Wednesday 23 November 2016

Guru Ramana III

The Guru

Bhagavan then illustrated this saying by the following story: A king once visited his minister at the latter’s house. There he was told that the minister was busy with his incantations. The king accordingly waited for him, and when he was free to meet him, asked him what incantation it was. The minister told him that it was the Gayatri. The king then asked the minister to initiate him into the use of it, but the latter declared that he was unable to. Thereupon the king learnt it from someone else and the next time he met the minister he repeated it to him and asked him whether it was right. The minister replied that the incantation was right but that it was not right for him to say it. The king asked why; the minister called an attendant who was standing nearby and told him to arrest the king. The order was not obeyed. The minister repeated it and still it was not obeyed. The king then flew into a temper and ordered the attendant to arrest the minister, which he immediately did. The minister laughed and said that that was the explanation the king had asked for. ‘How?’ the king asked. ‘Because the order was the same, and the executive was the same but the authority was different. When I pronounced the order there was no effect; but when you did it, the effect was immediate. It is the same with incantation.’ 

Bhagavan might offer consolation or might retort, ‘How do you know there is no progress?’ And he would explain that it is the Guru, not the disciple, who sees the progress made; it is for the disciple to carry on perserveringly with his work even though the structure being raised may be out of sight of the mind.


There is a verse in the Bhagavata (here Bhagavan quoted the verse in Tamil) which says: Just as a man who is drunk is not conscious whether his upper cloth is on his body or has slipped away from it, the Jnani is hardly conscious of his body, and it makes no difference to him whether the body remains or has dropped off.1
Contact with them (jnani) is good. They will work through silence. By speaking, their power is reduced. Speech is always less powerful than silence. So silent contact is the best.
Self Enquiry

Because every kind of path except Self-enquiry presupposes the retention of the mind as the instrument for following it, and cannot be followed without the mind. The ego may take different and more subtle forms at different stages  of one’s practice but it is never destroyed. The attempt to destroy the ego or the mind by methods other than Self-enquiry is like a thief turning policeman to catch the thief that is himself. Selfenquiry alone can reveal the truth that neither the ego nor the mind really exists and enable one to realise the pure, undifferentiated Being of the Self or the Absolute.
To ask the mind to kill the mind is like making the thief the policeman. He will go with you and pretend to catch the thief, but nothing will be gained. So, you must turn inward and see where the mind rises from and then it will cease to exist. (In reference to this answer, Sri Thambi Thorai of Jaffna, who has been living as a sadhu in Pelakothu for over a year, asked me whether asking the mind to turn inward and seek its source is not also employing the mind. I put this doubt before Bhagavan.) B.: Of course, we are employing the mind. It is well known and admitted that only with the help of the mind, can the mind be killed. But instead of setting about saying there is a mind and I want to kill it, you begin to seek its source, and then you find it does not exist at all. The mind turned outwards results in thoughts and objects. Turned inwards it becomes itself the Self.
Just as a man would dive in order to get something that had fallen into the water, so one should dive into oneself with a keen, one-pointed mind, controlling speech and breath, and find the place whence the ‘I’ originates. The only enquiry leading to Self-realisation is seeking the source of the word ‘I’. Meditation on ‘I am not this; I am that’ may be an aid to enquiry but it cannot be the enquiry. If one enquires ‘Who am I?’ within the mind, the individual ‘I’ falls down abashed as soon as one reaches the Heart and immediately Reality manifests itself spontaneously as ‘I-I’. Although it reveals itself as ‘I’, it is not the ego but the perfect Being, the Absolute Self.2
B.: The notions of bondage and liberation are merely modifications of the mind. They have no reality of their own, and therefore cannot function of their own accord.

You came from the same source in which you were during sleep. Only during sleep you could not know where you entered. That is why you must make the enquiry while awake.

Heart is another name for Self.

If distracting thoughts are a danger on one hand, so also is sleep a danger on the other hand. In fact, people who are beginning a spiritual path may find themselves assailed by an overpowering wave of sleepiness whenever they begin to meditate. And then, if they stop meditating, this passes and they are not sleepy at all. This is simply one form of the ego’s resistance and it has to be broken down.

Other Methods

Breath and vital forces are also described as the gross manifestations of the mind. Till the hour of death the mind sustains and supports these forces in the physical body; and when life becomes extinct, the mind envelops them and carries them away.

What is wrong with it? When a schoolboy says: ‘It is I that did the sum correctly’, or when he asks you: ‘Shall I run and get the book for you’, would he point to the head that did the sum correctly or to the legs that will swiftly get you that book? No, in both cases, his finger is pointed quite naturally towards the right side of the chest, thus giving innocent expression to the profound truth that the source of ‘I’-ness in him is there. It is an unerring intuition that makes him refer to himself, to the Heart which is the Self, in that way. The act is quite involuntary and universal, that is to say, it is the same in the case of every individual. What stronger proof than this do you require about the position of the Heart-centre in the physical body?

Some Upanishads also speak of a hundred and one nadis which spread from the heart, one of them being the vital nadi. If the ego descends from above and is reflected in the brain, as the yogis say, there must be a reflecting surface. This must also be capable of limiting the Infinite Consciousness to the limits of the body. In short, the Universal Being becomes limited as an ego. Such a reflecting medium is furnished by the aggregate of vasanas of the individual. It acts like the water in a pot which reflects an object. If the pot is drained of its water there will be no reflection. The object will remain without being reflected.
The object here is the Universal Being-Consciousness which is all-pervading and therefore immanent in all. It need not be cognised by reflection alone. It is self-resplendent. Therefore, the seeker’s aim must be to drain away the vasanas from the heart and let no reflecting medium obstruct the light of the Eternal Consciousness. This is achieved by the search for the origin of the ego and by diving into the heart. This is the direct path to Self-realisation. One who adopts it need not worry about nadis, brain, sushumna, kundalini, breath-control and the six yogic centres.

On the whole, the Maharshi did not approve of vows of silence. If the mind is controlled, useless speech will be avoided; but abjuring speech will not quieten the mind. The effect cannot produce the cause.

The spark of spiritual knowledge (Jnana) will consume all creation like a mountain-heap of cotton. Since all the countless worlds are built upon the weak or non-existent foundations of the ego, they all disintegrate when the atom-bomb of knowledge falls on them. All talk of surrender is like stealing sugar from a sugar image of Ganesha and then offering it to the same Ganesha.
You say that you offer up your body and soul and all your possessions to God, but were they yours to offer? At best you can say: ‘I wrongly imagined till now that all these, which are Yours, were mine. Now I realise that they are Yours and I shall no longer act as though they were mine.’ And this knowledge that there is nothing but God or the Self, that ‘I’ and ‘mine’ do not exist and that only the Self exists, is Jnana.

The Goal


Who asks this question – a Realised Man or an unrealised man? Why worry about what the Realised Man does or why he does anything? Better think about yourself. He was then silent. After a while, however, he explained further, ‘You are under the impression that you are the body, so you think the Realised Man also has a body. Does he say that he has one? He may seem to you to have one, and to do things with it, as others do. The charred ashes of a rope look like a rope but they are of no use to tie anything with. So long as one identifies oneself with the body, all this is hard to understand. That is why it is sometimes said in answer to such questions that the body of the Realised Man continues to exist until his destiny has worked itself out, and then it falls away. An example of this that is sometimes given is that an arrow which has been loosed from the bow (destiny) must continue its course and hit the mark, even though the animal that stood there has moved away and another has taken its place (i.e., Realisation has been achieved). But the truth is that the Realised Man has transcended all destiny and is bound neither by the body nor by its destiny.

Guru Ramana II

The Basic Theory

The teaching varies according to the understanding of the listener.
Just as in dreams, you wake up after several new experiences, so after death another body is found. Just as rivers lose their individuality when they discharge their waters into the ocean, and yet the waters evaporate and return as rain on the hills and back again through the rivers to the ocean, so also individuals lose their individuality when they go to sleep but return again according to their previous innate tendencies. Similarly, in death also, being is not lost.

See how a tree grows again when its branches are cut off. So long as the life source is not destroyed, it will grow. Similarly, latent potentialities withdraw into the heart at death but do not perish. That is how beings are re-born.

The birth of the ‘I’-thought is a person’s birth and its death is his death. After the ‘I’-thought has arisen, the wrong identification with the body arises. Identifying yourself with the body makes you falsely identify others also with their bodies. Just as your body was born and grows and will die, so you think the other also was born, grew and died. Did you think of your son before he was born? The thought came after his birth and continues even after his death. He is your son only insofar as you think of him. Where has he gone? To the source from which he sprang. So long as you continue to exist, he does too. But if you cease to identify yourself with the body and realise the true Self, this confusion will vanish. You are eternal and others also will be found to be eternal. Until this is realised there will always be grief due to false values which are caused by wrong knowledge and wrong identification.

Only he who concentrates on the heart can remain aware when the mind ceases to be active and remains still, with no thoughts, whereas those who concentrate on any other centre cannot retain awareness without thought but only infer that the mind was still after it has become active again.
The cause of your misery is not in your outer life; it is in you, as your ego. You impose limitations on yourself and then make a vain struggle to transcend them. All unhappiness is due to the ego.
If you would deny the ego and scorch it by ignoring it, you would be free. If you accept it, it will impose limitations on you and throw you into a vain struggle to transcend them. That was how the ‘thief’ sought to ruin King Janaka. To be the Self that you really are is the only means to realise the Bliss that is ever yours.1
He will discover that the Self always exists and that the body which is born resolves itself into thought, and that the emergence of thought is the root of all mischief.
In order that you might seek it. Your eyes cannot see themselves but if you hold a mirror in front of them they see themselves. Creation is the mirror. See yourself first and then see the whole world as the Self.
Because the quality of purity (Sattva) is the real nature of the mind, clearness like that of the unclouded sky is the characteristic of the mind-expanse. Being stirred up by the quality of activity (rajas) the mind becomes restless and, influenced by darkness (tamas), manifests as the physical world. The mind thus becoming restless on the one hand and appearing as solid matter on the other, the Real is not discerned. Just as fine silk threads cannot be woven with the use of a heavy iron shuttle, or the delicate shades of a work of art be distinguished in the light of a lamp flickering in the wind, so is Realisation of Truth impossible with the mind rendered gross by darkness (tamas) and restless by activity (rajas). Because truth is exceedingly subtle and serene. Mind will be cleared of its impurities only by a desireless performance of duties during several births, getting a worthy Master, learning from him and incessantly practising meditation on the Supreme. The transformation of the mind into the world of inert matter due to the quality of darkness (tamas) and its restlessness due to the quality of activity (rajas) will cease. Then the mind regains its subtlety and composure. The Bliss of the Self can manifest only in a mind rendered subtle and steady by assiduous meditation. He who experiences that Bliss is liberated even while still alive.
Almighty God, it is for You to roll me through many bodies, or keep me fixed at Your feet.’
Because you proceed on a wrong principle. Your conclusion is arrived at by the intellect which shines only by the light it derives from the Self. Is it not presumptuous on the part of the intellect to sit in judgement over that from which it derives its little light? How can the intellect, which can never reach the Self, be competent to ascertain and much less decide the nature of the final state of Realisation? It is like trying to measure the sunlight at its source by the standard of the light given by a candle. The wax will melt down before the candle comes anywhere near the sun. Instead of indulging in mere speculation, devote yourself here and now to the search for the Truth that is ever within you.
Why worry about God? We do not know whether God exists but we know that we exist, so first concentrate on yourself. Find out who you are.
What is meditation? It is the suspension of thoughts.
You are perturbed by thoughts which rush one after another. Hold on to one thought so that others are expelled. Continuous practice gives the necessary strength of mind to engage in meditation.
Meditation differs according to the degree of advancement of the seeker. If one is fit for it one can hold directly to the thinker; and the thinker will automatically sink into his source, which is Pure Consciousness. If one cannot directly hold on to the thinker, one must meditate on God; and in due course the same individual will have become sufficiently pure to hold on to the thinker and sink into the absolute Being.
But if you have surrendered, it means that you must accept the will of God and not make a grievance of what may not happen to please you. Things may turn out differently from what they appear. Distress often leads people to faith in God.
The Lord bears the burden of the world. Know that the spurious ego which presumes to bear that burden is like a sculptured figure at the foot of a temple tower which appears to sustain the tower’s weight. Whose fault is it if the traveller, instead of putting his luggage in the cart which bears the load anyway, carries it on his head, to his own inconvenience?
Surrender to Him and accept His will whether He appears or vanishes. Await His pleasure. If you want Him to do as you want, it is not surrender but command. You cannot ask Him to obey you and yet think you have surrendered. He knows what is best and when and how to do it. Leave everything entirely to Him. The burden is His and you have no more cares. All your cares are His. That is what is meant by surrender.
Not from any desire, resolve, or effort on the part of the rising sun, but merely due to the presence of his rays, the lens emits heat, the lotus blossoms, water evaporates, and people attend to their various duties in life. In the proximity of the magnet the needle moves. Similarly, the soul or jiva subjected to the threefold activity of creation, preservation and destruction, which takes place merely due to the unique Presence of the Supreme Lord, performs acts in accordance with its karma, and subsides to rest after such activity. But the Lord Himself has no resolve; no act or event touches even the fringe of His Being. This state of immaculate aloofness can be likened to that of the sun, which is untouched by the activities of life, or to that of the all-pervasive ether, which is not affected by the interaction of the complex qualities of the other four elements.
From Theory to Practice

This mode of reply is common to spiritual teachers. I remember once reading the life of a Sufi saint, Abu Said, by Professor Nicholson, in which the learned author concluded that he seems to have taught predestination in theory but free will in practice. Puzzling as it may be for the philosopher, this is the attitude of all spiritual teachers, just as Christ affirmed that not even a sparrow can fall without the will of God, and that the very hairs on one’s head are numbered, just as the Quran affirms that all knowledge and power are with God and that He leads aright whom He will and leads astray whom He will; and yet both Christ and the Quran exhort men to right effort and condemn sin. Bhagavan was quite categorical that effort is necessary. In actual life everyone realises this, whatever theoretical view he may hold. A man makes the physical effort of putting the food in his mouth and eating; he does not say: What is the use of eating if I am predestined to die of starvation? He makes the mental effort of earning the money to buy food to eat. Why should he, then, apply a different logic when it comes to spiritual effort?
Effortless and choiceless awareness is our real nature. If we can attain that state and abide in it, that is all right. But one cannot reach it without effort, the effort of deliberate meditation. All the age-old vasanas (inherent tendencies) turn the mind outwards to external objects. All such thoughts have to be given up and the mind turned inwards and that, for most people, requires effort. Of course, every teacher and every book tells the aspirant to keep quiet, but it is not easy to do so. That is why all this effort is necessary. Even if we find somebody who has achieved this supreme state of stillness, you may take it that the necessary effort had already been made in a previous life. So effortless and choiceless awareness is attained only after deliberate meditation. That meditation can take whatever form most appeals to you. See what helps you to keep out all other thoughts and adopt that for your meditation.
Meditation is a fight. As soon as you begin meditation, other thoughts will crowd together, gather force and try to overwhelm the single thought to which you try to hold. This thought must gradually gain strength by repeated practice. When it has grown strong, the other thoughts will be put to flight. This is the battle always going on in meditation. So long as the ego lasts, effort is necessary. When the ego ceases to exist, actions become spontaneous. No one succeeds without effort. Mind control is not your birthright. The few who succeed owe their success to their perseverence.
The Upanishads say, I am told, that he alone knows the Atman whom the Atman chooses. Why should the Atman choose at all? If it chooses, why some particular person? B.: When the sun rises some buds blossom, not all. Do you blame the sun for that? Nor can the bud blossom of itself; it requires the sunlight to enable it to do so. D.: May we not say that the help of the Atman is needed because it is the Atman that drew over itself the veil of Maya? B.: You may say so. D.: If the Atman has drawn the veil over itself, should it not itself remove the veil?
Life in the world

The silence of solitude is forced. Restrained speech in society is equivalent to silence, for then a man controls his speech. There must be a speaker before there can be speech. If the mind of the speaker is engaged otherwise, speech is restrained. When the mind is turned inwards it is active in a different way and is not anxious to speak. The purpose of a vow of silence is to limit the mental activities provoked by speech but if the mind is controlled, this is unnecessary and silence becomes natural.

First surrender and then see. Doubts arise because of the absence of surrender. Acquire strength by surrender and then your surrounding will be found to have improved to the degree of strength acquired by you.

Continued : Guru Ramana III

Guru Ramana I

Book: The Teachings of Ramana Maharashi – Edited by Arthur Osborne

A book helps us to capture an individual’s contributions to mankind. The ideas spoken out by an individual in 1940 helps today i.e. 2016 to understand how invaluable they were.

Two books on philosophy have inspired me more i.e. Talks on Vivekachoodamani by Swami Chinmayananda and The Teachings of Ramana Maharashi edited by Arthur Osborne.

I believe one i.e. Vivekachoodamani is Bare Act and second one The Teachings of Ramana Maharshi is a detailed and simplified explanation of bare act (for understanding of mortal human beings).

While reading The Teachings of Ramana Maharashi, delusional ego of the reader is traumatized. Bhagavan asks very straight questions to Devotees and helps them to remove their ignorance.

This post is going to be a lengthy one with respect to takeaways (chapter wise) from the book.

I was stranded wondering whether I should weave, the takeaways, like a garland and present it. Like a fool the egoistical I spent time in combining the different flowers.

Instead the best thing was to leave the flowers plucked from the bouquet of trees presented in the garden “The Teachings of Ramana Maharashi” and place it here and leave it for the readers to weave as a garland or pick any one of them as a message for rest of the life.

It is earnestly recommended that book should be read and build one’s own takeaways. For those who might have stumbled here to read this post, hope the takeaways inspire reader to read “The Teachings of Ramana Maharashi” edited by Arthur Osborne.

These takeaways (as is extracted and reproduced from the book) will be presented in three sections i.e. Guru Ramana I, II and III

Obeisance at the feet of Guru Bhagavan Ramana.

The basic theory

After Realisation all intellectual loads are useless burdens and are to be thrown overboard.
What use is the learning of those who do not seek to wipe out the letters of destiny (from their brow) by enquiring: ‘Whence is the birth of us who know the letters?’ They have sunk to the level of a gramophone. What else are they, O Arunachala? It is those who are not learned that are saved rather than those whose ego has not yet subsided in spite of their learning. The unlearned are saved from the relentless grip of the devil of self-infatuation; they are saved from the malady of a myriad whirling thoughts and words; they are saved from running after wealth. It is from more than one evil that they are saved.

The scriptures serve to indicate the existence of the Higher Power or Self and to point the way to It. That is their essential purpose. Apart from that they are useless. However, they are voluminous, in order to be adapted to the level of development of every seeker. As a man rises in the scale he finds the stages already attained to be only stepping stones to higher stages, until finally the goal is reached. When that happens, the goal alone remains and everything else, including the scriptures, becomes useless.

The intricate maze of philosophy of the various schools is said to clarify matters and to reveal the Truth, but in fact it creates confusion where none need exist. To understand anything there must be the Self. The Self is obvious, so why not remain as the Self? What need to explain the non-self?

Shankara also said that this world is Brahman or the Self. What he objected to is one’s imagining that the Self is limited by the names and forms that constitute the world. He only said that the world has no reality apart from Brahman. Brahman or the Self is like a cinema screen and the world like the pictures on it. You can see the picture only so long as there is a screen. But when the observer himself becomes the screen only the Self remains.

You see various scenes passing on a cinema screen: fire seems to burn buildings to ashes; water seems to wreck ships; but the screen on which the pictures are projected remains unburnt and dry. Why? Because the pictures are unreal and the screen real. Similarly, reflections pass through a mirror but it is not affected at all by their number or quality.

Then Bhagavan said: “The names and forms which constitute the world continually change and perish and are therefore called unreal. It is unreal (imaginary) to limit the Self to these names and forms and real to regard all as the Self. The non-dualist says that the world is unreal, but he also says, ‘All this is Brahman’. So it is clear that what he condemns is, regarding the world as objectively real in itself, not regarding it as Brahman. He who sees the Self sees the Self alone in the world also. It is immaterial to the Enlightened whether the world appears or not. In either case, his attention is turned to the Self. It is like the letters and the paper on which they are printed. You are so engrossed in the letters that you forget about the paper, but the Enlightened sees the paper as the substratum whether the letters appear on it or not.

The Vedantins do not say that the world is unreal. That is a misunderstanding. If they did, what would be the meaning of the Vedantic text: ‘All this is Brahman’?

The Vedas contain conflicting accounts of cosmogony. Ether is said to be the first creation in one place, vital energy in another, water in another, something else in another; how can all this be reconciled? Does it not impair the credibility of the Vedas? B.: Different seers saw different aspects of truth at different times, each emphasising some viewpoint. Why do you worry about their conflicting statements? The essential aim of the Vedas is to teach us the nature of the imperishable Self and show us that we are That.
D.: About that part I am satisfied.
B.: Then treat all the rest as auxiliary arguments or as expositions for the ignorant who want to know the origin of things.
Major Chadwick was copying out the English translation of the Tamil Kaivalya Navaneetha, when he came across some of the technical terms in it which he had difficulty in understanding. He accordingly asked Bhagavan about them, and Bhagavan replied. “These portions deal with theories of creation. They are not essential because the real purpose of the scriptures is not to set forth such theories. They mention the theories casually, so that those readers who wish to, may take interest in them. The truth is that the world appears as a passing shadow in a flood of light. Light is necessary even to see the shadow. The shadow is not worth any special study, analysis or discussion. The purpose of the book is to deal with the Self and what is said about creation may be omitted for the present.”
Later, Sri Bhagavan continued: “Vedanta says that the cosmos springs into view simultaneously with him who sees it and there is no detailed process of creation. It is similar to a dream where he who experiences the dream arises simultaneously with the dream he experiences. However, some people cling so fast to objective knowledge that they are not satisfied when told this. They want to know how sudden creation can be possible and argue that an effect must be preceded by a cause. In fact they desire an explanation of the world that they see about them.
Therefore the scriptures try to satisfy their curiosity by such theories. This method of dealing with the subject is called the theory of gradual creation, but the true spiritual seeker can be satisfied with instantaneous creation.”
The individual being which identifies its existence with that of the life in the physical body as ‘I’ is called the ego. The Self, which is pure Consciousness, has no ego-sense about it. Neither can the physical body, which is inert in itself, have this ego-sense. Between the two, that is between the Self or pure Consciousness and the inert physical body, there arises mysteriously the ego-sense or ‘I’ notion, the hybrid which is neither of them, and this flourishes as an individual being. This ego or individual being is at the root of all that is futile and undesirable in life. Therefore it is to be destroyed by any possible means; then That which ever is alone remains resplendent. This is Liberation or Enlightenment or Self-Realisation.

You must not mistake the ego or the bodily idea for the Self.
B.: The mind does have this sort of difficulty. It wants a fixed theory to satisfy itself with. Really, however, no theory is necessary for the man who seriously strives to approach God or his true Self. How do you recognise yourself now? Do you have to hold a mirror up in front of your self to recognise yourself? The awareness is itself the ‘I’. Realise it and that is the truth.

Exactly. The waking man says that he did not know anything in the state of deep sleep. Now he sees objects and knows that he exists but in deep sleep there were no objects and no spectator.
And yet the same person who is speaking now existed in deep sleep also. What is the difference between the two states? There are objects and the play of the senses now, while in deep sleep there were not. A new entity, the ego, has arisen. It acts through the senses, sees objects, confuses itself with the body and claims to be the Self. In reality, what was in deep sleep continues to be now also. The Self is changeless. It is the ego which has come between. That which rises and sets is the ego. That which remains changeless is the Self.
Waking, dream and sleep are mere phases of the mind, not of the Self. The Self is the witness of these three states. Your true nature exists in sleep.
It is stupor which you must guard against. That sleep which alternates with waking is not the true sleep. That waking which alternates with sleep is not the true waking. Are you awake now? No. What you have to do is to wake up to your true state.
You should neither fall into false sleep nor remain falsely awake.
Why raise questions of what happens after death? Why ask whether you were born, whether you are reaping the fruits of your past karma, and so on? You will not raise such questions in a little while when you fall asleep. Why? Are you a different person now from the one you are when asleep? No, you are not. Find out why such questions do not occur to you when you are asleep.

Continued : Guru Ramana II 

Sunday 20 November 2016

Poems III

Men needs inspiration, they help you survive the pain. We have to accept that we are responsible for moving in the wrong paths, holding baggage when they have to be let go. It is in these difficult times that inspirational quotes / poems guide us through.

An inspirational quote and a poem will be shared below to remember during the tough times:

Quote:

“It's not the load that breaks you down, it's the way you carry it.”  - Lou Holtz

Poem:

Still I Rise By Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

Sources:



Saturday 19 November 2016

The Indian Challenge - Demonetizaiton

Indian Rs. 1,000 and Rs.500 currency demonetization is an epic exercise. The figures are mind blowing and the only nation that can claim to be more complex is China.

Study of Indian Population, Banking Infrastructure and Deposits available was carried out to comprehend difficulty of undertaking Demonetization exercise by Indian Government since November 8th, 2016.

The outcome below is not a report but to understand the gargantuan assignment undertaken by Government of India. 

I hope the shift is quiet and less painful as day’s move away from November 8th, 2016.

The population of 1.209 billion considered is the 2011 census. The number of ATMs, Deposit details, Reporting offices (i.e. branches) is based on Quarter 1 (2016-17) data obtained from Reserve Bank of India (RBI) website.

Overall Facts:

All India
Numbers
States and Union Territories
36
Population (2011 Census)
1,209,909,538
Reporting Offices
134,014
ATMs
215,029
The problem of complaining will come at places where ATM to population ratio is very low i.e. ATM available to individuals in the state. Similarly is with Reporting Offices / Population i.e. branches available to individuals in the state. 
This will help in identifying the states with pain due to demonetization.
Demonetization Pain Index
States
2011
ATMs
ATM /
Reporting
Reporting
offices /
Pain
Population
(Millions)
Population
Offices
Population
Bihar
103.80
7,675
13,525
6,427
16,151
High
Uttar Pradesh
199.28
19,143
10,410
16,115
12,366
High
Manipur
2.72
305
8,924
150
18,145
High
Jharkhand
32.97
3,712
8,881
2,836
11,624
High
Assam
31.17
3,645
8,551
2,196
14,194
High
Chhatisgarh
25.54
3,068
8,325
2,334
10,943
High
Tripura
3.67
460
7,981
421
8,720
Moderate
West Bengal
91.35
11,680
7,821
7,675
11,902
High
Rajasthan
68.62
8,875
7,732
6,745
10,174
High
Meghalaya
2.96
387
7,659
321
9,234
Moderate
Madhya Pradesh
72.60
9,777
7,425
6,218
11,675
High
Mizoram
1.09
154
7,085
167
6,533
Moderate
Odisha
41.95
6,307
6,651
4,579
9,161
Moderate
Nagaland
1.98
302
6,558
152
13,030
High
Arunachal Pradesh
1.38
223
6,200
144
9,601
Less
Jammu And Kashmir
12.55
2,377
5,279
1,712
7,330
Moderate
Gujarat
60.38
11,625
5,194
7,366
8,198
Moderate
Andhra Pradesh
49.39
10,456
4,723
6,552
7,538
Moderate
Maharashtra
112.37
24,829
4,526
11,927
9,422
Moderate
Lakshwadeep
0.06
16
4,027
13
4,956
Less
Haryana
25.35
6,496
3,903
4,567
5,551
Less
Uttarakhand
10.12
2,613
3,872
1,974
5,125
Moderate
Himachal Pradesh
6.86
1,799
3,816
1,511
4,543
Moderate
Punjab
27.70
7,398
3,745
6,118
4,528
Moderate
Kerala
33.39
9,093
3,672
6,208
5,378
Moderate
Karnataka
61.13
16,929
3,611
9,630
6,348
Moderate
Telangana
35.29
10,036
3,516
4,875
7,238
Less
Andaman & Nicobar Islands
0.38
112
3,392
64
5,937
Less
Sikkim
0.61
183
3,321
128
4,748
Less
Tamil Nadu
72.14
23,728
3,040
10,052
7,177
Less
Dadra Nagar Haveli
0.34
130
2,637
54
6,349
Less
Puducherry
1.24
514
2,421
232
5,364
Less
Daman & Diu
0.24
111
2,188
47
5,168
Less
Delhi
16.75
9,070
1,847
3,444
4,864
Less
Goa
1.46
1,021
1,428
662
2,202
Less
Chandigarh
1.05
780
1,352
398
2,650
Less
Indicators:
ATM / Population : Population dependent on one ATM
Reporting offices / Population : Population dependent on one Branch

Data Sources: