I do not have much knowledge about golf but I know the popularity Tiger had gained and as a result the game itself has been taken up seriously by many world wide. He had a huge success rate and was almost everytime the champion of his game. There was a huge fan following for this person. Suddenly the news comes out about his sexual affairs and then the so called fans take a huge backlash against the same person. The first place the people become a fan was for his game. His personal life is totally unrelated to others. I am neither agreeing with what Tiger did nor disagreeing but I strongly feel that what he does at personal level is his wish and not of concern to anyone else other than him alone. I also know that all the so called fans would definitely dream about having sex with multiple people, just that they dont have the opportunity as truly said in "Virginity (or monogamy) is not dignity, it is just lack of opportunity". You can do all mistakes, all dirty things, more than that dont do anything at all, lying lazy, just simply watching someone else play or do their job, calling yourself a fan of his or her and at the end reprimanding the same person, at some err of theirs. They are just humans as us and they are bound to do mistakes. Why does Tiger has to apologize to everyone in the front of the whole world. Just ask yourself do you apologize for something to whole world? Atlast they made him believe he has some kind of addiction and he need to go to rehab. Poor guy, I pity you Tiger. I can say that all the maniacs calling themselves as fans would be dreaming of doing thousands or millions of girls/guys, if they have a chance. He has been treated so inhumanly. Tiger-I hope you get your peace back soon and dont care about what these people say.

I have written about the double century and it's after affect making Sachin a god in my previous post. I would want to talk about god here. I am not familiar about the origin of the word "God" in english but the translation in hindi is "Bhagawan". The word Bhagawan means (or is derived from) "Bhagga raago bhagava, bhagga moho bhagava, bhagga dvesho bhagava". Bhagga means burnt completely, no residual remaining. Raag = craving, moh = ignorance, dvesh = aversion. So, this translates to one who has literally burnt craving, aversion and ignorance. One who does it is englightened and has experienced something beyond mind and matter, something eternal.
I am now puzzled with this word being associated with most people. I think Sachin being the gentleman he is would himself disagree he be called god. It's these people, with their most ignorant fanatic, irrational and irresponsible behavior make these up. I also doubt their honesty in calling themselves fans. Let one incident such as Tiger's happen and they will use their same talents (ignorance, irrationaliy, irresponsibility,etc.) to do all the demeanor to him.

Attempting suicide after the death of Y.S.R. by many so called fans, falls into the similar illogical behavior. I dont know whats the point he/she is trying to make by committing suicide. Go get the book "Virtue of Selfishness by Ayn Rand" and re-think about your decision. If at all anything, you should be inspired by the person, if he has done so much good and implement a bit of it in your personal life, which will bring good to you and others rather than just burning yourself.

Similar to Tiger's, making Michael Phelps apologise in front of the television, for smoking dope is another act of crossing the border into his personal life. You're just a fan of his swimming. So just watch his swimming shows and learn a bit for yourself. If not earn 8 gold medals at the olympics just walk away from the television set and go do something worthwhile rather than just nagging at something always.

Media is also the major culprit in most of these situations. It's media guys who give a big hype about everything for their selfish, greedy needs to increase the TRP ratings. Somebody wins and make him a star next moment, if he/she does another thing then bring them down with much more hype. Actually this presentation creates more fans and also the repercussions from the fans.

At a personal front, I feel the celebrities are doing a best job of theirs. If we want ourselves to be called as a fan of their's just get the inspiration and do whatever you can do the best without involving much into their lives and bringing unhappiness to them for doing such a good job and having a bad fan like you.

To all the guys mentioned above and the other celebrities - sorry guys, I hope we learn to behave ourselves.

Number game

The thought to write this blog post triggered from the recent news about Sachin Tendulkar's double century in one day international cricket. I haven't read much about the details but just observed the overwhelming reaction of the public on social networking sites and in person. Before I proceed any further I would like to say that I have deep respect for Mr. Sachin Tendulkar. From my point of view he has given his best to the path he has chosen in life which apparently I feel have not done myself, to be more precise not even any nearer to an inch of what he achieved. The following is not in anyway related or based on him. It's just that this incident and the reaction of people to it has triggered me to write about a thing, which I have been thinking for long.

Sachin has made his first 200 score in one day international cricket. This is the highest score in one-day international cricket by any human that has walked on this planet earth. The thing that makes me wonder is others have made 194 and so on. Most people such as I don't even know about them. It is just a number(200), very near to (194, etc) and then there is such a huge cheering. I feel same respect for the person before his 200 and even today. I think it is just a coincidence that he got to stay till the last over and make this number. What if though he stayed till the end, he couldn't get enough chance to play or he played but couldn't make that number or something else. There are countless possibilities that might have happened. I guess what I am trying to say is why so much hype for this number.

Similar to it are other areas where we are so much engrossed in this number mania.

When you are aging, you feel the pressure of this increasing number. When you are young you look at this number and feel great about it.

By the number in the paycheck, you draw, you pump your ego or deflate depending on what your mind perceives it as more or less respectively.

By the height of your body structure, you feel happy or sad.

By the weight of your body, you crave or avert.

By the score you achieve in your test, you admire or hate yourself.

By the number of people who like you, you feel elated or depressed.

By the number you spend, you feel you are the rich dude walking around or the poor chap.

By the number of miles you drive, you feel, you have achieved something great or wasted something.

By the inches of your biceps or chest, you walk around as if you are going to stay here forever or belittle yourself.

same is with the number of calories you eat, the rank you get, the number growth your company makes, the number by which your stocks increase, the number of children you have, the number of girl friends you make, the number of things you memorize, the number of dresses you wore, the number of perfumes you used, the number of your eye-sight, the number of cars you own, the number of the price of the car, the number of the rank of the car you own, the number of movies you watch, the number of days for the long weekend, the number of days you slog to work, the number in which your product is sold, the number of days before the school finishes, the number of days before the exams are over, the number of degrees you achieve in your career, the number of different types of food you tasted, places you visited, things you read, wrote, ... the number , the number, the number.

Oh enough. From morning till night, professional to personal, birth till death, good to bad, everything, every thing is measured in numbers. Even the quality is being rated in numbers.

After all, there is the infinite universe beyond these numbers, there is darkness, light, etc. and finally there is life.

Hope we come out of this number game and enjoy peace and happiness beyond the numbers.

Disclaimer: Having written this I do not advocate that I am out of it. I am just like most other humans revolving in this madness. I just wanted to throw light on the situation and hope for the best.