04 Sep
Philosophy

Why humans suffer?

Why humans suffer?

In simple words, humans suffer because humans attach themselves to this material world. It turns into desire for more attachment and fear of loosing existing attachment. And this desire and fear create restlessness.

 

Why we attach ourselves?

Human body is a product of evolution. In past, As hunter gatherers human life used to be continuously in danger. Any animal could make us their food. So we had to run, hide or fight. In such cases, attachment to other humans (fighting in group) and material tools (weapons) were very important. We could not survive on our own. This is the reason we still want to get attached to things and humans.

 

How to end this suffering?

In Bhagavad Gita . three different Yoga are mentioned to end this suffering and detach ourselves. i.e. karma Yog, Gyan Yog and Bhakti Yog.

1. Gyan Yog – It is about knowledge of “Who am I”.  It is a philosophy which helps to attain enlightenment. Enlightenment is not a mystic thing. Someone who is enlightened just knows the truth i.e. who am i. This topic requires an another detailed blog.

But let’s discuss in brief. The answer to Who am I could be found by continuous inquiry through neti neti (i.e. not this not that).

Then whatever remains is “I”.

It could be said that I am not the body, I am not the mind.

Why I am not the body? It is because we can observe and sense the body. we can observe something only if we are not the thing itself. In other words, A can observe B only if B is a different entity from A. So clearly I am not the body. There are other ways also to prove the same.

Why I am not the mind?

It is because we can observe our thoughts and emotions also. We can see what is going in our mind.

So I am not even the mind. And I am not even the things I could observe through my senses. I am beyond everything.

Upanishads says that we are the cause of this universe.

These all things could be verified through questioning and reasoning. But We can not believe anything unless we experience it. So there are meditation practices which can make you realize who you are.

When you realize self, it is called aatmgyan.

How this can end suffering?  As we realize that we are not the body nor the mind but something beyond and we are the cause of this universe, we no longer find any need to attach ourselves with material things. Because we ourselves are the source of everything we want. 

 

2. Karma Yog –  It means to do right thing selflessly. In other words, Do your karma without getting attached to results.

Generally our tendencies (lust, anger, greed, attachment, envy) decide what work we do. And if our tendencies decide the work, we just become slave of our tendencies. We do not remain free. We easily get desperate if we see that our tendencies are not materializing. For example- Arjun put down weapons seeing his relatives in war against him. It was his attachment towards his brothers, gurus. Krishna therefore gave him knowledge of self realization to make him free from these different tendencies including attachment. We can see that these tendencies become hindrances to our work.

And once we go beyond these tendencies, we work with more intensity.

We can be selfless only when we attain self realization i.e. realization of who we are. Then we can do what is right, not what we want.

Believe me, doing something selflessly makes you so powerful that you can never become by working just for your desires

Definitely you will get money and it is necessary too to sustain yourself. But it should never be your driving force. Driving force should be your work. Therefore choose the work you are passionate about. Choose the work that is good for everyone. You can make this choice only if you have wisdom.

Another way to do selfless karma is to think karma as a service to god.

So there are three ways you can be selfless-

(i) Understanding of self and free from self

(ii) Controlling your mind through practice and regular meditation.

(iii) Surrendering to god i.e. Bhakti yog and doing work as a service.

Follow any two of the three ways.

I am sure that karma yog need another blog. So will discuss this in detail in another blog.

3. Bhakti Yog – Bhakti means to surrender everything to God. You do your work as a service to god. You do what is right. You chant mantra and you are ready to do whatever is needed as a service to god. This is a very simple thing. You just have to do your work as service and surrender everything to god. And you accept the result.

Atheist may face problem in bhakti but they can surrender themselves to the work itself. i.e. they can do karma yog.

I hope you got answer of Why humans suffer.

Refer what is philosophy here-  What is Philosophy? Why should we learn philosophy?

 

You can put your questions in comment or mail us.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

26 Aug
Philosophy

What is Philosophy? Why should we learn philosophy?

Philosophy is understanding of life and its meaning. It helps to bring out many truths and realities of life.

It covers many topics such as nature of time, life, death, ethics, morality, purpose of life, thoughts , logic, language etc.   

Philosophy helps us to understand this world, its hidden realities and our relationship with this world. This makes us wiser and improves our rational thinking. These understandings make our life easier.

It enhances our problem solving capacity and logical reasoning.

The most important thing in philosophy is questioning. And when you question everything and challenge every pre conceived notion, it is the beginning of your philosophical journey. Asking right questions help you in getting right answers.

Socrates once said “ The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing”.  And this quote is like a gem for learning anything.

Eastern and Western parts of the world have different philosophical thoughts developed over thousands of years. Western philosophy talks more about ideas, principles, logic, rights while eastern philosophies talk more about eternal nature of reality, existence and freedom from everything.

Both philosophies are important in their own ways.

Our goal is to learn philosophy from greatest of philosophers as well as to learn from our own personal experiences.

Thanks for reading

Refer Why humans suffer here – Why humans suffer?

21 Aug
Finance

Two golden rules of investing

We invest to earn money. That is why it is necessary to follow some basic rules before investing our hard earned money. These rules are vey basic but if followed, it can prevent us from big shocks/ losses,

Rule No. 1 Cap the downside –

It is very necessary to cap downside. It means limiting the amount you can loose.  One big loss can end everything you dreamt about.

In other words, take small risks. Take small risks that can give big returns.

Definitely there are investments that have high risks and high returns. But such investments are not actually investments but just gambling. So avoid high risks as far as possible.

Reasons you should avoid gambling:

Scenario (i) If you win a gamble, you will think about gambling more and more. And this would lead you towards bigger gambling. And once you loose a big gamble , loss will be so big that all your past profits will be wiped out. And obviously you will loose because you can not have 100% or even 50% success rate.

Scenario (ii) If you loose a gamble, you will think about recovering at least the amount initially invested ( just google sunk cost fallacy). And this will lead you to gamble again and again. And once you started making gains, you will follow the above thing again and ultimately end up loosing money. 

We must understand that sometimes gambling may make us rich but richness will be there for very short time. “Gambling brings temporary success and permanent failure”.

Rule No. 2 Asset diversification –

It means to put eggs in different baskets. Always diversify your asset so that even if you loose in one asset, you are gaining in other asset to nullify the loss.

Remember that asset class should be limited. Just invest in 5 to 10 different asset class. It is because you focus is limited. You can not focus on 20 different asset classes and so never invest in 20 different assets. “Focus on everything means focus on nothing”.

The above two rules seems obvious. But they are not easy to follow. They looks easy but your greed and fear makes these rules harder to follow. Therefore put your greed and fear in check before investing.

19 Jul
Finance

How Big Boss make money?

As big boss is trending now a days, most people have this question in mind about how big boss makes money?

We’ll not discuss revenue streams only but also the tactics big boss use to market it.

So let’s find out how big boss makes money:

1. Sponsorship – Sponsorship is one of the best ways to earn money for any show whether it’s big boss or KBC or The Kapil Sharma show.

In big boss OTT2. Vimal is the main sponsor of the show. There are other special sponsors like Vicco Vajradanti Sugar Free Paste, Paytm etc.

These brand deals gives crores of revenue to these shows.

Read Impact of foreign language on a country you should know?

 

2. Advertisement revenue – When you see shows like big boss, you have to see ads every few minutes. These ads are also one of the big funding machines for these shows.

Mostly these two streams of revenue are dominant in both TV shows and OTT shows.

3. Promotions – You might have seen various film stars promoting their films on big boss, specially on weekend ka war. Big Boss charges fees for the same and that makes it 3rd source of revenue.

Till now we have discussed how big boss earns money

Now let’s see some tactics used by the show to gain more TRP

1. Special guests – It invite special guests to the show for some tasks. Many people watch the show just because their favourite guest is on the show. Yes this is not a big marketing tactic.

2. Bringing celebrities to the show – Many celebrities are invited to the show. For example – Siddharth Shukla, the great Khali etc.  Now in OTT season youtubers are also invited. And we know that youtubers today have far more viewership than TV actors and many film actors.

3. Controversy – This is one of the main TRP builder thing for the show. There are many controversies that had been created by the show. The show even brings people who already had controversies in their past.

Big Boss want to get your attention. And because of that it tries to establish new controversies between your favourite creators so that you continue to watch the show and fight over social media. And your social media fights creates more attraction to the show than it could gather on its own.

 

17 Jul
Philosophy

Impact of foreign language imposition in a country

Language is a very effective means to spread mental colonization. Most people are not aware about this.

Let’s understand the power of language. Let’s view this from Indian perspective.

In India, English which is a foreign language is more respected than local languages. People who speak English are seen as intellectual. Its funny but people see a foreign language as status symbol. No doubt, people should learn English as it is one of the business language. It helps to connect people from different culture. But it never means that you forget other local languages. In the end, language is just a means of communication. It does not tell anything about your intellect.

When you forget your local language, you only consume content having foreign language. You read foreign books, you watch foreign TV series, you read foreign newspapers. You have very little connection with your local environment. Now foreign country can easily influence your opinion. You can be easily feeded things with foreign propaganda. You will be taught foreigner’s version of history. The same foreign country will influence your culture as culture has lot to do with culture you see daily on your screen. You have given your control to a foreign country.

The same things applies with products you consume. Globalisation is best. But your country should also have stakes in production systems. Your country should also own atleast one social media.

This blog post is not to interrupt your integration with culture of foreign country but just to make you aware that you should not forget your own roots. Just maintain balance between two. Reason is that you may be accepting other people around the globe but you do not know how other people see you. And we should learn this lesson from history atleast.

I hope you understood the importance of understanding local language too.

link to why humans are unhappy

14 Jul
Philosophy

Why humans are unhappy?

Humans have a problem. They need something to be happy. In other words, happiness is dependent on something.

We know that nothing in this world is permanent. Everything is temporary. So the thing on which happiness of any person is dependent will also be temporary.

So happiness comes and go. 

But there is a secret to remain happy permanently. And that is making your happiness dependent on something permanent. I will not tell you what is permanent. You have to find that! And yes there is something permanent in this universe.

There is another way to remain happy. Do not depend on anything for happiness. I mean do not take things seriously. You are just a drop in the ocean. You are nothing. Just accept this fact and have no expectations from anyone or anything.

We will talk about this thing in detail later.