Facebook announcement yesterday, got me thinking. But jet lagged this morning returning from my Japan trip, it finally hit me. It’s not xbox, it Kinect. Kinect is one of the most exciting products Microsoft has produced in recent times, it is doing really well. People love it. My geeky friends think its cool. When I walk into Fry’s kids are playing with it rather than the other consoles.

KINECT HAS 4 CAMERAS !!!

Skype integrated with Xbox could instantly turn out video conferencing for the masses straight out of their living rooms. If it became point and click, I would buy it for all my “cool” relatives, most of whom are on facebook. hmm. That could change everything.

Netflix did this amazing successfully. They embedded the functionality, now its omni-present in all TVs. Could skype + connect become like that?

Another Acharya I had met several years back, answered my question, “What is the goal of life?”,  with, “Happiness”.

Are the two related. Happiness goal I interpreted as … the goal of life is to balance happiness in the present with happiness in the future. A drug junkie is happy in the present, but will be miserable in the future. If you save all your life, your present if unhappy, future might be happy. Its a difficult balance for most of us. We spend our lives ensuring future happiness or rather avoiding future sadness (or tough times) while the today passes away. It is not easy balancing happiness today with happiness in the future. There is no formula. To give a very earthly example: small children are taught to divide their money into 3 piles: one spend on instant pleasure (buying skittles for mine), second to save for spending in the near future (like a doll) and the last to save for the rainy day. Balancing happiness huh!

If you take that to the extreme, perhaps we can link the goals of liberation and happiness. To really achieve happiness after life, you need liberation?

The Acharya was explaining that “the mind is mythical”. Once you understand this everything will change. Imagine having a faulty blood pressure instrument, one day if you realize it is not correct, you will dis-regard everything it says. This is very difficult for us to understand or comprehend as the mind controls everything our senses perceive and everything we do.

Most people with scientific bent of mind would dismiss this. And thats ok. But you might ask what has this got to do with startups. Another person I respect a lot is Ashish Gupta with Helion Ventures. And he mentioned one day that “first principle thinking” was essential quality in a founder.

These two things connected for me when Acharya Prabodh said the “mind is mythical”.  One of the things which separates humans from animals is the separation between input and reaction (source: why zebra’s don’t get ulcers).  We can observe our brain respond and change that behavior. In some sense we can rewire our brain to respond differently to the same input. Pilots, fire fighters, doctors have all learned to do that with skill and experience. Now lets step back: when a child is born very few of the brain is wired, it is as we grow up and observe our parents, siblings, teachers, colleagues that we learn to react to particular things in a particular fashion. Those behaviors when repeated wire our brain.

If one accepts that, then it is also possible to rewire the brain, although it might be difficult as we get older.  The relationship to startups is similar. when you form a company it is like having a child which is thrust into this world. The company learns to respond to different inputs, the founders have to learn to rewire their original thinking and thought process as they learn more from the environment. Failure to rewire the startup almost always results in failure of the company.

In the environment we live in, rate of change has been increasing. Our parents probably worked for one company their entire life. Now people work for 5-10 companies in their lifetime. In 1995 there were very few cell phones, now we can’t imagine life without them. iPhones, tablet PCs, 3D TVs, twitter, facebook did not exist 5 years ago. Our children are going to refer to us as the people who used to use a keyboard. The rate of change is massive. If we can’t rewire our brains we will fail.

One of the things I admire most about my parents is their ability to adapt to new environments and situations. I think this is one of the things that has made them so successful and happy. Today it is a basic required skill, if you can’t rewire, you will be unhappy. There are many examples of this … friends who get married late, find it very hard to adapt and rewire.

The one most striking example which occurs to me is food. Imagine a kid of Indian origin who grew up in Italy. He will like italian food (no matter how much his parents feed him indian food at home).  The wiring of what food we like and dislike happens as we grow up. Once its there it is very hard to change.

Now let us stretch our belief system. So its possible to wire the brain differently. The brain is after all a set of cells which obey laws of chemistry and molecular biology. So we have some control over how to atleast connect the cells up. Do you think that the control stops there. Do you think that with adequate practice we could learn how to control at a molecular level? Regenerate red blood cells or liver or kidney’s selectively. Seems far fetched, but if you can rewire at a connection level, you can rewire at a a molecular level also. We just haven’t learnt the language to express.

Sometimes I feel sitting in the Ramayan class, what is the use of chanting the verses or ‘OM’ or ‘RAM’. One day I began chanting ‘OM’ in the car and the more I did it, the more I enjoyed it. I felt as if somewhere deep inside the body was resonating to the sound of ‘OM’ and was releasing a lot of energy. ‘OM’ may not be the word for you but you should definitely try it.

If you have injured a knee, sometimes they put medicine on top and then direct ultra-sonic waves on your knee, this pushes the medicine molecules in the skin and agitates the the molecules in your knee. If you think about it, its possible that cells combined together or even individually have a resonant frequency and if you pronounce ‘OM’ or other verses it gives us a way to communicate with them and maybe alter them also. Music a lot of people believe is fundamental part of who we are (for some folks music induces epiliptic  fits, for some it stops them).

Anyway if you can cross this bridge and believe that its possible to rewire the human body and the brain, then by essence, the body is not real or defining. If a given set of inputs make you unhappy, that is your brain which is responding to those inputs. You can rewire it and the same inputs may now make you very happy or indifferent. There is a truth beyond our mind?

I love startups. Its my way of life. As I have gotten older, when I put together a company, I think about what set of people together will have what kind of reaction or DNA or learning. In some sense we are wiring the brain of the company. And we can change it by changing the people or the communication or the input or output.

If you are a parent you are doing this every day for your children. You are wiring their brain. that is why in may cultures, the child is supposed to be form of God, because his brain is pure, unwired, unconditional to the responses. You can mould it in many different ways.

In hindu mythology there are three God in every world, the creator, the sustainer and the destructor. The creator (Lord Brahma) has knowledge, the sustainer (Lord Vishnu and wife Laxmi) have wealth and the destructor (Lord Shiva) has dispassion and the power to detach.

If you look at daily life, we can draw different circles and think of them as worlds. For example, startup’s are a world, at home your family is a world. Across these worlds the creator, sustainer and destructor exist but may be in different forms. The representation or form is “maya” in hindu mythology, while the essence or the vedantic truth remains constant.

Sometime founding CEO’s struggle with the fact (as I have on numerous occasions) that the “sustainer” may be different than them. Or that long after the company ceases to exist, the soul lives on as bits in the ether.

I had an epiphany which I wanted to share. My good friend Suman and his wife gifted me with a art work of Lord Ganesha couple of days back. When I opened the present the first thought that struck my head was this house is blessed with Lord Ganesha. From listening to Guru Prabodh talk about the Ramayana: Lord Ganesha is the remover of obstacles. And so he does.

One way I have accepted religion is that God is omnipresent. He is present in each one of us. All the attributes we see in God are reflected in different aspects of our personality. For example, there is a part of us which is the “remover of obstacles”.  As we go through life we develop these parts to different degrees. A lot of it is conditioning of our thinking and our mind. For example, not dwelling on the negative, controlling our ego, channeling our energy on the positive. Offer and receive unconditional love.

I also think that accepting God is also a lot about “giving up control” mentally. A lot of us struggle with that, we would rather walk away than not be in control. To accept that we don’t control everything, thus whatever we achieve  is because of the help and support of others, but not an individual effort, is a big step forward in thinking and maturity. It also helps to prepare us for failure.

If you define one aspect of God as the perfect state of ones mind. It takes a lot to get there. For example, you have to remove the clutter of everyday problems and thoughts. The scientific part of me asks the question is it possible to be aware of the working of the internal part of the body and thus change it. The famous Hindu rishi and gurus have been said to achive that. It does seem that it should be possible. If you look at all modern day medicine it is about figuring out how to communicate with the various parts and organs of the body and change their behavior. If you could control them using your brain then all you need to do is be one with your brain. Perhaps we need to look in different directions.

So one path to God is to improve the qualities in ourself which we see depicted in him and his incarnations. I belive this can make you happier and life fulfilling.

- Give more than you take, Produce more than you consume

Its a simple concept: revenue should be higher than expenses. The problem here is ‘credit’. I am consuming more today so that I can produce more in the future. People without credit don’t go bankrupt.

I don’t mean bankrupcy in terms of money, but also values, health of companies, our moral and mental health.

- Evolution of faith: blind –> non-blind –> conviction

Faith is a concept or effort goes through three stages. We start with blind faith, which is slowly transformed into conviction.

When you do a startup, usually someone with a product idea with blind belief that if we build it they will come. As you talk to more customers that belief gets transformed into conviction.

- Ram & Sita: can’t say they are the same, can’t say they are different. Just like speech & meaning, wedding & marriage, house & home, water & wave.

The engineer thinks of it as water. Marketing transforms into a wave.

- We seek security from what’s constantly changing: accomplishments, position, title, our body. Nothing in the world is independent.

It is amazing how many folks are trying to seek security through clauses in their offer letters in todays ever changing corporate world.

- God is the cause and not the effect

- In life the background noise is problems and complaints. We seek freedom from that.

Wish we had the equivalent of noise cancelling headphones for life? The goal is freedom, ask any enterpreneur. Or is it: you don’t want to be acquired?

What is noise in you life and what is music? Amplify the music.

- Three realities in the world:
* Absolute Reality
* Transactional Reality
* Illusionary existence

- Klesha’s:
* avidya: ignorance:I don’t know my true self
* asmita: I am so and so
* raga: I have to have this
* dvesha: I can’t stand this
* abhinivasha: submerged in that I am in this body, body related thinking, result of it is fear of death

- Shreyas = moksha = absolute good

I found it fascinating not only from a internal peace point of view, but also so many things that we apply to startups are common with the basic philosophies of life. Here is the collection of thoughts … I will update every week

Date: 10/12/09

http://bit.ly/ps4Pq

Date: 9/27/2009

- Crescent Moon on Lord Shiva head: all over the world when we talk about the beauty of the moon, we talk about the full moon, not the crescent. “Chaudhvi ka Chaand” refers to the full moon. When we worship Lord Shiva, the moon gets worshiped also. If your teacher is famous, you get credit even if you are not the best. I was listening to this and it reminded me of raising money in the valley: where if you have been in a successful startup or you are referred by a successful enterpreneur it is a big big plus. It doesnt really matter what you did in that company.

- Goddess Parvati and Lord Shiva: Parvati symbolizes faith and Shiva symbolizes knowledge. To start any new activity one must first have faith and then knowledge. When you start a company you make a “leap of faith”. You don’t quite know what’s on the other side. Without faith you can’t start. I know so many really really smart people who dont take the first step, where they use their knowledge to dissuade their faith

- Lord Hanuman was not the master or king, but he was the leader: so many people in companies worry about their title, how many people report to them, what they control and what they don’t. To lead the people you don’t need any of that. You can influence change. The religious leaders change the world, while the kings, they come and go.

Date: 9/20/2009

- Form versus Formless: one of the debates that has engaged in religion is whether God is formless, thus everywhere, or has form which by definition is constrained. It is an interesting debate and struggle. It is also one that an enterpreneur goes through. Every idea in its infancy is formless, it has infinite power, can solve a lot problems. As the companies mature it takes form via products or services which constrain the idea further and further. Its a constant struggle between the formless vision and products which take form

The thing which I am confused by is whether this is something that applies to life. Should you try, try and try or wait for it to come to you?

My other realization perhaps a bit late is that time can’t be averaged. Take kids for example, you can’t say that instead of spending 1 hr everyday with them you will take 20 days off and spend every waking hour with them. It’s not the same. You can’t average it out with kids or with yourself also. 20s is the time to do some things, 30s to do other things, 60s something else. The slice of time over which you average has to be really small for it to have meaning … a week is the maximum I would say.

One is lucky if one can spend time with people they want to, and not get bogged down in providing for essentials or chasing one’s own tail.