Anna Hazare : A Threat To Human Nature

Human Brain is created in such a way that it follows faithfully the principle called conservation of energy. It operates in the dictum of the film ‘Kamine’: Zindhagi me dho raaste hai; ek short cut, doosra hai chota short cut (In life there are two ways: one is short cut and the other is a ‘small short cut’).

And the source of all corruption is nothing but people taking short cuts. Short cut tells us the way to reach the destination without spending much effort. Students cheat in the exam not because they are bad but because it takes them to their goal of getting better marks in an easiest way. People take bribe or give bribe because it helps them to achieve what they want in the shortest period of time. And the brain is designed to operate in this manner.

And now Anna Hazare wants to disturb this million year old brain technology. Religions too preach similar things only, it wants human beings to take longest possible way, that is main reason people run away from religion or they convert the religion into some series of repetitive rituals.

In fact, if you cut off the enlightened beings out of our consideration, there are only two kinds of human beings; one type is corrupt because they had chance to get corrupted and the other type is the good human beings  because they had no chance to do anything bad.

The above mentioned classification is not my original idea. Years ago when I used to read Tamil novels, I came across a navel about a radical feminist, in which the main character will often repeat the punch dialogue, “There are only two kinds of men, first one is rapists the second good men. Rapists are rapists because they had the chance and the good ones are good because they had no chance.”

So basically what Anna Hazare is doing is the work of Sisyphus. In Greek mythology, Sisyphus was condemned to push a boulder up a mountain, only to see it roll down again. Fighting against the corruption is a similar activity, you push up a roller stone to the peak of a mountain, once you leave your grip, and it will roll down again. Many heroes have done similar things in the past, they were fighting against the base human nature only to realize that the stone has eventually reaches the bottom of the mountain.

Imagine the fight against corruption succeeds and it succeeds in removing corruption from the human psyche, then we will no longer be human beings, we will become something beyond comprehension. That is the reason I say that Anna Hazare is dangerous to human nature.

But do not be afraid, Sisyphuses will never succeed. 

The Almighty Complex

Diego Maradona was expelled from the world cup foot ball tournament in the year 1994. He failed a drug test which uncovered ephedrine. Maradona is a legend and played in four world cup tournaments (1982, 1986, 1990, and 1994). After reaching the cult status, he was forced to leave the field in tears.

The billion dollar question is; how can an experienced player of his stature do this kind of stupid blunder? He was fully aware of the tests conducted before and after every match, then what gave him the confidence that he can beat the system?

Psychologists along with the rest of the human race could not explain this behavior of Maradona, so they invented a new term ‘almighty complex’. It simply means that the individual who is very successful or who is an over-achiever, starts behaving like God. Mainly because people around him start treating with great reverence and respect; they literally start calling him God of this or that  (recently after the success of Delhi Belly, Amir Khan was called as God of Bollywood, even though he rejected the statement, his psyche might have soared high, If his ego is not contained, you can start expecting flops from him soon).

The history is full of examples. Napoleon’s monumental defeat at waterloo battle; every general advised him that it was suicidal, but his series of victories against many surrounding nations made him to feel that he can’t be defeated and he became deaf to all sound advises. Hitler after escaping from nearly 42 attempts on his life, started thinking that he is God and he can take on Russia and Britain at the same time.

Too much of anything is not good for health, and it applies even to success. With success we get surrounded by people with no sense of honor and they continue to massage our ego endlessly. Even if we are cautious in the beginning, we get carried away eventually. Occasional failures and timely betrayals are must for us to be rooted on the ground and to remind us that we are just mortals.

Since almighty complex leads us to ultimate disaster, one should pray for failures too.

One Man Army

After the First World War, C.G.Jung observed a unique pattern among his mentally disturbed patients. Most of his patients were having a frightening dream, in which a white terrifying figure emerges from nowhere. Jung latter interpreted, that the collective consciousness of Germans was expecting for a messiah, to redeem them from the shame of defeat. And Germany had their messiah in the form of Hitler.

Expecting for a leader to set things right is almost present in every culture. Jews still expect for a messiah and in Indian culture too, we expect God to take avatar to take care of evil doer. Amitabh Bhachchan in the role of Angry young man fulfilled our frustration in 1980s.

Leaders acting like a one man army creates catharsis in our mind. But it has more negative outcomes than positive. Invariably it becomes a one man show, the rest get reduced to mere spectators. In a way helplessness sets in among followers. Hero worship and sycophancy are displayed on daily basis. The organization or the nation will be equated with the leader (remember the late 1970s slogan: Indra is India and India is Indra).

This is neither good for the follower nor for the leader. It kills the motivation and creativity in the followers and creates illusionary glory in the mind of the leader. The leader hears echo of his own words in the form of advice. No one can differ from the leader; if one dares he will be declared as evil and betrayer of hope. Invariably he becomes an outcast. 


Leader will end up having neither friends nor enemies. In this atmosphere the leader invariably blunders and brings down the organization and the subjects to shame and misery.

Greeks were aware of this phenomenon and created a kind of parliamentary system to rule the nation. One man show is still prevalent in our organizations and nation. Still waiting for someone to eradicate corruption and bring forth prosperity for all. Hope, one day we will get rid of one man show dominating in our collective consciousness.

Misunderstanding

An agriculture professor was giving a lecture on fertilizer and manure. At the end of the lecture, one student stood up and addressed the professor, “I fully agree with your statement that old cow dung is the best manure for plants. Kindly tell me, how old the cow must me?”

People have tremendous capacity to misunderstand. At times I used wonder that people must be consciously developing their capacity to misunderstand others. I also have come across students waiting to confuse the teachers.

But sometimes it is the teacher who has the last word. Once a professor who was expert on Gold Fish was lecturing on ‘the history and geography of Gold Fish’, when the hour long lecture finally got over, one student raised her hand and asked the question, “How will you identify whether a gold fish is male or female?” The professor answered promptly, “It is very simple; male gold fish will eat male worm and the female gold fish will eat female worm” The student did not give up, and asked, “ How will you identify whether a worm is male or female?”. The professor looked at her and said, “ I am an expert on Gold Fish, you must ask this question to the expert on worms”.

Misunderstanding others deliberately is a skill; you can use it effectively to confuse others. But if you misunderstand always without fail, then you should seriously contemplate on taking sanyas, because others will take advantage of your innocence. 

Brain Washing

Thinkers of renaissance needed to battle hard to present their ideas. Middle age power structures were losing their grip, but yet completely not shattered. They continued to hold power in the name of religion and tradition. Common people were warned to be aware of radical thinkers who were portrayed as vultures who are out there to contaminate innocent minds.

Today, free thinkers are not seen as vultures but indeed there are many forms of vultures that are waiting to lure our minds in order to achieve their ends. Corporate, Cultic groups, Government mechanism, and Political parties are all battling for our thought process. They want us to believe them unconditionally and surrendering to their propaganda. The best way to persuade any person is using the process called brain washing.

Following are the methods used in brain washing a person. When you attend any meeting or seminar and if they use any one or combination of few methods of the following process, be aware they are attempting to brain wash you. Of course all can’t be brain washed, but sizable people are prone to be affected.

1. The “Voice Roll” Technique: it is patterned and paced style of speaking in order to induce trance. The speaker is talking to the beat of metronome or speaking as though every word in a monotonous patterned style.

2. TheBuild-up Process: Inducing Altered States: First an assistant address the crowd generates excitement and expectation about the main speaker. Next a group of young women or men sing a soothing song. During the singing one person will display kind of euphoria, at this point audience attention totally focused upon communication and the main speaker opens his address.

3. Bonding by Fear and Suggestion: The speaker induces fear by pointing out to a group or some idea. The hate propaganda is explained using visual image. Usually a known fact will be cited at first then extrapolated to another extreme level. Under trance, quite many of us fail to use our neo-cortex to reason out, thus end up believing everything.

4. The “Sell It By Zealot” Technique: Before the meeting is complete, kind of informal agreements are made with audience to go out spread their message to other people. Their argument would be that many must know about the message. So sell it by zealot will be their emphasis.  

5. Jargon: The introduction of jargon—new terms that have meaning only to the “insiders” who participate. Vicious language is also frequently used, purposely, to make participants uncomfortable.

6. Lack of Humor: No Release, No Resistance. There is no humor in the communications. There may be jokes and humor after you have become part of the group. Keeping the other person in tension is a must to drive a point effectively.

Self Deception

David Livingstone Smith, a philosopher and a psychologist, says, “I began to understand how we are built; we're built to be natural-born liars. Nature has fashioned us like nature has fashioned so many organisms.” It looks like for mental health of oneself one has to deceive oneself regularly and without fail. The moment we stop deceiving our self either we go insane or enlightened. Looking at the number of mental asylums, the possibility of going insane is very high.

In the late 1970s, Johns Hopkins University conducted number of experiments with chimpanzees; teaching them sign language and the ability identify things and images. There was a chimpanzee named Arthur. He was fluent in sign language and would refer to other monkeys as ‘black things’. He was extremely comfortable with human beings. One experiment was differentiating photos of human being from the photos of monkeys. Stack of mixed photos of humans and monkeys was given to Arthur and he has to put all human photos on right side and the other on left side. In the stake of photos, Arthur’s picture also was present.

This experiment was conducted two times; both times Arthur could accurately separate human beings from monkeys but made just one mistake. He put his photo on the side of human beings and not in the side of Monkeys.

So we must have inherited this useful quality called self deception from monkeys. Endlessly we bluff others and ourselves. Years ago I used to give training programs along with a colleague of mine. Sometimes it was visible that participants were not happy with the program, but my friend would say that everyone is happy and enjoying. Even when I point out that the body language of participants indicate that they are not interested, he would come up with different explanation and prove to me that they are happy and enjoying. That time itself I was convinced that he will go only higher in life. That is what happened; now he is a leading personality. I will not be surprised if he becomes a successful politician. Nietzsche , a German philosopher, said, “The visionary lies to himself, the liar only to others”. The art of self deception is a precondition for success in life. NLP does give the techniques of self deception. 

Jindal Steel and Power Plant

Last week, I went to Jindal Power and Steel plant situated at Angul to give a training program on Leadership. One of the participants was an excellent cartoonist. His sketch on me is posted above. He has a great future if he gets a break in the world of cartoonists.

Great teacher is a misnomer, if you get open minded and interested students, then the teaching experience is great, and the teacher is considered great. If you get unwilling partipants then teaching experience becomes a pain, and you have the worst teacher on the earth.

Captain is as good as the team, teacher is as good as the students. You may agree or disagree; luck does play a monumental role in our success. Of course some do create their own luck.

Weight Loss

When I was at Chennai doing my PhD, I became aware that I am fat, and decided to do something about it. Went to a medical shop and enquired if there is any medicine to reduce weight. The shop keeper said that there is a effective medicine, but it works only if I follow certain conditions; 1. I should do exercise regularly for an hour every day, 2. I should avoid all oil items including meat and fat. I was bit irritated and  pointed out to him that if I fulfill these two conditions then why on earth I need his medicine to reduce weight. I told him, “Don’t you think automatically I will become fit and then?” The shop keeper just smiled and paid no more attention to me and started engaging with other customers.

Disillusioned with allopathic medicine, I ventured into a ayurvedic clinic, there was a receptionist and she said that the doctor is on the way and I need to wait for an hour. I thought why to waste time, so went to a nearby restaurant. That restaurant accidently had a bar. So I thought since I am going to start a weight losing program, let me start it with celebration. Took some spirit and ordered biriyani. After spending an hour in a meaningful manner, I went back to the ayurvedic clinic, the doctor was in her office and I stepped in and said that I want to reduce weight. The doctor looked at me and said that I am not fat and there is no need to reduce weight. I was shocked and looked at her to find out whether she is blind or normal. It is then I realized that the doctor herself was fat, and the best way for her to solve the problem was declaring everyone is fit and healthy.

The next day, I managed to get up early and went to Marina beach for walk. To my surprise I noticed many people who were objectively fatter than me. Truly that day I felt that I am fit and healthy. Thus my endeavor with reducing weight came to an end. 

And now I am truly convinced that ayurvedic system is any day and in every way better than allopathic medical system. 

Quinine Overdose

A disturbing news was broad casted in the local channel. A girl student in the city school became unconscious reaching home, when admitted in the hospital she died. The student has written on her note book (before becoming unconscious)  just one phrase – quinine overdose. The doctor's report also points out that the cause of death is quinine overdose. Parents of the student accused the school for giving her too much of quinine in the name of medication. The principal of the school said that the student did not come to the school in the first place. The mystery continues.

Friend of mine, who is a counselor, made his observation on the news; it is sad to listen to this kind of incidents, there is a high possibility that the student might have made an attempt to commit suicide, and I will not be surprised if it had some connection with pregnancy (keep in mind that the student is just studying on 8th std).

Parents and teachers teach so many things to students. But miserably fail to teach one simple essential thing; No matter what you do (mistakes, blunder, crime …), you will always remain our child and our student, and we care for you and we love you. If this simple message is coded in the consciousness of every student, then they will never even think of ending their life. What is the point in learning Mathematics, physics and all the complicated things created by humankind, if they fail to realize that they are unique, and irreplaceable?

Always keep in mind: Suicide is a permanent solution to the temporary problem

Assyrian Tablet

One person came to the counselor and in a pitiable tone said, “Life is so unfair and the world so unjust. Death is better than life. None can be trusted, including wife and children. My parent’s mistake, I was born. My mistake, my children are born. Everything looks meaningless and worthless”.

The counselor opened a book and started reading, “Life is so unfair and the world so unjust. Death is better than life. None can be trusted, including wife and children. My parent’s mistake, I was born. My mistake, my children are born. Everything looks meaningless and worthless”

The man was shocked and said why you are repeating what I have said. The counselor said, “I am not repeating what you have said, just reading aloud what was written six thousand years ago in an Assyrian tablet. Nothing seems to be original including our miseries and sorrows. For thousands of years nothing much is changed except superficial technologies.”