Bon Voyage Steve!

You would know the secret of death.
But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life?
The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil
the mystery of light.
If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart
wide unto the body of life.
For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.
– Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

Death is never a full stop, rather a comma in the eternal saga of life and love. Steve Jobs exemplified this in his life time and possibly, he exhibited what Gibran envisaged a consummate life to be.
Bon Voyage Steve!

Designing a Fault Tolerant System

A fault tolerant system design in IT software services delivery involves to a large magnitude Human resource as the critical parameter. Mistake proofing is the foundation on which a fault tolerant/fail safe system is built. How do you mistake proof? Following are few basic principles.

Looking closely, mistake proofing is purely a human endeavor and it’s critical for the leader to understand his people to thrive on chaos and bring value to the environment.

Sources:

http://wikipedia.org

http://www.bexcellence.org

A Journey from Love to Love

A moment of life’s longing for itself propels us to understand the higher aspects of and a better way of enjoying the journey. When my moment arrived, the universe planned and executed for me in summer 2009 a two year dwell at Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning, Prashanti Nilayam (Translated – The abode of Supreme Bliss).

In retrospect we all have the knowledge and wisdom of the events and how those were the best things happening to us. A detour from this popular conditioning, my stay at Prashanti Nilayam, made me understand and provided me a glimpse of the value of the present moment. It has been more pronounced as Bhgawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba chose to close the curtain of His worldly drama during the time I happened to complete my days of physical proximity with the Avatar.

Why the stay is meaningful and what His life taught me?

In one word – Love.

He was – Love walking on two feet.

His love for me was and is like the love of God to a perfect human being, created in His own image, even though I am the perfect example of human imperfection. Always smiling, looking deep in to our (my) eyes, He captured me for eternity. And with His all knowing and loving look, I could get the sense and wisdom to realize – this is no ordinary phenomenon happening to me.

As I am set to continue my sojourn in the shores of humanity, all I pray is His grace to emulate Him in my Love for His creation, as He did this himself.

HIS Footprints

When God walks on earth, He leaves behind foot prints on the sand of time called miracles. As human beings we are fortunate enough to analyze, understand and experience these miracles.

However, the real journey of the Lord happens between two footsteps. Out of infinite love and insurmountable grace He grants a few of us the opportunity to be a witness to His journey.

Does He want us to learn a few steps, for that is the noblest path in the ultimate journey?

My Heart Believes so!

Minimalism

‘Less’, ‘Minimalism’, ‘need-based’ are such good key words not only from the point of view of conceptual framework of ideal life but also from the operational point of view – wonder why I never embraced them in my early twenties.

Nevertheless I am grateful – for I am loving them now, just before I start my second innings of work life.

A good starting point is:
http://zenhabits.net/

(Personal) Innovation

Today is a day of great learning in my life as I am well in to the second year of my Business management course at Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning. The second day of “Innovation and Leadership” conference started on a high note with an inspiring address by Mr. Sam Pitroda. Born (in the year 1942) and brought up in a remote village in Orissa, he is now the advisor to the Prime minister of India, in the area of Knowledge Management, Public Information Infrastructure and Innovation.  A legend in his own life time (A bigger legend for me) he is having more than 100 technology patents to his credit.

A passionate believer in India, Mr. Pitroda addressed the conference at 22:00 Hrs Chicago time and dwelled upon collaborative and multidisciplinary approaches to inclusive growth and innovation – innovation in organizations, in governance, in social networks, in community, in activities related to social, political and economic eco system. His roadmap for innovation encompassed five broad areas – Health, Education, Infrastructure, Judiciary and Governance.

What struck a chord in me during the course of his address is his personal experience of individual innovation. Over the period of his illustrated life journey, he has innovated and re-innovated himself. He has been the change, he wants to make and see in the society. Extremely strong messages packaged in a simple envelop – I wonder, Is not this the purpose (of innovating and re-innovating oneself at personal level) why we do carry on in this world?

For many years we are in the comfortable cushion of our family, of our familiar surroundings, of our small community, of our natural thoughts, aspiration and things of similar nature – Do we observer and realize whether these things bind us and put a check on the realization to who we actually are./p>

The question I carry with me – When and how will I break free of my comfort zone and innovate myself?

Updates

It’s long I have updated this beautiful place.

There have been multiple reasons – the most important being I have been in veneration of the happenings at my end and there has been a major positive and enriching shift – the way I look at my life and the world at large unknowingly, gradually and with conviction.

Somehow I have not been able to take stock of the emotions and capture them in words and share them.

I am in a vacation of close to 2 months now – I have been able to sit back, reflect and jot down few of my understandings of life and time gone by in last few months.

Last June (yes it’s going to be a year) I got the life time opportunity to study Business Management course at Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning.

After a moderately successful 4-year stint with Infosys, Lord blessed me with a gift and an opportunity to learn the life lessons at His lotus feet.

And without much struggle and abundant grace I was at the shrine of divinity from the shores of Humanity to spend blessed 2 years and solidify the good aspects of my life and remove the husk.

It has been almost a year (2 semesters of course wok) and I feel as if it is yesterday – and the year just passed by in course work, Industrial visit, Grama seva (Service in the village) lots of cultural activity, a major sports festival and lots and lots of festivities in Divine presence.

Each of these events has provided me with life time learning in all aspects of human life – academics, personal, spiritual and I do feel a change in the way my approach to events and incidents in my life.

The greatest transformation for me has been the strength and conviction to Look at life with Love and no complaints what so over. I feel I am slowly journeying to that stage of human evolution where in one feels hatred for none. The challenge in coming year is to shift myself to a higher plane of spiritual evolution where I can Love everybody as a spark of same Divinity which permeates the entire Universe.

With these thoughts I sign off. God Speed and be blessed.

Truth to Higher Truth

Once upon a time there was a man who desired to understand the beauty of moon and softness of its rays and the causes of these things. So he went forth and gazed in to the sky. Between him and the moon there was a lovely tree with delicate branch and tender leaves. Forgetting the moon, he began to examine the delicate branch and tender leaves and was lost in the thought of such delicacy and when he looked up again the moon had set.

The understanding of life is more essential than the mere superficial knowledge of the machinery of life, though one must be acquainted with this also.

To draw a parallel to this story by J Krishnamurthy, my thoughts permit me to analyze our own lives and value systems. Though the above concept is a subtle one, I am tempted to pour out my thoughts in a bit gross form.

We come to this world alone, naked and we leave this world alone (naked – but to observe the societal decency a cloth is wrapped). And whatever activities we undertake in the interval of these two events defines and is being summed up in last few days of our stay on earth.
We feel the urge to love – but we end up limiting this purest emotion to our own self, our spouse, and children and at most to some friends. We feel the urge to share – but we end up sharing with our little family – I, my spouse, my child. We feel the urge to expand our life, our intellect – but we end up contracting the same with undue reasoning and so called critical analysis.

End of all, we need and we dream of something divine and end up with something human. We aim for higher goals of life (love, care, share, expansion, realization) and dear Lord provides us with mechanisms (family, friends, kith and kin) but in the process we entangle ourselves so much with the mechanism that we tend to forget the real goal (The journey from truth to the higher truth). And unfortunately we realize this just few moments before the end of sojourn of this life and in retrospect we feel least useful, half fulfilled nay unfulfilled.

On the holy occasion of Vinayak Chaturthi, I pray for the grace of the lordto bestow on us the sensitivity of a poet, the ruthless intellect of a scientist and the soft heart of the beloved s.

Reflections from A Chinese garden of Serenity

• Human affairs are like chess-game: only those who do not take it seriously can be called good players.
• Life is like an earthen pot: only when it is shattered, does it manifest its emptiness.
• A pigeon, when annoyed by the bells on its neck, will fly higher and higher, but it doesn’t know that to fold its wings will stop tinkling of the bells. A man, irked by his shadow; may run faster and faster, but he doesn’t understand that to stay in a shady place will eliminate his shadow. So the foolish people who run fast and fly high find a smooth ground to be a sea of suffering, where as people of insight who stay in the shade and fold their wings discover a craggy slope to be a level road.
• A conventional man delights in his prosperity, but the superior man’s happiness comes from his adversity. A conventional man grieves at his dissatisfaction, but the superior man’s sorrow arises from his satisfaction. This is so because the sorrow and happiness of a conventional man are induced by passion and those of the superior man by intellect.
• If a man could clear meanness from his face, his looks would show no ugliness. And if he could empty the worldliness from his heart, his language would bear high meanings.
• Human feelings are frail; the ways of the world are ragged. When a man cannot go forward, he should know how to take a step backward; but when he can go on, he ought to have the grace of yielding a little.

Why should we spiritually transform ourselves?

Is it because

– We must transform.

- The world needs our transformation.

- The world is going to be damned if we don’t transform.

As a caterpillar evolves, it grows in to a beautiful butterfly, which hops from flower to flower, colorful, giving joy to everyone around.

Have we asked ourselves – why a caterpillar gives up its existence as a caterpillar and become a butterfly? Because – It is destined to be a butterfly. It is manifesting its own inherent nature, when it transforms to butterfly.

We are essentially divine, on a worldly sojourn, not the other way around.