RCM 11/8/09

• A teacher should we willing to tolerate students who are different and wierd, just like one sees joy in ones kids and what they do.  One of my rules developed over the years for working with VCs and board members is that ones with kids are better. I don’t know how to put it exactly, but when one has kids, suddenly life is no longer about you, it becomes about them (for most of us). You begin thinking about their future rather than your own accomplishments.  It happens naturally. Now if you think of a teacher or a board member, it has to be about the student of the company, not about them.
• One should keep going to satsung if one knows the text, as different connections are made everytime you hear or participate. There is a similar saying in english: the books on my bookshelf are fixed, it is I who change and hence read different things in them each time. This is true of almost everything. I don’t have an MBA, but my wife has one from IIM Ahemdabad. So when we got married I asked her for all the books she read and read some of them. And as I go through differnt companies and experiences what I read in those books change. For those of you who have wondered why this blog is called circular insanity, it is for a very similar reason. I find that when learning anything new or when one has bookish knowledge the things one says are not very different than what someone with a lot of knowledge and experience says. Those two points are so close together that they almost touch in a circle, but you have to go through the application of that textual knowledge to arrive from one to the other, sometimes which takes a lifetime. Over the years I have come to realize that it is not really a circle, it is a helix. One when reaches the point where you understand the meaning behind the words, you simply shift your plane, as other things which you were unable to comprehend earlier, suddenly begin making sense, so you become a novice at the next level.
• There was something which Acharya Prabodh said today which I did not agree with. Although I may not have understood the meaning behind the words. He said that if you are asking a question and the teacher wants to give you an answer you have never heard before, you should say “namaskar” to the teacher from a distance. Because all questions and answers have been discussed earlier and you are looking for traditional answers. This goes completely against the grain of enterpreneurship, where you ask the same questions over and over again but the answers are different. Although in the context of life and how we should live it I think he is right that the answers have not changed. Ofcourse one is tempted to ask the question as to why are we chasing all this innovation, does it do us any good in the long run, if this is all “maya” then what is new anyway. I don’t know the answer to that. although this is all “maya” but I feel one thing technology has really done is to make it easier to communicate. I can talk to my parents every day and see their picture and they can see the grandkids, that is a gift of science. It allows people to stay connected and be part of each other’s life. So is the innovation meaningful and what has it done. If the goal of life is happiness, then it does make you happy, although at an abstract spiritual level nothing may have changed

Ram Charitra Manas and Startups Oct 11,2009

Before the class begins there is a small prayer and usually some kid comes and states the values if the Chinmaya Mission. One of the values is:

- 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