Chakravyuh, Labyrinth, World War 1, Financial Meltdown
11th April was another day having access to great learnings. Being a
Holiday in many offices in Mumbai on the eve of GudiPadwa [New Year], I
started late at 10 am and jumped into a Meru Cab parked in the
neighborhood. When smiles greet each other, the day has a different
meaning. Ashok Shukla is this mid-forties humble cabbie who readily
sports his thoughts with passengers.
He opened the innings by mentioning that he was reading a Hindi Novel “Mein Banoonga Kalyug ka Abhimanyu” (I will be the Abhimanyu this Dark Age). He went on to describe the protagonist in the novel who resolves to fight despite limited wherewithal-knowledge because he knows that challenge-and-response is central to human life.
We volleyed the discussion around the analogy in finer details. It’s a great coincidence that Great Epic Mahabharata’s “Chakravyuh” has similarity to “Labyrinth”(Unicursal Maze…One Way Movement) described with Greek Mythological characters Daedalus-Minos. Both ‘Chakravyuh” & “Labyrinth” were seven step structures built to cause a “sure-death” trap. Once inside, only a few enlightened souls could escape it while everybody else would succumb to running around in the maze thinking they are constantly moving towards freedom-achievement-success-attainment. This tastes pretty much a recipe of most people’s life.
While both “Chakravyuh” & “Labyrinth” have incredible number of lessons, we will pick up just one of them to relate it to two events which frame recent hundred years history and map the complete global geography.
Gallipoli Peninsula also known as Battle of Gallipoli was one of the Allies great disasters in World War One (1914). Gallipoli was the plan thought up by Winston Churchill to end the war early by creating a new war front that the Central Powers could not cope with. Malcolm Gladwell [Writer of NY Bestseller “Tipping Point”] recounts in a public lecture that this loss was directly attributed to “over-confidence” of the British Army. The “Known” and “over-confidence of the known” became the enemy of the British Army as they didn’t realize that the world is dynamic and it changes too.
Coming back to the last decade, almost everybody laughed off Nassim Nicholas Taleb [Author of Black Swan and Fooled by Randomness] and Nouriel Roubini [Economist] for warning the world of the looming Financial Collapse. But the trappings of the exotic financial instruments looked comfortably manageable to the Public & Private Sector Financial Leaders. The “Known” and “Over-confidence of the Known” led to a global disaster where the financial instrument designers-dealers had the illusion of control over the “known” and “Unknown”. Nassim in his continued discourse has been extremely vocal about the inability to measure-budget some very imminent but unfathomable factors that affect our daily lives.
What is distinctly clear from “Chakravyuh”, “Labyrinth”, “Gallipoli” & “Financial Meltdown” is that everybody is lured to the idea of “my knowledge is adequate or I know it enough”. Also once one is inside this knowldege, the limitation of one’s knowledge is hugely tested with the unknown pathways one encounters. However if one over confides only in his knowledge [“all that is to be known is known by me already”] and loses the rigor of continuous learning then it leads to magnified illusion. What results then only helps cement the age-old phrase “History Repeats Itself”.
Simple Lessons:
1. What is Known by Humans is only a small single digit percentage of all of the Existence. This statement is attested by both Scriptures & Science.
2. “Known” should not bind but liberate…in other words as of Shiva Sutras ‘Jnanam Bandhanam”…Knowledge has a tendency of binding. By carrying along “curiosity of a child” one can continuously learn and ever-move in direction of knowledge and eternal knowledge.
3. Knowledge is Social Property as it is built on the humungous churning-passage during umpteen generations. None of us invented the language, none of us developed the intelligence of the brain-sensory organs. We may rearrange the knowledge in a manner different from the earlier and claim patent or copyright but I believe that we can’t afford to pay the royalties of language & human intelligence. Hence the pricing of such knowledge should be sober and in a manner accessible to all in the society.
Happy View. Happy Chakravyuh.
He opened the innings by mentioning that he was reading a Hindi Novel “Mein Banoonga Kalyug ka Abhimanyu” (I will be the Abhimanyu this Dark Age). He went on to describe the protagonist in the novel who resolves to fight despite limited wherewithal-knowledge because he knows that challenge-and-response is central to human life.
We volleyed the discussion around the analogy in finer details. It’s a great coincidence that Great Epic Mahabharata’s “Chakravyuh” has similarity to “Labyrinth”(Unicursal Maze…One Way Movement) described with Greek Mythological characters Daedalus-Minos. Both ‘Chakravyuh” & “Labyrinth” were seven step structures built to cause a “sure-death” trap. Once inside, only a few enlightened souls could escape it while everybody else would succumb to running around in the maze thinking they are constantly moving towards freedom-achievement-success-attainment. This tastes pretty much a recipe of most people’s life.
While both “Chakravyuh” & “Labyrinth” have incredible number of lessons, we will pick up just one of them to relate it to two events which frame recent hundred years history and map the complete global geography.
Gallipoli Peninsula also known as Battle of Gallipoli was one of the Allies great disasters in World War One (1914). Gallipoli was the plan thought up by Winston Churchill to end the war early by creating a new war front that the Central Powers could not cope with. Malcolm Gladwell [Writer of NY Bestseller “Tipping Point”] recounts in a public lecture that this loss was directly attributed to “over-confidence” of the British Army. The “Known” and “over-confidence of the known” became the enemy of the British Army as they didn’t realize that the world is dynamic and it changes too.
Coming back to the last decade, almost everybody laughed off Nassim Nicholas Taleb [Author of Black Swan and Fooled by Randomness] and Nouriel Roubini [Economist] for warning the world of the looming Financial Collapse. But the trappings of the exotic financial instruments looked comfortably manageable to the Public & Private Sector Financial Leaders. The “Known” and “Over-confidence of the Known” led to a global disaster where the financial instrument designers-dealers had the illusion of control over the “known” and “Unknown”. Nassim in his continued discourse has been extremely vocal about the inability to measure-budget some very imminent but unfathomable factors that affect our daily lives.
What is distinctly clear from “Chakravyuh”, “Labyrinth”, “Gallipoli” & “Financial Meltdown” is that everybody is lured to the idea of “my knowledge is adequate or I know it enough”. Also once one is inside this knowldege, the limitation of one’s knowledge is hugely tested with the unknown pathways one encounters. However if one over confides only in his knowledge [“all that is to be known is known by me already”] and loses the rigor of continuous learning then it leads to magnified illusion. What results then only helps cement the age-old phrase “History Repeats Itself”.
Simple Lessons:
1. What is Known by Humans is only a small single digit percentage of all of the Existence. This statement is attested by both Scriptures & Science.
2. “Known” should not bind but liberate…in other words as of Shiva Sutras ‘Jnanam Bandhanam”…Knowledge has a tendency of binding. By carrying along “curiosity of a child” one can continuously learn and ever-move in direction of knowledge and eternal knowledge.
3. Knowledge is Social Property as it is built on the humungous churning-passage during umpteen generations. None of us invented the language, none of us developed the intelligence of the brain-sensory organs. We may rearrange the knowledge in a manner different from the earlier and claim patent or copyright but I believe that we can’t afford to pay the royalties of language & human intelligence. Hence the pricing of such knowledge should be sober and in a manner accessible to all in the society.
Happy View. Happy Chakravyuh.
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