Category Archives: Search for truth

Absolute non-duality, Advait, Search for truth, Spiritual journey, Truth

Mind the three T’s!

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by Naresh Jotwani and K. M. Chandrashekharan

Naresh Jotwani:

(1) In the age of the ancient Rishis, spiritual knowledge was imparted by Rishis to small groups of disciples. Few means of transportation and communication were available, and therefore the education must have proceeded without distraction.

(2) Today, educational institutes, run by highly business- oriented managements, impart education to millions, all of whom have the primary objective of learning how to earn. At the same time, means of transportation, communication and entertainment are all-persavive, resulting in all kinds of distractions during student life.

If truth and the search for truth are essential in any healthy society, what do the above two observations imply?

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Dharma, Harmony, Search for truth, Spiritual journey, Truth

Honest exchange #1

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between Naresh Jotwani and Jayram Daya

Naresh Jotwani:

Namaste, Jayrambhai!

I summarise my views on Advaita very briefly, as follows:

(1) I believe firmly in the truth of Advaita, and like to conduct my life — to the extent that is possible! — in consonance with Advaita. 

(2) For that reason, I am extremely sceptical about anyone claiming ‘God-given’ rights or ‘God-given’ identity. Very often, ‘God-given’ rights exclude totally any matching ‘God-given’ duties and responsibilities! In other words, ‘God’ is defined by people merely to suit their needs and instincts. 

(3) A broadly accepted list of virtues in our tradition is this:  generosity, morality, renunciation, wisdom, perseverance, forbearance, truthfulness, determination, love and equanimity.

I take these virtues as being universal, and respect greatly any tradition which regards these virtues as primary — whether or not the tradition claims to be blessed by a ‘God’. 

(4) In ‘materialistic pursuit’, many wrong actions are justified in the name of ‘God’, ‘manifest destiny’ … or some other BS. 

I would appreciate very much your views on this broad topic.

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Dharma, Harmony, Search for truth, Spiritual journey, Universe

WHY NOW?

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by R. Srinivasan and Jayram Daya

R. Srinivasan:

My question is: Why do our thoughts on life, death and other spiritual issues crop up only when we grow old, and usually face a health crisis? Then we start wondering about the futility of life’s material pursuits. Why are we born, only to die eventually? What is the reason for the life-death cycle in this universe in the first place? What is its purpose? 

I share my thoughts and questions here as a seeker of truth. I have been exposed to many views on this subject, starting from my childhood, and through reading and listening to our traditional philosophy. But I am still asking this basic question again and again, without attaining clarity in my mind.

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Happiness, Help, Life, Search for truth, Spirit

Help someone in distress … But HOW?

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by Ashok Saraf, Tapasya Kollimarla, Keshav Vaze, Jayram Daya, Naresh Jotwani

Distress can be of different kinds. It may arise due to material needs not being fulfilled, or from situations beyond one’s control, such as acts of nature. Distress may be due to a man-made situation, like a conflict or an accident. Or it may arise from  emotional stress, such as fear of failure, loss of a near one, illness, heart-break or a negative emotion.

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Civilization, Life, Search for truth, Time, Truth

RIGHT ON TIME

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by Naresh Jotwani

A recent post on this blog, Time as a Resource, showed that time is a crucial resource in business management. Like any other valuable resource, time must be utilized in an optimal manner. As a short and sweet summary of that post, we repeat here the line from Peter Drucker with which that post started:

Until we can manage time, we can manage nothing else.

However, as we shall now show, there is much, much more to time than what we encounter in our busy worldly lives. When we logically explore various aspects of the lived human experience of time, we are led to conclusions which have a huge impact on the values by which we order and live our lives.

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Happiness, Individual, Life, Search for truth, Truth

MEMBER STORIES

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Today we present contributions from three of our members, Suman Rao, R. Srinivasan and Naresh Jotwani. The common aim of these pieces is to bring out the fascinating relationship between the truths we seek within, and the lives we live in the world outside. We believe that sincere, first person accounts of good friends are at least as valuable as scriptures.

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Karma, Life, Philosophy, Search for truth, Spiritual journey

KARMA 101

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by SUMAN SATISHCHANDRA RAO, GUEST AUTHOR

[Our previous post (here) contained only the introductory part of Suman’s article on Karma. This is the full article.]

Karma is the all-encompassing concept of action and reaction in a continuous chain in time and space. It is inclusive of causality as conceived in Science. It includes the effects of grief, hurt and wounds caused to ‘another’ or ‘others’. That is nothing but insecurity playing upon the ego which is nothing but false sense of separation. Until the ego with its limited contents of consciousness drops its limited identity and becomes one with all, through repeated experiences of samadhi, this sense of separation continues and actions are of a mixed nature.

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Karma, Life, Philosophy, Search for truth, Spiritual journey

CAUSALITY OR KARMA?

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The co-editors of this blog, Srinivasan and Naresh, have also been running a WhatsApp group named seeker-of-root-causes. Occasionally, a question or a statement is posed to group members, to which members are invited to respond with their own views.

The practical context and significance of today’s topic will be established by this first-person, true life account submitted by Srinivasan:

My own experiences have taught me the enormous scope of karma in practical life, and totally ingrained the concept in my psyche. I will cite just one specific instance here.

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Life, Management, Politics, Psychology, Search for truth

MOTIVES, MOTIVES!

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Last week, Srini discussed ‘politics of management’. Clearly, almost every agent in that kind of a political environment has hidden motives, or personal agenda. An agent’s personal agenda must be kept hidden, quite simply because it is not aligned with organizational goals; discussing it openly would let the cat out of the bag – and allow others to plot against it.

Srini made it clear that one learns about such politics only when one gets into the real word – which is where one runs into conflicting human motives. Text-book knowledge of management principles cannot impart the valuable lessons which real life experience does. In text-books, human beings are assumed to take up some idealized roles – as ‘director’, ‘manager’ … and so on. Real human emotions and motives cannot be captured in text-books.

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Civilization, Happiness, Karma, Life, Search for truth

The Four-stage Roadmap

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by Naresh Jotwani

[Important note: In this post, the notation ‘H/SD’ is used as shorthand for ‘Hinduism/Sanatan Dharma‘, which are the two commonly used references to the vast ancient spiritual heritage of India.]

In print or electronic media, we often see language such as: ‘According to the concepts of H/SD, the four stages of human life are Brahmacharya, Gruhastha, Vanaprastha, Sanyasa.’

Such language carries a risk of erroneous understanding. ‘H/SD’ does not coerce or urge a person to behave in a certain way, or to plan his life in prescribed stages. It is entirely up to the individual – through his wisdom, or lack thereof – to understand and cherish human life the best he can. Truths do guide the individual – but only to the extent he finds and assimilates them.

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