What is so special about Diwali festival?

A dazzling display of light and colours; loud noises, new clothes and exquisite delicacies just cheer up the festive mood. When millions of oil lamps, candles and colourful electric lights blink and firecrackers light up the sky for many nights in a row you know that Indians are celebrating Diwali. 

In 2009, US President Barack Obama also attended Diwali in the White House.

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Every sixth person on the planet celebrates Diwali somehow and it is an official holiday in 10 countries outside India.

• In Malayasia Diwali is celebrated as Hari Deepawali
• In Singapore, it is Deepawali
• In the USA, Diwali has been given official holiday status by the congress in 2007 and San Antonio in Texas was the first US city in 2009, to sponsor a fireworks display
• In the UK, it is a grand excuse for anyone loving fireworks, light and partying
• In Australia and New Zealand, Diwali is a festival of light as also all things Indian

So what is Diwali?

As a five-day event, Diwali or deepavali or Kali Puja or festival of lights is one of the most important festivals of India and not only for Indians but also for many people in other countries as well.

Significance of Diwali for different religious traditions

As with all things Indian, Diwali has multiple layers of meanings and different significance for different religions.

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• For the Jains, Diwali is the day when their 24th and last tīrthaṅkara (prophet) attained Nirvana around 527 BC.
• For the Sikhs, Diwali celebrates Bandi Chhorh Diwas or day of freedom, when their sixth Guru, Guru Hargobind Ji was released from imprisonment by the Muslim emperor Jahangir in 1619.
• Buddhists also celebrate Diwali as the day the great Buddhist Emperor Ashoka converted to Buddhism around 265 BC.
• Hindus celebrate Diwali for many reasons. 

The significance of Diwali can be interpreted through three themes in Hinduism:

• The victory of light over darkness/evil theme - Narakasura, a big baddie, goes on a rampage. He conquers almost everything on Earth (literally meaning a large chunk of the Indian sub-continent) as also the heavens. In one version eventually a woman, Krishna’s wife Satyabhama kills this personification of evil and the rule of evil gives place to the rule of light.
• The return of the rightful ruler theme - Rama one of the central figures of the Indian epic Ramayana returns home after 14 years of Vanbas or banishment. He is welcomed by diyas (ghee/oil lamps) lit in rows of 20. The Pandavas of the other Indian epic, the Mahabharata also return after 12 years of exile and 1 year of agyatavas on this day.
• Correct aspiration over formal practice in religion theme – Krishna (who represents the highest level in Hinduism and an incarnation of Vishnu) discovers farmers about to offer their annual offering to Indra, who is a sort of prime minister of heaven (also deity of thunder and rain). Krishna questions the farmers' fuss about this ritualistic offering and expectations of being able to influence natural phenomena. He teaches them that being farmers, their efforts should be better directed at farming. So they neglect Indra’s offering. This annoys Indra and being a touchy god, he promptly floods the villages. Krishna (as he emanates from a higher plane of being then Indra) lifts the gigantic Mount Govardhan and holds it to shield the people and their cattle from rain. Finally Indra gets the message and stops persecuting the villages. This story elucidates the foundation of the Karma philosophy so very central to Indian thought.

What is The Esoteric Significance of Diwali?

All things spiritual and religious have two aspects, the exoteric and the esoteric. The exoteric is all about details and form of rituals, sacrifice, observance of rules and who does what and who shouldn’t do what. Almost all of the quarrels, fights and wars concerning religions stem from this aspect.

The esoteric aspect is an entirely different affair. It refers to things beyond representation. This is done through allegories, myths and symbolism. Often the esoteric employs mundane and very familiar everyday symbols to hint at hidden truths. So, what is the esoteric significance of Diwali?

Why should we celebrate after four thousand years a certain king coming back from exile and being welcomed? Does it really teach us something if a divine being is said to have being going around teaching deeper truths about life? Yes and no. It depends, on the eyes of the beholder.

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Narakasura is the Asura or demon son of the earth goddess Bhudevi or Bhumi and Vishnu (from the highest levels of the Indian pantheon). So, he is pretty much indestructible, unavoidable and quasi eternal. The Narakasura story tries to tell us of a recurring condition of life. "Baddies" or bad events happen every now and then. There cannot be life totally without them. So we should learn to accept them as recurring challenges with equanimity and nothing more. This teaches the idea of equanimity. Equanimity or upekkhā (in Buddhism) is not indifference.

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In Hinduism it is an active principle of functioning with full attention to phenomena without attachment to negative factors. The path to equanimity is very difficult in real life as we have to fight our "demons" inside us. This struggle on the way to equanimity is the real Jihad (and not killing people who don't agree with us).

The desperate people going to seek help from Krishna shows that we need to achieve humility and ask for help. Then if these attitude factors are in place, we always get help, though from unexpected sources and in unexpected manner. We should also be perceptive enough to recognize this help as it may be different from what we expected.

Now Krishna is omnipotent. So he could just as well undo or delete the demon. But he doesn't and goes to fight a bloody battle. Why does he then bring his wife Satyabhama into the deadly battle with the demon Narakasura? It is not very usual that big strong men going to battle take their wives to be beside them in battle. In one version, at some point in the struggle Krishna pretends that he is mortally hurt and his wife Satyabhama promptly takes the opportunity to kill the demon.

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How should we interpret this? We can go utterly wrong if we choose to interpret these events historically or literally. Does this contain a hidden feminist agenda or should we understand that even women could be strong when standing in a chariot next to a god? Hardly.

What about a symbolic interpretation? Should we interpret this so that Krishna symbolises our intellect and Satyabhama the emotions? Only by combining intellect and emotions and using them together skilfully can we defeat demons (i.e., solve recurring problems). In order to succeed we need intent, motivation and then skilful application of right effort in the desired direction. Then and then only success is achieved.

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So, by switching our perspective away from the literal and historical interpretation to a symbolic approach we learn deep truths about how we can live our lives better no matter where we live and in whatever age. Reading this ancient story on an iPhone, iPad or Samsung Galaxy Tab in 2012 would still bring you gems of life lessons only if you have got the right mindset to grasp them.

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Happy Diwali!

Are Business Books Worth Reading?

There are 1.9 million business books currently on sale on sites like Amazon and thousands are published each year. How can you know if reading business books in general brings any value before you could decide which particular book is worth reading? Think carefully:

• Is it really worth reading business books?
• Do business books make you smart or skilful?
• Do they bring business success?

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Different Kinds of Business Books

A bookshop classifies business books according to their topics or themes they address. But looking at business books another way gives us another classification.

• Ego-trip books – CEOs or other important people inflate their egos with ”inside” stories of How I did it? or How great am I for having achieved so much success etc.
• Cure everything formulas – Consultants and other smart Alecs promote their ideas, products or services for solving every problem known to business. They also claim to solve unknown problems.
• Settling Score Tirades – Have-beens, would-have-beens, never-have-beens with unquenched desire for power, recognition and success write these ”business” books to vent their hurt feelings and hurt their ”enemies” with revealing titles like Never before revealed secrets of America’s greatest tycoon or This is how Corporations Really Cheat etc. 
• Get Rich Instantly – This is a huge zillion-dollar business. Most of the writers use a lot of effort to convince readers how they have decided to share these never before revealed secrets with the readers out of pure agape or selfless love. Some of them have similar authors joining forces to promote and recommend each other. This guarantees great benefits to them in the form of increased sales.

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Who Reads Business Books?

To read business books, you need to be intelligent and literate, patient with a reading habit and have lots of time. Wouldn’t such a person be better off doing what s/he knows best rather than reading other people’s ideas, suggestions and experience? Why don't the writers have ultra successful businesses?

Are all business books meant for the smart and business savvy folks? No. There are, of course books for dummies. In spite of the name, books in these series are usually professionally written with serious matter served in an easy style. Being a real dummy doesn’t help at all in this respect. 

Besides, who defines what is a dummy. Aren’t we all dummies every now and then!

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Some lists of The Most Influential Business Books of All Times have books like

• The Capital by Karl Marx
• Balanced Scorecard by Robert Kaplan
• The Art of Warby Sun Tzu
• The Nature ofManagerial Work by Henry Minzberg
• The GeneralTheory of Employment by John Maynard Keynes
• The FifthDiscipline by Peter Senge

These are wonderful, extremely serious books with great ideas, which are not the easiest stuff to understand. One may know the individual words, read coherently entire sentences but still fail to get the real meaning. 

Take Karl Marx for example. A significant portion of the entire humanity living under communism, a never ending army of theoreticians spending their entire academic careers on public funding have failed to grasp his message entirely, in trying reach an agreement on main issues with others not to mention applying what Marx probably meant.

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Is it only men in dark suits who read business books? 

Women also read business books as much as men. 

The reading list of smart women at the top of their fields can be very educative. 

Typical women's list of favourite business books:

• Principle Centred Leadership by Stephen R. Covey
• The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
• Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
• Reowrk by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier
• Leading from the Front: No Excuse Leadership Tactics for Women
• The Four Hoour Work Week by Tim Ferriss
• A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink
• The E Myth by Michael Gerber
• Your Million Dollar Dream by Tamara Monosoff
• Creating Money by Sanaya Roman  Diana Packer
• The 10 Laws of Enduring Success by Maria Bartiromo

Do people who should read these business books ever read them? Yes, many do in spite of the fact that getting new ideas means unlearning old ideas. 

Many busy people are quite capable of achieving such mind shifts. This is precisely what Stephen Covey says in his best seller The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. It is the seventh habit: Sharpen the Saw.

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How Should We Judge Which Business Books to Read?

Most of the people who buy and read all the business, self-improvement and get-rich-instantly books hardly ever get the results they wish. So, does reading books help? This is what Faber in Ray Bradbury’s book Fahrenheit451 has to tell us about the importance of books. 3 things we can get from books:

1. Quality of information
2. Leisure time to digest what you read
3. The right to carry out actions based on what you have learnt

If any organisation or society lacks any of these three, that society is on a downward spiral. How then to judge the authors who write business books? We can get some help from Faber again: 

"The good writers touch life often. The mediocre ones run a quick hand over her. The bad ones rape her and leave her for the flies."

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Socrates, who probably never wrote anything, asks in Platos’ Pheadrus the question 

“Then what is the nature of good writing and bad?” 

and answers it by 

“It’s not speaking or writing well that’s shameful; what’s really shameful is to engage in either of them shamefully or badly”.

One test of a good writer is:

• The writer has something to say
• The writer knows really what s/he is saying
• What is written actually speaks to you, touches you or moves you
• You have changed after reading

The best tool for evaluating a writer is given by Ernest Hemingway. 

“The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proof shit detector”. 


Think - does the author of the book you are about to buy have it? Looking at it from a writer’s point of view, Sholem Asch, the Polish born American writer also said it pertly: 

“Writing is a lot easier if you have something to say”.

Some Examples of Great Business Books

Some business books have been extremely influential. They have become iconic classics. One way to get about finding the value of a business book is to ask from people who you consider to be successful in business.

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To help you out, here is a nano list of great business books:

• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
• The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid by C.K.Prahlad
• Reengineering theCorporation – A Manifesto for Business Revolution by Michael Hammer, James Champy
• The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton Christensen
• The Effective Executive or any book by Peter Drucker
• My Years with General Motors by Alfred P. Sloan

Why are you Going to DO After Reading a Business Book?

After reading a book about cooking or gardening you try to cook or improve your garden. So, what action does a business book prompt you to? Are you going to:

• Try out the new idea
• Discuss with business colleagues
• Begin implementing an idea because the writer so forcefully argued for it
• Decide that it is a great idea but nah it won't work for me 

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For really busy people who have no time to read but need to get the gist of a book even if to say that they have read it, here's help. A business book summary service.

Business Books by Non-USA Authors

Yes, most business books are written by authors in USA. But some excellent business books come from Asian countries also. Here's some from India:

• You can Win by Shiv Khera
• Dream With Your Eyes Open by Ronnie Screwalla
• Bhaag by Ganesh V.
• Connect The Dots by Rashmi Bansal
• Dhirubhai Ambani: Against All Odds by A G Krishnamurthy
• Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish by Rashmi Bansal

Enjoy your business book!

How Different Cultures See Memory

Different cultures and religious traditions conceptualise the two aspects of memory; learning and recall, differently. No system of psychology, mythology or culture claims that memory is not necessary for individual identity.

Which animal has the best memory? Find the answer at the end.

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In Indian thought, smriti from the Sanskrit root smr to remember, is the commonest term used for memory. Memory is not only a repository of lessons learnt and experiences, but much more. All that happens in an individual’s lifetime or what the individual learns is short-term memory and long-term memory is spread over several lifetimes. This long-term memory can be accessed using special Yoga or meditation techniques.

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In Chinese mythology, Meng Po, the Lady of Forgetfulness, gives a bittersweet drink to erase all memories just before a person is reincarnated in human form. In Japan, there is Kokūzō Bosatsu 虚空蔵菩薩, the Bodhisattva of Wisdom & Memory, very important especially for the Shingon sect of esoteric Buddhism.

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The ancient Aztecs had a god of ancestral memory, Tezcatlipoca. The Greeks had Mnemosyne. She was a Titaness, a daughter of Gaia and Uranus. Zeus slept with her on nine separate nights and created the nine muses.

The Christian Saint Augustine (354-430 AD) believed searching his memory could take him to God. For him, memory encompasses all of a person's experiences and knowledge. Personal identity, sensations and perceptions, imaginations and dreams, hopes and fears, emotions and awareness of self are all in the memory. 

“Great is the power of memory, an awe-inspiring mystery, my God, a power of profound and infinite multiplicity. So great is the power of memory, so great is the force of life in a human being whose life is mortal.” (*Confessions. *10.17.26).

Islam is very practical about memory. 

“By degrees shall we teach thee (Prophet Muhammad) to declare (the message), so thou shalt not forget, except as God wills ... (Sura 87:6-7, Yusuf Ali)”. 

Ibn Mas'ud reported Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: 

Wretched is the man who says: I forgot such and such a sura, or I forget such and such a verse, but he has been made to forget. (Muslim: book 4, number 1726, Siddique)

Jung's theory of collective unconscious incorporates Darwin's theory of evolution with ancient mythology. Jung's collective unconscious is a "storehouse of latent memory traces inherited from man's ancestral past, a past that includes not only the racial history of man as a separate species but his pre-human or animal ancestry as well."

Australian aboriginal children of desert origin, from 6 to 17 years, performed at significantly higher levels than white Australian children in visual spatial memory (American Psychologist, 1971, 26, 168-179), Cognitive Psychology 13, 434-460 (1981).

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For Australian Aborigines memory is sacred. The dreaming or Altjeringa is a time out of time itself when totemic being formed the Creation and left jiva or guruwari, a seed power is deposited in the earth. Everything that happens leaves a vibrational residue in Dreaming and can only be accessed through extraordinary states of consciousness. Here is a lovely Australian Aboriginal story.

Many indigenous peoples all over the world use the concept of blood memory to understand how knowledge and memory of traditions are stored in the living human cells or genetic makeup of a human body.

What is the Etymology of the Word memory?

Currently the English word, “remember” hints at something static, meaning that we extract saved fixed items and accumulated knowledge. Accessing our memory is like going to get something out a shelf, where we put it in the past.

Did the word originally indicate a dynamic activity where the person who re-members has a privileged and unique access and control over his/her knowledge of the past which s/he can re-member or process. Could we also say that if we are not consciously aware of something in our memory, we have de-membered it?

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Ancient Celtic Mythology seems to support this interpretation. In Celtic mythology, there are many deities connected to memory e.g. Beli the god of death and king of the underworld, Arianrhod the virgin goddess of reincarnation, Cerridwen the Great Mother or goddess of nature and Taliesin, a mythical Welsh hero could all evoke and bring back memories. But the Merlin the Wizard possessed the most fascinating skills; he could erase memories.

What is Memory?

Is human memory only a physical attribute of the brain like the working of a computer RAM or is memory a cognitive function involving learning?

How is memory defined? The Merriam Webster dictionary definition:

• The power or process of reproducing or recalling what has been learned and retained especially through associative mechanisms
• The store of things learned and retained from an organism's activity or experience as evidenced by modification of structure or behaviour or by recall and recognition

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Talking about memory entails talking about two processes: 

1. Learning new information, skills or behaviour  
2. Recalling or retrieving what has been learnt at a later stage

Another scientific theoretical model of memory is the Stage Model of Memory (proposed in 1968 by Atkinson and Shiffrin). It has three separate stages of memory: 

1. sensory memory
2. short-term (working) memory and 
3. long-term memory

Sensory memory deals with sensory input from the immediate environment and is stored for only a maximum of 3-4 seconds. We are aware of only some aspects of it, which are then passed on to the short-term memory. Freudian psychology calls the short-term memory, the conscious mind. Content here is kept for only 20-30 seconds. If the content is processed and associations formed, it gets linked to long-term memory.

Why Are Memories Important For Us?

If we cannot remember anything about who or what we are, being who or what we are gets frightfully difficult. Imagine going about with no idea of how people would distinguish you from others. In addition to physical attributes like size, gender, looks, clothes we also have other distinguishing features about a person, most of which we should just remember. If you are a student, it is good to remember who is the teacher or the headmaster; if you work in an office, it is good to remember who is the big boss.

We just need to remember who the important people are, in our personal lives and socially. People may not always carry painted signs on their heads saying how and why they are important. People in customer service are occasionally reminded of this need to remember someone’s importance by an angry person shouting ”Don’t you know who I am?”

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A mature attitude to memory is the key to happiness. There is a crucial difference in attempts to erase memory and transcending it, through forgiveness and compassion.

Erasing or suppressing a painful memory does not bring relief from mental torment, but forgiveness does. Fortunately, we can work on our memories. Stop for a moment and think what you were worrying yourself to death a week ago, a month ago, a year ago, ten years ago. Was it really worth it?

If a man chooses to tie himself to past memories, he can hardly live life unfolding naturally and find satisfaction. 

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For him everything is conditioned by the memories that chase him constantly. A more exciting and fruitful prospect is to anchor oneself more in the hopes of the future. 

Cultural Memory

Maurice Halbwachs, the French philosopher who died in Buchenwald, claimed that memory, like language, is a social phenomenon as well as an individual one. Further, he argued that memory has a cultural dimension too.

The concept of cultural memory was introduced to the archeological discipline by Jan Assman (1988). He defines it as the outer dimension of human memory. 

There are two ingredients here, "memory culture" (Erinnerungskultur) and "reference to the past" (Vergangenheitsbezug). Memory culture is the mechanism used by a culture to ensure cultural continuity by using cultural mnemonics to preserve its cultural knowledge for later generations. Reference to the past is a historical consciousness, which reassures the members of a society of their collective identity and their uniqueness in space and time.

Test Your Memory

If you want to improve your memory, there are many wonderful techniques like chunking. Here are some sites to help you test and improve your memory.

• BBC Memory Test - Fascinating memory tests
• Memory and Mental Dexterity test
• Braingle memory test with numbers, letters or words
• Word List Recall
• Test your sound memory and if you are tonedeaf
• Animated patterns to test memory and mouse handling speed

Which animal has the best memory?  

Answer: No, it's not your mother-in-law or your spouse's ex. The older female elephant scores highest in memory and leadership tests. 

"Can anybody remember when the times were not hard and money not scarce?"  - Ralph Waldo Emerson

For further reading: 

• Assmann, Jan (1988a) Kollektives Gedächtnis und kulturelle Identität. In: J.Assmann and T.Hölscher (eds) Kultur und Gedächtnis, pp. 9-19. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp.  
• Assmann, Jan (1992) Das kulturelle Gedächtnis. Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identität in frühen Hochkulturen.München: Beck.Jonker, Gerdien (1995) The Topography of Remembrance. The Dead, Tradition and Collective Memory in Mesopotamia. Leiden etc.: Brill. 
• Atkinson, R.C.; Shiffrin, R.M. (1968). "Chapter: Human memory: A proposed system and its control processes". In Spence, K.W.; Spence, J.T.. The psychology of learning and motivation (Volume 2). New York: Academic Press. pp. 89–195.
• Halbwachs, Maurice, On collective memory, Chicago (IL), The University of Chicago Press, 1992