How Buddha saved me!

I was heading the delivery unit of an IT company a few years ago. There is never a dull moment in IT companies – customer escalations, appraisals and wage revisions, resignations, client visits, P&L pressure et al – you are always on tenterhooks. You get so much used to these situations that anything less feels like boredom! As I was meandering through my daily chores, I received a call from my Country Manager in Singapore stating that I need to urgently travel to Singapore to meet a disgruntled client. Further enquiry revealed that the client wanted to sue us for a few million dollars, as contracted, due to a failed delivery. Now, that was not only disturbing but also something grave. We had implemented a e-procurement product for this client in their factory in Indonesia and as all start-up products are wont to, it failed to meet their overrated expectations. But my million-dollar question to the country manager was “Why me?” as I was a banker and had nothing to do with e-procurement! His response was a classic one which I had never heard before – he said “if you plead sincerely with the client, he would not proceed suing us!” I didn’t know that I was such a great ‘pleader.’

Not one to shirk responsibility, I took upon this onerous task of meeting the client in Singapore. I browsed through the manuals to get a hang of the product and spent a couple of days with the development team to know about the nuances of the product. My background in such processes in my earlier avatar in the US helped me ease my tension a bit. I reached Singapore and met the client manager Mr. Chang – an Indonesian Chinese. He briefly met me, was curt, unfriendly and dropped a bombshell that we were travelling to the factory in Indonesia the next day! I did not have an Indonesian visa and he promised that he would take me there without a visa in a steamer! I was dumbstruck and refused to budge as the prison cells of Indonesia danced before my eyes. Much to my surprise, he arranged for a visa in Singapore which was a feat in itself. Later, the following day, I, Mr. Chang and two of his colleagues embarked on our journey to Indonesia.

It was nothing short of an adventurous trip. First, we took a steamer and landed on the Indonesian soil after about 30 minutes. We then took a jeep ride for about 2 hours to another city. Mr. Chang, obviously upset with our company, was very aloof and detached – quite understandable. However unfriendly a group may be, when all are thrown in a group in a jeep with nothing else to do, you tend to start a conversation. By some quirk of fate, the conversation veered towards religion and I came to know that all the three of them were Buddhists. I casually asked them about the significance of the 4 noble truths propounded by Buddha. Surprisingly, they were not very well informed. Then I talked very eloquently about Buddha and how his principal teaching was in the 4 noble truths. They listened with rapt attention. They were under the impression that the 4 noble truths were very basic. I dispelled their notion with extensive quotes from the books / articles that I had read. They were quite surprised, to say the least. I talked to them about the American Buddhist Monk Ajahn Sumedho and his brilliant book as also about his master’s book ‘A Tree in a Forest’ by Ajahn Chah, a Buddhist Monk from Thailand.  Knowing that I was a practicing Hindu, they were astounded. I promised to send them links to these books. Their entire demenaour changed after this conversation.

On reaching our destination, we boarded a plane, travelled for another hour or so and then had a jeep ride for about 30 minutes and reached the factory in the middle of a forest. The team there was waiting for our arrival. We right away entered the meeting and the factory head, a lady Ms. Chin, was waiting anxiously and after a brief introduction shot a question at me in an exasperated voice, ‘You are the expert. Please tell us how to solve all our problems?  ‘Expert – me’ was the incredulous feeling that crossed my mind and as I was marshalling my thoughts how to respond, Mr. Chang jumped from his chair and said that as an expert I cannot answer all trivial things and that I would sit with the team, study all the problems and come up with a recommendation. What a relief – I did not see Mr. Chang, but I saw Buddha himself standing there! That gave me the necessary breathing space. Later on, I also came to know that Mr. Chang and Ms. Chin were at loggerheads. 

   

To cut the story short, I managed to gather all the issues, offered a few work arounds and generally managed to wriggle out of the situation. On return to Singapore, my good friend Ram prepared a brilliant presentation based on my inputs giving not one, but 4 different options to proceed. I went ahead and made this presentation to Mr. Chang and his team. He appeared reasonably convinced. Once I was done and about to leave, Mr. Vincent, Mr. Chang’s assistant, shook hands with me and told me in a whisper, “Mr. Ganesh, when Mr. Chang takes up an issue, he doesn’t rest till he sees blood. You are the first man to go scot free like this!” Mentally I profusely thanked Lord Buddha for his compassion and mercy on me!

Finally, the client made a settlement with us after we agreed for a small compensation and closed the project. How did the cantankerous Mr. Chang agree to this proposal – only Lord Buddha knows! And the moral of the story is, any knowledge, however trivial it may seem, will come in handy at some time one way or the other!  

  

Meaning of MY Life!

I was born on Teacher’s day – 5^th September, much to the delight of my parents and grandparents. My parents had three daughters, and as was the norm then, were happy to see a baby boy in the mix. My grandfather, who had built a Ganesha temple at our native village of Nerur, had just completed the ‘Kumbhabhishekam’ of that temple! Hence, he not only named me Ganesh, but asked a jeweler to open his shop and bought me a gold chain to adorn my waist! Like little Ganesha, I was a very naughty chap and my vague memory of my younger days were my periodical thrashings from my father and my fights with my immediate elder sister. My father, being in a place without much of schooling facility, sent me to a boarding school at the age of 6 or 7. I was reluctant to leave my mother and go but had no choice. Nevertheless, that experience of staying away from home at such a young age made me adjust to all situations and made we what people today call a ‘people magician’.

I rejoined my parents as they moved to a large city when I was in my 9^th grade. Teenage years were fun. All girls in the class looked ravishing beauties! Obviously, you have a crush on most of them. Outdoor games were the norm. My parents used to shout at us for being outdoors all the time. Cricket, Lagori, ball Badminton, Tennis – you name it, we played it all. We did not leave indoor games either. Life was a carefree endeavour without much thought about the ensuing day. Then came the time when we had to enter college. Only then I slowly realized that I must do well and get a job! That seemed to be the priority in life and the sole purpose at that point in time. My college mates were brilliant and you cannot be a duffer when the whole class oozes with brilliance. I did well in studies and got a probationary officer’s job in a Nationalized Bank – a prestige those days. My life’s ambition and purpose seemed to be over!

It was at this juncture, my brother-in-law introduced me to Vedanta lectures by a Swamiji of the Arsha Vidya Gurukulam founded by Swami Dayananda Saraswathi. These lectures, including topics like Bhagavad Gita, Mandukya Upanishad etc., gave a different perspective on life. It set me thinking and I attended more lectures including those by Swami Parthasarathy and a host of others. I read a lot of books on Vedanta and non-dual literature. I built a house, got married and had children – activities that most of us did as part of living. However, my value system had a solid foundation in our Vedic tradition.

My wife’s brother gifted me a book titled ‘COSMOS’ by Carl Sagan which rekindled my interest in Physics (though I was a honours student, I hardly knew Physics, but scored very high marks!). Being away in the US, without the family, helped me to read a lot of books on cosmology and Quantum Physics. On the one hand, the vast expanse of the empty space extending to billons of light years, accentuated our insignificance as a species. On the other, to know that the distant galaxies and we are made up of the same stuff, made my mind expand as vast as this Universe. I was often wonderstruck at the grandeur of creation. If this was macrocosm, the quantum physics was the microcosm. The concepts and discussions on reality seemed to be mind boggling! The modern scientific thoughts seem to be converging on what non-dual Advaita talked about thousands of years ago – Adi Sankara being the one who expounded it with his Bhashyas.

Once you are born, you have to die! That is the only thing that is certain. In between we live a life and as I had explained, go through various phases of life which has also been explained beautifully in the Sastras. The million-dollar question is, “Is there a purpose or meaning in life?” Great minds have discussed this over centuries. I am too small a person to attempt this. Nevertheless, I shall attempt to do so purely from MY perspective.

Sankara defines Reality at three levels. It must be understood that Reality is only one and for our easy understanding three different perspectives were discussed. For our present discussion, we shall restrict it to two. The first level is the ‘Vyavaharika Sathyam’ – transactional reality or empirical reality. This is what we experience as the phenomenal world of appearances that we take to be real. The subject-object duality. The other perspective is ‘Paramarthika Sathyam’ – Absolute Reality - which is the highest Truth or ONLY ontological reality – that is Brahman. 

From an Absolute Reality perspective, the entire creation of names and forms that we see are technically called “Mithya” – neither real or unreal and many times wrongly attributed as “illusory”. Then such a construct begs an answer to the question as to why this Absolute one appears as many? What is the purpose etc. Even the great Sankara answered that it is ‘anirvachaniya’ – inexplicable. Hence there is no point in discussing our life’s purpose from an absolute stand point.

However, our scriptures state that, as explained earlier, the world of pluralities is ‘Mithya” which is caused due to ‘Avidya’ or ignorance and our sole purpose in life is to transcend this ignorance through rigorous self-knowledge and become one with the Absolute. This is what modern Gurus call ‘Awakening’. However, most of us do not bother to go anywhere near such an endeavour, including yours truly except for feeble attempts from the periphery!

Hence for our discussion, coming down to our phenomenal world is more appropriate. Do I have a purpose in life? I have taken sessions to managers on Purpose and goals etc., But seriously come to think of it, life, in MY humble view, does not have any stated purpose. We lead a life, trying to be a good human being, socially responsible, being helpful to others, follow your ashrama dharma’s, take care of those who are less fortunate than you, pursue your passion etc., Pablo Picasso summed it up succinctly when he said,” The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to gift it away!” If we analyze life more than this, I feel that we cannot find any answers. Victor Frankl, a nazi camp survivor, wrote the classic ‘Man’s Search for meaning’ and he believes that individuals are strongly motivated to find meaning in their lives, understand the nature of their personal existence and feel it is significant and purposeful. I believe that it is very psychologically satisfying to feel so. All of us need to become, what modern Psychologists call, a ‘Self-actualized’ person.

However, I am a dreamer and philosopher at heart. I would go with Emerson, who said,

“To laugh often and much;

To win the respect of intelligent people and affection of Children;

To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;

To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others;

To leave the world a little bit better, by a healthy child,

A garden patch or redeemed social condition;

To know one life has breathed easier because you have lived;

This is to have succeeded.”

Nothing more, nothing less. I equate success with living.

Bertrand Russell one of the greatest thinkers of modern times talks about this very eloquently in his book “The conquest of Happiness” as follows:

“The happy man is the man who does not suffer from either of these two failures of unity, whose personality is neither divided against itself nor pitted against the world. Such a man feels himself a citizen of the universe, enjoying freely the spectacle it offers and the joys that it affords, untroubled by the thought of death because he feels himself not really separate from those who will come after him. It is in such profound instinctive union with the stream of life that the greatest joy is to be found”.

With such profound thoughts in the background, I go through life enjoying the spectacle it offers always believing that the Universe is unfolding as it should.

Despite all the trappings of success and achievements of the phenomenal world, the fundamental yearning for that limitless freedom and to be one with the Absolute will remain with us forever. It is simple yet not easy to achieve. There has to be an intense desire to achieve that in this lifetime followed by sustained efforts in that direction. Unfortunately, for most of us, neither the desire nor the efforts seem to be forthcoming. We seem to be contented with the fleeting joys and achievements of the empirical world!

As for me, I shall renew my attempts with more resolve and vigour, now that this question has been asked of me!