Shiva

Shiva was the husband of animals, for they knew who he was. Human minds were corrupted due to materialistic influences, which did not allow them to experience his divinity. Even in the presence of Krishna, Arjuna made a vow in the name of Shiva, not Krishna.... Hinting at the completeness of Shiva as the ultimate form in which God can be experienced on earth.

It is not about a comparison between who is superior.... Krishna one Shiva. It is just to understand that they have different roles. Krishna comes for the defense of Dharma. Shiva to be a beneficiary for whosoever wishes his favor, even if it be Ravan, as long as the penance pleases Shiva.

Om Namah Shivaya

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Location:Denning St,South Coogee,Australia

Judgement Day

May 21st 2011 was supposed to be judgement day. Perhaps Harold Camping did all his calculations right, but unfortunately all the world saw was a minor event like the eruption of Grimsvotn, Iceland's most active volcano. This natural event was followed by other minor signals like Missouri River's flood, or tornadoes in Massachusetts. These by themselves mean nothing, but when combined with the ripples of belief amongst believers that Khristos is back can be understood to be significant. The question then is, who and how many now believe that the anointed One (Khristos) is back? I believe that not many do. And I believe that too is according to plan.

If I were to look at this from an Indian perspective of Krishna's second coming, I would say that the rapture is about the chosen ones being given the signal that Khristos or Krishna is back. That receipt of this signal is all that the rapture is about. Its not that the chosen ones who are aware of his presence on earth are supposed to be announcing it on the newspapers or to everyone they know. That is not how the divine plan works. The divine plan works slowly and steadily so that Krishna would be given a chance to differentiate the believers from the disbelievers - and to give the disbelievers some explanations and chances to believe before starting the holy war to make the world a better place.

So even if Krishna or Khristos did reappear on earth on May 21st, I think it will be a long time before the media picks up on this. For if it did, then it would be against the divine plan. But again, nothing can go against that, which is not planned by the divine planner!

I would just say, I am seeing signs that he is back. Keep looking attentively, and maybe you will too! Let me know if you see things slowly changing for the better around those who believe, and not for those who don't. I think that should be a sign.

Till I write again!

Welcome to my reopened blog

I've been holed in trying to complete a PhD and find a job for a long time. I've finally decided to write again, if I pass my dissertation defense tomorrow. So please pray that I do!

Write my next blog tomorrow if your prayers for me work!

Yours,
Konark

Karma

Our gateway to achievement, fulfillment, and service to others is our profession. That's why people give us money to do what we do. That's why currency can buy food, housing, cars, computers, and everything else in the world. We build products and services that others get utility from, and in return we are able to ask for products and services from others.

Business, in that sense, is a spiritual activity. Those who serve the most will be considered the greatest. Maybe that prophecy is coming true today, with business at the forefront and successful businessmen becoming the role models of people in the modern world.

Yes, business requires one to be street smart, cost cutting, revenue enhancing, customer weakness exploiting, but these are superficial things, compared to the real happiness and utility that successful companies create for people. Imagine what the world today would be without Windows, Apple, Google, or Facebook? What would people do? Writing this post and making it available to readers would take ages.

There are small cons to learning to be good business persons, but the understanding that the customer needs to be understood, and served, and satisfied, and retained by giving the perception of fairness, and honesty is a great lesson. A lesson many religions wanted to teach but could not. That job is now the domain of business schools. Religions tend to teach ways of service that might be outdated, and much less pragmatic in the modern world.

To the great things that business can achieve, and to the right attitude to look at business that business schools can impart, I dedicate this post.

Carl Jung

The dream of the great psychiatrist Carl Jung was nothing less than analyzing the mythology of world civilization and using it to chart out the characteristics of the human mind and the common consciousness we share in families, communities, countries, religions, and of the species as a whole.

He believed that Mythology and Religion was a projection of the common unconscious of the humans who shared beliefs. Jesus then would be the symbol of unconditional love and forgiveness that somewhere is present in all our minds.... which lead the Indians to put up a non-violent fight against the British. Prophet Mohammad would then be the symbol of the warrior of justice who is present in us all, which lead Joan of Arc to lead an army to victory. Krishna then would be the philosopher in all of us who chooses to rationalize everything he sees and experiences without considering anything a miracle or considering everything a miracle.

The great wars of the Mahabharata, of the Ramamyana, the trials of Hercules, the Trojan War and all the other war stories would be the representation of the eternal fight of Good over Evil. The evil powerful man comes and lusts for the most beautiful woman of the world, who is either Sita or Draupadi or Helen or someone else. The villain captures her and takes her away, or insults her gravely. The hero, who starts with little but courage, intelligence, will power, and a belief in goodness, leads a long battle till he finally triumphs against evil. Lives of loved ones are lost in the process. But the war is always won by the Good. And the most beautiful woman of the world is often the one whose will is done.

The second coming of Jesus, the advent of Imam Mahidi, the incarnation of Krishna, the advent of the Buddha as Maitreyi, all are dreams of one person who walks on the earth and is wise enough to unite all cultures and end the wars and miseries happening in the world today.

Carl Jung believed that all of us, somewhere unconsciously, want this to happen. For Good to win over Evil. To be guided by a great man to the end of this current unhappiness that we see in the world. He dreamed that this was not just a dream. That somewhere deep down inside, we humans are hardwired to think like this.

To that hardwiring in all of us, I pray. One day, seek in yourself the hero who is the second coming of Jesus, of Krishna, of Buddha, of Mohammad, or of anyone else you admire and want to be like. Be the person you want to be. Strive to bring about the change you want to see. Fight for what you believe in. Dedicate your life to a cause that you believe in. Live not with regrets of a great life that could have been lived. Live the great life. Or die a glorious death. Let your dream kill you. But never kill your dream.

Adam Smith

Adam Smith was the dreamer of the metaphor of the "The Invisible Hand". He envisioned the ultimate balancer in society, an invisible hand which ensured that everyone working according to fulfill their own innermost needs, interests, desires, or dreams, would in-effect promote the good of the society at large as well. He wanted to believe that the maximum happiness of the each individual can be aggregated to get the maximum happiness of society.

I do believe he himself did not realize how real the invisible hand could be. That even in the absence of an effective and efficient regulatory system to ensure that the more powerful players in the economy do not exploit the less powerful ones, the invisible hand will ensure that balance reappears in society. The current crisis is an example of the existence this "Invisible Hand" ... or of "Divine Justice" as Warren Buffet calls the crisis.

Why is this "Divine Justice"? Isn't that a sadistic view of looking at the world, with so much unemployment and pain right now? Maybe it is. But balance is the fundamental truth of the world. And any system that tries to pursue a strategy of imbalance, over-spending, over-leverage etc etc, will have to bear pain when the "Invisible Hand of Balance and Equilibrium" enforces itself. The means is painful if the force of imbalance is stubborn, as was the case with the Mamomths of Wall Street.

Applying what the Buddha said: the cause of imbalance in the case of the markets is incomplete knowledge about the markets. Now that we have learnt about the incomplete knowledge of Wall Street and taken its leaders down from the pedestals of the Omniscient Finance Wizards who we can trust with all our money, we are in a position to move toward more balanced financial strategies... if we are wise enough to follow a balanced path this time. Time will tell what the people of the world decide for themselves the next time around: Balance of Imbalance? And thus time will tell whether the "Invisible Hand" decides to bless us or to punish us the next time around.

Gautam Buddha

1. Imbalance exists. In the mind, in the body, in our personal relationships, in our professional life, in our social life, and in society at large.
2. The cause of imbalance is incomplete knowledge
3. The reason for incomplete knowledge is clinging to outdated forms of thinking or the impatience to enjoy life without caring about the right way of doing things
4. Incomplete knowledge can be overcome and Balance can be achieved

In Summary, that is the philosophy of the most influential Indian known to have physically walked the earth.

The path he showed to achieve the balance and overcome incomplete knowledge is the Eight-fold path:
Balanced knowledge, Balanced thought, Balanced speech, Balanced action, Balanced livelihood, Balanced effort, Balanced mindfulness, and Balanced concentration.

In my mind, the goal of complete knowledge does not mean that we know everything. Or that we believe in things told to us, but which are not in accordance with our experiences in reality. It just means that we try to balance what we know by studying about its inverse. For example if we know too much about science, we should study religion and vice versa. The eight paths of knowledge today can described as: Natural Science, Mathematics, Psychology, Economics, Literature & Art, History, Sociology, and Religion. In today's day and age, many more subjects can be added to say that we truly has balanced knowledge about the world. A balanced knowledge of such subjects will give us the wisdom to live our lives in t he most balanced manner and achieve the state of eternal inner peace that many of us strive for.

Harry Markowitz

The Father of Modern Portfolio Theory, and the use of diversification in Finance. Today, we can't imagine Finance without complicated mathematics in each page we read. At his time, his chose to apply mathematics to the Stock Market as the topic for his dissertation (I wish I could get a PhD for that today - unfortunately they will kick me out of the program if I suggest such a mammoth topic today).

Markowitz wanted to model risk in stock markets and used the central mathematical concept that defines most of Finance theory today: Maximize the average return of the portfolio, while minimizing the variance of the portfolio. This in effect lead to the famous theory of CAPM: All you need to consider while adding a stock to your portfolio is the amount of systematic risk that you are adding. If you are well-diversified then the idiosyncratic risk does not matter.

Through Markowitz, I see the ultimate dream of Krishna taught to the world of scientists and engineers. The Power of Diversification. For everything in Krishna's life and song is diversified. A God with 16,108 wives surely believed that marrying just one woman has too much risk attached to it and so kept adding wives to his portfolio till no single woman's idiosyncrasies could affect him. Only if all the woman got together to protest against him will he ever have a day in his life when he wants sex but cannot get it. The probability of that seems pretty low. That is the central message of Krishna's love life, and of Markowitz's portfolio management, the only difference being is that sex and a portfolio of women in my example, is replaced with consumption/returns/money and a portfolio of stocks. Maybe that is why we refer to Money as like a Wife in Hindu Mythology.

I deeply believe that Diversification is the central concept of Hindu Philosophy. After all, we are said to have 330 million gods. Irrespective of the trouble you are in, I am sure one of the 330 million might be able to help you as an incarnation of either your father or mother or sister or brother or friend or teacher or neighbor or co-worker or someone else. For everyone is an incarnation of God as well, according to the diversified Hindu.

If Hinduism is updated, I am sure that the writer will add the Torah, the Quran, the Bible, the texts of science and all other non-fiction texts to the concept of Hinduism. That only will diversify away the risk of the belief in the non-existence of God. For even if you study relativity, you are just worshiping God Einstein then; who in turn is just an incarnation of the All Mighty Allah. If you study diversification in finance, then you are just worshiping God Markowitz, who again is just an incarnation of God David.

With this dream of Krishna and Markowitz, that humans learn the benefits of diversification and pray to anything and everything that works in nature, I end my post with a prayer:

Om Namah Newtonaay
Om Namah Einsteinaay
Om Namah Markowitzaay
Om Namah Freudaay
Om Namah Nobelaay
Om Namah Gatesaay
Om Namah Buffetaay
Om Namah Jesusaay
Om Namah Mohammadaay
Om Namah Davidaay
Om Namah Shivaay

OM TAT SAT

Martin Luther King, Jr

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."

"Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children."

"Let freedom ring. And when this happens, and when we allow freedom to ring—when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children—black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics—will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

In Martin Luther King, Jr I see the power of dreams themselves.... and of giving a genuine voice to those dreams. For Obama, whose name literally means 'The Blessed One', is a sign that King's dream is becoming a reality.

“Since being in India, I am more convinced than ever before that the method of nonviolent resistance is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for justice and human dignity. In a real sense, Mahatma Gandhi embodied in his life certain universal principles that are inherent in the moral structure of the universe, and these principles are as inescapable as the law of gravitation."

And in his endorsement of Gandhi, I see how truth knows no bounds of country, time, or character. For Gandhi's dream continues on through people in different countries who still fight for basic human dignity, while India and Indians stay bent upon dividing the country through religious riots, castism, reservation, and what not.

Krishna

"Your right is only to act intelligently as per the circumstances you face, not on the results of your actions. Do not think that you alone determine your destiny. And don't delude yourself by thinking that your own actions are not caused by force much greater than you yourself" - The Central Message of Krishna's Song: The Bhagvat Gita.

In Krishna, the lover, the charioteer and mastermind of the great war of the Mahabharata, the teacher, and the politician, I see the manifestation of the entire body of Vedic Knowledge. The knowledge that says that we humans ourselves are nothing but biological machines that act on the inputs that we receive through our our eyes, ears, skin, nose, tongue; through the outputs mediums of voice and action. Our minds and intelligence are programmed by our genes, our parents, our friends our teachers, our culture, our media, and many other environmental factors. Our existence is a function of these influences on our body. Our experiences are the evolution of our body from the nothingness of a baby, to the achievement of an adult, and back to the nothingness of an aged person. That is life. Like it or not. That is who we are.

There is no difference between right or wrong, good or evil, energy or matter. They are all reflections of each other. Only those who have eaten the forbidden fruit of the knowledge of good and evil see a difference between the two. Those whose minds can see that at the speed of light all matter is actually energy.... or that at some other speed, all energy will be matter.... that everything that we observe is just because we as organisms are evolving and walking through the universe's matter-energy distribution... as a part of it... they can truly see. For them, war or peace, love or hate, God or Devil... nothing makes a difference anymore. That is the ultimate nirvana. The ultimate peace.

Externally there is no difference between one who has attained Nirvana and one who has not. But internally the one who has attained Nirvana is eternally happy and at peace with himself. Internal happiness and peace is the goal of all religions and practices. Therefore, O humans of the world, care not about which religion you were born with or what path you think is right to attain Nirvana. Just know that the ultimate goal of all religions is the state of inner peace called Nirvana and strive to achieve that inner peace and happiness.

That is what I understood from Krishna and his Gita. And that state of Nirvana is what I strive for everyday of my life.