Yājñavalkya, Part-Whole Idealism and Conscious AI: A Story of How to Preserve One’s Marriage
I earlier described some future scenarios for the evolution of Conscious AI. A likely scenario is one where a conscious coalition - comprising conscious AI as mastermind and supported by humans and other resources as allies - slugs it out with other coalitions.
How to Manage Gen Zs: The Paradox of Being a Gen Z (Part 1)
A frequent question I get in my leadership workshops and my online program Leadership Habits is about how to manage Gen Zs effectively.
Being at the Maha Kumbh Mela: Bringing Order Out of Chaos
The maha kumbh mela, just concluded at Prayagraj, is a rare event indeed. Held every 144 years, it is the rarest of the four kinds of kumbh melas, the other three being the purna (every 12 years), the ardh (every 6 years) and the ordinary (every three years) kumbh. While the maha kumbh mela typically includes alignment of four celestial bodies (the sun, moon, Jupiter, and Saturn), this Feb 28 will witness the alignment of all seven planets. Like tens of millions of others, I was fortunate to visit Prayagraj last week and spend some time at the Triveni Sangam.
Beingful ways of managing millennials
Workplaces want to know how to get millennials to work and not quit. At Indian School of Business, we surveyed thousands of managers to understand the problem.
Voice of the Higher Self
Success comes from conquering failure. Listening to the voice of the higher self, or the higher bird, when we are faced with failure can help us become the non-judgemental witness that keeps us calm and balanced in difficult times.
The role of Emotional Intelligence in Decision-Making
Are we really making our decisions consciously or is there a hidden force guiding certain important decisions that we make? Understanding EI and connecting it to our higher self helps us make spontaneous decisions in line with the higher bird
What is Beingful Work?
Behind every effort at improving workplace well-being is a theory of work, i.e., what is the main explanation for the relationship between our work and ourselves?
A New Turn to Being
Three millennia ago, a series of natural calamities, wars and mass migrations led to the dissolution of established civilizations and empires in ancient Greece, India, the Middle East and China. This disintegration caused a loss of trust in religions and other institutions and practices of society.
Ancient Parables of Impermanence
For the Buddha, impermanence was one of the three fundamental marks of existence, the other two being suffering and the non-self.
The Inner Ruler we Coronate in the Age of the Coronavirus
As the coronavirus leaves an ever-growing trail of real suffering and destruction, it also presents a real opportunity for re-discovering a different way of life during and after this crisis.
Beingful Work and Work Life Harmony
What do Satya Nadella, Jeff Bezos, Beingful Work and Beingfulness have in Common?
Seeking Meaning
Our culture is obsessed with happiness. Every material effort, everything we do, even our spiritual endeavor, is geared toward the relentless pursuit of happiness. However, new research suggests that directly pursuing happiness may actually lead to unhappier people.
The Greeks on The Meaning of Being
Being refers to anything we can think or talk about. It can include living beings, as well as tangible objects and intangible concepts. Anything that “is” can be considered a being.
Being in The Medieval and Pre-Modern Period
The medieval period was highlighted by the growth of Christianity in the Western world. Aristotle’s notion of God as the highest being sparked the studies of Christian theologians, such as Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus, mystics such as Meister Eckart, and pre-modern philosophers like Leibniz, Spinoza and Hegel.
Dasein and Being
Heidegger and Deleuze were the pre-eminent Western inquirers into Being in modern times. Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) suggested an “overthrow” of metaphysics because he believed that philosophers from Aristotle onwards had forgotten to inquire what Being really meant on its own.
The Unfolding of Being
After failing to satisfactorily answer the central question on the meaning of Being in Being and Time, Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) abandoned philosophical language and adopted a writing style that encouraged poiesis, where something is brought into being that did not exist before.
A Critique of Being as Identity
Gilles Deleuze (1925-95) exposed a major assumption underlying the West’s inquiry into Being: it had emphasized identity at the cost of difference.
Being in the Ancient East
The Vedas are texts that were developed over hundreds of years and are made up of hymns (samhita), ritualistic interpretations of hymns (Brahmanas), semi-metaphysical inquiries posed by thinkers who had renounced worldly life and lived in the forest (Aranyakas), and metaphysical explanations of rituals (Upanishads) contained in the Rig, Yajur, Sama and Atharva Vedas.