Q and A 1

Q. The name of the college that I decided to join and name of the college I landed up joining is same. I came to know only after my admission that I am in a wrong college. I want to get out of this college and join the other one, I am frustrated here. How should I get out of this problem? -Raju

A. There are 101 ways of getting into a problem and 101 ways to get out of it. One of the ways of getting stuck into a problem is, hating it out of our frustration. In that case there is no chance that you will find an exit route that you are looking for. Somewhere you don’t believe that you can make an impact of your existence on college's existence, you want college to make an impact on you and you think the other college that you missed would have made that impact. What guarantee do you give that that college would have given you what you want? Please don’t compare friends' experiences in that college. Are you aware that you are caught up in your own creation of ‘this college is wrong place to be in and that college is right?’ Boss, there will always be gap between what you are expecting and what you are getting. Your mind can only reach to what you can expect and life will take you to those destinations which mind never ever thought of. That is true for not only you but all of us. It’s true about my expectations from my wife, children, from colleges that I work for. How gracefully can you handle the gap between expectations and result or how much you get trapped in the gap is in your hands. In short, I am asking you to love what you hate now and what you hate itself will show you many exit routes that you are failing to see.

Digital Logic and Tristate

In digital logic there are 2 states viz. 0 and 1. When the logic is neither 0, nor 1 then that state is called as Tristate. That was about technology. Interestingly, mind is no different. It gravitates to Right (say, 1) or Wrong (say, 0), Good (say, 1) or Bad (say, 0). Its subsequent movement is only from that state e.g. Good. The whole action of mind and body operates from Good, from then on. And there is equal probability that the movement could happen from Bad. Lets bring it to life, “fast life is bad, slow life is good.” Not very long ago that people lived a slow life and 2 generations down we are living a fast life. The only difference then and now is they were getting heart ailments latter in life, we are getting them earlier. Not that they were free of it in any way. So, when there is an opportunity of doing a certain thing fast you miss out on it because you say “Slow life is good” and you tread slow. This applies when you want to do a certain thing slow, you miss the fun because now you say "Fast life is good". Any amount of living with logic-0 or logic-1 will be a confinement. With understanding of this confinement begins Tristate. Its an amazing state which is of neither 0 nor 1. Its aptly called “Undefined” or “Don’t care” state. It appears to the logical (0/1 based) mind that Tristate is meaningless, being careless (Don’t care) but its not so. In fact, it’s the most sensitive, mouldable state of mind that logical mind will fail to go anywhere closer to. When we understand this in our hearts there will be less craving of people who are living ‘fast’ life to move to country side and ‘villagers’ to move to cities. Do find the art of living in Tristate, its worth dabbling with, than swinging on to rights and wrongs and polishing them on and on and on till the last breath.

http://ashforstudents.blogspot.com defuct

Dear Readers,

Please note that I'm making my blog ashforstudents defunct. You can read articles there through links below. Continue reading lifeskills-mentor blogs.

Beyond Marks-ism

Silence

Discovery

Rhythm

You smiled but your acquaintance just walked past!

Selection, Rejection and Dejection in a Job Interview

The Yes-Yes fun!

Zero and Infinity

Slowdown

Responsibility and Freedom

While you are on a job hunt...

Thank you and Sorry

Sensitivity

Thanks,

Ashirwad Acharekar

Mentor, Life-Skills

“Divide by Zero” Exception

Computer hardware cannot do a “divide by zero” operation. It throws an exception on this limitation. If a non-zero number is divided by zero the result is infinity. And infinity is what a computer cannot handle, is not designed to handle.

Can we humans handle infinity?

The other day I called up somebody for some information. After half an hour I called up the same person and asked something more. She shot back and said, “Can’t you ask all your questions together?” I got really very upset with the way she presented herself and was blasting me. After disconnecting the line I was feeling like giving it back to her. So, before the phone call and after it I was a very different person. I got to hear what I was not expecting. One “me” was on the thought-ride of what I was expecting, which wouldn’t have made me angry and other “me” was on what had happened and had made me angry. These two “me’s” were struggling with each other and with the lady who pressed the unknown button in me. I had divided myself into two viz. of “what should be” (my expectation) and “what is” (reality). This is just a conscious division within me. I don’t know how many such unconscious divisions do I comprise of. Each of this division or a fragment consumes energy in different direction because of the struggle within. If there are such N divisions then I am dividing myself into ½^N fragments. The more I become conscious of these divisions there is a possibility of integration of these fragments into one whole. Then I divide myself into ONE. When I get what I don’t expect I can stay calm because ME/1 = ME. I am just ok.

If I can go beyond just being ‘ok’ with the situation and start accepting the way it is then ‘I’ am becoming smaller (not standing out). Then ME/0.5 = 2xME, ME/0.25 = 4xME. If I ‘fall’ in love with the situation (the way I am and the way the lady who blasted me is) then ‘I’ start tending to zero, tending to nothing. The moment I am in total, in absolute love with the situation I start tending to infinity. ME/0 = Infinite. The same situation which got me into insanity and aggression can get me into an ecstasy. Do I divide myself by shattering my self into infinite small pieces, or by integrating it into ONE or by disintegrating my self to ZERO? Isn’t it taking me from being choiceless to having infinite choices?

Why me ?

Many of us get this question as life unfolds. Why me? The intensity of this question becomes more when something unsettling happens. Is there something that can really settle? What is settlement? Is a good education to earn a good job and good money settlement? How good is good? I, sort of, get on an assembly line of life. After education, its job/business, then family, ageing parents, school going children, routine illnesses like BP, sugar, hypertension. If this is what our settled life is then I have serious questions (and you too have them.) This when unsettles in form of situations like a failure to crack-in into a new job, or distrust in business, your child’s tantrums, adolescent’s (mis)behaviour at home, a marital disturbance, a job loss or an angioplasty is when I ask a question “why me?”

That was only one dimension of “why me?” The other is, do I get this question when “all izzz well”? I.e. when existence showers me with good job, a good spouse, good food…? Have we asked this question “why me?” then? We say, I have struggled to get all this and I deserve it. The earlier “why me?” is disturbing, this one isn’t.

If I can look at “why me?” from both these angles with same intensity, it will bring about an equanimity in the perception. This is as against holding on to former “why me?” where actually its not “why me?” but “why not s/he?” or latter “I deserve it.” If there are more people saying “why me?” for same reason, they immediately bond. They all sympathize, cry and form an organization of “why me’s” and move together to find an answer.

The former “why me?” creates a vacuum and the latter one is an accumulation. We search for words that fill up the vacuum (by logic) like ‘I am good, still..’ or like. Mind manages this by ‘obvious’ blame game of using ‘other’ as the target. A material mind will rationalize this by saying ‘A better tomorrow is waiting for you.’ A philosophical mind will say ‘Existence knows better than you’ and fill up the vacuum. Both are escapes of confronting from the reality of “what is.”

The moment I see that there is no point in escaping and covering up the reality and learn to “be” the same question “why me?” can become the most out-of-mind experience with a drop of tear or two and a smile and you may again ask “why me?”; a different-why-me that mind can’t think of!

Satisfaction, the journey..

There are two types of satisfactions. One, where any question that arises in my mind is answered because of prior experience of similar type which could be extrapolated or intrapolated. Those answers are in the box of my education, my experience, my field of thoughts and my books. I feel satisfied and satiated with those answers. This satisfaction is of reaching destination. There is another type of satisfaction where the question that arises in my mind goes on the journey of an unknown. Those questions don’t carry the weight of all that I know. What I know is always with me but is weightless. Mind intervenes and clings to an answer, to what I know. I question that answer and journey of unknown begins again. This satisfaction is of being in the journey. Are we caught up in reaching destination and missing the fun in the journey?

Self in the Shelf

There was something about books. Their cover page, colours, author, subject, smell, size language, age, something that attracted me. It began with passion but got mixed up with infatuation. I collected books from Flora Fountain in Mumbai from roadside book shops. Slowly, the number of books started increasing. I started collecting them, didn’t read all of them. My ego about the number of books was inflating. I was becoming a subject matter expert (SME as they call it) in subjects that I read and spent time on. If I ask sincerely, what transformation have those books caused in me, I don’t find any concrete answer; its more towards no. Nevertheless, after reading the same book after a gap of 15-20 years the depth of the subject has definitely changed for me.

Books have had a great impact on my life but not so much to have caused a permanent impression on my personality. The like or dislike about authors/books rose like a wave and faded out. It was similar to watching a movie and then forgetting about it.

By seeing books in the bookshelf one definite thing is ‘I feel good!’ The meaning of these books are changing with time. Nothing surely changed in the book, what changed in me to have deepened the meaning? Can the meaning become infinitely deep? All the texts which are trying to describe deeper meaning of life have been interpreted millions of times by millions of people. If same text appears different to us at different time, its not surprising to have million interpretations of a same book in last 1000’s of years. I feel, we try to search our selves in those books. In addition to that external search of our self can we turn one page within? One page which completely describes ourselves as we are, maybe jealous, addicted, without accepting or denying it. “Just being.” It takes courage to look at our selves naked, as we are, without hiding fears and anxieties. If we can turn one such page of our own life in the book of our heart then there is a possibility of reaching the depth with which books in our shelves were written. You will not read then, you will drink the book, slowly. The words will go on a different journey in our being. You may laugh, you may cry with that book in front of you. The depth with which the author wrote and you read will be no different anymore. Can we look into one page out of 100’s that we are turning unconsciously in our daily lives? Then whether we have one huge personal library or not, it really doesn’t matter..