02 schools

Those of you, who know me know that I have always been intrigued, fascinated and magnetically pulled towards the topic of altered states of consciousness. 

I read an interesting article shared by Neeraj Marathe which says that Anything you do in life, has a PAY-OFF. An opportunity cost.

If you take this amazing axiom to its logical conclusion, you would realize that our time on earth is limited, its like an OTM options contract, it keeps melting away!!!

and therefore it is of paramount importance that we make the MOST of it and not wile away at things with lesser priority.

What does this statement even mean. Make the most of it???. In other words, what is the purpose of life.

Who is to say that spending time in pursuit of material gain is better than may be become a beach bum. Who decides the benchmark. What do you mean by wile away time. priorities can be (and are )different for different people and they keep changing.

Lets take an example. My 8 year old kid has Ninetendo switch on top of his priority list, an year ago it was a Firefox bike, an year before that it was 'Sally' color changing disney car.

Once he becomes a teenager, I am sure (if he has my genes and if he is straight) his attention will move on to girls.

So on and so forth, the targets would keep changing.

Notice another important thing, as you move on and graduate to a higher level, the previous 'thing' which was a BIG DEAL for you has NO VALUE anymore.

I cannot silence him with Firefox bike now, coz he has moved on and NOW needs a ninetendo. Similarly no amount of play-stations and game consoles will be able to suffice when he starts thinking with his dick.

As you move along in the priority roller coaster, a realization starts homing in that there is NO end to ALL this NAUTANKI. The goal-post keeps changing and DOG never catches his own tail and keeps going round and round and round.

Human beings are chasing happiness. These priorities are Nothing but Pursuit of that happiness. These priorities that keep changing with time and environment are NOT-Permanent in nature and therefore the quest never ends. 

Now, one school of thought says, that is all there is to it. Nothing wrong with going for worldly pursuits and then kick the bucket.

Another school says that there is much more to it beyond the confines of the mind. In-fact you have not even scratched the surface and wasted your life if you died without exploring the altered states of consciousness.

The resultant happiness (or bliss as it is called) is permanent in nature as it is NOT derived from an object. You need a mind to move -on to the next target but in this case we have decimated the mind itself and the resultant void is the state of bliss.

At the expense of sounding DIRECT, I  feel your priorities are also a function of your hierarchy in life.

Which school you belong to, is also a function of that hierarchy. There is No right or wrong as its NOT in your hands. you cannot appreciate what you are Not ready for. RAM DAS (Richard Alpert ) calls it GRACE.

If you are from the first school, our association ends here and you can stop reading and continue with your worldly pursuits. 

The SECOND School. Altered State of consciousness. 

There are various ways prescribed in our ancient text to reach the higher states of consciousness. 

The eight fold method of Yoga.  (Patanjali)

Direct method of Ramana Maharishi and Nisargata Maharaj. (Non dual meditation.)

Now these are long drawn methods that need daily practice and devotion and life dedicated to it for it to bear fruit. 

why would anybody be motivated without any incentive.

Ofcourse Ram Dass answer of , "Grace" fits here. It will happen if its suppose to happen. But there is a shortcut to give you a glimpse into this world.  Its called "Psychedelics"

This is a Taboo topic, at least in India and so I won't name the name.

Remember, like any other shortcut, this has its limitations.(addiction) 

The REAL deal is ofcourse self-enquiry meditation as recommended by Ramana Maharishi killing the thought as soon as it arises by asking, To whom has this thought arisen.

What is SELF enquiry

It is the most efficient and direct way of discovering the unreality of the "I" thought.

Ramana in his teaching taught that your natural being is the PURE consciousness (BLISS). 

A sense of I (ego) gets developed (from a very young age) between your gross body and PURE consciousness. This sense of I claims doership of otherwise pre-ordained events that are happening in your life based on your inherent nature (vasanas), none of which is in your control.

Through constant practice of self enquiry, your mind becomes  QUIESCENT. The chit chat slows down and finally exhausts itself. What is left is pure sense of awareness with no labels.

I interviewed Gary Weber, who apparently reached that state (FMRI machines confirm it) . I have had glimpses (few minutes) of this peace but it goes away!!

Listen to this audio book to get yourself acquainted and start your Inner journey NOW

comments are welcome.

 

  

profiling my chess journey.

I am profiling my chess journey.  Goal is to reach Fide rating of 1700+.

Life is all about giving yourself challenges and think of something stiffer once you reach there. In that spirit, I have set myself this rather tough target.

The reason why this is a STIFF target is that (I feel) till the age of < 16 , your brain is firing on all cylinders and those neurons are creating new pathways. This is the reason why you see kids aged 8 leap jump from minuscule ratings to IM levels (2400) within few years.

Whereas you don't hear of such feats amongst us old men/women. It is difficult to unlearn the kachra and create new pathways...

As part of that journey, yesterday I successfully executed a Stafford gambit classical checkmate in 8 moves. It was so romantic that I thought I need to profile this in my hall of fame wall.

here enjoy!!!

Transpersonal psychology. Final understanding.

 

Secret to success, both in material world and spirituality is “FOCUS”.

Call it many names; end of the day it boils down to one’s ability to shut off noise and single-pointedly concentrate on the given task at hand.

There is no such thing as multi-tasking. It’s a typical HR lingo invented by “ANAL”sts doing their arm chair intellectual thinking.

If we break it down further, we realize that Concentration or focus or being in the zone is dependent on a lot of factors. Consider that as an effect, we need to control or channelize the cause in order to have a desired effect.

You cannot wish your way into concentration. It doesn’t work that way!. The whole “The Secret” AKA ‘Law of attraction’ has brainwashed the younger generation into believing that they can attract anything in their lives if they constantly think about it.

While the statement of, ‘Law of attraction’ is an axiom and absolutely true. Problem is, our mind thinks a million thoughts in a day, your 2 hour of manifestation meditation will be like a needle in the haystack and therefore your predominant majority of thought process will have its way!!

Out of these million thoughts a day, majority of them is what we call in our programming language are “loops”.   It is a logical pre-programmed sub-routine, an amaygdala reaction to a given stimuli. The pre-program is deep rooted and is derived from combination of your genes, upbringing and conditioning, none of which is in your control. As if that is not daunting enough, the program is SUPER fast and works in nano seconds (or faster, which no time unit can measure). By the time your thinking mind gets activated, the decision is already made. Your pre program has already judged the situation, decided on the bias and executed the response.

In that effect, despite having a thinking mind at our disposal, we are ALL slaves. Our response to a given situation is not a deliberate decision. We live in an illusion of control.  We think that we have deliberately come to a given conclusion, whereas in reality, decision was made seconds before we owned it.

The famous libet experiment talks about it in detail (google it, it is outside the scope of this blog)

Spiritually speaking, crux of all religions (the ones that I have read) is to go beyond this conditioning. All the enlightened masters (of past and present) allude to the same state where this “Default mode network” is conquered. Where, instead of a constant chit chat happening in the background, you witness blank silence. 

That blank silence if reached at higher planes is a spiritual experience and if experienced at lower materialistic planes is what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi explained in his book “ FLOW”

In this state, anything you concentrate on becomes your bitch. You own it, it is as if the thing is revealing itself to you. Time slows down, and you feel you are working in a limbo outside the time space continuum.

I had a couple of occasions where this happened to me. One was a psychedelic experience and other was while playing cricket in younger days.  This bowler (from salwan school, fastest in delhi back then) was at his peak and throwing bullets and somehow I had hit a purple patch where I was almost playing out of my skin. My skill level improved to match the challenge of the occasion and it was almost as if someone else was playing using my body.

Question is, can we induce this state at will, or even this is part of the bigger plan, will happen when it is suppose to happen.

Meditation experts claim that this state can be achieved by constant practice. Psychedelics, ofcourse are a shortcut, but like any other shortcut, would have its repercussions.

Another fascinating thing I am reading these days is Holotropic breathwork ( goro ka pranayama)

Prof Stan Grof has done some interesting work on this. It is about reaching altered state of consciousness by regulating the pace and duration of your breaths.  

I know Ed Seykota also uses that in his Trading tribe sessions and if you read the details provided by victims (I mean participants) , it is nothing short of hair raising once in lifetime shit.

This is a fascinating and never ending topic, for time being, lets leave it here. Time to play some poker.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Book summary & review of The Cholesterol Myth.

Book summary & review of The Cholesterol Myth. 

By  Jonny Bowden (Author), Stephen Sinatra 

I got the reference of this Amazing book from Anil Tulsiram and since I have a family history with the dreaded disease, it was inevitable that I leave all else and read this.

Heart disease is the number 01 killer the world over. I mean dying in any way sucks but leaving all of a sudden with one massive attack has a surprise element that leaves your loved ones in  a state of shock and possible depression. I am speaking from experience here, in the year 2007, my dad (slim fit, teetotaler) went away just like that, asymptomatic sudden cardiac arrest.

This book basically breaks down the BIGGEST SCAM in the history of medicine. Those of you who have read Charlie Munger would relate to it with a term LOLAPALOOZA.

A host of psychological forces like incentive, authority, social proof, herd, ego, sunk cost fallacy, commitment & consistency, sampling bias has combined together to create a monster belief that cholesterol is bad and the real culprit.

In reality, nothing can be farther from truth. No study has ever proved that, the ones that did were sponsored by very pharma companies that were producing STATIN (medicine to lower cholesterol) or were hand picking the samples.

For example, one of the biggest studies on which the entire Lipid hypothesis is based used 20 countries. The results were not encouraging and therefore ‘Scientists’ hand picked 07 countries to draw the conclusion that cholesterol increase results in increase in heart diseases.

Author cited numerous studies by scientists not suffering from incentive bias which clearly showed that your cholesterol count, infact has nothing to do with your chances of getting a heart attack. You can be fine with a high cholesterol and be in trouble with low cholesterol.

THIS IS NOTHING SHORT OF SHOCKING.

Cholesterol reduction is a 30 billion dollar industry and has its lobbyists up the ass of the US president.

Author systematically explained that cholesterol is further subdivided and that subdivision is further divided. Unless and until you test yourself for the type of LDL or type of HDL you have, a mere LDL and HDL reading doesn't say ANYTHING.

And besides even if it says anything, the ONLY time a doctor should recommend a STATIN (a drug with a 1000 serious side affects) is when you are a middle aged man, who has already suffered one heart attack and never else.

But this is not the reality, as soon as a doctor sees 200 + on your cholesterol, out comes his prescription sheet (provided by the same pharma company along with the apple laptop) where he writes STATIN.

Infact as we speak, lobbysits are jacking up to include children in the scope of statin.  

Author then ups the Ante of shock and awe and unveils the real villain. Both the doctors say that the real joker in the pack is SUGAR. And carbohydrates.

Those of you who go to gym and follow ATKINS diet can vouch for that. The way to slim up and be FIT is NOT to discard fat, that is a myth and is STUPID. The way to fat free fitness is to discard SUGAR and CARBS.

A typical Atkins diet is high on protein, low on carbs and almost zero on sugar with decent saturated fat. (Cheese, butter etc)

This was another shocker, turns out our oldies were right and these doctors were not. Desi ghee (Saturated fat is good for health) contrary to popular culture, your vegetable oil is the poison sitting on shelfs of every kitchen that I have been to.

The reason is OMEGA 6 in them. Our body needs to have a good balance of Omega 3 to omega 6. However with our current diets, we hardly get any Omega 3 and almost everything we eat has Omega 6. This screws up the balance and fucks the heart. Of course sorry for the crude language, author explains the chemical changes in details how all that manifests.

This book also covered a very important topic of STRESS. Turns out our Baba Warren Buffet is spot on AGAIN.

Warren once told reporters that if he had a twin brother who ate only ‘health food like broccoli’ he would have still outlived him. The reason is Total lack of stress. I love what I do, and I do it with people I love.

The book ends with a list of do’s and dont’s and I think it is imperative I do the same.

Don’ts

Do not eat sugar. This may sound like a too tough to follow sermon, but hear me out. When i was in Japan, I was offered a sweet dish, As soon as I put it in mouth, I had to throw it out, there was nothing sweet in their sweet dish. I am not even sure why they called it a sweet dish, some kind of sick joke. But when I looked around, every local was savoring it like a delicacy. And that is when i realized that we set our own reality, taste buds are no different. I mean try and tell a 5 year old that you like drinking Beer and give him a taste of that. He would think, you are a certified idiot. It is all about forming a habit, sugarless tea actually tastes like tea unlike a sharbat you are use 2.

Do not eat Processed Carbs. Which is essentially everything from outside. Junk food, pizza and fried chicken crap (& they cook it with omega 6 rich vegetable oil)  

Do not Use vegetable oil. Or use as less as possible. Instead use Extra Virgin OLIVE oil and desi ghee.

Do not smoke: Well that is a given. Every smoker goes through cognitive dissonance, those who don’t are assholes, I am not even talking about them. Join AA, read Allan carr, do whatever it takes. Its the biggest scam, govt is party to it and you are the patsie.

Do’s

Cook food in OLIVE OIL, desi ghee (less of desi ghee not because it is bad but because you sedentary couch potato ain't moving your ass enough to deserve it)

EAT FISH, that is rich in Omega 3.

Eat OMEGA 3 FATTY acids capsules. These green color capsules are life saving. Eat 01 a day

Drink Green Tea

Eat dark Choclate

Drink Red wine

Eat nuts

Take supplements: like Vitamin d, vitamin c and multi vitamins

EXERCISE atleast 30 mins a day. If not anything go out and walk.

Get all your tests done. Ignorance is NOT bliss. Go get yourself checked, especially the Triglycerides and the LP(A).

And finally meditate daily to reach a stage where you are able to witness your thoughts as a third person. Slowly and steadily the distance between you and your thoughts would increase wide enough for you to figure out that you are not your thoughts. You are not even your body. You are a witness watching the movie of your life unfolding right in front of you. From that state, the stress doesn't touch you. I mean it does, but it doesn't stick, just like watching an emotional scene on TV and switching it off.

  

Saturday Musings

I just got off a wonderful game of chess with a champion of sorts. She defeated me with a mate in 3 combo.

For the uninitiated, let me break it down for you. She foresaw a mating combination 3 moves in advance no matter what i did. Think about it for a moment, there were so many things i could have done in those 3 moves (actually 5, to prolong the agony) and as you might have seen in Bayes Theorem, with every new information (move) the odds change on its head.

Turns out, there were 8 permutations and combinations that were possible and each leading to the same fate, which was my losing the game. And that son (daughter) of a bitch saw that.

While she was explaining me the postmortem, I could not help but relate this with Prof Sanjay bakshi's awesome post on VANTAGE POINT. Ability to see the same problem from 07 different angles.

Blame it on Johnnie Walker, but I am in a mood to dig a bit deeper. By seeing the problem with 07 different angles, we feel we are closer to the solution but R V.

What if there are 82 angles and we just covered 7. Who decides the causation. Human beings are susceptible to confuse correlation with causation all the time. A cat crossing your way and you meeting with an accident is the most common of them all.

You laugh at me saying, huh we are more rational than that, that is a orthodoxy for the uneducated people with no intellect. But in this case there was just 01 variable, in real life there are a zillion.

We don't know what we don't know.

Think about this for a while.



While I was playing that game, I didn't know that its going to end in 3 moves, I swear to god, i was actually thinking I am onto something here and might have my first win against her.

A better player than her probably would have figured my fate 5, 7 or 10 moves in advance.




And something like cosmos or universal intelligence can even figure out the mistakes i would do and the responses i would have based on my conditioning and upbringing. IT can actually create a road map of my entire life based on my personality.


This is a good time to do a thought experiment.
I am doing it on my life and putting it here, I would like the readers to do it as well and put it on Paper. (Its very important that you write it down, coz mind is a smart ass and would make you believe in current status as your desired choice)


When i was in class 8th, i wanted to be a customs officer, i don't know why, may b the sparkling white dress got me. forget that, may be that was just a crush and by 8th standard, you don't know what you want (unless u r a warren buffet)

I wanted to take science, i was very good at it, but i didn't,  I don't know why. I fell in love with the first girl i hooked up with and wanted to marry her but i couldn't (thank god for that, would have been child marriage)

I dated a lot of women, but again if i look back it was a hit and trial of sorts, no defined path to it. The ones i liked, didn't like me, the ones who liked me, were the rejects.

Some times i lowered my standards, sometimes a hottie lowered hers (due to a bad phase she was going thru) and we had a match ;)

my point is, I can't really say I exactly knew what I was doing.

Lets continue with my career. I could not have guessed in a million years what I am doing right now, when i started off. Lets rewind it to bring home the point. While I was working, I could not have figured my own career path. I started with a Travel consolidation firm as a management trainee

From there, one would think,that he is set to climb the ladder now and become a VP in 10 years in a travel company, right, WRONG.. I moved on to a call center (free meals, free transport, better pay, hotter chicks)

from there I hopped the Quality Assurance bus, became a manager at hyper Quality handling Disney as our client. You would say Now he has found his groove, he is going to become a VP here, right WRONG


I joined NAI GLOBAL a REAL ESTATE biggie in UNITED STATES. I was co heading their India operations. Just in case you thought I had found my calling. 1 one fine day, i decided to call it quits and be my own boss and become an entrepreneur.

I have done rather well in my investment journey. Averaging 29.61% CAGR. BUT if i take out 03-4 big bets that worked out well, my result wud not be half as good.


I do not have any doubt in my mind that there is a bigger force at play. We live in an illusion of control. We don't control nothing. we are just puppets being played by cosmic energy. Either that or I am too drunk.

comments are welcome.


  
  

Syncope.

I had a very interesting week.

I learnt that Perishable goods are worth a lot more than durable ones.

Sale happening in Zara is worth a lot more as it lasts only few hours compared to Relaxo where some goods are on SALE forever.

When something does not have a due date, its importance dies down. Nothing is more perishable than LIFE. You do not know when your time is up. But strangely enough, we do not treat life that well, WHY!!??

That is because, Life is short, only if you have an eye on the bigger time-frame. On an hour 2 hour basis, it has the power to seduce you into a fallacy of semblance, sanity and predictability.

This is the reason signal to noise ratio improves as you increase the time-frame.

But human mind is the most versatile, auto adjust and amazing organism, which creates a comfort zone in any circumstance you place it. It will build stories and narrative to justify anything. While this trait has a positive, as it helps us survive, on the flip side, it creates an artificial sense of permanence in this perishable life.

It requires constant reminder of this perish-ability, else it forgets it and gets comfortable with status quo. This is the reason why Saint Kabir use to visit a graveyard (shamshan bhumi) everyday to remind his otherwise wandering mind of the inevitability of the end.

Its amazing how life seems more precious when some incident is presented to show you that it is perishable and after adequate time has passed, mind takes over again and you go back into your worldly abode.

03 days ago, while playing badminton, I had a sudden syncope episode and I blacked out. While it was not for more than 3-4 seconds, (as told to be by my friends Kunal and Mohit), for me it felt a lot longer and I went into some kinda subconscious dream state.

After that, Dr Google took over and after 03 hours of net surfing, i was able to conclude that Syncope has no importance if its vasovagal in nature. Which is to say if it was caused by dehydration, sudden movement, some kind of situational trigger.

Whereas Syncope is a very serious and most probably the last symptom in case of a heart disease.

A syncope episode in a person suffering from a heart disease manifests into his death in less than next 03 months.

Well reading the above paragraph and add my family history and tryst with suddenly collapsing, I appropriately went into depression.

I use to consider myself a very rational human being, but Not anymore. I do not have that delusion no more. It is one thing to write about spirituality and stuff like everything is pre destined and totally another when somebody tells you, your time is up.

Mind is a wonderful creature if it is in your control and a horrible monster when it is not. And when a flash news come, it (mind) is not in your control, far from it. Your mind goes bonkers. It starts the mathematics and extrapolates. It calculates the odds and soon does what it does best, draw conclusions and inferences based on incomplete information.

My wife is a doctor and she being from the preventive medicine domain immediately arranged for ECG, Echocardio and finally TMT. She also advised me NOT to read too much on internet as Noise to signal ratio of becoming your own doctor with Dr Google is very very sad.

Of-course i didn't listen to her and screwed my mind up by reading all kind of crap about sudden deaths and myocardial infarction and cardiac arrhythmia.

I noticed another thing. The best way to figure out how advanced you have reached in your spiritual or professional growth is to see how your mind reacts when faced with adversity.

For a system trader, that could be his biggest draw down. For an investor it can be a situation where he has just placed the biggest bet of his life and a very respected investor friend of his has a very negative view on the same company.

For a meditator, it can be a news that his time is up and he has 02 more months.

I am writing this down to create a journal entry because I know that mind will take over after a few days/months and I will again forget about the perishable nature of life.

Anyways, after a Sleepless night and frantic panic, The test results showed that my heart is working fit and fine and that syncope was due to sudden movement and dehydration combo and now I can continue with my spiritual charade claiming that my cool and calm demeanor was not affected one bit and I was able to apply Ed Seykota's 06th maxim of 'file the news' rather easily.

Experiment continues.. life goes on...

arbitrary coherence

Thank you for participating in my survey.

This survey was part of my irrationalbehaviour course conducted by Prof Dan Ariely of Duke University.

I was trying to get a first hand experience of what Prof Dan calls as anchor price and arbitrary coherence.

Now for those who did not participate in my survey, here is a brief.

I asked the participants to write down the last 03 digits of their phone numbers. I then told them to think of that number in money denomination. (032 becomes Rs 32.00). I then floated 4-5 random items and asked them to bid for it, the maximum bid wins the item.

Question?? Do you think the last 03 digits of your phone number in any way influenced your decision. I hope not you say!!

Interesting synopsis of my experiment was that there was not much difference in bidding for the people with numbers between 100-780. It was all random and probably based on their perception of the intrinsic value of the product.

But what was interesting to note was the difference of bidding between the extremes. On average people with last 03 digits of more than 800 bid 60% more than people with last 03 digits below 100.

Even an arbitrary number like last 03 digits of your phone number can become an anchor for you to judge the price of a totally unrelated item(s).

disclaimer: had to delete the entries by Nitin who bid 0 for everything and my wife Shalini who went bizerk bidding Rs 3000 for a damn ball. (she says quality was awesome)

The basic idea of arbitrary coherence is this: although initial prices are “arbitrary,” once those prices are established in our minds they will shape not only present prices but also future prices (this makes them “coherent”). So, would thinking about last 03 digits of our phone number be enough to create an anchor?

Human beings are irrational beings, everything is relative, no absolutes. We don't know what we want, our wants are decided on relative basis. It doesn't matter if the basis is arbitrary or not.

A woman gets treated badly, she looks around sees that it is no big deal to be treated badly, that becomes her status quo. A slap becomes a great outcome in a world where they are burnt alive.

A contrast bias sets in as well. You go to Thomas cook shop and buy a swanky 2 lakh package to Bermuda, they upsell you the currency. You know their currency charges are a rip-off but paying a 5k extra doesn't pinch much after shelling 2 lakhs. All relative.

We don't realize that we get influenced by the environment around us in so many ways and it influences our decisions. Our decisions are not OURS. We are what Robert Cialdini calls, 'the patsies'.

Behaviour economics is an amazing field. Daniel Kahn man and Twersky have unfolded with their experiments and empirical evidence that we don't know shit, we are irrational and our decisions are biased and flawed. A very humbling experience to be honest.

AAP and Kejriwaal peeled and judged.

AAP and Kejriwaal peeled and judged basis Charlie Munger's mental models.

I normally don't write on politics, although it is a breeding ground for human misjudgement and psychological and cognitive biases. All the topics of my interest. The reason I don't write on this is because in India political debate was long dead.

I mean what do you write about, at one spectrum we have a party which is run by G family. I mean would you believe the heights of anarchy, just freaking 1 family ruling the roost for the last 6 decades. Its a shame we call ourselves a democracy. They are just passing the baton, some kind of relay race happening. From father to daughter to son to wife( pseudo sardar at helm) to son again.... and the story continues. Once you rule for 4-5 decades, a positive loop (for them at least) starts taking shape. You have accumulated wealth with your hard work (corruption) and then that money is used to win the next round of elections which gives you next 5 years to fill the coffers. It starts growing like compound interest and before you know you are way ahead from your saffron colour counterparts. I don't care what good they have done, if at all. The bottom line is that they are hierarchical family run business. People should give them a chance only if they get rid of the G tag which by the way can never happen. Congress without G will break into 5 factions. Anyways....

On the other spectrum we have a party which got so tangled in their religion that they cannot cleanse the saffron spots now. Its not easy to erase your upbringing and origins. Ask me, after my schooling, I had to unlearn a 1000 things before i was ready to learn anything. BJP/jan sangh/shiv sena all originated as a hindu protector organizations. They were fundamentalists and extremists too.

Make no mistake that was the need of the hour at that time and they have a place in history (in good books that is). Its is a general axiom of life that minorities will always be extremists. The survival instinct ensures that you will be over cautious, over protective, aggressive and fundamentalists if you are outnumbered.

I can give you an example, crack a joke on waheguru, hanuman or Ram and allah, post it on your twitter and facebook handle. You will receive death threats from Sikhs and Muslims only.

And when that kind of extremist behaviour starts getting ugly and starts receiving outside support, you need the majority fundamentalist outfits to restore the balance so to speak. So they have a place definitely, but they should not rule a country I am afraid.

With the exception of Mr Vajpayee, no member of BJP can be termed secular. And sachin tendulkar alone cannot win you a world cup. Vote for BJP if they can get rid of its origins and ties with all fundamentalist and extremist outfits.

NOW THE AAP.

Got the fancy of the world, took everybody in their stride, originated out of a protest, filled the perfect void created by 02 nincompoop national parties. The whole agenda became a wave, amazing and unprecedented mass movement. Kind of Indian version of the French revolution. David Vs. goliath and the underdog sprung a surprise and boy KEJRIWAL IS THE HONEST CM OF NEW DELHI,

 

Really!!!

So I asked my self am I a cynical person by nature or is there a genuine reason why I am not in the mass hysterical movement of these idiots.

Thanks to Charlie Munger, I have developed a very cynical mind when it comes to taking decisions of life. This has held me in good stead so far and it stands the test of time. Mr Munger basically suggests to judge a thing from 5-6 different vantage points. If you just have 01 way of thinking, you will suffer from a man with a hammer syndrome (for such a man, every problem is a nail) and he cannot see the bigger picture.

So the picture that everybody is seeing is that honest AAM aadmi is trying to bring about a change for better.

I don't see that picture because I have 04 different vantage points.

Point #1. Humility and Integrity History has it that achievers always under commit and over deliver. Idiots do the opposite. Murthy of Infosys would always downplay the results and surprise on the positive side, whereas mukesh ambani would always boast of turnarounds every quarter which never materialize.

Mr Kejriwal falls in that category, he has promised the moon, now only regret can come out of the whole equation.

Strong commitments from which he has backtracked are, 'We will never join politics' 'I have no intention to become the CM of Delhi'. 'I swear on my kids that I won't join hands with congress'. Who on freaking melodramatic earth swears on his kids.

Point# 2 Corruption:

Well all the freaking jokers who are supporting and shouting anti corruption slogans are knee deep in it. I have already written a blog on that so without reiterating myself I just have 01 thing to say. Where do you think the free water he has promised is coming from. And who do you think has benefitted from the free water fiasco.

That free water is costing Rs.163 crore per month to the state exchequer. (which you will pay via taxes). Misusing chief minister's office for political gain is biggest form of corruption".

Point # 3. Socialism.

The only system that I know works is capitalism. It has flaws, no doubt about it, huge flaws but at least IT WORKS. History has it that fascism (hitler's germany, Mussolini's Italy and Japan of 1940s), socialism (USSR, east germany, Hungary,poland,romania, Ethiopia, yugoslavia) have all CRUMBLED under the weight of their own MORALS.

Arvind Kejriwal is a socialist. You don't need a degree in fuel engineering to figure it out. Free water, free electricity, BAN FDI. All these dharnas and morchas and trade unions and chaka jaams. This son of b*&ch is turning New Delhi into a west bengal.

The only thing that is ever achieved by a dharna and shit is “Productivity loss”. Think about it. Who can actually go sit on a dharna for 5 days. You have to be UNEMPLOYED, redundant, unproductive waste of society to participate in such an act. And what about the loss to exchequer every time you go out to prove a point.

Point #4. AGENDA

My brother Rajiv Dhawan (Visionary that he is) stuck his neck out and predicted back in LOKPAL dharna days that Kejriwal has ambitions to be a CM. No body believed him and people ridiculed him( except me obviously) coz they said KEJRIWAL JI ne khud kaha hai, he has no intention to join POLITICS.

And boy was he right. Now CM seat is not enough, Kejriwal wants to be a PM. He and his party are looking to exploit every opportunity to hog the limelight and create a nation wide ruckus. He is praying for a big ticket event that catches the fancy of the world again. A nirbhaya like horrifying act, a serious corruption charge, a national shame or some catastrophe that can be cashed in at a national level.

Elections are in 2014, the desperation has reached such level that they are fabricating issues now, targeting POLICE (easy target actually, just like corruption) (it is a thankless job and everybody hates them)

Be rest assured AAP will strike again, they have to. Correcting Delhi was never their AGENDA, they have tasted blood and they want a national presence.

I hope the law of diminishing returns catch up with AAP and every corresponding dharna gets lesser and lesser audience. I also hope the public realizes that they are being played yet again.

But I know I am hoping 2 much and as they say “PEOPLE get what they deserve”.



Disclaimer: I will be voting for BJP this election. Choosing the lesser evil. Judge by actions, not by speech. Modi has turned around Gujrat into a model state and u know my views about the rest.

Deep Thinking

What deep thinkers men are.

I washed my car today, and after getting tired, I sat down and had a cold beer. The day was really quite beautiful, and the drink facilitated some deep thinking. My wife walked by and asked me what I was doing, and I said, "Nothing." The reason I said "nothing" instead of saying "just thinking" is because she would have said, "About what."

And then I would have to explain that men are deep thinkers about various topics, which would lead to other questions and the purpose and effect of beer would have waned away!!!.

Finally, I sat down in quite contemplation and thought about a very deep philosophical question: Is giving birth more painful than getting kicked in your balls? Women always maintain that giving birth is way more painful than a guy getting kicked in the groin.

Well, after another beer, and some heavy Invert analyses, I have come up with the answer to that question. Getting kicked in the nuts is more painful than having a baby; and here is the reason, two years or so after giving birth, a woman will often say, "It might be nice to have another child." On the other hand, you never hear a guy say, "You know, I think I would like another kick in the BALLS." I rest my case.

Time for another beer. Hic

Enterprising Young man bridges the gap.

For all you driving enthusiasts. I have some very good news. For the first time in India, we have a company providing high quality LED lights at never before competetive prices.

http://www.carledindia.com/

While abroad, have you ever wondered what on earth is lighting that monster truck. Or have you wondered while watching discovery, or TLC the white beam light emitting from the vehicles. That is what I am talking about. These machines are powered by LED lights.

Leave alone the off roading and style quotiont for a while, how many times have we faced a road with zero or dim lighting and a realization that our current lighting system is inadequate. Dipper or no dipper, the current lighting system can do only so much. I know I have faced this insecurity nth number of times and have jeapordized the safety of my family.

In India, while we can buy SUV's like land rovers etc, but to procure and mount a safe, reliable, show stopper bright lighting system you have to import it or wait for a friend or relative to go abroad or buy it from your unprofessional car accessories wala at an exhorbitant price.

Not any more my friends. This company has definetely bridged the gap. www.carledindia.com have a wide collection of LED light bars available in the Indian Market, ranging from 3W, 4W, 5W or 10W options in single or double rows and work lights.

Icing on the cake is that they provide customization to suit your taste ranging from imprinting custom logos, color of LEDs and color of housing.

The guy who is running the show, 'Abhey Thareja' is an auto enthusiast off road driver himself who is passionate about what he does and trust me, that makes all the difference. I would rather buy a product from an expert in the field than any body who is working on commissions.

All their products are industry certified for IP67, IP68, CE, RoHS or CE compliance and come with a 1 year no cost to you Warranty.

Don't take my word for it, go ahead and check it out yourself.

www.carledindia.com

www.carledindia.com

Vishy Anand Teaches Process Vs Outcome.

I was reading Vishy's article in times of India today and realized that the dude has an amazing clarity of mind.

What he basically  emphasized on was the same thing I have been harping about all these years. The same thing, I am trying to practice in my own professional and personal life. The same thing somehow which appears as a foregone conclusion to all the accumulated wisdom and knowledge so far
be it spiritual or personal grooming.

The ability to reach a stage where you concentrate on the process without getting bothered by the outcome. To work for the sake of work itself. To be system driven and be monotonous in execution. To reach a stage where it appears that you are not even a doer, it is as if things are getting done thru you. A trance like situation where you are having trip of your life. In sports terminology it is often termed as 'being in the zone'

In spiritual terms, its called a 'state of no mind'. Different expressions to say the same thing.

However it is easier said than done.

Vishy says that a loss does take a lot out of you. In fact it is such a huge thing that even a legendary achiever like Anand conceded a second defeat under the influence of first one.  I relate to this in my profession. A drawdown in a system results in all kind of psychological pressures. you second guess the system, you get frozen in time and choke, you move your stop losses, you start working without a strategy, you create the foundation for your own ruin.

He sums up the article by saying, I gotta do, what I gotta do. And that has a touch of class as far as I am concerned. Warren Buffet does not make investments with the outlook of making a million, sure he does earn more than that but the intention is to find an investment which qualifies his process.

Sachin Tendulkar takes pride in every shot he practices, it is a process of waking up at 5 in the morning, going through the grind every day without an off. he doesn't do it to score a century, sure he has scored a 100 of them but concentration is on the process.

It doesn't matter if Anand is able to defend this tittle or not. The idea is to stick to the process, without thinking about the lead, the score-line, the outcome.

No body knows that better than the 5 time World Chess champion.

---------------------------------------------

 

Vipasana Using Tools of Influence.

Vipasana and the powerful tools of Persuasion and Influence.

I attended the Vipasanna centre's much coveted 7 day meditation session to figure out first hand how human psychological misgivings can be exploited in order to convince anybody to comply.

This has been a topic of interest for me since last 02 years now and I thought what better place to witness the action than in a cult following set up.

I need to add a disclaimer that I am not here to judge the intention of the Vipassana centre run by Mr. Goenka. A lot of good work can be achieved by using the powerful tools of persuasion and on face value, it seems this centre is doing good work for humanity.

The reason for this disclaimer comes from our root tendency to look an institution in bad light if it is revealed that they have been able to receive the audience's approval by Psychologically working them.


Back to the topic, Vipasana guys were able to get such high rate of compliance because of some time tested amazing psychological tactics which are almost full proof due to human minds limitations.

1. Pavlovian Dog association. Well, for the uninitiated, Pavlov was a Physiologist who became famous for his experiments with dogs. He made a living hell out of their already Dog life.
   

Click here

In a nutshell what he figured out was that if you do a set of things along with a given action, a dog's mind starts associating that action with that activity. For example every time you ring a bell, and give dog the food, next time you ring a bell dog will start salivating in anticipation of food.

Turns out there is a dog in every man. Coca Cola uses the pavlovian association beautifully in their Ads. You will find coca cola associating themselves with moments of happiness, festivals, celebrations, wins, world cups. So the next time you feel happy, you doggily ask for a coke.


Vipassana guys beautifully used this syndrome by ringing a big 'GHANTA'(BELL) for every time they wanted us to wake up. That Bell had an echo to it and it would ring in our psyche. Some people were actually scared of it and boy did that work.

In a couple of days itself mind was conditioned to BELL = Wake UP. We became pavlovian dogs responding to the sound of a 'ghanta' How else do you justify lazy bums waking up at 4:00 AM walking like programmed zombies in queue to meditate.

2. Expert Bias: It is given for humans to simply give in to the expert advise. No body is sparred from this. Your educational qualification is not a shield. Even Doctors fall in this trap by quoting WHO verbatim (not realizing that WHO made those stupid rules sitting in the confines of an AC office, not aware of ground realities of third world).

If the expert has said it, It must be true. Every time some body revolted in Vipassana, the guards (volunteers, ex students) gave them the ample doze of expert bias saying GURUJI expects you to do this. GURU JI this and GURUJI that.

No body and I mean no body even bothered to ask the credentials of this 'GURU JI'. People simply gave in. That is another bias by the way, giving in to the story and not relying on the fact. If somebody builds a story around a person, event, company, religion or anything for that matter. People have a tendency of believing it on its face value and not really go in the details of back testing it, verifying it, questioning it or analysing it.

This is one of the reasons that a lot of crooks (non enlightened people) end up having a huge fan following.

Type 'Milgram Experiment' on You tube and see what comes up. It will open your eyes to this BIAS.

3. Social Proof Bias. Vipassana guys use this wonderfully to get the compliance.

Click Here 

People unless educated against this bias are basically sheep. They will do what the majority is doing. Even when they know for sure that this is hell and that this is shit, they will still do it. They don't want to be standing alone being right. It is better to be wrong in group than right all alone.

Vipassana volunteers would come and tell you in a condescending way, every body has reached the meditation hall, you are late. Every body is doing that. Everybody this and Every body that.

4. Pain Threshold Bias. There was this amazing study done by Nobel prize winner Psychologist Mr Daniel Kahneman.

He figured that human mind is divided into remembering self and Experiencing self. The remembering self does not care about the duration of a pleasant or unpleasant experience. Rather, it retrospectively rates an experience by the peak (or valley) of the experience, and by the way it ends. Further, the remembering self dominated the patients ultimate conclusion.

Kahneman demonstrated the principle using two groups of patients undergoing painful colonoscopies. Group A got the normal procedure. Group B, unknowingly received a few extra minutes of less painful discomfort after the end of the examination, i.e., more total discomfort. However, since Group B’s procedure ended less painfully, the patients in this group retrospectively minded the whole affair less.

Vipassana does that beautifully. They end the session on a high note. Every body hugging each other, breaking the silence vow; Positive energy emitting all around. You can make a person go thru hell and give him a hug and a kiss and a chocolate and all is well. Our politicians by the way are not as dumb as we think. They apply the same bias by doing some work in the last few months before elections. All is well that Ends well.

I hope you found the article interesting. Please bear in mind my intention here is NOT to demean the Vipassana centre. They seem to be doing a wonderful job, (I don't know, and I won't judge). My job was to find the use of persuasion and influence in getting compliance.

--------------------------------------------------------

Non Dual Awakening meditation.

This is what I picked up from Vipassana Thing that I did. This gentlemen is doing the same. He is supposedly Enlightened. Has reached a stage where the blah blah network, or system 1 as called by Daniel Kahlnmen or Fred as called by Ed Seycota has stopped.

Reflexion. 02 years since I jumped.

Today I complete 02 years of my freedom. This week, 24 months ago, after contemplating till eternity I finally took the leap of faith.

To be honest, it has not been all roses, being on your own never is.
 

Looking back I realize that I have done myself a HUGE favor by jumping in the unknown.  In fact taking my odyssey with the U&U situations, my trading and investing philosophy also revolves around that. Real riches or achievements are in the unknown and unknowable. People who remain within the confines of knowable and known are just another brick in the wall, run of the mill existence and since life is so short, they die before they learn 2 live.  (Do u know that your probability of dying during a given year doubles every 8 years)

Not that I achieved a whole lot monetarily. I earned ROI of close to 2% per month on my corpus, which comes to slightly better (40%) than my last drawn salary.  But that is because of a low base affect (Amex was paying peanuts).  

 Anyways it was never about money, all ma close friends can vouch for it. 

I would like to quote Ed seycota here,

 ‘I don't judge success. I celebrate it. I think success has to do with funding and following one's calling regardless of financial gain’.

The kick I get out of what I do is priceless, the learning in these 02 years have been stupendous, the potential (I have just scratched the surface) is mind boggling and more than anything else no piece of shit tells me what I have 2 do. My day starts when I open my laptop and ends when I close it, and both the things can happen any time of the day I please!! (Irony is u tend to work more without much fatigue when u like it)

It has been a great decision in other perspectives as well, I have more time for myself, I play with my son Zohan and actually get to see him grow on a daily basis, I attend the workshops and seminars I wish, I go out interview and meet interesting people from my profession, I get time to meditate and exercise, I watch all my favorite programs and yes I read about 2 books a week, every week.

I couldn’t do even 1 of the above mentioned fancies earlier due to erratic work schedule and more than anything else as vouched by my family and friends I am a lot more cheerful and jovial since I left jail and I am sure over the years it will start reflecting on my health.

Read a book by Robert Skidelsky, “How Much is Enough”. (recommended by Vishal Khandelwal of Safal Niveshak) .

The book starts with an quote from Greek philosopher Epicurus – “Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little.” The book argues that a person’s wealth should be calculated on 7 parameters and not just the paycheck increase (although even that was a question mark in Amex). They are

1.  Health

2.  Security

3.   Respect

4.  Personality

5.   Harmony with nature

6.   Friendship

7.   Leisure

I read this recently and so was not aware of these parameters when I took my leapof faith but in hindsight I realize that I was not doing justice to even a single one of the 7 back in corporate slavery days. 

I would like to take this occasion to once again urge the readers to find their calling in life and then JUMP. Just look around and see the no of people (your friends, family, neighbors etc) dying daily. It is inevitable, our days are numbered, make the most of it by doing what you are cut out 2 do and not what society expects of u.

As Mark Twain once said, “
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover”.