Ayurveda Over Western Medicines | Dr. B.M HEGDE | TEDxMITE

Beyond Words.....

The Touch..

Here is an attempt to look at the medium of human transaction and interaction and its efficacy in our daily lives.

We are focusing on only some facets of the vast territory of inter personal communication!

Words that are spoken and written, both forms of verbal communication are known to distort and distort terribly. We all are first hand witnesses to this human tragedy.

We know from our experience that there are tons and tons of factors that might influence the meaning of a simple word, the very basic unit of communication. To name just a few - the culture, the context, the person, the intent are factors that could load the words with various meanings. These factors give the word a twist, a spin and the word suddenly begins to carry any number of flavours, connotations.

So the question is can we communicate and communicate effectively with others given the inadequacy and limitation of words?

What does communication involve anyway?

Is it about ensuring that the person addressed has completely understood what has been conveyed to him or her?

To ensure the communication is effective, we may sometimes insist on getting a proper feedback of our verbal or written message. This feedback gives us some assurance about the transmittal of our message but still there is no guarantee that we have communicated successfully!

Or

Is communication the art of choosing the right words with the right individual or the right group of people at the right time? Is timing the key factor in successful communication?

Or is there more to communication?

Perhaps communication is all of these and more and may be considered as successful only when what is being conveyed (spoken or written) is achieving the desired result!

“The proof of the pudding is in eating!”

Only the desired result brings about the closure as for as the particular communication is considered ! Otherwise communication remains incomplete or unsuccessful!

But this is easily said than done!

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There are many grey areas in communication that need to be addressed in order to achieve the desired result.

The distortions in communication are almost always related to Human Factors!

Some anecdotes could highlight the human elements that result in communication failures!

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Sometime ago, I had an opportunity to conduct a Human Factors training for an airline engineering crew. The class was a motley mix of top and middle management personnel as well as some ground engineers. All of them participated wholeheartedly throughout the interactive program!

The question thrown at the class for open debate and discussion on the second session of the opening day was,

“How will you handle a ‘difficult’ person at the workplace?”

There were many suggestions including from managers in the crowd, on these lines,

“We shall advise, help ……”

“We shall reprimand,…..penalize, ….punish….refine ” and so on!

 One of the managers declared brazenly,

“I will terminate his services and get rid of the bad apple!”

There was a pause!

Just at the moment, a young, handsome man next to the door raised his hand. He was slipping in and out of the class very often and had conveniently chosen the seat right next to the door.

He said, “I will spend more time with this person!”

Oh boy! Had he hit the nail on the head!

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the wise head on the young shoulders was none other than the Director of Engineering! No wonder he was in the driving seat! Apparently he was busy in office and could not enroll himself for the class but would slip into the class at every opportunity and silently participate in the proceedings. That was the first ever time he had uttered a few words and they were deep!

To make matters simple for everyone, now I threw my final question ,

“Ok, alright! Now what if this person is not from your workplace but from your own family? What will you do then?  Will you throw him or her out of the house? Say, your son or daughter or brother or sister is ‘difficult’, what will you do then? ”

There was once again a poignant lull in the discussion!

People fell silent mulling over the prospect of such an overwhelming possibility!

Indeed this is a question every one of us will have to answer at some point in our own lives, if we haven't done so already!

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Our young man had come out with the golden key to human communications!

The very essence of personal communication lies in being open, receptive and empathetic to the other person, the so called 'difficult' person! This could happen only by being genuinely interested in the other person!

Yes, we can’t simply ignore or eliminate the ‘difficult’ persons from our lives. They are to be found in our own family, among our circle of friends, in society, community, workplace etc.

Then what is the way to deal with such difficult people?

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What is the greatest gift that we could ever give to our fellow human beings?

TIME of course!

No amount of money or gifts  or words could help people in certain situations!

By giving one’s time during other's difficult period, we are actually putting our human resources at the other person’s disposal. The human heart is truly touched by this gesture like no other!

By offering time, we are offering ourselves! Our participation, our time is a reflection of our care and concern!

The Chinese Taoism lays emphasis on the immense power of silent, non-verbal communication!

Say the ‘difficult’ person is our own family member or a colleague and he or she is bitter or recalcitrant. This perhaps may be the outcome of a sequence of unfortunate events in life that has embittered the individual creating great rancour or resentment.

How do we make inroads into the privacy of such an individual?

A highly receptive, open and embracing spirit without any ulterior motive or any hidden agenda or even a desire to influence in anyway whatsoever creates the kind of disposition or a state of mind in oneself that can unlock closed hearts and the communication channel is thrown wide open!

Open, empty and receptive hearts draw the world to them. They are like vacuum that sucks in all kinds of forces in nature!

A receptive, open disposition is akin to childlike vulnerability and is a soothing influence on the nerves of the so called ‘difficult' persons.

Giving one’s time signals our responsibility and regard for the other individual!

By being around whenever possible and as often as possible, and also being under the same ‘roof’ with the other person is known to make a tremendous impact on the individual.

By being constantly around ‘difficult’ people whenever they need a human touch, and also genuinely taking care of their concerns, participating in their life in a definitive way – spending time with them at the dinner table, over a cup of coffee etc. wins the trust of the person and reassures the person that there is someone for him or her to turn to in life! These gestures prove that one is a genuine friend to look up to or to unburden oneself! The results that follow are miraculous!

The important thing here is not to sermonize or to give lecture to the difficult person but to hang silently around the person whenever possible and be a sincere, keen listener.

Communication that gets the work done in this kind of situation of helping difficult individuals to unburden themselves is normally the silent, nonverbal kind!

The silent (wordless) or non-verbal communication is much more powerful than all the sermons and lectures put together!

There will surely come a time when the difficult person notices the genuine concern, turns around and opens up in a big way! This unburdening shall surely help the person!

We humans are primarily animals and endowed with very powerful receptors and sensors that make up for extraordinary faculty of perception. Gestures, the body language and tone of the voice reveals one's intent, the genuineness of concern.

Children function in the domain of the non-verbal! They know when they see 'good' or 'evil' and respond immediately! Simple, sensitive individuals or sages across cultures with childlike disposition also are in the same league!

There is truth in the saying, “The face speaks louder than words!”

Words do distort and distort terribly!

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The Wisdom of the Giraffe......

"You don't need crutches, if you fall, your elbows and knees put you back on your feet!" - UG Krishnamurti.

Schooling of Baby Giraffes 

Baby giraffes never go to school. But they learn a very important lesson rather early in life.

A lesson that all of us would do well to remember.

The birth of a baby giraffe is quite an earth-shaking event.  The baby falls from its mother’s womb, some eight feet above the ground. It shrivels up and lies still, too weak to move.

The mother giraffe lovingly lowers her neck to smooch the baby giraffe.  And then something unbelievable happens.

She lifts her long leg and kicks the baby giraffe, sending it flying up in the air and tumbling down on the ground.

As the baby lies curled up, the mother kicks the baby again and again until the baby giraffe, still trembling and tired, pushes its limbs and for the first time learns to stand on its feet.

Happy to see the baby standing on its own feet, the mother giraffe comes over and gives it yet another kick.

The baby giraffe falls one more time, but now quickly recovers and stands up.

Mama Giraffe is delighted.

She knows that her baby has learnt an important lesson:

Never mind how hard you fall, always remember to pick yourself up and get back on your feet.

Why does the mother giraffe do this? She knows that lions and leopards love giraffe meat.

So unless the baby giraffe quickly learns to stand and run with the pack – it will have no chance of survival. Most of us though are not quite as lucky as baby giraffes.

No one teaches us to stand up every time we fall. When we fail, when we are down, we just give up. No one kicks us out of our comfort zone to remind us that to survive and succeed, we need to learn to get back on our feet.

If you study the lives of successful people though, you will see a recurring pattern.

Were they always successful in all they did? No.  Did success come to them quick and easy? No, you will find that the common streak running through their lives is their ability to stand up every time they fall. The ability of the baby giraffe!

The road to success is never an easy one.

There are several obstacles, and you are bound to fall sooner or later.

You will hit a road block, you will taste failure.

But success lies in being able to get up every time you fall.

That’s a critical life skill. And it’s the habit of all successful people.

(Source: World Wide Web)

Leaders and the Giraffe Vision

Here is the native wisdom from the great land of Kenya where the human race is believed to have originated according to the anthropologists.

Difference between managers and leaders?

Managers are great planners, efficient strategists and executives. They can grow the TREE (the company), they know its branches (various business units and their functioning), water its roots (manage their units and teams ) and take care of fruits ( ensure profitability). They plan according to the Business Cycles (Q1 to Q4).

But leaders are a class apart!

They possess the GIRAFFE VISION!

Leaders look ahead beyond quarterly results! They are not worried about Q1, Q2,…

They look beyond the TREE out into the distance. Like the Giraffe!

Leaders look at the forest (entire business landscape) like the Giraffe. They know where the hills (road-blocks) are, valleys (traps) are, woods (opportunities) are and rivers (resources) are, far out into the distance! They possess the VISION - the vision of the Giraffe.

The FOREST VIEW gives the LEADER the BIG picture!

Managers are focused on profits, true leaders on values! Managers are obsessed about staff and productivity, leaders think of people and prosperity!

Great companies not only claim great productivity and profitability but also create great prosperity for the entire community!

(Shared by kind Kenyan colleagues)

It is not just talent but energy that sees things through...

PRIORITY PYRAMID....ARE WE SURE about our priorities in life?

Sometime ago I discovered this concept of ' priority pyramid' on the internet that talks of being productive during our daily life but as we can see there is a lot more to it than meets the eye.

The 'priority pyramid' basically prioritises our daily activities by trying to ‘monetise’ by assigning a certain dollar value to each of our activities during the day. There is some truth in the value assignment process that helps one to simplify the task of organising our daily lives around activities that are more worthwhile, more productive, to ensure that we get the best out of the fleeting time!

Beyond the monetisation part that puts a dollar value on each of our activities, this pyramid attempts to capture the most elusive aspect of our life - TIME! The Vedic rishis or ‘seers’ spoke of the greatness of the fleeting time as 'every moment is a precious gem' and hailed its value in glorious terms, " Kaalaya Tasmai Namaha' (IT IS TIME, TIME IS EVERYTHING! SALUTATIONS TO TIME!). 

Perhaps it is not wrong to say that if a person values time and manages his or her day productively, in a way, he or she has already discovered his or her own true passion or 'calling' in life!

The priority pyramid is sliced into several layers. The bottom most layer belongs to ' $0 activities’, the next higher one to $10 activities, then $100, $ 1000, and so on till we reach the top of the pyramid! The top most layer depicts the apex of the pyramid with activities that are priceless, perhaps worth millions of dollars (notional value!), those activities that are a tremendous value addition to ourselves and communities!

The example is premised upon an average individual!

The $0 activities include googling, surfing, watching TV, chatting, gossiping, social media etc.

$ 10s / hour activities are those spent on activities earning a livelihood.

$ 100s / hour activities are those that help our children, ourselves, friends, families - time spent on serving, guiding, mentoring, learning etc.

$1000s / hour activities are basically value-additions where we give our time to organising our life itself that enriches our worth, activities that give us a sense of fulfillment- this is the time spent on exercise, care of health, lifelong contributions to family, neighbourhood etc.

When we reach the peak of the pyramid, we get to the activities that add VALUE FOR LIFE, as it were! These activities are worth millions of dollars per hour (you can't even put a figure on this). This is the time we give for the TOP MOST PRIORITY IN OUR LIFE, call it our passion, this is the single most important thing in our life, this is our ‘calling’, perhaps this is what we always wanted to do in our life! These are activities that we engage ourselves in while building value for life, doing things that can make a difference to ourselves and people in our own humble way, activities that could impact life around us!

How could the priority pyramid guide our life?

Each of us, regardless of who we are or or what we do, regardless of our professions go through energy cycles, the ebb and flow of life! Sometimes we are at the peak of our energy and at other times we are at the rock bottom - we suffer lows, blues and moods at different periods during the course of the day! 

There is an energy flow in our daily life based on our biological clock called the Circadian Rhythm that depicts scientifically the ebb and flow of this life energy or bio-energy. There is a vast amount of literature available on the net that gives details of the Circadian Rhythms that could really prove to be a beneficial study!

The fact is that the energy peaks are not everlasting!  From our own experience, we can see that we are bubbling with energy (going through the peak of energy cycle) for approximately 90 mins out of the entire 24 hours at our disposal! Yes, this is a tiny fraction of the day!

But this 'hour and a half' holds a lot of promise with its tremendous outburst of creative , spontaneous flow of energy. Channeled properly, this could be harnessed to solve many of our living problems. On the other hand, these 90 minutes , if not recognised properly, could be simply lost for ever in doing non-essential things - googling, chatting, emailing, WhatsApping, surfing or gossiping! Yes, these ‘90 minutes’ could be employed for contributing to what we consider as the top most activity (top of the pyramid) in our life – in following our true passion or love ( for want of a better word)!

The human energy is astounding. What is it that it cannot accomplish? Those 90 minutes of creative energy could change our lives for the better! We could abuse this bubbling energy or if we are careful enough, engage ourselves in an activity that could produce great value addition.

The essential or non-essential, important or inconsequential, both involve the same brain process, same energy, same thought process. Whereas one activity is a sheer waste of effort, the other could make a huge difference to us and perhaps others.

Most of the time, we don’t need genius to achieve results rather we need energy that could see things through. In an hour filled with life energy, we could simply achieve things beyond our imagination!

Unfortunately many of us are leading shoddy lives where the pyramid is turned upside down. Not that we are incapable of organising time but many a time we are simply unaware!

After the 90 minutes peak, our energy progressively depletes over time during the rest of the day, hitting a low and then starting all over again in a continuous cycle. In these lean periods of low energy flow, we could engage in other less demanding, less important activities necessary for operating and functioning in our own sphere of life.

Here it is important to recall UG's words! His pointed question to any one who encountered him was, "Do you know what you want? Tell me what is the single thing that you want in life? The problem is you want this, that and the other. If you really know what you want, there is no way you can't get it!"

UG saw no difference between material and spiritual goals – for him all were selfish pursuits, the goal being self-gratification. True, he ruthlessly rubbished spiritual goals and in a way discouraged people from chasing spiritual goals calling them mirages but he always insisted that one should never lose sight of our mundane existence. We need to take care of our basic needs and necessities of life, take care of the ‘here and now’!

Perhaps the only thing we need to realise is our PRIORITIES , everything else in life will then fall into place!