BlissTarang

let me stop my mechanic-mechanical self for sometime ringing the five sense bells separately clothing close the visual bell, it doesn't ring anymore, gatekeeping the sound bell, distinct sounds allowing entry to few, only emergency can gatecrash, else trying a smooth usher ... crow rows car honk and some car monk construction material mixer mixing sounds of different earth kitchen becoming a sound studio, many instruments and notes playing to the taste ... all sounds arising and falling and arising again and falling again, only continuity in the "again" many agains gain a pattern they enter the mind cosmos inside there is a festival of the manifested new entrants always first greeting the primed...the familiar inside, much like we going to a party, first reaching out to people we know, and then somehow most times and most us not reaching the new ones, afraid of the unknown as it is not our own ... (m)any known dancing together ...

Indian Philosophy is referred to as "Darshan Shastra" ...meaning to see...hence "seer"-ship...optical correction, perception correction, belief correction. What even Buddhism refers to as 'Eho pasiko"...come and see for yourself. Perception hence perspective change leads to happy-healthy-together possibilities. Happy Dussehra. Happy Opt.

Blame is the ability to delegate the responsibility to someone else. While delegation is good, owning mistakes is better that leads to character building...world is looking for authentic humans. Also in case, where there is not enough data to prove the error or mistake, its better to seek more information. In any case, its better to keep the situation as the focal point of discussion and not the person. After all, we are all work-in-progress (WIP) and human life is summed up as the journey from WIP to RIP. Its been proven by scriptures and science alike, that keeping oneself off from the blame game is a good healthy-happy sport. While the title appears to only talk about India, its a symbolic representation of humanity in general and extends beyond the geographic parochialism of the crisis.

Whether it scapes our attention or escapes our attention, we are always playing the "now". Maybe, we heavily host the past or lean to future, hence crowd out the  expansive "being" awareness. Playing "Now" through several contemplative tools like mindfulness/meditation, enables the moral compass + creativity sparkplug.

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The current Alibaba IPO sparked another round of discussions amongst thinkers on the future of ecommerce. While scale seems to be the name of the game for players like Amazon, EBay and Alibaba, some thinkers have already started to call them too big to dance and perhaps too vulnerable. Commerce 3.0 will continue with more scale and some verticalization niche play. An interesting flux seems to be brewing whereby there is a slow but sure spark of hobbyist entrepreneurs (with 70% employees across corporations being disengaged and now looking for new jobs or self employment-The Taos Institute). Plus the sure emergence of contemplative or wisdom living through concepts like conscious capitalism and mindfulness. The following may be the construction materials of Commerce 4.0: 1. Entrepreneur: Conscious Social Capitalist & Hobbyist 2. Financiers: Crowdfunding 3. Employees: Hobbyists 4. Vendors: Conscious Social Capitalist & Hobbyist 5. Customers: Mindfulness...

Our research and reflection of 120+ thinkers across quantum science, social construction, positive psychology, sports psychology, neuroscience, scriptural research, justice system, etc reveals that point A & B mentioned in the following two slides, would reduce the chances of cancer and also a lot many ailments. Incidentally it will also help improve Enterprise Value (EV) of the individual and the institution in the long run. The above zones of (A)* and (B)** also has potential to improve the enterprise value (EV) in the long run. Happy Hunting Malignant. Happy Seeding Benignant.

Next time when people say "Yes", beware !!! A latest study amongst the best employers of the world suggests that "Yes" has become a commodity. It isn't a customized response. So why have employees stopped saying "No". Well! "Yes" seems to have survival advantage...or so it seems ** . "No" as an answer or response can't be tolerated by many listener. The proverbial turn towards the "yes" lane or the "no" lane comes at the crossroad of reason and faith. The team-lead or manager would walk in and want accomplice. Hence reason is fired !!!! But the "Yes" so achieved is the tip of the iceberg. The underlying/invisible part of the iceberg is a big "doubt" or a "no". And this "no" or "doubt" keeps the water (feeling) engaged in coil and boil thus preparing for a volcano. Politics (Poll by an Ivy League US University), Disengagement (Gal...

Great Epic Mahabharata offers lessons in excellence on life's battlefield. Do Corporate go through Mahabharata?  Yes.  And interestingly the biggest battle of a corporate is not outside of the organization, albeit it's in the inside of the organization. Mirror Mirror? Who amongst of Mktg / HR / IT / SCM / F&A / Sales is Imp of them all? This question is celebrating 104 mn weeks jubilee on human thought screen. Just that this dispute was called  the varna systems as per Vedic traditions or the city-state-soldier analogy as per Aristotle. Circa Corporate Age. HR says they are important because its all about people. Marketing says they are important because its all about perception. F&A says they are important because its all about the money. SCM says they are important because its all about the matter...its optimized movement. Operations says they are important because its all about true karma (actual labor). CRM says...

70/365/24/7 Online. (70 yrs avg age: WHO) . That's human. Occupied all the time. Occupied in mining memories, playing sensories, rearranging materials, influencing minds. By now, we have reached an age of information obesity. Hence each of us have to be sense-making very fast, at a huge scale...meaning almost industrial mode. Sense-making is on an industrial mode. Is industrial mode good? Lets peep at one of our age-old & tasty occupations. Food. Cooking. Eating. Michael Pollan is a contemporary thinker on food and culture. Studying treatment of food...from its raw consumption era to industrial cooking era. Seeing four distinct evolution in human history. 1st:  Raw food meets fire. 2nd: Raw food meets water heating. 3rd:  Raw food meets air baking. 4th:  Raw food meets earth fermentation. Optimizing & Balancing effort, taste and nourishment. Delivering health for a long time. Somewhere in 1950s, World War 2 technologies started entering ...

Peter Senge: Top 25 Management Gurus:  "My intuition is they (India and China) will move somewhat together but in very distinctive ways. But I think the thing that will be really common to both of them will be the fact that they won't be able to do this without reconnecting their heritage. They will have to develop a confidence that they can do this as Indians and they can do this as Chinese. They have learnt a lot from the West but they don't have to copy, they cannot create a Chinese or Indian version of a Western model. The Western model itself is basically bankrupt. It does not give enough attention to the human side of development." End of Quote. Is strategy required if everything was in abundance? I guess the answer is "No". One factor about strategy is that it has to be applied to aspects / things that are "limited/finite". It could be time, space and matter. Is strategy required if everybody knew what was to be done? ...

On last Thursday, I was having a word with the Asia Pac Head of a successful company. Our discussions strolled the sticky aisles of office politics. Why is it so widespread across corporate? Our boots went into the history first. The original definition of the word "politics" was about its ability to influence community. Meaning that, (a) every human interacts with other humans, and (b) in doing so, influences each other. The quality of influence is always towards a goal. The goal is either self-serving or serving a community or a beautiful combination of both. It would be visible in interactions/influence, whether the influencer (any human) is operating from centers of half-knowledge, ego, jealousy, unbridled desire, insecurity on one hand or from compassion, friendliness, joy, discretion on the other hand. Coming back to corporate. Corporate is its "collective "will"" vs its "collective won't". Every employee ...

Place, Chandigarh (North India) Almost three years ago. Upon an afternoon, the sun was pouring scorchy heat. I met a very old age fakir. He was on his long continuous wander. But he still made a stop, for giving mould to my amoebic curiosity about life. He immersed me in a true story about another fakir ... dating back hundreds of years The fakir in the narrated story was simply interested in visiting banks. He would walk and walk and walk And just go and spend months along several banks. Only that these banks were the banks of and along the small rivers. The fakir mentioned that the river banks used to be great teachers of human condition. These river banks were constantly in liquidity position (water+mineral deposits) as the human inhabitants engrossed in eco-friendly occupations, thus ensuring nature's repletion cycle. These banks ensured self-moderation in humans, because only through right conduct with other co-habitants that bred trust, it ens...

I went to a retail format over the weekend. Management chaos + Chaos Management at its feed-forward-back best. Product Categories clubbed and displayed separately. Having different brands and SKUs. However different products and brands have error-full placements. Brands don't talk to each other as they are in competition. Brands & Product Categories have no collaboration. Each brand and product category shouting loud to get attention and stamp of approval. Because the more attention and approvals they get from customer, they have a life of moving higher on the shelves and even occupying larger real estate in the store. Product categories range across Maslow's Hierarchy or Vedic Purusharth, from utilities' product to actualization-positioned- products. Cut this to corporate now. Individual employees are brands. Corporate Departments are product categories. Hierarchy of Trainees to Leadership are the Maslow's Hierarchy...Leaders here have a job. Job of m...

An attempt to draw semblance to two popular modern principles of management (by Jim Collins of Built-to-Last & Good-to-Great fame) and happiness (Dr Martin Seligman- Speaker/Consultant to UK & Australia Government on Happiness Index) with ancient wisdom. There is sure overlap even between these five concepts if one spends just two minutes to understand. "Money makes the world go around" is a popular saying. And its also visible that the set of values nursed by capitalism/free market economies also become people's own set of values in almost all walks of life. Hence if corporate sector is able to bring a shift in their consciousness, it will have tremendous impact on the society. Last decade saw some organizations dip into their existence and trying to find meanings...deeper meanings. And this led to several functions of the organizations also following suit...marketing, finance, etc. However, most organizations are still trying to wink and s...

Monday Blues, Pink Slip, Dark Gloom, Red Face, Pale Heart .... Wow...we surely play a lot with colors. And as a race, we invite so many of them in different hues. Its just that in these cases, the colors mark difficult mind conditions or diseased body conditions. Whats with green that can savior these conditions? Lets turn our attention to two really good thinkers of our times: Dr Dean Ornish: "Best food is the third world food". [Dean Michael Ornish is a physician and president and founder of the nonprofit Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, California, as well as Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco . He was also special advisor to USA President Bill Clinton] Michael Pollan: "Cook more at home" Michael Pollan is an American author, journalist, activist, and professor of journalism at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. A 2006 New York Times book review describes him as a ...

Very often we aren't comfortable with our own presence, because we want to be some other place or shape or form...jumping inside, feeling leashed. Sangeeta was "ease" on that Thursday afternoon. Being in-charge of corporate communications of a large communications company, she has been situated with meeting a lot of people...thousands of them. While still at her ever expanding role, and exploding for the last two years ... paving the human minds and realizing its fragility has been her course of warm inquiry. She has been on a self-referential journey to discover human purpose and meaning. She would consistently spend time reviewing the performance of her day/week, and humbly taking up many daily tiny chores for physical fitness. We sat down and began rearranging each other's minds. While we toured the topography of many a topics, one is what I would love to share...its around "belief". She lighted the word "belief" with t...

"The success of an intervention depends on the interior condition of the intervenor"- quote by Bill O'Brien, CEO of Hanover Insurance, One of Top 10 Underwriting Companies. Otto Scharmer, Chair of Presencing Institute - Massachusetts Institute of Technology / MIT, would quote Bill O'Brien several times across his presence over many multi-stakeholder initiatives. He has had vast experience working with businesses, government and social organizations. In one of Otto Scharmer's recent dialogue with the Dalai Lama where he quoted the above and explained further the insight that, because people's consciousness or attention is at different scale, it automatically blocks collaboration in meetings and/or initiatives. In fact it leads to humungous confusions, private agendas and loss of opportunity. It isn't difficult to see this on an everyday basis whether its the USA Government lock-down just some months back or the quality of debate on n...

Deliberately delaying one's candidature for any event/gratification in the day helps build character because it tests one's abilities against the factor of crunching time. Example: Letting someone else take that coffee ahead of you, holding the door and letting the person behind you pass first, let other person speak first and put forth the point, let the person behind you go through security check first, delay consuming a tempting food by 5 minutes, watching that facebook post/whatsapp a tad later than the tempted time. Dr Richard Davidson, University of Wisconsin: Self-control has been called the "master virtue" by clinical and social psychologists, suggesting that the ability to delay gratification plays a critical role in a person's overall psychological adjustment. People with better ability to delay gratification report higher wellbeing, self-esteem and openness to experience, as well as more productive ways of responding to anger and ot...

Daily Tiny Act: "Start meeting or conversation with a small note of optimism. The world is working hard ...sorry, extra hard... to deliver all sorts of bad news. But a note of optimism or togetherness is what has kept humanity rock-solid for 20 million years".  Factoid: Daniel Loeb , ranked # 11 on Forbes Global Hedge Fund Manager Ratings...Founder of Hedge Fund Third Point, has been follower of Ashtanga Yoga since 1995. He acknowledges the "stillness" he derives from it and that its a path that will help world discover new form of society with conscious capitalism.

"Ancient roots in modern fruits" is an aphorism lived by Dr. G Ramachandra Bhat (Vice Chancellor of World's Leading Yoga Research Institution-S-VYASA) who supports Breathe India. Each day he would spend time in reflecting and sharing his thoughts on Bhagavad Gita, Upanishads & other scriptural texts with students & discussion groups. He is equally passionate about constantly pushing boundaries for scientific evidences of scriptural wisdom. On a brief call some moments back, his simple advice for corporate was, "Slow and steady is also a race... its more testing, more winning and surely fulfilling. One that promotes conscious capitalism". He likened it to pursue ambitions but with mindfulness. S-VYASA (Swami Vivekananda Yoga Anusandhana Samsthana) is now present in more than 30 countries. The Institution has MoU s with about 20 leading Universities and Research Centers all over the world for conducting collaborations research in Yoga,...

Annemie Ress , (Founder-Curator of Purple Beach-UK, Former Global Head-People Innovation of eBay), has been supporting Breathe India with her wonderful insights and global network. Here we would love to share some of her initial thoughts. Annemie started doing yoga in 2010, and she mentions that hatha yoga has been fundamental in terms of transforming and just bringing a sense of calmness into her life. She also keeps herself attempting at fun and sports and has done New York Marathon too. Below is a brief conversation with her Hemant: Corporate Life is about decision making. Essentially about chosing one decision over another...the right versus more right dilemma. How does mind-body-soul balance help one get through this? Annemie: It provides me with balance and unlocks the power of focus in me...by nurturing and paying attention to the mind-body-soul connection, I am able to not only choose the more right solution, but also be open to the fact that inspirati...

  Lets start with an interesting finding: Studies at Harvard and elsewhere, have shown that after just eight weeks of training in Contemplative Techniques like Mindfulness, there is a significant increase in brain grey matter concentration in areas associated with sustained attention, emotional regulation and perspective taking. Such training also increases activity in the left prefrontal cortex – a predictor of happiness and well-being. And it boosts your immune response, helping to defend against illness. Now towards yet another example of Mind-Body-Soul orientation in an extremely vital & critical establishment: USA Marine Corps USA Marine Corps is an amphibious warfare capability. Extremely extremely high demands of spontaneous decision making, life-death situations, etc while being in almost 24/7 enemy zones. They have been getting world’s cutting-edge training in mind fitness, analytical skills, decision making, mind-body co-ordination, creative thi...

Leadership “is” …not "will" or "was" Leadership is “about” …the contextual, the related, the referential Leadership is about “being”… vow to wow the “now” is the cow …about exploring human condition …about leading self, being a humble billboard of it …about dividing designation, but holding dignity as equal right …about the child called "attention", & parenting it ...about realizing that universe is meant for to converse to converge, not splurge the unbridled urge …about the treat of the frivolous, the ease of the urgent-important …about deep observation of nature, one inside and the one outside …about fostering belongingness, amongst stakeholders …about being not right not wrong, but stirring minds to awaken “actions” from benign discussions and compassionate decisions …about reverence of life …about getting it and getting to it that everybody is a leader …and some more, for language is minisc...

Organization...an organizer. Organizing what? ---Organizing the nature (matter/materials) and the minds of people. Organizing why? ---Organizing for more happiness, more health and more togetherness.  ---Since 2 million years and 100 billion humans who have walked this earth along organizations of hunter-gatherer, ruled kingdom, colonies, & across wisdom of scripture/philosophy/science, that's been the suggested recipe for eudaimonia or flourishing. Organizing how? ---Organize wisdom discussions for higher knowledge and true collaborative edge across stakeholders. ---Organize contemplative tools for true, conscious and better consumption of products and services. ---Organize sports for all stakeholders for the lost human physical activity. ---Organize hobby to birth and bathe creativity for all stakeholders. All of the above takes creativity, productivity, trust, loyalty at a higher level. In times to come, organization...

Conversations seed tremendous good when they start with genuine and heartful smile. That's how Judith helped me establish warmth right at the beginning of our skype call today. Judith, a frequent at Harvard-Kelloggs-Wharton,  has spent her last fifty years closely observing human interactions.She has been a great student of watching the in-between spaces of humans when they converse, the valence every human puts to his sensory stimuli, and the invisible prison of self-prejudice. She has developed a unique framework that has shown results in several Fortune 500s like Citibank, Burberry, Cisco, IBM, American Express, etc. In 2012, Executive Excellence 500 ranked Judith as one of the Top 15 Leadership Consultants globally. In my small journey of last three years and closely following 100+ researchers, I found Judith's work addressing the core of human condition. With this in heart, we began by exchanging thoughts about our Breathe India canvass and how...

We all wait. But don't want to wait. Everyday. Through the day. Wait appears a fooling bait. Wait@Traffic, Wait@Lift, Wait@Phones Wait@Deals, Wait@Relationships, Wait@Designation Thrones. Wait makes us feel slow or low. We don't see its universal design as innate part of the flow. Inner default mode is "Lot other needs completion. Lets get done fast". Inside of us, the mind-body commits effort-time-energy cast. Once committed, has to be spent. If it takes more time, it has to be bent. We bend towards frustration & anger. Little realizing that its a futile, self-goal hangar. Instead at all types and times of wait, deep breathe thrice. It leads a sure. Certainly not as a dice. Calm Checks in. Compassion reside. Now more space & time on your side.  Clarity emerges. Bias Submerges. Creativity-Intuition to you now strongly urges. Waiting gracefully turns you into Ace. Making India a Super Power. Reclaiming long lost Grac...

String of pearls broke the thread leash and came hurriedly dancing …“Let’s just approach this differently. How about humanizing corporate dialogue and decision making? What does a “decision” mean? Who can make decisions? When will authority override? How do we deal with the college and collage of subjectivity in most meetings? How, after a decision is taken, it can belong to everybody and not an in-group/out-group?” “Just do as I say” stood a hard wall, cutting the earlier flow and jerked into Keerat. Keerat felt uneasy ripples inside because of the sternness from Sachi, however tried to keep the professional calm on her face. On that afternoon, the door closed sadly when Keerat left Sachi’s cabin. Keerat had been a consistent optimist, an idea factory, a regular spark of energy, a dutiful being. Later in the day, towards closing bells of her work stock, she sat down and suddenly rushed into a deep pond and ponder of “Why aren’t people getting it? Is it so difficult f...

  Jennifer Aaker, Stanford University , studies "awe" and finds out that those who experience more awe have widening of perception of time ...and also have less of impatience. If you’re feeling pressed for time, you’re not alone. Surveys show most working Americans feel that way. But what if there were a way to expand those precious minutes and hours? New research from the Stanford Graduate School of Business suggests there may be one: elicit a sense of awe. Experiencing something awe-inspiring — whether it’s the Grand Canyon, a soaring cathedral, or a Puccini aria — can expand perceptions of time, enhancing quality of life. The key, says Jennifer Aaker, Stanford GSB’s General Atlantic Professor of Marketing and an author of a new paper on the subject, is that awe makes us feel small, not larger than life, the way happiness can. “When you feel small, there’s a reapportioning of what’s out there,” she says. “Time is reapportioned also.” Daily Tiny Act: "...

Lets start with an interesting finding :    Happiness Researcher & Winner of several teaching awards at Harvard, Shawn Achor : 90% of the long term happiness is predicted by how the brain processes information. If the brain is in positive zone then it is 30% more productive than if it is in negative or neutral mode. For example: Doctors are 20% more accurate on their diagnosis if in positive zone. When in positive zone, dopamine is released. It has two function...not only it makes you feel good but also opens up the learning centers. Positive zones are the thought channels of virtues : compassion, friendliness, joy, equanimity, coaching, solution orientation & "We". Negative zones are thought channels of vices : arrogance of knowledge, ego trip, jealousy, insecurity, blame-crib, "me only" Daily Tiny Act Watch TRP (Thought Rating Point) after every hour. This should take just 10 seconds every hour. At end of every hour, just observe the ...