Matsya kriti dhara jaya devesha

I was trying to find the bhaja govindam version of prayer.. couldnt find that and was missing the hymn while i wasnt in india.. so while i wrote and practised the first 3 stanzas i thought i'll share with the world.. below it is..

Matsya kriti dhara jaya devesha
Veda vibhodhaka koorma swaroopa
Mandara giridhara Sookara roopa
Bhoomi vidharaka jaya devesha
Bhaja Govindam Bhaja govindam Bhaja govindam Bhaja Gopal

Kanchana Lochana narhari roopa
Dusta hiranyaka bhanjana jayabho
Jaya jaya vamana bali vidhwamsin
Dusta kulanthka bhargava roopa
Bhaja Govindam Bhaja govindam Bhaja govindam Bhaja Gopal

Jaya vishrwasasth suthah vidwansin
Jaya kaunsare yadukula tilaka
Jaya vridnavan chara devesha
Devaki nandana nandakumara
Bhaja Govindam Bhaja govindam Bhaja govindam Bhaja Gopal

Selfishness & Selflessness - A Way of life, A sense of purpose!

Selflessness & Selfishness

Yet another knot of illusion in the world are these two terms which are so closely related to the same entity the “self” or “I” but yet so complex in its own ways. They perplex our life’s in ways that we are totally unaware of their nuances and its impact on our behaviors and or existence. For the benefit of my readers I wanted to bring some clarity to these contradicting subjects of human behaviors. I will try to articulate them to the best of my abilities and encourage you to contribute or challenge me more ☺. And I hope that my writings will stimulate you to learn more about yourself and bring more awareness to you.

For the context herein I refer to the self as “I” , the gross “me” as we see and feel ourselves in this world.

Selfishness-

As long as we are and will continue to be in this world the “I” needs to exist in one way or the other and for it to exist it has to satisfy all basic and necessary conditions of existence.
The “I” has all its needs, vanities and sanities and therefore all our actions are either inspired to keep the “I” happy (Selfishness to Narcissism) and or are in the direction of protecting the “I” (having its self Respect)
A person who continuously ratifies the needs of his “I” is subject to the dualistic pleasures and pains in life
There is no Escape for the “I” from the worldly nuances
I must clarify that there is absolutely nothing wrong and its fundamentally needed that one constantly gratifies the needs of “I” to be successful and happy in many ways. The more he is successful in gratifying all his needs the more “I” will be significant in such individuals and thereby will be subject to all its nuances.

Selflessness
Selflessness is state of mind where there is an absence of short term gratifications to the “I” contrastingly it’s a state of mind where the manifestation of such behaviors tend to have a fulfillment of a long term needs of the “I”. Such “need” need not necessarily be an impact on the self but could be something like helping other cancer patients in the backdrop of a loss of close kith and kin to cancer. In such cases the gratification from such behavior’s is still owed back to the “I” . Here the “I” is more subdued in comparison to a person with acute awareness of the “I”
Considered be the nobler side of the self in general – is a illusionary side of selfishness and would still ratify the self in one way or the other.
In other words and I emphasize “generally” many of our acts which we believe is selfless in indeed gratifying the notion of the self or the “I” in us.
The exceptions to these are those individuals in the history who have achieved a state of complete absence of the “I” – well yes they then seize to exist – It isn’t death exactly may be I don’t know yet or may be with the limited human abilities of any sorts of assessments we could only call the person dead.
A lot of “Nice People” in world will exhibit this behavior of tending to be selfless – while the reasons of such manifestations could be a million beyond the scope of this article. I read the book “ No more MR Nice Guy” by Dr. Robert A Glover which propounded the theory of focusing on continuously gratifying the needs of the “I” in order to be successful in many relationship’s overall. His articulation is founded on such reasons that are core to “Nice Peoples” selflessness in general*.


SO!, In contrast to both these thoughts I feel that people who tend to me selfless are generally the ones who have a matured or advanced or rather different state of emotional responses and a different state of mind and character and therefore are different individuals that the ones who have acute awareness of “I”.
People with acute awareness of the “I” tend to be oriented more towards materialistic advancements of ones needs ( Including emotional)
People with higher degree of selflessness tend to see the “Self” or the “I” in larger communities than restricted to individualistic state. The “I” is more seen in the “WE”. The sense of “I” and its aspirations are channelized to mobilize fulfillment of a larger cause. This could then transpire to building of an ability to influence masses in certain directions.

It is therefore that either selflessness or selfishness are both acts of gratifying the self.
A condition ( unknown to me- I could only imagine it mathematically) where a person is at his epitome of selflessness tends to be closer to a state of absence of self. And I could only imagine that he therefore medically could seize to exist, or spiritually may have attained self realization.
Meaning a more evolved state of mind would have less individualistic needs alternatively the needs are much broader.
It is totally important that for one to exist, or exist peacefully one therefore needs to have a sense of purpose
That sense of purpose could be – buying more gold, having more fun, cars, girls, clubs, publicity, more attention etc for those individuals who are happy in these little gratifications of the “I”
That sense of purpose could also be – Uplifting of communities, Large Scale influence or being the catalyst or contributions to such influences, conscious or subconscious sacrifices of individualistic needs, etc.


I'd say whether selflessness or selfishness that it should be a choice that you make to be in harmony with yourself. A choice that defines you and your behavior’s. You must we all aware of the nuances of both the choices and accept either or both of it with utmost honesty and be at peace with it. There isn’t an right or a wrong thing with either of them! Since both are actually ways of life linked to the same “I”.

Overall – When I look at the world that is now steaming with Arab uprisings, many debt crisis and therefore instigates a “surface treatment” retaliatory response like the occupy wall street indicates a moral deficit in the world that could potentially subdue such trends intrinsically. The “more” of decades have left us with “Less” of tomorrow. The reason being an unprecedented and overly consumption of resources leads to over gratifications of the “I”. this also indicates that the demographics is mostly contained of individuals who have a greater sense of “I” and a greater need for gratifying the “I”. There is absolutely nothing wrong and is definitely needed. However if the world where to have a few more individual’s as leaders who could demonstrate a greater will to a sustainable growth and or sharing the joy a little more with the communities a sense of balance could then prevail in the world. A sense of such hope could then inspire us to move forward with a great leap of faith about our tomorrow. A sense of balance in both selflessness and selfishness could then make this world a better place to LIVE ☺
Best wishes to all of you, for 2012. May this year bring to us many more reasons to smile, Hope, Play, Sing, hug & love each other. May it be ever fulfilling and transform conscience to make us more better individual’s.

The dualities, The paradoxes! My theory of evolution and existential illusions

Wish I could use mathematics to explain this and I hope one day I can, but I will try the same by using the semantics – keep in mind that the meaning of the semantic terms herein aren’t as definite as mathematics so use the best of you comprehensive skills to imagine the same mathematically.
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All the matter in this universe and therefore all its constructs though are all distinct in its gross forms of manifestations, the very abstract of it all is very dualistic in nature. The dualities are both a part of the same universe! And exist endlessly with subtle balance between them and or bringing themselves from a constant state of volatility to a state of equilibrium where both are evened out and or are in space in a free form.

And this state of constant mobility between each other, causes the life to transition form one phase to many other phases. Transition therefore is the sort of default characteristic of the matter and the universe, and therefore life in all its forms.

When in a free form in space, these dualities that are opposite to each other in all its characteristics tend to be in state of movement fueled by the inherent energies in them and thereby of that in the universe.

Though the absolute is fully balanced, any cross section of the absolute space tends to have a random sample of dualities in varied degrees derived from its absolute.

These variations which are in conflict with each other cause that section of the universe to manifest a matter that is trying to tend to its natural state of balance ( which is the absolute). The matter again is inherently dualistic and will at one point of time, again be in the space in its free form.

While in the process of achieving its natural state of free form balance, there is a spectacular maxing out of these dualities within the given scale of the cross section. It would completely tend to its extremes to be in either of its dual forms and therefore then the matter would relieve itself out of such a cross section

Any given cross section would have all the potentials to achieve this state of free form, but I have to understand more what causes a few to max out or what factors could cause those few to outpace while the rate of change in others is still at a slower pace.

SANGFROID SEA

I sailed away from the shore
Miles away and more…
On a no moon night in turbulent waters questions were rife..
I riveted myself and pondered on matters trivial to material life…

Waves of needs & tides of abundance, to possess and let go,
Gross pleasures & naïve chastity , Jealousy and empathy,
Sainthood & barbarianism,
Devotion and sedition or any such polarities
I seek to orient my centroid of cognition unto you..oh Krishna my lord!!
Hold me and take me to your sangfroid sea of love & bliss at your lotus feet…

Random Thoughts

All varied forms of gross matter can be consolidated to positive and negative form of dualities that exist in everything. Neutrality is just an absence of orientation!

One of the reasons for Jealousy is an underestimation of ones own self worth..

Ramblings at the ganga that

Just recently i had been to calcutta on 14/1/2010 to get some peace and some questions answered for myself. it was a wonderful journey to the ganga that near belur mutt and dakshineshwar.
here are few of my ramblings through the days.


1. there is no truth other than "krishna", you have to live in truth that works for you to remain sane! alternatively you can live with the generalized mainstream truth.
2. your truth is unique for you and is driven by your values
3. you can change your truth by intellectually altering your values and inhibitions.
4. religion, law, nation, or policy or society is for those who are limited, it is to follow and conform for sanity
5. everything is impermanent or transient by nature except the transience
6. there is nothing called as you! you are not real but a monumental illusion ( Some say i'm what i choose to be - my choices, my actions _ LImited to the manifestation of Chitta)
7. your gross has no identity or your identity is not the gross!
8. for the materialistic world, that dwells in the perception of several sense organs, you are who you choose to be. Therefore you can choose to be anything at any times,
⁃ therefore there is no one set of identity that can describe you unless you choose to be the same one choice
9. there is no purpose in life! you have to give a purpose to life to have some sanity
10. life in itself is a purpose (?) - for what? any clarity or discussion from readers is welcome
11. there is nothing called as love but what manifests as need for each other is glorified as love.
12. there are only needs of different flavors beautified and sanctified for several reasons
13. in the game of emotional needs, two people who are beggars of this need have to satisfy each other of their needs in varied forms and times to keep the fundamentals of a relationship alive
14. every bondage always has its own terms and conditions, the bondage of emotional need has the most severe ones and also severe repercussions.
15. Of all the needs of a human being, emotional needs are the most strongest one that could propel or make one sink
16. imaginary variable in an equation is a big failure of our intellectual imaginations.
17. When one gives up several needs, the terms and conditions of a bondage decreases
18. He starts to be released of the trap slowly, but one mistake while trudging this uphill road can make you fall the depth of Antarctica.
19. While on this journey, when the gross needs, emotional needs, materialistic needs and all other needs start to diminish, the existence of the gross or connection to the gross starts diminishing
20. To reach this level, one has to pass through several hurdles of illusionary traps, sacrifices and utmost love to krishna,
21. On what seems like an end of this journey, the person has no bondage, and his mind is rooted only in krishna, the soul has started its connections to the absolute.
22. at this state slowly the gross seizes to exist, though i sometimes see this as my journey, i have not experienced such a sort of gross disconnections as yet. rather i get tempted to get back to the world
23. at some state i think when one is aware of the gross , the awareness of the soul increases. Perceiving the absolute increases, existing in the gross diminishes.
24. at some similar further state, the soul departs the gross to be one with him, and this is not DEATH.
25. this whole journey i feel can be accelerated with utmost devotion by means of music and singing from the heart!.


bonded with things of impermanence
bonded with all that is transient by nature
we are bonded to occasions of joy and lamenting
there is no escape from these dualities, but one could try to be in the game and be disconnected from these dualities, like a drop of water on a lotus leaf or like the mercury in a test tube.

Cognitive Dissonance & The Seeking

Yet again I got into the whirlpool of questioning, this time around “Attachment”

One side of your life you have wonderful job, friends, love which forms the epicenter of joy and misery. And on the other I’m drawn more and more towards the quest or search for self which also lead me to find what a true bliss of joy and love is like. For simplicity let me call this bliss as Krishna J.

So when I’m pulled on both directions of life, I get tattered apart miserably and wish that I chose one path either on my left which is materialistic where there are several beautiful & lamenting moments in it and on the right is my Krishna where only his bliss of love and joy exists. The ambiguity OR rather failing to completely subscribe to one path of life is what I call the cognitive dissonance.

Let me explain this a little more ,

Material Life –

So let’s say I appraise myself to getting married or committed to seek love and happiness, I then seek more love and more happiness by having a home, and a Kid and a family. There is no denial that when a kid smiles at you, your hearts melt away. You go and lift the kid in your arms and at some point you have to let it go. Or may be at some point you have to walk out, HOW do we confer these moments of joy and misery on each other should be viewed critically. One must realize that all these moments of joy and misery are extremely transitory by their very nature.
After having a kid, you seek more fulfillment by seeing the kid getting married and feel more content when I play with my grandchildren. Doesn’t stop here, I will then start yearning for pilgrimage and reading and all sorts of divine rituals at the far end of it because there is still a sense of more happiness and joy left to achieve. This word “More” stands on the theory of incompleteness or constant search which happens every day to everyone in varied degree and forms which I experienced and shared in my last write. It takes out a lot of time from one’s life until he spins out of it to say “I Don’t Know what I’m searching for”. “ I don’t know if this much is enough”. “ I don’t want to let you go, but yet I have to” . Let me call out a statement that we often use, “Love is Blind” bullshit I feel, I think one doesn’t know what he wants from that love or what is love. There is nothing called as love, there is only “SEEKING”. So love is feeling of seeking or desiring materialistic or emotional gains. Nothing else. And that’s y I feel even all these are manifestations of materialistic seeking. It appears to be a terrifying idea to give up what we love. We need not give up; the so called loved ones will themselves give us up in time because the worldly love and matter is extremely superficial and constructed. The quest takes a different direction here and if one is able to channelize this in the right direction, the journey to spirituality dawns on him. You could be the monk who sold his Ferrari.


Nevertheless infinite moments of joy are indeed sandwiched in this journey. What is also a part of this package is people, objects, experiences, transiting constantly and therefore one falling under the vicious cycle of constant bondage and demise of bondage, excitement, happiness, devastation or stressed out of a bereavement. This constant circle of arrival and departure is the truth of material life which should be accepted. It’s extremely transitory and not the absolute and therefore it will exhibit its true nature. Again things of the world will themselves tell us they are not be depended upon.

In my personal experience I fall in love very easily from the depth of my heart and get completely attached and give into what or whom I love. This, at different points of life raises some sense of belonging, happiness, security and insecurity, fear, jealousy anxiety etc etc which is as unpleasant as the pleasant times. Feelings like jealousy, anxiety, fear, insecurity stems from the subconscious mind which can be easily corrected sometimes. All these feelings are a result of materialistic obsession or indifference. Correcting the unpleasant ones and equally knowing the pleasant ones requires “EXISTENTIAL AWARENESS” . You could be happy and painful or oblivious to these in different ways at different times.

So when you know all of this is so fleeting, there are the following set of cognition's I have come across.

1. Live and sustain each moment , meaning savor the love and mourn when someone or something leaves you. i.e. Live and sustain both pain and glory, Live each moment.
2. Don’t be excited when you are happy and don’t be attached to the grief, imagine you are a third person and both these are a passing fad on your body.
3. Seek , search for yourself who is beyond these material objects and connect with Krishna’s bliss therefore you are completely detached to transitory feelings.

The first one is completely fit if I chose the path on my left. There is no question of quest here and says to only enjoy and live each moment whatever it is.
The second and third are more or less the same but just the articulation is different - “The quest for the bliss” I don’t know yet how this search for self and bliss is related closely. I know that “Self” is something that I can’t express as yet but definitely not bound by a definition of 250 characters. I’m like the air which is universal , I’m like the mirror which reflects what is shown in front of it. I have experienced these feelings momentarily and I’m flabbergasted to articulate such an experience.


The seeking

What is the purpose of life? Does it need to have a purpose? Do u need a reason to wake up in the morning? Do you need someone in the room to go back to? Do you need a billion to be happy? Are you happy if you have kids? Are you happy if you have a date? Why do you need more and more all the time? What is an answer, what is truth, what is true love, what is love, what is jealousy, what is happiness, what makes one sad, Etc etc

I feel my answer to all these is in seeking of his bliss, I strongly get pulled towards this as it’s the only truth that you will arrive at if you were pass through a deep and critical examination of all or any paths of life. It stops when you reach him, you fall in the bliss when you arrive at the scene. You will see him in everything you do, see, touch, smell whatever. You are not connected to the physical manifestation of yourself and thereby you are isolated from the joy and misery that flow past your body. When I run behind you o Krishna, I feel no joy I feel no misery I can only feel you which I cannot explain. Things like love, relations, money, luxury, characteristics crumble down with shame and incompleteness in front of you, my purity of soul and my love to you is the only thing that I can give you for it is me!. Accept me!

I also feel that I must seek help and help all my co passengers who are in this journey to reach him. I feel like I need to help those who are despondent in this vicious circle of materialism and are seeking themselves and Krishna. If I call the seekers as “Class apart from the Mass” , Well then class is still present in the mass, Krishna loves both mass and the class, then why help only the class not the mass too? I feel the answer is its meant to be a mass. One is meant to be living the materialistic world until a threshold point. After which he graduates to the class. If you imagine a melting pot of energy that contains both positive and negative particles, I feel there is so much a imbalance between the positive and negative energies, good and bad, poor and rich, material and divine, class and the mass etc. But both positive and negative energies are still a part of the concept. Positive is positive in reference to negative and negative is negative with reference to positive. May be the imbalance in required to reach a balance or may be balance is not meant to be balanced. Mass is meant to be mass until it graduates to the class, It’s like the circle which never ends. Then why help the class seek the bliss? Let them be the mass till they graduate to the class!!

Now the Dissonance part of it!

5 days during a week, I love my swanky job, I like the little bit of money, I like to see my parents happy, , I love to experience the moments when
I sing and sink in my tunes, I love to be belonged to someone close to my heart, I like to party, I like to go watch a movie, I love to be in love, I feel hard to let go of people whom I love, I’m very passionate about certain things, I LOVE kids,

When triggered by a event, when i win something, when I achieve something, when I see misery, when I fear of losing, anxiety, or nowadays when something really good happens or someone just comes along, it start slyly pricking my conscience and I go into this questioning mode and try to be oblivious to both sides of life. Then it starts , all of the above comes crumbling on me. It seems meaningless to me, I get drawn towards him more strongly. I feel like I should shut all the doors and completely get detached of all the above, I feel like walking out on all of it, I feel like running in search of him,. Yet my feet stumbles, yet my thought twitches, and the streams of reasoning lose its way in the midst of this unreal beauty, unreal joy and unreal smiles.

I’m muffled in the noise of a crowd, I’m stuck in the void between this running maniac and seeking maniac in a dreary desert. It’s like a crying child in a locked door, suffocated completely, while I see the door open I can’t run and when the door is shut I can’t live. How then do I carry myself oh Krishna, please show me my way, please guide me into your heaven of freedom and joy. Show me the path to the absolute. You either throw me in the circle and make me enjoy or mourn all materialistic gains and losses, or you call me unto you.

If you remove a part from infinity or add a part to infinity, still what remains is infinity

For the past few days my psychotic mind was dwelling on the question why it is always necessary for transient variable to be in my life. Why am I not complete without any transient variables? What is completeness? I did some mental masturbation on this for four painful days and the answer seems to come out quite interesting. Of course there is a hell a lot of difference in realizing the answer and living in the real world. It’s difficult to be adhesive and still be cohesive but let me see where I go with this. So here it goes. I never read any books until I got my answer but I came back to my desk to read some contextual articles to extend my cognitive conclusions...

You must find your own answers.. like I have done with my own rules herein.
This is also an example to say when you are deeply dwelled in the world of analytics or physics or mathematics beyond the realm of their material explanations it leads to a wonderful spiritual experience. So yes analytics is one of the drivers for my spirituality now ..


So here it goes…..
If you remove a part from infinity or add a part to infinity, still what remains is infinity
-The Isha Upanishad or Yajurveda

My Equation for completeness---

So say X + Y = 5
2 + 3 = 5
5 is incomplete by 5 for 10 and 10 is incomplete by another 10 for 20. Therefore no equation can substantiate the ‘complete’. A variable can only be merged with the complete.
For him who owns and or is infinity, Transfinite and complete, giving something doesn’t make him incomplete or less than infinity or little less than transfinite. He is still complete and transfinite.They say whole is something else than the individual sum of parts. because summing up is a meaningless procedure, whereas the whole-part relationship is meaningful. Summing takes its meaning because we have zero as a referrence point. Imagine that as an arbitrary point in the space and you can start your own scale of measurments. Its like none of us is smart than all of us put together, so think what all of universes put together could become. Therefore taking out a quantity from the whole - the whole hasnt decreased. Your ability to measure, comprehend, hold etc has reduced. Thats all. Absolute - Anything is always > anything always. --Vasanth

For him who has 1 and needs another one and another one and another 100 AND MORE. No 100's will satisfy him because it is not really the 100's that he wants. What he wants is that which is does not have. And that what he has is always incomplete.
For him therefore Absoluted + anything is still < absolute always

So there you go, these are my answers. therfore i already know that all the variables are taransient,incomplete with referrece to absolute by nature and fleeting because it is with respect to a start point and by such referrence always needs to have another referrence point. there is nothing called as temperary or permanent the only "thing" that is permanent, complete, truth is the space. I call him as Krishna. so the only path to complete bliss, happiness where these is nothing called as "sorrow" or "pain" or "happiness" ( materialitically) there exists no illusion but just the truth is in the fact of merging yourself with the complete. Being completely aware of your inner self, being constantly seraching yourself and paving your way to merge in the complete is the true path!!!! yes it sounds very philosophical but when you are faced with this question in your life do remember these words!!!.

Just when you thought that this job was not giving that kick and money that you wanted, say you changed your job and went on changing your job untill the ground broke and the questions errupted like a volacnoe in your mind that which job wuld give me the ultimate happiness that i want? the question you must ask is what is happiness!!!!!!! what is truth? what is making me so restless? how many billion dollars do i need to be happy? how may girfirends do i need to be happy? and so on and you will find that a million questions and conginitve conlficts will surface.
its good to live in a state of conginitve confusion untill you find your own answers !!


In addition to these, I read some really good articles by a mathematician and I’m calling out the abstract for your extended reading, though complicated but very interesting.

Here is one intresting article i read
Franklin Merrell-Wolff's theory on what is infinity, Space, point and zero?


Just as in mathematics there are infinitudes of higher orders infinitely transcending lower infinities, so it is in the Transcendent World . . .I have found an Infinite World, and then another Infinite consuming the first. . .It is an Infinity of some higher order, that is an INFINITY which comprehends lesser Infinities .

Upon zero we build our systems of reference,
Which is merely a way of saying that with nothing as a center we have the fulcrum for control of all elaborations in form . . . The pure 'I' is the zero-point of organized consciousness. This first ego-lessness, this bare point-I, is then transformed into the Space-I. "The Transcendent 'I' is as much a space as a point. (I’d like to call out here the correlation between disparate philosophies. Science says to attain speed of light the particle must have no mass. Spirituality says to attain enlightenment one must have no ego, no desire etc etc etc )

Its mathematical symbol would be both (zero) and (infinity). Yet in the High Indifference, this self blows out leaving only Consciousness- Without-An-Object (and Without-A-Subject). "Consciousness-Without-An- Object is the universal solvent within which the centers of tension, or objects, have their field of play. All tendencies in that play is counter-balanced by its counter-tendency, the culminating effect being an expression equated to zero.

It is zero that symbolizes the durable Reality, or Consciousness-Without-An-Object. This is the higher sense of zero or emptiness, symbolizing the cancellation of the positive and negative polarizations corresponding to the Universe and Nirvana Wolff coined the term 'inverse cognitions' to describe cognitions polarized in the opposite sense as objective cognitions, i.e. toward the Nirvanic.

"Awareness of the absence of objects, in its purity, is not cognition of an object, but another form of consciousness that is not concerned with objects. However, a reflection of this state of consciousness may be produced so that a special cognition arises, of such a nature that its content is definable as the inverse of all objects. .

I hope these raise a lot of cognitive questions in your mind, may you be drawn towards the truth and complete – Vasanth.

Jodha Akbar, Chidambarm’s Budget and the nuclear deal

Marvas request to the king to wave the taxes in the dry prone region - Movie
Business Lobby asking tax wavers and exemptions with the finance minister
Sugarcane farmers asking for price support – Vidharba farmer suicide.


Ajmer daughter given to Akbar as a part of Diplomatic card to save the state of bloody war or even be for the sake of fear - Movie
US wanting the nuclear deal to go through with India and china’s opposition to it; needless to say the US intentions are quite ubiquitous. Left equivocal opposition sinning almost the same raga in the same way as china does!!!!!!!!!!!!


Tolerance of the king morphed by historic interpreters; always seen on religious scale by the respective clergies. – Movie.
Politicians and vested interests influence the ban on movie on the grounds of historic discrepancies. Though the discrepancy is highly debatable like any other historic events, the motto seems to be to secure the interest of divide and rule.



Tolerance is the way forward says the king. – Movie
Everybody says that realizing and following it is a different story.

The king is so far from the ground facts and makes a disastrous decision, doesn’t have the time and patience to understand the vaasthavikta (Ground reality) – Movie
Despite the much fashioned open door policy in our companies, Management is so up and blind to see the ground realities. In other words “Vaasthaviktha” of a process is often not understood accurately by the top brass while they influence or make decisions on such processes. Not even are the voices heard from the ground force. Later on the management tries to clean the stink of not knowing the facts.

Analyst’s role to recommend the king of taking the right decision based on reality / data & in the wake of all the factual situations
Today we look at our personal and vested interests and see whats in it for me than to see whats in it for the organization. NO doubt one needs to look out for what he gets but not by undermining / influencing the company strategy.


King is so far from the facts – doesn’t have the time and patience to understand the vaasthavikta (Ground reality)

National security integrity and sovereignty stands topmost above all under all circumstances for each of the elected representative. - Movie
The integrity of the electoral constituency and its integrity is all that matters today.
Ex - Nandigram, Vidharbha, a lot more political game frames.

Three things run big. Politics (Power and money), religion, Love and all of them supersede the rest.

Is history to be interpreted or learnt as a collection of facts?
Can a history have different versions?
Would an event be anything other than true?
In probability theory an event can either be true or false, if we equate history as an event in the past, it can only be one the same event can’t be two, and either it has to be a separate event not true to the other.
What is a nation?
What unites the country?
I’ll leave this for you to ponder.

BANG BANG BANG I'm BACK from DESERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oomph martini, beer, food, ***, tandoor, music, coffee, chats, party, loafing, meeting, …., blogging etc etc etc all was under siege while I agreed to sacrifice em for learning advanced analytical techniques from profound professors at www.businessanalytics.in. for the last four months. Feels like I just came out of vacation in desert and had excess “khaghurs”
It was more like a zipped executive MBA in statistics in just 3 months. For about every hour that was taught I was supposed to put in at least 6 hours to digest them. Well it is worth it, I realized the fact that the analytics just does not end with Business Intelligence tools.

While I smoke this night and around my bed lies fat books that I carry along with me to office every day. Every tiny time I get I try to turn over some pages only to realize that 24 hours is not enough to gain expertise in the subject. It’s just not the statistical part that’s throttling me, to add to it I got to learn playing with SAS. Oh yeah it’s easy it’s more of English than Greek and Latin but practicing it all with little time while I burn the midnight oil, lol I feel I’m becoming a nerd and no one would marry me….


My birthday passed by, it was a very interesting date with the date and the data that day while I dined with colleagues. Needless to say gifts cheered me a little while I was trying to fight my case with the bank to get my big cheque en-cashed, it is still hanging in the air, thanks to strikes, bundhs, kotak and all the hopeless banking services

Lets get to the point now, hmmm I don’t seriously know where to start, so many things running in my mind.. Well let me put it this way, post the analytics class, and trying to relate it back to my work god help all the companies there is such a great disjoint in what we do and what we are suppose to do. I reiterate my point as –

Where the business goal transcends teams, cultures, geography;
Where exists harmonized processes within a cross functional Analytical Team;
Where the outputs of the team are successfully amalgamated with the interest of the stakeholders
Where recommendations come out from the depth of data blended with business sense and logic;
Where tireless striving on actions stretches its arms towards perfection and success countering all the internal and external forces;
Where the team / Organization is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought
And action by rationalists;
Into that heaven of analytics, oh my Father, let my country and my organization awake.

Shall start a new tide of analytical boredom soon until then keep dripping and sipping fun

Business week piece on R&D

Untill I get off the work Pressure, an interesting piece from BusinessWeek.


Why are companies slow to make full use of their offshore brainpower? Because managing a globally integrated product-development team is difficult. One obstacle is "not invented here" syndrome: Developers at headquarters tend to look down on suggestions from offshore affiliates. Internal competition between different R&D teams within the same company remains rife.On top of this, many companies lack harmonized work processes and systems,and few have enough staff with international experience. The bottom line: "Few companies are currently reaping the gains from this globalization," ---Booz Allen-INSEAD stated.

The Generic BI Architecture

The chart below shows more or less an architecture of Busines Intelligence delivery right from the data generations Stage to the Report Generation & decision Support. The flowchart is divided into 3 phases, Phase1,Phase2,Phase3. I shall discuss Each of them very briefly (Click on the pictures for better viewing of the text in the diagram)



• The phase 1 of the diagram involves collecting the Transaction data from various operational data sources (ODS) that are deemed essential for records storage by the business.

• The data from all these various sources is extracted to one region for further manipulation. This is a very complex region where the data is brought on platform from various sources.

• Here the data may be extracted real time, hourly basis, daily, weekly monthly etc depending on the business need & other constraints.

• The phase 2 starts when all the data that is in the single platform is then made into a single format & made relevant in terms of removing all the inconsistency that may be prevailing.

• Again even this complex process is extremely important & is termed as data integration.

• Once the data is made consistent it is further normalized as per certain rules & standards of data warehousing & as required by the business.

• The data is stored constantly in the Data warehouse & is segregated in to different tables for relevance while storing.

• There are so many other complex processes involved here & in the previous phases, I wouldn’t be going deep into it.

• Once the data storage part is complete then comes the reporting part.

• Cubes are created for faster retrieval from the data warehouse & to view its multidimensionality.

• Data marts are created so that the relevant stakeholders can extract the data or do reporting from the data relevant only to their functional unit.

• Scorecards, Dashboards, & other reporting can be done directly from data warehouse or from data marts or from cubes as may be the need.

• The reporting part also involves a certain amount of analytics but most of this is very limited. Unless the end user is very well versed with the OLAP tool, data, analytics a very good outcome for supporting ad-hoc & complex business decisions become very difficult & most of the BI projects are not able to deliver this. This not only due to the tool but also due to several other factors. Thus versatility needed for the analytics team gets hampered & thereby the BI project outcome. All the million dollars go in a ditch.

The bewildered state of a Business Analyst!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Time again I have tried to emphasize what a business analyst is & should be doing. In my previous topic “Critical Skills a Business Analyst must have” I have given a framework on what is expected of BA based on the Gartner theory & industry expectations. It’s sad to see most of the generation getting swayed by terms & jargons & trying finding what they want in the wrong place & at last ending up smelling socks. Well the industry in the mother of all the confusions!! For those of you who still feel that Business Analyst is obscure, I think this should help.

• Systems analysts who generally analyze the requirements & thereby find the system needs to fulfill such requirements. Act as business/system liaison between business and application developers.

•Requirements analysts - who generally do the requirements elicitation & understand what people say and to detect what they might be hesitant to say blah blah blah

• Business system analysts these are generally the victims formed by those companies who believe in MPD (Multiple personality disorder) & cost cutting. They want you to do both the work of requirement & system analyst & a little of other things also until you go completely mad & run out of the company heels over head. Oh well did you think the fancy title is good? Try your luck.

• I love this role for all its challenges involved in practicing & living the unbridled forces that influence business. Simply put Business analysts are responsible for understanding the business and making recommendations for sustainability, risk mitigations, Business improvement & profits blah blah blah

For those of you who need a strong dosage of analytics I’d recommend be sure you understand what continuous & discrete data is, before you click on www.businessanalytics.in
For those of you who think have strong appetite for Greek & Latin with all the animation in between, if you would like to work in a warehouse & have the nerve to load & unload bulks of data & for more gyaan on this log on to http://www.keysoft.co.in/

Disclaimer - Both the institutes train in different domains, please exercise diligence before enrolling yourself into these & first decide which one you fit in.

Butterfly Says Happy Diwali To you !!!!!!

”One day, a small opening appeared on a cocoon; a man sat and watched for the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through that little hole. Then, it seems to stop making any progress.It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could and it could not go any further.So the man decided to help the butterfly: he took a pair of scissors and opened the cocoon. The butterfly then emerged easily.But it had a withered body, it was tiny and shrivelled wings.The man continued to watch because he expected that, at any moment, the wings would open, enlarge and expand, to be able to support the butterfly’s body, and become firm. Neither happened!In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a withered body and shrivelled wings. It never was able to fly. What the man, in his kindness and his goodwill did not understand was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the tiny opening, were God’s way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings, so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon. Sometimes, struggles are exactly what we need in our life.If God allowed us to go through our life without any obstacles, it would cripple us. We would not be as strong as we could have been. Never been able to fly.

I asked for Strength...
And God gave me difficulties to make me strong.

I asked for Wisdom...
And God gave me Problems to solve.

I asked for prosperity...
And God gave me a Brain and Brawn to work.
I asked for Courage…..
And God gave me obstacles to overcome.

I asked for Love...
And God gave me Troubled people to help.
I asked for Favors...
And God gave me Opportunities.

“I received nothing I wanted...
But I received everything I needed."
Live life without fear, confront all obstacles and evince that you can overcome them.
“I hope this little message on this Diwali Season would bring in the understanding that why we come across difficult situations in our life before we reach our ultimate destination............”I wish u a very HAPPY DIWALI to you and to your family members !!
May god bless this country, with peace & prosperity – Data Smith

(Courtesy – UIS HR)

Critical skills that a BA / BI team Must Have

As I have reiterated that all businesses are and should be dynamic to survive the storm of this competition, Business initiatives are invariably affected by the environment in which they operate, and they are shaped by many external forces including government policy, international relations, geopolitical stability, economics, market trends, terrorism, consumers, social changes, media etc. They are also influenced by several internal forces that influence the context, in which these initiatives operate, processes, staff turnover, corporate restructuring, policies, people, work atmosphere etc.

While the CEO / Decision making Body Decides on a strategy, an BA should have some skills in anticipating potential outcomes of such initiative / strategy / change, also see it in the light of the current market & company placements (Internal & external forces) & take necessary steps to protect the interest of the stakeholders.

Anticipating changes, analyzing potential impact, avoiding derailment of the initiative form one area where the BA / BI team / BI component need to be extremely strong, consistent & coherent.

BI teams, BA’s are key people in realizing a company’s vision & providing solution to the challenges that a company or an initiative has, will have & is having. More importantly the core challenge is in accurately answering the business questions that arise at different levels, articulate complex statistical & data jargons to a language understandable by the business, BU managers. & thereby induce radical changes.

Offering critical insights to both internal & external forces that affect initiatives, planning for operational excellence, having strong ability to analyze & see details, but at the same time conceptualize the big picture.* (This is a very important & interesting topic which I shall discuss in detail later on) In all aspects of business they should increase the efficiency, accuracy, speed of decision making in all the conventional, practical & creative decision making areas.

Finding new data patterns of the domain applying logic, new ideas, intuition (which comes by domain experience) should fuel the company’s prospects into a BLUE OCEAN & find potential un-dominated areas to excel, is also important for a BI team.

We should be the people / team with technical, Business, analytical, & strong communications skills (mails, verbal, written, non written, presentations etc).
This should help the team / BA / BI to frame business problems in understandable terms to help manage business implications, voice concerns on a strategy/initiative which may be at stake if the BI is not heard.

I don’t want to be a BA!!!!!!!!!!!-----3

By the time the data was received it was more than 2 hours.
Further analysis & presentation of the data was delayed.
The decision taking time was increased & a client meeting was impacted.
Loss to the business was intangible.

This is a very small example of Cross functional BI delivery system failure or lack of coordination between the components of the BI delivery system.

On a larger scale I had another friend of mine who told me a similar experience in the marketing domain were the BI team had forecasted & confirmed some turbulence in a given area but since the same wasn’t cascaded enough to the field executives a huge amount of financial loss was suffered. These are just some of the examples that I have seen but I’m sure there a million of such instances in almost all the sectors were the BI team is not well established or matured. Even in the case of the BI team being matured the corporate system wouldn’t simply integrate with the input & output part of the BI teams. This is the root cause for the failure of most of the BA projects around the world. However there are other reasons like lack of skill sets, wrong tests carried out for decision making, wrong data considered, no correct data available various other reasons.


One of my friend said “We need to have good modelers, analysts, marketers, business managers etc. And I think, that is what any Analytics Team should be made of…”
I would tweak this to say A BI teams Critical Components (In terms of skill sets) are

Data Collection, warehousing & storage Analysts.
Data storage, manipulation, archiving Analysts.
Data mart, ETL, Reporting etc Analysts.
Query Optimization, emergency response Decision support analyst.
Statistical analysis specialists, Business analyst

I’m sure you will strongly agree that every business is highly & constantly changing itself & adapting to the highly competitive global market. Not only this but every company need to sustain its growth, withstand market forces, withstand & survive economic, financial & various other storms. Also given that most of the sectors are getting saturated, it’s very important for every company to apply new dimensions, drive innovation & plunge deep into Blue waters.


All the above compelling factors drive needs/questions at various levels of a company that are critical to its success


Thus the BI needs to help the business make tactical decisions, modify, tune or realign business strategies & processes to gain competitive advantage or in countering any inevitable market forces that could tamper the business goals. Most importantly thousands of questions arising at various levels of business are to be answered most consistently, accurately, coherent to the business language and of course “I need the report before you take your next breathe”
The process of supporting decision making is iterative in nature & is generally catered by the ad-hoc reports, scorecards, etc which needs hands on approach, thanks to BI tools which have become more friendlier. May it be SAS, Cognos, Business objects etc all of them try to cater in user friendly authoring of reports, execute queries, and perform analysis and various other visualizations. So it’s a fairly easy job to handle huge volumes of data now than ever before. But this is just not what BI is expected of.

Any company that knows its customers & business is already well aware of many important high pay off patterns that its employees have observed over the years.
What a BA & data mining should also and can do is confirm such empirical observations & find new subtle & dynamically changing patterns that could yield steady & incremental improvements in line with the business strategy & goals (Plus the occasional breakthrough / insight)

The critical cross functional flow pattern every BI team’s should have according to me is something like the following.

(Before I talk about the long chart here is a Kit Kat break)

Plight of Business & BI team

I need this, I need that, and it should be this but not that….
It should only focus on this with positive impact……
Tell me who is first; tell me who is best….
I need this, I need that…………
I need it before I die…………..

What will happen there….. If I do this here,
Where will the impact be? If that was done
What will happen if it’s not done?
I need this, I need that…………
I need it before you take the next breathe…

Sir I don’t understand, Madam you aren’t listening,
We can’t get this done, server is not happening,
This is down & that is down,
He is on off & she is laid off ;)
I need this, I need that…………

OOPs & loops I went bananas….
What the fuck I’m stuck……..
This formula wouldn’t work with this data!!!!!!!!!!
Oh no it’s this ways... ok I gotcha!!!!!!!!!
We got it sir, we’ve done it….


Oh your great….this is great…..
But can you simply tell what our fate……is…
I don’t know what regression…..is
I’m only concerned with what our profit progression …….. Is
I need this, I need that…………
I need it before we die…………..

A typical conversation when a BU manager asks a report when sometimes we can make no sense of what they say….. (Yogesh this is for you, remember Jonathan Coplin Beau).
Sometimes we get stuck in puzzles that seem to be the greatest mystery for even Microsoft’s development team, at the end we realize it was just a simple thing all was needed was different eye. We send high info reports with all the statistical or other jargons when the BU manger goes bonkers while he doesn’t make any sense out of it…even if he does he still has questions….. So on & so forth………..

I dont want to be a BA!!!!!!!!---- 2

Well no I don’t think so; I have seen a person doing just the ETL, though not a part of the Business Intelligence or Business analyst team is called a BA.
People doing requirements drafting for a development team are BA’s so on & so forth there at least a 100 interpretations of the TAG “Business Analyst” at each of them are unique to each company & specialize in their skill sets.

What is the repercussion’s of this???

Hiring mistakes done by the companies who do not sufficiently mine the prospective skill sets.

Inconsistency between the BA team & the management in delivering what is needed by the business. This is a disaster!!!!! This would badly affect the purpose of having a BA team thereby affecting the companies, decision making/supporting systems & processes.
Here is a simple Case parallel to the analogy of Business analysts.


A report was to be produced which needed to support the training needs for Service desk analysts during the off peak/non business hours. It was not just a report but also confirmation on some of the issues that are reported during the off-peak hours & the analyst needed to also confirm the pattern, impact & other correlations. This was needed within 2 hours of the request being made & was on high priority.
So there was a definite amount of analytics that had to go into the report before any decision could be made.

There were 2 separate teams; one was that of data Analysts & another of operations analysts. The DA’s are supposed to be good at SQL queries, extraction & so on. The operations analyst team was supposed to be good in analytics. But there was no coordination between these two teams & were functioning separately. Unless the data arrived from the DA’s the Ops analysts could not go ahead.
However this roadblock was broken when one of the ops analysts sought DA’s assistance in a politically correct manner. Surprisingly the entire DA team was on in solving the puzzle as the query had to be developed. It was fairly easy question but drawing a accurate query within a short time was the challenge.

The data that was needed had to be after 7pm up to 6 am on Monday to Fridays. + Starting 7 PM Friday continuously to 6AM Monday morning.

There were 2 queries that were developed one was by the DA team & one was by a person who hailed from the DA team (Thanks Vidya) but at that time worked with the ops analyst team. Below is the query developed by the DA team.

SELECT * , --teadd(n (24*60-DATEPART(HOUR,EST_OPEN_TIME))+(7*60),EST_OPEN_TIME),24-(DATEPART(HOUR,EST_OPEN_TIME)) AS HR,60-(DATEPART(MI,EST_OPEN_TIME)) AS MI,60-(DATEPART(SS,EST_OPEN_TIME)) AS SS, CONVERT(VARCHAR(4),24-(DATEPART(HOUR,EST_OPEN_TIME))) +':'+ CONVERT(VARCHAR(4),60-(DATEPART(MI,EST_OPEN_TIME)))+':'+CONVERT(VARCHAR(4),60-(DATEPART(SS,EST_OPEN_TIME))) as done, CONVERT(VARCHAR(4),7+(24-(DATEPART(HOUR,EST_OPEN_TIME)))) +':'+ CONVERT(VARCHAR(4),60-(DATEPART(MI,EST_OPEN_TIME)))+':'+CONVERT(VARCHAR(4),60-(DATEPART(SS,EST_OPEN_TIME))) as did FROM VW_INCIDENTS_HISTORIC_BLRWHERE COMPANY = 'xxxxxxx'AND EST_OPEN_TIME>='20-FEB-07' AND EST_OPEN_TIME<'20-MAY-07'--AND DATEPART(HOUR,EST_OPEN_TIME)>=18 --AND datepart(HOUR,(dateadd(n, (24*60-DATEPART(HOUR,EST_OPEN_TIME))+(7*60),EST_OPEN_TIME)))<=07 --AND (CONVERT(VARCHAR(4),7+(24-(DATEPART(HOUR,EST_OPEN_TIME)))) +':'+ CONVERT(VARCHAR(4),60-(DATEPART(MI,EST_OPEN_TIME)))+':'--+CONVERT(VARCHAR(4),60-(DATEPART(SS,EST_OPEN_TIME)))) AND DATEPART(HOUR,EST_OPEN_TIME) NOT BETWEEN 7 AND 18AND DATEPART(DW, EST_OPEN_TIME) IN (2,3,4,5,6)UNIONSELECT *, --dateadd(n (24*60-DATEPART(HOUR,EST_OPEN_TIME))+(7*60),EST_OPEN_TIME),24-(DATEPART(HOUR,EST_OPEN_TIME)) AS HR,60-(DATEPART(MI,EST_OPEN_TIME)) AS MI,60-(DATEPART(SS,EST_OPEN_TIME)) AS SS, CONVERT(VARCHAR(4),24-(DATEPART(HOUR,EST_OPEN_TIME))) +':'+ CONVERT(VARCHAR(4),60-(DATEPART(MI,EST_OPEN_TIME)))+':'+CONVERT(VARCHAR(4),60-(DATEPART(SS,EST_OPEN_TIME))) as done, CONVERT(VARCHAR(4),7+(24-(DATEPART(HOUR,EST_OPEN_TIME)))) +':'+ CONVERT(VARCHAR(4),60-(DATEPART(MI,EST_OPEN_TIME)))+':'+CONVERT(VARCHAR(4),60-(DATEPART(SS,EST_OPEN_TIME))) as did FROM VW_INCIDENTS_HISTORIC_BLRWHERE COMPANY = 'xxxxxx'AND EST_OPEN_TIME>='20-FEB-07' AND EST_OPEN_TIME<'20-MAY-07'--AND DATEPART(HOUR,EST_OPEN_TIME)>=18 --AND datepart(HOUR,(dateadd(n, (24*60-DATEPART(HOUR,EST_OPEN_TIME))+(7*60),EST_OPEN_TIME)))<=07 --AND (CONVERT(VARCHAR(4),7+(24-(DATEPART(HOUR,EST_OPEN_TIME)))) +':'+ CONVERT(VARCHAR(4),60-(DATEPART(MI,EST_OPEN_TIME)))+':'--+CONVERT(VARCHAR(4),60-(DATEPART(SS,EST_OPEN_TIME))))AND DATEPART(DW, EST_OPEN_TIME) IN (7,1)


And below is the query developed by the person from the DA team but was now in the Ops Analyst team.



select numberprgn , month(open_time), datepart(dw, open_time), datepart(hh,open_time),
case
when (datepart(hh,open_time) >=7 and datepart(hh,open_time) <=18 and datepart(dw, open_time) between 2 and 6) then 'Buss'
else 'Non'

end as 'Classi'
from VW_INCIDENTS_HISTORIC_BLR
where company like 'xxxxxxxxxxx'
and open_time>='1-Jan-2007' and open_time<='1-Sep-2007'


After hrs query –

Time Considred

Mon – Fri 7am to 6 PM – Buss Hrs
Mon - Fri - 6 PM – 7 am - non Buss
Sat - Sun full day – non Buss

The former took a lot of time to be written, was lengthy to comprehend, execute etc. unlike the latter.

By this time the 2 hour deadline of delivering the report is already breached, presumably there is a negative business impact.

What do we infer from this event?

( would follow next……….)

I dont want to be a B.A!!!!!!!!!!----1

I write this rising from the frustrations and the plight after finishing a BI (Business Intelligence) course from the only institute in Bangalore, and after doing enough reading about the much hyped BI & its expected outcome, its failures in the market. Who is a Business analyst? What is a Business intelligence team? Everyone seems to have their own customized shasthra about the BI & BA (Business analyst).


some understanding about BI per Gartner………..

A core topic of research coined by Gartner in late 1980’s, BI is a USER CENTERED / DEPENDENT PROCESS who would access, explore & analyze organizational data. This should & must lead to developing insights & better understanding of the business genetics, forces that influence, govern the growth etc. This in turn would lead to improved & informed decision making in a broader sense. In today’s highly competitive scenario, the BI doesn’t stop still decision supporting but it goes beyond that in predictions, forecasting, modeling & so on.

I see that the BI’s expectations are really high & they seem to be in line with the thinking process of chief in command of a project/unit/company.
But is this true in the real market scenario ?
Are business anlaysts delivering per what i have mentioned above?



(More would follow)