Vendanti

Vedanti
The problem buster!


Have you ever wondered at the hair on eye brows and your eyelids?
The hair on the scalp that is just a few inches above your eyes grows very lengthy but not on our eye brows and eyelids. Eye lashes are very unique!!

How complex our own constitution is as human beings, then how complex it would be for all other creation on this earth. The hunger and need to work hard and be with the group are not taught by any one to a very small ant. What Nano Technology can attain this perfection?

We are wonderful and we live in a wonderful world yet we ignore it and getting carried away by what we think is important. When what we think as routine gets disturbed we cry and make every effort to restore it. Take for instance if earth loses its atmospheric pressure then what would happen? We can not even imagine. Every thing on this plant gets thrown away into the universe and our bodies get blasted off! But this will not happen. In the scheme of the Nature every thing is set with a unique consistency and every thing behaves in a set pattern. How many of us wonder as to why this standardization process of the Nature excluded Human Beings? Why the human behaviour is also not set to reflect the same Unique Consistency of the Nature?

Nature created Human beings with a unique invisible organ called Mind that has the power to comprehend Nature’s Nature. No other creature on this earth possesses this unique power. Unfortunately we mimic all other creatures like indulging in eating, sleeping, mating, crying, enjoying and getting diseases. This is what all that we do with our mind that is just a miscellaneous work and many a times we do this miscellaneous work in a very unnatural way damaging the Nature even. Our Mind needs to guide us to wonder at the Nature, comprehend it, relate with it, leverage it and eventually become one with the Nature (attaining a state of no birth).

Hence the entire Vedic literature focuses on the Mind and train the mind to become one with the Nature. Unfortunately the illusory world created by the Human Mind has become so complex that coming out from this world has become very difficult. It is clear that as per the design of the Nature not all human beings have got the ability to align themselves with the Nature’s nature and hence we see only a few human begins attain Nirvana and become one with the Nature.

Is there a shortcut way?
Is it possible to remove mind?
Is there a way to keep only the Nature’s Unique Consistency in my mind and remove all other aspects of mind?
Is there a possibility to keep only Buddhi that acts in accordance with the Nature’s Unique Consistency otherwise known as Dharma that is embedded in all creation?
Is there a way to make all human beings righteous?

This loud thinking ended with the last question. But the last question haunts the mind of Ravi a professor in Philosophy.
***

Prof. Ravi, the last year number of admissions in to MA (Philosophy) – a full time two year regular course - is quite depressing. No one seems to be interested in taking this course. Just like other Universities, we are forced to stop offering this course from this academic year onwards . Considering your academic background, contributions to the course and your grip on the English Language, we wish to allow you to teach English from the next academic year with a condition that you shall enroll for the MA (English) degree course in our Distance Education scheme immediately. Lets some how send the last batch and offer MA (Philosophy) only as a correspondence course from the next academic year onwards.

Prof. Ravi accepted the offer with no comments and thanked the Governing Council of the University. His mind is filled with the last question. He walked silently towards his room. A week later as he stepped down from the main building, his student Rachana wished him and said: Sir, how sad it is to have our course discontinued from the next academic year onwards. Can we not do some thing about it and market it in a big way?

Rachana is a very brilliant student pleading for inclusion of Yoga, Basic Ayurveda and Meditaton as a part of the syllabus for Philosophy. Her argument is:

That an individual needs training to transcend the three forms of being to apply philosophical thinking in life. For this one should tone up one’s body, mind and intellect. She further argues that people trained as philosophers can be used to Faclitators of Human Development Process. They are the people who can ask the right questions.

That today’s world needs more people who can ask or who can help others ask right questions. Be it in business organizations or in government work processes the need for asking right questions is critical for the success of any plan. The students of this course can work closely with the HR Professionals and add substantial value to the HR processes.

That today we find many companies resolve their problems by resorting to philosophical thinking. Philosophy in business can be seen in the vision, mission and values of any business organization. Therefore I urge that this course be redesigned and offered afresh with proper marketing.

That the think tanks in any organizations are better equipped if they include a student from our course.


Ravi heard Rachana very interestingly and gave a very supporting smile and said: I am proud of you Rachana. I have no regrets for any thing. Lets put all your thoughts in a proper proposal document and submit it to our Dean.

I am sure we can convince them and redesign the course.

The course got redesigned but the UGC and AICTE did not approve the course!! The Dean decided to go the ISB way!! (ISB courses were not recognized by AICTE but the management community in the world recognized it as one of the 10 best business schools in the world).

The advt for the course was released

The faculty was enriched with Yoga Gurus and Ayurvedic Vaidays and Meditation Preceptors. Rachana was taken as one of the faculty.

The first application was from a B.Tech Student of JNTU!!
No. of applications received were 5234!!

The dean requested the faculty to run two batches with a promise to induct new faculty by middle of the year

The faculty declined it after series of discussions and conducted admission test for the students.

The test is very unique and different from the run of the mill type tests.
The batch was restricted to 60.

The first year is coming to an end with in two months. Ravi drafts a letter to be sent to all the business organizations and business schools for placement!!

Placement for the first batch of Master of Philosophy students!!!

Indian School of Business offered 4 positons.
Infosys and Microsoft took 3 each
From MIT there was an offer and the offers were pouring in and exceeded the batch size.
A new era ushered in!!

***

Rachana and Ravi were offered “Independent Director” positions on several Boards of the big business house. This unfolds the quest for righteousness.

***

The new batch – first class by Prof. Ravi (attended by all the faculty)
The faculty intro
The student intro.

The end of first year and the placement process
The discussion among students to choose organizations
The tests that companies put to choose the students
The Love affair between a B.Tech Student (Shashank) and a B.Com student (Vasudha)
How their course helped them take a right decision and convince their parents because they belong to two different casts and states forms the application of the knowledge and insights gained from the course in real life.

How the mushrooming of such courses started. How the faculty of the University was lured and how the vested interest and sheer business purpose started influencing the very purpose of the course forms the rest of the story

How Rachana and Ravi protected the course from commercialization and the depiction of guru-shisya parampara in their relationships adds so much sheen to the storyline.

There is ample scope for creativity, humour and deep reflection…
This can be the best movie a memorable movie ever made on higher education that too on Philosophy whose birth place is India.

The beauty of the title is: It is the title not only for the movie but also for the people watching it participating in the dialogues, arguments, counter arguments, proposals, approvals, non-approvals, etc and etc.

Who is Vendanti?
All those who took birth on this punya bhoomi areVendantis
By Nature’s design every human being is a vendanti.
Bring out the Vendanti the problem buster with in you and solve all our problems.

--
IVNS Raju