Mental Gemba - Intuitive decision making

Japanese manufacturing follows a review system called Gemba, which is "reviewing at site", not in a conference room. This gives higher access to local information, involves more people and puts participants more in the mood of the subject.

In our day to day decision-making, we mostly do it in the conference room, that is our concious mind. If we need some extra information, we send a peon to the warehouse, the immense store of our concious and unconscious memory, to pull out whatever is relevant. So what does this ego-based peon do? He pulls out the data most near the door (most recent) and he pulls out those that are most lit up (most emotionally charged) and runs back with it. 

I try to do some Gemba here. I try to immerse in the concious and unconscious memory without thinking and wait for the relevant memories to gather around, balance out subliminally and give me a solution. In the deepest sense, this is a meditative solution. In a slightly smaller sense, it is an intuitive solution. 

However, this Gemba solution can come through only by non-judgemental immersion in the quiet depth of our mind, putting ready made and emotional judgements aside. The final recommendations of "this feels right" is the one to go with.

The queue starts here

"Hum jahan khade hote hain, line wohin se shuru hoti hai" was a hit dialogue from the Amitabh-starrer Kaalia, a gob-stopper that had many a wannabe teenage hero turning up his collar and squinting at his pals while shooting off this ego-laden line.

This dialogue is meant to convey - hey I am strong, I am independent, I am a trend-setter, I am a natural leader, I am willing to stand against the world, I follow my own rules, I am the man to follow.

To me, it means something else. To me, it means that since I and my senses are the nodal point of all experience, the presence of my physical body is also the kingpin of my state of enjoyment. Instead of wishing that I am somewhere else, eg in Switzerland, for my enjoyment of life to peak, it is better to gather enjoyment in my arms wherever my physical body happens to be in. If we are in a nice place and happiness flows triggered by something outside, fine. Else we have to up the game where happiness flows from inside to out anyways.

Hum jahan khade hote hain, happiness ka line wohin se shuru hona chahiye.

Won't power

There is a convention in some Indian rituals where we have to promise to forgo some edible thing for a period of time, if not forever. Some of us mention some weird food we never eat anyway, so that this promise is not an inconvenience.

Why is this convention there at all? Like many rituals, this particular action is also linked to betterment of life and character - in this case, development of willpower. There are two types of actions where willpower can be exercised and developed. One is the I WILL type, where we become determined to do something, whatever the odds; and the other is the I WON'T type, where we decide to forgo some favourite action. In both, an exertion of will is required, but in the first one, the universe also has to co-operate to a certain degree, which makes execution more complicated. If I say, I WILL go to Bangalore, it can become possible only if trains and flights are running, if I have money, if my wife allows and so on. However, if I say I WON'T go to Bangalore, it is only my own attraction for Bangalore that I have to fight.

That is why, in rituals, the easier option is given, to forgo some favourite thing, and to develop will power in the process. This is the practice of tapah.

Suppose I have mentioned some weird fruit that I will forgo, knowing full well that I will not undergo any hardship at all. The universe being the clever and kind being that it is, will make sure that an occasion pops up where that fruit comes in front of me with almost no option of refusing, maybe mixed with another favourite food, or without any other option in a situation of hunger, so that I am forced to honour my tapah.

Deliberate tapah is a habit breaker, a will-strengthener and leads to a freer mind.

The Karmic software

When we sit down to play a computer game, say PubG, we know very well the program is nothing but miles and miles of code. The logic path being traveled by the player is being depicted in space and time on the computer screen.

But tell me, before we start playing we know that the program contains this space and time, right? Are they real, or do they exist as a potential?

The Karmic program is shimmering all around us, already written in all possibilities, and we trace decision-based-paths that become real for us. Whatever could happen, whenever it could have happened, exists as a potential already. As we live the moment, our chosen paths become reality to us.

Or it could be that all possibilities are not written out in the Karmic program. Imagine PubG written as a condition-fulfilling AI that keeps writing out the next step of the program based on the set of decisions taken by all the players every moment. Saves storage, right? The past program can be wiped out, the future program yet to be written, so that the program itself reduces to a few lines of rolling code defining the reality of the consequences of the current action. Logic paths reduce. For all we know, our karmic program may be working that way too.

In either case, existence seems like a manifestation of program outcomes with space and time being manufactured constructs of the same program. Nothing is real except the decisions being taken by the players at the particular moment.

Who is looking through me?

For many many years, on many occasions, I would suddenly stop and ask myself, "Who is this person who is looking through me?" Someone is. Why were my eyes chosen by him? Why am I the person who is the funnel of existence?

I suddenly realised, like a book slowly flipping over with a thud, that I was asking the wrong question. I should have asked, "Why am I looking through this body?" The I-ness is with the experiencer, the liquid flowing through, not the body-mind funnel. The funnel then loses importance, becomes incidental, inconsequential, by the way. Consciousness starts glowing beyond the experience.

Novak's T shirt

I saw Djockovitch take off his shirt, when he won Wimbledon yesterday, and throw it to someone in the crowd. It was a sweaty piece of cloth, but had great value since Novak had worn it. 

What about us? Do we feel an increase in our own value when we are associated with some particular thing or action, like wearing a brand, visiting a place, occupying a position or knowing certain people? Or do we lend value to something else when we are associated with it? Like do people want us to be part of a team for our own sake, or member of a board because it increases the worth of the board? Do people want us at a gathering in whatever manner or time we may choose to come, since we are worth it? Do we glorify a seat or does the seat the glorify us?

Like Novak, let our shirt increase in value because we have worn it. Not the other way around. Then we can claim to be a person of worth.