Inner Engineering - Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev

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Date: 24 Aug 2009

Time: 7.30pm

Place: Suntec Convention Hall, Ballroom 2, Singapore

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From Wikipedia

Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev is an Indian yogi and mystic. He is the founder of Isha Foundation which administers yoga centers around the world, including India and the United States.

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Jagadish Vasudev was born in Mysore, Karnataka. At the age of twenty-five on September 23 1982, he had a deep spiritual experience, and subsequently established Isha Foundation, a non-religious, not-for-profit, public service organization, which addresses all aspects of human wellbeing. The Isha Yoga Center near Coimbatore was founded in 1992, and hosts a series of programs intended to heighten self-awareness through the ancient practice of yoga. These programs are offered to people ranging from the highly educated to the illiterate, from corporate leaders to prisoners.

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Sadhguru spoke in four panels at the 2007 World Economic Forum, addressing issues ranging from diplomacy to economic development, education and the environment. In 2006, he addressed the World Economic Forum, the Tällberg Forum in Sweden, and the Australian Leadership Retreat. He has also served as a delegate to the United Nations Millennium Peace Summit and the World Peace Congress. He is the only speaker to have been invited to the World Economic Forum three years in a row.

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Sadhguru has had interviews with the BBC, Bloomberg, CNBC, CNNfn, and Newsweek International.

He was a delegate to the United Nations Millennium World Peace Summit - and a participant at the World Economic Forum in 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009. Read more

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[I think there must be at least 2,000 attendees for the evening.]

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Sadhguru arrived and sang a lovely mantra. Then immediately he greeted, "Good morning". *silence* "I said 'good morning'", he repeated. The crowd not prepared for the first greeting quickly responded with "Good morning".

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Note: This is written as first person for ease of reading. It is not an ad-verbatim recording of his speech. Any errors and omissions are mine and most likely accidental.

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I thought you already have trouble with me. *laughters* Not now. May be by the end of the evening, you may have trouble with me. Not yet! *more laughters*.

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This is the first time I am addressing an audience in Singapore, so I let you decide what you want to talk about. What shall we talk about?

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From the floor: How did you become spiritual?

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Oh, you want a story? *grins* How did I become spiritual? So you want to know what works for me and perhaps it'll work for you. :)

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For the beginning, I started the same way as everyone of you - from the womb. However, as a child, my memory is a little different from others. At the age of 3-4 months, I could remember many things I see and hear of everyone around me. Most people cannot remember anything of themselves or surroundings, when they are earlier than 4 years old. I could tell my mother, who were around with her on certain occassions, what colour sari they wore and what gossips they spoke.

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By the time I was 4-5 years old, my thought process became a 'certain way' and now it is more of the same. Either I am still a child or that I have never grown up.

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I grow up with a lot of scepticism. I am a serious sceptic.

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I don't come from a particularly religious family, but you know we do the usual stuff. They are just there (religion-wise). One day, my parents brought me to the temple. I asked a lot of questions just outside the temple that they couldn't answer me, so I never went in. Then, I was only 4-5 years old.

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I was not very involved in school. Well, I was very involved with friends. I have no problems with that. But I was not academic, because I didn't think that I should listen to anyone if they are saying things that does not matter very much to them. I mean if it doesn't really mean much to them, why should I be listening? I can listen if it mean a lot to them, even if they speak nonsense that mean a lot to them, I'll listen. So, I didn't listen.

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As a child, I spend time in nature, perhaps because I don't find questions in nature. In other stuff, I have a lot of questions. Sometimes when I asked questions, people get angry. Why do people get angry or insulted? Because they don't have the answers or they have vested interest.

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I have a billion questions, so I started reading the works of Western philosophers. When I was 14 years old, I read Marx. But none of the books answered my questions. Instead, they multiplied my questions.

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After school, I went into business and became very successful. Many people were surprised that I became so successful. When you are young and successful, eventually you even think that all the planets of the solar system revolved around you and not the sun. I then refused to listened to anything others say.

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In Mysore city in Tamil Nadu, there is a little hill that everyone goes there. If you fall in love, you go there. If you fall out of love, you go there. If you have nothing to do, you go there. One day, I decided to go there to practise some yoga. I have practised yoga since the age of 11. After that, I sat on a rock for a while. After some time, I felt as if I was somebody else. I was then not sure who that person sitting on the rock was, and where was I. Where I was felt like I was everywhere around the person sitting on the rock. It was 'me' everywhere.

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I sat there, what I thought was 10-15 minutes, but was surprised that 4.5 hours had passed and I was in tears that have by now drenched my clothes. Every cell in my body was bursting in ecstasy. I was drenched in a different blissfulness. I thought, may be I was going off my rockers! I mean I have never been religious then and grown up on Western philosophies. The thought of me being spiritual was out of the question.

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When I told people what happened to me, the first reaction I got was, "Have you been drinking?" or "What have you been smoking?"

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But the experience I had was too beautiful to be annoyed by these remarks and I didn't want to lose it.

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Then, time seems to pass very fast. What was to me 1-2 minutes, hours have passed. It felt like I have just turned my head and a lot of time has passed. It's strange. I mean I was aware of what is going on around me. One day, I thought only 15 minutes have lapsed when 13 days have passed. I have never prayed nor bowed to anyone or any god, but here we had people falling on my feet. And when I look at people, their entire life exploded in me. Oh! By the way, if you meet me you will not have any privacy left! *laughters*

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I didn't know what it was, but I didn't want to miss it.

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Six weeks later, my wild youth evaporated. My whole body got re-aligned. My eyes, voice, gait...etc. People around noticed that. I too noticed that. Something was happening. Lifetimes of memories passed in front of me. So I went traveling alone to figure out what was actually happening.

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Some of you here will think, "it is not fair, I have meditated for 25 years and nothing like this happened, but you go sit on a rock and everything happened." *laughters*

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It is not a matter of how long... Why has not life revealed itself to you? It is because you have identified yourself with everything that you are not. Identification with your race, nationality, religion, gender, you body...etc.

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My mother is very dedicated. She has 4 children. As she is so dedicated, it was not necessary to express love. It is just there. No need to say it. But one day, she told me she loves me. Then, I asked if I am the child of the next house, will she still say she loves me? She was surprised, hurt and then in tears, and she left the room. When she came back she came and touched my feet. I was only 13!

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I question everything. I question everything that most people accept. If your intelligence is not entangled with anything, it is very easy to be spiritual. A prejudice can't see and reveal reality in life. Your intelligence will become fret.

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Some people may say, "I am very broadminded, I am not prejudice." Ok, you have broad prejudice then. *laughters*

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I'll tell you a joke...

Only a joke, don't take it too seriously...

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There is this man who died and went to the gates of heaven. At the gates god asked him to spell "Love", which the man had problems initially, like spelling it as "Lu..", er "Lvo...", but finally got it right "LOVE". Then god ask him to take over the gates for a while as he is busy for a bit and do the same to demand the person coming in to spell a word.

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The man agreed and stood guard at the gates. After a while, his wife appeared. "Why are you here?" he asked.

The wife said, "Well, I crashed the car on the way back from the funeral and now here I am. Can you let me through the heavenly gate please?"

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Which the man quickly said, "Spell 'Czechoslovakia'"!!! *LOL*

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[I guess the moral of the story is to depict hidden prejudices that we have in us.]

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[Sadhguru reached out to a glass of water...]

If I say "this is my glass", it is ok. But I can't say, this (the glass) is me. It is too much. It can be yours, but cannot be you. Same with, "This is my food", I eat it, but it is not me. It may accumulate as my body, but my body is not me. The food can be yours, but cannot be you.

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Same goes to other aspects of your life. Your husband/wife, house, car, race, religion...etc, is not you. If you identify with these aspects, then you have lost your intelligence.

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Let me tell you a story...

You know Talani Raman? ["Yes" from the audience.]

There is this Emperor Krishna Deva Nair who was given away when he was 18 months old to another woman who is also a mother of a boy a few months older than him. This woman treated both the babies as her own and breastfed them. The boys grew up, the older one of them did not use his resources properly and ended a poor man, the other (Krishna) became an emperor.

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One day, the older brother went to see the younger brother Krishna who is now an emperor. On reaching his palace, he met many intelligent and capable people serving his government. He was impressed, but thought that if he has the same clever people working for him, he too can be emperor. When he eventually met up with Emperor Krishna, he was particularly impressed with Talani Raman, the court jester.

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So he wanted to ask the Emperor to give him Talani. The Emperor thought it was a good idea and spoke to Talani. Talani suggested that it would be better to offer him his elder brother. So the Emperor told his older brother that he would instead offer Talani's elder brother to serve him. His older brother was delighted! Having Talani's older brother must even be better, since he is older and probably better.

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So arrangement was made to hand over Talani's older brother to him the next day. When the next day came, Emperor Krishna's older brother was surprised to find Talani presenting him a cow!

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"Why are you giving me a cow?" he asked.

"Because that is my brother, we drank milk from the same mother", Talani replied.

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[The moral of the story...]

So you see, we mustn't exercise repetitive intelligence. This is how karma works. What we get is due entirely to our own doing.

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One day I was walking around in the primary school and met a young boy 8-9 years old. He asked, "Is life true or a dream?"

"Wow!" I thought, this coming from a 8-9 year old.

So I replied, "Life is true, but it is a dream." *Laughters*

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I'll tell you another story...

There is this young woman who went to bed and started to dream. In her dream, she saw a hunky young man approaching her when she was asleep. Then he got nearer and nearer, and she got a bit apprehensive and began trembling. Then she asked, "What are you going to do?"

Which the hunky young man smiled and replied, "Well lady, it is YOUR dream...(tell me)". *Laughters*

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It is like your life. Life is a dream, but at least manage it properly such that you get what you want. You must learn how to manage your mind such that you get what you want. For instance, this microphone. It is useful to me only if it takes instructions from me. If it says things by itself, then it is not a useful instrument to me.

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Similarly, what most people are experiencing is that they are handling their life by chance. It is like closing your eyes and running across the highway. You may be lucky and got over the other side safely. Perhaps there were no cars near enough to knock you down or some cars have avoided you. But if you are going to do that over and over again, we'll know where to find you.

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A few years ago, I was in Mangalore to visit a friend of mine who is 75 years old but still practising as a medical doctor. I was quite impressed that he is still doing so at his age. At his clinic I saw a poster saying that he has an antidote for all snake venom. "How can this be?" I thought. As far as I know, there is one type of venom that attacks your nervous system and the other that can cause cardiac arrest. The antidote can't be the same! So I confronted him with the question and he replied, "You see, 90% of the time, the snake bites are not poisonous, so it'll work 90% of the time!" *Laughters*

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Well 90% is good enough.

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But if you are living your life by chance, then it can be as good as flipping a coin. So you take a coin, flip it and make your decisions and actions. If you do this, you have a 50% chance of success. If so, there are only two careers for you that you can get away with: an astrologer or a weatherman.

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So is your life working by intent or by accident?

If it is by accident, then it is an anxious mess, even if it is working.

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You don't feel well when you are anxious.

If you feel well, you are happy even when you are ill.

When the mind is pleasant, you call it peace.

When the mind is very pleasant, you call it joy.

When you feel pleasant emotionally, you call it love.

When you feel very pleasant life energy, you call it bliss.

... and so on.

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You are pleasant when you are successful.

So address pleasantness directly.

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Now I have a question. Where do you see me now? Where from?

[I was a little confused and turned my head directly to see him instead of the giant screen in the ballroom. Many others did, and when asked we pointed to him, to indicated that's where see him and not the projection screen.]

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Hmmm... here? *rolls his eyes and smile*

I am a mystic! *laughters*

You see me here? Or you see me inside you?

You know about this isn't it. It is the light that shines on me, reaches your eye, and the retina sends the signals to your brain to see 'me'.

So where do you see me now?

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Audience: Inside?

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Yes, you see me inside. Whatever you think happens outside actually happens inside you.

Have you actually experienced anything outside of you?

Audience: No.

So you are the source of experience within you.

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Experience by chance is therefore very fragile. If anything can make you happy, like somebody said something you don't like to you that made you happy. Or somebody said something to you and you are not happy. Or somebody should have said something to you but he didn't say it and you are not happy. *Laughters*

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So we get very stressed up and you have what you called "Stress Management" these days.

When I heard the term, I was wondering why you want to manage stress. You want to manage something precious to us, like our money, our assets...etc, but 'stress'??!! Then I figured out that it is because many people has already come to accept that their life is stressful and stress is here to stay. And they don't know how to manage their system.

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Nobody in your life will happen the way you want 100% of the time. It is imposssible. That is not a problem, but if you are not happening the way you want, then it is a problem.

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This is because your five senses are not reliable.

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When it gets dark, it is the night for you, but for the owl, it is 'good morning'. If you are to argue with the owl, who is right?

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Some in the audience: Both.

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Both? If you say both, it is either you are in the diplomatic corp or that you have a successful marriage! *LOL*

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Nature open your senses for the purpose of your survival. If survival is all you want, then it is enough, otherwise it is inadequate. But this doesn't happen for human beings. You see, once survival is taken care of, then it is no 'big deal'. A human does not stop at 'survival', unlike a tiger. A tiger hunts and eats and lives. He doesn't ask if he is a great tiger or aspire to be one.

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Human beings have the freedom to be anything he wants. Humans are suffering from the freedom he has. Only when survival is taken care of, human beings start to find expressions. He may feel that he is still no good. Compare to someone else, he may feel that he has done well, but by himself, he doesn't know. So human beings are suffering from his own freedom, and that is truly a 'tragedy'.

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I'll tell you a joke about 'tragedy'.

President George W Bush in his public relations seem to be in kindergartens when there are problems. In this instance he was in a class and asking the children to make sentences with the word 'tragedy'.

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One of the kids came up and said, I have a friend, he was on the road, a car came and killed him. The president said, "No, this is an accident, not a tragedy."

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Next another kid said that a bus full of people went out of control and fell off the cliff killing everyone in it. The president said, "No, this is a great loss, not a tragedy."

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Then another kid came up and said, "The President is in Air Force 1 and it got shot by a missile. This can't be an accident, it is not a great loss and therefore it must be a tragedy." *LOL*

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It is sad to live life and let everything happen pass you and you miss them. That is, to miss the grandeur. Many people are more into their psychological reality than their existential reality. When we create value, we live life blissfully. So pay attention and experience.

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People who worship the most suffer most. I have observed people coming out of temples to see if they are more joyful. The moment some of them are out, they are back to their usual self. And in the case of temples in India, some shoes would have gone missing and they will already be cursing the thieves and so on. Then I observe that the people coming out from restaurants seem to find more joy! So you have the humble dosai bringing more joy to people more than from god! If that is so, something is not right.

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Let's do an experiment. Just an experiment:

How many of you here believe in god, put up your hands.

[Most people in the audience put up their hands.]

Now, how many people here believe that they have two hands, put up one hand.

[More people put up their hands.]

So, do you know you have two hands or believe you have two hands?

Audience: ...know. *grins*

So for your hands you 'know', for god, you only 'believe'. Do you 'know' there is god, or do you 'believe' there is god?

[Audience's minds now thrown in disarray.]

Why don't you just say there are some things you 'know' and some things you 'don't know'?

That way you make it simple. Otherwise, for things you 'don't know' and you say you 'believe', then you 'assume'. This is also culturally convenient.

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So we have belief system. If we start from young, we can make you belief anything. Can't we ask questions?

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I as in Nashville (USA) and I was using 'him' when I referred to god, when a woman stood up and asked, "Why are you using 'him' to refer to god? Do you think god is a man? God can be a woman too you know?" I told her it is just a joke I was telling, but she said no, I still shouldn't use the masculine pronoun.

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You know this wouldn't happen in India. We have the man god, woman god, cow god...etc. Everybody is happy. *LOL*

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You know (the late) Idi Amin? From Uganda? He said that god is black. That is ok, if he sees it that way, then god is black. It'll appeal to the Southern States in the US where there are many blacks.

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[Said in jest...]

You see god came to India nine times He wanted to come here himself. For other places, he sent only his son. Here he goes hands-on and yet he fails!! *LOL*

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I'll tell you a story...

Two young energetic boys are constantly in trouble. You know when boys are energetic, they get into trouble. People have been talking about them and the parents are embarassed. They don't know how to fix them. With kids, we never know how to fix them. We can only weigh it out with them.

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So the parents brought the boy to the parish to see the priest. The priest paced up and down the hall with a bit of drama. It works better with religion if you have drama. *grins* Then the priest thought, if he tells the child that god is in him, the child will be more lifted and feel better about himself and perhaps not get into trouble. You know, people without kids usually have ideas about how to fix kids!!! *LOL*

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So he brought the boy to a room alone with him and pointed at the boy's chest and said, "You know, god is in YOU." This appeared to have stunned the boy so much, he quickly ran out of the room and out of the church, then to his friend and said, "Look, we are in real trouble now!!! They have lost their god and think that we have it with us!!!" *LOL*

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We have religions that meant well, but they soon fracture humanity. We struggle with what is sacred and what is ridiculous. It becomes such that we are told that we can't change our thoughts. But thoughts are meant to be fluid. It is your dream, so dream with freedom. Express the process and then die one day. It is not about capability but willingness to go outside your comfort and convenience. There is the science and technology for this inner well-being - this Inner Engineering.

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Do you want to be the creator or the creation? It is all up to you.

Let me ask you sir, "What did you eat today?" (pointing to someone in the audience).

That someone in the audience: Fish.

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Fish. You ate fish and you converted it to a human being. *Laughters* Isn't that great. Charles Darwin (its 200 years annivesary) says it takes thousands of years for evolution and you did it instantly. How did it happen in you? But did you do it consciously? You didn't isn't it? It all happens automatically.

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Questions:

Question: About previous births...

Reply: Experience you are NOW. Stories can entertain but not liberate you. Who am I? The more you know, the better you can live. Do you exist? Yes. Turn inward, beyond body and mind. Everything exists because this one (you) exists. It is time to pay attention.

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When we were born, we already know about survival. We know all about survival. Let's say if we put a baby in the forest and he is hungry and got hold of something, he will put it in the mouth, not in his ass! But not for the ability to write. That has to be learned. Same as to know yourself. If you are willing to spend 28-30 hours of focused time, you will be able to learn about looking inwards. It is easy if you know how and are looking at the right direction.

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For instance, it will be difficult to watch sunrise, if you face west. However if you face east, it is easy to see sunrise. Or the case of a traveler asking for the way to the ashram and got a reply 34,000 miles, at which he replied, "I thought it is nearby here?" Then the local man said, "Yes, if you turn around and head that direction, is is 4miles".

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Question: I am a nasty sort of person. I have seen magicians perform magic...etc. My question is, why do you look the way you are? Why do you keep your beard and dress like that? Instead of shaving and showing us your beautiful face. *Roaring laughter from the audience*

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Reply: (Pointing to his beard) It grows on every man and you remove it. Why? Do you know why you remove it? *Laughters from audience* You don't know and you ask me?

As for clothings, I am wearing stitched clothings now, because I am overseas. Normally, I wear unstitched clothings in India. When the body is well exercised, the mind is well exercised and the energy well exercised, then you would like to be in a certain way, like you will prefer loose clothings, not tight fitting ones...etc.

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I have not performed magic did I? When it comes to magic, it will be very impressive to pull a rabbit from the hat, but if I drink this glass of water and it becomes me, you won't be impressed.

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Question: Are there no limitations what humans can achieve?

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Reply: What do you mean by 'limitations'? Is it to beat the 9.8seconds (for 100 metre sprint) or...?

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The questioner replied, "Physical limits".

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Reply: Physicality has a limit. Any thing physical has a boundary. It is not boundless. That which is boundless is not physical. However, realise the immensity of humans. Not 1% of abilities has entered into our consciousness. Sometimes people look at me and ask me how can do certain things. "Are you superhuman?" they asked. It is not that I am superhuman, it is that being human is super!! *applause*

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I'll tell you a story:

There is a man who went into the forest to meditate. There he saw a fox with no legs. What is more surprising is that this fox doesn't seem to be starving. It looked well fed. Then one day, when the man was meditating, he heard the roar of a lion. Fearful, he scramped and climbed up a tree. Then he saw the lion approaching the fox and drop it a piece of meat, then it left, and the fox ate the meat.

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The next day, the lion came again with a piece of meat and dropped it to the fox, who again consumed the meat. This went on for day after day. So the man understood that this was how the legless fox kept itself alive.

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Then the man began to ponder if there could be a message behind the scenes he witnessed. There must be a message. Perhaps it says that I can be taken care of in nature no matter what. So the man contented with the message, continued to meditate in the forest without worrying about who is going to feed him or take care of him. He went on to meditate and starve, but he didn't care as he believed something will happen to help him.

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Then one day a yogi saw him and asked why he is starving himself and meditating, which he related that he saw fox being taken care of by the generous lion and that there must be something similar in nature that will take care of him. After listening to his story, the yogi replied, "You witness the lion and the fox, but why do you rather be the crippl fox, than the generious lion?"

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Miracles

Everything is a miracle. For instance, you put filth into the ground and then a mango tree grows to produce sweet mango. Yet there was no sweetness in the filth you put into the ground. Can you treat the filth and the mango as the same?

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Yet another way is to think that 'nothing is a miracle', as everything has a cause and effect. When we understand how the filth helped to give sweet mangoes, then it no longer is a miracle. So, we have called anything we don't understand as a miracle.

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Can we say that (holding a bud of flower) that we understand everything about this? Yes?

We can say that. At the same time, we can also say that we cannot finish studying and understanding this. That is the beauty of it all.

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So we are human and divine at the same time.

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Question: Do you mean to say that we should not visit temples?

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Reply: Did I say anything like that at all?

By that I mean you refer to Indian temples. Temples in its original form are not meant for prayers. Temples are supposed to be energy centres. You are supposed to go there quiet and sit there for a while.

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There is a whole science and technology involved in making a place divine, like making a stone divine...etc. This process is called 'consecration'.

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God is your making. It is whatever you can relate to. God is not the goal. Liberation is the goal.

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It is the moment you love someone that the someone becomes beautiful, not you love someone because that someone is beautiful.

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Belief evolves. Belief is reality. If you are denied many days without water, anything that nutures the you, is god. The more consciously you make it, the better you exist here.

For the videocast of the talk, click here

---end of talk----

Experiencing Inner Power and Protection - by Didi Nirmala

Date: 20 Aug 2009

Time: 7.30 pm

Place: Peninsula-Excelsior Hotel, Singapore

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Speaker: Didi Nirmala, Brahma Kumaris

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This talk is written as the first person for better readability. It is not an ad-verbatim recording of the talk.

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When we listen to the world news today, there are a lot of sad news. So we ask ourselves, "Are we protected?". How do we fortify ourselves? How do we feel stable? How can we still feel powerful?

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There is less safety in our life. Life has become more complicated. There are more problems in our society. We have the financial crisis, many people lose their jobs, their investments (money) and don't know what to do. We are also afraid to travel with the H1N1 epidemic. Diseases are also on the increase. There can also be accidents on the roadways. It used to be that neighbours invading one's country, but now you have terrorists inflicting damages in their own country. So, you may not be safe in your own country. There are also natural calamities. This has caused some problems for the minister in Taiwan. There are also cases of fathers abusing their children and children being kidnapped to be sold for prostitution.

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So we don't know where we are going. Are we human beings or devilish beings? It is said that dogs only bark at other dogs, but dogs don't eat dogs.

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We need inner power to face these difficulties. If we don't have the inner power, we get angry, because we feel powerless or helpless. So how is it that some people are more tolerant?

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We need the inner power for inner protection. We know about external power. People with external power have trained themselves to prepare for the position. There are many courses for those.

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Inner strength by the result of meditation and wisdom. I have to help myself. Do something about issues and challenges, and not blame. If we focus on our negative aspects and don't love ourselves, we cannot expect others to love us. So we have to develop techniques to see our positive sides. Start loving ourselves. Society puts people down and this has resulted in people having a lack of self-esteem. If you have self-esteem, it doesn't matter what others say about you.

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Self development is as important as physical development.

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[ 5 minute meditation break ]

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Who am I?

How can I empower myself?

For the physical body, I know how to, but how about my mind?

Sometimes, it appears that I am not under my own control.

My sense organs are not under my control. I don't want to eat something, but I end up eating them. I don't want to get angry, worry...etc, but end up doing so.

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How do I stay in control?

I can by connecting myself to the source of energy. Same as the cables, light bulbs, etc in this room. They need to connect to the power station.

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Otherwise, if you are among happy people, you are happy. Then if you are among sad people, you become sad. You can't rely on others to be happy.

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There is someone who said that he has no time to meditate. Then he said that he will give five minutes to meditate before he goes to work. Then he kept coming for more as he enjoys it. As you meditate your efficiency improves with your power to discern and you become more loving and get more cooperation. So even work becomes easier.

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Question: When you first begin, it is very hard to control your thoughts and the mind starts to wonder. How can we avoid this wandering?

Reply: Meditation is not to stop thinking, but thinking in the correct direction. For starters, you may like to prepare to be relaxed before the meditation and use commentary CDs to guide you.

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Question: It is said that 2012 is the end of the world. What do you of that and what do you think we should do?

Reply: Whether the world is coming to an end or not, we must all be ever-ready to die. You never know when is your time. There is no guarantee that you will live tomorrow.

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Question: There are many techniques of meditation. Many do with eyes closed. Your technique is an open eye technique. How important is it to do it with eyes open? How important is it to keep the eyes open?

Reply: There are many techniques with different focus and philosophy. With eyes shut you are more restricted, as you need to be sitting down somewhere to meditate. With open eyes, you can meditate anytime.

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Inevitable Surprises - Peter Schwartz

Date: 6th August 2009

Time: 5.30pm

Place: National University of Singapore, Bukit Timah Campus, Singapore.

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Introduction from the host:

(From Wikipedia):Schwartz was born in 1946 to Klara and Benjamin Schwartz, Hungarian Jews who had been in concentration camps and were living in a displaced persons camp in Stuttgart, Germany.[1] The family soon moved to Norway, where they lived until he was five. At this point, they emigrated to America, and found a new home in Camden, New Jersey. Schwartz grew up there, attending school with such future stars as Steven Spielberg. He won a National Merit scholarship, and was able to attend Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) on full scholarship. He will serve as RPI's May commencement speaker for the class of 2009.

For more, read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Schwartz_(futurist)

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Note: This is written as first person for ease of reading. It is not an ad-verbatim recording of his speech. Any errors and omissions are mine and most likely accidental.

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Thanks for the great introduction. I have done many talks all over the world and this is by far the best introduction of myself that I have received. :)

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Singapore is a special place to me. My first time in Singapore was back in 1967. Today I would like to view the world from the perspectives of different cultures, sub-cultures and age groups, to see if we can catch some signals and early warnings and see if we can paddle faster than water.

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Let me first of all make clear that I do not know what is ahead or around the next bend. What I do is to present you some of my findings and then later come up with some (surprise surprise) scenarios. We have only one hour for the presentation followed by 30 minutes of Q & A, but there is more than one-hour worth of information I would like to relay, so there will be parts of the slides that I'll just fly through and some parts we spend a bit more time on.

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It is said that "He who predicts the future lies even if he knows the truth" or another Chinese saying that goes, "He who lives by the crystal ball, die from broken glass".

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Let's start with the Short Term Shocks.

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The current financial crisis has some structural problems.

We moved from Hedging to Speculation to Ponzi - that's what is described as the Minsky Movement from 2003 to 2007.

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From Wikipedia: A Minsky moment is the point in a credit cycle or business cycle when investors have cash flow problems due to spiraling debt they have incurred in order to finance speculative investments. At this point, a major selloff begins due to the fact that no counterparty can be found to bid at the high asking prices previously quoted, leading to a sudden and precipitous collapse in market clearing asset prices and a sharp drop in market liquidity.

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We have seen a global economy over-leveraged. For a while it worked well. The US borrows and loves consuming more and more, while on the other hand China saves and lend and produces the goods to be consumed by the US. It seems to be a symbiotic relationship and it all works well, but this is beginning to stop with the US unable to consume as they used to. And even if we believe this relationship works, we still have the task to bring it back to work the same way as they used to.

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So question is, "How quickly can it unwind?"

The US debt is 4 times its income. Can we de-leverage?

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The Greenspan fallacy is that bankers have incentive to make the banking system work. But these are perverse incentives and there was also a lack of transparency leading to the securitization of debt that led to the final collapse.

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The Indian and Chinese economies, despite their large populations, have relatively small consumption. So, there'll be modest economic growth for sometime to come. There may be another financial crisis come autumn and then there will be a need for another financial stimulus package.

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Now the world has learned that trade, development and finance must work together.

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In this crisis, we also see the practice of globalisation under challenge, as we see the crisis from some over-valued local assets in America spread across the world rapidly.

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Food shocks:

There will be large price perturbation and huge price movements for food. A prime example would be the price of rice. Prices will be hedged and we may see the same thing as what has happened to oil.

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Demographics:

There has been some moderation over the projections of the world population. It will continue to grow and peak at 8.5 billion people by the year 2050. Many countries are having lesser and lesser babies, even in countries where the Pope has sway, like Italy and Spain, the birth rates have fallen drastically well below natural replacement rates.

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More and more people will move to cities. Half the world population already live in cities in 2009, which incidentally is a good thing for the environment, leaving the countryside and environment less disturbed. This will happened for the industrialised world as well as (surprisingly) for the developing countries, except for the Middle East and the US (due to immigration).

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The future will also see the end to retirement. That isn't surprising if you consider that the concept of retirement is a relatively new idea. Up till the 1930s, there wasn't retirement, pensions...etc. In the near future, people will have longer lives. People of my generation in developed countries may live up to at least 120 years, and this is no exaggeration. Also note that I said, "at least 120 years", which means it is possible to live 150 years, as anti-ageing pills get perfected and more commonly available.

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For those of you who are below 30 years old now, if you do take care of yourself well, your lifespans will be measured in centuries and not decades. *Roaring Laughters* I am not kidding here. You may live till 200 or 300 years old. So choose your spouse carefully, you may end up living that long with them.

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For guys like me in the 60s, the body has taken so much abuse, it wouldn't be able to extend its life like you younger ones can. We can only make it to 120-150 years old.

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[My note: In that case, a 70 year old of the near future will be considered a 'youngster', and his mates may call him out for a game of football or skydive. Just like what many youngters of today do.]

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[Chart shown of violence vs age group composition]

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The chart shows that countries with a younger population have more violent crime. That's how it is, where you have younger men (oh, by the way, it is only the men, women are alright in this respect), you get more violence. This is irrespective of economies.

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Society:

Religion will become an increasingly profound influence in society. Women will become more dominant. There will be more and more women in universities, holding high positions in businesses and governments. Look at the hall today, there are already more women here in law school sitting right here. This will happen everywhere, except the Middle East. They will face a decline in their competitive edge without the participation of their womenfolk, and this might force them to change.

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Climate Change:

There will be more and more extreme weather. If there is a global warming in the weather, that will melt the ice on the Himalayas, that is the source of all major rivers in Asia. Bangladesh - forget it! It'll be gone. 160 million people there will be looking for a new place to live, probably China and India, which they will not be much welcome.

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I just came back from Cambodia, the lake Tonle Sap, will have severe effects on their ecosystem. The Three-Gorge dams in China will have significant effects on the lower reaches of the Mekong river, affecting Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand.

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Singapore may find itself building dikes like the Dutch has very soon, as the sea level rises.

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The problem is that despite the availability of alternative energy sources, the efficient energies are still from coal and therefore they are the bulk of the world energy source. The US and China are now stuck with coal. Which makes the return of nuclear energy as a popular energy source. There could be a shift in the concept of having small nuclear power stations on barges and anchored in the sea. This could well happen in Singapore where land is scarce.

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So we will see the additional energy demands satisfied by nuclear and renewable energies. By the year 2020, all cars in Singapore could be electric.

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Science and Technology:

There will be an increase in new scientific tools and computing power, and the use of artificial intelligence. There will be increase in the discovery of scientific anomalies, there will be an increase in the number of scientists and increase in funding for the sciences.

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Regenerative Medicine:

We will see the shift to the new paradigm of regenerative medicine. We will clone our own kidneys, hearts and other body parts while we are healthy and use them when our original ones stop working properly. There will no longer be the need to buy transplants from others.

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There will also be the trigger to use the natural healing process of the body.

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There will be human enhancements: mechanical, biological and chemical.

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There will be synthesized biology - taking cells and modify them into something else useful for us. Algae will be used to generate electricity. (Already happening now.)

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Geo-economics:

There will be a triumph of knowledge over natural resources. In knowledge, there is no limit to growth. In the digital economy, more and more things will be FREE. New business models will be invented to gather revenue. It'll be more akin to giving you the razor free, but selling you the razor blades.

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Private NGOs and foundations will be increasingly influential over government and national foreign policies. Look at the Gates Foundation, Soros Foundation, Larry Page, Sergy Brin, Pierre Omidyar...etc. The Gates foundation alone wield about USD50billion!!!

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There will be a re-balancing of the power of global finance, as China owns more and more of the US treasury bonds. It'll not be from London or New York, but more of Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Tokyo. It's very simple, the one who pay the bills calls the shots.

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Scenarios:

It will be a knowledge driven world. There will be an increase in interconnectivity and therefore more shock prone. There will be a challenge between "Interests and alliances" (more China) vs "Laws and Institutions" (more American). It will be likely to be in Singapore's interests to ally with the US than China, as it is more structured by laws and institutions. Besides China has a history of dominance in the region and expecting tributes to be paid to them and this is not what you would like to do.

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There will be a continuous need to attract talent. Just like what Singapore is doing.

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Strong authoritarian society will not be sustainable. The penetration of information will undermine them.

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Question time:

Question: Over the risks of Nuclear Power generation.

Reply: We can manage the risks of nuclear power generation but it is more difficult to manage global climate change.

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Question: You mention about the dominance of women in the future and the violence of young men. Putting the two together, will you see the world becoming gentler and kinder with less wars and violence?

Reply: The likes of Golda Meir and Margaret Thatchers of this world are not your gentle sweethearts. *drawing a thunderous laughter from the audience* They are one of the most ferocious warriors the world has ever seen. With more woman leaders, the world will certainly be different, but I don't think that just because of that, there'll be less wars and violence.

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How to design a reliable banking system...

Sending money across countries should be easy, and normally so. Not unless you are unlucky and run into a snag like I had in the last two weeks. What was supposed to be a simple transfer became a painfully long nine-day drag and still with no money arriving at the other end.

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As Murphy's Law has it, if things can go wrong, they will! And it can't choose a worse time than this, as the money had to reach some businesses quickly or they will go bust. Employees will be laid off and families will be affected.

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Understandably, the bank will not reveal what went wrong, but based on my discussions with them and my twenty odd years experience as a IT and management consultant for banks in major international banking centres, this was probably what happened:

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1. When the bank staff entered the transfer details on screen:

The beneficiary account details was too long and exceeded the field space provided. As a result, the account details got truncated.

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2. When sent to the beneficiary bank, they didn't know what to make out of the truncated data (beneficiary account details) and the transaction just sat there.

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Diagnostic tedium:

1. The banking software that facilitated the transfer should have a longer field size. If this field size is exceeded, the bank staff must not be able to press the 'send' button.

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2. So granted that the software is poorly designed and failed to prevent it to be sent, there should then be automatic error handling to auto-correct the beneficiary account details before proceeding to 'send'.

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3. If it failed to implement corrective actions for 1 and 2, then the transaction with truncated data should be flagged in the transaction log when it reaches the beneficiary bank. I suspect, there is such a log, but the operator sitting in front of the screen was probably 'sleeping'.

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Moral of the story:

What started as a 'minor' mistake of poor user-interface design and error handling, can result in business going bust, employees being laid-off and families spiralling down into a financial grind.

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So in whatever you do, even the seemingly mundane ones, do them mindfully, for the ripple effects whether big or small,always travel a long way. It is harder to see this in the cold and impersonal Internet and mobile phone age, but nevertheless the impacts on humans, other life forms and the environment remains unchanged from the ages of old.

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Rule of Thumb:

Put love first in whatever you do. When you do that, everything falls in place. In this instance, if the designer had done so, he would have captured the user requirements more comprehensively. He would then not just see the entry fields as just a place to handle account data, but an opportunity to serve and help the end user send money to a chosen destination on time.

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The operator sitting in front of the transaction log screen, admittedly a mundane role, will get his drive from being able to serve his clients so that many others will be happy and sing praises for him. If he treats it as a 'job', then it would be mundane and possibly fall 'asleep' like many others.

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Conclusion:

While it is important to get the technology right during software development, quite often, a disproportionate amount of time is spent on the aesthetics of the screen, the programming language to use, the server to use, the communications protocol to adopt...etc, compared with the user requirements.

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In the end, any system will be a system to serve others. If it doesn't serve others, then it would have fallen short of its purpose.If the designer of the banking software could cut his mind across time and space, he would be able to take delight that I would be able to send the money on time and save some people from going bust and families away from financial hardships.

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PS. I cancelled the old transfer and re-sent a new one today. The bank branch manager offered to lend me the money personallly to re-send, as re-calling the money will take too long. I was touched! So, even in a critical fallout like this, pleasant things do happen. In darkness, there is light; and in light there is darkness. Perhaps such events occur so that we have opportunities to exercise compassion. :)

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The Futurists - Critical Thinking

Date: 1st July 2009

Place: Hair Affair, The Adelphi, Singapore.

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The Futurists Group, aka Acceleration Aware Singapore, is an informal group that gathers once a week to discuss a pre-selected subject and how that subject will evolve to be in future. It is an open group and anyone can join in. I think it is a group that needs an outlet to express its intellect, quite decadent in a way considering that the time and minds spent here would not add much to save the poor and starving. And I am guilty! :)

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Discussion:

Critical Thinking is the evaluation of competing account of the same situation. How a particular discipline deals with this problem is not necessarily focused on the problem. We need an inter-disciplinary approach and agreement to understand the problem.

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In the PhD offered by the Minerva School, it covers how we can deal with entrepreneurship, media and academia. Such education is not adequate in today's society.

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To analyse media, we need a critical approach. Critical thinking will lead you to possibility thinking. That much of what we observe is relative, depending on our orientation, classification and identification with the issue. There is no right or wrong in critical thinking, but 'stronger' or 'weaker' interpretation of the subject. A stronger interpretation is one that is more comprehensive and covers more elements.

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For instance, Freud's Interpretation of Dreams uses a free association within a given context to eventually derive a latent dream thought, with internally cohesive fragments.

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Me: Actually it is basically like Relational Database Design. :)

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Dominant myths translates society beliefs relative to the society and culture. Dominant myths defines society.

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Objectivity can be seen as a process or a task to understand subjectivity.

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Me: I think 'critical thinking' is 'non-dogmatic thinking'. That means we accept that knowledge and opinions are never 'crystal clear' and are in a permanent state of flux. However, we can achieve a better understanding of the subject matter through critical thinking. Ironically, critical thinking is more stable than dogmatic thinking, for the former embraces a belief that no knowledge or argument is permanently corrrect, whilst dogmas are demolished once contradictions are established.

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With the information ecology, it arises the need for more critical thinking. With the advent of information technology and the Internet, we can get vast volumes of information with ease. However, it is precisely this ease to obtain vast volume of information that we do not have the time to go through them all that we have become more selective. We put out harsher filters and tighter jargons.

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Go back a thousand years, we probably did not need critical thinking. Go back 150 years, and it would probably have been similar. Then, information is scarce and the pace of life is much slower. Just watch some of the older TV series, like West Wing and they were using pagers in their episodes. Nowadays, news get reported first on twitter before the mainstream media catches the events.

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What will happen when we reach 'Singularity'? At that point, we can upload modules of information and skills into our brains. How would 'critical thinking' be then? In such a state, surely critical thinking will leap many orders of magnitude in complexity and sophistication. Then it could be difficult to fathom the thoughts of a technology aided brain, by mine which is unaided. That is, if I am still around then and that if 'Singularity' is achievable.

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My Note:

The Minerva School is embarking on 'inter-disciplinary' approach to their PhD coursework on 'Critical Thinking'. I think that it is a misnomer to accept that there is a naturally occurring thing as a discipline. I would rather treat all issues as one. All issues exists in one universe operating with common generalised principles. So, it would be more fruitful to start with the universe, than to assume that there are these (human-defined) disciplines that ultimately would be empirically fractious on their own.

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Other Futurists posts:

Bucky's Vision of the Future, click here

China, click here

Survivalism, click here

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